FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169  
170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   >>   >|  
possibility of a return to our ancient happy concord, arguments for our continuance in this course are drawn from the wretched situation itself into which we have been betrayed. It is said, that, being at war with the colonies, whatever our sentiments might have been before, all ties between us are now dissolved, and all the policy we have left is to strengthen the hands of government to reduce them. On the principle of this argument, the more mischiefs we suffer from any administration, the more our trust in it is to be confirmed. Let them but once get us into a war, and then their power is safe, and an act of oblivion passed for all their misconduct. But is it really true that government is always to be strengthened with the instruments of war, but never furnished with the means of peace? In former times, ministers, I allow, have been sometimes driven by the popular voice to assert by arms the national honor against foreign powers. But the wisdom of the nation has been far more clear, when those ministers have been compelled to consult its interests by treaty. We all know that the sense of the nation obliged the court of Charles the Second to abandon the _Dutch war_: a war, next to the present, the most impolitic which we ever carried on. The good people of England considered Holland as a sort of dependency on this kingdom; they dreaded to drive it to the protection or subject it to the power of France by their own inconsiderate hostility. They paid but little respect to the court jargon of that day; nor were they inflamed by the pretended rivalship of the Dutch in trade,--by the massacre at Amboyna, acted on the stage to provoke the public vengeance,--nor by declamations against the ingratitude of the United Provinces for the benefits England had conferred upon them in their infant state. They were not moved from their evident interest by all these arts; nor was it enough to tell them, they were at war, that they must go through with it, and that the cause of the dispute was lost in the consequences. The people of England were then, as they are now, called upon to make government strong. They thought it a great deal better to make it wise and honest. When I was amongst my constituents at the last summer assizes, I remember that men of all descriptions did then express a very strong desire for peace, and no slight hopes of attaining it from the commission sent out by my Lord Howe. And it is not a little remarkable,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169  
170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
England
 

government

 

people

 
strong
 

ministers

 

nation

 

summer

 

inflamed

 

jargon

 

respect


pretended

 
Amboyna
 

provoke

 
massacre
 
rivalship
 

hostility

 

dependency

 

kingdom

 

express

 

remarkable


Holland

 

dreaded

 

subject

 

France

 

inconsiderate

 
assizes
 

remember

 

protection

 

public

 

declamations


honest

 

slight

 
considered
 

dispute

 

thought

 

desire

 

consequences

 

called

 

Provinces

 

benefits


conferred
 
United
 

constituents

 

vengeance

 

ingratitude

 
descriptions
 

infant

 
attaining
 
interest
 

evident