America...has neither king, nobility nor clergy established by law and it is notwithstanding, I am satisfied, at this hour, the most flourishing and the best governed spot on the face of this earth.

Address to the peasantry of Ireland, by A Traveller (14 October 1796), quoted in T. W. Moody, R. B. McDowell and C. J. Woods (eds.), The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763–98, Volume II: America, France and Bantry Bay, August 1795 to December 1796 (2001), p. 352