"But still you may flutter awhile with your wings, "And spit out your venom and brandish your stings: "Your hearts are as black, and as bitter as gall, "A curse to mankind--and a blot on the Ball."[E] [E] It is hoped that such a sentiment may not be deemed wholly illiberal--Every candid person will certainly _draw a line between a brave and magnanimous people, and a most vicious and vitiating government_. Perhaps the following extract from a pamphlet lately published in London and republished at Baltimore (June, 1809) by Mr. _Bernard Dornin_, will place the preceding sentiment in a fair point of view: "A better spirit than exists in the English people, never existed in any people in the world; it has been misdirected, and squandered upon party purposes in the most degrading and scandalous manner; they have been led to believe that they were benefiting the commerce of England by destroying the commerce of America, that they were defending their sovereign by perpetuating the bigoted oppression of their fellow subjects; their rulers and their guides have told them that they would equal the vigour of France by equalling her atrocity, and they have gone on, wasting that opulence, patience and courage, which if husbanded by prudent, and moderate counsels, might have proved the salvation of mankind. The same policy of turning the good qualities of Englishmen to their own destruction, which made Mr. Pitt omnipotent, continues his power to those who resemble him only in his vices; advantage is taken of the loyalty of Englishmen, to make them meanly submissive; their piety is turned into persecution; their courage into useless and obstinate contention; they are plundered because they are ready to pay, and soothed into assinine stupidity because they are full of virtuous patience. If England must perish at last, so let it be: that event is in the hands of God; we must dry up our tears, and submit. But that England should perish swindling and stealing; that it should perish waging war against lazar-houses and hospitals; that it should perish persecuting with monastic bigotry; that it should calmly give itself up to be ruined by the flashy arrogance of one man, and the narrow fanaticism of another: these events are within the power of human beings, but I did not think that the magnanimity of Englishmen would ever stoop to such degradations."--_Freneau's note._ [142] This poem appeared in the April 3, 1782, issue of the _Freeman's Journal_, filling the entire first page of the paper. I have followed the text of the 1809 edition.