a retrospection of pretended wrongs and ancient enmity.

The peace has always appeared to me like a covered snare; it has given the Pacificator of Europe time to breathe; to contemplate his subjects to reconnoitre his dominions, and survey the powers about him; but while declarations of amity have been made us in England, the embers have been kept glowing in France: suspicions are still excited; dissentions still fomented: the hope of making England another department of. France, is not sincerely relinquished; it seems reserved as France's best appendage; its richest ornament; it is to swell the catalogue of the provinces; and the title, like the Regent Diamond, is to adorn the turban of the Hero of Egypt.

We have never been famed for our prescince, and we cannot date the commence

ment of our wisdom from this period; we must wait the evidence of experience, to evince the folly of our pertinacious wars, and of an ill-timed peace.

LETTER XXIII.

Paris, November 8, 1802.

Soon after my arrival here, Thomas Payne quitted it; the man who has shewn such public spirit, and without education manifested an accuteness and energy of mind, that excelled literary talents; was at last persecuted by his country, abandoned by France, and neglected by America; his pamphlet of Common Sense, in a strain of vigor peculiar to the author, decided American liberty.

Some States had wavered, they balanced between their allegiance and a love of freedom; but after they read Common Sense, they joined, and were unanimous. His Rights of

Man agitated all Europe; the spirit it raised has not even yet subsided; the aphorisms strike like flashes of lightning: the diction is simple, sententious, and impressive: but the world is more pleased with precept than experiment; the outrages of the Revolution will deter experiment. To destroy a government before a better is instituted, is to create an interval for anarchy': the weapons to vanquish abuse and error should be reason and conviction. Where changes are effected by violence, they afford a precedent for the repetition; and there is seldom more stability after the change than before it. Payne fondly hoped, and not unreasonably, that changes might be effected by conviction, by unanimous agreement, without bloodshed or coercion but as they exposed state impostures, and asserted the rights of nature, they excited irritation. If Socrates died for his opinions, Payne must not murmur to be a martyr to his Rights of Man; those who

have fostered on state bubbles, will never forgive the breath that bursts them. It will grieve you to hear that this man's intellect is impaired, that his great mind has dwindled. Either the encreased progress of a vicious habit, or chagrin at the frustration of his efforts, has so augmented his potions, that he is scarcely ever sober: he is senseless and idle, vain and loquacious; his face is scarlet, and full of irruptions. The man who did so much for the public, prates now of nothing but himself; he has preserved nothing of his great character but his integrity. Disap pointed and mortified at the usurpation of Bonaparte, and the supineness of the fribble French, he sailed from Havre for his beloved America, where alone of all the globe, he thinks true liberty is enjoyed. As he is aged and intemperate, he will not enjoy long the liberty he seeks; but his Common Sense will immortalize him in America, and his Rights of Man all over the world: the strong diction