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LETTER 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE 
 
 ABBE RAYNAL, 
 
 ON THE AFFAIRS OF 
 
 NORTH AMERICA; 
 
 IN WHICH 
 
 THE MISTAKES IN THE ABBE'S ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REVOLUTION OF AMERICA, 
 
 ARE CORRECTED AND CLEARED UJP. 
 
 BY THOMAS ) PAINE, 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 PRINTED BY W, T, SHERWIN, 183, FLEET STRET 
 1817. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A LONDON translation of an original work in French, by 
 the. Abbe RAYNAL, which treats of the Revolution of North 
 America, having been reprinted in Philadelphia and other 
 parts of the Continent, and as the distance at which the 
 Abbe is placed from the American theatre of war and po- 
 litics, has occasioned him to mistake several facts, or mis- 
 conceive the causes or principles by which they were pro- 
 duced ; the following tract, therefore, is published with a 
 view to rectify them, and prevent even accidental errors inter- 
 mixing with history, under the sanction of time and silence. 
 
 The Editor of the London edition has entitled it, " The 
 Revolution of America, by the ABBE RAYNAL," and the 
 American printers have followed the example. But I have 
 understood, and I believe my information to bejust, that the 
 piece, which is more properly reflections on the Revolution, 
 was unfairly purloined from the printer which the Abbe 
 employed, or from the manuscript copy, and is only part of 
 a larger work then in the press, or preparing for it. The 
 person who procured it, appears to have been an English- 
 man ; and though, in an advertisement prefixed to the Lon-^ 
 don edition, he has endeavoured to gloss over the embez- 
 zlement with professions of patriotism, and to soften it with, 
 high encomiums on the author, yet the action, in any view 
 in which it can be placed, is illiberal and unpardonable. 
 
 " In the course of his travels," says he, " the translator 
 happily succeeded in obtaining a copy of this exquisite little 
 piece, which has not yet made its appearance from any 
 press." He publishes a French edition, in favour of those 
 who will feel its eloquent reasoning more forcibly in its na- 
 tive language, at the same time with the following transla- 
 tion of it; in which he bas been desirous, perhaps, in vain. 
 
 y 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that all the warmth, the grace, the strength, the dignity of 
 the original, should uot be lost. And he flatters himself, 
 that the indulgence of the illustrious historian will not be 
 \vauting to a man who, of his own motion, has taken the 
 liberty to give this composition to the public, " only from a 
 strong persuation, that this momentous argument will be 
 useful, in a critical conjecture, to that country which he 
 loves with an ajrdour that can be exceeded only by the no- 
 bkr flame which burns in the bosom of the philanthropic 
 author, for the freedom and happiness of all the countries 
 upon earth." 
 
 This plausibility of setting off a dishonourable action, 
 may pass for patriotism and sound principles with those 
 who do not enter into its demerits, and whose interest is 
 not injured, nor their happiness affected thereby. But it is 
 more than probable, notwithstanding the declarations it con- 
 tains, that the copy was obtained for the sake of profiting 
 by the sale of a new and popular work, and that the profes- 
 sions are but a garb to the fraud. 
 
 It may, with propriety, be remarked, that in all countries 
 where literature is (protected, and it never can flourish 
 where it is not,) the works of an author are his legal proper- 
 ty ; and to treat letters in any other light than this, is to 
 banish them from the country, or strangle them in the birth. 
 The embezzlement from the Abbe RAYNAL was, it is true, 
 committed by one country upon another, and, therefore, 
 shews no defect in the laws of either. But it is nevertheless 
 a breach of civil manners and literary justice; neither can 
 it beany apology, that because the countries are at war, 
 literature shall be entitled to depredation.* 
 
 * The state of literature in America must one day become a 
 subject of legislative consideration. Hitherto it hath been a dis- 
 interested volunteer in the service of the Revolution, and no man 
 thought of profits ; but when peace shall give time and opportu- 
 nity for study, the country will deprive itself of the honour and 
 service of letters, and the improvement of science, unless sufficient 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 But the forestalling the Abbe's publication by London 
 editions, both in French and English, and thereby not only 
 defrauding him, and throwing an expensive publication on 
 his hands, by anticipating the sale, are only the smaller in- 
 juries which such conduct mny occasion. A man's opinions, 
 whether written, or in thought, are his own until he pleases 
 to publish them himself; and it is adding cruelty to injus- 
 tice to make him the author of what future reflection or 
 better information might occasion him to suppress or amend. 
 There are declarations and sentiments in the Abbe's piece, 
 which, for my own part, I did not expect to find, and such 
 as himself, on a revisal, might have seen occasion to change, 
 but the anticipated piracy effectually prevented him the op- 
 portunity, arid precipitated him into difficulties, which, had 
 it not been for such ungenerous fraud, might not have hap- 
 pened. 
 
 This mode of making an author appear before his time, 
 will appear still more ungenerous, when we consider how 
 exceedingly few men there are in nny country, who can at 
 once, and without the aid of reflection and revisal, combine 
 warm passions with a cool temper, and the full expansion of 
 imagination, with the natural and necessary gravity of judg- 
 ment, so as to be rightly balanced within themselves, and to 
 make a reader feel, fancy, and understand justly, at the same 
 time. To call three powers of the mind into action at once, 
 in a manner that neither shall interrupt, and that each shall 
 aid and vigorate the other, is a talent very rarely possessed. 
 
 It often happens, that the weight of an argument is lost 
 by the wit of setting it off, or the judgment disordered by 
 an intemperate irritation of the passions : yet a certain de- 
 
 laws are made to prevent depredation on literary property. It is 
 well worth remarking, that Russia, who, but a few years ago, was 
 scarcely known ia Europe, owes a large share of her present great- 
 ness to the close attention she has paid, and the wise encourage- 
 ment she has given to every brunch of science and learning : and 
 we have almost the same instance in France, in the re'gn of Lewis 
 XIV. 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 gree of animation must be felt by the writer, and raised in 
 the reader, in order to interest the attention; and a suffi- 
 cient scope given to the imagination, to enable it to create 
 in the mind a sight of the persons, characters, and circum- 
 stances of the subject; for without these, the judgment will 
 feel little or no excitement to office, and its determinations 
 wtSl be cold, sluggish, and imperfect. But if either or both 
 of the two former are raised too high, or heated too much, 
 the judgment will be jostled from its seat, and the whole 
 matter, however important in itself, will diminish into a pan- 
 tomime of the mind, in which we create images that pro- 
 mote no other purpose than amusement. 
 
 The Abbe's writings bear evident marks of that extension 
 and rapidness of thinking, and quickness of sensation, which, 
 of all others, require revisal, and the more particularly so, 
 when applied to the living characters, of Nations or indivi- 
 duals in a state of war. The least misinformation or miscon- 
 ception leads to some wrong conclusion, and an error believ- 
 ed becomes the progenitor of others. Audits the Abbe has 
 suffered some inconveniences in France, by mis-stating certain 
 circumstances of the war, and the characters of the parties 
 therein, it becomes some apology for him,, that those errors 
 were precipitated into the world by the avarice of an unge- 
 nerous enemy. 
 
A LETTER, 
 
 To an Author of such distinguished reputation as the 
 Abbe RAYNAL, it might very well become me to apologize 
 for the present undertaking; but, as to be right is the first 
 wish of philosophy, and the first principle of history, he will, 
 I presume, accept from me a declaration of my motives, 
 which are those of doing justice, in preference to any com- 
 plimental apology, I might otherwise make. The Abbe, 
 in the course of his work, has in some instances extolled, 
 without a reason, and wounded without a cause. He has 
 given fame where it was not deserved, and withheld it 
 where it was justly due; and appears to be so frequently 
 in and out of temper with his subjects and parties, that few 
 or none of them are decisively and uniformly marked. 
 
 It is yet too soon to write the history of the Revolu- 
 tion; and whoever attempts it precipitately, will unavoid- 
 ably mistake characters and circumstances, and involve 
 himself in error and difficulty. Things, like men are seldom 
 understood rightly at first sight. But the Abbe is wrong 
 even in the foundation of his work; that is, he has miscon- 
 ceived and mis-stated the causes which produced the rupture 
 between England and her then colonies, and which led on, 
 step by step, unstudied and uncontrived on the part of 
 America, to a Revolution, which has engaged the attention, 
 and affected the interest of Europe. 
 
 To prove this, I shall bring forward a passage, which, 
 though placed towards the latter part of the Abbe's work, 
 is more intimately connected with the beginning; and in 
 which, speaking of the original cause of the dispute, he 
 declares himself in the following manner 
 
 " None," says he, " of those energetic causes, which 
 
8 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 have produced so many Revolutions upon the globe, existed 
 in North-America. Neither religion nor laws had there 
 been outraged. The blood of martyrs or patriots had not 
 there streamed from scaffolds. Morals had not there been 
 insulted. Manners, customs, habits, no object dear to Na- 
 tions, had there been the sport of ridicule. Arbitrary 
 power had not there torn any inhabitant from the arms of 
 his family and his friends, to drag him to a dreary dungeon. 
 Public order had not been there inverted. The principles 
 of administration had not been changed there; and the 
 maxims of Government had there always remained the 
 same. The whole question was reduced to the knowing 
 whether the mother country had, or had not a right to lay, 
 directly or indirectly, a slight tax upon the colonies." 
 
 On this extraordinary passage, it may not be improper, 
 in general terms, to remark, that none can feel like those 
 who suffer; and that for a man to be a competent judge of 
 the provocative, or, as the Abbe styles them, the energetic 
 causes of the Revolution, he must have resided in America. 
 
 The Abbe, in saying that the several particulars he has 
 enumerated did not exist in America, and neglecting to 
 point out the particular period in which he means they did 
 not exist, reduces thereby his declaration to a nullity by 
 taking away all meaning from the passage. 
 
 They did not exist in 1753, and they all existed before 
 1776; consequently, as there was a time when they did tiat, 
 and another when they did exist, the time when constitutes 
 the essence of the fact ; and not to give it, is to withhold 
 the only evidence, which proves the declaration right or 
 wrong, and on which it must stand or fall. But the decla- 
 ration, as it now appears, uaccompanied by time, has an 
 effect in holding out to the world, that there was no real 
 cause for the Revolution, because it denies the existence of 
 all those causes which are supposed to be justifiable, and 
 which the Abbe styles energetic. 
 
 I confess myself exceedingly at a loss to find out the 
 time to which the Abbe alludes ; because, in another part 
 of the work, in speaking of the Stamp Act, which was passed 
 in 1764, he styles it, " An usurpation of the Americans' most 
 precious and sacred rights." Consequently he here admits 
 the most energetic of all causes, that is, an usurpation of the 
 most precious and sacred rights, to have existed in America 
 twelve years before the Declaration of Independence, and ten 
 years before the breaking out of hostilities. The time, 
 therefore, in which the paragraph is true, must be antece- 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 9 
 
 dent to the Stamp Act; but as at that time there was no 
 revolution, nor any idea of one, it consequently applies 
 without a meaning; and as it cannot, on the Abbe's own 
 principle, be applied to any time after the Stamp Act ; it is 
 therefore a wandering solitary paragraph, connected vvitli 
 nothing, and at variance with every thing. 
 
 The Stamp Act, it is true, was repealed in two years after 
 it was passed ; but it was immediately followed by one of 
 infinitely more mischievous magnitude, I mean the Decla- 
 ratory Act, which asserted the right, as it was styled, of the 
 British Parliament, " to hind Americain all cases whatsoever'' 
 
 If, then, the Stamp Act was an " usurpation of the Ame- 
 ricans' most precious and sacred rights," the Declaratory Act 
 left them no rights at all ; and contained the full grown seeds 
 of the most despotic Government that ever existed in the 
 world. It placed America not only in the lowest, but in 
 the basest state of vassalage ; because it demanded an un- 
 conditional submission in every thins, or, as the Act ex- 
 presses it, in all cases whatsoever : and what renders this Act 
 the more offensive, is, that it appears to have been passed as 
 an act of mercy ; truly, then, it may be said, that the tender 
 mercies of the uicked are cruel. 
 
 All the original Charters from the Crown of England, 
 under the faith of which, the adventurers from the old 
 world settled in the new, were by this act displaced from 
 their foundations; because, contrary to the nature of them, 
 which was that of a compact, they were now made subject 
 to repeal or alteration, at the mere will of one party only. 
 The whole condition of America was thus put into the 
 hands of the Parliament or the Ministry, without leaving 
 to her the least right in any case whatsoever. 
 
 There is no despotism to which this iniquitous law did 
 not extend; and though it might have been convenient, in 
 the execution of it, to have consulted manners and habits, 
 the principle of the act made all tyranny legal. It stopped no 
 where. It went to every thing. It took in with it the 
 whole life of a man, or, if I may so express it, an eternity 
 of circumstances. It is the nature of law to require obe- 
 dience, but this demanded servitude; and the condition of 
 an American, under the operation of it, was not that of a 
 subject, but a vassal. Tyranny has often been established 
 without law, and sometimes against it, but the history of 
 mankind does not produce another instance in which it bus 
 been established by law. It is an audacious outrage upon 
 . 
 
10 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAX. 
 
 Civil Government, and cannot be too much exposed, in order 
 to be sufficiently detected. 
 
 Neither could it be said after this, that the legislature of 
 that country any longer made laws for this, but that it gave 
 out commands; for wherein differed an Act of Parliament 
 constructed on this principle, and operating in this manner, 
 over an unrepresented people, from the orders of a military 
 establishment ? 
 
 The Parliament of England with respect to America, 
 was not septennial but perpetual. It appeared to the latter 
 a body always in being. Its election or its < xpiration were 
 to her the same as if its members succeeded by inheritance, 
 or went out by death, or lived for ever, or were appointed 
 to it as a matter of office. Therefore, for the people of 
 England to have any just conception of the mind of Ame- 
 rica, respecting this extraordinary act, they must suppose 
 all election and expiration in that country to cease for ever, 
 and the present Parliament, its heirs, &c. to be perpetual; 
 in this case, I ask, what would the most clamorous of them 
 think, were an act to be passed, declaring the right oi 'suck 
 a Parliament to bind them in all cases whatsover? For this 
 word whatsoever would go as effectually to their Magna 
 Ckarta, Bill of Rig/its, Trial by Juries, &c. as it went to "the 
 charters and ibrms of Government in America. 
 
 I am persuaded, that the Gentleman to whom I address 
 these remarks, will not, after, the passing this act, say, 
 *' That the principles of administration h?d not been changed 
 in America, and that the maxims of Government had 
 there been always the same" For here is, in principle, a 
 total overthrow of the whole, and not a subversion only, 
 but an annihilation of the foundation of liberty, and abso- 
 lute domination established in its stead. 
 
 The Abbe likewise states the case exceedingly wrong and 
 injuriously, when he says, " that the wlwle. question was 
 reduced to the knowing whether the mother country had, 
 or had not, a right to lay, directly or indirectly, a slight tax 
 upon the colonies." Tins was not thetchole of the question ; 
 neither was the quantity of the tax the object, either to the 
 Ministry, or to the Americans. It was the principle, of 
 which the tax made but a part, and the quantity still less, 
 that formed the ground on which America opposed. 
 
 T!-i' tax on tea, which is the tax here alluded to, was 
 neither vnore or less than an experiment to establish the 
 practice of the Declaratory Law upon; modelled into the 
 more fashionable phrase of the universal supremacy of Par- 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYXAL. I I 
 
 liament. For, until this time, the Declaratory Law had lain 
 dormant, and the framers of it had contented themselves 
 with barely declaring an opinion. 
 
 Therefore the whole question with America, in the open- 
 ing of the dispute, was, shall we be bound in all cases what- 
 soever by the British Parliament, or shall we not? For 
 submission to the tea or tax act, implied an acknowledge- 
 ment of the Declaratory Act, or, in other words, to the 
 universal supremacy of Parliament, which, us they nevei 
 intended to do, it was necessary they should oppose it, iu 
 its first stage of execution. 
 
 It is probable, the Abbe has been led into this mistake 
 by perusing detached pieces in ?of!ieof the American news- 
 papers; for, in a case where all were interested, every one 
 had a right to give his opinion; and there were many who, 
 with the best intentions, did not chuse the best, nor indeed 
 the true ground, to defend their cause upon. They felt 
 themselves right by a general impulse, without being able 
 to separate, analyze, and arrange the parts. 
 
 I am somewhat unwilling to examine too minutely into 
 the whole of this extraordinary passage of the Abbe, lest I 
 should appear to treat it with severity ; otherwise I could 
 shew that not a single declaration is justly founded; for 
 instance, the reviving an obsolete act of the reign of Henry 
 the Eighth, and fitting it to the Americans, by authority of 
 which they were to be seized and brought from America to 
 England, and there imprisoned and tried for any supposed 
 offences, was, in the worse sense of the words, to tear them, 
 It/ /he arbitrary power of Parliament from the arms of their 
 families and friends, and drag them not only to dreary, but 
 <li<l.(int dungeons. Yet this act was contrived some years 
 before the breaking out of hostilities. And again, though 
 the blood of martyrs and patriots had not streamed on the 
 scaffolds, it streamed in the streets, in the massacre of the 
 inhabitants of Boston, by the British soldiery, in the year 
 1770. 
 
 Had the Abbe said that the causes which produced 
 the Revolution in America were originally different from 
 those which produced Revolutions in other parts of the 
 globe, he had been right. Here the value and quality of 
 liberty, the nature of Government, and the dignity of man 
 were known and understood, and the attachment of the 
 Americans to these principles produced the Revolution as a 
 natural and almost unavoidable consequence. They had no 
 particular family to set up or pull down. Nothing of per- 
 sonality \vas incorporated with their cause. They started 
 
12 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 even-banded with each other, and went no faster into the 
 several stages ot'it, than they were driven by the unrelenting 
 and imperious conduct of Britain. Nay, in the last act, the 
 Declaration of Independence, they had nearly been too late; 
 for had it not been declared at the exact time it was, I have 
 seen no period in their affairs since, in which it could have 
 been declared with the same effect, and probably not at all. 
 
 But the object being formed before the reverse of fortune 
 took place, that is before the operations of the gloomy 
 campaign of 1770, their honour, their interest, their every 
 thing, called loudly on them to maintain it; and that glow 
 of thought, and energy of heart, which even a distant pros- 
 pect of Independence inspires, gave confidence to their 
 hopes and resolution to their conduct, which a state of de- 
 pendence could never have reached. They Igoked forward 
 to happier days and scenes of rest, and qualified the hard- 
 ships of the campaign by contemplating the establishment 
 of their new-born system. 
 
 If on the other hand, we take a review of what part 
 Britain has acted, we shall find every thing which ought to 
 make a Nation blush. The most vulgar abuse, accompa- 
 nied by that species of haughtiness, which distinguishes the 
 hero of a mob from the character of a Gentleman : it was 
 equally as much from her manners, as from her injustice 
 that she lost the colonies. By the latter she provoked their 
 principles, by the former she wore out their temper; and 
 it ought to be held out as an example to the world, to shew, 
 how necessary it is to conduct the business of Government 
 with civility. In short, other Revolutions may have origi- 
 nated in caprice, or generated in ambition; but here, the 
 most unoffending humility was tortured into rage, and the 
 infancy of existence made to weep. 
 
 An union so extensive, continued and determined, suffering 
 with patience and never in despair, could not have been 
 produced by common causes. It must be something capable 
 of reaching the whole soul of man, and arming it with 
 perpetual energy. In vain it is to look for precedents 
 among the Revolutions of former ages, to find out, by com- 
 parison, the causes of this. The spring, the progress, the 
 object, the consequences, nay the men, their habits of 
 thinking, and all the circumstances of the country, aie 
 different. Those of other Nations are, in general, little 
 more than the history of their quarrels. They are marked 
 by no important character in the annals of events; mixed in 
 the mass of general matters they occupy but a common 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 13 
 
 page ; and while the chief of the successful partisans stepped 
 into power, the plundered multitude sat down and sorrowed. 
 Few, very few of them are accompanied with reformation, 
 either in Government or manners; many of them with the 
 most consummate profligacy. Triumph on the one side 
 and misery on the other were the only events. Pains, 
 punishments, torture, and death were made the business of 
 mankind, until compassion, the fairest associate of the 
 heart, was driven from its place, and the eye, accustomed to 
 continual cruelty, could behold it without offence. 
 
 But as the principles of the present Revolution differed 
 from those which preceded it, so likewise has the conduct 
 of America both in Government and war. Neither the 
 foul finger of disgrace nor the bloody hand of vengeance 
 has hitherto put a blot upon her fame. Her victories have 
 received lustre from a greatness of lenity ; and her laws 
 been permitted to slumber, where they might justly have 
 awakened to punish. War, so much the trade of the world, 
 has here been only the business of necessity ; and when the 
 necessity shall cease, her very enemies must confess, that 
 as she drew the sword in her just defence, she used it 
 without cruelty, and sheathed it without revenge. 
 
 As it is not my design to extend these remarks to an his- 
 tory, I shall now take my leave of this passage of the Abbe, 
 with an observation, which, until something unfolds itself 
 to convince me otherwise, I cannot avoid believing to be 
 true; which is, that it was the first determination of the 
 British Cabinet to quarrel with America at nil events. 
 
 They, (the members who compose the Cabinet) had no 
 doubt of success, if they could once^ring it to the issue of 
 a battle; and they expected from a conquest what they 
 could neither propose with decency, nor hope for by nego- 
 ciation. The Charters and Constitutions of the colonies were 
 become to them matters of oifence, and their rapid progress 
 in property and population were disgustingly beheld as the 
 growing and natural means of independence. They saw no 
 way to retain them long, but by reducing them in time. 
 A conquest would at once have made them both lords and 
 landlords, and put them in possession both of the revenue and 
 the rental. The whole trouble of Government would have 
 ceased in a victory, and a final end been put to remonstrance 
 and debate. The experience of the Stamp Act had taught 
 them how to quarrel with the advantages of cover and con- 
 venience, and they had nothing to do but to renew the 
 scene, and put contention into motion, They hoped for a 
 
14 LETTER TO THE AIBE RAYNAL. 
 
 rebellion and they made one. They expected a Declaration 
 of Independence, and they were not disappointed. But, 
 after this, they looked for victory, arid gained a defeat. 
 
 If this be taken as the generating cause of the contest, 
 then is every part of the conduct of the British Ministry 
 consistent, from the commencement of the dispute, until the 
 signing the treaty of Paris, after which, conquest becoming 
 doubtful, they retreated to negociation, and were again 
 defeated. 
 
 Though the Abbe possesses and displays great powers of 
 genius, and is a master of style and language, he seems not 
 to pay equal attention to the office of an historian. His 
 facts are coldly and carelessly stated. They neither inform 
 the reader, nor interest him. Many of them are erroneous, 
 and most of them defective and obscure. It is undoubtedly 
 both an ornament and an useful addition to history, to accom- 
 pany it with maxims and reflections. They atl'ord, like- 
 wise, an agreeable change to the style, and a more diversi- 
 fied manner of expression; but it is absolutely necessary 
 that the root from whence they spring, or the foundation 
 on which they are raised, should be well attended to, which 
 in this work they are not. The Abbe hastens through his 
 narrations as if he way glad to get from them, that Ire may 
 enter the more copious field of eloquence and imagination. 
 
 The actions of Trenton and Princeton, in New Jersey, in 
 December, 1770, and January following, on which the fate 
 of America stood for a while, trembling on the point of sus- 
 pense, and from which the most important consequences 
 followed, are comprised within a single paragraph, faintly 
 conceived, and barren of character, circumstance, and de- 
 scription. 
 
 " On the 25th of December," says the Abbe, " they (the 
 Americans) crossed tiie Delaware, and fell, accidentally, 
 upon Trenton, which was occupied by fifteen hundred of 
 the twelve thousand Hessians, sold in so base a manner by 
 their avaricious master, to the King of Great Britain. Tins 
 corps was massacred, taken, or dispeised. Eight days after, 
 three English regiments were, in like manner, driven from 
 Princeton ; but after having better supported their reputa- 
 tion than the foreign troops iu their py." 
 
 This is all the account which is given of these most in- 
 teresting events. The Abbe has preceded them by two 01 
 three pages, on the military operations of both armies, from 
 the time of General Howe arriving before New York, from 
 Halifax, and the vast reinforcements of British and foreign 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 15 
 
 troops with Lord Howe from England. But in these there 
 is so much mistake, and so many omissions, that, to set them 
 right, must be the business of history, and not of a letter. 
 The action of Long-Island is but barely hinted at; and the 
 operations at the White Plains wholly omitted : as are like- 
 wise, the attack and loss of Fort Washington, with a garri- 
 son of about two thousand five hundred men, and the preci- 
 pitate evacuation of Fort Lee, in consequence thereof; 
 which losses were, in a great measure, the cause of the re- 
 treat through the Jerseys, to the Delaware, a distance of 
 about ninety miles. Neither is the manner of the retrtat 
 described, which, from the season of the year, the nature of 
 the country, the nearness of the two armies, {sometimes 
 within sight and shot of each other for such a length of 
 way) the rear of the one employed in pulling down bridges, 
 and the van of the other in building them up, must necessa- 
 rily be accompanied with many interesting circumstances. 
 
 It was a period of distresses. A crisis rather of danger than 
 of hope: there is no description can do it justice; and even 
 the actors in it, looking back upon the scene, are surprised 
 how they got through ; and at a loss to account for those 
 powers of the mind, and springs of animation, by which 
 they withstood the force of accumulated misfortune. 
 
 It was expected, that the time for which the army was 
 enlisted, would carry the campaign so far into winter, that 
 the severity of the season, and the consequent condition of 
 the roads, would prevent any material operation of the ene- 
 my, until the new army could be raised for the next year. 
 And I mention it, as a matter worthy of attention by all fu- 
 ture historians, that the movements of the American army, 
 until the attack upon the Hessian post at Trenton, the 2(>tU 
 of December, are to be considered as operating to effect no 
 other principal purpose than delay, and to wear away the 
 campaign under all the disadvantages of an unequal force, 
 with as little misfortune as possible. 
 
 But the loss of the garrison at Fort Washington, on the 
 16th of November, and the expiration of the time of a con- 
 siderable part of the army, so early as the 30th of the same 
 month, and which were to be followed by almost daily ex- 
 pirations afterwards, made retreat the only final expedient. 
 To these circumstances, may be added, the forlorn and des- 
 titute condition of the few that remained ; for the garrison 
 at Fort Lee, which composed almost the whole of the re- 
 treat, had been obliged to abandon it so instantaneously, that 
 every article of stores and baggage was left behind, and in 
 
16 LE1TER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 this destitute condition, without tent, or blanket, and with- 
 out aoy other utensils to dress their provisions, than what 
 they procured by the way, they performed a march of 
 about ninety miles, and had the address and management to 
 prolong it to the space of nineteen days. 
 
 By this unexpected, or rather, unthought-of turn of affairs, 
 the country was, in an instant, surprised into confusion, and 
 found an enemy within its bowels, without an army to op- 
 pose him. There were no succours to be had, but from the 
 free-will offering of the inhabitants. All was choice, and 
 every man reasoned for himself. 
 
 It was in this situation of affairs, equally calculated to 
 confound, or to inspire, that the gentleman, the merchant, 
 the farmer, the tradesman, and the labourer, mutually turn- 
 ed out from all the conveniencies of home, to perform the 
 duties of private soldiers, and undergo the severities of a 
 winter campaign. The delay, so judiciously contrived o 
 the retreat, afforded time for the volunteer reinforcements to 
 join General Washington on the Delaware. 
 
 The Abbe is likewise wrong in saying, that the American 
 army fell, accidentally, on Trenton. It was the very object 
 for which General Washington crossed the Delaware in the 
 dead of night, and in the midst of snow, storms, and ice; 
 and which he immediately re-crossed with his prisoners, as 
 soon as he had accomplished his purpose. Neither was the 
 intended enterprize a secret to the enemy, information hav- 
 ing been sent of it, by letter, from a British Officer, at 
 Princeton, to Colonel Rolle, who commanded the Hessians 
 at Trenton, which letter was afterwards found by the Ame- 
 ricans. Nevertheless, the post was completely surprised. 
 A small circumstance, which had the appearance of mistake 
 on the part of the Americans, led to a more capital and real 
 mistake on the part of Rolle. 
 
 The case was this: A detachment of twenty or thirty 
 Americans had been sent across the river from a post, a few 
 miles above, by an officer unacquainted with the intended 
 attack; these were met by a body of Hessians on the night, 
 to which the information pointed, which was Christmas 
 night, and repulsed. Nothing further appearing, and the 
 Hessians mistaking this for the advanced party, supposed 
 the enterprise disconcerted, which at that time was not 
 began, and under this idea returned to their quarters ; so 
 that, what might have raised an alarm, and brought the 
 Americans into an ambuscade, served to take off the force of 
 an information, and promote the success of the enteprize. 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAt, 11 
 
 Soon after day-light General Washington entered the tovyn* 
 and after a little opposition, made himself master of it, with 
 upwards of nine hundred prisoners. 
 
 This combination of equivocal circumstances, falling 
 within what the Abbe styles " the wide empire of chance" 
 would have afforded a fine field for thought; and I wish 
 for the sake of that elegance of reflection he is so capable o 
 using, that he had known it. 
 
 But the action at Princeton was accompanied by a still 
 greater embarrassment of matters, and followed by more 
 extraordinary consequences. The Americans, by a happy 
 stroke of generalship, in this instance, not only deranged and 
 defeated all the plans of the British, in the intended mo- 
 inent of execution, but drew from their posts the enemy 
 they were not able to drive, and obliged them to close the 
 campaign. As the circumstance is a curiosity in war, and 
 not well understood in Europe, I shall, as concisely as I can, 
 relate the principal parts; they may serve to prevent future 
 historians from error, and recover from forgetfulness a scene 
 of magnificent fortitude. 
 
 Immediately after the surprise ofthe Hessians at Trenton, 
 General Washington recrossed the Delaware, which at this 
 place is about three quarters of a mile over, and re-assumed 
 his former post on the Pennsylvania side. Trenton remained 
 unoccupied, and the enemy were posted at Princeton, twelve 
 miles distant, on the road towards New York. The weather 
 was now growing very severe, and as there were very few 
 houses near the shore where General Washington had taken, 
 his station, the greatest part of his army remained out in 
 the woods and fields. These, with some other circumstances 
 induced the re-crossing the Delaware, and taking possession 
 of Trenton. It was undoubtedly a bold adventure, and 
 carried with it the appearance of defiance, especially when 
 we consider the panic-struck condition of the enemy on the 
 loss of the Hessian post. But in order to give a just idea 
 the affair, it is necessary I should describe the place. 
 
 Trenton is situated on a rising ground, about three quar- 
 ters of a mile distant from the Delaware, on the eastern or 
 Jersey side ; and is cut into two divisions by a small creek 
 or rivulet, sufficient to turn a mill which is on it, after which, 
 it empties itself at nearly right angles into the Delaware. 
 The upper division, which is to the north-east, contains 
 about seventy or eighty houses, and the lower, about forty 
 or fifty. The ground on each side of this creek, and on 
 which the houses are, is likewise rising, and the two divi- 
 
 B 
 
Itf LETTER XO THE ABBE RAYNAl. 
 
 ioBs present an agreeableprospect to each other, with r th 
 creek between, on which there is a small stone bridge of one 
 arch. 
 
 Scarcely had General Washington taken post here, and 
 before the aeveral parties of militia, out on detachments, or 
 on their way, could be collected, than the British, leaving 
 behind them a strong garrison at Princeton, nuirched sud- 
 denly, and entered Trenton at the upper or north-east quar- 
 ter. A party of the Americans skirmished with the ad- 
 vanced party of the British, to afford time for removing the 
 stores and baggage, and withdrawing over the bridge. 
 
 In a little time the British had possession of one half of 
 the town, General Washington of the other, and the creek 
 only separated the two armies. Nothing could he a more 
 critical situation than this; and if ever the fate of America 
 depended upon the event of a day, it was now. The Dela- 
 ware was filling fast with large sheets of driving ice, and 
 was impassable, so that no retreat into Pennsylvania could 
 be effected, neither is it possible, in the face of an enemy, 
 to pass a river of such extent. The roads were broken and 
 rugged with the frost, and the main road was occupied by 
 the enemy. 
 
 About four o'clock a party of the British approached the 
 bridge, with a design to gain it, but were repulsed. They 
 made no more attempts, though the creek is passable any 
 where between the bridge and the Delaware. It runs in a 
 rugged natural-made ditch, over which a person may pass 
 with little difficulty, the stream being rapid and shallow. 
 Evening was now coming on, and the British, believing they 
 had all the advantages they could wish for, and that they 
 could use them when they pleased, discontinued all further 
 operations, and held themselves prepared to make the at- 
 tack next morning. 
 
 But the next morning produced a scene, as elegant as it 
 was unexpected. The British were under arms and ready 
 to march to action, when one of their light-horse from 
 Princeton came furiously down the street, with an account 
 that General Washington had that morning attacked and 
 carried the British post at that place, and was proceeding ou 
 to seize the magazine at Brunswick ; on which the British, 
 who were then on the point of making an assault on the 
 evacuated camp of the Americans, wheeled about, and in 
 a fit of consternation marched for Princeton. 
 
 This retreat is one of those extraordinary circumstances, 
 that ifl future ages Jay probably pass for fable. For it will 
 
TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 1$ 
 
 with difficulty be believed that two armies, on which such 
 important consequences depended, should be crowded into 
 so small a space as Trenton ; and that the one, on the eve 
 of an engagement, when every ear is supposed to be open, 
 and every watchfulness employed, should move complete!/ 
 from the ground, with all its stores, baggage and artillery, 
 unknown and even unsuspected by the other. And so en- 
 tirely were the British deceived, that when they heard the 
 report of the cannon and small arms at Princeton, they sup- 
 posed it to be thunder, though in the depth of winter. 
 
 General Washington, the better to cover and disguise his 
 retreat from Trenton, had ordered a line of fires to be lighted 
 up in front of his camp. These not only served to give an 
 appearance of going to rest, and continuing that deception, 
 but they effectually concealed from the British whatever 
 was acting behind them, for flame can no more be seen, 
 through than a wall, and in this situation, it may with some 
 propriety be said, they became a pillar of fire to the one 
 army, and a pillar of cloud to the other : after this, by a 
 circuitous march of about eighteen miles, the Americans 
 reached Princeton early in the morning. 
 
 The number of prisoners taken were between two and 
 three hundred, with which General Washington immedi-* 
 ately set oft'. The van of the British army from Trenton* 
 entered Princeton about an hour after the Americans had 
 left it, who, continuing their march for the remainder of 
 the day, arrived in the evening at a convenient situation, 
 wide of the main road to Brunswick, and about sixteen 
 miles distant from Princeton. But so wearied and exhausted 
 were they, with the continual and unabated service and 
 fatigue of two days and a night, from action to action, 
 without shelter and almost without refreshment, that the 
 bare and frozen ground, with no other covering than the 
 sky, became to them a place of comfortable rest. By these 
 two events, and with but little comparative force to accom-. 
 plish them, the Americans closed with advantage, a cam- 
 paign, which but a few days before threatened the country 
 with destruction. The British army, apprehensive for the 
 safety of their magazines at Brunswick, eighteen miles dis- 
 tant, marched immediately for that place, where they 
 arrived late in the evening, and from which they made no 
 attempts to move for nearly five months. 
 
 Having thus stated the principal outlines of these two 
 most interesting actions, I shall now quit them, to put the 
 Abbe right in his mis-stated account of the debt and paper 
 
 B 2 
 
2a BETTER TO THE ABEE HAYNAL* 
 
 money of America, wherein, speaking of these matters, 
 he says, 
 
 " These ideal riches were rejected. The more the multi- 
 plication of them was urged by want, the greater did their 
 depreciation grow. The Congress was indignant at the af- 
 fronts given to its money, and declared all those to be trai- 
 tors to their country who should not receiveitas they would 
 have received gold itself. 
 
 - " Did not this body know, that possessions are no more 
 to be controuled than feelings are? Did it not perceive, that 
 in the present crisis, every rational man would be afraid of 
 exposing his fortune? Did it not see, that in the beginning 
 of a republic it permitted to itself the exercise of such acts 
 of despotism as are unknown even in the countries which 
 are moulded to, and become familiar with servitude and 
 oppression? Could it pretend that it did not punish a want 
 of confidence with the pains which would have been scarcely 
 merited by revolt and treason ? Of all this was the Congress 
 well aware. But it had no choice of means. Its despised 
 and despicable scraps of paper were actually thirty times 
 below their original value, when more of them were ordered 
 to be made. On the 13th of September 1779, there was of 
 this paper money, amongst the public, to the amount of 
 35,544,155. Thestateowed moreover <8,385, 356, with- 
 out reckoning the particular debts of single provinces." 
 
 In the above-recited passages, the Abbe speaks as if the 
 United States had contracted a debt of upwards of forty 
 millions of pounds sterling, besides the debts of individual 
 States. After which, speaking of foreign trade with Ame- 
 rica, he says, that *' those countries in Europe, which are 
 truly commercial ones, knowing that North America had 
 been reduced to contract debts at the epoch of even her 
 grentes* prosperity, wisely thought, that in her present dis- 
 tress, she would be able to pay but very little, for what 
 might be carried to her." 
 
 I know it must be extremely difficult to make foreigners 
 understand the nature and circumstances of our paper mo- 
 ney, because there are natives who do riot understand it 
 themselves. But with us its fate is now determined. Com- 
 mon consent has consigned it to rest with that kind of regard 
 \vhichthelongservice of inanimate things insensibly ob- 
 tains from mankind. Every stone in the bridge, that has 
 carried us over, seems to have a claim upon our esteem. But 
 this was a corner-stone, and its usefulness cannot be for- 
 gotten. There is something in a grateful mind, which ex- 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 21 
 
 tends itself even to things that can neither be benefited by 
 regard, nor suffer by neglect: But so it is ; and almost every 
 man is sensible of the effect. 
 
 But to return. The paper money, though issued from 
 Congress under the name of dollars, did not come from that 
 body always at that value. Those which were issued the 
 first year, were equal to gold and silver. The second year 
 less ; the third still less ; and so on, for nearly the space of 
 five years; t the end of which, I imagine, ttiat the whole 
 value at which Congress might pay away the several emis- 
 sions, taking them together, was about ten or twelve mil- 
 lions of pounds sterling. 
 
 Now, as it would have taken ten or twelve millions ster- 
 ling of taxes, to carry on the war for five years, and, as 
 while this money was issuingand likewise depreciatincjdowu 
 to nothing, there were none, or few valuable taxes paid; 
 consequently the event to the public was the same, whether 
 they sunk ten or twelve millions of expended money, by 
 depreciation, or paid ten or twelve millions by taxation ; for 
 as they did not do both, and chose to do one, the matter, in 
 a general view, was indifferent. And therefore, what the 
 Abbe supposesto be a debt, has now no existence ; it having 
 been paid, by every body consenting to reduce it, at his own 
 expence, from the value of the bills continually passing 
 among themselves, a sum, equal to nearly what the expence 
 of the war was for five years. 
 
 Again. The paper money having now ceased, and the 
 depreciation with it, and old and silver supplied its place, 
 the war will now be carried on by taxation, which will draw 
 from the public a considerable less sum than what the de- 
 preciation drew ; but as, while they pay the former, they 
 do not sutler the latter, and as, when they suffered the lat- 
 ter, they did not pay the former, the thing will be nearly 
 equal, with this moral advantage, that taxation occasions 
 frugality and thought, and depreciation produced dissipation 
 and carelessness. 
 
 And again. If a man's portion of taxes comes to Ies$ 
 than what he lost by the depreciation, it proves the altera- 
 tion is in his favour. If it comes to more, and he is justly 
 assessed, it shews that he did not sustain his proper share of 
 depreciation, because the one was as operatively his tax ag 
 the other. 
 
 It is true, that it never was intended, neither was it fore* 
 seen, that the debt contained in the paper currency should 
 sink itself in this manner; but as by the voluntary conduct 
 
22 LETTER T0 THE ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 of all and of every one it is arrived at this fate, the debt i 
 aid by those who owed it. Perhaps nothing was ever so 
 universally tfae act of a country as this. Government had no 
 hand in it. Every man depreciated his own money by his 
 own consent, for such was the effect which the raising the 
 nominal value of goods produced. But as by such reduc- 
 tion he sustained a loss equal to what he must have paid to 
 sink it by taxation, therefore the line of justice is to consider 
 liis loss by the depreciation as his tax for that time, and not 
 to tax him when the war is over, to make that money good 
 in any other person's hand-, which became nothing in his 
 own. 
 
 Again. The paper currency was issued for the express 
 purpose of carrying on the war. It has performed that ser- 
 vice, without any other material change to the public, while 
 at lasted. But to suppose, as some did, that at the end of 
 the war, it was to grow into gold and silver, or become equal 
 thereto, was to suppose that we were to get two hundred 
 millions of dollars by going to war t instead of paying the cost 
 of carrying it on. 
 
 But if any thing in the situation of America, as to her 
 currency or her circumstances, yet remains not understood ; 
 then let it be remembered, that this war is the public's war; 
 the people's war ; the country's war. It is their indepen- 
 dence that is to be supported ; their property that is to be 
 secured; their country that is to be saved. Here, Govern- 
 ment, the army and the people, are mutually and reciprocally 
 one. In other wars, kings may lose their thrones and their 
 dominions; but here, the loss must fall on the majesty of 
 the multitude, and the property they are contending to save. 
 Every man being sensible of this, he goes to the field, or 
 pays his portion of the charge as the Sovereign of his own 
 possessions ; and when he is conquered a monarch falls. 
 
 The remark which the Abbe, in the conclusion of the 
 passage, has made respecting America contracting debts in 
 the time of her prosperity (by which he means, hefore the 
 breaking out of hostilities), serves to shew, though he has 
 not made the application, the very great commercial diffe- 
 rence between a dependent and an independent country. In 
 a state of dependence, and with a fettered commerce, 
 though with all the advantages of peace, her trade could not 
 balance itself, and she annually run into debt. But now, in 
 a state of independence, though involved in war, she re- 
 quires no credit; her stores are full of merchandise, and gold 
 and silver are became the currency of the country. How 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RATNAL. 23 
 
 these things have established themselves, it is difficult to 
 account for: but they are facts, and facts are more power- 
 ful than arguments. 
 
 As it is probable this letter will undergo a republicatiori 
 in Europe, the remarks here thrown together will serve to 
 shew the extreme foliy of Britain, in resting her hopes of suc- 
 cess on the extinction of our paper currency. The expec- 
 tation is at once, so childish and forlorn, that it places her 
 in the laughable condition of a famished lion watching for 
 prey at a spider's web. 
 
 From this account of the currency, the Abbe proceeds to 
 state the condition of America in the winter 177.7, and the 
 spring following; and closes his observations with men- 
 tioning the treaty of alliance, which was signed in France, 
 ant' the propositions of the British Ministry, which wen; re- 
 jected in America. But in the manner in which the Abbe 
 has arranged his facts, there is n very material error, that 
 not only he, but other European historians, ha've fallen into : 
 none of them have assigned the true cause why the British 
 proposals were rejected, and all of them have assigned a 
 wrong one. 
 
 In the winter 1777, and the spring following, Congress 
 were assembled at York-town in Pennsylvania, the British 
 were in possession of Philadelphia, and General Washington 
 with the army were encamped in huts at the Valley-Forge, 
 twenty- five miles distant therefrom. To all who can remem- 
 ber it, it was a season of hardship, but not of despair,- and 
 the Abbe, speaking of this period and its incouveuiendes, 
 soys, 
 
 i; A multitude of privations, added to so many other mis- 
 fortunes, might make the Americans regret their former 
 tranquillity, and incline them to an accommodation with 
 England. In vain, had the people been bound to the new 
 Government, by the sacredness of oaths, and the influence 
 of religion. In vain, had endeavours been used to convince 
 them, that it was impossible to treat safely, with a country, 
 in which one Parliament might overturn what should have 
 been established by another. In vain, had they been threat- 
 ened with the eternal resentment of an exasperated and vin- 
 dictive enemy. It was possible that these distant troubles 
 might not be balanced by the weight of present evils. 
 
 " So thought the British Ministry, when they sent to the 
 New World, public agents, authorised to offer every thing, 
 except independence, to these very Americans, from whom 
 they had, two years before, exacted an unconditional sub- 
 
24 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYN AL. 
 
 mission. It is not improbable, but that, by this plan of con- 
 ciliation, a few months sooner, some effect might have been 
 produced. But at the period at which it was proposed by 
 the Court of London, it was rejected with disdain, because 
 this method appeared but as an argument of fear, and wick- 
 edness. The people were already re-assured. The Con- 
 gress, the Generals, the troops, the bold and skilful men in 
 each colony, had possessed themselves of the authority; 
 every thing had recovered its first spirit. This was the effect 
 of a treaty of friendship and commerce between the United 
 States, and the Court of Versailles, signed, the Qth of Fe- 
 bruary, 177S." 
 
 On this passage of the Abbe's, I cannot help remarking, 
 that, to unite time with circumstance, is a material nicety in 
 "history ; the want of which, frequently throws it into end- 
 less confusion and mistake, occasions a total separation be- 
 tween causes, and consequences, and connects them witSi 
 others they are not immediately, and, sometimes, not at all 
 related to. 
 
 The Abbe, in saying that the offers of the British Minis- 
 try, " were rejected with disdain," is right as to the fact, but 
 wrong as to the time; and the error in the time, has occa- 
 sioned him to be mistaken in the cause. 
 
 The signing the treaty of Paris, the 6th of February, 
 1778, could have no effect on the mind or politics of Ame- 
 rica, until it was known in America; and, therefore, when the 
 Abbe says, that the rejection of the British offers was in 
 consequence of the alliance, he must mean, that it was in 
 consequence of the alliance being known in America; which 
 "was not the case: and, by this mistake, he not only takes 
 from her the reputation, which her unshaken fortitude, in 
 that trying situation, deserves, but is likewise led very in- 
 juriously to suppose that had she not known of the treaty, 
 the offers would probably have been accepted ; whereas, she 
 knew nothing of the treaty at the time of the rejection, and 
 consequently, did not reject them on that ground. 
 
 The propositions or offers abovementioned, were contain- 
 ed in two bills, brought into the British Parliament, by Lord 
 North, on the 17th of February, 1778. Those bills were 
 hurried through both Houses with unusual haste; and be- 
 fore they had j^one through all the customary forms of Par- 
 liament, copies of them were sent over to Lord Howe, and 
 General Howe, then in Philadelphia, who were likewise 
 Commissioners. General Howe ordered them to be printed 
 in Philadelphia, and sent copies of them, by a flag, to Gene- 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE EAYNAL. 25 
 
 ral Washington, to be forwarded to Congress, at York 
 Town, where they arrived the C 2lst of April, 1778. Thus 
 much for the arrival of the bills in America. 
 
 Congress, a is their usual mode, appointed a committee 
 from their own body, to examine them, and report thereon. 
 The report was brought in the next day, (the twenty-se- 
 cond) was read, and unanimously agreed to, entered on their 
 journals, and published for the information of the country. 
 Now th*s report must be the rejection to which the Abbe 
 alludes, because Congress gave no other formal opinion on 
 those b Us and propositions: and on a subsequent applica- 
 tion from the British Commissioners, elated, the 97th of 
 May, and received at York Tou n, the 6th of June, Congress 
 immediately referred them for answer, to their printed re- 
 solves of the 22dof April. Thus much for the rejection of 
 the oilers. 
 
 On the 2d of May, that is, eleven days after the abo?e re- 
 jection, was made, the treaty between the United States, and 
 France, arrived at York Town and, until this moment, 
 Congress had not the least notice or idea that such a mea- 
 sure was in any train of execution. But lest this declaration 
 of mine should pass only tor assertion, I shall support it by 
 proof, tor it is material to the character and principle of the 
 Revolution, to shew, that no condition of America, since the 
 Declaration of Independence, however trying, and severe, 
 ever operated to produce the most distant idea of yielding 
 it up, either by force, distress, artifice, or persuasion. And 
 this proof is the more necessary, because it was the system 
 of the British Ministry, at this time, as well as before, and 
 since, to hold out to the European powers, that America 
 was unfixed in her resolutions and policy ; hoping, by this 
 artifice, to lessen her reputation in Kurope, and weaken the 
 confidence which those powers, or any of them, might be 
 inclined to place in her. 
 
 At the time these matters were transacting, I was Secre- 
 tary to the foreign department of Congress. All the politi- 
 cal letters from the American Commissioners, rested in my 
 hands, and all that were otiicially written, went from my 
 office: and so far from Congress knowing any thing of the 
 signing the treaty, at the time they rejected the British 
 offers, they had not received a line of information from their 
 Commissioners at Paris, on any subject whatever, for up- 
 wards of a twelvemonth. Probably, the loss of the port of 
 Philadelphia, and the navigation of the Delaware, together 
 
26 LETTEIt TO THE ABBE RAYWAL. 
 
 with the danger of the seas, covered, at this time, with Bri- 
 tish cruizers, contributed to the disappointment. 
 
 One packet, it is true, arrived at York Town, in January 
 preceding, which was about three months before the arrival 
 of the treaty; but, strange as it may appear, every letter had 
 been taken out, before it was put on board the vessel which 
 brought it from i ? rance, and blank white paper put in their 
 stead. 
 
 Having thus stated the time when the proposals from the 
 British Commissioners were first received, and likewise the 
 time when the treaty of alliance arrived, and shewn that the 
 rejection of the former was eleven days, prior to the arrival 
 of the latter, and without the least knowledge of such cir- 
 cumstance having taken place, or being about to take place ; 
 the rejection, therefore, must, and ought to be attributed 
 to the first unvaried sentiments of America, respecting the 
 enemy she is at war with, and her determination to sup- 
 port her independence to the last possible etfort, and not to 
 any new circumstance in her favour, which, at that time, 
 she did not, and could not, know of. 
 
 Besides, there is a vigour of determination, and spirit of 
 defiance, in the language of the rejection, (which I here sub- 
 join) which derive their greatest glory, by appearing before 
 the treaty was known ; for that, which is bravery in distress, 
 becomes insult in prosperity. And the treaty placed Ame- 
 rica on such a strong foundation, that had she then known 
 it, the answer which she gave, would have Appeared rather 
 as an air of triumph, than as the glowing seienity of forti- 
 tude. 
 
 Upon the whole, the Abbe appears to have entirely mis- 
 taken the matter; for instead of attributing the rejection of 
 the propositions, to our knowledge of the treaty of alliance, 
 he should have attributed the origin of them in the British 
 Cabinet, to their knowledge of that event. And then the 
 reason why they were hurried over to America, in the state 
 of bills, that is, before they were passed into acts, is easily 
 accounted for; which is, that they might have the chance 
 of reaching America before any knowledge of the treaty 
 should arrive, which they were lucky enough to do, and 
 there met the fate they so richly merited. That t-hese bills 
 were brought into the British Parliament, after the treaty 
 with France was signed, is proved from the dates: the trea* 
 ty being on the 6th, and the bills on the 17th, of February. 
 And that the signing the treaty was known in Parliament, 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 27 
 
 when the bills were brought in, is likewise proved by a 
 speech of Mr. Charles Fox, on the said 17th, of February, 
 who, in reply to Lord North, informed the House of the 
 treaty being signed, and challenged the Minister's know- 
 ledge of the same fact.* 
 
 * IN CONGRESS, April 22d, 1778. 
 
 " THE Committee to whom was referred the General's letter of 
 the 18th, containing a certain printed paper sent from Philadel- 
 phia, purporting to be the draught of a Bill for declaring the 
 intentions of the Parliament of Great Britain, as to the exercise of 
 what they are pleased to term their right of imposing taxes within 
 these United States ; and also the draft of a Bill to enable the 
 King of Great Britain to appoint Commissioners, with powers to 
 treat, consult, and agree upon the means of quieting certain disor- 
 ders within the said States, beg leave to observe, 
 
 " That the said paper being industriously circulated by emissa- 
 ries of the enemy, in a partial and secret manner, ihe same ought 
 to be forthwith printed for the public information. 
 
 " The Committee cannot ascertain whether the contents of the 
 said paper have been framed in Philadelphia or in Great Britain, 
 much less whether the same are really and truly intended to be 
 brought into the Parliament of that kingdom, or whether the said 
 Parliament will confer thereon the usual solemnities of their 
 laws. But are inclined to believe this will happen, for the follow- 
 ing reasons : 
 
 " 1st. Because their General hath made divers feeble efforts to 
 set on foot some kind of treaty during the last winter, though 
 either from a mistaken idea of his own dignity and importance, 
 the want of information, or some other cause, he hath not made 
 application to those who are invested with proper authority. 
 
 " 2dly. Because they suppose that the fallacious idea of a 
 cessation of hostilities will render these States remiss in their pre- 
 parations of war. 
 
 " 3dly. Because believing the Americans wearied with war, they 
 suppose we will accede to the terms for the sake of peace. 
 
 " 4thly. Because they suppose that our negociations may be 
 subject to a like corrupt influence with their debates* 
 
 " 5thly. Because they expect from this step the same effects 
 they did from what one of their Ministers thought proper to call 
 his conciliatory motion, viz. that it will prevent foreign powers 
 from giving aid to these States ; that it will lead their own sub- 
 jects to continue a little longer the present war ; and that it will 
 detatch some weak men in America from the cause of freedom 
 and virtue. 
 
 * 6thly, Because their King, from his own shewing, hath reason 
 
8 LETTER TO TUB ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 Though I am not surprised to see the Abbe mistaken in 
 matters of history, acted at so great a distance from his 
 
 to apprehend that his fleets and armies, instead of being employed 
 against the territories of these States, will be necessary for the 
 (defence of his own dominions. And, 
 
 " 7thly. Because the impracticability of subjugating thii 
 country, being every day more and more manifest, it is their iute* 
 rest to extricate themselves from the war upon any terms. 
 
 " The Committee beg leave further to observe, That, upon a 
 supposition, the matters contained on the said paper will reallv go 
 into the British Statute Book, they serve to shew, in a clear point 
 of view, the weakness and wickedness of the enemy. 
 THFIR WEAKNESS. 
 
 " 1st. Because they formerly declared, not only that they had a 
 right to bind the inhabitants of these States mall cases whatsoever,-but 
 also, that the said inhabitants should absolutely and unconditionally 
 submit to the exercise of that right. And this submission they 
 have endeavoured to exact by the sword. Receding from this 
 claim, therefore, under the present circumstances, shews their 
 inability to enforce it. 
 
 " 2dly. Because their Prince hath heretofore rejected the 
 humblest petitions of the Representatives of America, praying to 
 be considered us subjects, and protected in the enjoyment of 
 peace, liberty, and safety ; and hath waged a most cruel war 
 against them, and employed the savages to butcher innocent 
 women and children. But now the same Prince pretends to treat 
 with those very Representatives, and grant to the arms of America 
 what he refused to her prayers. 
 
 " 3dly. Because they have uniformly laboured to conquer this 
 continent, rejecting every idea of accommodation proposed to 
 them, from a confidence in their own strength. Wherefore it is 
 evident, from the change in their mode of attack, that they have 
 lost this confidence. And, 
 
 " 4thly. Because the constant language, spoken not only by 
 their Ministers, but by the most public and authentic act of the 
 Nation, hath been, that it is incompatible with their dignity to 
 treat with the Americans while they have arms in their hands. 
 Notwithstanding which, an offer is now about to be made for 
 treaty. 
 
 " "The wickedness and insincerity of the enemy appear from the 
 following considerations : 
 
 ' 1st!, Either the Bills now to be passed contain a direct or 
 indirect cession of a part of their former claims, or they do not. 
 If they do, then it U acknowledged that they have sacrificed many 
 brave men in an unjust quarrel. If they do not, then they arc 
 ealcuiated to deceive America into terms, to which neither argu- 
 mant before the war, nor force since, could procure her assent. 
 2dly. The first of these Bills appears, from the title, to be a 
 
LHTTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL 2$ 
 
 sphere of immediate observation, yet I am more than sur- 
 prised to find him wrong, (or, at least, what appears so to 
 
 declaration of the intentions of the British Parliament concerning 
 the exercise of the right of imposing taxes within these States. 
 Wherefore, should these States treat under the said Bill, they 
 would indirectly acknowledge that right, to obtain which acknow- 
 ledgment the present war hath -been avowedly undertaken and 
 prosecuted on the part of Great Britain. 
 
 " 3dly. Should such pretended right be so acquiesced in, then 
 of consequence the same might be exercised whenever the British 
 Parliament should find themselves in a different temper arid dispo- 
 sition ; since it must depend upon those, and such like contin- 
 gencies, how far men will act according to their former intentions. 
 
 " 4thly. The said first Bill, in the body thereof, containeth no 
 new matter, but is precisely the same with the motion before 
 mentioned, and liable to all the objections which lay against the 
 said motion, excepting the following particular, viz. that by the 
 motion, actual taxation was to be suspended, so long as America 
 should give as much as the said Parliament might think proper: 
 whereas, by the proposed Bill, it is to be suspended as long as 
 future Parliaments continue of the same mind with the present. 
 
 " 4thly. From the second Bill it appears, that the British King 
 may, if he pleases, appoint Commissioners to treat and agree witli 
 those whom they please, about a variety of things therein men- 
 tioned. But such treaties and agreements are to be of no validity 
 without the concurrence of the said Parliament, except *o far as 
 they relate to the suspension of hostilities, and of certain of their 
 acts, the granting of pardons, and the appointment of Governors 
 to these Sovereign, free, and independent States. Wherefore, the 
 said Parliament have reserved to themselves in express words, the 
 power of setting aside any such treaty, and taking tire advantage 
 of any circumstances which may arise to subject this continent to 
 their usurpations. 
 
 ** 6thly. The said Bill, by holding forth a tender of pardon, 
 implies a criminality in our justifiable resistance, and conse- 
 quently, to treat under it, would be an implied acknowledgment, 
 that the inhabitants of these States 'were, what Britain has declared 
 them to be, Rebels. 
 
 " 7thly. The inhabitants of these States being claimed by them 
 as subjects, they may infer, from the nature of the negociution 
 now pretended to be s*t on foot, that the said inhabitants would of 
 right be afterwards bound by such laws as they should make. 
 Wherefore any agreement entered into on such negociation miyht 
 at any future time be repealed. And, 
 
 " Sthly. Because the said Bil\ purports, that the Comm ssioners 
 therein mentioned may treat with private individuals; a measure 
 highly derogatory to the dignity of the National character. ; 
 
SO LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAtt 
 
 me) in the well-enlightened field of philosophical reflection. 
 Here the materials are his own ; created by himself; and 
 the error, therefore, is an act of the mind. Hitherto, my 
 remarks have heen confined to circumstances; the order in 
 which they arose, and the events they produced. In these, 
 my information being better than the Abbe's, rny task was 
 easy. How I may succeed in controverting matters of ien- 
 
 " From all which it appears evident to your Committee, that 
 the said Bills are intended to operate upon the hopes and fears of 
 the good people of these States, so as to create divisions among 
 them, and a defection from the common cause, now by the bless- 
 ing of Divine Providence drawing near to a favourable issue. 
 That they are the sequel of that insidious plan, which, from the 
 days of the Stamp-act down to the present time, hath involved 
 this country in contention and bloodshed. And that as iri other 
 cases so in this, although circumstances may force them at times 
 to recede from their unjustifiable claims, there can be no doubt 
 but they will as heretofore, upon the first favourable occasion, 
 again display that lust of domination, which hath rent in twain 
 the mighty empire of Britain. 
 
 " Upon the whole matter, the Committee beg leave to report it 
 as their opinion, That the Americans united in this afduous con- 
 test upon principles of common interest, for the defence of 
 common rights and privileges, which union hath been cemented 
 by common calamities, and by mutual good offices and affection, 
 so the great cause for which they contend, and in which all 
 mankind are interested, must derive its success from the continu- 
 ance of that union. Wherefore any man or body of men, who 
 should presume to make any separate or partial convention or 
 agreement with Commissioners under the Crown of Great Britain, 
 or any of them, ought to be considered and treated as open and 
 avowed enemies of these United States. 
 
 ** And further, your Committee beg leave to report it as their 
 opinion, Tluit these United States cannot, with propriety hold any 
 conference or treaty with any Commissioners on the part of Great 
 Britain, unless they shall, as a preliminary thereto, either withdraw 
 tlieir fleets and admirals, or else, in positive or express terms, ac- 
 knowledge the Independence of the said States. 
 
 " And inasmuch as it appears to be the design of the enemies 
 cf these States to lull them into a fatal security to the end that 
 they may act with a becoming weight and importance, it is the 
 opinion of yonr Committee, That the several States be called upon 
 to use the most strenuous exertions to have their respective quotas 
 of continental troops ia the field as soon as possible, and that all 
 the militia of the said States be held in readiness, to act as occa* 
 sion may require." 
 
J.ETTER TO THE ABBE KAYNAL. 31 
 
 timent and opinion, with one whom years, experience, and 
 long established reputation have placed in a superior line, 
 I am less confident in ; bur as they fall within the scope of 
 my observations, it would be improper to pass them over. 
 
 'From this part of the Abbe's work to the latter end, I find 
 several expressions which appear to me to start, with a cy- 
 nical complexion, from the path of liberal thinking ; or 
 at least, they aiv so involved, as to lose many of the beauties 
 which distinguish other parts of the performance. 
 
 The Abbe having brought his work to the period when 
 the treaty of alliance between France, and the United State* 
 commenced, proceeds to make some remarks thereon. 
 
 " In short," says he, " philosophy, whose first senti- 
 ment is the desire to see all governments just, and all peo- 
 ple happy, in casting her eyes upon this alliance of a mo- 
 narchy, with a people who are defending their liberty, is 
 curious to know its motive. She seca, at once, too dearly, that 
 the happiness of mankind has no part in it." 
 
 Whatever train of thinking or of temper the Abbe might 
 
 The following is the answer of Congress to the second applica- 
 tion of the Commissioners, 
 
 York Town, June 6, 1778. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 '* I HAVE had the honour of laying your letter of the 3d 
 instant, with the acts of the British Parliament, whicl; came in- 
 clo&ed, before Congress ; and I am instructed to acquaint you, 
 Sir, that they have already expressed their sentiments upon bills 
 not essentially different from those acts, in a publication of the 
 22d of April last. 
 
 " Be assured, Sir, when the King of Great Britain shall he 
 seriously disposed to put an end to the unprovoked and cruel war 
 waged against these United States, Congress will readily attend to 
 such terms of peace, as may consist with the honour of indepen- 
 dent Nations, the interest of their constituents, and the sacred 
 regard they mean to pay to treaties. I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient, and 
 
 most humble servant, 
 
 HENRY LAURENS, 
 President of Congress." 
 et His Excellency, 
 Sir Henry Clinton, K. B. Philadelphia 
 
32 LETTFR TO THE ABBE BAYNAL. 
 
 be in, when he penned this expression, matters not. They 
 will neither qualify the sentiment, nor add to its defect. If 
 right, it needs no apology ; if wrong, it merits no excuse. It 
 is sent into the world as an opinion of philosophy, and may 
 be examined without regard to the author. 
 
 It seems to be a defect, connected with ingenuity, that it 
 often employs itself more in matters of curiosity than use- 
 fulness. Man must be the privy counsellor of fate, or some- 
 thing is not right. He must know the springs, the whys 
 and wherefores of every thing, or he sits down unsatisfied. 
 Whether this be a crime, or only a caprice of humanity, I 
 am not enquiring into. I shall take the passage as I find it, 
 and place my objection against it. 
 
 It is not so properly the motives which produced the al- 
 liance, as the consequences which are to be produced from it, 
 that mark out the field of philosophical reflection. In the 
 one we only penetrate into the barren cave of secrecy, where 
 little can be known, and every thing may be misconceived ; 
 in the other, the mind is presented with a wide extended 
 prospect of vegetative good, and sees a thousand blessings 
 budding into existence. 
 
 But the expression, even within the compass of the Abbe's 
 meaning, sets out with an error, because it is made to de- 
 clare that, which no man has authority to declare. Who 
 can say that the happiness of mankind made no part of the, 
 motives which produced the alliance ? To be able to declare 
 this, a man must be possessed of the mind of all the parties 
 concerned, and know that their motives were something else. 
 
 In proportion as the independence of America became 
 contemplated and understood, the local advantages of it to 
 the immediate actors, and the numerous benefits it pro- 
 mised to mankind, appeared to be every day encreasing, and 
 we saw not a temporary good for the present race only, 
 but a continued good to all posterity ; these motives, there- 
 fore, added to those which preceded them, became the mo- 
 tives, on the part of America, which led her to propose and 
 agree to the treaty of alliance, as the best effectual method of 
 extending and securing happiness; and therefore, with re- 
 spect to us, the Abbe is wrong. 
 
 France, on the other hand, was situated very differently to 
 America. She was not acted upon by necessity to seek a 
 friend, and therefore her motive in becoming one, has the 
 strongest evidence of being good, and that which is so, must 
 have some happiness for its object. With regard to herself 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 83 
 
 she saw a train of conveniences worthy her attention. By 
 lessening the power of an enemy, whom, at. the same time 
 she sought neither to destroy nor distress, she gained an ad- 
 vantage without doing an evil, and created to herself a new 
 friend by associating with a country in misfortune. The 
 springs of thought that lead to actions of this kind, however 
 political they may be, are nevertheless naturally beneficent; 
 for in all causes, good or bad, it is necessary there should be 
 a fitness in the mind, to enable it to act in character witli 
 the object : Therefore, as a bad cause cannot be prosecuted 
 with a good motive, so neither can a good cause be loug 
 supported by a bud one, as no man acts without a motive, 
 therefore, in the present instance, as they cannot be bad, 
 they must be admitted to be good. But the Abbe sets out 
 upon such an extended scale, that he overlooks the degrees 
 by which it is measured, and rejects the beginning of good, 
 because the end comes not at once. 
 
 It is true that bad motives may in some degree be brought 
 to support a good cause, or prosecute a good object ; but it 
 never continues long, which is not the case with France; for 
 either the object will reform the mind, or the mind corrupt 
 the object, or else, not being able, either way, to go into 
 unison, they will separate in disgust: And this natural, 
 though unperceiv-ed progress of association or contention 
 between the mind and the object, is the secret cause of 
 fidelity or defection. Every object a man pursues is, for 
 the time, a kind of mistress to his mind : if both are good 
 or bad, the union is natural ; but if they are in reverse, 
 and neither can seduce nor yet reform the other, the oppo- 
 sition grows into dislike, and a separation follows. 
 
 When the cause of America first made her appearance on 
 the stage of the universe, there were many who, in the style 
 of adventurers and fortune-hunters, were dangling in her 
 train arid making their court to her with every profession of 
 honour and attachment. They were loud in her praise, and 
 ostentatious in her service. Every place echoed with their 
 ardour or their anger, and they seemed like men in love. ~ 
 But, alas, they were fortune-hunters. Their expectations 
 were excited, but their minds were unimpressed; and find- 
 ing her not to their purpose, nor theqiselves reformed by 
 her influence, they ceased their suit, and in some instances 
 deserted and betrayed her. 
 
 There were others, who at first beheld her with indiffer- 
 ence, and unacquainted with her character were cautious of 
 fcfir company. They treated her as one, who, upder th* 
 
 %/ 
 
34 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL.' 
 
 fair name of liberty, might conceal the hideous figure of 
 anarchy, or the gloomy monster of tyranny. They knew 
 not what she was. If fair, she was fair indeed. But still 
 she was suspected, and though born among us appeared to 
 be a stranger. 
 
 Accident with some, and curiosity with others, brought 
 on a distant acquaintance. They ventured to look at her. 
 They felt an inclination to speak to her. One intimacy led 
 to another, till the suspicion wore away, and a change of 
 sentiment stole gradually upon the mind; and having no 
 self-interest to serve, no passion of dishonour to gratify, they 
 became enamoured of her innocence, and unaltered by mis* 
 fortune or uninflamed by success shared with fidelity in the 
 varieties of her fate. 
 
 This declaration of the Abbe's, respecting motives, has led 
 me unintendedly into a train of metaphysical reasoning; but 
 there was no other avenue by which it could so properly be 
 approached. To place presumption against presumption, 
 assertion against assertion, is a mode of opposition that has 
 no effect ; and therefore the more eligible method was, to 
 shew that the declaration does not correspond with the na- 
 tural progress of the mind, and the influence it has upon our 
 conduct.-~I shall now quit this part, and proceed to what! 
 have before stated, namely, that it is not so properly the 
 motives which produced the alliance, as the consequences 
 to be produced from it, that mark out the field of philoso- 
 phical reflections. 
 
 It is an observation I have already made in some former 
 publication, that the circle of civilization is yet incomplete. 
 A mutuality of wants has formed the individuals of each 
 country into a kind of national society ; and here the pro- 
 gress of civilization has stopped. For it is easy to see, that 
 Nations with regard to each other (notwithstanding the ideal 
 civil law, which every one explains as it suits him), are like 
 individuals in a state of nature. They are regulated by no 
 fixed principle, governed by no compulsive law, and each 
 does independently what it pleases, or what it can. 
 
 Were it possible we could have known the world when in 
 a state of barbarism, we might have concluded, that it never 
 could be brought into the order we now see it. The un- 
 tamed mind was then as hard, if not harder to work upon in 
 its individual state, than the national mind is in its present 
 one." Yet we have seen the accomplishment of the one, 
 why then should we doubt that of the other ? 
 
 There is a greater fitness in mankind to extend and con> 
 
LETTEIt TO Till ABBE RAY*AL. 35 
 
 plete the civilization of nations with each other at this day, 
 than there was to begin it with the unconnected individuals 
 at first; in the same manner that it is somewhat easier to 
 put together the materials of a machine afterthey are formed, 
 than- it was to form them from original matter. The present 
 condition of the world differing so exceedingly from what 
 it formerly was, has given a new cast to the mind of man, 
 more than what he appears to be sensible of. The wants of 
 the individual, which first produced the idea of society, are 
 now augmented into the wants of the Nation, and he is 
 obliged to seek from another country what before he sought 
 from the next person. 
 
 Letters, the tongue of the world, have in some measure 
 brought all mankind acquainted, and, by an extension of 
 their uses, are every day promoting some new friendship. 
 Through them distant Nations become capable of conver- 
 sation, and losing by degrees the awkwardness of strangers, 
 and the moroseness of suspicion, they learn to know and un- 
 derstand each other. Science, the partizau of no country, 
 but the beneficent patroness of all, has liberally opened a 
 temple where all may meet. Ker influence on the mind, 
 like the sun on the chilled earth, has long been preparing it 
 for higher cultivation and further improvement. TUe phi- 
 losopher of one country sees wot an enemy in the philoso- 
 pher of another: he takes his seat in the temple of science, 
 and asks not who sits beside him. 
 
 This was not the condition of the barbarian world. Then 
 the wants of man were few, and the objects within his reach. 
 While he could acquire these, he lived in a state of indi- 
 vidual independence, the consequence of which, was, there 
 was as many Nations as persons, each contending with the 
 other, to secure something which he had, or to obtain some- 
 thing which he had not. The world had, then, no busi- 
 ness to follow, no studies to exercise the mind. Their time 
 were divided between sloth and fatigue. Hunting, and war, 
 were their chief occupations; sleep and food their principal 
 enjoyments. 
 
 Now, it is otherwise. A change in the mode of life haft 
 made it necessary to to be busy; and man finds a thousand 
 things to do now, which before he did not. Instead of 
 placing his idea of greatness in the rude achievements of 
 the savage, he studies arts, science, argriculture, and com- 
 merce ; the refinements of the gentleman, the principles of 
 society, and the knowledge of the philosopher. 
 
 There are many things which, iu them$$Jves,are 
 
36 LETTKfe. TO THE ABBE RAYNAI. 
 
 neither good nor bad, but they are productive of conse- 
 quences, which are strongly marked with one or other of 
 these characters. Thus commerce, though, in itself, a 
 moral nullity, has had a considerable influence in tempering 
 the human mind. It was the want of objects, in the ancient 
 world, which occasioned in them, such a rude and perpetual 
 turn for war. Their time hung on their hands without the 
 means of employment. The indolence they lived in, afford- 
 ed leisure for mischief, and being all idle at once, and equal 
 in their circumstances, they were easily provoked, or indu- 
 ced to action. 
 
 But the introduction of commerce furnished the world 
 with objects, which, in their extent, reach every man, and 
 give him something to think about, and something to do ; 
 by these, his attention is mechanically drawn from the pur- 
 suits whic'i a state of indolence, and an unemployed mind 
 occasioned; and he trades with the same countries, which 
 former ages, tempted by their productions, and too indolent 
 to purchase them, would have gone to war with. 
 
 Thus, as I have already observed, the condition of the 
 world being materially changed by the influence of science 
 and commerce, it is put into a fitness, not only to admit of, 
 but to desire an extension of civilization. The principal, 
 and almost only remaining enemy it now has to encounter, 
 is, Prejudice; for it is evidently the interest of mankind to 
 agree, and make the best of life. The world has undergone 
 its divisionsof empire, the several boundaries of which are 
 known and settled. The idea of conquering countries, like 
 the Greeks and Romans, does not now exist ; and experience 
 has exploded the notion of going to war for the sake of pro- 
 fit. In short, the objects for war are exceedingly diminish- 
 ed, and there is now left scarcely any thing to quarrel about, 
 but what arises from that demon of society, Prejudice, and 
 the consequent sullenness and untractableness of the tem- 
 per. 
 
 There is something exceedingly curious in the constitu- 
 tion, and operation of prejudice. It has the singular ability 
 of accommodating itself to all the possible varieties of the 
 human mind. Some passions and vices are but thinly scat- 
 tered amoug mankind, and find only here and there a fitness 
 of reception. But prejudice, like the spider, makes every 
 where its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, 
 and all that it requires is room. There is scarcely a situa- 
 tion, except fire or water, in which a spider will not live. 
 So, let the mind be as naked as the walls of an empty and 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 37 
 
 forsaken tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented with 
 the richest abilities of thinking; let it be hot, cold, dark, 
 or light ; lonely or inhabited, still prejudice, if undisturbed, 
 will fill it with cobwebs, and live, like the spider, where 
 there seems nothing to live on. If the one prepares her food 
 by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the 
 game; and as several of our passions are strongly character- 
 ed by the animal world, prejudice may be denominated the 
 spider of the mind. 
 
 Perhaps no two events ever united so intimately and for- 
 cibly to combat and expel prejudice, as the Revolution of 
 America, and the Alliance with France. Their effects are 
 felt, and their influence already extends, as well to the old 
 world, as the new. Our style and manner of thinking, have 
 undergone a revolution, more extraordinary than the politi- 
 cal revolution of the country. We see with other eyes; we 
 hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than 
 those we formerly used. We can look back on our own 
 prejudices, as if they had been the prejudices of other peo- 
 ple. We now see and know they were prejudices, and nothing 
 else ; and relieved from their shackles, enjoy a freedom of 
 mind we felt not before. It was not all the argument, how- 
 ever powerful, nor all the reasoning, however elegant, that 
 could have produced this change, so necessary to the exten- 
 sion of the mind, and the cordiality of the world, without 
 the two circumstances of the Revolution and the Alliance. 
 
 Had America dropped quietly from Britain, no material 
 change in sentiment had taken place. The same notions, 
 prejudices, and conceits, would have governed in both coun- 
 tries, as governed them before; and, still the slaves of error 
 and education, they would have travelled on in the beaten 
 tract of vulgar and habitual thinking. But brought about 
 by the means it has been, both with regard to ourselves, to 
 France, and to England, every corner of the mind is swept 
 of its cobwebs, poison, and dust, and made fit for the recep- 
 tion of generous happiness. 
 
 Perhaps there never was an alliance on a broader basis, 
 than that between America and France, and the progress of 
 it is worth attending to. The countries had been enemies, 
 not properly of themselves, but through the medium of Eng- 
 land. They, originally, had no quarrel with each other, 
 nor any cause for one, but what arose from the interest of 
 England, and her arming America against France. At the 
 same time, the Americans, at a distance from, and unac- 
 quainted with the world, au<J tutprecl in all the prejudices 
 
SS LETTER TO THE ARBE RAYNAL. 
 
 which governed those who governed them, conceited it 
 their duty to act. as they were taught. In doing this, they 
 expended their substance to make conquests, not for them- 
 selves, but for their masters, who, in return, treated them 
 as slaves. 
 
 A long succession of insolent severity, and the separation 
 finally occasioned, by the commencement of hostilities, at 
 Lexington, on the H)th of April, 1773, naturally produced 
 a new disposition of thinking. As the mind closed itself 
 towards England, it opened itself towards the world; and 
 our prejudices, like our oppressions, underwent, though less 
 observed, a mental examination; until we found the former 
 as inconsistent with reason, and benevolence, as the latter 
 were repugnant to our civil and political rights. 
 
 While we were thus advancing, by degrees, into the 
 wide field of extended humanity, the alliance with France 
 \vas concluded ; an alliance not formed for the mere pur- 
 pose of a day, but on just and generous grounds, and with 
 equal, and mutual advantages; and the easy, affectionate 
 manner in which the parties have since communicated, ha 
 made it an alliance, not of Courts only, but of countries. 
 There is now an union of mind as well as of interest; and 
 our hearts, as well as our prosperity, call on. us to sup- 
 port it, 
 
 The People of England not having experienced this 
 change, and, likewise no idea of it, they were hugging to 
 their bosoms, the same prejudices we were trampling be- 
 neath our feet ; and they expected to keep a hold upon 
 America, by that narrowness of thinking which America 
 disdained. What they were proud of, we dispised; and this 
 is a principle cause why all their negociations, constructed 
 on this ground, have failed. We are now, really, another 
 people, and cannot again go back to ignorance and preju- 
 dice. The mind once enlightened, cannot again become 
 (lark. There is no possibility, neither is there any term, to 
 express the supposition by, of the mind unknowing any 
 thing it already knows ; and, therefore, nil attempts on the 
 part of England, fitted to the former habit of America, and 
 t>n the expectation of their applying now, will be like per- 
 suading a seeing man to become blind, and a sensible one to 
 turn an ideot. The first of which is unnatural, and the 
 other impossible. 
 
 As to the remark, which the Abbe makes, of the one coun- 
 try being a monarchy, and the other a republic, it can have) 
 wo esientiai meaning. Forms of Goveinnjent have notbiwg 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBS RAYNAL. 39 
 
 to do with treaties. The former are the internal police of 
 the countries, severally ; the latter, their external policejoint- 
 ]y : and so long as each performs its part, we have no more 
 right, or business, to know how the one or the other con- 
 ducts its domestic affairs, than we have to enquire into the 
 private concerns of a family. 
 
 But had the Abbe reflected for a moment, he would have 
 seen, that Courts, or the governing powers of all countries, 
 be their forms what they may, are, relatively, republics 
 with each other. It is the first, and true principle of alli- 
 ancing. Antiquity may have given precedence, and power 
 will naturally create importance, but their equal right is 
 never disputed. It may likewise be worthy of remarking, 
 that a monarchical country can suffer nothing in its popular 
 happiness, by allying with a republican one ; and republican 
 Governments have never been destroyed by their external 
 connexions, but by some internal convulsion or contrivance. 
 France has been in alliance with the republic of Swisserland, 
 for more than two hundred years, and still Swisserland re- 
 tains her original form, as entire as if she had allied with a 
 republic like herself; therefore, this remark of the Abbe 
 goes to nothing. Besides, it is best that mankind should 
 mix. There is ever something to learn, either of manners, 
 or principle; and it is by a free communication, without 
 regard to domestic matters, that friendship is to be extend- 
 ed, and prejudice destroyed all over the world. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the Abbe's high professions in fa- 
 vour of liberty, he appears sometimes to forget himself, or 
 that his theory is rather the child of his fancy, than of his 
 judgment; for, in almost the same instant that he censures 
 the alliance as not originally, or sufficiently calculated for 
 the happiness of mankind, he, by a figure of implication, ac- 
 cuses France for having acted so generously and unreserv- 
 edly in concluding it. " Why did they," says he, meaning 
 the Court of France, * tie themselves down by an inconsi- 
 derate treaty to conditions with the Congress, which they 
 might themselves have held in dependence, by ample and 
 regular supplies." 
 
 When an author undertakes to treat of public happiness, 
 he ought to be certain that he does not mistake passion for 
 right, nor imagination for principle. Principle, like truth, 
 needs no contrivance. It will ever tell its own tale, and 
 tell it the same way. But where this is not the case, every 
 page must be watched, recollected, and compared, like an 
 invented story, 
 
46 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAI. 
 
 I am surprised at this passage of the Abbe. It means no- 
 thing; or, it means ill ; and, in any case, it shews the great 
 difference between speculative and practical knowledge. A 
 treaty, according to the Abbe's language, would have nerther 
 duration, nor atlecticn ; it might have lasted to the end of 
 the war, and then expired with it. But France, by acting 
 in a style superior to the little politics of narrow thinking, 
 has established a generous tame, and with the love of a coun- 
 try she was before a stranger to. She had to treat with a 
 People who thought as nature taught them ; and, on her 
 own part, she wisely saw there was no present advantage 
 to be obtained by unequal terms, which could balance the 
 more lasting ones that might flow from a kind and generous 
 beginning. 
 
 From this part the Abbe advances into the secret transac- 
 tions of the two Cabinets of Versailles and Madrid, re- 
 specting the independence of America; through which I 
 mean not to follow him. It is a circumstance sufficiently 
 striking, without being commented on, that the former 
 union of America with Britain produced a power, which, 
 in her hands, was becoming dangerous to the world : and 
 there is no improbability in supposing, that, had the latter 
 known as much of the strength of the former before she 
 began the quarrel, as she has known since, that instead of 
 attempting to reduce her to unconditional submission, she 
 \vould have proposed to her the conquest of Mexico. But 
 from the countries separately, Spain has nothing to ap- 
 prehend, though from their union she had more to fear than 
 any other power in Europe. 
 
 The part which I shall more particularly confine myself 
 to, is that wherein the Abbe takes an opportunity of com- 
 plimenting the British Ministry with high encomiums of 
 admiration, on their rejecting the offered mediation of the 
 Court of Madrid, in 1770. 
 
 It must be remembered, that before Spain joined France 
 in the war, she undertook the office of a Mediator, and 
 made proposals to the British King and Ministry so exceed- 
 ingly favourable to their interest, that had they been 
 accepted, would have become inconvenient, if not inad- 
 missible, to America. These proposals were nevertheless re- 
 jected by the British Cabinet : on which the Abbe says,- 
 
 " It is in such a circumstance as this; it is in the time 
 when noble pride elevates the soul superior to all terror ; 
 when nothing is seen more dreadful than the shame of re- 
 ceiving the law, and wheu there is ng doubt; or hesitation 
 
LETTER. TO. THE ABBE RAYXAL. 41 
 
 which to cbuse between ruin and dishonour ; it is then, 
 that the greatness of a Nation is displayed. I acknowledge, 
 however, that men accustomed to judge of things by the 
 event, call great and perilous resolutions, heroism or 
 madness, according to the good or bad success with which: 
 they have been attended. If then I should be asked, what 
 is the name which shall in years to come, be given to the 
 firmness which was in this moment exhibited by the Eng- 
 lish, I shall answer, that I do not know. But that which it 
 deserves I know. I know that the annals of the world 
 hold out to ns but rarely the august and majestic spectacle 
 of a Nation, which cruises rather to renounce its duration 
 than its glory." 
 
 In this paragraph the conception is lofty, and the ex- 
 pression elegant ; but the colouring is too high for the 
 original, and the likeness fails through an excess of graces. 
 To fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to 
 the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall 
 hit the point in question, and nothing else, is the true crite- 
 rion of writing. But the greater part of the Abbe's writ- 
 ings (if he will pardon me the remark) appear to me 
 uncentral, and burthened with variety. They represent a 
 beautiful wilderness without paths; in which the eye is 
 diverted by every thing, without being particularly directed 
 to any thing: and in which it is agreeable to be lost, and 
 difficult to find the way out. 
 
 Before I offer any other remark on the spirit and compo- 
 sition of the above passage, I shall compare it with the 
 circumstance it alludes to. 
 
 The circumstance, then, does not deserve the encomium. 
 The rejection was not prompted by her fortitude, but her 
 vanity. She did not view it as a case of despair, or even 
 of extreme danger, and consequently the determination to 
 renounce her duration rather than her glory, cannot apply 
 to the condition of her mind. She had then high expecta- 
 tions of subjugating America, and had no other naval force- 
 against her than France ; neither was she certain that re- 
 jecting the mediation of Spain would combine that power 
 with France. New mediations might arise more favourable 
 than those she had refused. But if they should not, and 
 Spain should join, she still saw that it would only bring out 
 her naval force against France and Spain, which was n6t 
 wanted, and could not be employed against America ; and 
 babitsof thinking had taught her tg believe, herself superior 
 to both. 
 
42 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 But in any case to which the consequence might point, 
 there was nothing to impress her with the idea of renouncing 
 lier duration. It is not the policy of Europe to suffer the 
 extinction of any power, but only to lop off, or prevent its 
 dangerous encrease. She was likewise freed by situation 
 from the internal and immediate horrors of invasion; was 
 rolling in dissipation, and looking for conquests; and 
 though she suffered nothing but the expence of war, she 
 still had a greedy eye to magnificent reimbursement. 
 
 But if the Abbe is delighted with high and striking sin- 
 gularities of character, he might, in America, have found 
 ample field for encomium. Here was a people who could 
 not know what part the world would take for, or against 
 them ; and who were venturing on an untried scheme, in 
 opposition to a power, against which more formidable 
 Nations had failed. They had every thing tj> learn but the 
 principles which supported them, and every thing to pro- 
 cure that was necessary for their defence. They have at 
 times seen themselves as low as distress could make them, 
 without shewing the least stagger in their fortitude; and 
 been raised again by the most unexpected events, without 
 discovering an unmanly discomposure of joy. To hesitate 
 or to despair, are conditions equally unknown in America. 
 Her mind was prepared for every thing ; because her ori- 
 ginal and final resolution of succeeding or perishing, in- 
 cluded all possible circumstances. 
 
 The rejection of the British propositions in the year 
 177S, circumstanced as America was at that time, is a far 
 greater instance of unshaken fortitude than the refusal of 
 the Spanish mediation by the Court of London : and other 
 historians besides the Abbe, struck with the vastness of her 
 conduct therein, have, like himself, attributed it to a circum- 
 stance which was then unknown, the alliance with France. 
 Their error shews the idea of its greatness ; because, in 
 order to account for it, they have sought a cause suited to 
 its magnitude, without knowing that the cause existed in 
 the principles of the country.* 
 
 * Extract from, " A short review of the present reign" in 
 England. Page 45, in the New Annual Register for the 
 year 1780. 
 
 " The Commissioners, who, in consequence of Lord North's 
 conciliatory bills, >vejjt over to America, to propose terms of 
 
JLETTER TO THE ABBE RAYWAt, 43 
 
 But this passionate encomium of the Abbe is deservedly 
 subject to moral and philosophical objections. It is the 
 effusion of wild thinking, and has a tendency to prevent 
 that humanity of reflection which the criminal conduct of 
 Britain enjoins on her as a duty. It is a laudanum to 
 courtly iniquity. It keeps in intoxicated sleep the con- 
 science of the Nation ; and more mischief is affected by 
 wrapping up guilt in splendid excuse, than by directly 
 patronizing it. 
 
 Britain is now the only country which holds the world in 
 disturbance and war; and instead of paying compliments to 
 the excess of her crimes, the Abbe would have appeared 
 much more in character, had he put to her, or to her 
 monarch, this serious question 
 
 Are there not miseries enough in the world, too difficult 
 to be encountered, and too pointed to be borne, without 
 studying to enlarge the list, and arming it with new de- 
 struction ? Is life so very long, that it is necessary, nay 
 even a duty, to shake the sand, and hasten out the period 
 of duration? Is the path so elegantly smooth, so decked 
 on every side, and carpeted with joys, that wretchedness is 
 wanted to enrich it as a soil ? Go, ask thine aching heart, 
 when soprovv from a thousand causes wound it; go, ask thy 
 sickened self, when every medicine fails, whether this be 
 the case or not ? 
 
 Quitting my remarks on this head, I proceed to another, 
 in which the Abbe has let loose a vein of ill-nature, and 
 \vhat is still worse, of injustice. 
 
 After cavilling at the treaty, he goes on to characterize 
 the several parties combined in the war. " Is it possible, 1 " 
 says the Abbe, " that a strict union should long subsist 
 amongst confederates of characters so opposite as the hasty, 
 light, disdainful Frenchman, the jealous, haughty, sly, slowi, 
 circumspective Spaniard, and the American, who is secretly 
 
 peace to the colonies were wholly unsuccessful. The concessions 
 which formerly would have been received with the utmost grati- 
 tude, were rejected with disdain. Now was the time of American 
 pride and haughtiness. It is probable, however, that it was not 
 pride and haughtiness alone that dictated the Resolutions of 
 Congress, but a distrust of the sincerity of the offers of Britain, 
 determination not to give up their independence, and ABOVE 
 
 ALL THE ENGAGEMENTS INTO WHICH TiiLY H.AD 
 
 JUTS TREATY \VHJU 
 
44 LETTER TO THE ABBE RA.YNAL. 
 
 snatching looks at the mother country, and would rejoice, 
 were they compatible with his independence, at the disasters 
 of his allies?" 
 
 To draw foolish portraits of each other, is a mode of 
 attack and reprisal, which the greater part of mankind are 
 fond of indulging. The serious philosopher should be 
 above it, more especially in cases from which no possible 
 good can arise, and mischief may, and where no received 
 provocation can palliate the offence. The Abbe might have 
 invented a difference of character for every country in the 
 world, and they in return might find others for him, till in 
 the war of wit all real character is lost. The pleasantry of 
 one Nation or the gravity of another may, by a little pen- 
 ciling, be distorted into whimsical features, and the painter 
 become as much laughed at as the painting. 
 
 But why did not the Abbe look a little deeper, and bring 
 forth the excellencies of the several parties? Why did he 
 not dwell with pleasure on that greatness of character, that 
 superiority of heart, which has marked the conduct of 
 France in her conquests, and which has forced an acknow- 
 ledgment even from Britain ? 
 
 There is one line, at least (and many others might be dis- 
 covered) in which the confederates unite, which is, that of a 
 rival eminence in their treatment of their enemies. Spam, 
 in her conquest of Minorca and the Bahama Islands, con- 
 firms this remark. America has been invariable in her 
 lenity from the beginning of the war, notwithstanding tht 
 high provocations she has experienced. It is England 
 only who has been insolent and cruel. 
 
 But why must America be charged with a crime unde- 
 served by her conduct, more so by her principles, and 
 which, if a fact would be fatal to her honour? I mean that 
 of want of attachment to her allies, or rejoicing in their 
 disasters. She, it is true, has been assiduous in shewing to 
 the world that she was not the aggressor towards England ; 
 that the quarrel was not of her seeking, or, at that time, 
 even of her wishing. But to draw inferences from her 
 candour, and even from her justification, to stab her cha- 
 racter by, and I see nothing else from which they can be 
 supposed to be drawn, is unkind and unjust. 
 
 Does her rejection of the British propositions in 1778, 
 before she knew of any alliance with France, correspond 
 \vith the Abbe's description of her mind ? Does a single 
 instance of her conduct since that time justify it? But 
 there it i still better evidence to apply to, which is, that 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYXAL. 45 
 
 of all the mails which at different times have been way laid 
 on the road, in divers parts of America, and taken and 
 carried into New York, and from which the most secret 
 and confidental private letters, as well as those from autho- 
 rity, have been published, not one of them, I repeat it, not 
 a single one of them, gives countenance to such a charge. 
 
 This is not a country where men are under Government 
 restraint in speaking; and if there is any kind of restraint, 
 it arises from a fear of popular resentment. Now, if nothing 
 in her private or public correspondence favours such a 
 suggestion, and if the general disposition of the country is 
 such as to make it unsafe for a man to shew an appearance 
 of joy at any disaster to her ally, on what grounds, I ask, 
 can the accusation stand ? What company the Abbe may 
 have kept in France, we cannot know ; but this we know, 
 that the account he gives does not apply to America. 
 
 Had the Abbe been in America at the time the news ar* 
 rived of the disaster of the tleet under Count de Grasse, in 
 the West Indies, he would have seen his vast mistake. Nei- 
 ther do I remember any instance, except the loss of Charles- 
 town, in which the public mind suffered more severe and 
 pungent concern, or underwent more agitations of hope and 
 apprehension, as to the truth or falsehood of the report. 
 Had the loss been all our own, it could not have had a 
 deeper effect, yet it was not one of these cases which reached 
 to the independence of America. 
 
 In the geographical account which the Abbe gives of the 
 Thirteen States, he is so exceedingly erroneous, that to at- 
 tempt a particular refutation, would exceed the limits I have 
 prescribed to myself. And as it is a matter neither political, 
 historical, nor sentimental, and which can always he contra- 
 dicted by the extent and natural circumstances of the coun- 
 try, I shall pass it over; with this additional remark, that I 
 never yet saw an European description of America that was 
 true, neither can any person gain a just idea of it, but. by 
 coming to it. 
 
 Though I have already extended this letter beyond what 
 I at first proposed, I am, nevertheless, obliged to omit many 
 observations, I originally designed to have made. 1 wisli 
 there had been no occasion for making any. But the wrong 
 ideas which the Abbe's work had a tendency to excite, and 
 the prejudicial impressions they might make, must be an 
 apology for my remarks, and the freedom with which they 
 are done. 
 
 I observe the Abbe has made a sort of epitome of a consi- 
 
40 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL* 
 
 derable part of the pamphlet COMMON SENSE, and intro* 
 duced it in that form into his publication. But there are 
 other places where the Abbe has borrowed freely from the 
 same pamphlet, without acknowledging it. The difference 
 between Society and Government, with which the pamphlet 
 opens, is taken from it, and in some expressions almost lite- 
 rally, into the Abbe's work, as if originally his own; and 
 through the whole of the Abbe's remarks on this head, the 
 idea in Common Sense is so closely copied and pursued, that 
 the difference is only in words, and in the arrangement of 
 the thoughts, and not in the thoughts themselves*. 
 
 * COMMON SENSE. 
 
 < e Some writers have so con- 
 founded society uith Govern- 
 vernment, as to leave little or 
 no distinction between them ; 
 whereas they are not only dif- 
 ferent, but have different ori- 
 gins. 
 
 " Society is produced by our 
 wants, and Governments by our 
 wickedness; the former pro- 
 motes our happiness positively, 
 by uniting our affections ; the 
 latter negatively, by restraining 
 our vices." 
 
 ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 " Care must be taken not to 
 confound together society with 
 Government. That they may 
 be known distinctly, their origin 
 should be considered. 
 
 ** Society originates in the 
 wants of men, Government in 
 their vices. Society tends al- 
 ways to good ; Government 
 ought always to tend to the 
 repressing of evil." 
 
 In the following paragraph there n less likeness in the language, 
 but tkt ideas in tkt one are evidently copied from t/ie ot/itr. 
 
 " In order to gain a clenr 
 and just idea of the design and 
 end ot Government, let us sup- 
 pose a small number of pert-ons 
 meeting in some sequestered 
 part ot' the earth unconnected 
 with the rest; they will then 
 represent the peopling of any 
 country or of the world. In this 
 state of natural liberty, society 
 will be their first thoi^ht. A 
 thousand motives will excite 
 them thereto. The strength of 
 one mun is so unequal to his 
 , aud hi* mm-d so 
 
 * Man, thrown as it r.ere by 
 chance upon the globe, sur- 
 rounded by all the evils of 
 nature, obliged continually to 
 defend and protect his life 
 against the storms and tempests 
 of the air, against the inunda- 
 tions of water, against the fire 
 of volcanoes, against the intem- 
 perance of frigid and torrid 
 zones, against the sterility of 
 the earth, which refuse* bin* 
 aliment, or its baneful sec uncUty. 
 which makes poison spring up 
 beneath hi* feet; in. short, 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 47 
 
 But as it is time I should come to a conclusion of my let- 
 
 COMMON SENSE. 
 for perpetual solitude, that he 
 is soon obliged to seek assist- 
 ance of another, who, in his 
 turn, requires the same. Four 
 or five united would be able to 
 raise a tolerable dwelling' in the 
 midst of a wilderness ; but one 
 man might labour out the com- 
 mon period of life, without ac- 
 complishing any thing : when 
 he had felled his timber he 
 could not remove it, nor erect 
 it after it was removed ; hun- 
 ger, in the mean time, would 
 iirge him from his work, and 
 every different want call him a 
 different way. Disease, nay 
 even misfortune, would be 
 death ; for though neither might 
 be immediately mortal, yet 
 either of them would disable 
 him from living and reduce him 
 to a itate in which he might 
 rather be said to perish than to 
 die. Thus necessity, like a 
 gravitating power, would form 
 our newly arrived emigrants 
 into society, the reciprocal 
 blessings of which would su- 
 persede and render the obliga- 
 tions of law and Government 
 unnecessary, while they remain- 
 ed perfectly just to each other. 
 But as nothing but Heaven is 
 impregnable to vice, it will 
 unavoidably happen, that in 
 proportion as they surmount the 
 first difficulties of emigration 
 which bound them together in a 
 common cause, they will begin 
 to relax in their duty and at- 
 tachment to each other, and 
 this remissness will point out the 
 necessity of establishing some 
 form, of Government to supply 
 the defect of moral virtue," 
 
 ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 against the claws and teeth of 
 savage beasts, who dispute with 
 him his habitation and his prey, 
 and attacking his person, seem 
 resolvtd to render themselves 
 rulers of this globe, of which he 
 thigks himself to be the master. 
 Man, in ihis state, alone and 
 abandoned to himself, could do 
 nothing for his preservation. It 
 was necessary, therefore, that he 
 should unite himself, and asso- 
 ciate with his like, in order to 
 brins^ together their strength. 
 and intelligence in common 
 stock. It is by this union that 
 he has triumphed over so many 
 evils, that he has fashioned this 
 globe to his use, restrained the 
 livers, subjugated the seas, in- 
 sured his subsistence, conquered 
 a part of the animals in obli- 
 ging them to serve him, and 
 driven others far from his empire 
 to the depth of deserts or of 
 woods, where their number di- 
 minishes from age to age. What 
 a man alone would not have 
 been able to effect, men have 
 executed in concert ; and alto- 
 gether they preserve their work. 
 
 Such is the origin, such 
 
 the advantages, and the end of 
 society. Government owes its 
 birth "to the necessity of pre- 
 venting and repressing the m- 
 juiies which the associated indi-. 
 viduals had to fear from one 
 another. It is the centiuel who 
 watches, in order that the 
 common labours be not dis* 
 turbed." 
 
4S LETTER TO THE ABBE 
 
 ter, I shall forbear all further observations on the Abbe'i 
 work, and take a concise view of the state of public affairs, 
 since the time in which 'that performance was published. 
 
 A mind habited to actions of meanness and injustice, com- 
 mits them without reflection, or with a very partial one ; 
 for on what other ground than this, can we account for the 
 declaration of war against the, Dutch? To gain an idea of 
 the politics which actuated the British Ministry to this 
 measure, we must enter into the opinion which they, and 
 the English in general, had formed of the temper of the 
 Dutch Nation; and from thence infer what their expecta- 
 tion of the consequence would be. 
 
 Could they have imagined that Holland would have seri- 
 ously made a common cause with France, Spain, and Ame- 
 rica, the British Ministry would never have dared to provoke 
 them. It would have been a madness in politics to have 
 done so; unless their views were to hasten on a period of 
 such emphatic distress, as should justify the concessions 
 which they saw they must one day or other make to the 
 world, and for which they wanted an apology to themselves. 
 There is a temper in some men which seeks a pretence for 
 submission. Like a ship disabled in action, and unfitted to 
 continue it, it waits the approach of a still larger -one to 
 strike to, and feels relief at the opportunity. Whether this 
 is greatness or littleness of mind, I am not enquiring into. 
 I should suppose it to be the latter, because it proceeds from 
 the want of knowing how to bear misfortune in its original 
 state. 
 
 But the consequent conduct .of the British cabinet has 
 shewn that this was not their plan of politics, and conse- 
 quently their motives must be sought for in another line. 
 
 The truth is, that the British had formed a very hurnbls 
 opinion of the Dutch Nation. They looked on them as a 
 Pt-ople who would submit to any thing; that they might in- 
 sult them as they liked, plunder them as they pleased, and 
 still the Dutch dared not to be provoked. 
 
 If this be taken as the opinion of the British cabinet, the 
 measure is easily accounted for, because it goes on the sup- 
 position, that when, by a declaration of hostilities, they had 
 robbed the Dutch of some millions sterling, (and to rob 
 them was popular) they could make peace with them ngnm 
 whenever they pleased, and on almost any terms the British 
 Ministry should propose. And no sooner was the plundering 
 committed, than the accommodation was set on foot, aud 
 failed. 
 
LETTER TO THE ARBE nAYNAT/ 
 
 When once the mind loses the sense of its own dignity, it 
 loses, likewise, the ability of judging of it in another. And 
 the American war has thrown Britain into such a variety of 
 absurd situations, that arguing from herself, she sees not in 
 what condn' National dignity consists in other countries.- 
 From Holland she expected duplicity and submission, and 
 this mistake arose from her having acted, in a number of in- 
 stances during the present war, the same character herself. 
 
 To be allied to, or connected with Britain, seems to be an 
 unsafe and impolitic situation. Holland and America are 
 instances of the reality of this remark. Make those countries 
 the allies of France or Spain, and Britain will court them 
 with civility, and treat them with respect; make them her 
 own allies, and she will insult and plunder them. "la the first 
 case, she feels some apprehensions at offending them, be- 
 cause they have support at hand; in the latter, those ap- 
 prehensions do not exist. Such, however, has hitherto been 
 her conduct. 
 
 Another measure which has taken place since the publi- 
 cation of the Abbe's work, and likewise since the time of 
 my beginning this letter, is the change in the British Minis- 
 try. What line the new cabinet will pursue respecting 
 America, is at this time unknown; neither is it very mate- 
 rial, unless they are seriously disposed to a general and ho- 
 nourable peace. 
 
 Repeated experience has shewn, not only the impractica- 
 bility of conquering America, but the still higher impos- 
 sibility of conquering her mind, or recalling her back to her 
 former condition of thinking. Since the commencement oi* 
 the war, which is now approaching to eight years, thou- 
 sands, and tens of thousands, have advanced, and are daily 
 advancing rnto the first state of manhood, who know no- 
 thing of Britain but as a barbarous enemy, and to whom the 
 independence of America appears as much the natural and 
 established Government of the country, as that of England 
 does to an Englishman. And on the other hand, thousands 
 of the aged, who had British ideas, have dropped, and are 
 daily dropping, from the stage of business and life. The 
 natural progress of generation and decay, operates every 
 hour to the disadvantage of Britain. Time and death, hard 
 enemies to contend with, fight constantly against her in- 
 terest; and the bills of mortality, in every part of America, 
 are the thermometers of her decline. The children in the 
 streets are, from their cradle, bred to consider her as their 
 only foe. They hear of her cruelties; of their fathers,, 
 
 r> 
 
50 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 uncles, ami kindred killed ; they see the remains of burnt 
 and destroyed houses, and the common tradition of the 
 school they go to, tells them, those things were done by the 
 British. 
 
 These are circumstances which the mere English state- 
 politician, who considers man only in a stnte of manhood, 
 does not attend to. He gets entangled with parties coeval 
 or equal with himself at home, and thinks not how fast the 
 rising generation in America is growing beyond his know- 
 ledge of them, or they of him. In a few years, all personal 
 remembrance will be lost, and who is King op Minister in 
 England, will be little known, and scarcely enquired after. 
 
 The new British Administration is composed of persons 
 who have ever been against the war, and who have con- 
 stantly reprobated all the violent measures of the former 
 one. They considered the American war as destructive to 
 themselves, and opposed it on that ground. But what are 
 these things to America? She has nothing to do witli 
 English parties. The Ins and the Outs are nothing to her. 
 It is the whole country she is at war with, or must be at 
 peace with. 
 
 Were every Minister in England a Chatham, it would now 
 weigh little or nothing in the scale of American politics. 
 Death has preserved to the memory of this Statesman, that 
 J'amc> which he, by living, would have lost. His plans and 
 opinions, towards the latter part of his life, would have been 
 attended with as many evil consequences, and as much re- 
 probated here, as those of Lord North ; and considering 
 him a wise man, they abound with inconsistencies amounting 
 to absurdities. 
 
 It lias, apparently, been the fault of many in the late 
 Minority, to suppose, that America would agree to certain 
 terms with them, were they in place, which she would not 
 ever listen to from the then Administration. This idea can 
 answer no other purpose than to prolong the war ; and Bri- 
 tain may, at the expence of many more millions, learn the 
 fatality "of such mistakes. If the new Ministry wisely avoid 
 this hopeless policy, they will prove themselves better pilots, 
 and wiser men than they are conceived to be ; for it is every 
 day expected to see their bark strike upon some hidden rock 
 and go to pieces. 
 
 But there is a line in which they may be great. A more 
 brilliant opening needs not to present itself; and it is such 
 an one, as true magnanimity would improve, and humanity 
 rejoice in. 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 51 
 
 A total reformation is wanted in England. She wants an 
 expanded mind, an heart which embraces the universe. 
 Instead of shutting herself up in an island, and quarrelling 
 with the world, she would derive more lasting happiness, 
 and acquire more real riches, by generously mixing with it, 
 and bravely saying, I am the enemy of none. It is not now 
 a time for little contrivances, or artful politics. The Euro- 
 pean world is too experienced to be imposed upon, and 
 America too wise to be duped. It must be something new 
 and masterly that must succeed. The idea of seducing 
 America from her independence, or corrupting her from her 
 alliance, is a thought too little for a great mind, and impos- 
 sible for any honest one to attempt. Whenever politics are 
 applied to debauch mankind from their integrity, and dis- 
 solve the virtues of human nature, they become detestable, 
 and to be a atateman upon this plan, is to be a commissioned 
 villain. He who aims at it, leaves a vacancy in his charao 
 ter, which may be filled up with the worst of epithets. 
 
 If the disposition of England should be such, as not to 
 agree to a general and honourable peace, and that the war 
 must, at all events, continue longer, I cannot help wishing; 
 that the alliances which America has or may enter into, may 
 become the only objects of the war. She wants an oppor- 
 tunity of shewing to the world, that she holds her honour as 
 dear and sacred as her independence, and that she will, in. 
 no situation, forsake those, whom no negociations could in- 
 duce to forsake her. Peace to every reflective mind is a 
 desirable object ; but that peace which is accompanied witU 
 a ruined character, becomes a crime to the seducer, and a 
 curse upon the seduced. 
 
 But where is the impossibility, or even the great difficulty, 
 of England forming a friendship with France and Spain, 
 and making it a National virtue to renounce for ever those 
 prejudiced inveteracies it has been her custom to cherish; 
 and which, while they serve to sink her with an increasing 
 enormity of debt, by involving her in fruitless wars, become 
 likewise, the bane of her repose, and the destruction of her 
 manners. We had once the fetters that she has now, but 
 experience has shewn us the mistake, and thinking justly 
 has set us right. 
 
 The true idea of a great Nation, is, that which extends 
 and promotes the principles of universal society ; whose 
 mind rises above the atmosphere of local thoughts, and 
 considers mnkind, of whatever nation or profession they 
 may be, as the work of one Creator, The rage for conquest 
 
$2 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL.' 
 
 Las had its fashion and its day. Why may not the amiable 
 virtues have the same? The Alexanders and Csesars of an- 
 tiquity, have left behind them their monuments of destruc- 
 tion, and are remembered with hatred ; while these more 
 exalted characters, who first taught society and science, are 
 blessed with the gratitude of every age and country. Of 
 more use was one philosopher though a heathen, to 
 the world, than all the heathen conquerors that ever 
 ^existed. 
 
 Should the present revolution be distinguished by opening 
 a new system of extended civilization, it will receive from 
 lieaven the highest evidence of approbation; and as this is a 
 subject to which the Abbe's power are so eminently suited, 
 I recommend it to his attention, with the affection of a 
 friend, and the ardour of an universal citjzen. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 SINCE closing the foregoing letter, some intimations re- 
 specting a general peace, have made their way to America. 
 On what authority or foundation they stand, or how near, 
 or how remote such an event may be, are circumstances, I 
 am not enquiring into. But as the subject must, sooner or 
 later, become, a matter of serious attention, it may not be 
 improper, even at this early period, candidly to investigate 
 some points that are connected with it, or lead towards it. 
 
 The independence of America is at this moment, as firmly 
 established as that of any other country in a state of war. 
 It is riot length of time, but power, that gives stability. Na- 
 tions at war, know nothing of each other on the score of an- 
 tiquity. It is their present and immediate strength, together 
 with their connections, that must support them. To which 
 \ve may add, that a right which originated to-day, is as 
 much aright, as if it had the sanction of a. thousand years; 
 and, therefore, the independence and present Government 
 of America are in no more danger of being subverted, because 
 they are modern, than that of England is secure, because 
 it is ancient. 
 
 The politics of Britain, so far as they respected America, 
 were originally conceived in idiotism, and acted in madness. 
 There is not a step which bears the smallest trace of ration- 
 ality. In her management of the war, she has laboured 
 be wretched, and studied to be hated ; and in all her.ibnner 
 propositions for accommodation, she has discovered a total 
 ignorance of mankind, and of those natural and unalterable 
 sensations by which they are so generally governed. How 
 she may conduct herself in the present or future business of 
 negotiating a peace is yet to be proved. 
 
 He is a weak politician who does not understand human 
 nature, and penetrate into the effect which measures of Go- 
 vernment will have upon ihe mind. All the miscarriages of 
 
54 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAff. 
 
 Britain have arisen from this defect. The former Ministry 
 acted as if they supposed mankind to be without a mind; and 
 the present Ministry, as if America was without a memory. 
 The one must have supposed we were incapable of feeling; 
 and the other that we could not remember injuries. 
 
 There is likewise another line in which politicians mis- 
 take, which is that of not rightly calculating, ot rather of 
 misjudging, the consequence which any given circumstance 
 will produce. Nothing is more frequent, as well in com- 
 mon as in political life, than to hear people complain, that 
 such and such means produced an event directly contrary to 
 their intentions. But the fault lies in their not judging 
 .rightly what the event would be; for the means produced 
 only their proper and natural consequences. 
 
 It is very probable, that in a treaty of peace, Britain 
 will contend for some post or other in North America ; 
 perhaps Canada or Halifax, or both : and I infer this from the 
 known deficiency of her politics, which have ever yet made 
 use of means, whose natural event was against both her in- 
 terest and her expectation. But the question with her ought 
 to be, Whether it is worth hei % while to hold them, and what 
 will be the consequence ? 
 
 Respecting Canada, one or other of the two following will 
 take place, viz. If Canada should people, it will revolt, and 
 5f it do not people, it will not be worth theexpence of hold- 
 ing. And the same may be said of Halifax, and the coun- 
 try round it. But Canada never will people; neither is there 
 any occasion for contrivances on one side or the other, for 
 nature alone will do the whole. 
 
 Britain may put herself to great expences in sending set- 
 tlers to Canada ; but the descendants of those settlers will 
 he Americans, as other descendants have been before them. 
 They will look round and see the neighbouring States sove- 
 reign and free, respected abroad, and trading at large with 
 the world ; and the natural love of liberty, the advantages of 
 commerce, the blessings of independence, and of a happier 
 climate, and a richer soil, will draw them southward, and 
 the effect will be, that Britain will sustain the expence, and 
 America reap the advantage. 
 
 One would think that the experience which Britain has 
 Jhad of America, would entirely sicken her of all thoughts of 
 continental colonization ; and any part which she might re- 
 tain, would only become to her a field of jealousy and thorns, 
 of debate and contention, for ever struggling for privileges, 
 and meditating revolt. She may form new settlements, but 
 they will be for us ; they will become part of the United 
 States of America ; and that against all her contrivances to 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAt. 
 
 prevent it, or without any endeavours of ours to promote it. 
 In the first place, she cannot draw from them a revenue 
 until they are able to pay one, and when they are so, they 
 will be above subjection. Men soon become attached to the 
 soil they live upon, and incorporated with the prosperity of 
 the place; and it signifies but little, what opinions they 
 come over with, for time, interest, and new connections, 
 will render them obsolete, and the next generations know 
 nothing of them. 
 
 Were Britain truly wise she Would lay hold of the present 
 opportunity, to disentangle herself from all continental em- 
 barrassments in North America, and that not only to avoid 
 future broils and troubles, but to save expences. For to 
 speak explicitly on the matter, I would not, were I an 
 European power, have Canada, under the conditions that 
 Britain must retain it, could it be given to me. It is one of 
 those kind of dominions that is, and ever will be, a constant 
 charge upon any foreign holder. 
 
 As to Halifax, it will become useless to England after the 
 present war, and the loss of the United State*. A harbour, 
 when the dominion is gone, for the purpose of which only it 
 was, wanted, can be attended only with expence. There 
 are, I doubt not, thousands of people in England, who sup- 
 pose, that, those places area profit to the Nation, whereas, 
 they are directly the contrary, and instead of producing any 
 revenue, a considerable part of the revenue of England is 
 annually drawn off, to support the expence of holding 
 them. 
 
 Gibraltar is another instance of National ill-policy. A. 
 post which, in time of peace, is not wanted, and in time of 
 war, is of no use, must, at all times, be useless. Instead of 
 affording protection to a Navy, it requires the aid of one to 
 maintain it. And to suppose that Gibraltar commands the 
 Mediterranean, or the pass into it, or the trade of it, is to 
 suppose a detected falsehood ; because, though Britain holds 
 the post, she has lost the other three, and every benefit, she 
 expected from it. And to say that all this happens 
 because it is besieged by land and water, is to say nothing, 
 for this will always be the case in time of war, while France 
 and Spain keep up superior fleets, and Britain holds the 
 place* So that, though as an impenetrable, inaccessible 
 rock, it may be held by the one, it is always in the power of 
 the other to render it useless, and excessively chargeable. 
 
 I should suppose that one of the principal objects of Spain 
 in besieging it, is to shew to Britain, that though the mny 
 
50 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 not take it, she can cammand it, that is, she can shut it up, 
 and prevent its being used as a harbour, though nt as a 
 garrison.' But the. short way t6 reduce Gibraltar is to at- 
 tack the British fleet ; for Gibraltar is as dependent on a fleet 
 for support, as a bird is on its wings for food, and when 
 wounded there, it starves. 
 
 .There is another circumstance which the people of Eng- 
 land have not only not attended to, but seem to be utterly 
 ignorant of, and that is, the difference between perma- 
 nent power, and accidental power, considered in a Na- 
 tional sense. 
 
 By permanent power, I mean, a natural, inherent, and per- 
 petual ability in a Nation, which, though always in bein,f, 
 may not be always in action, or not always advantageously 
 directed; and by accidental power, I mean, a fortunate or 
 accidental disposition or exercise of National strength, in 
 whole or in part. 
 
 There undoubtedly was a time when any one European 
 Nation, with only eight or ten ships of war, equal to the 
 present ships of the line, could have carried terror to all 
 others, who had not began to build a navy, however great 
 their natural ability might be for that purpose. But this 
 can be considered only as accidental, and not as a standard to 
 compare permanent power by, and could last no longer than 
 until those powers built as many or more ships than the 
 former. After this, a larger fleet was necessary, in order to 
 be superior; and a still larger would again supersede it. 
 And thus mankind have gone on, building fleet upon fleet, as 
 occasion or situation dictated. And this reduces it to an 
 original question, which is, Which power can build and 
 man the largest number of ships? The natural answer to 
 "which, is, That power which has the largest revenue, and 
 the greatest number of inhabitants, provided its situation of 
 coast affords sufficient conveniencies. 
 
 France being a Nation on the -continent of Europe, and 
 Britain an island in its neighbourhood, each of them derived 
 different ideas from their different situations. The inhabi- 
 tants of Britain could carry on no foreign trade, nor stir 
 from the spot they dwelt upon, without the assistance of 
 shipping ; but this was not the case with France. The 
 idea, therefore, of a navy did not arise to France from the 
 same original and immediate necessity which produced it to 
 England. But the question is, that when both of them turn 
 their attention, and employ their revenues the same way, 
 \yhith can be superior ? 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 57 
 
 The annual revenue of France is nearly double that of 
 England, and her number of inhabitants more than twice 
 as many. Ea.chofthem has the same length of coast on 
 the channel ; besides which, France has several hundred 
 miles extent on the Bay of Biscay, and an opening on the 
 Mediterranean: and every day proves, that practice and 
 exercise make sailors, as well as soldiers, in one country as 
 well as another. 
 
 If, then, Britain can maintain an hundred ships of the 
 line, France can as well support an hundred and fifty, be- 
 cause her revenues, and her population, are as equal to the 
 one, as those of England are to the other. And the only 
 reason why she has not done it, is, because she has not, till 
 very lately, attended to it. But when she sees, as she now 
 sees, that a navy is the first engine of power, she can easily 
 accomplish it. 
 
 England very falsely, and ruinous'y for herself, infers, 
 that because she had the advantage of France, while France 
 had a smaller navy, that for that reason it is always to be so. 
 Whereas, it may be clearly seen, that the strength of France 
 has never yet been tried on a navy, and that she is able to be 
 as superior to England in the extent of a navy, as she is in 
 the extent of her revenues and her population. And Eng- 
 land may lament the day when, by her insolence and injus- 
 tice, she provoked in France a maritime disposition. 
 
 It is in the power of the combined fleets to conquer every 
 island in the West Indies, and reduce all the British navy in 
 those places. For were France and Spain to send their 
 whole naval force in Europe to those islands, it would not 
 be in the power of Britain to follow them with an equal 
 force. She would still be twenty or thirty ships inferior, 
 were she to send every vessel she had ; and, in the mean 
 time, all the foreign trade of England would lay exposed to 
 the Dutch. 
 
 It is a maxim which, I am persuaded, will ever hold good, 
 and more especially in naval operations, that a great power 
 ought never to move in detachments, if it can possibly be 
 avoided ; but to go with its whole force to some important 
 object, the reduction of which shall have a decisive effect 
 upon the war. Had the whole of the French and Spanish, 
 fleets in Europe come last spring to the West Indies, every 
 island had been their own, Rodney their prisoner, and his 
 fleet their prize. From the United States, the combined 
 fleets can be supplied with provisions, without the necessity 
 
53 LETTER TO THE ABBE RAYNAL. 
 
 of drawing them from Europe, which is not the case with 
 England. 
 
 Accident as thrown some advantages in the way of Eng- 
 land, which, from the inferiority of her navy, she had not a 
 right to expect. For though she has been obliged to fly 
 before the combined fleets, yet Rodney has twice had the 
 fortune to fall in with detached squadrons, to which he was 
 superior in numbers. The first o if Cape St. Vincent, where 
 he had nearly two to one; and the other in the West Indies, 
 where he had a majority of six ships. Victories of this, 
 kind almost produce themselves. They are won without 
 honour, and suffered without disgrace ; and are ascribable 
 to the chance of meeting, not to the superiority of fighting. 
 For the same Admiral, under whom they were obtained, 
 was unable, in three former engagements, to make the least 
 impression on a fleet consisting of an equal number of ships 
 with his own, and compounded for the events by declining 
 the actions.* 
 
 To conclude, if it may be said, that Britain has numerous 
 enemies, it likewise proves that she has given numerous of- 
 fences. Insolence is sure to provoke hatred, whether in a 
 Nation or an individual. The want cf manners in the Bri- 
 tish Court, may be seen even in its birth-day and new- 
 year's odes, which are calculated to infatuate the vulgar, and 
 disgust the man of refinement; and her former overbearing, 
 rudeness, and insufferable injustice on the seas, have made 
 every commercial Nation her foe. Her fleets were employ- 
 ed as engines of prey ; and acted on the surface of the deep, 
 the character which the shark does beneath it. On the 
 other hand, the Combined Powers are taking a popular part, 
 and will render their reputation immortal, by establishing 
 the perfect freedom of the ocean, to which all countries have 
 a right, and are interested in accomplishing. The sea is the 
 world's highway ; and he who arrogates a prerogative over 
 it, transgresses the right, and justly brings on himself the 
 chastisement of Nations. 
 
 Perhaps it might be of some service to the future tran- 
 quillity of mankind, were an article introduced into the 
 next general peace, that no one Nation should, in time of 
 peace, exceed a certain number of ships of war. Something 
 
 * See the nccounts, either English or French, of the actions in, 
 the West-Indies betwten Count de Guichen> and Admiral iiodney, 
 in 1780, 
 
LETTER TO THE ABBE UAYNAL. 59 
 
 of this kind seems necessary ; for, according to the present 
 fashion, half the world will get upon the water, and there ap- 
 pears to be no end to the extent to which navies may he carried. 
 Another reason is, that navies add nothing to the manners 
 or morals of a people. The sequestered life which attends 
 the service, prevents the opportunities of society, and is too 
 apt to occasion a coarseness of ideas and of language, and that 
 more in ships of war than in commercial employ ; because, 
 in the latter, they mix more with the world, and are nearer 
 related to it. I mention this remark as a general one, and 
 not applied to any one country more than to another. 
 
 Britain has now had the trial of above seven years, with 
 an expence of nearly a hundred million pounds sterling; 
 and every month in "which she delays to conclude a peace, 
 costs her another million sterling, over and above her ordi- 
 nary expences of Government, which are a million more; 
 so that her total monthly expence is two million pounds 
 sterling, which is equal to the whole yearly expence of 
 America, all charges included. Judge then who is best able 
 to continue it. 
 
 She has, likewise, many atonements to make to an in- 
 jured world, as well in one quarter as another. And instead 
 of pursuing that temper of arrogance, which serves only to 
 sink her in the esteem, and entail on her the dislike, of all 
 Nations, she will do well to reform her manners, retrench 
 her expences, live peaceably with her neighbours, and think 
 of war uo more. 
 
 Philadelphia, August 21, 17S2, 
 
 THE END. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 As the following correspondence relates to the LETTER TO 
 THE ABBE RAYNAL it is deemed proper to introduce 
 it here ; for though private letters are entitled to se- 
 crecy and confidence, yet when they relate to matters ia 
 which every body is interested, and no possible inconve- 
 nience can arise from the publication of them, they may 
 afford not only amusement, but advantage. The late re- 
 volution has, doubtless, produced many letters of this 
 kind, which, at some future period, would be esteemed 
 both curious and useful. The two following letters have 
 nothing very material in them, otherwise than the latter of 
 them shews, that the writer of it, notwithstanding all the 
 difficulties and severities he experienced at the head of 
 the army, was to the last devoted to undergo a further 
 continuance of them, or any new hardships that might 
 arise. 
 
 Borden Town, Sep. 7, 1782. 
 SIR, 
 
 I have the honour of presenting you with fifty copies of 
 
 my letter to the Abbe Raynal, for the use of the army, and 
 
 to repeat to you my acknowledgments for your friendship. 
 
 I fully believe we have seen our worst days over.- The 
 
 spirit of the war, on the pajt of the enemy, j s certainly on 
 
ii APPENDIX. 
 
 the decline, full as much as we think for. I draw his 
 opinion not only from the present promising appearance of 
 things, and the difficulties we know the British cabinet is 
 in ; but I add to it the peculiar effect which certain periods 
 of time, have more or less, upon all men. 
 
 The British have accustomed themselves to think of seven 
 years in a manner different to other portions of time. They 
 acquire this partly by habit, by reason, by religion, and by 
 superstition. They serve seven years apprenticeship they 
 elect their parliament for seven years they punish by seven 
 years transportation, or the duplicate or triplicate of that 
 term they let their leases in the same manner, and they 
 read that Jacob served seven years for one wife, and after 
 that seven years for another; and this particular period of 
 time, by a variety of concurrences, has obtained an influence 
 in their mind. 
 
 They have now had seven years of war, and are no fur- 
 ther on the continent than when they began. The supersti- 
 tious and populous part will therefore conclude that it is not 
 to be, and the rational part of them will think they have 
 tried an unsuccessful and expensive project long enough, so 
 that by these two joining issue in the same eventual opinion, 
 the obstinate part among them will be beaten out; unless, 
 consistent with their former sagacity, they should get over 
 the matter by an act of parliament, " to bind time in all 
 cases whatsoever," or declare him a rebel. 
 
 I observe the affair of Captain Asgill seems to die away : 
 very probably it has been protracted on the part of Clin- 
 ton and Carleton to gain time, to state the case to the British 
 ministry, where following close on that of Colonel Haynes, 
 it will create new embarrassments to them. For my own 
 part, I am fully persuaded that a suspension of his fate, still 
 holding it in terrorem, will operate on a greater quantity of 
 their passions and vices, and restrain them more than his exe- 
 cution would do. However the change of measures which 
 seems now to be taking place, gives somewhat of a new cast 
 to former designs ; and if the case, without the execution, 
 can be so managed as to answer all the purposes of the lat- 
 ter, it will look much better hereafter, when the sensations 
 that now provoke, and the circumstances that would justify 
 his exit, shall be forgotten. 
 
 I am your Excellency's obliged 
 
 and obedient humble servant, 
 
 THOMAS PAINE, 
 His Excel 1 *""' General Watfi'wglon* 
 
APPENDIX. Ill 
 
 * 
 
 Head-Quarters, Perplaiik's Point. 
 
 Sep. 18, 17S2. 
 SIR, 
 
 I have the pleasure to acknowledge your favor of the 7th 
 inst. informing me of your proposal to present me with fifty 
 c'opies of your last publication, for the amusement of the 
 army. 
 
 For this intention you have my sincere thanks, not only on 
 my own account, but for the pleasure, I doubt not, the gen- 
 tlemen of the army will receive from the perusal of your 
 pamphlets. 
 
 Your observations on the period of seven years, as it ap- 
 plies itself to, and affects British minds, are ingenious, and I 
 wish it may not fail of its effects in the present instance. 
 The measures, and the policy of the enemy are at present, 
 in great perplexity and embarrassment but I have my fears, 
 whether their necessities (which are the only operative mo- 
 tive with them) are yet arrived to that point, which must 
 drive them unavoidably into what they will esteem dis- 
 agreeable and dishonourable terms of peace such for in- 
 stance as an absolute, unequivocal admission of American 
 Independence, upon which she can alone accept it. 
 
 For this reason, added to the principles of some of the 
 English ministers, I have not so full a confidence in the suc- 
 cess of the present negociation for peace as some gentlemen 
 entertain. 
 
 Should events prove my jealousies to be ill founded, I 
 shall make myself happy under the mistake consoling my- 
 self with the idea of having erred on the safest side and en- 
 joying with as much satisfaction as any of my countrymen, 
 the pleasing issue of our severe contest. 
 
 The case of Capt. Asgill has indeed been spun out to a 
 great length but with you, I hope, that its termination will 
 not be unfavourable to this country. 
 
 I am Sir, with great esteem and regard, 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 
 G. WASHINGTON, 
 Thomas Paine> Esquire, 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
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