The next solecism in politics, which he commits, is undertaking to vindicate America from the charge of having sought and formed this confederacy. America wanted no such vindication; it is folly to suppose it a fault, for all mankind will agree, even his correspondents themselves, that it was wisdom and virtue. Surely another term must be given to popular ideas, before they will be brought to petition for peace. Nor do I think it was prudent in him to hold up the idea, that America had proceeded with reluctance and regret to the Treaty. That this is true, I know and feel to this very moment; for although I had no such reluctance myself, those gentlemen with whom I had the honor to sit in Congress at the time will remember, that I had very good reasons to be sensible that others had. But how well soever he might be informed of the fact, and from what source soever he might draw his information, it was bad policy in him to hold it up, because he ought to have been equally sure, that America has now no reluctance to the treaty, nor any inclination to violate it. He ought not, therefore, to have held up a hope of this to the people. Neither ought he to have flattered the people with hopes, that America would not form any perpetual alliance with France, nor that their limited alliance might be satisfied and discharged. The alliance already made is limited, it is true, to a certain number of articles, but not limited in its duration. It is perpetual, and he had no grounds to sooth the people with hopes, either that France would give up any of the articles of the treaty, or that America would violate them. He ought also to have avoided his insinuations, that America has been so much harassed by the war. This is an idea so refreshing to the present passions of the people of England, that, instead of tending to dispose them to peace, it only revives their hopes of success, and inflames their ardor for war. That America has been harassed by the war is true, and when was any nation at war without being so? Especially, when did any nation undergo a revolution in government, and sustain a war at the same time without it? Yet, after all, America has not been so much harassed, or disastered, or terrified, or panic-struck from the beginning, as Great Britain has been several times in the course of it.