administered, commerce protected, and the arts and sciences encouraged,
and they looked no further. They did not imagine, that he who had been
the instrument of recovering the independence of their country, could
be the very man who was to effect the ruin of their liberties. By the
Constitution of Sweden their kings were elective, and the powers of the
crown were exceedingly limited. The unsuspecting people even
voluntarily gave up their right of election, and suffered Gustavus to
enlarge the powers of the crown, and entail it in his own family! This
is the account which the history of Sweden has given us; and it affords
an instance among a thousand others, of the folly and danger of
trusting even good men with power, without regarding the use they make
of it. Power is in its nature incroaching; and such is the human make,
that men who are vested with a share of it, are generally inclined to
take more than it was intended they should have. The love of power,
like the love of money, increases with the possession of it; and we
know, in what ruin these baneful passions have involved human societies
in all ages, when they have been let loose and suffered to rage
uncontrouled-- There is no restraint like the pervading eye of the
virtuous citizens.--I hope therefore our countrymen will constantly
exercise that right which the meanest of them is intitled to, and which
is particularly secured to them by our happy constitution, of inquiring
freely, but decently, into the conduct of the public servants. The very
being of the Commonwealth may depend upon it. I will venture to appeal
to the experience of ancient Republicks, to evince the necessity of it;
and it is never more necessary than in the infancy of a Commonwealth,
and when the people have chosen honest men to conduct their affairs.
For, whatever is done at a time nearly contemporary with the
constitution, will be construed as the best exposition of it; and a
mistaken principle of a virtuous ruler, whose public conduct is
generally good, and always supposed to be honestly intended, carries