I am not
in the secrets of office, and therefore I may be excused for proceeding
upon probabilities and exterior indications. I have surveyed all Europe
from the east to the west, from the north to the south, in search of
this call upon us to purge ourselves of "subtle _duplicity_ and a
_Punic_ style" in our proceedings. I have not heard that his Excellency
the Ottoman ambassador has expressed his doubts of the British sincerity
in our negotiation with the most unchristian republic lately set up at
our door. What sympathy in that quarter may have introduced a
remonstrance upon the want of faith in this nation I cannot positively
say. If it exists, it is in Turkish or Arabic, and possibly is not yet
translated. But none of the nations which compose the old Christian
world have I yet heard as calling upon us for those judicial purgations
and ordeals, by fire and water, which we have chosen to go through;--for
the other great proof, by battle, we seem to decline.

For whose use, entertainment, or instruction are all those overstrained
and overlabored proceedings in council, in negotiation, and in speeches
in Parliament intended? What royal cabinet is to be enriched with these
high-finished pictures of the arrogance of the sworn enemies of kings
and the meek patience of a British administration? In what heart is it
intended to kindle pity towards our multiplied mortifications and
disgraces? At best it is superfluous. What nation is unacquainted with
the haughty disposition of the common enemy of all nations? It has been
more than seen, it has been felt,--not only by those who have been the
victims of their imperious rapacity, but, in a degree, by those very
powers who have consented to establish this robbery, that they might be
able to copy it, and with impunity to make new usurpations of their own.

The King of Prussia has hypothecated in trust to the Regicides his rich
and fertile territories on the Rhine, as a pledge of his zeal and
affection to the cause of liberty and equality. He has seen them robbed
with unbounded liberty and with the most levelling equality. The woods
are wasted, the country is ravaged, property is confiscated, and the
people are put to bear a double yoke, in the exactions of a tyrannical
government and in the contributions of an hostile irruption. Is it to
satisfy the Court of Berlin that the Court of London is to give the same
sort of pledge of its sincerity and good faith to the French Directory?