Page:Conciones ad populum. Or, Addresses to the people (IA concionesadpopul00cole).pdf/56

46 precluding a treaty of Peace? Nor has their aversion from War been less exemplary since the Revolution. Lord Dorchester had roused the War-whoop among the Savages: instigated by his Agents the merciless Tribes poured in on the back settlements; and the Algerines were incited against their Commerce. The conduct of the English was every where insolent, and through all the Union detested. The lower classes of the People cried aloud for War. But the Legislature well knew, that the evils even of a just war were not to be calculated, and that no war could be just, unless it had been preceded by sincere negociations for the permanence of Peace. They knew the English Nation to be practical Atheists, professing to believe a God, yet acting as if there were none. In Europe the smoaking Villages of Flanders, and the putrified Fields of La Vendee—from Africa the unnumbered Victims of a detestable Slave-trade—in Asia the desolated plains of Tndostan and the Million whom a rice-contracting Governor caused to perish—in America the recent enormities of their Scalp-Merchants—the four Quarters of the Globe groan beneath the intolerable iniquity of this nation! Yet these high-minded Republicans did not refuse to negociate with us.