Her cruelties in the East Indies will never be forgotten,
and it is somewhat remarkable that the produce of that ruined country,
transported to America, should there kindle up a war to punish the
destroyer. The chain is continued, though with a mysterious kind of
uniformity both in the crime and the punishment. The latter runs
parallel with the former, and time and fate will give it a perfect
illustration.
When information is withheld, ignorance becomes a reasonable excuse;
and one would charitably hope that the people of England do not
encourage cruelty from choice but from mistake. Their recluse
situation, surrounded by the sea, preserves them from the calamities
of war, and keeps them in the dark as to the conduct of their own
armies. They see not, therefore they feel not. They tell the tale that
is told them and believe it, and accustomed to no other news than
their own, they receive it, stripped of its horrors and prepared for
the palate of the nation, through the channel of the London Gazette.
They are made to believe that their generals and armies differ from
those of other nations, and have nothing of rudeness or barbarity in
them. They suppose them what they wish them to be. They feel a
disgrace in thinking otherwise, and naturally encourage the belief
from a partiality to themselves. There was a time when I felt the same
prejudices, and reasoned from the same errors; but experience, sad and
painful experience, has taught me better. What the conduct of former
armies was, I know not, but what the conduct of the present is, I well
know.
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