It is true that bad motives may in some degree be brought to support a good cause or prosecute a good object; but it never continues long, which is not the case with France; for either the object will reform the mind, or the mind corrupt the object, or else not being able, either way, to get into unison, they will separate in disgust:  And this natural, though unperceived progress of association or contention between the mind and the object, is the secret cause of fidelity or defection.  Every object a man pursues is, for the time, a kind of mistress to his mind:  if both are good or bad, the union is natural; but if they are in reverse, and neither can seduce nor yet reform the other, the opposition grows into dislike, and a separation follows.

When the cause of America first made her appearance on the stage of the universe, there were many who, in the style of adventurers and fortune-hunters, were dangling in her train, and making their court to her with every profession of honour and attachment.  They were loud in her praise, and ostentatious in her service.  Every place echoed with their ardour or their anger, and they seemed like men in love.—­But, alas, they were fortune-hunters.  Their expectations were excited, but their minds were unimpressed; and finding her not to the purpose, nor themselves reformed by her influence, they ceased their suit, and in some instances deserted and betrayed her.

There were others, who at first beheld her with indifference, and unacquainted with her character, were cautious of her company.  They treated her as one, who, under the fair name of liberty, might conceal the hideous figure of anarchy, or the gloomy monster of tyranny.  They knew not what she was.  If fair, she was fair indeed.  But still she was suspected, and though born among us, appeared to be a stranger.

Accident, with some, and curiosity with others, brought on a distant acquaintance.  They ventured to look at her.  They felt an inclination to speak to her.  One intimacy led to another, till the suspicion wore away, and a change of sentiment stole gradually upon the mind; and having no self-interest to serve, no passion of dishonour to gratify, they became enamoured of her innocence, and unaltered by misfortune or uninflamed by success, shared with fidelity in the varieties of her fate.

This declaration of the Abbe’s, respecting motives, has led me unintendedly into a train of metaphysical reasoning; but there was no other avenue by which it could so properly be approached.  To place presumption against presumption, assertion against assertion, is a mode of opposition that has no effect; and therefore the more eligible method was, to shew that the declaration does not correspond with the natural progress of the mind, and the influence it has upon our conduct.—­I shall now quit this part, and proceed to what I have before stated, namely, that it is not so properly the motives which produced the alliance, as the consequences to be produced from it, that mark out the field of philosophical reflections.