form a line extending many leagues; might present a glittering harness to
the sun; and loaded with treasure, usher to the view of an abject and
admiring crowd that awful majesty, in whose presence they were to strike
the forehead on the ground, and be overwhelmed with the sense of his
greatness, and with that of their own debasement.

As these are the objects which prompt the desire of dominion, and excite
the ambitious to aim at the mastery of their fellow creatures; so they
inspire the ordinary race of men with a sense of infirmity and meanness,
that prepares them to suffer indignities, and to become the property of
persons, whom they consider as of a rank and a nature so much superior to
their own. The chains of perpetual slavery, accordingly, appear to be
riveted in the east, no less by the pageantry which is made to accompany
the possession of power, than they are by the fears of the sword, and the
terrors of a military execution. In the west, as well as the east, we are
willing to bow to the splendid equipage, and stand at an awful distance
from the pomp of a princely estate. We too may be terrified by the frowns,
or won by the smiles, of those whose favour is riches and honour, and whose
displeasure is poverty and neglect. We too may overlook the honours of the
human soul, from an admiration of the pageantries that accompany fortune.
The procession of elephants harnessed with gold might dazzle into slaves,
the people who derive corruption and weakness from the effect of their own
arts and contrivances, as well as those who inherit servility from their
ancestors, and are enfeebled by their natural temperament, and the
enervating charms of their soil and their climate.

It appears, therefore, that although the mere use of materials which
constitute luxury, may be distinguished from actual vice; yet nations under
a high state of the commercial arts, are exposed to corruption, by their
admitting wealth, unsupported by personal elevation and virtue, as the