But
diabolical as they paint that enemy, he burnt neither public edifices
nor private dwellings. It was reserved for England to show that
Bonaparte, in atrocity, was an infant to their ministers and their
generals. They are taking his place in the eyes of Europe, and have
turned into our channel all its good will. This will be worth the
million of dollars the repairs of their conflagrations will cost us.
I hope that to preserve this weather-gage of public opinion, and to
counteract the slanders and falsehoods disseminated by the English
papers, the government will make it a standing instruction to
their ministers at foreign courts, to keep Europe truly informed of
occurrences here, by publishing in their papers the naked truth always,
whether favorable or unfavorable. For they will believe the good, if we
candidly tell them the bad also.
But you have two more serious causes of uneasiness; the want of men and
money. For the former, nothing more wise or efficient could have been
imagined than what you proposed. It would have filled our ranks with
regulars, and that, too, by throwing a just share of the burthen on the
purses of those whose persons are exempt either by age or office; and it
would have rendered our militia, like those of the Greeks and Romans,
a nation of warriors. But the go-by seems to have been given to your
proposition, and longer sufferance is necessary to force us to what is
best.
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