My
countrymen responded in heart to the filial feelings I had avowed in
their name towards the parent country: and there was a generous
sympathy in every English bosom towards a solitary individual, lifting
up his voice in a strange land, to vindicate the injured character of
his nation. There are some causes sosacred as to carry with them an
irresistible appeal to every virtuous bosom; and he needs but little
power of eloquence, who defends the honour of his wife, his mother, or
his country.
I hail, therefore, the success of that brief paper, as showing how
much good may be done by a kind word, however feeble, when spoken in
season--as showing how much dormant good-feeling actually exists in
each country, towards the other, which only wants the slightest spark
to kindle it into a genial flame--as showing, in fact, what I have all
along believed and asserted, that the two nations would grow together
in esteem and amity, if meddling and malignant spirits would but throw
by their mischievous pens, and leave kindred hearts to the kindly
impulses of nature.
I once more assert, and I assert it with increased conviction of its
truth, that there exists, among the great majority of my countrymen, a
favourable feeling toward England.
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