Honest men will not forget either their merit or their sufferings. There
are men (and many, I trust, there are) who, out of love to their country
and their kind, would torture their invention to find excuses for
the mistakes of their brethren; and who, to stifle dissension, would
construe even doubtful appearances with the utmost favour: such men will
never persuade themselves to be ingenious and refined in discovering
disaffection and treason in the manifest, palpable signs of suffering
loyalty. Persecution is so unnatural to them, that they gladly snatch
the very first opportunity of laying aside all the tricks and devices
of penal politics; and of returning home, after all their irksome and
vexatious wanderings, to our natural family mansion, to the grand social
principle, that unites all men, in all descriptions, under the shadow of
an equal and impartial justice.