not to have waited for the disgraceful dismissal of our ambassador.  There are cases in which we may pretend to sleep; but the wittol rule has some sense in it, Non omnibus dormio.  We might, however, have seemed ignorant of the affront; but what was the fact?  Did we dissemble or pass it by in silence?  When dignity is talked of, a language which I did not expect to hear in such a transaction, I must say, what all the world must feel, that it was not for the king’s dignity to notice this insult and not to resent it.  This mode of proceeding is formed on new ideas of the correspondence between sovereign powers.

This was far from the only ill effect of the policy of degradation.  The state of inferiority in which we were placed, in this vain attempt at treaty, drove us headlong from error into error, and led us to wander far away, not only from all the paths which have been beaten in the old course of political communication between mankind, but out of the ways even of the most common prudence.  Against all rules, after we had met nothing but rebuffs in return to all our proposals, we made two confidential communications to those in whom we had no confidence and who reposed no confidence in us.  What was worse, we were fully aware of the madness of the step we were taking.  Ambassadors are not sent to a hostile power, persevering in sentiments of hostility, to make candid, confidential, and amicable communications.  Hitherto the world has considered it as the duty of an ambassador in such a situation to be cautious, guarded, dexterous, and circumspect.  It is true that mutual confidence and common interest dispense with all rules, smooth the rugged way, remove every obstacle, and make all things plain and level.  When, in the last century, Temple and De Witt negotiated the famous Triple Alliance, their candor, their freedom, and the most confidential disclosures were the result of true policy.  Accordingly, in spite of all the dilatory forms of the complex government of the United Provinces, the treaty was concluded in three days.  It did not take a much longer time to bring the same state (that of Holland) through a still more complicated transaction,—­that of the Grand Alliance.  But in the present case, this unparalleled candor, this unpardonable want of reserve, produced, what might have been expected from it, the most serious evils.  It instructed the enemy in the whole plan of our demands and concessions.  It made the most fatal discoveries.

And first, it induced us to lay down the basis of a treaty which itself had nothing to rest upon.  It seems, we thought we had gained a great point in getting this basis admitted,—­that is, a basis of mutual compensation and exchange of conquests.  If a disposition to peace, and with any reasonable assurance, had been previously indicated, such a plan of arrangement might with propriety and safety be proposed; because these arrangements were not, in effect, to