Wesley Corpus

But they observed them as they thought best; sometimes a little, sometimes not at all. “They fought our battles with us.” Certainly we fought theirs: And we have sad reason to remember it; for had Canada remained in the hands of the French, they would have been quiet subjects still. 45. “But what calamities must follow” from this impolitic war ! See “the empire dismembered.” (Page 73.) If it be, that is not the consequence of the war, but rather the cause of it. “The blood of thousands shed” (it is not yet; perhaps it never may) “in an unrighteous quarrel.” Doubtless unrigh teous on their part, who revolt from their lawful Sovereign; and therefore whatever blood is shed will lie at their door. “Our strength exhausted.” No, not yet; as they that try may find to their cost. “Our merchants breaking.” But far more before the war than since. “Our manufacturers starv ing.” I pray, where? I cannot find them: Not in London, in Bristol, in Birmingham, in Manchester, in Liverpool, Leeds, or Sheffield; nor anywhere else, that I know; and I am well acquainted with most of the manufacturing towns in England. “The funds tottering.” Then the stocks must sink very low: But that is not the case. “And the miseries of a public bankruptcy impending.” Just as they have done these hundred years. Fifty years ago I used to be much alarmed at things of this kind. When I heard a doleful prophecy of ruin impending on the nation, I really imagined something would follow. Nay, nothing in the world: These predictions are mere brutum fulmen; thunder without lightning. 46. Now for a little more of this fine painting ! But, remember 1 it is not drawn from the life. “A nation once the protector of liberty in distant countries, endeavouring to reduce its own brethren to servitude.” Say, to lay down the arms which they have taken up against their King and coun try. “Insisting upon such a supremacy over them as would leave them nothing they could call their own.” (Page 89.) Yes; the supremacy insisted on would leave them all the liberty, civil and religious, which they have had from their first settlement. You next compare them to the brave Corsicans, taking arms against the Genoese. But the Cor sicans were not colonies from Genoa: Therefore, there is nothing similar in the case.