She saw that the disposition of the _leading
part_ of the nation would not permit them to act any longer the part of
a _garrison_. She saw that true policy did not require that they ever
should have appeared in that character; or if it had done so formerly,
the reasons had now ceased to operate. She saw that the Irish of her
race were resolved to build their Constitution and their politics upon
another bottom. With those things under her view, she instantly complied
with the whole of your demands, without any reservation whatsoever. She
surrendered that boundless superiority, for the preservation of which,
and the acquisition, she had supported the English colonies in Ireland
for so long a time, and at so vast an expense (according to the standard
of those ages) of her blood and treasure.
When we bring before us the matter which history affords for our
selection, it is not improper to examine the spirit of the several
precedents which are candidates for our choice. Might it not be as well
for your statesmen, on the other side of the water, to take an example
from this latter and surely more conciliatory revolution, as a pattern
for your conduct towards your own fellow-citizens, than from that of
1688, when a paramount sovereignty over both you and them was more
loftily claimed and more sternly exerted than at any former or at any
subsequent period? Great Britain in 1782 rose above the vulgar ideas of
policy, the ordinary jealousies of state, and all the sentiments of
national pride and national ambition.
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