fer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty,
British merchants and Americans trading on British capitals,
speculators and holders in the banks and public funds, a contrivance
invented for the purposes of corruption, and for assimilating us in
all things to the rotten as well as sound parts of the British model.
It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have
gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and
Solomons in council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot
England. In short, we are likely to preserve the liberty we have
obtained only by unremitting labours and perils. But we shall preserve
it; and our mass of weight and wealth on the good side is so great as
to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us. We
have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have
been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labours.

"I will forward the testimonials, &c."

[Footnote 73: Vol. iii. p. 327.]

The reader is requested to pause, to reflect on the state of things at
the date of this letter, and to ask himself if its inevitable tendency
be not to strengthen the impression in the Directory of France which
had influenced its conduct towards the United States?--If it be not in
the same spirit with the interpolated sentence, carried to a greater
extreme, and calculated to produce the same effect?--If the editor who
made the interpolation might not reasonably suppose that he was only
applying expressly to France a sentiment already indicated in terms
too plain to be misunderstood?

France and Great Britain were then waging deadly war against each
other. In this mortal conflict, each sought to strengthen herself, or
weaken her adversary by any influence to be acquired over foreign
powers--by obtaining allies when allies were attainable, or securing
neutrality where co-operation was not to be expected. The temper with
which the American people contemplated this awful spectacle can not be
forgotten. The war of our revolution, in which France fought by the
side of America against Great Britain, was fresh in their
recollection. Her unexamined professions of republicanism enlisted all
their affections in her favour, and all their antipathies against the
monarchs with whom she was contending. Feelings which were believed to
be virtuous, and which certainly wore the imposing garb of patriotism,
impelled them w