It exhibits you as a nation without faith; with whom oaths and treaties are considered as trifles, and the breaking them as the breaking of a bubble.
Thomas Paine: “It exhibits you as a nation without faith; with whom oaths and treaties are considered as trifles, and the breaking them…”
Editor's note · Context
Paine condemns Britain's actions, portraying them as a nation that disregards oaths and treaties.
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I have no idea, considering the reforms which are now passing and spreading throughout Europe, that England will permit herself to be the last; and where the occasion and the opportunity quietly offer, it is better than to wait for a…
But as religion is very improperly made a political machine, and the reality of it is thereby destroyed, I will conclude this work with stating in what light religion appears to me.
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Discussion and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.