But if the Abbe is delighted with high and striking singularities of character he might, in America, have found ample field for encomium.  Here was a people, who could not know what part the world would take for, or against them; and who were venturing on an untried scheme, in opposition to a power, against which more formidable nations had failed.  They had every thing to learn but the principles which supported them, and every thing to procure that was necessary for their defense.  They have at times seen themselves as low as distress could make them, without showing the least stagger in their fortitude; and been raised again by the most unexpected events, without discovering an unmanly discomposure of joy.  To hesitate or to despair are conditions equally unknown in America.  Her mind was prepared for every thing; because her original and final resolution of succeeding or perishing included all possible circumstances.

The rejection of the British propositions in the year 1778, circumstanced as America was at that time, is a far greater instance of unshaken fortitude than the refusal of the Spanish mediation by the Court of London:  and other historians, besides the Abbe, struck with the vastness of her conduct therein, have, like himself, attributed it to a circumstance which was then unknown, the alliance with France.  Their error shows their idea of its greatness; because, in order to account for it, they have sought a cause suited to its magnitude, without knowing that the cause existed in the principles of the country.[2]

FOOTNOTE: 

[2] Extract from, “A short Review of the present Reign,” in England. Page 45, in the New Annual Register for the year 1780.

“THE Commissioners, who, in consequence of Lord North’s conciliatory bills, went over to America, to propose terms of peace to the colonies, were wholly unsuccessful.  The concessions which formerly would have been received with the utmost gratitude, were rejected with disdain.  Now was the time of American pride and haughtiness.  It is probable, however, that it was not pride and haughtiness alone that dictated the Resolutions of Congress, but a distrust of the sincerity of the offers of Britain, a determination not to give up their independence, and ABOVE ALL, THE ENGAGEMENTS INTO WHICH I HAD ENTERED BY THEIR LATE TREATY WITH FRANCE.”

But this passionate encomium of the Abbe is deservedly subject to moral and philosophical objections.  It is the effusion of wild thinking, and has a tendency to prevent that humanity of reflection which the criminal conduct of Britain enjoins on her as a duty.—­It is a laudanum to courtly iniquity.—­It keeps in intoxicated sleep the conscience of a nation; and more mischief is effected by wrapping up guilt in splendid excuse, than by directly patronizing it.

Britain is now the only country which holds the world in disturbance and war; and instead of paying compliments to the excess of her crimes, the Abbe would have appeared much more in character, had he put to her, or to her monarch, this serious question—­