I have gone into this explanation, my friend, because I know you will
not carry my letter to the newspapers, and because I am willing
to entrust to your discretion the explaining me to our honest
fellow-laborers, and the bringing them to pause and reflect, if any of
them have not sufficiently reflected on the extent of the success we
ought to wish to Bonaparte, with a view to our own interests only; and
even were we not men, to whom nothing human should be indifferent. But
is our particular interest to make us insensible to all sentiments of
morality? Is it then become criminal, the moral wish that the torrents
of blood this man is shedding in Europe, the sufferings of so many human
beings, good as ourselves, on whose necks he is trampling, the burnings
of ancient cities, devastations of great countries, the destruction of
law and order, and demoralization of the world, should be arrested, even
if it should place our peace a little further distant? No. You and
I cannot differ in wishing that Russia, and Sweden, and Denmark, and
Germany, and Spain, and Portugal, and Italy, and even England, may
retain their independence. And if we differ in our opinions about Towers
and his four beasts and ten kingdoms, we differ as friends, indulging
mutual errors, and doing justice to mutual sincerity and honesty. In
this spirit of sincere confidence and affection, I pray God to bless you
here and hereafter.
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