e enemy, affected by it, would make a proffer of peace. Hence it was
that all their early victories have been followed almost immediately
with the usual effects of a defeat, whilst all the advantages obtained
by the Regicides have been followed by the consequences that were
natural. The discomfitures which the Republic of Assassins has suffered
have uniformly called forth new exertions, which not only repaired old
losses, but prepared new conquests. The losses of the Allies, on the
contrary, (no provision having been made on the speculation of such an
event,) have been followed by desertion, by dismay, by disunion, by a
dereliction of their policy, by a flight from their principles, by an
admiration of the enemy, by mutual accusations, by a distrust in every
member of the Alliance of its fellow, of its cause, its power, and its
courage.

Great difficulties in consequence of our erroneous policy, as I have
said, press upon every side of us. Far from desiring to conceal or even
to palliate the evil in the representation, I wish to lay it down as my
foundation, that never greater existed. In a moment when sudden panic is
apprehended, it may be wise for a while to conceal some great public
disaster, or to reveal it by degrees, until the minds of the people have
time to be re-collected, that their understanding may have leisure to
rally, and that more steady councils may prevent their doing something
desperate under the first impressions of rage or terror. But with regard
to a _general_ state of things, growing out of events and causes already
known in the gross, there is no piety in the fraud that covers its true
nature; because nothing but erroneous resolutions can be the result of
false representations. Those measures, which in common distress might be
available, in greater are no better than playing with the evil. That the
effort may bear a proportion to the exigence, it is fit it should be
known,--known in its quality, in its extent, and in all the
circumstances which attend it. Great reverses of fortune there have
been, and great embarrassments in council: a principled regicide enemy
possessed of the most important part of Europe, and struggling for the
rest; within ourselves a total relaxation of all authority, whilst a cry
is raised against it, as if it were the most ferocious of all despotism.
A worse phenomenon: our government disowned by the most efficient member
of its tribunals,--ill-supported by any of their con