But because we speak English, and look like them, are we to be punished?
Are free and independent men to be submitted to their bondage?
England has misrepresented to all Europe this ground of the war. She
has called it a new pretension, set up since the repeal of her orders
of council. She knows there has never been a moment of suspension of our
reclamations against it, from General Washington's time inclusive, to
the present day: and that it is distinctly stated in our declaration of
war, as one of its principal causes. She has pretended we have entered
into the war, to establish the principle of 'free bottoms, free goods,'
or to protect her seamen against her own right over them. We contend for
neither of these. She pretends we are partial to France; that we have
observed a fraudulent and unfaithful neutrality between her and her
enemy. She knows this to be false, and that if there has been any
inequality in our proceedings towards the belligerents, it has been in
her favor. Her ministers are in possession of full proofs of this.
Our accepting at once, and sincerely, the mediation of the virtuous
Alexander, their greatest friend, and the most aggravated enemy of
Bonaparte, sufficiently proves whether we have partialities on the side
of her enemy. I sincerely pray that this mediation may produce a just
peace. It will prove that the immortal character, which has first
stopped by war the career of the destroyer of mankind, is the friend of
peace, of justice, of human happiness, and the patron of unoffending
and injured nations.
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