“It is true, by following this method, you have missed your aim, which was populousness. What fortune soever a man may raise, it is consumed by the boundless expence of luxury, which always exceeds the revenues: There is nothing left for the education and settlement of children; and means must be used to have a small number, or even none at all. Long races suit only those remote times when your ancestors, plentifully furnished with necessaries, were so unfortunate as to have no idea of pageantry. It is no wonder, if people so barbarous as not to know silk, lace, tea, chocolate, Burgundy, Champagne, should so increase in the northern regions, as to over-run, like a torrent, all your countries, should found monarchies, and dictate laws, which are revered to this day.
“But what signifies populousness and multitude? Rejoice, O ye fortunate nations; for you have coffee and snuff, cinnamon and musk, sugar and furs, tea and china. How happy are you! and how composed should your minds be!
“It is true, toils, hunger, thirst, shoals, storms, sooner or later destroy these insatiable traders, who traverse the seas to bring you these precious superfluities. But with how many advantages are these petty inconveniences repaid? The face of Europe is entirely new! even to your constitutions all is changed. Thousands of quintals of spices, circulate in your blood, carry fire into your inmost nerves, and give you a new sort of Being. Neither your health, nor your diseases are like those of your fore-fathers. Their robust constitution, simplicity of manners, their native virtues, are they comparable to the advantages you enjoy? That sensibility of the organs, that delicacy of mind and body, those universal lights, those vices of all kinds.... What! will it be said, are vices also to be reckoned among the actual felicities of Europe? Yes, without doubt: Is it not daily proved, that virtue heretofore might be useful to the prudent economy of your ancestors, but that, for enlightened citizens, who no longer walk by the old rules, vice is absolutely necessary, or rather changes its nature and becomes virtue.
“Another advantage that you owe to the depth of your policy and extensiveness of your trade is, that perpetual occasions offer to show your courage, and to practice your military virtues.