In this manner was the whole nation, as it were, held under sureties: a species of regulation undoubtedly very wise with regard to the preservation of peace and order, but equally prejudicial to all improvement in the minds or the fortunes of the people, who, fixed invariably to the spot, were depressed with all the ideas of their original littleness, and by all that envy which is sure to arise in those who see their equals attempting to mount over them.

This rigid order deadened by degrees the spirit of the English, and narrowed their conceptions.

Everything was new to them, and therefore everything was terrible; all activity, boldness, enterprise, and invention died away.

There may be a danger in straining too strongly the bonds of government.

As a life of absolute license tends to turn men into savages, the other extreme of constraint operates much in the same manner: it reduces them to the same ignorance, but leaves them nothing of the savage spirit.