suffered to take her own way to perfection,--when I reflect upon these
effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the
pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human
contrivances melt and die away within me,--my rigor relents,--I pardon
something to the spirit of liberty.

I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted in my detail is
admitted in the gross, but that quite a different conclusion is drawn
from it. America, gentlemen say, is a noble object,--it is an object
well worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the
best way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their
choice of means by their complexions and their habits. Those who
understand the military art will of course have some predilection for
it. Those who wield the thunder of the state may have more confidence in
the efficacy of arms. But I confess, possibly for want of this
knowledge, my opinion is much more in favor of prudent management than
of force,--considering force not as an odious, but a feeble instrument,
for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so growing, so spirited
as this, in a profitable and subordinate connection with us.

First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of force alone is but
_temporary_. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the
necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed which is
perpetually to be conquered.

My next objection is its _uncertainty_. Terror is not always the effect
of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you
are without resource: for, conciliation failing, force remains; but,
force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and
authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged
as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.

A further objection to force is, that you _impair the object_ by your
very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing
which you recover, but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the
contest. Nothing less will content me than _whole America_. I do not
choose to consume its strength along with our own; because in all parts
it is the British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be caught
by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict, and still
less in the midst of it. I may escape, but I can make no insurance
against such an event. Let me add, that I do n