pain, this
union of sentiment gradually disappeared. By one party it was
contended that America could feel no interest in seeing Europe
subjected to any one power. That to such a power, the Atlantic would
afford no impassable barriers; and that no form of government was a
security against national ambition. They, therefore, wished this
series of victories to be interrupted; and that the balance of Europe
should not be absolutely overturned. Additional strength was
undoubtedly given to this course of reasoning by the aggressions of
France on the United States.

In the opinion of the opposite party, the triumphs of France were the
triumphs of liberty. In their view every nation which was subdued, was
a nation liberated from oppression. The fears of danger to the United
States from the further aggrandizement of a single power were treated
as chimerical, because that power being a republic must, consequently,
be the friend of republics in every part of the globe, and a stranger
to that lust of domination which was the characteristic passion of
monarchies. Shifting with address the sentiment really avowed by their
opponents, they ridiculed a solicitude for the existence of a balance
of power in Europe, as an opinion that America ought to embark herself
in the crusade of kings against France in order to preserve that
balance.

* * * * *

NOTE--No. XV. _See Page 326._

The following extract from a letter written to General Knox the day
before the termination of his office, exhibits the sentiments with
which he contemplated this event, and with which he viewed the
unceasing calumnies with which his whole administration continued to
be aspersed.

"To the wearied traveller who sees a resting place, and is bending his
body to lean thereon, I now compare myself; but to be suffered to do
_this_ in peace, is too much to be endured by _some_. To misrepresent
my motives; to reprobate my politics; and to weaken the confidence
which has been reposed in my administration;--are objects which can
not be relinquished by those who will be satisfied with nothing short
of a change in our political system. The consolation, however, which
results from conscious rectitude, and the approving voice of my
country unequivocally expressed by its representatives--deprives their
sting of its poison, and places in the same point of view both the
weakness and the malignity of their efforts.

"Although the prospect of