as only at the last moment
that the measure was resolved on. Thus circumstanced, they naturally
and conscientiously felt a dependence upon providence. They had a clear
pretension to it, and had they failed therein, infidelity had gained a
triumph.

But your condition is the reverse of theirs. Every thing you suffer you
have sought: nay, had you created mischiefs on purpose to inherit
them, you could not have secured your title by a firmer deed. The world
awakens with no pity it your complaints. You felt none for others; you
deserve none for yourselves. Nature does not interest herself in cases
like yours, but, on the contrary, turns from them with dislike, and
abandons them to punishment. You may now present memorials to what court
you please, but so far as America is the object, none will listen.
The policy of Europe, and the propensity there in every mind to curb
insulting ambition, and bring cruelty to judgment, are unitedly against
you; and where nature and interest reinforce with each other, the
compact is too intimate to be dissolved.

Make but the case of others your own, and your own theirs, and you
will then have a clear idea of the whole. Had France acted towards her
colonies as you have done, you would have branded her with every epithet
of abhorrence; and had you, like her, stepped in to succor a struggling
people, all Europe must have echoed with your own applauses. But
entangled in the passion of dispute you see it not as you ought, and
form opinions thereon which suit with no interest but your own. You
wonder that America does not rise in union with you to impose on herself
a portion of your taxes and reduce herself to unconditional submission.
You are amazed that the southern powers of Europe do not assist you
in conquering a country which is afterwards to be turned against
themselves; and that the northern ones do not contribute to reinstate
you in America who already enjoy the market for naval stores by the
separation. You seem surprised that Holland does not pour in her succors
to maintain you mistress of the seas, when her own commerce is suffering
by your act of navigation; or that any country should study her own
interest while yours is on the carpet.

Such excesses of passionate folly, and unjust as well as unwise
resentment, have driven you on, like Pharaoh, to unpitied miseries, and
while the importance of the quarrel shall perpetuate your disgrace, the
flag of America will carry it round the