They
seized with avidity any occasion of quarrel with the paramount power
which seemed likely to unite them all in one great effort to shake it
off; and they are still prepared to do the same, because they feel
that they could easily extend their depredations if that power were
withdrawn; and they know no other road to wealth and glory but such
successful depredations. Their ancestors rose by them, their states
were formed by them, and their armies have been maintained by them.
They look back upon them for all that seems to them honourable in the
history of their families. Their bards sing of them in all their
marriage and funeral processions; and, as their imaginations kindle
at the recollection, they detest the arm that is extended to defend
the wealth and the industry of the surrounding territories from their
grasp. As the industrious classes acquire and display their wealth in
the countries around during a long peace, under a strong and settled
government, these native chiefs, with their little disorderly armies,
feel precisely as an English country gentleman would feel with a pack
of foxhounds, in a country swarming with foxes, and without the
privilege of hunting them.
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