The writings of George Washington; being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes and illustrations. By Jared Sparks.

PART 1.1 PRIVATE LETTERS. 353
my manufacturing, than it is to order me to buy goods
loaded with duties, for the express purpose of raising a
revenue. But as a measure of this sort would be an
additional exertion of arbitrary power, we cannot be
placed in a worse condition, I think, by putting it to the
test.
On the other hand, that the colonies are considerably
indebted to Great Britain, is a truth universally acknowledged. That many families are reduced almost,
if not quite, to penury and want by the low ebb of their
fortunes, and that estates are daily selling for the discharge of debts, the public papers furnish too many
melancholy proofs. That a scheme of this sort will
contribute more effectually than any other that can be
devised to extricate the country from the distress it at
present labors under, I most firmly believe, if it can.be
generally adopted. And I can see but one class of
people, the merchants excepted, who will not, or ought
not, to wish well to the scheme, namely, they who live
genteelly and' hospitably on clear estates. Such as these,
were they not to consider the valuable object in view,
and the good of others, might think it hard to be curtailed in their living and enjoyments. As to the penurious man, he would thereby save his money and his
credit, having the best plea for doing that, which before,
perhaps, he had the most violent struggles to refrain
from doing. The extravagant and expensive man has
the same good plea to retrench his expenses. He
would be furnished with a pretext to live within bounds,
and embrace it. Prudence dictated economy before,
but his resolution was too weak to put it in practice;
"For how can I," says he, "who have lived in such and
such a manner, change my method? I am ashamed to
do it, and, besides, such an alteration in the system of
my living will create suspicions of the decay of my
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