at a
strict union should long subsist amongst confederates of characters so
opposite as the hasty, light, disdainful Frenchman, the jealous,
haughty, sly, slow, circumspect Spaniard, and the American, who is
secretly snatching looks at the mother country, and would rejoice,
were they compatible with his independence, at the disasters of his
allies?"

To draw foolish portraits of each other, is a mode of attack and
reprisal, which the greater part of mankind are fond of indulging. The
serious philosopher should be above it, more especially in cases from
which no possible good can arise, and mischief may, and where no
received provocation can palliate the offense.--The Abbe might have
invented a difference of character for every country in the world, and
they in return might find others for him, till in the war of wit all
real character is lost. The pleasantry of one nation or the gravity of
another may, by a little penciling, be distorted into whimsical
features, and the painter becomes so much laughed at as the painting.

But why did not the Abbe look a little deeper, and bring forth the
excellencies of the several parties? Why did he not dwell with
pleasure on that greatness of character, that superiority of heart,
which has marked the conduct of France in her conquests, and which has
forced an acknowledgment even from Britain.

There is one line, at least (and many others might be discovered), in
which the confederates unite; which is, that of a rival eminence in
their treatment of their enemies. Spain, in her conquest of Minorca
and the Bahama Islands, confirms this remark. America has been
invariable in her lenity from the beginning of the war,
notwithstanding the high provocations she has experienced? It is
England only who has been insolent and cruel.

But why must America be charged with a crime undeserved by her
conduct, more so by her principles, and which, if a fact, would be
fatal to her honour? I mean the want of attachment to her allies, or
rejoicing in their disasters. She, it is true, has been assiduous in
showing to the world that she was not the aggressor toward England;
and that the quarrel was not of her seeking, or, at that time, even of
her wishing. But to draw inferences from her justification, to stab
her character by, and I see nothing else from which they can be
supposed to be drawn, is unkind and unjust.

Does her rejection of the British propositions in 1778, before she
knew of any alli