"That is the only hope of the honest, let me tell you. It is folly to expect that a body composed of such men as usually are sent to the State Legislature, can resist the temptation to gain power by conciliating numbers. _That is out of the question._ Individuals of these bodies may resist, but the tendency there will be as against the few, and in favour of the many, bolstering their theories by clap-traps and slang political phrases. The scheme to tax the rents, under the name of quit-rents, will be resorted to, in the first place." "That will be a most iniquitous proceeding, and would justify resistance just as much as our ancestors were justified in resisting the taxation of Great Britain." "It would more so, for here we have a written covenant to render taxation equal. The landlord already pays one tax on each of these farms--a full and complete tax, that is reserved from the rent in the original bargain with the tenant; and now the wish is to tax the rents themselves; and this not to raise revenue, for that is confessedly not wanted, but most clearly with a design to increase the inducements for the landlords to part with their property. If that can be done, the sales will be made on the principle that none but the tenant must be, as indeed no one else _can_ be, the purchaser; and then we shall see a queer exhibition--men parting with their property under the pressure of a clamour that is backed by as much law as can be pressed into its service, with a monopoly of price on the side of the purchaser, and all in a country professing the most sensitive love of liberty, where the prevailing class of politicians are free-trade men!" "There is no end of these inconsistencies among politicians." "There is no end of knavery when men submit to 'noses,' instead of principles. Call things by their right names, Ro, as they deserve to be. This matter is so plain, that he who runs can read." "But will this scheme of taxation succeed? It does not effect us, for instance, as our leases are for three lives." "Oh! that is nothing; for you they contemplate a law that will forbid the letting of land, for the future, for a period longer than five years. Hugh's leases will soon be falling in, and then he can't make a slave of any man for a longer period than five years." "Surely no one is so silly as to think of passing such a law, with a view to put down aristocracy, and to benefit the tenant!" I cried, laughing.