And your
information supervening, that we might have a liberal accommodation if
we would, there can be little doubt of the reproduction of that general
movement which had been changed, for a moment, by the despatches of
October the 22nd. And though small checks and stops, like Logan's
pretended embassy, may be thrown in the way, from time to time, and
may a little retard its motion, yet the tide is already turned and will
sweep before it all the feeble obstacles of art. The unquestionable
republicanism of the American mind will break through the mist under
which it has been clouded, and will oblige its agents to reform the
principles and practices of their administration.
You suppose, that you have been abused by both parties. As far as has
come to my knowledge, you are misinformed. I have never seen or heard a
sentence of blame uttered against you by the republicans; unless we were
so to construe their wishes that you had more boldly co-operated in a
project of a treaty, and would more explicitly state, whether there was
in your colleagues that flexibility, which persons earnest after peace
would have practised. Whether, on the contrary, their demeanor was not
cold, reserved, and distant, at least, if not backward; and whether, if
they had yielded to those informal conferences which Talleyrand seems to
have courted, the liberal accommodation you suppose, might not have been
effected, even with their agency.
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