But notwithstanding the Abbe’s high professions in favour of liberty, he appears sometimes to forget himself, or that his theory is rather the child of his fancy than of his judgment:  for in almost the same instant that he censures the alliance, as not originally or sufficiently calculated for the happiness of mankind, he, by a figure of implication, accuses France for having acted so generously and unreservedly in concluding it.  “Why did they (says he, meaning the Court of France) tie themselves down by an inconsiderate treaty to conditions with the Congress, which they might themselves have held in dependence by ample and regular supplies.”

When an author undertakes to treat of public happiness, he ought to be certain that he does not mistake passion for right, nor imagination for principle.  Principle, like truth, needs no contrivance.  It will ever tell its own tale, and tell it the same way.  But where this is not the case, every page must be watched, recollected, and compared like an invented story.

I am surprised at this passage of the Abbe.  It means nothing or it means ill; and in any case it shows the great difference between speculative and practical knowledge.  A treaty according to the Abbe’s language would have neither duration nor affection; it might have lasted to the end of the war, and then expired with it.—­But France, by acting in a style superior to the little politics of narrow thinking, has established a generous fame, and won the love of a country she was before a stranger to.  She had to treat with a people who thought as nature taught them; and, on her own part, she wisely saw there was no present advantage to be obtained by unequal terms, which could balance the more lasting ones that might flow from a kind and generous beginning.

From this part the Abbe advances into the secret transactions of the two Cabinets of Versailles and Madrid, respecting the independence of America, through which I mean not to follow him.  It is a circumstance sufficiently striking, without being commented on, that the former union of America with Britain, produced a power, which, in her hands, had was becoming dangerous to the world:  and there is no improbability in supposing, that had the latter known as much of the strength of former, before she began the quarrel, as she has known since, that instead of attempting to reduce her to unconditional submission, would have proposed to her the conquest of Mexico.  But from the countries separately, Spain has nothing to apprehend, though from their union, she had more to fear than any other power in Europe.

The part which I shall more particularly confine myself to, is that, wherein the Abbe takes an opportunity of complimenting the British Ministry with high encomiums of admiration, on their rejecting the offered mediation of the Court of Madrid, in 1779.

It must be remembered, that before Spain joined France in the War, she undertook the office of a mediator, and made proposals to the British King and Ministry so exceedingly favourable to their interest, that had they been accepted, would have become inconvenient, if not inadmissible to America.  These proposals were nevertheless rejected by the British Cabinet:  on which the Abbe says,—­