He is too honest and impartial to countenance
propositions of peace derogatory to the freedom of the seas.
Shall I apologize to you, my dear Madam, for this long political letter?
But yours justifies the subject, and my feelings must plead for the
unreserved expression of them; and they have been the less reserved,
as being from a private citizen, retired from all connection with
the government of his country, and whose ideas, expressed without
communication with any one, are neither known, nor imputable to them.
The dangers of the sea are now so great, and the possibilities of
interception by sea and land such, that I shall subscribe no name to
this letter. You will know from whom it comes, by its reference to the
date of time and place of yours, as well as by its subject in answer to
that. This omission must not lessen in your view the assurances of my
great esteem, of my sincere sympathies for the share which you bear in
the afflictions of your country, and the deprivations to which a lawless
will has subjected you. In return, you enjoy the dignified satisfaction
of having met them, rather than be yoked, with the abject, to his car;
and that, in withdrawing from oppression, you have followed the virtuous
example of a father, whose name will ever be dear to your country and
to mankind. With my prayers that you may be restored to it, that you may
see it re-established in that temperate portion of liberty which does
not infer either anarchy or licentiousness, in that high degree of
prosperity which would be the consequence of such a government, in
that, in short, which the constitution of 1789 would have insured it, if
wisdom could have stayed at that point the fervid but imprudent zeal of
men, who did not know the character of their own countrymen, and that
you may long live in health and happiness under it, and leave to the
world a well educated and virtuous representative and descendant of
your honored father, is the ardent prayer of the sincere and respectful
friend who writes this letter.
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