There is no event, therefore,
however atrocious, which may not be expected. I have contemplated every
event which the Maratists of the day can perpetrate, and am prepared to
meet every one in such a way, as shall not be derogatory either to the
public liberty or my own personal honor. This letter-writer says, I am
'for peace; but it is only with France.' He has told half the truth. He
would have told the whole, if he had added England. I am for peace
with both countries. I know that both of them have given, and are
daily giving, sufficient cause of war; that in defiance of the laws
of nations, they are every day trampling on the rights of the neutral
powers, whenever they can thereby do the least injury, either to the
other. But, as I view a peace between France and England the ensuing
winter to be certain, I have thought it would have been better for us to
have continued to bear from France through the present summer, what we
have been bearing both from her and England these four years, and still
continue to bear from England, and to have required indemnification in
the hour of peace, when I verily believe it would have been yielded
by both. This seems to be the plan of the other neutral nations; and
whether this, or the commencing war on one of them, as we have done,
would have been wisest, time and events must decide.
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