But Though Surrounded With The Spontaneous
Riches Of Nature, Though Her Kindest Favours Seem To Be Shed On
Those Beautiful Regions With The Most Profuse Hand; Yet There In
General We Find The Most Wretched People In The World.
Almost
everywhere, liberty so natural to mankind is refused, or rather
enjoyed but by their tyrants; the word slave, is the appellation of
every rank, who adore as a divinity, a being worse than themselves;
subject to every caprice, and to every lawless rage which
unrestrained power can give.
Tears are shed, perpetual groans are
heard, where only the accents of peace, alacrity, and gratitude
should resound. There the very delirium of tyranny tramples on the
best gifts of nature, and sports with the fate, the happiness, the
lives of millions: there the extreme fertility of the ground always
indicates the extreme misery of the inhabitants!
Everywhere one part of the human species are taught the art of
shedding the blood of the other; of setting fire to their dwellings;
of levelling the works of their industry: half of the existence of
nations regularly employed in destroying other nations. - "What
little political felicity is to be met with here and there, has cost
oceans of blood to purchase; as if good was never to be the portion
of unhappy man. Republics, kingdoms, monarchies, founded either on
fraud or successful violence, increase by pursuing the steps of the
same policy, until they are destroyed in their turn, either by the
influence of their own crimes, or by more successful but equally
criminal enemies."
If from this general review of human nature, we descend to the
examination of what is called civilised society; there the
combination of every natural and artificial want, makes us pay very
dear for what little share of political felicity we enjoy. It is a
strange heterogeneous assemblage of vices and virtues, and of a
variety of other principles, for ever at war, for ever jarring, for
ever producing some dangerous, some distressing extreme. Where do
you conceive then that nature intended we should be happy? Would you
prefer the state of men in the woods, to that of men in a more
improved situation? Evil preponderates in both; in the first they
often eat each other for want of food, and in the other they often
starve each other for want of room. For my part, I think the vices
and miseries to be found in the latter, exceed those of the former;
in which real evil is more scarce, more supportable, and less
enormous. Yet we wish to see the earth peopled; to accomplish the
happiness of kingdoms, which is said to consist in numbers. Gracious
God! to what end is the introduction of so many beings into a mode
of existence in which they must grope amidst as many errors, commit
as many crimes, and meet with as many diseases, wants, and
sufferings!
The following scene will I hope account for these melancholy
reflections, and apologise for the gloomy thoughts with which I have
filled this letter:
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