And yet, after reading and re-reading the journals to which I now reply, I seem unable to discover any other than melancholy tendencies.
Our present business is to inquire which is more favourable to your interests,—liberty or restriction.
I believe that it is liberty,—they believe that it is restriction. It is for each party to prove his own thesis.
Was it necessary to insinuate that we free-traders are the agents of England, of the south of France, of the government?
On this point, you see how easy recrimination would be.
We are the agents of England, they say, because some of us employ the words meeting and free-trader!
And do they not make use of the words drawback and budget?
We, it would seem, imitate Cobden and the English democracy!
And do they not parody Lord George Bentinck and the British aristocracy?
We borrow from perfidious Albion the doctrine of liberty!