Three thousand miles of ocean lie between
you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in
weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and
the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is
enough to defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, winged ministers of
vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge of
the sea. But there a power steps in that limits the arrogance of raging
passions and furious elements, and says, _So far shalt thou go, and no
farther_. Who are you, that you should fret and rage, and bite the
chains of nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations
who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which
empire can be thrown. In large bodies the circulation of power must be
less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot
govern Egypt and Arabia and Kurdistan as he governs Thrace; nor has he the
same dominion in Crimea and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna.
Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such
obedience as he can. He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at
all; and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority in his center
is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders.
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