The peace establishment then will, on an average, be five
shillings sterling per head. Whereas, was England now to stop, and the
war cease, her peace establishment would continue the same as it is
now, viz. forty shillings per head; therefore was our taxes
necessary for carrying on the war, as much per head as hers now is,
and the difference to be only whether we should, at the end of the
war, pay at the rate of five shillings per head, or forty shillings
per head, the case needs no thinking of. But as we can securely defend
and keep the country for one third less than what our burden would
be if it was conquered, and support the governments afterwards for one
eighth of what Britain would levy on us, and could I find a miser
whose heart never felt the emotion of a spark of principle, even
that man, uninfluenced by every love but the love of money, and
capable of no attachment but to his interest, would and must, from the
frugality which governs him, contribute to the defence of the country,
or he ceases to be a miser and becomes an idiot. But when we take in
with it every thing that can ornament mankind; when the line of our
interest becomes the line of our happiness; when all that can cheer
and animate the heart, when a sense of honor, fame, character, at home
and abroad, are interwoven not only with the security but the increase
of property, there exists not a man in America, unless he be an
hired emissary, who does not see that his good is connected with
keeping up a sufficient defence.
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