“Ah, Sire, if you believe you owe so much to that proud English people, do you owe nothing to your own good people in France, in America, in India? But if your scruples are so delicate that you have no desire to favor what may injure your enemies, how, Sire, can you allow your subjects to contend with other European powers, in conquering countries belonging to the poor Indians, the African Savages or the Caribs who have never wronged you? How can you allow your vessels to take by force and bind suffering black men whom nature made free and who are only miserable because you are powerful? How can you suffer three rival powers to seize iniquitously upon and divide Poland under your very eyes?... “Were men angels, political ways might undoubtedly be disdained. But if men were angels there would be no need of religion to enlighten them, of laws to govern them, of magistrates to restrain them, of soldiers to subdue them; and the earth instead of being a faithful image of hell, would be indeed a celestial abode. All we can do is to take men as they are, and the wisest king can go no farther than the legislator Solon, who said: ‘I do not give the Athenians the best laws, but only those adapted for the place, the time and the people for whom I make them.’ ... “I entreat you, Sire, in the name of your subjects, to whom you owe your best efforts; in the name of that inward repose which your Majesty so properly cherishes; in the name of the glory and prosperity of a reign begun under such happy auspices; I entreat you, Sire, not to be deceived by the brilliant sophism of a false sensibility. _Summum jus, summa injuria._ This deplorable excess of equity towards your enemies would be the most signal injustice towards your subjects who soon suffer the penalty of scruples out of place. “I have treated the gravest questions summarily, for fear of weakening my arguments by giving them greater extension, and especially through fear of wearying the attention of Your Majesty. If any doubts still remain, Sire, after reading what I have presented to you, efface my signature, and have this attempt copied by another hand, in order that the feebleness of the reasoner may not diminish the force of the argument, and lay this discussion before any man instructed by experience and knowledge of worldly affairs; and if there is one, beginning with M. de Vergennes, who does not agree with me, I close my mouth; ...