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scious of the purity of his aims, as being miserable is, I apprehend, impiety. For I do not suppose that it was the rewards of victory that tempted us formerly[1] to leave behind us our country, our children, and all we possessed; no, I think we were following the path of a definite duty, a duty of justice and loyalty which we owed to the commonwealth and to our own dignity; nor again at the time we did so were we so fatuous as to imagine that we had victory in our hands.
4 If therefore that has occurred, the possible happening of which we put plainly before our eyes when we first took up the cause, we ought not to let our spirits sink as though something had occurred, the very possibility of which we never contemplated. Let us then be so minded as we are bidden to be by reason and truth, and that is to remember that we are not to be held responsible for anything in life other than wrong conduct; and since we are not guilty of that, to bear all the ills of humanity with calmness and self-restraint. And the conclusion to which these remarks point is this—that, though all be lost, virtue none the less seems able by herself to maintain her own ground. But if public affairs admit of any hope, then, whatever the situation turns out to be, you can claim a share in that hope.
5 And yet, as I write these words, it keeps occurring to me that I am the very man you have so often rebuked for his pessimism, and so often tried to rouse by your personal influence from his hesitancy and diffidence. But in those days, I assure you, it was not the soundness of our cause, but our policy that I impugned. I saw that we were too late in opposing arms that had long before been strength-