They
will do justice to the wisdom and goodness of their sovereign and his
Parliament, who have put them into a state of defence, in the war
audaciously made upon us in favor of that kind of liberty. When we see
(as here we must see) in their true colors the character and policy of
our enemies, our gratitude will become an active principle. It will
produce a strong and zealous cooeperation with the efforts of our
government in favor of a Constitution under which we enjoy advantages
the full value of which the querulous weakness of human nature requires
sometimes the opportunity of a comparison to understand and to relish.
Our confidence in those who watch for the public will not be lessened.
We shall be sensible that to alarm us in the late circumstances of our
affairs was not for our molestation, but for our security. We shall be
sensible that this alarm was not ill-timed,--and that it ought to have
been given, as it was given, before the enemy had time fully to mature
and accomplish their plans for reducing us to the condition of France,
as that condition is faithfully and without exaggeration described in
the following work. We now have our arms in our hands; we have the means
of opposing the sense, the courage, and the resources of England to the
deepest, the most craftily devised, the best combined, and the most
extensive design that ever was carried on, since the beginning of the
world, against all property, all order, all religion, all law, and all
real freedom.
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