8.J. FABLES. 



any certainty, by reading the accounts that are 

 written on one side only. The simple truth is still 

 perverted, as prejudice, vanity, or interest warps 

 the mind, and it is not discovered in all its bril- 

 liancy, till the mists which obscure it are swept 

 away by the most rigid investigation. In what an 

 odious light would our party men place each other, 

 if the transactions of the times were handed down 

 to posterity by a warm zealot on either side; and 

 were such records to survive a few centuries, with 

 what perplexities and difficulties would they em- 

 barrass the historian, as by turns he consulted them 

 for the character of his great forefathers. The 

 same difficulties would occur in writing the history 

 of nations, both ancient and modern. Some of 

 those who flourish at this day, and consider them- 

 selves as having reached perfection in civilization 

 and polished manners, will perhaps, not unjustly, 

 be branded in after-times with cruelty, injustice, 

 and oppression, in having confounded all simplicity 

 of manners, and disturbed the peace of whole na- 

 tions, by carrying the horrors of war, of murder, 

 and desolation, into regions formerly blessed with 

 uninterrupted tranquillity. 



