was couched in terms
of uncommon asperity.

He artfully threw a shade over the beginning of hostilities in North
America, referring to a memorial which had been delivered to the several
courts of Europe, containing a summary of those facts which related to
the present war, and the negotiations by which it had been preceded.
He insisted on the attack made by the king of England, in the year one
thousand seven hundred and fifty-four, on the French possessions in
North America; and afterwards by the English navy on the navigation and
commerce of the French subjects, in contempt of the law of nations, and
direct violation of treaties. He complained that the French soldiers and
sailors underwent the harshest treatment in the British isles, exceeding
those bounds which are prescribed to the most rigorous rights of war,
by the law of nature, and common humanity. He affirmed, that while the
English ministry, under the appearance of sincerity, imposed upon
the French ambassador with false protestations, others diametrically
opposite to these deceitful assurances of a speedy accommodation were
actually carrying into execution in North America; that while the
court of London employed every caballing art, and squandered away the
subsidies of England, to instigate other powers against France, his most
christain majesty did not even ask of these powers the succours
which guarantees and defensive treaties authorised him to demand; but
recommended to them such measures only as tended to their own peace and
security; that while the English navy, by the most odious violences,
and sometimes by the vilest artifices, made captures of French vessels
navigating in full security under the safeguard of public faith, his
most christian majesty released an English frigate taken by a French
squadron; and British vessels traded to the ports of France without
molestation. That the striking contrast formed by these different
methods of proceeding would convince all Europe, that one court was
guided by motives of jealousy, ambition, and avarice, and that the
conduct of the other was founded on principles of honour, justice,
and moderation; that the vague imputations contained in the king of
England's declaration, had in reality no foundation; and the very manner
in which they were set forth would prove their futility and falsehood;
that the mention made of the works at Dunkirk, and the troop assembled
on the coasts of the ocean, implied the most gross