are enabled to preserve our country from conquest, and
expel those who sought our destruction--that it is our true interest to
maintain it unimpaired, and that while we do so no enemy can conquer
us, are matters which experience has taught us, and the common good of
ourselves, abstracted from principles of faith and honor, would lead us
to maintain the connection.

But over and above the mere letter of the alliance, we have been nobly
and generously treated, and have had the same respect and attention paid
to us, as if we had been an old established country. To oblige and
be obliged is fair work among mankind, and we want an opportunity of
showing to the world that we are a people sensible of kindness and
worthy of confidence. Character is to us, in our present circumstances,
of more importance than interest. We are a young nation, just stepping
upon the stage of public life, and the eye of the world is upon us
to see how we act. We have an enemy who is watching to destroy our
reputation, and who will go any length to gain some evidence against
us, that may serve to render our conduct suspected, and our character
odious; because, could she accomplish this, wicked as it is, the world
would withdraw from us, as from a people not to be trusted, and our task
would then become difficult. There is nothing which sets the character
of a nation in a higher or lower light with others, than the faithfully
fulfilling, or perfidiously breaking, of treaties. They are things not
to be tampered with: and should Britain, which seems very probable,
propose to seduce America into such an act of baseness, it would
merit from her some mark of unusual detestation. It is one of those
extraordinary instances in which we ought not to be contented with the
bare negative of Congress, because it is an affront on the multitude as
well as on the government. It goes on the supposition that the public
are not honest men, and that they may be managed by contrivance, though
they cannot be conquered by arms. But, let the world and Britain know,
that we are neither to be bought nor sold; that our mind is great and
fixed; our prospect clear; and that we will support our character as
firmly as our independence.

But I will go still further; General Conway, who made the motion, in
the British Parliament, for discontinuing offensive war in America, is a
gentleman of an amiable character. We have no personal quarrel with him.
But he feels not as we feel; he