We have nothing left but the
last resource of female weakness, of helpless infancy, of doting
decrepitude,--wailing and lamentation. We cannot even utter a sentiment
of vigor;--"his Majesty has only to lament." A poor possession, to be
left to a great monarch! Mark the effect produced on our councils by
continued insolence and inveterate hostility. We grow more malleable
under their blows. In reverential silence we smother the cause and
origin of the war. On that fundamental article of faith we leave every
one to abound in his own sense. In the minister's speech, glossing on
the Declaration, it is indeed mentioned, but very feebly. The lines are
so faintly drawn as hardly to be traced. They only make a part of our
_consolation_ in the circumstances which we so dolefully lament. We rest
our merits on the humility, the earnestness of solicitation, and the
perfect good faith of those submissions which have been used to persuade
our Regicide enemies to grant us some sort of peace. Not a word is said
which might not have been full as well said, and much better too, if the
British nation had appeared in the simple character of a penitent
convinced of his errors and offences, and offering, by penances, by
pilgrimages, and by all the modes of expiation ever devised by anxious,
restless guilt, to make all the atonement in his miserable power.
The Declaration ends, as I have before quoted it, with a solemn
voluntary pledge, the most full and the most solemn that ever was given,
of our resolution (if so it may be called) to enter again into the very
same course.
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