I think I can trace all the calamities of this country to the single
source of our not having had steadily before our eyes a general,
comprehensive, well-connected, and well-proportioned view of the whole
of our dominions, and a just sense of their true bearings and relations.
After all its reductions, the British empire is still vast and various.
After all the reductions of the House of Commons, (stripped as we are of
our brightest ornaments and of our most important privileges,) enough
are yet left to furnish us, if we please, with means of showing to the
world that we deserve the superintendence of as large an empire as this
kingdom ever held, and the continuance of as ample privileges as the
House of Commons, in the plenitude of its power, had been habituated to
assert. But if we make ourselves too little for the sphere of our duty,
if, on the contrary, we do not stretch and expand our minds to the
compass of their object, be well assured that everything about us will
dwindle by degrees, until at length our concerns are shrunk to the
dimensions of our minds. It is not a predilection to mean, sordid,
home-bred cares that will avert the consequences of a false estimation
of our interest, or prevent the shameful dilapidation into which a great
empire must fall by mean reparations upon mighty ruins.
I confess I feel a degree of disgust, almost leading to despair, at the
manner in which we are acting in the great exigencies of our country.
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