given a very good reason for your having nothing to apprehend from Great Britain? “Happily for this country,” says he, “the days of that corrupt monarchy are numbered; for already has the impetuous valour of our insulted French brethren rushed like a torrent upon the Dutch Provinces, and swept away the dykes of aristocracy. Perhaps Heaven will direct their next steps to Great Britain itself, and by one decisive stroke, relieve the world from the miseries which that corrupt government has too long entailed upon mankind.” I shall not stop here to prove, that it was not an act of a corrupt government to frame such laws, as the people of these states have bound their rulers never to depart from; nor have I time to prove, that peopling the United States, changing an uncouth wilderness into an extensive and flourishing empire, in little more than a century, was not entailing miseries upon mankind. I hasten to my subject; and, I think, I need take no great deal of pains to prove to you, that, if Great Britain be in the situation in which Franklin has described her, you have very little to fear from her. A nation whose “days are numbered,” and particularly who is in continual expectation of a domiciliary visit from the French, is rather to be pitied than feared.
And yet this same Franklin, who tells you that the “days of Great Britain are numbered, that she is upon the point of annihilation, and that nothing can save her but repentance in sackcloth and ashes;” this same Franklin who says all this, and much more to the same purpose; this same Franklin winds up almost every one of his letters in declaring, that you have every thing to fear from her, and that nothing on earth can save you but France! “That gallant nation, whose proffers we have neglected, is the sheet-anchor who sustains our hopes, and should her glorious exertions be incompetent to the great object she has in view, we have little to flatter ourselves with from the faith, honour, or justice of Great Britain. The nation on whom our political existence depends we have treated with indifference bordering on contempt.—Citizens, your only security depends upon France, and by the conduct of your government, that security has become precarious.” Now before I go any further, I shall bring another sentence from Franklin, which will certainly give you a favourable idea of the veracity and consistency of that demagogue. “Insulated as we are, not an enemy near to excite apprehension, and our products such as are indispensable, we need neither the countenance of other countries, nor their support!” What, no enemy near to excite apprehension, no need of support, and yet “France is the sheet-anchor of your hopes!” and yet “your political existence depends upon her,” and yet, because your government has refused to make a common cause with her, “your security has become precarious:” To a hireling writer nothing is so necessary as memory.
If Great Britain had really been so foolish as to form a design upon your independence, and your political existence had depended upon France, it would, I believe, have been at an end long before this time. Citizen Genet was ordered to promise you, that his country would “send to the American ports a sufficient force to put them beyond insult;” but, if they had defended your possessions no better than they have their own, they would have brought you into a poor plight. If the fleet, they were so good as to offer you, had been no more successful than the others they have sent out, it might as well have remained at home, blocked up, as their fleets now are, and left you to the defence of your own privateers. They have given but a poor sample of their protecting talents, either at home or abroad. Letting two-thirds of their colonies be taken from them, and making war upon the rest themselves, is not the way to convince me that you would have been safe under their protection. Nobody but a madman would ever commit his house to the care of a notorious incendiary.
Franklin proceeds exactly in the manner of citizen Genet (of whom he is a pupil, as we shall see by-and-by): First, he tells you that “Great Britain has contemplated either your misery or subjugation, and that armaments were made to this end.” Then he tells you that “France alone has saved you; that she is now fighting your battles; that you owe her much; that she gave you independence, and that she alone is able to preserve it to you.” After this, fearing that these weighty considerations may not have the desired effect, he has recourse to the last trick in the budget of a political mountebank, menaces. He tells you dreadful tales about the resentment of France, and this he makes a third source of danger in treating with Great Britain.
“The conduct of the French republic,” says he, “towards us has been truly magnanimous, and, in all probability, she would have made many sacrifices to preserve us in a state of peace, if we had demeaned ourselves towards her with becoming propriety; but can we calculate upon her attachment, when we have not only slighted but insulted her? To enter into a treaty with Great Britain at this moment, when we have evaded a treaty with France; to treat with an enemy against whom France feels an implacable hatred, an enemy who has neglected no means to desolate that country, and crimson it with blood, is certainly insult.” Then on he goes to terrify you to death. “Citizens of America,” says he, “sovereigns of a free country, your hostility to the French republic (in making a treaty with Great Britain, he means) has lately been spoken of in the National Convention, and a motion for an inquiry into it has been only suspended from prudential motives.—The book of account may soon be opened against you—what then, alas! will be your prospects?—To have your friendship questioned by that nation, is, indeed, alarming!”—There spoke the Frenchman! there broke forth the vanity of that vaunting republic!
The above are certainly the most unfortunate expressions that ever poor demagogue launched forth. What he has here said, completely destroys the position he meant it to support. If you must be so cautious in your demeanour towards the French republic, if you dare treat with no nation against whom she feels an implacable hatred, if to treat with a nation that has endeavoured to desolate that country, is to expose your conduct to an inquiry in the National Convention; if to have your friendship questioned by that nation is an alarming circumstance; if to refuse treating with her, when and how she pleases, is to open the doomsday-book of account against you; if all this be so, I can see no reason for apprehensions on account of your independence, for you are no more than mere colonies of France. Your boasted revolution is no more than a change of masters.
The fact is, as you stand in no need of the protection of France, so you have no cause to fear her resentment. She may grumble curses against you, but speak out she will not. She dares not, she dares not make a second attempt to overturn your Federal Government, by appealing from “the President to the Sovereign People.” You are “the sheetanchor” of her hopes, and not she of yours. To you she clings in her shipwrecked condition, to you her famished legions look for food, and to you her little pop-gun fleets fly for shelter from the thundering foe. What have you then to expect, what to fear from a nation like this? Nothing, alas! but her insidious friendship.
4th. Franklin asserts that it is dishonourable to treat with Great Britain; “because,” says he, “her king is a tyrant that invaded our territory, and carried on war against us.” He seems to have made a small mistake here; for, at the time the king of Great Britain invaded your territory, it was his territory, and you his loving subjects; at least, you all declared so. However, without recalling circumstances, that can be of no use in the present discussion, admitting all that has been said on this subject to be true; that the fault was entirely on the side of Great Britain, that all her conduct was marked with duplicity and cruelty, and all yours with frankness and humanity; admitting all this, and that is admitting a great deal, yet, how long has it become a principle in politics, that a nation, who has once done an injury to another, is never after to be treated with upon a friendly footing? Is this a maxim with any other State in the world? How many times have you seen France and England, after the most bloody contests, enter into an amicable treaty of commerce, for their mutual advantage? Have they not done so since the American war? and will they not do so again as soon as the present war is over? Nay, has not France very lately, unmindful of her promises and oaths, entered into a treaty of amity, and almost alliance, with his Royal Majesty of Prussia, who had invaded her territory, without having the least shadow of excuse for so doing? Is it for you alone, then, to sacrifice your interest to your vengeance, or rather to the vengeance of France? Are you to make everlasting hatred an article of your political creed because she wills it?
To this old grudge, Franklin adds some injuries recently received from Great Britain. The first of these is her depredations on your commerce. To urge the depredations on your commerce as a reason against treating, is to find fault with a thing for being calculated to accomplish