I am sorry that on some points I have, on the
principles I have always opposed, so good a defence to make. They were
not the first to begin the war. They did not excite the general
confederacy in Europe, which was so properly formed on the alarm given
by the Jacobinism of France. They did not begin with an hostile
aggression on the Regicides, or any of their allies. These parricides of
their own country, disciplining themselves for foreign by domestic
violence, were the first to attack a power that was our ally by nature,
by habit, and by the sanction of multiplied treaties. Is it not true
that they were the first to declare war upon this kingdom? Is every word
in the declaration from Downing Street concerning their conduct, and
concerning ours and that of our allies, so obviously false that it is
necessary to give some new-invented proofs of our good faith in order to
expunge the memory of all this perfidy?
We know that over-laboring a point of this kind has the direct contrary
effect from what we wish. We know that there is a legal presumption
against men, _quando se nimis purgitant_; and if a charge of ambition is
not refuted by an affected humility, certainly the character of fraud
and perfidy is still less to be washed away by indications of meanness.
Fraud and prevarication are servile vices. They sometimes grow out of
the necessities, always out of the habits, of slavish and degenerate
spirits; and on the theatre of the world, it is not by assuming the mask
of a Davus or a Geta that an actor will obtain credit for manly
simplicity and a liberal openness of proceeding.
Pages:
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441