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It is not for you to say – you Englishmen, who have conquered your freedom so long ago, that you have conveniently forgotten what blood you shed, and what extremities you proceeded to in the conquering – it is not for you to say how far the worst of all exasperations may, or may not, carry the maddened men of an enslaved nation. The iron that has entered into our souls has gone too deep for you to find it. Leave the refugee alone! Laugh at him, distrust him, open your eyes in wonder at the secret self which smolders in him, sometimes under the every-day respectability and tranquility of a man like me – sometimes under the grinding poverty, the fierce squalor, of men less lucky, less pliable, less patient than I am – but judge us not. In the time of your first Charles you might have done us justice – the long luxury of your freedom has made you incapable of doing us justice now.
