"[...]entertained, the wants they laboured under two months ago, wishes that may have changed, and for the best reasons: wants that may have been relieved, or become unrelievable.—Do they apply to you for justice? Truth is unattainable for want of evidence: You get not a tenth part perhaps of the witnesses you ought to have, and those perhaps only on one side.—Do they ask succours of you? You put yourselves to immense expence: You fit out an armament, and when it arrives, it finds nothing to be done; the party to whom yon send it are either conquerors or conquered.—Do they want subsistence? Before your supply reaches them, they are starved. No negligence could put them in a situation so helpless, as that in which, so long as they continue dependant on you, the nature of things has fixed them, in spite of all your solicitude[...]".
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