Our miscarriages have been so numerous, and the wrongheadedness of our Statesmen and public functionaries so notorious, as to give no small countenance, if not entirely to justify, the opinion of those who assert that the Evil Genius of Britain has presided in its councils, and has had the sole direction of its affairs, with very few exceptions, for the last fifty years, at least. Strong symptoms of political wrongheadedness and ministerial depravity appeared as early as the time when the machine of government was committed to the management of lord Bute, with his coadjutors and underlings. The affair of general warrants, and the project for taxing America, rendered those symptoms still more visible and alarming, while our persisting in our dispute with the Colonists, and undertaking to answer their arguments and silence their complaints by the mouth of our cannon, demonstrated our despotic character and boundless infatuation, and prepared the world to behold, without surprise, the folly and insanity of our subsequent projects and undertakings. It was hoped by many that the disastrous result of the American war would have brought us to our senses. But it did not so happen. Our subsequent conduct has been for the most part as unwise and senseless as ever it was during our dispute and war with America. Had we been capable of serious reflection, the American war would, doubtless, have brought us to it. Dear-bought experience is said to have been of great use to some people; but it has been in this case quite useless to us; though experience has seldom been more dearly bought than that which Britain has acquired by the American war. In fact, it does not seem that experience is of so much use to mankind, as is generally supposed; not because it is useless in itself, or incapable of making us wiser, but because most people are no way disposed to avail themselves of its aid, and choose to follow their passions rather than their reason. They seemingly hate to look back and recollect former mischances, or to profit by past experience. Both the past and the future appear to be by them equally disregarded. The present employs all their thoughts; and whatsoever errors they may have committed, or inconvenience experienced on that account, little care is generally taken to guard against their repetition or recurrence. Such is the case with nations as well as individuals. So the world goes: and thus, in spite of past experience, every age performs its own folly, and re-acts or repeats the absurdities and crimes of its predecessors.