to despotism than we are apt to imagine.

Whether oppression, injustice, and cruelty, are the only evils which attend
on despotical government, may be considered apart. In the mean time it is
sufficient to observe, that liberty is never in greater danger than it is
when we measure national felicity by the blessings which a prince may
bestow, or by the mere tranquillity which may attend on equitable
administration. The sovereign may dazzle with his heroic qualities; he may
protect his subjects in the enjoyment of every animal advantage or
pleasure: but the benefits arising from liberty are of a different sort;
they are not the fruits of a virtue, and of a goodness, which operate in
the breast of one man, but the communication of virtue itself to many; and
such a distribution of functions in civil society, as gives to numbers the
exercises and occupations which pertain to their nature.

The best constitutions of government are attended with inconvenience; and
the exercise of liberty may, on many occasions, give rise to complaints.
When we are intent on reforming abuses, the abuses of freedom may lead us
to encroach on the subject from which they are supposed to arise. Despotism
itself has certain advantages, or at least, in times of civility and
moderation, may proceed with so little offence, as to give no public alarm.
These circumstances may lead mankind, in the very spirit of reformation, or
by mere inattention, to apply or to admit of dangerous innovations in the
state of their policy.

Slavery, however, is not always introduced by mistake; it is sometimes
imposed in the spirit of violence and rapine. Princes become corrupt as
well as their people; and whatever may have been the origin of despotical
government, its pretensions, when fully declared, give rise between the
sovereign and his subjects to a contest which force alone can decide. These