4145. JOSEPH II., Ambitious.—
We
have here under our contemplation the future
miseries of human nature, like to be occasioned
by the ambition of a young man, who has been
taught to view his subjects as his cattle. The
pretensions he sets up to the navigation of the
Scheldt would have been good, if natural right
had been left uncontrolled, but it is impossible
for express compact to have taken away a right
more effectually than it has the Emperor's.—
To Horatio Gates.
Ford ed., iv, 23.
(P.
Dec. 1784)
