I borrow the poet's words, my lords, but what his verse expresses is no fiction.

France has insulted you, she has encouraged and supported America, and, be America right or wrong, the dignity of this nation requires that we should thrust aside with contempt the officious intervention of France; ministers and ambassadors from those whom we call rebels and enemies are received at Paris, there they treat of the mutual interests of France and America, their countrymen are aided, provided with military resources, and our ministers suffer it, they do not protest! Is this maintaining the honor of a great kingdom, of that England which but lately gave laws to the House of Bourbon ?" The hereditary sentiments of Louis XVI.

and his monarchical principles, as well as the prudent moderation of M.Turgot, retarded at Paris the negotiations which caused so much illhumor among the English; M.de Vergennes still preserved, in all diplomatic relations, an apparent neutrality.

"It is my line (_metier_), you see, to be a royalist," the Emperor Joseph II.

had said during a visit he had just paid to Paris, when he was pressed to declare in favor of the American insurgents.