Thus it is, that
it avails nothing that you are a bountiful master; that you are so
generous as to reward even the unsuccessful with honour and riches; that
no laudable action passes unrewarded in your kingdoms; that you have
searched all nations for obscure merit; in a word, that you are in your
private character endowed with every princely quality, when all this is
subjected to unjust and ill-taught ambition, which to the injury of the
world, is gilded by those endowments. However, if your Majesty will
condescend to look into your own soul, and consider all its faculties
and weaknesses with impartiality; if you will but be convinced, that
life is supported in you by the ordinary methods of food, rest, and
sleep; you would think it impossible that you could ever be so much
imposed on, as to have been wrought into a belief, that so many
thousands of the same make with yourself, were formed by Providence for
no other end, but by the hazard of their very being to extend the
conquests and glory of an individual of their own species. A very little
reflection will convince your Majesty, that such cannot be the intent of
the Creator; and if not, what horror must it give your Majesty to think
of the vast devastations your ambition has made among your fellow
creatures? While the warmth of youth, the flattery of crowds, and a
continual series of success and triumph, indulged your Majesty in this
allusion of mind, it was less to be wondered at, that you proceeded in
this mistaken pursuit of grandeur; but when age, disappointments, public
calamities, personal distempers, and the reverse of all that makes men
forget their true being, are fallen upon you: heavens! is it possible
you can live without remorse? Can the wretched man be a tyrant? Can
grief study torments? Can sorrow be cruel?--
"Your Majesty will observe, I do not bring against you a railing
accusation; but as you are a strict professor of religion, I beseech
your Majesty to stop the effusion of blood, by receiving the opportunity
which presents itself, for the preservation of your distressed people.
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