Yet, excluded as they would be from intercourse
with the rest of the Union and of Europe, I scarcely see the gain they
would propose to themselves, even for the moment. The defection would
certainly disconcert the other States, but it could not ultimately
endanger their safety. They are adequate, in all points, to a defensive
war. However, I hope your majority, with the aid it is entitled to, will
save us from this trial, to which I think it possible we are advancing.
The death of George may come to our relief; but I fear the dominion
of the sea is the insanity of the nation itself also. Perhaps, if some
stroke of fortune were to rid us at the same time from the Mammoth of
the land as well as the Leviathan of the ocean, the people of England
might lose their fears, and recover their sober senses again. Tell my
old friend, Governor Gerry, that I gave him glory for the rasping with
which he rubbed down his herd of traitors. Let them have justice
and protection against personal violence, but no favor. Powers and
pre-eminences conferred on them are daggers put into the hands of
assassins, to be plunged into our own bosoms in the moment the thrust
can go home to the heart. Moderation can never reclaim them. They deem
it timidity, and despise without fearing the tameness from which it
flows. Backed by England, they never lose the hope that their day is to
come, when the terrorism of their earlier power is to be merged in the
more gratifying system,of deportation and the guillotine.
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