Every demonstration of an implacable
rancor and an untamable pride were the only encouragements we received
to the renewal of our supplications.
Here, therefore, they and we were fixed. Nothing was left to the British
ministry but "to prosecute a war just and necessary,"--a war equally
just as at the time of our engaging in it,--a war become ten times more
necessary by everything which happened afterwards. This resolution was
soon, however, forgot. It felt the heat of the season and melted away.
New hopes were entertained from supplication. No expectations, indeed,
were then formed from renewing a direct application to the French
Regicides through the agent-general for the humiliation of sovereigns.
At length a step was taken in degradation which even went lower than all
the rest. Deficient in merits of our own, a mediator was to be
sought,--and we looked for that mediator at Berlin! The King of
Prussia's merits in abandoning the general cause might have obtained for
him some sort of influence in favor of those whom he had deserted; but I
have never heard that his Prussian Majesty had lately discovered so
marked an affection for the Court of St. James's, or for the Court of
Vienna, as to excite much hope of his interposing a very powerful
mediation to deliver them from the distresses into which he had brought
them.
If humiliation is the element in which we live, if it is become not only
our occasional policy, but our habit, no great objection can be made to
the modes in which it may be diversified,--though I confess I cannot be
charmed with the idea of our exposing our lazar sores at the door of
every proud servitor of the French Republic, where the court dogs will
not deign to lick them.
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