Note 21 — POLITICAL ESSAYS, WITH SKETCHES OF PUBLIC CHARACTERS (continued 3)
Reading edition
We are somewhat in the situation of Captain Macheath in the ‘Beggar’s Opera.’ ‘The road had done the Captain justice, but the gaming-table had been his ruin.’ We have been pretty successful on the high seas; but the Bank have swallowed it all up. The taxes have outlived the war, trade, and commerce. They are the soul, the immortal part of the Pitt system.