Such is the Monument of French Folly which a foreigneering people have
erected, in a national hatred and antipathy for common counselling
wisdom. That wisdom, assembled in the City of London, having distinctly
refused, after a debate of three days long, and by a majority of nearly
seven to one, to associate itself with any Metropolitan Cattle Market
unless it be held in the midst of the City, it follows that we shall lose
the inestimable advantages of common counselling protection, and be
thrown, for a market, on our own wretched resources. In all human
probability we shall thus come, at last, to erect a monument of folly
very like this French monument. If that be done, the consequences are
obvious. The leather trade will be ruined, by the introduction of
American timber, to be manufactured into shoes for the fallen English;
the Lord Mayor will be required, by the popular voice, to live entirely
on frogs; and both these changes will (how, is not at present quite
clear, but certainly somehow or other) fall on that unhappy landed
interest which is always being killed, yet is always found to be
alive—and kicking.
FOOTNOTES
{415} Give a bill
{426} Three months’ imprisonment as reputed thieves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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