keep themselves so, if they can; and that what the parties, who have thought proper to dispute upon that point, have wrested from each other in the course of the conflict, may be, in the issue of it, restored to the proper owner.  Nations may be guilty of a conduct that would render an individual infamous for ever; and yet carry their heads high, talk of their glory, and despise their neighbours.  Your opinions and mine, I mean our political ones, are not exactly of a piece, yet I cannot think otherwise upon this subject than I have always done.  England, more, perhaps, through the fault of her generals, than her councils, has in some instances acted with a spirit of cruel animosity she was never chargeable with till now.  But this is the worst that can be said.  On the other hand, the Americans, who, if they had contented themselves with a struggle for lawful liberty, would have deserved applause, seem to me to have incurred the guilt of parricide, by renouncing their parent, by making her ruin their favourite object, and by associating themselves with her worst enemy, for the accomplishment of their purpose.  France, and of course Spain, have acted a treacherous, a thievish part.  They have stolen America from England, and whether they are able to possess themselves of that jewel or not hereafter, it was doubtless what they intended.  Holland appears to me in a meaner light than any of them.  They quarrelled with a friend for an enemy’s sake.  The French led them by the nose, and the English have threshed them for suffering it.  My views of the contest being, and having been always such, I have consequently brighter hopes for England than her situation some time since seemed to justify.  She is the only injured party.  America may, perhaps, call her the aggressor; but if she were so, America has not only repelled the injury, but done a greater.  As to the rest, if perfidy, treachery, avarice, and ambition can prove their cause to have been a rotten one, those proofs are found upon them.  I think, therefore, that whatever scourge may be prepared for England, on some future day, her ruin is not yet to be expected.  Acknowledge, now, that I am worthy of a place under the shed I described, and that I should make no small figure among the quidnuncs of Olney....

TO THE SAME

Village justice

17 Nov. 1783.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

...  The country around us is much alarmed with apprehensions of fire.  Two have happened since that of Olney.  One at Hitchin, where the damage is said to amount to eleven thousand pounds, and another, at a place not far from Hitchin, of which I have not learnt the name.  Letters have been dropped at Bedford, threatening to burn the town; and the inhabitants have been so intimidated, as to have placed a guard in many parts of it, several nights past.  Some madman or some devil has broke loose, who it is to be hoped will pay dear for these effusions of his