. When you consider the character which is given of our country
by the lying newspapers of London, and their credulous copyers in other
countries; when you reflect, that all Europe is made to believe we are a
lawless banditti, in a state of absolute anarchy, cutting one another's
throats, and plundering without distinction, how could you expect, that
any reasonable creature would venture among us?

Heart. But you and I know, that all this is false: that there is not a
country on earth, where there is greater tranquillity; where the laws
are milder, or better obeyed; where every one is more attentive to his
own business, or meddles less with that of others; where strangers
are better received, more hospitably treated, and with a more sacred
respect.

Head. True, you and I know this, but your friends do not know it.

Heart. But they are sensible people, who think for themselves. They will
ask of impartial foreigners, who have been among us, whether they saw or
heard on the spot any instance of anarchy. They will judge, too, that a
people occupied, as we are, in opening rivers, digging navigable canals,
making roads, building public schools, establishing academies, erecting
busts and statues to our great men, protecting religious freedom,
abolishing sanguinary punishments, reforming and improving our laws in
general; they will judge, I say, for themselves, whether these are not
the occupations of a people at their ease; whether this is not better
evidence of our true state, than a London newspaper, hired to lie, and
from which no truth can ever be extracted, but by reversing every thing
it says.

Head. I did not begin this lecture, my friend, with a view to learn from
you what America is doing. Let us return, then, to our point. I wish to
make you sensible how imprudent it is to place your affections without
reserve on objects you must so soon lose, and whose loss, when it comes,
must cost you such severe pangs. Remember the last night. You knew your
friends were to leave Paris to-day. This was enough to throw you into
agonies. All night you tossed us from one side of the bed to the other;
no sleep, no rest. The poor Crippled wrist, too, never left one moment
in the same position; now up, now down, now here, now there; was it
to be wondered at, if its pains returned? The surgeon then was to be
called, and to be rated as an ignoramus, because he could not divine the
cause of this extraordinary change. In fine, my friend,