as everything suffers by translation, I promised some of
the friends of the Revolution in that country that whenever Mr. Burke's
Pamphlet came forth, I would answer it. This appeared to me the more
necessary to be done, when I saw the flagrant misrepresentations which
Mr. Burke's Pamphlet contains; and that while it is an outrageous
abuse on the French Revolution, and the principles of Liberty, it is an
imposition on the rest of the world.

I am the more astonished and disappointed at this conduct in Mr. Burke,
as (from the circumstances I am going to mention) I had formed other
expectations.

I had seen enough of the miseries of war, to wish it might never more
have existence in the world, and that some other mode might be found
out to settle the differences that should occasionally arise in the
neighbourhood of nations. This certainly might be done if Courts were
disposed to set honesty about it, or if countries were enlightened
enough not to be made the dupes of Courts. The people of America had
been bred up in the same prejudices against France, which at that time
characterised the people of England; but experience and an acquaintance
with the French Nation have most effectually shown to the Americans the
falsehood of those prejudices; and I do not believe that a more cordial
and confidential intercourse exists between any two countries than
between America and France.

When I came to France, in the spring of 1787, the Archbishop of
Thoulouse was then Minister, and at that time highly esteemed. I became
much acquainted with the private Secretary of that Minister, a man of
an enlarged benevolent heart; and found that his sentiments and my own
perfectly agreed with respect to the madness of war, and the wretched
impolicy of two nations, like England and France, continually worrying
each other, to no other end than that of a mutual increase of burdens
and taxes. That I might be assured I had not misunderstood him, nor he
me, I put the substance of our opinions into writing and sent it to him;
subjoining a request, that if I should see among the people of England,
any disposition to cultivate a better understanding between the two
nations than had hitherto prevailed, how far I might be authorised
to say that the same disposition prevailed on the part of France? He
answered me by letter in the most unreserved manner, and that not for
himself only, but for the Minister, with whose knowledge the letter was
declared to b