University of Virginia Library

8716. UNITED STATES, Prosperity.—

When you witnessed our first struggles in
the War of Independence, you little calculated,
more than we did, on the rapid growth
and prosperity of this country; on the practical
demonstration it was about to exhibit,
of the happy truth that man is capable of
self-government, and only rendered otherwise
by the moral degradation designedly superinduced
on him by the wicked acts of his
tyrants.—
To M. de Marbois. Washington ed. vii, 77.
(M. 1817)