This is the sum of
her orders of council, which were only a step in this bold experiment,
never meant to be retracted if it could be permanently maintained. And
this object must continue her in war with all the world. To this I
see no termination, until her exaggerated efforts, so much beyond her
natural strength and resources, shall have exhausted her to bankruptcy.
The approach of this crisis is, I think, visible in the departure of her
precious metals, and depreciation of her paper medium. We, who have gone
through that operation, know its symptoms, its course, and consequences.
In England they will be more serious than elsewhere, because half the
wealth of her people is now in that medium, the private revenue of her
money-holders, or rather of her paper-holders, being, I believe, greater
than that of her land-holders. Such a proportion of property, imaginary
and baseless as it is, cannot be reduced to vapor, but with great
explosion. She will rise out of its ruins, however, because her lands,
her houses, her arts, will remain, and the greater part of her men. And
these will give her again that place among nations which is proportioned
to her natural means, and which we all wish her to hold. We believe that
the just standing of all nations is the health and security of all. We
consider the overwhelming power of England on the ocean, and of France
on the land, as destructive of the prosperity and happiness of the
world, and wish both to be reduced only to the necessity of observing
moral duties.
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