The unprecedented commerce we enjoy, of which every other nation would wish to have a share, (and of which each, most mistakenly, thinks it would have a share, if Britain was undone,) is a cause of attracting envy and enmity, and repelling friendship. Our colonies in the West, and our possessions in the East, act like the conductors that draw the electric fluid to a building, but they do not, like those conductors, serve to protect it from violence. We have seen, that the advantage arising from them is more than doubtful, that they enrich individuals and impoverish the state; but all this would be nothing new, were it not for the vast scale on which those evils exist. The poor's rate, which is in itself completely unexampled, though a common thing to all nations, is so exorbitant in England, that it may very properly be ranked amongst the dangers peculiar to this country. Who would believe, that Frederick the Great of Prussia carried on his brilliant and successful wars against the most formidable enemies, expended more than one-eighth of his revenues annually on the encouragement of industry, and left his treasury well stored, yet all this with an income, less by one-fourth than the sums that go to support [end of page #257] the poor in England, notwithstanding all the miserable manoeuvres that are practiced =sic= to avoid giving them assistance? The form of government in England, though best for the liberty of the subject, and for the security of persons and property, is deficient in the means of repressing those infringements which particular bodies of people make upon the community at large. The representative system, when well understood, divides itself into parties, having different interests. There are the commercial, the landed, the East India, the West India, and the law, all of which have great parliamentary influence, and can be formidable to any minister; they therefore have a means of defending their interests, and they are concerned so deeply as to take a very active part whenever any questions are agitated relative to them. The landed interest and the law are, indeed, the only ones that have any great party in the House of Peers; but then the House of Peers seldom interferes in matters that concern the interests of the others. The Lords seem not to think it their province; and, in general, more through diffidence than negligence, they avoid meddling, though, to do that honourable house justice, to it we owe much. Many bills, of a dangerous tendency, have been thrown out by it, after they had passed the other house; and it has been generally done with a wisdom, magnanimity, and moderation, which is only to be accounted for by a true love of the country and an upright intention. {201}