Morality is at a very low ebb and religion almost extinguished. There is a most uncommon backwardness towards service among the people. It is impossible to conceive a more hopeless state than what we are in. All faith in public agents is lost and citizens will do nothing without being compelled by military force. That speculation, peculation and an insatiable thirst for riches seems to have got the better of every other consideration and almost every order of men.
Every man is engaged in accumulating money.
Public virtue and patriotism is sold down the South Quay and there shipped off in tobacco hogsheads, nevermore, in my opinion, to return. A universal dissatisfaction prevails, and everybody is furnished with an excuse for declining the public service. Public virtue seems to be quite extinct. The most excessive extortion prevails among the inhabitants and the greatest peculation and avarice among the servants of the public. The American Crisis , Number One.