our own arms to defend us, without any intercourse with distant empire,
or any solicitude about foreign affairs, were the same measures
uniformly pursued, the government supported by the same revenues, and
administered with the same views, it might not be impracticable to
examine the conduct of affairs, both foreign and domestick, for twenty
years; because every year would afford only a transcript of the accounts
of the last.

But how different is the state of Britain, a nation whose traffick is
extended over the earth, whose revenues are every year different, or
differently applied, which is daily engaging in new treaties of
alliance, or forming new regulations of trade with almost every nation,
however distant, which has undertaken the arduous and intricate
employments of superintending the interests of all foreign empires, and
maintaining the equipoise of the French powers, which receives
ambassadors from all the neighbouring princes, and extends its regard to
the limits of the world.

In such a nation, every year produces negotiations of peace, or
preparations for war, new schemes and different measures, by which
expenses are sometimes increased, and sometimes retrenched. In such a
nation, every thing is in a state of perpetual vicissitude; because its
measures are seldom the effects of choice, but of necessity, arising
from the change of conduct in other powers.

Nor is the multiplicity and intricacy of our domestick affairs less
remarkable or particular. It is too well known that our debts are great,
and our taxes numerous; that our funds, appropriated to particular
purposes, are at some times deficient, and at others redundant; and that
therefore the money arising from the same imposts, is differently