s, than that
between America and France, and the progress of it is worth attending
to. The countries had been enemies, not properly of themselves, but
through the medium of England. They, originally, had no quarrel with
each other, nor any cause for one, but what arose from the interest of
England, and her arming America against France. At the same time, the
Americans, at a distance from and unacquainted with the world, and
tutored in all the prejudices which governed those who governed them,
conceived it their duty to act as they were taught. In doing this
they expended their substance to make conquests, not for themselves,
but for their masters, who in return, treated them as slaves.

A long succession of insolent severity, and the separation finally
occasioned by the commencement of hostilities at Lexington, on the
19th of April, 1775, naturally produced a new disposition of thinking.
As the mind closed itself towards England, it opened itself toward the
world; and our prejudices, like our oppressions, underwent, though
less observed, a mental examination; until we found the former as
inconsistent with reason and benevolence, as the latter were repugnant
to our civil and political rights.

While we were thus advancing by degrees into the wide field of
extended humanity, the alliance with France was concluded; an alliance
not formed for the mere purpose of a day, but on just and generous
grounds, and with equal and mutual advantages; and the easy
affectionate manner in which the parties have since communicated, has
made it an alliance, not of courts only, but of countries. There is
now an union of mind as well as of interest; and our hearts as well as
our prosperity, call on us to support it.

The people of England not having experienced this change, had likewise
no ideas of it, they were hugging to their bosoms the same prejudices
we were trampling beneath our feet; and they expected to keep a hold
upon America, by that narrowness of thinking which America disdained.
What they were proud of, we despised: and this is a principal cause
why all their negotiations, constructed on this ground, have failed.
We are now really another people, and cannot again go back to
ignorance and prejudice. The mind once enlightened cannot again become
dark. There is no possibility, neither is there any term to express
the supposition by, of the mind unknowing any thing it already knows;
and therefore all attempts on the part of Engla