Not in the poor maniac
George, but in his government and nation. Bonaparte will die, and his
tyrannies with him. But a nation never dies. The English government and
its piratical principles and practices, have no fixed term of duration.
Europe feels, and is writhing under the scorpion whips of Bonaparte. We
are assailed by those of England. The one continent thus placed under
the gripe of England, and the other of Bonaparte, each has to grapple
with the enemy immediately pressing on itself. We must extinguish the
fire kindled in our own house, and leave to our friends beyond the water
that which is consuming theirs. It was not till England had taken one
thousand of our ships, and impressed into her service more than six
thousand of our citizens; till she had declared, by the proclamation of
her Prince Regent, that she would not repeal her aggressive orders as to
us, until Bonaparte should have repealed his as to all nations; till her
minister, in formal conference with ours, declared, that no proposition
for protecting our seamen from being impressed, under color of taking
their own, was practicable or admissible; that, the door to justice and
to all amicable arrangement being closed, and negotiation become both
desperate and dishonorable, we concluded that the war she had been for
years waging against us, might as well become a war on both sides. She
takes fewer vessels from us since the declaration of war than before,
because they venture more cautiously; and we now make full reprisals
where before we made none.
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