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| Benjamin Franklin +760
the present, have produced any independency in
Spain that could be supported. The same may be
observed of France.
And let it not be said that the neighbourhood of
these to the seat of government has prevented a
separation. While our strength at sea continues, the
banks of the Ohio, in point of easy and expeditious
conveyance of troops, are nearer to London than
the remote parts of France and Spain to their respective
 capitals, and much nearer than Connaught and
Ulster were in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Nobody
foretells the dissolution of the Russian monarchy
from its extent; yet I will venture to say the eastern
parts of it are already much more inaccessible from
Petersburg than the country on the Mississippi 1S
from London,—I mean, more men, in less time,
might be conveyed to the latter than the former distance.
 The rivers Oby, Jenessa, and Lena do not
facilitate the communication half so well by their
course, nor are they half so practicable as the American
 rivers. To this I shall only add the observation
of Machiavel, in his Prince: that a government seldom
 long preserves its dominion over those who are
foreigners to it; who, on the other hand, fall with
great ease, and continue inseparably annexed to the
government of their own nation; which he proves by
the fate of the English conquests in France. Yet
with all these disadvantages, so difficult is it to overturn
 an established government, that it was not
without the assistance of France and England that
the United Provinces supported themselves; which
teaches us that—