been all our own, it could not have had a deeper effect; yet it was
not one of those cases which reached to the independence of America.

In the geographical account which the Abbe gives of the Thirteen
States, he is so exceedingly erroneous, that to attempt a particular
refutation, would exceed the limits I have prescribed to myself. And
as it is a matter neither political, historical, nor sentimental, and
which can always be contradicted by the extent and natural
circumstances of the country, I shall pass it over; with this
additional remark, that I never yet saw an European description of
America that was true, neither can any person gain a just idea of it,
but by coming to it.

Though I have already extended this letter beyond what I at first
proposed, I am, nevertheless, obliged to omit many observations I
originally designed to have made. I wish there had been no occasion
for making any. But the wrong ideas which the Abbe's work had a
tendency to excite, and the prejudicial impressions they might make,
must be an apology for my remarks, and the freedom with which they are
made.

I observe the Abbe has made a sort of epitome of a considerable part
of the pamphlet Common Sense, and introduced it in that form into his
publication. But there are other places where the Abbe has borrowed
freely from the said pamphlet without acknowledging it. The difference
between society and government, with which the pamphlet opens, is
taken from it, and in some expressions almost literally, into the
Abbe's work, as if originally his own; and through the whole of the
Abbe's remarks on this head, the idea in Common Sense is so closely
copied and pursued, that the difference is only in words, and in the