this intricate maze!  Shall I discard all my ancient principles, shall I renounce that name, that nation which I held once so respectable?  I feel the powerful attraction; the sentiments they inspired grew with my earliest knowledge, and were grafted upon the first rudiments of my education.  On the other hand, shall I arm myself against that country where I first drew breath, against the play-mates of my youth, my bosom friends, my acquaintance?—­the idea makes me shudder!  Must I be called a parricide, a traitor, a villain, lose the esteem of all those whom I love, to preserve my own; be shunned like a rattlesnake, or be pointed at like a bear?  I have neither heroism not magnanimity enough to make so great a sacrifice.  Here I am tied, I am fastened by numerous strings, nor do I repine at the pressure they cause; ignorant as I am, I can pervade the utmost extent of the calamities which have already overtaken our poor afflicted country.  I can see the great and accumulated ruin yet extending itself as far as the theatre of war has reached; I hear the groans of thousands of families now ruined and desolated by our aggressors.  I cannot count the multitude of orphans this war has made; nor ascertain the immensity of blood we have lost.  Some have asked, whether it was a crime to resist; to repel some parts of this evil.  Others have asserted, that a resistance so general makes pardon unattainable, and repentance useless:  and dividing the crime among so many, renders it imperceptible.  What one party calls meritorious, the other denominates flagitious.  These opinions vary, contract, or expand, like the events of the war on which they are founded.  What can an insignificant man do in the midst of these jarring contradictory parties, equally hostile to persons situated as I am?  And after all who will be the really guilty?—­Those most certainly who fail of success.  Our fate, the fate of thousands, is then necessarily involved in the dark wheel of fortune.  Why then so many useless reasonings; we are the sport of fate.  Farewell education, principles, love of our country, farewell; all are become useless to the generality of us:  he who governs himself according to what he calls his principles, may be punished either by one party or the other, for those very principles.  He who proceeds without principle, as chance, timidity, or self-preservation directs, will not perhaps fare better; but he will be less blamed.  What are we in the great scale of events, we poor defenceless frontier inhabitants?  What is it to the gazing world, whether we breathe or whether we die?  Whatever virtue, whatever merit and disinterestedness we may exhibit in our secluded retreats, of what avail?