If to this representation of the nature of the papers, with which our
offices have been filled by the negotiations of the last twenty years,
any thing were necessary to be added, it may be farther alleged, that it
has long been the practice of every nation on this side of the globe, to
procure private intelligence of the designs and expectations of the
neighbouring powers, to penetrate into the councils of princes and the
closets of ministers, to discover the instructions of ambassadours, and
the orders of generals, to learn the intention of fleets before they are
equipped, and of armies before they are levied, and to provide not only
against immediate and visible hostilities, but to obviate remote and
probable dangers.
It need not be declared in this assembly, that this cannot always be
done without employing men who abuse the confidence reposed in them, a
practice on which I shall not at this time trouble the house with my
opinion, nor interrupt the present debate, by any attempt to justify or
condemn it. This, I think, may be very reasonably alleged; that whether
the employment of such persons be defensible by the reciprocal practice
of nations, or not, it becomes at least those that corrupt them and pay
them for their treachery, not to expose them to vengeance, to torture,
or to ruin; not to betray those crimes which they have hired them to
commit, or give them up to punishment, to which they have made
themselves liable only by their instigation, and for their advantage.
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