bloody hand of vengeance has hitherto put a blot upon her fame. Her
victories have received lustre from a greatness of lenity; and her
laws been permitted to slumber, where they might justly have awakened
to punish. War, so much the trade of the world, has here been only the
business of necessity; and when the necessity shall cease, her very
enemies must confess, that as she drew the sword in her just defence,
she used it without cruelty, and sheathed it without revenge.

As it is not my design to extend these remarks to a history, I shall
now take my leave of this passage of the Abbe, with an observation,
which, until something unfolds itself to convince me otherwise, I
cannot avoid believing to be true;--which is, that it was the fixt
determination of the British Cabinet to quarrel with America at all
events.

They (the members who compose the cabinet) had no doubt of success, if
they could once bring it to the issue of a battle; and they expected
from a conquest, what they could neither propose with decency, nor
hope for by negociation. The charters and constitutions of the
colonies were become to them matters of offence, and their rapid
progress in property and population were disgustingly beheld as the
growing and natural means of independence. They saw no way to retain
them long but by reducing them time. A conquest would at once have
made them both lords and landlords, and put them in the possession
both of the revenue and the rental. The whole trouble of government
would have ceased in a victory, and a final end put to remonstrance
and debate. The experience of the stamp act had taught them how to
quarrel with the advantages of cover and convenience, and they had
nothing to do but to renew the scene, and put contention into motion.
They hoped for a rebellion, and they made one. They expected a