carried into them: No Person asks the Question, whether they be for the
Good of the Nation; for, it seems to me, that no Man cares, provided he
gets by them himself.

We use our Country like our Step-Mother, we have no natural Affection for
her, we are Foreigners to her Blood, and when we have sucked her dry, we
make no Returns of Gratitude in her Necessities, but turn her loose to
shift for her self; I think this the Case, if you consider the Condition of
a rising Project, which every Man that's concerned in, intends to get out
of, and declares he will not trust too long.

I have very little Capacity, or Inclination, to argue upon this Subject;
and being a little indolent withal, I shall take the Liberty of
entertaining to Day with a Story, that lies ready at my elbow; and which I
declare before-hand, has no significant Meaning in it, that I know of: If
the Sagacity of my Readers can make more of it than my self, in God's Name,
let them please themselves with the Application.

There is a small _Island_ on the Coast of _Denmark_, in which there are
five Towns; the Lord of this Place was very poor, rather because he coveted
much, than that he wanted any Thing. God has afflicted the Inhabitants with
a general Inclination in them all to be _Projectors_, so that the Land
seemed to be infested with as many Monsters as there were Men: So
prodigious was the natural Proneness to projecting in that Country, that
the very sucking Babes cried out _Project_, before they could say _Papa_ or
_Mamma_; the whole island was a confused Chaos, for Man and Wife, Father
and Son, Neighbour and Neighbor, were ever jangling about their Projects,
and they were as intoxicated with them as if they had been drunk with Wine.
The Lord of this Place ordered a general Examination of all _Projects_.
Legions of _Projectors_ assembled before his Palace with Skrips and Scrolls