th contumely and scorn. We had not disgorged
one particle of the nauseous doses with which we were so liberally
crammed by the mountebanks of Paris in order to drug and diet us into
perfect tameness. No,--we waited till the morbid strength of our
_boulimia_ for their physic had exhausted the well-stored dispensary of
their empiricism. It is impossible to guess at the term to which our
forbearance would have extended. The Regicides were more fatigued with
giving blows than the callous cheek of British diplomacy was hurt in
receiving them. They had no way left for getting rid of this mendicant
perseverance, but by sending for the beadle, and forcibly driving our
embassy "of shreds and patches," with all its mumping cant, from the
inhospitable door of Cannibal Castle,--

"Where the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate,
Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat,"

I think we might have found, before the rude hand of insolent office was
on our shoulder, and the staff of usurped authority brandished over our
heads, that contempt of the suppliant is not the best forwarder of a
suit,--that national disgrace is not the high-road to security, much
less to power and greatness. Patience, indeed, strongly indicates the
lore of peace; but mere love does not always lead to enjoyment. It is
the power of winning that palm which insures our wearing it. Virtues
have their place; and out of their place they hardly deserve the
name,--they pass into the neighboring vice. The patience of fortitude
and the endurance of pusillanimity are things very different, as in
their principle, so in their effects.

In truth, this Declaration, containing a narrative of the first
transaction of the kind (and I hope it will be the last) in the
intercourse of nations, as a composition, is ably drawn. It does credit
to our official style. The report of the speech of the minister in a
great assembly, which I have read, is a comment upon the Declaration.
Without inquiry how far that report is exact, (inferior I believe it may
be to what it would represent,) yet still it reads as a most eloquent
and finished performance. Hardly one galling circumstance of the
indignities offered by the Directory of Regicide to the supplications
made to that junto in his Majesty's name has been spared. Every one of
the aggravations attendant on these acts of outrage is, with wonderful
perspicuity and order, brought forward in its place, and in the manner
most fitted to p