Backward and forward,--oscillation, space,--the travels of a postilion,
miles enough to circle the globe in one short stage,--we have been, and
we are yet to be, jolted and rattled over the loose, misplaced stones
and the treacherous hollows of this rough, ill-kept, broken-up,
treacherous French causeway!
The Declaration which brings up the rear of the papers laid before
Parliament contains a review and a reasoned summary of all our attempts
and all our failures,--a concise, but correct narrative of the painful
steps taken to bring on the essay of a treaty at Paris,--a clear
exposure of all the rebuffs we received in the progress of that
experiment,--an honest confession of our departure from all the rules
and all the principles of political negotiation, and of common prudence
in the conduct of it,--and to crown the whole, a fair account of the
atrocious manner in which the Regicide enemies had broken up what had
been so inauspiciously begun and so feebly carried on, by finally, and
with all scorn, driving our suppliant ambassador out of the limits of
their usurpation.
Even after all that I have lately seen, I was a little surprised at this
exposure. A minute display of hopes formed without foundation and of
labors pursued without fruit is a thing not very flattering to
self-estimation. But truth has its rights, and it will assert them. The
Declaration, after doing all this with a mortifying candor, concludes
the whole recapitulation with an engagement still more extraordinary
than all the unusual matter it contains.
Pages:
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409