causes of havoc and alarm were numerous and manifest. The
recent devastations committed by the Prussians furnished a
specimen of these. The horrors of war would always impend over
them, till Germany were seized and divided by Austrian and
Prussian tyrants; an event which he strongly suspected was at no
great distance. But setting these considerations aside, was it
laudable to grasp at wealth and power even when they were within
our reach? Were not these the two great sources of depravity?
What security had he, that in this change of place and
condition, he should not degenerate into a tyrant and
voluptuary? Power and riches were chiefly to be dreaded on
account of their tendency to deprave the possessor. He held
them in abhorrence, not only as instruments of misery to others,
but to him on whom they were conferred. Besides, riches were
comparative, and was he not rich already? He lived at present
in the bosom of security and luxury. All the instruments of
pleasure, on which his reason or imagination set any value, were
within his reach. But these he must forego, for the sake of
advantages which, whatever were their value, were as yet
uncertain. In pursuit of an imaginary addition to his wealth,
he must reduce himself to poverty, he must exchange present
certainties for what was distant and contingent; for who knows
not that the law is a system of expence, delay and uncertainty?
If he should embrace this scheme, it would lay him under the
necessity of making a voyage to Europe, and remaining for a
certain period, separate from his family. He must undergo the
perils and discomforts of the ocean; he must divest himself of
all domestic pleasures; he must deprive his wife of her
companion, and his children of a father and instructor, and all
for what? For the ambiguous advantages which overgrown wealth