--Yours, &c.
December, 1792.
Dear Brother,
All the public prints still continue strongly to insinuate, that England
is prepared for an insurrection, and Scotland already in actual
rebellion: but I know the character of our countrymen too well to be
persuaded that they have adopted new principles as easily as they would
adopt a new mode, or that the visionary anarchists of the French
government can have made many proselytes among an humane and rational
people. For many years we were content to let France remain the
arbitress of the lighter departments of taste: lately she has ceded this
province to us, and England has dictated with uncontested superiority.
This I cannot think very strange; for the eye in time becomes fatigued by
elaborate finery, and requires only the introduction of simple elegance
to be attracted by it. But if, while we export fashions to this country,
we should receive in exchange her republican systems, it would be a
strange revolution indeed; and I think, in such a commerce, we should be
far from finding the balance in our favour. I have, in fact, little
solicitude about these diurnal falsehoods, though I am not altogether
free from alarm as to their tendency. I cannot help suspecting it is to
influence the people to a belief that such dispositions exist in England
as preclude the danger of a war, in case it should be thought necessary
to sacrifice the King.
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