far better to have left things in their original position, for then we
would not have been put to the expense of building our road, and
afterwards of creating difficulties. In the name of M*ntr**l I come to
propose to you not to renounce at once our system of mutual obstacles,
for this would be acting according to a principle, and we despise
principles as much as you do; but to somewhat lighten these obstacles,
weighing at the same time carefully our respective _sacrifices_." The
ambassador having thus spoken, the town of N*w Y*rk asked time to
reflect; manufacturers, office-seekers, congressmen, and custom-house
officers, were consulted; and at last, after some years' deliberation,
it was declared that the negotiations were broken off.

At this news, the inhabitants of M*ntr**l held a council. An old man
(who it has always been supposed had been secretly bribed by N*w Y*rk)
rose and said: "The obstacles raised by N*w Y*rk are injurious to our
sales; this is a misfortune. Those which we ourselves create, injure
our purchases; this is a second misfortune. We have no power over the
first, but the second is entirely dependent upon ourselves. Let us
then at least get rid of one, since we cannot be delivered from both.
Let us suppress our corps of Obstructors, without waiting for N*w Y*rk
to do the same. Some day or other she will learn to better calculate
her own interests."

A second counsellor, a man of practice and of facts, uncontrolled by
principles and wise in ancestral experience, replied: "We must not
listen to this dreamer, this theorist, this innovator, this Utopian,
this political economist, this friend to N*w Y*rk. We would be
entirely ruined if the embarrassments of the road were not carefully
weighed and exactly equalized between N*w Y*rk and M*ntr**l. There
would be more difficulty in going than in coming; in exportation than