more regular sanction. This I suppose the _pis aller_ of their affairs,
while their probable event is a peaceable settlement of them. They fear
a war from England, Holland, and Prussia. I think England will give
money, but not make war. Holland would soon be afire, internally, were
she to be embroiled in external difficulties. Prussia must know this,
and act accordingly.

It is impossible to desire better dispositions towards us, than prevail
in this Assembly. Our proceedings have been viewed as a model for them
on every occasion; and though in the heat of debate men are generally
disposed to contradict every authority urged by their opponents, ours
has been treated like that of the Bible, open to explanation, but not to
question. I am sorry that in the moment of such a disposition, any thing
should come from us to check it. The placing them on a mere footing with
the English, will have this effect. When of two nations, the one has
engaged herself in a ruinous war for us, has spent her blood and money
to save us, has opened her bosom to us in peace, and received us almost
on the footing of her own citizens, while the other has moved heaven,
earth, and hell to exterminate us in war, has insulted us in all
her councils in peace, shut her doors to us in every part where her
interests would admit it, libelled us in foreign nations, endeavored to
poison them against the reception of our most precious commodities; to
place these two nations on a footing, is to give a great deal more
to one than to the other, if the maxim be true, that to make unequal
quantities equal, you must add more to one than the other. To say, in
excuse, that gratitude is never to enter into the motives of national
conduct, is to revive a principle which has been buried for centuries
with its kindred principles of the lawfulness of assassination, poison,
perjury, &c. All of these were legitimate principles in the dark ages
which intervened between ancient and modern civilization, but exploded