For depend upon it, that, if we once give way to a sinister
dealing, we shall teach others the game, and we shall be outwitted and
overborne; the Spaniards, the Prussians, God knows who, will put us
under contribution at their pleasure; and instead of being at the head
of a great confederacy, and the arbiters of Europe, we shall, by our
mistakes, break up a great design into a thousand little selfish
quarrels, the enemy will triumph, and we shall sit down under the terms
of unsafe and dependent peace, weakened, mortified, and disgraced,
whilst all Europe, England included, is left open and defenceless on
every part, to Jacobin principles, intrigues, and arms. In the case of
the king of France, declared to be our friend and ally, we will still be
considering ourselves in the contradictory character of an enemy. This
contradiction, I am afraid, will, in spite of us, give a color of fraud
to all our transactions, or at least will so complicate our politics
that we shall ourselves be inextricably entangled in them.
I have Toulon in my eye.
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