Olney, _January_ 26, 1783. It is reported among persons of the best intelligence at Olney--the barber, the schoolmaster, and the drummer of a corps quartered at this place--that the belligerent powers are at last reconciled, the articles of the treaty adjusted, and that peace is at the door.
The powers of Europe have clashed with each other to a fine purpose. Your opinions and mine, I mean our political ones, are not exactly of a piece, yet I cannot think otherwise on this subject than I have always done. England, more perhaps through the fault of her generals than her councils, has in some instances acted with a spirit of cruel animosity she was never chargeable with till now. But this is the worst that can be said.
On the other hand, the Americans, who, if they had contented themselves with a struggle for lawful liberty, would have deserved applause, seem to me to have incurred the guilt of parricide, by renouncing their parent, by making her ruin their favourite object, and by associating themselves with her worst enemy for the accomplishment of their purpose. France, and, of course, Spain, have acted a treacherous, a thievish part. They have stolen America from England, and, whether they are able to possess themselves of that jewel or not hereafter, it was doubtless what they intended. Holland appears to me in a meaner light than any of them. They quarrelled with a friend for an enemy's sake. The French led them by the nose, and the English have thrashed them for suffering it.
My views of the contest being as they have always been, I have consequently brighter hopes for England than her situation some time since seemed to justify. She is the only injured party.
America may perhaps call her the aggressor; but, if she were so, America has not only repelled the injury, but done a greater. As to the rest, if perfidy, treachery, avarice, and ambition can prove their cause to have been a rotten one, those proofs are found on them. I think, therefore, that, whatever scourge may be prepared for England on some future day, her ruin is not yet to be expected.
Olney, _November_ 17, 1783. Swift observes, when he is giving his reasons why the preacher is elevated always above his hearers, that, let the crowd be as great as it will below, there is always room enough overhead.