ny thing can be a lesson to presumption, surely the circumstances
of this war will have their effect. Had Britain been defeated by
any European power, her pride would have drawn consolation from the
importance of her conquerors; but in the present case, she is excelled
by those that she affected to despise, and her own opinions retorting
upon herself, become an aggravation of her disgrace. Misfortune and
experience are lost upon mankind, when they produce neither reflection
nor reformation. Evils, like poisons, have their uses, and there are
diseases which no other remedy can reach. It has been the crime and
folly of England to suppose herself invincible, and that, without
acknowledging or perceiving that a full third of her strength was drawn
from the country she is now at war with. The arm of Britain has been
spoken of as the arm of the Almighty, and she has lived of late as if
she thought the whole world created for her diversion. Her politics,
instead of civilizing, has tended to brutalize mankind, and under the
vain, unmeaning title of "Defender of the Faith," she has made war like
an Indian against the religion of humanity. Her cruelties in the East
Indies will never be forgotten, and it is somewhat remarkable that the
produce of that ruined country, transported to America, should there
kindle up a war to punish the destroyer. The chain is continued,
though with a mysterious kind of uniformity both in the crime and the
punishment. The latter runs parallel with the former, and time and fate
will give it a perfect illustration.

When information is withheld, ignorance becomes a reasonable excuse; and
one would charitably hope that the people of England do not encourage
cruelty from choice but from mistake. Their recluse situation,
surrounded by the sea, preserves them from the calamities of war, and
keeps them in the dark as to the conduct of their own armies. They see
not, therefore they feel not. They tell the tale that is told them and
believe it, and accustomed to no other news than their own, they receive
it, stripped of its horrors and prepared for the palate of the nation,
through the channel of the London Gazette. They are made to believe that
their generals and armies differ from those of other nations, and have
nothing of rudeness or barbarity in them. They suppose them what
they wish them to be. They feel a disgrace in thinking otherwise, and
naturally encourage the belief from a partiality to themselves.