British nation.  It proves that for their application there is a spirit equal to the resources, for its energy above them.  It proves that there exists, though not always visible, a spirit which never fails to come forth, whenever it is ritually invoked,—­a spirit which will give no equivocal response, but such as will hearten the timidity and fix the irresolution of hesitating prudence,—­a spirit which will be ready to perform all the tasks that shall be imposed upon it by public honor.  Thirdly, the loan displays an abundant confidence in his Majesty’s government, as administered by his present servants, in the prosecution of a war which the people consider, not as a war made on the suggestion of ministers, and to answer the purposes of the ambition or pride of statesmen, but as a war of their own, and in defence of that very property which they expend for its support,—­a war for that order of things from which everything valuable that they possess is derived, and in which order alone it can possibly be maintained.

I hear, in derogation of the value of the fact from which I draw inferences so favorable to the spirit of the people and to its just expectation from ministers, that the eighteen million loan is to be considered in no other light than as taking advantage of a very lucrative bargain held out to the subscribers.  I do not in truth believe it.  All the circumstances which attended the subscription strongly spoke a different language.  Be it, however, as these detractors say.  This with me derogates little, or rather nothing at all, from the political value and importance of the fact.  I should be very sorry, if the transaction was not such a bargain; otherwise it would not have been a fair one.  A corrupt and improvident loan, like everything else corrupt or prodigal, cannot be too much condemned; but there is a short-sighted parsimony still more fatal than an unforeseeing expense.  The value of money must be judged, like everything else, from its rate at market.  To force that market, or any market, is of all things the most dangerous.  For a small temporary benefit, the spring of all public credit might be relaxed forever.  The moneyed men have a right to look to advantage in the investment of their property.  To advance their money, they risk it; and the risk is to be included in the price.  If they were to incur a loss, that loss would amount to a tax on that peculiar species of property.  In effect, it would be the most unjust and impolitic of all things,—­unequal taxation.  It would throw upon one description of persons in the community that burden which ought by fair and equitable distribution to rest upon the whole.  None on account of their dignity should be exempt; none (preserving due proportion) on account of the scantiness of their means.  The moment a man is exempted from the maintenance of the community, he is in a sort separated from it,—­he loses the place of a citizen.