Page:Thoughts on a French invasion.pdf/10

 be forced to act as guides and waggoners, if not to enlist as soldiers, and to meet death from the bayonets or their brethren, or from the hands of an executioner.

Such has been the fate of all the countries over run by the modern French. But alas! their inhabitants had not the alternative which, God be praised! we possess. They had no friends in the rear to afford them a shelter: they had no country to indemnify them for their sacrifices for the common good; no rallying point; no hope, no confidence in their own government; each family thought separately for itself, and had no choice but to throw itself on the conqueror.

Let no man flatter himself that he can purchase security for himself or his property by submission. We, of all other people, can hope for no mercy, if we are a conquered. The governors of France stop at no false representations, and unworthy means of inflaming the minds of their subjects. This, they tell them, is the mine that will enrich them all; this the country, which alone prevents their obtaining universal dominion; this, they say, like Carthage, must be destroyed; and, as if these motives were not sufficient, they tax us with cruelty to our prisoners ,and excite their soldiers with the war-hoop of revenge.

After distressing the enemy, the next pointy for every individual to consider, is, how heft to assist the armed force, and join in the common defence. Whenever troops are on their march towards the enemy, every hand will surely be active in procuring bread for them, There our generous country-women will he found to There in the laurels which their husbands, their brothers, and their friends, are seeking to gather; they