1760] Essays ; 
the whole is impossible, the attempt of a part must 
be madness, as those colonies that did not join the 
rebellion would join the mother country in suppress- 
ing it. When I say such a union is impossible, I 
mean without the most grievous tyranny and oppres- 
sion. People who have property in a country which 
they may lose, and privileges which they may en- 
danger, are generally disposed to be quiet, and even 
to bear much, rather than hazard all. While the 
government is mild and just, while important civil 
and religious rights are secure, such subjects will be 
dutiful and obedient. The waves do not rise but when 
the winds blow. 
What such an administration as the Duke of 
Alva’s in the Netherlands might produce, I know 
not; but this, I think, I have a right to deem impos- 
sible. And yet there were two very manifest differ- 
ences between that case and ours; and both are in 
our favor. The first, that Spain had already united 
the seventeen provinces under one visible govern- 
ment, though the States continued independent; the 
second, that the inhabitants of those provinces were 
of a nation, not only different from, but utterly 
unlike the Spaniards. Had the Netherlands been 
peopled from Spain, the worst of oppression had 
probably not provoked them to wish a separation of 
government. It might, and probably would, have 
ruined the country; but never would have produced 
an independent sovereignty. In fact, neither the 
very worst of governments, the worst of politics in 
the last century, nor the total abolition of their re- 
maining liberty, in the provinces of Spain itself, in 
) 57