the society of nations, and have various transactions with other states, in wars and negotiations. The ill there is pure and unmixed, without any favourable circumstance to atone for it, and it is an ill too of a nature the highest and most important.
We have, indeed, been told that the public is no weaker upon account of its debts, since they are mostly due among ourselves, and bring as much property to one as they take from another. It is like transferring money from the right hand to the left, which leaves the person neither richer nor poorer than before. Such loose reasonings and specious comparisons will always pass where we judge not upon principles. I ask, is it possible, in the nature of things, to overburden a nation with taxes, even where the sovereign resides among them? The very doubt seems extravagant, since it is requisite in every commonwealth that there be a certain proportion observed between the laborious and the idle part of it. But if all our present taxes be mortgaged, must we not invent new ones? and may not this matter be carried to a length that is ruinous and destructive?