Ought we ever
after to be considered as a part of the human race? Or ought we not
rather to be blotted from the society of mankind, and become a
spectacle of misery to the world? But there is something in
corruption, which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself
to the object it looks upon, and sees every thing stained and
impure; for unless you were capable of such conduct yourselves, you
would never have supposed such a character in us. The offer fixes your
infamy. It exhibits you as a nation without faith; with whom oaths and
treaties are considered as trifles, and the breaking them as the
breaking of a bubble. Regard to decency, or to rank, might have taught
you better; or pride inspired you, though virtue could not. There is
not left a step in the degradation of character to which you can now
descend; you have put your foot on the ground floor, and the key of
the dungeon is turned upon you.
That the invitation may want nothing of being a complete monster,
you have thought proper to finish it with an assertion which has no
foundation, either in fact or philosophy; and as Mr. Ferguson, your
secretary, is a man of letters, and has made civil society his
study, and published a treatise on that subject, I address this part
to him.
In the close of the paragraph which I last quoted, France is
styled the "natural enemy" of England, and by way of lugging us into
some strange idea, she is styled "the late mutual and natural enemy"
of both countries. I deny that she ever was the natural enemy of
either; and that there does not exist in nature such a principle.
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