It was our interest
to make a good peace, or convince our own people that it could not be
obtained; we have not made a peace, and we have convinced the people
of nothing but of the arrogance of the Foreign Secretary: and all this
has taken place in the short space of a year, because a King's Bench
barrister and a writer of epigrams, turned into Ministers of State,
were determined to show country gentlemen that the late administration
had no vigour. In the mean time commerce stands still, manufactures
perish, Ireland is more and more irritated, India is threatened, fresh
taxes are accumulated upon the wretched people, the war is carried on
without it being possible to conceive any one single object which a
rational being can propose to himself by its continuation; and in the
midst of this unparalleled insanity we are told that the Continent is
to be reconquered by the want of rhubarb and plums. A better spirit
than exists in the English people never existed in any people in the
world; it has been misdirected, and squandered upon party purposes in
the most degrading and scandalous manner; they have been led to
believe that they were benefiting the commerce of England by
destroying the commerce of America, that they were defending their
Sovereign by perpetuating the bigoted oppression of their
fellow-subjects; their rulers and their guides have told them that
they would equal the vigour of France by equalling her atrocity; and
they have gone on wasting that opulence, patience, and courage, which,
if husbanded by prudent and moderate counsels, might have proved the
salvation of mankind.
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