and the United States a prefect. In point of military preparation, we are scarcely a match for the Mamelukes, or even the cooks of the world's emperor; and our one hundred thousand militia would do little more in the field than the tailors that make their uniforms. Prussia has probably fallen like a forest tree, not by cutting it down, or prying up its roots, but by felling the neighboring trees that sheltered and propped it. The backwoodsmen will tell you that such trees fall, because the very zephyrs that fan their leafy tops loosen their foundations. Yet these woodsmen are our legislators, and make our commerce not the object to contend for, but the weapon to contend with. This is certain, if England cannot save Europe, we cannot save ourselves. The spirit that would buy rights when Spain violates them, would pay tribute when France offers land to disguise it. I have long thought a democracy incapable of liberty. It seems now almost impossible that we should long enjoy the honor and happiness of a tyrant of our own.
Company interrupts, and I will finish my croakings. Please to offer my best wishes and respects to Mrs. Quincy.
Yours, truly.
Dedham, February 14, 1806.
MY DEAR SIR,--I have sent your letters to Mr. Cabot, who, I am sure, will think their contents as interesting as I do. Indeed, "they suit the gloomy habit of my soul," as Young says in his Zanga. I am infinitely dejected with the view of Europe, as well as of our own country; and I begin to consider the utmost extreme of public evils as more dreadfully imminent than ever I did before in my life. I have long consoled myself with believing that the germs of political evil, as well as of good, lie long, like the unnumbered seeds of every species of plants, in the ground without sprouting; and that it was unnecessary and unwise to contemplate the possibilities of national servitude, and, more
-361-
