n that rejecting the mediation of Spain
would combine that power with France. New mediations might arise more
favourable than those she had refused. But if they should not, and
Spain should join, she still saw that it would only bring out her
naval force against France and Spain, which was wanted and could not
be employed against America, and habits of thinking had taught her to
believe herself superior to both.

But in any case to which the consequence might point, there was
nothing to impress her with the idea of renouncing her duration. It is
not the policy of Europe to suffer the extinction of any power, but
only to lop off, or prevent its dangerous encrease. She was likewise
freed by situation from the internal and immediate horrors of
invasion; was rolling in dissipation, and looking for conquests; and
though she suffered nothing but the expense of war, she still had a
greedy eye to magnificent reimbursement.

But if the Abbe is delighted with high and striking singularities of
character he might, in America, have found ample field for encomium.
Here was a people, who could not know what part the world would take
for, or against them; and who were venturing on an untried scheme, in
opposition to a power, against which more formidable nations had
failed. They had every thing to learn but the principles which
supported them, and every thing to procure that was necessary for
their defense. They have at times seen themselves as low as distress
could make them, without showing the least stagger in their fortitude;
and been raised again by the most unexpected events, without
discovering an unmanly discomposure of joy. To hesitate or to despair
are conditions equally unknown in America. Her mind was prepared for
every thing; because her original and final resolution of succeeding
or perishing included all possible circumstances.

The rejection of the British propositions in the year 1778,
circumstanced as America was at that time, is a far greater instance
of unshaken fortitude than the refusal of the Spanish mediation by the
Court of London: and other historians, besides the Abbe, struck with
the vastness of her conduct therein, have, like himself, attributed it
to a circumstance which was then unknown, the alliance with France.
Their error shows their idea of its greatness; because, in order to
account for it, they have sought a cause suited to its magnitude,
without knowing that the cause existed in the principles