ance with France, correspond with the Abbe's
description of her mind? Does a single instance of her conduct since
that time justify it?--But there is a still better evidence to apply
to, which is, that of all the mails which at different times have been
way-laid on the road, in divers parts of America, and taken and
carried into New-York, and from which the most secret and confidential
private letters, as well as those from authority, have been published,
not one of them, I repeat it, not a single one of them, gives
countenance to such a charge.

This is not a country where men are under government restraint in
speaking; and if there is any kind of restraint, it arises from a fear
of popular resentment. Now, if nothing in her private or public
correspondence favours such a suggestion, and if the general
disposition of the country is such as to make it unsafe for a man to
shew an appearance of joy at any disaster to her ally; on what
grounds, I ask, can the accusation stand? What company the Abbe may
have kept in France, we cannot know; but this we know, that the
account he gives does not apply to America.

Had the Abbe been in America at the time the news arrived of the
disaster of the fleet under Count de Grasse, in the West-Indies, he
would have seen his vast mistake. Neither do I remember any instance,
except the loss of Charlestown, in which the public mind suffered more
severe and pungent concern, or underwent more agitations of hope and
apprehension, as to the truth or falsehood of the report. Had the loss
been all our own, it could not have had a deeper effect; yet it was
not one of those cases which reached to the independence of America.

In the geographical account which the Abbe gives of the Thirteen
States, he is so exceedingly erroneous, that to attempt a particular
refutation, would exceed the limits I have prescribed to myself. And
as it is a matter neither political, historical, nor sentimental, and
which can always be contradicted by the extent and natural
circumstances of the country, I shall pass it over; with this
additional remark, that I never yet saw an European description of
America that was true, neither can any person gain a just idea of it,
but by coming to it.

Though I have already extended this letter beyond what I at first
proposed, I am, nevertheless, obliged to omit many observations I
originally designed to have made. I wish there had been no occasion
for making any. But the wrong