It is reported among persons of the best intelligence at Olney--the
barber, the schoolmaster, and the drummer of a corps quartered at
this place,--that the belligerent powers are at last reconciled, the
articles of the treaty adjusted, and that peace is at the door. I saw
this morning, at nine o'clock, a group of about twelve figures very
closely engaged in a conference, as I suppose, upon the same subject.
The scene of consultation was a blacksmith's shed, very comfortably
screened from the wind, and directly opposed to the morning sun. Some
held their hands behind them, some had them folded across their bosom,
and others had thrust them into their breeches pockets. Every man's
posture bespoke a pacific turn of mind; but the distance being too
great for their words to reach me, nothing transpired. I am willing,
however, to hope that the secret will not be a secret long, and that
you and I, equally interested in the event, though not, perhaps,
equally well-informed, shall soon have an opportunity to rejoice in
the completion of it. The powers of Europe have clashed with each
other to a fine purpose; that the Americans, at length declared
independent, may 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....