At first the French force was too much
despised. Now it is too much dreaded. As inconsiderate courage has given
way to irrational fear, so it may be hoped, that, through the medium of
deliberate, sober apprehension, we may arrive at steady fortitude. Who
knows whether indignation may not succeed to terror, and the revival of
high sentiment, spurning away the delusion of a safety purchased at the
expense of glory, may not yet drive us to that generous despair which
has often subdued distempers in the state for which no remedy could be
found in the wisest councils?
Other great states having been without any regular, certain course of
elevation or decline, we may hope that the British fortune may fluctuate
also; because the public mind, which greatly influences that fortune,
may have its changes. We are therefore never authorized to abandon our
country to its fate, or to act or advise as if it had no resource. There
is no reason to apprehend, because ordinary means threaten to fail, that
no others can spring up. Whilst our heart is whole, it will find means,
or make them. The heart of the citizen is a perennial spring of energy
to the state. Because the pulse seems to intermit, we must not presume
that it will cease instantly to beat. The public must never be regarded
as incurable. I remember, in the beginning of what has lately been
called the Seven Years' War, that an eloquent writer and ingenious
speculator, Dr.
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