But before I sit down, there is one topic on which I am desirous to
lay particular stress. It has, or should have, a strong interest
for us all, since to its literature every country must look for one
great means of refining and improving its people, and one great
source of national pride and honour. You have in America great
writers--great writers--who will live in all time, and are as
familiar to our lips as household words. Deriving (as they all do
in a greater or less degree, in their several walks) their
inspiration from the stupendous country that gave them birth, they
diffuse a better knowledge of it, and a higher love for it, all
over the civilized world. I take leave to say, in the presence of
some of those gentleman, that I hope the time is not far distant
when they, in America, will receive of right some substantial
profit and return in England from their labours; and when we, in
England, shall receive some substantial profit and return in
America for ours. Pray do not misunderstand me. Securing to
myself from day to day the means of an honourable subsistence, I
would rather have the affectionate regard of my fellow men, than I
would have heaps and mines of gold. But the two things do not seem
to me incompatible. They cannot be, for nothing good is
incompatible with justice; there must be an international
arrangement in this respect: England has done her part, and I am
confident that the time is not far distant when America will do
hers.
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