of words, that jumble of mixed metaphors with fantastic sentiments; above all, that conceitedness of wrong decision, and that labour of quibbles, which distinguish both your own orations, and that newspaper literature which has been your grand school of eloquence. The pamphlet is written to expose the nakedness of the land; and that let it expose in all respects. Then send it, on the wings of the post-office bags, all abroad. Let it pass, as a peace-offering, into the hands of your principal enemy; let it go to your allies, as no unambiguous denunciation of what they may expect from you: let it go to the whole world, as a proof, that you despair of your country's safety, and are in haste to make an eternal sacrifice of her independence. All the blame is laid, you know, on the inability and unfaithfulness of your predecessors and the more their acts are vilified, so much the more will all that you shall do, gain in the comparison with them. : even make Pay your Court to the Enemy, before you your Compliments, as the new Minister, to your Country's Allies. You have told in parliament that your country is undone; you have invoked all the eloquence of Grub-street to repeat and propagate the tale; you have dispersed your manifesto wherever your country's name is known; next renew the interrupted correspondence of your government with foreign courts. Others might naturally enough, if new in a situation like yours, address themselves, in the first instance, to those foreign powers whom they found in alliance with their government; but such must not be your conduct. You despise those who were fruitlessly cherished as allies by your predeces sors. You are ready to sacrifice them all in order to redeem the friendship of the terrible enemy who prevails over you and them alike. Invent some pretence of apparent generosity for opening or renewing a correspondence with the intriguer who, being deep in every bad artifice, and polluted with every species of guilt, has thus attained to be his minister. Let your pretence be false; and let it be offered with that sneaking officiousness which may best betray you to shame, as anxious to offer sacrifices and concessions, concerning which, however, you tremble lest they should not be accepted. Mark the reception of this homage; though proud and disdainful, yet if it do not absolutely fordid you to lick the dust at the feet of the tyrant, to whom you would submit yourself and your country,— rejoice. Chuse for the details of your negotiation, some poor being who has languished for years in the tyrant's chains, and who would sell his very birth-right, his very manhood, to get out of them. Being a slave, is he not so much the fitter to be your representative ? Must he have a coadjutor? Select for the task one who has, long since, transferred as much as he could of his family property to the land of the tyrant's power; who has been labouring all his life to shew, that even a peer may dive deep in the bathos, and get distinction in the commonwealth of Grubstreet; whose principles in politics, so far as he has had any, have been ever notoriously adverse to those of the constitution over whose government you preside; who is not more distinguished by domestic virtues, nor more familiar with unambitious, pure, domestic joy, than the wretches among whom you send him; who is so little loved and honoured at home, that a Bonoparte or a Talleyrand might p-ss upon him almost without giving offence to his fellow countrymen ; and who is so impatiently, so ludicrously ambitious of public employment, that he would almost take JACK KETCH's place, sooner than rest longer in the shade. Such a par nobile may well do homage in your name at the foot of the great enemy's throne. Let them tell him, how much you admire his glory; how desirous you are to repose your whole confidence in his honour and truth. Let them humbly watch the favourable moments when he and his ministers will deign to hear or answer even any few words, with the common courtesies of social and diplomatic intercourse. Let them give him to know, that your whole machine of state stands still, till he shall have said the word; that you, in deference to him, leave all your allies in suspense, as to your farther intentions respecting them, and altogether at the mercy of his menaces, usurpations, and intrigues. Ask of him, in the first instance, no definite engagement, no written stipulation, nobasis for a treaty but such, as from which he may afterward shift his ground at pleasure. Leave him to proclaim to all the world, that he has almost concluded a separate peace with you; that the late offensive and defensive allies of your country, have nothing farther to expect from your aid; that you yourself personally have consented to be, for your particular country, his Prince of Peace. He will, thus, of course, be able to overawe your allies into |