Hast thou not set at defiance my authority; violated the public peace,
and passed thy life in injuring the persons and properties of thy
fellow-subjects?
O, it was impious; it was unmanly; it was poor and pitiful!
Have not you too gone about the earth like an evil genius; blasting the
fair fruits of peace and industry; plundering, ravaging, killing,
without law, without justice, merely to gratify an insatiable lust for
dominion?
What a glorious monument of human invention, that has thus triumphed
over wind and wave; has brought the ends of the earth in communion; has
established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile
regions of the north all the luxuries of the south; diffused the light
of knowledge and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus bound
together those scattered portions of the human race, between which
Nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier!