that no man in this nation shall open his mouth in favor of the colonies, shall defend their rights, or complain of their sufferings,—­or when war finally breaks out, no man shall express his desires of peace?  Has this been the law of our past, or is it to be the terms of our future connection?  Even looking no further than ourselves, can it be true loyalty to any government, or true patriotism towards any country, to degrade their solemn councils into servile drawing-rooms, to flatter their pride and passions rather than to enlighten their reason, and to prevent them from being cautioned against violence lest others should be encouraged to resistance?  By such acquiescence great kings and mighty nations have been undone; and if any are at this day in a perilous situation from rejecting truth and listening to flattery, it would rather become them to reform the errors under which they suffer than to reproach those who forewarned them of their danger.

But the rebels looked for assistance from this country.—­They did so, in the beginning of this controversy, most certainly; and they sought it by earnest supplications to government, which dignity rejected, and by a suspension of commerce, which the wealth of this nation enabled you to despise.  When they found that neither prayers nor menaces had any sort of weight, but that a firm resolution was taken to reduce them to unconditional obedience by a military force, they came to the last extremity.  Despairing of us, they trusted in themselves.  Not strong enough themselves, they sought succor in France.  In proportion as all encouragement here lessened, their distance from this country increased.  The encouragement is over; the alienation is complete.

In order to produce this favorite unanimity in delusion, and to prevent all possibility of a return to our ancient happy concord, arguments for our continuance in this course are drawn from the wretched situation itself into which we have been betrayed.  It is said, that, being at war with the colonies, whatever our sentiments might have been before, all ties between us are now dissolved, and all the policy we have left is to strengthen the hands of government to reduce them.  On the principle of this argument, the more mischiefs we suffer from any administration, the more our trust in it is to be confirmed.  Let them but once get us into a war, and then their power is safe, and an act of oblivion passed for all their misconduct.

But is it really true that government is always to be strengthened with the instruments of war, but never furnished with the means of peace?  In former times, ministers, I allow, have been sometimes driven by the popular voice to assert by arms the national honor against foreign powers.  But the wisdom of the nation has been far more clear, when those ministers have been compelled to consult its interests by treaty.  We all know that the sense of the nation obliged the court of Charles the Second to