After having studied the interests of a great nation, and run over the circle of our political societies, we approach nearer perhaps to those sublime ideas which bind the general structure of mankind to that infinite and Almighty Being, who is the first grand cause of all, and universal mover of the universe. In the rapid course of an active administration, indeed one cannot indulge similar reflections; but they are forming and preparing themselves in the midst of the tumult of business, and the tranquillity of retirement enables us to strengthen and extend them. The calm which succeeds hurry and confusion, seems the reason most favourable to meditation; and if any remembrance, or retrospective views of what is past should inspire you with a kind of melancholy, you will be involuntarily led back to contemplations which border on those ideas with which you have been long conversant. It is thus the mariner, after having renounced the dangers of the sea, sometimes seats himself on the beach, and there, a more tranquil observer, considers attentively the boundless ocean, the regular succession of the waves, the impression of the winds, the flux and reflux of the tide, and that magnificent firmament, where, during the night, among lights innumerable, he distinguishes the lucid point, which serves as a guide to the navigators. It is in vain, in those high stations under government, to interest yourself about the happiness of mankind in general; it is in vain, that, penetrated with a just respect for the important duties of office, a public character shall dare to take in hand the cause of the people, and incessantly apply himself to the defence of the weak, in opposition to the attacks of the powerful; he soon perceives how bounded are his abilities, and how limited are those, even of sovereignty itself. Pity for the distresses of the individual is checked by the law of civil rights; benevolence by justice; and liberty by its own abuses: you perpetually behold merit struggling with patronage, honour with fortune, and patriotism with the interest of the individual. There is no such thing as real disinterestedness in the passions, only by fits and starts; unless great circumstances, or vigorous virtue in an administration, forcibly renewed the idea of public good, a general langour would take place in every mind, and society itself would appear one confused mass of opposite interests, which the supreme authority keeps within bounds for the maintenance of peace, without any inquietude about real harmony, or any revolution favourable to the manners or happiness of the public.