e your own? Can you think that gratitude, the most
endearing disposition of the human heart, is to be argued away by
your dry sophistry? Do you suppose the people of the United States
prudently thumb over Vattel and Pufendorf to ascertain the sum and
substance of their obligations to their generous brethren, the
French? No! no! Each individual will lay his hand on his heart and
find the amount there. He will find that manly glow, both of
gratitude and love, which animated his breast when assisted by this
generous people in establishing his own liberty and shaking off the
yoke of British despotism!

In the _Aurora_ he was denounced as the foe of France and the friend of
Great Britain and Spain, the high priest of tyranny, the bitterest enemy
of the immortal French trio, Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite; the subtle
and Machiavellian adviser of Washington, who, relieved of this
pernicious influence, would acknowledge the debts of gratitude and
follow the will of the American people.

"Are they mad?" he thought, flinging the entire pile into the
waste-basket. "Or are they merely so eager for power and our ruin that
they are indifferent to the fact that the Administration, and the
foundations upon which it stands, never has needed the support of the
people more than now? Can only the party in power afford to be
patriotic? What a spectacle is this, that I, an alien born, am wearing
out my life and sacrificing my character, to save from themselves a
people who pant for my ruin! Has the game been worth the candle? Debt,
my family crowded into a house not half large enough to hold them, my
health almost gone, my reputation, in spite of repeated vindications,
undermined by daily assault--for the fools of the world believe what
they are told, and I cannot compromise my dignity by replying to such
attacks as these; above all, a sickening and constant disgust for life
and human nature! _Is_ the game worth the candle? Had I remained at the
bar, I should have given my family abundance by now; with only the kind
and quantity of enemies that stimulate. It is only politics that rouse
the hellish depths in the human heart. It is true that I have saved the
country, made it prosperous, happy, and honoured. But what guaranty have
I that this state will last beyond the administration of Washington?
With the Republicans in power the whole edifice may be swept away, the
country in a worse plight than be