“With some few exceptions, I have long forgiven and forgotten all the injuries, with which the worst of you, in your folly and your madness, endeavoured to load me; while, on the other hand, I cherish the remembrance of all those acts of indulgence and of friendship which I have, in greater abundance than any other person, experienced at American hands.… If no man ever had more enemies, no one ever had half so many friends, and these the warmest and most sincere. Never, therefore, does America, and Pennsylvania in particular, come athwart my mind unaccompanied with the best wishes for their prosperity and happiness.” FOOTNOTES [1] “Is he a man I choose to punish?--I make it a libel. Is he a man I choose not to punish?--I make it a non-libel.”--_Bentham_: _Works_, v. 281. [2] There is one incident of the Revolutionary War (for the catastrophe of which M’Kean is held responsible) which arouses the old Adam in the breast of the Pennsylvanian Quaker to this very day. John Roberts and Abraham Carlisle, two very worthy members of the Society of Friends, were arraigned, condemned, and hanged, ostensibly for having given assistance and comfort to the British troops when occupying Philadelphia--a perfectly groundless charge. The thing was done to “save the country,” _à la Française_. [3] _Vide_ Wolcott’s “Memoirs, &c.,” i. 231, ii. 388, &c. [4] “Dansons la _Carmagnole_” was one of the French revolutionary songs. [5] Both Mifflin, the Governor of Pennsylvania, and M’Kean himself, had many a time committed themselves to the foulest aspersions against Britain, as well as their own country, on occasion, “after the cloth was removed.” But Mr. Bache, whether at a civic feast, or in the columns of the _Aurora_, was a real professor of venom. Britain is a “perfidious nation;” its people are “bloody savage islanders;” the Government “a mixture of tyranny, profligacy, brutality, and corruption;” and he would heartily rejoice if the Royal family “were all decently guillotined.” And concerning Spain, for several years preceding the new amicable arrangements, we read of the “slaves of Madrid,” the “most cowardly of the human race;” the “ignorant soldiery of the infamous tyrant of Castile!” &c. [6] There was one William Blount, for example, who was expelled the Senate, on account of intrigue, or downright treachery, went home to Tennessee, was received with acclamations, and re-elected Governor of the State!