To these needy agitators,
the glory of the state, the general wealth and prosperity of the nation,
and the rise or fall of public credit are as dreams; nor have arguments
deduced from these topics any sort of weight with them. The indifference
with which the Assembly regards the state of their colonies, the only
valuable part of the French commerce, is a full proof how little they
are likely to be affected by anything but the selfish game of their own
ambition, now universally diffused.
[Sidenote: Impracticability of resistance.]
It is true, amidst all these turbulent means of security to their
system, very great discontents everywhere prevail. But they only produce
misery to those who nurse them at home, or exile, beggary, and in the
end confiscation, to those who are so impatient as to remove from them.
Each municipal republic has a _Committee_, or something in the nature of
a _Committee of Research_. In these petty republics the tyranny is so
near its object that it becomes instantly acquainted with every act of
every man.
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