It requires nothing more of the Regicides than to famish
some sort of excuse, some sort of colorable pretest, for our renewing
the supplications of innocence at the feet of guilt. It leaves the
moment of negotiation, a most important moment, to the choice of the
enemy. He is to regulate it according to the convenience of his affairs.
He is to bring it forward at that time when it may best serve to
establish his authority at home and to extend his power abroad, A
dangerous assurance for this nation to give, whether it is broken or
whether it is kept. As all treaty was broken off, and broken off in the
manner we have seen, the field of future conduct ought to be reserved
free and unincumbered to our future discretion. As to the sort of
condition prefixed to the pledge, namely, "that the enemy should be
disposed to enter into the work of general pacification with the spirit
of reconciliation and equity," this phraseology cannot possibly be
considered otherwise than as so many words thrown in to fill the
sentence and to round it to the ear. We prefixed the same plausible
conditions to any renewal of the negotiation, in our manifesto on the
rejection of our proposals at Basle. We did not consider those
conditions as binding. We opened a much more serious negotiation
without any sort of regard to them; and there is no new negotiation
which we can possibly open upon fewer indications of conciliation and
equity than were to be discovered when we entered into our last at
Paris.
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