It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance.  The true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief.  But he sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his countrymen till he is terrified himself.  The patriotism, therefore, may be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by incredibilities; who tells, that the last peace was obtained by bribing the princess of Wales; that the king is grasping at arbitrary power; and, that because the French, in the new conquests, enjoy their own laws, there is a design at court of abolishing, in England, the trial by juries.

Still less does the true patriot circulate opinions which he knows to be false.  No man, who loves his country, fills the nation with clamorous complaints, that the protestant religion is in danger, because “popery is established in the extensive province of Quebec,” a falsehood so open and shameless, that it can need no confutation among those who know that of which it is almost impossible for the most unenlightened zealot to be ignorant: 

That Quebec is on the other side of the Atlantick, at too great a distance to do much good or harm to the European world: 

That the inhabitants, being French, were always papists, who are certainly more dangerous as enemies than as subjects: 

That though the province be wide, the people are few, probably not so many as may be found in one of the larger English counties: 

That persecution is not more virtuous in a protestant than a papist; and that, while we blame Lewis the fourteenth, for his dragoons and his galleys, we ought, when power comes into our hands, to use it with greater equity: 

That when Canada, with its inhabitants, was yielded, the free enjoyment of their religion was stipulated; a condition, of which king William, who was no propagator of popery, gave an example nearer home, at the surrender of Limerick: 

That in an age, where every mouth is open for liberty of conscience, it is equitable to show some regard to the conscience of a papist, who may be supposed, like other men, to think himself safest in his own religion; and that those, at least, who enjoy a toleration, ought not to deny it to our new subjects.

If liberty of conscience be a natural right, we have no power to withhold it; if it be an indulgence, it may be allowed to papists, while it is not denied to other sects.

A patriot is necessarily and invariably a lover of the people.  But even this mark may sometimes deceive us.