ng backwards and hiding it
with the filial piety of the elder sons of Noah, mocks over it with
the rude and unfeeling bitterness of Canaan; such a man is worthily
impeached, as incompetent to testify. Nay, I put the issue where Mr.
Thompson has put it. If this nation be such as he has described it to
be, I demand, with unanswerable emphasis, how can it dare to call us,
or any other people, to account on any subject whatever? If, on the
other hand, what he has said of this nation be false, I equally demand
how can he be credited in what he says of us--of any other nation
under the sun? After this caveat against all that such a witness could
say, he would in the first place observe, that all the accusations
brought by Mr. Thompson against Americans, were imbued with such
bitterness and intemperance as ought to awaken suspicion in the minds
of all who hear them. There was visible not only a violent national
antipathy against that whole country, but also a strong prejudice in
favor of the one side and against the other in the local parties
there, which, before any impartial tribunal, ought greatly to weaken
any credit that might otherwise be attached to his testimony. Besides
an open hostility to the nation as such, and a most envomed hatred to
certain men, parties, and principles in America, the witness has
exhibited such a wounded feeling of vanity from his want of success in
America; such a glorying of his friends, and that just in proportion
to their subserviency to him, and such a contemptuous and unmerited
depreciation of his opponents, as should put every man who reads or
hears his proofs at once on his guard. As to the opinions and
conclusions of such a person, even from admitted facts, they are of
course worthless; and his inferences from hearsay and idle reports,
worse than trash. But what I mean to say is, that such a witness,
considered strictly as testifying to what he asserts of his own
knowledge, is to be heard by a just man with very great caution. For
my own part, at the risk of being called again a pettifogger, by this
informer, I am bound to say that his conduct impeaches his credibility
fully as much as it has before been shown to affect his competency;
and while I have peculiar knowledge of the facts, sufficient to assert
that his main accusations are false, I fully believe that the case he
had himself made, did of itself justify all good men to draw the same
conclusion, merely from general principles. I