Our natural advantages do not indeed promise such an accumulation of wealth as might satisfy that avarice which like the horse leach is constantly crying givegivethey are such however as will in ordinary cases, ensure to industry an ample reward and this should satisfy a virtuous mind.

It is not by holding out incentives to official ambition, but by repressing crime, by securing and guarding property, by creating confidence, by ensuring to industry the fruit of its labour, by protecting men in the undisturbed enjoyment of their rights, and in the unfettered exercise of their faculties, that Governments best minister to the public wealth and happiness.

Paul Cuffee, the son of a well-to-do Massachusetts freedman, had become by his talents and industry a prosperous merchant and ship-owner.