UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 PROSPECT 
 
 REGICIDE PEACE, 
 
 Jff A SERIES OF 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 lonDon, 
 
 PRINTED FOR 
 J. OWEX, NO. 168, PICCADILLY. 
 
 9082 "
 
 
 3ITT "0- r
 
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 ISO 
 
 TH* 
 
 ^ - 
 
 ^PUBLISHER'S APPEAL 
 
 TO THE 
 
 ~ * 
 
 1 - ',.'' ; 
 
 CANDOUR AND JUSTICE OF THE 
 
 would ill become me to make any reS 
 marks on my examination before a com- 
 mittee of the Houfe of Commons, refpeding 
 the Author of " Thoughts on the Englifh 
 Government." My conduct on that occa 
 lion could give no juft offence to any party, 
 o and was fpoken of in very favourable terms 
 * by Mr. Windham, Mr. Woodford his fe- 
 < cretdry, and feveral of their friends. As a 
 mark of their efteem, they promifed me a 
 famphlet which Mr. Burke was theri pre- 
 paring for the prefs, and which he foon after 
 put into my hands. On giving me the laft 
 fheet, with his final corrections, " There," 
 faid he, " that is your own It is but a tri- 
 es vial thing I do not know that it will pay 
 g you for paper and printing. I muft alfo d0 
 = Mr, Burke thejufticeto acknowledge that 
 
 he 
 
 300964
 
 II 
 
 he Teemed to "rejoice at my fuccefs ; and to 
 (hew his defire of farther promoting it, gave 
 me his Thoughts on a Regicide Peace. 
 I felt the full force of the favour, and chear- 
 fully took upon me the trouble of dancing 
 backwards and forwards alternately between 
 Author and Printer, three or four times a 
 day for almoft three months, to attend to 
 fuch a, variety of alterations as can be con- 
 ceived only by thofe who are acquainted 
 with the whims, the caprice and the eternal 
 verfatility of genius. After an interval of 
 fix months, the publication having been for 
 that time fufpended, and juft at the mo- 
 ment that lexpeaed to receive fome little 
 return for my fatiguing exertions, -] 
 fuddenly called upon by the Rev. Dr. King, 
 with a fort of meflage from Mr. Burke, de- 
 firing an account of the former work. I 
 ' was really (hocked at a demand fo repug- 
 nant to all my ideas of that gentleman's cha- 
 racter. I know he has not fo ihort a me- 
 mory as to forget the terms on which he 
 made me a prefent of the manufcript. I had 
 fnade no provifion to fettle for the profits of a 
 voluntary gift, nor had I kept any account 
 
 of
 
 |9 
 
 of them. I muft alfo aflert, that in order 
 to (hew myfelf not inferior even to Mp. 
 Burke in generofity, I liberally fupplied all 
 his friends with copies of the work gratis, fo 
 that I believe, if an exaft account had been 
 kept, it would not appear that J lay under 
 any very weighty obligation. Roufed, how- 
 ever, by fo .ftrange a demand, I called upoij 
 jyir. Windham's fecretary to remonftrate 
 pn the illiberaliry, injuftice, and unreafon- 
 ablenefs of fuch a claim for what I could not 
 help conlidering as a prefent : he replied, 
 " It is very true: it was meant fo: but 
 Mr. Burke has thought otherwife fmce." 
 I then called upon Mr. Nagle, the near re- 
 lation and confidential friend of Mr. Burke? 
 who had exprefled no lefs furprife on hearing 
 the matter firft mentioned by Dr. King, and 
 whofe exa6l words were, " By heavens ! 
 Owen conceived the Pamphlet to be his 
 own ; and fo did I." If Mr. Burke's con- 
 ceptions then mould run counter in this in- 
 ftance to the diftates of plain fenfe, and to the 
 ideas of his own neareft and deareft friends, I 
 hope my characler can n ver be injured by his 
 unaccountable eccenticities. The man, who 
 
 can
 
 c'fln write fo beautiful a panegyric on royal 
 bounty, would never furely incur the reproach 
 of attempting to rttra&.hisown gifts, or even to 
 tfrip a poor bookfeller of the accidental pro* 
 fits of publifhing an effay on munificence* 
 He has alfo, I am perfuaded, too much dig- 
 nity of fentiment to be offended with my 
 bringing forward the prefent work, on ac- 
 count of its interfering in any fort with his 
 new arguments againft a Peace with a Regi* 
 fide Directory. I am in facl: promoting his 
 own wimes to cut off all Intercourft with Re* 
 gicides ; and I rely upon his kind and difin- 
 terefted recommendation of thefe old Thought* 
 on the fubjeft, which are now prefented to 
 the Public with the venerable marks, and 
 filver honours of age, 
 
 Oftober 19, 1796,
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 On the Overtures of Peace. 
 
 MY DEAR SlRj 
 
 UNTIL the beginning of this session, not- 
 withstanding many untoward appearances^ 
 I still flattered myself that I should have no other 
 than domestick afflictions to cloud the evening of 
 my life : but a State of things is threatened, which, 
 whatever room private griefs may occupy, leaves 
 a vast vacuity to be filled with publick sorrow. 
 
 If I estimate rightly, what is going to be suf- 
 fered, from what is going to be done, it is from 
 something the very reverse of philosophy, that we 
 are to learn content. In the interval between the 
 treaty of peace with Regicide, and it's inevitable 
 consequences, we must owe our repose not to deep 
 thinking, but to the absence of all thought. To 
 enjoy life, we must forget every thing, of what 
 England has been, and of what we have been our- 
 selves. England has been happy ; and change is 
 B a word
 
 ( 2 } 
 
 a word of ill sound to happy ears. A great 
 revolution is on the point of being accomplished. 
 It is a revolution not in human affairs, but in 
 man himself. The system of France aims at no- 
 thing short of this. Jf we are tired of being the 
 men we were, and disgusted with the society in 
 which we have lived, France offers her regenera- 
 tion. By whatever humiliations we buy a blessing, 
 I admit that the nature of the object purchased 
 remains the same. On that supposition, the ad- 
 vances we have made to the Republick of Regi- 
 cide, are made on a consistent plan. But if what 
 she terms regeneration, is what we call death, 
 then, instead of advancing, we should retreat-, and 
 fly from Jacobin remedies as from the most ter- 
 rible of all diseases. 
 
 Observe at the outset, that I suppose a peace 
 with Jacobinism, the submission to it's laws, and 
 the adoption of it's whole scheme, to be so neces- 
 sarily connected, that never, in sound logic, did 
 the conclusion follow the premises with more cer- 
 tainty, than as I conceive it, in the course of Na- 
 ture, that effect will be the result of this cause; 
 
 In one thing we are lucky. The regicide has re~ 
 
 ceived our advances with scorn. We have an 
 
 enemy, to whose virtues we can owe nothing ; 
 
 but on this occasion we are infinitely obliged to. ' 
 
 1 one
 
 ( 3 ) 
 
 one of his vices. We owe more to his insolence 
 than to our own precaution. The haughtiness by 
 which the proud repel us, has this of good in it, 
 that in making us keep our distance, they must 
 keep their distance too. In the present case, the 
 pride of the Regicide may be our safety. He has 
 given time for our reason to operate ; and for Bri- 
 tish dignity to recover from its surprise. 
 
 There is always an augury to be taken of what 
 a peace is likely to be, from the preliminary steps 
 that are made to bring it about. We may gather 
 something from the time in which the first over- 
 tures are made ; from the quarter whence they 
 come ; from the manner in which they are received. 
 These discover the temper of the parties. If your 
 enemy offers peace in the moment of success, it 
 indicates that he is satisfied with something. It 
 shews that there are limits to his ambition or his 
 resentment. If he offers nothing under misfor- 
 tune, it is probable, that it is more painful to him 
 to abandon advantage than to endure calamity. 
 If he rejects solicitation, and will not give even a 
 nod to the suppliants for peace, until a change in 
 the fortune of the war threatens him with ruin, 
 then I think it evident, that he wishes nothing 
 more than to disarm his adversary and to gain 
 time. Afterwards a question arises^ which of the 
 ,B$ parties
 
 parties is likely to obtain the greater advantages^ 
 by the use of time and by continuing disarmed ? 
 
 With these few, plain indications in our minds, 
 it will not be improper to re-consider the conduct 
 
 v of the enemy together with our own, t from the 
 day that a question of peace has been in agitation. 
 In considering this part of the question, I do not 
 proceed on my own hypothesis. I suppose, for a 
 moment, that this body of Regicide, calling itself 
 
 -a Republick, is a politick person, with whom 
 something deserving the name of peace may be 
 made. On that supposition, let us examine our 
 own. proceeding. Let us compute the profit it 
 has brought, and the advantage that it is likely 
 to bring hereafter. A peace too eagerly sought, 
 is not always the. sooner obtained ; and when 
 
 ^obtained, it never can be every thing we wish. 
 The discovery of vehement wishes generally 
 frustrates their attainment ; and your adversary 
 has gained a great advantage over you when 
 he finds you impatient to conclude a treaty. 
 There is in reserve, not only something of dig- 
 nity, but a great deal of prudence too. A sort 
 pf courage ? longs to r.egotiation as well as to 
 operations of the field. A negotiator must seem 
 willing .to hazard all, if he wishes to secyre any 
 point,
 
 ( 5 
 
 The Regicide was the first to declare war. 
 We are the first to sue for peace. We have twice* 
 solicited to be admitted to Jacobin embraces. 
 Twice we have been repelled with cold disdain.-^ 
 It is true, that pride may reject a publick ad- 
 vance, whilst interest listens to a secret suggestion 
 of advantage. The opportunity has been afforded. 
 A gentleman has been sent on an errand, of which) 
 from the motive of it, whatever the event might 
 be, we never can be ashamed. Humanity cannot 
 be degraded by humiliation. It is it's very cha- 
 racter to submit to such things. There is a con- 
 sanguinity between benevolence and humility. 
 They are virtues of the same stock. Dignity is of 
 as good a race ; but it belongs to the family of 
 Fortitude. In the spirit of that benevolence, we 
 sent a gentleman to -beseech the Directory of Re- 
 gicides, not to be quite so prodigal as they ha<f 
 been of judicial murder. We solicited them to 
 spare the lives of some unhappy persons of the 
 firs! distinction, whose safety at other times 
 could not have been an object of solicitation. 
 They had quitted France on the faith of the decla- 
 ration of the rights of citizens. They never had 
 been in the service of the Regicides, nor at their 
 
 * Once in the Speech from the Throne ; once by a mes- 
 sage. What other direct advances have been made I have 
 ot heard j nor do I know of any. 
 
 hands
 
 hands had received any stipend. The very system 
 and constitution of government that now prevails, 
 was settled subsequent to their emigration. They 
 were under the protection of Great Britain, and 
 in his Majesty's pay and service. Not an hostile 
 invasion, but the disasters of the sea had thrown 
 them upon a shore, more barbarous and inhospi- 
 table than the inclement ocean under the most 
 pitiless of its storms. Here was an opportunity to 
 express a feeling for the miseries of war ; and to 
 open some sort of conversation, which, (after our 
 public overtures had glutted their pride) at a cau- 
 tious and jealous distance, might lead to something 
 like an accommodation. What was the event ? 
 A strange uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of 
 the opera, his head shaded with three coloured 
 plumes, his body fantastically habited, strutted 
 'from the back scenes, and after a short speech, 
 in the mock-heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, 
 delivered the gentleman who came to make the 
 representation into the custody of a guard, with 
 directions not to lose sight of him for a moment; 
 and then ordered him to be sent from Paris in 
 two hours. 
 
 Here it is impossible that a sentiment of tender-* 
 ness should not strike athwart the sternness of po* 
 15 ticks, and make us recal to painful memory, the 
 Difference between tjiis insolent and bloody thea-
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
 tre, and the temperate, natural majesty of a civi- 
 lized court, where the afflicted family of Asgill 
 did not in vain solicit the mercy of the highest in 
 rank, and the most compassionate of the compas- 
 sionate sex. 
 
 Whilst the fortune of the field was wholly with 
 the Regicides, nothing was thought of but to fol- 
 low where it led ; and it led to every thing. Not 
 so much as a talk of treaty. Laws were laid down 
 with arrogance. The most moderate politician 
 amongst them* was chosen as the organ, not so 
 much for prescribing limits to their claims' as to 
 mark what, for the present, they are content to 
 leave to others. They made not laws, not Con- 
 ventions, but late possession, but physical nature, 
 and political convenience the sole foundation of 
 their claims. The Rhine, the Mediterranean, and 
 the ocean were the bounds which, for the time, 
 they assigned to the empire of Regicide. In truth, 
 with these limits, and their principle, they would 
 not have left even the shadow of liberty or safety 
 to any nation. This plan of empire was not taken 
 up in the first intoxication of unexpected success. 
 You must recollect, that it was projected just as the 
 report has stated it, from the very first revolt of the 
 faction against their Monarchy ; and it has beea 
 uniformly pursued, as a standing maxim of national 
 
 policy* 
 
 * Boissy d'Anglas.
 
 policy, from that time to this. It is in the season 
 of prosperity that men discover their real tempers, 
 principles, and designs. This report, combined 
 with their conduct, forms, an infallible criterion 
 of the views of this Republick. 
 
 The tide of success began to turn. We are to 
 see how their minds have been affe&ed with this 
 change. Some impression it made on them un- 
 doubtedly. It produced some oblique notice of the 
 submissions that were made by suppliant nations. 
 The utmost they did, was to make some of those 
 cold, formal, general professions of a love of peace 
 which no power ever refused to make ; because 
 they mean little, and cost nothing. The first pa- 
 per I have seen (the publication at Hamburgh) 
 making a shew of that pacific disposition, disco- 
 vered a rooted animosity, and incurable rancour, 
 more than any of their military operations. 
 They choose to suppose, that this war, on the part 
 of England, is a war of Government, begun and 
 carried on against the sense and interests of the 
 people ; thus sowing in their very overtures towards 
 peace, the seeds of tumult and sedition ; for they 
 never have abandoned, and never will abandon, 
 in peace, in war, in treaty^ in any situation, or for 
 one instant, their old steady maxim of separating 
 the people from the Government.
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
 We have since seen them take up the matter 
 With great formality. On that occasion they dis- 
 covered still more clearly the bottom of their cha- 
 racter. The offers made to them by the message 
 to Parliament was hinted at ; but in an obscure and 
 oblique manner as before. They accompanied 
 their notice of the indications manifested on 
 our side, with every kind of insolent and 
 taunting reflexion. The Regicide Directory, 
 on the day which, in their gipsy jargon, they 
 call the 5th of Pluviose, in return for our ad- 
 vances, charge us with eluding our declarations 
 under " evasive formalities and frivolous pretexts." 
 They proceed to charge us, and, as it should seem, 
 our allies in the mass, with &\iz&. perfdy and go 
 so far as to say, that this perfidious character was 
 nothing new to us. However, notwithstanding 
 this our habitual perfidy, they will offer peace 
 " On conditions as moderate" as what ? as reason 
 and as equity require ? No ! as moderate " as are 
 " suitable to their national dignity " Dignity, hi- 
 therto, has belonged to the mode of proceeding, 
 not to the matter of a treaty. Never before has 
 it been mentioned as the standard for rating the 
 conditions of peace ; no, never by the most vio- 
 lent of conquerors. Indemnity is capable of some 
 estimate; dignity has no standard* It is impos- 
 sible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition 
 may think fit for their dignity. But lest any doubt 
 c should
 
 should remain on what they think for their dig- 
 nity, the Regicides in the next paragraph - tell 
 us " that they will have no peace with their 
 " enemies, until they have reduced them to a state 
 " which will put them under an impossibility of 
 " pursuing their unfortunate projects ;" that is, in 
 plain French or English, until they have accom- 
 plished our utter and irretrievable ruin. This is 
 their pacific language, and it is their unalterable 
 principle in whatever language they speak, or 
 whatever steps they take, whether of real war, or 
 of pretended pacification. They have never, to do 
 them justice, been at much trouble in concealing 
 their intentions. We were as obstinately re- 
 solved to think them not in earnest. I confess 
 this sort of jests, whatever their urbanity may be, 
 are not much to my taste. 
 
 To this obliging, conciliatory, and amicable 
 communication, our sole answer, in effect, is this 
 " Citizen Regicides ! whenever you find yourselves 
 " in the humour, you may have a peace with tis. 
 " That is a point you may always command as se- 
 " cure. We are constantly in attendance, and no- 
 " thing you can do shall hinder us from the re- 
 " newal of our supplications." 
 
 To those, who do not love to contemplate tjie 
 
 fall of human greatness, I do not know a more 
 
 2 mortifying
 
 ( 11 ) 
 
 mortifying spectacle, than 1 to see tlie assembled 
 majesty of the crowned heads of Europe waiting 
 as patient suitors in the anti-chamber of Regicrdea. 
 They wait, it seems, until the sanguinary tyrant, 
 Rewbelly shall have snorted away the fumes of the 
 indigested blood of his Sovereign ; then, when 
 Sunk on the down of usurped pomp, he shall have 
 sufficiently indulged: his meditations with what 
 King he shall next glut his ravening maw, and he 
 may condescend to signify that ft is his pleasure 
 to be awake, and ready to receive the proposals of 
 his high and mighty clients for the terms on which 
 lie may respite the execution of the sentence he 
 fias passed upon them. Whatever may come rrf 
 the object of all this suit and service, there seems 
 to me a wonderful " alacrity in sinking." To 
 submit to be so treated is to be humbled indeed. 
 It is to sink many degrees below Zero in the de- 
 scending scale of political degradation. I never 
 knew dignity much, 
 
 Our proceeding, which has produced this re- 
 turn, appeared to me totally new, without being 
 adapted to the new circumstances of affairs. I have 
 called to my mind the speeches and messages in- 
 former times. I find nothing like these. Before 
 this time, never was a ground of peace laid, as it 
 were, in a parliamentary record, until it had been 
 as good as concluded. This was a wise homage 
 c 2 paid
 
 paid to the discretion of the Crown. It was known 
 Jiow much any negotiation must suffer by having 
 *ny thing in the train towards it prematurely dis- 
 closed. 
 
 I conceive that another circumstance in that 
 transaction has been as little authorised by any 
 example, and that it is as little prudent in itself; 
 I mean the formal recognition of the French Re- 
 publick. Without entering, for the present, into 
 a question on the good faith manifested in that 
 measure, or on it's general policy, I doubt, upon, 
 mere prudential considerations, whether it was 
 perfectly adviseable. It is not within the rules of 
 dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment 
 of a contested title in your enemy, before you are 
 morally certain that your recognition will secure 
 his friendship. Otherwise it is a measure wors 
 than thrown, away. It adds infinitely to the 
 strength, and consequently to the demands of the 
 adverse party. He has gained a fundamental 
 point without an equivalent. 
 
 . This sort of preliminary declarations, thrown 
 uut at random, and sown, as it were, broad cast, 
 were never to be found in the mode of our pro- 
 ceeding with France and Spain, whilst the great 
 Monarchies of France and Spain existed. I do not 
 say, that a/diplomatick measure ought to he, like 
 
 a p*ar-
 
 ( 13 ) 
 
 & parliamentary or a judicial proceeding, accor- 
 ding to strict precedent. I hope I am far from that 
 pedantry: but this I know, that a great state 
 ought to have some regard to it's antient maxims; 
 especially where they indicate it's dignity ; where 
 they concur with the rules of prudence ; and above 
 all, where the circumstances of the time require 
 that a spirit of innovation should be resisted, which 
 leads to the humiliation of sovereign powers. It 
 would be ridiculous to assert, that those powers have 
 suffered nothing in their estimation. I admit, that 
 the greater interests of state will for a moment su- 
 persede, all other considerations : but if there was 
 a rule that a sovereign never should let down his 
 dignity without a sure payment to his interest, the 
 dignity of Kings would be held high enough. At 
 present, however, fashion governs in more serious 
 things than furniture and dress. It looks as if so-' 
 vereigns abroad were emulous in bidding against 
 their estimation. It seems as if the pre-eminence 
 of Regicide was acknowleged ; and that Kings 
 tacitly ranked themselves belo.w their sacrilegious 
 murderers, as natural magistrates and judges 
 over them. It appears as if dignity were the pre- 
 rogative of crime; and a temporising humiliation 
 the proper part for venerable authority. If the 
 vilest of mankind are resolved to be the most wick- 
 ed, they lose all the baseness of their origui,. and 
 take their place above Kings. This example in fo- 
 reign
 
 feign- Princes,, I trust, will not spread. It is the 
 concern of mankind, that the destruction of order 
 should not be a claim to rank; that crimes should 
 not be the only title to pre-eminence and honour. 
 
 If what I hear be true, the Ministers are not 
 quite so much to be blamed, as their condition is 
 to be lamented, I have been given to understand, 
 that these proceedings are not in their origin pro- 
 perly theirs. It is said that there is a secret in the 
 House of Commons. That Ministers acl: not ac- 
 cording to the votes, but according to the dispo- 
 sitions, of the majority. I hear that the minority 
 has long since spoken the general sense of the na- 
 tion ; and that to. prevent those who compose it 
 from having the open and avowed lead in that 
 House, or perhaps in both Houses, it was necessary 
 to pre-occupy their ground, and to take their pro- 
 positions out of their mouths, 
 
 If the general disposition of rhe people be, as- I 
 hear it is, for an immediate peace with Regicide , 
 without so much as considering our publick and 
 solemn engagements to the parties, or any enquiry 
 into the terms, it is all over with us. It is strange, . 
 but it may be true, that as the danger from ad- 
 vances to Jacobinism is increased in my eyes and 
 in yours, the fear of it is lessened in theirs. It 
 seems, they act under the impression of other sort 
 
 of
 
 ( 15 ) 
 
 of terrors, which frighten them out of their first 
 apprehensions : but it is fit they should recollect ,. 
 that they who would make peace without a pee- 
 vious knowledge of the terms, make a surrender. 
 They are conquered. They do not treat; they re^ 
 ceive the law. Then the people of England are con- 
 tented to seek in the kindness of a foreign syster 
 rnatick enemy combined with a dangerous faction 
 at home, a security which they cannot find in their 
 own patriotism and their own courage. They are 
 willing trust to the sympathy of Regicides, the 
 guarantee of the British Monarchy. Tney are con- 
 tent to rest their religion on the piety of atheists by 
 establishment. They are satisfied to seek in die cle- 
 mency of practised murderers the security of their 
 lives. They are pleased to confide their property 
 to the safeguard of those who are robbers by incli- 
 nation, interest, habit, and system. If this be our 
 deliberate mind, truly we deserve to lose, what we 
 cannot long retain, the name of a nation. 
 
 In matters of state, a constitutional- competence 
 to act, is in many cases the smallest part of the 
 question. Without disputing (God forbid I should 
 dispute) the sole competence of the King and the 
 Parliament, each in it's province, to decide on war 
 and peace, I venture to say, no war can be long 
 carried on against the will of the people. This 
 war, in particular, cannot be carried on unless 
 
 they
 
 ( J6 ) 
 
 are enthusiastically in favour of it. Accflii-' 
 escence will not do. There must be zeal. Uni- 
 versal zeal in such a cause, and at such a time as 
 this is, cannot be looked for ; neither is it neces- 
 sary. -A zeal in the larger part carries the force 
 of the whole. Without this, no Government, cer- 
 tainly not our Government, is capable of a great 
 war. None of the ancient regular Governments has 
 wherewithal to fight abroad with a foreign foe, 
 and at home to overcome repining, reluctance, and 
 chicane. It must be some portentousthing, like Re- 
 gicide France, that can exhibit such a prodigy. 
 Yet even she, the mother of monsters, more proli- 
 fic than the country of oldcalled Feraxmonstrorum, 
 shews symptoms of being almost effete already ; 
 and she will be so, unless the fallow of a peace 
 comes to recruit her fertility. But whatever may 
 be- represented concerning the meanness of the 
 popular spirit, I, for one, do not think so despe- 
 rately of the British nation. Our minds are light, 
 but they are not evil. We are dreadfully open to 
 delusion and to dejection ; but we are capable of 
 being animated and undeceived. 
 
 It cannot be concealed. We are a divided 
 people. But in divisions, where a part is to be 
 taken, we are to make a muster of our strength. 
 I have often endeavoured to class those who,- in 
 any political view, are to JDC called the people. 
 
 Without
 
 ( 17 ) 
 
 Without doing fomething of this fort we muft 
 proceed abfurdly. We mould prefume as ab- 
 furdly, if we pretended to very great accuracy in 
 our eftimate. But I think, in the calculation I 
 have made, the error cannot be very material. In 
 England and Scotland, I compute that thofe of 
 adult age, not declining in life, of tolerable leifurc 
 for fuch difcuflions, and of fome means of infor- 
 mation, more or lefs, and who are above menial 
 dependence, (or what virtually is fuch) may 
 amount to about four hundred thoufand. In this 
 number I include the women that take a concern 
 in thofe tranfac^ions, who cannot exceed twenty 
 thoufand. There is (uch a thing as a natural re- 
 prefentativeof the people. This body is that re- 
 prefentative; and on this body, more than on the 
 legal conftituent, the artificial reprefentative de- 
 pends. This is the Britifh publick; and it is a 
 publick very numerous. The reft, when feeble, 
 are the objecls of protection; when ftrong, the 
 means of force. They who affect to confider that 
 part of us in any other light, infult while the/ 
 cajole us ; they do not want us for counfellors in 
 deliberation, but to lift us as foldiers for battle.. 
 
 Of thefe four hundred thoufand political citi- 
 zens, I look upon one fifth, or about eighty thou- 
 fand, to be pure Jacobins; utterly incapable of 
 amendment; objedls of eternal vigilance; and 
 D when
 
 *'hen they break out, of legal conflraint. Oil 
 thefe, no reafon, no argument, no example, no. 
 venerable authority, can have the flighteft influ- 
 ence. They defire a change; and they will have 
 it if they can. If they cannot have it by Englifli 
 cabal, they will make no fort of fcruple of having 
 it by the cabnl of France, into which already 
 they are virtually incorporated. 
 
 This minority is great and formidable. I do 
 not know whether if I aimed at the total over- 
 throw of a kingdom, I mould wim to be encum- 
 bered with a larger body of partizarjs. Thefe, 
 by their fpirit of intrigue, and by their reftlefs 
 agitating activity, are of a force far fuperior to 
 their numbers ; and if times grew the leaft criti- 
 cal, have the means of debauching or intimidat- 
 ing many of thofe who are now found, as well as 
 of adding to their force large bodies of the more 
 paflive part of the nation. This minority is nu- 
 merous enough to make a mighty cry for peace, 
 or for war, or for any objecl: they are led vehe T 
 rnently to defire. By palling from place to place 
 with a velocity incredible, and diverfifying their 
 character and defcription, they are capable of 
 mimicking the general voice. We muft not al- 
 ways judge of the generality of the opinion by 
 the noile of the acclamation. 
 
 The
 
 ( 19 ) 
 
 The majority, the other four fifths, is perfec*Uy 
 found; and of the beft pofiible difpolitions to re- 
 ligion, to government, to the true and undivided 
 intcreft o'f their country. Such men are naturally 
 difpofed to peace. They who are in polfeflion 
 of all they wifh, are languid and improvident. 
 With this fault, (and I admit it's exiftence in 
 all its extent) they would not endure to hear 
 of a peace that led to the ruin of every thing for 
 which peace is dear to them. However, the de- 
 lire of peace is eiTentially the weak fide of all fuch 
 men. All men that are ruined, are ruined on the 
 fide of their natural propenfities. There they 
 are unguarded. They do not fufpect that their 
 deftrudion is attempted through their virtues. 
 This their enemies are perfectly aware of and 
 accordingly they, the moft turbulent of mankind, 
 who never made a fcruple to wake the tranqui- 
 lity of their country to its centre, raife a con- 
 tinual cry for peace with France. Peace with 
 Regicide, and war with the reft of the world, is 
 their true motto. From the beginning, and even 
 whilll the French gave the blows, and we hardly 
 oppofed the vis inertia to their efforts, from that 
 day to this hour, like importunate Guinea-fowls, 
 crying one note day and night, they have called 
 for a Regicide peace. 
 
 D 2 ... >. In
 
 ( 20 ) 
 
 In this they are, as I confcfs in all things they 
 are, perfectly coniiltent. They who wifli to 
 unite themfelves to your enemies, naturally de> 
 fire, that you fhould difarm yourielf by a peace 
 with thele enemies. But it paiTes my conception, 
 how they, who wifh well to their country on it's 
 ancient fyftem of laws and manners, come not to 
 be doubly alarmed, when they find nothing but a 
 clamor for peace, in the mouths of the men on 
 earth the leaft difpoft-d to it in their natural or in 
 their habitual character. 
 
 I have a good opinion of the general abilities of 
 the Jacobins : not that I fuppofe them better born 
 than others ; but ftrong paflions awake the fa- 
 culties. They fuffer not a particle of the man to 
 be loft. The fpirit of enterprife gives them the 
 full ufe of all their native energies. If I have 
 reafon to conceive that my enemy, who, as fuch, 
 muft have an intereft in my deftruction, is alfo a 
 perfon of difcernment and fagacity, then I muft 
 be quite fure, that in a conteft, the object he 
 violently purfues, is the. very thing by which my 
 ruin is the moft perfectly accompli fhed. Why 
 do the Jacobins cry for peace? Becaufe they 
 know, that this point gained, the reft will follow 
 of courfe. On our pare why are all the rules of 
 prudence, as fure as the laws of material nature to 
 be at this timereverfed? How comes it, that now 
 
 for
 
 ( 21 ) 
 
 for the firft time, men think it right to be governed 
 by the counfeJs of their enemies ? Ought they not 
 rather to tremble, when they are perfuaded to tra- 
 vel on the fame road ; and to tend to the fame 
 place of reft ? 
 
 The minority I fpeak of, is not fufceptible of an 
 impreffion from the topics of argument, to be ufed 
 to the larger part of the community. I therefore 
 do not addrefs to them any part of what I have to 
 fay. The more forcibly 1 drive my arguments 
 again ft their fyftem, fo as to make an impreffion 
 where I wim to make it, the more ftrongly I rivet 
 them in their fentiments. As for us, who compofe 
 the far larger, and what I call the far better part 
 of the people ; let me fay, that we have not been 
 quite fairly dealt with when called to this deli- 
 beration. The Jacobin minority have been abun- 
 dantly fupplied with ftores and provifions of ail 
 kinds towards their warfare. No fort of argumen- 
 tative materials, fuited to their purpofes, have been 
 withheld. Falfe they are, unfound, fophiftical ; 
 but they are regular in their diredion. They all 
 bear one way ; and they all go to the fupport of 
 the fubftantial merits of their caufe. The others 
 have not had the queftion fo much as fairly ftated 
 to them. 
 
 There
 
 There has not been in this century, any foreign 
 peace or war ih it's origin, the fruit of popular 
 defire : except the war that was made with Spain 
 in 1739. Sir Robert Walpole was forced into 
 the war by the people who were inflamed to 
 this meafure by the mod leading politicians, 
 by the firft orators, and the greateft poets of 
 the time. For that war, Pope fung his dying 
 notes. For that war, Johnfon in .more energetic 
 drains, employed the voice of his early genius. 
 For that war, Glover diftinguifhed himfelf in .the 
 way in which his mufe was the moll natural and 
 happy. The crowd readily followed the politi- 
 cians in the cry for a w ar, which threatened little 
 blood (lied, and which promifed victories that were 
 attended with fomething more folid than glory. A 
 war with Spain was a war of plunder. In the prtfent 
 conflict with Regicide, Mr. Pitt has not had, nor 
 will for fome little time have, many prizes to hold 
 out in the lottery of war, to tempt the lower part 
 of our character. He can only maintain it by an 
 appeal to the higher ; and to thofe, in whom that 
 higher part is moft predominant, he muft look 
 the moft for his fupport. Whilft he holds out no 
 inducements to the wife, nor bribes to the avari- 
 cious, he may be forced by a vulgar cry into a 
 peace ten times more ruinous than the moft dif- 
 aftrous war . The weaker he is in the fund of mo- 
 tives which apply to our avarice, to our lazinefs, 
 
 and
 
 ( n ) 
 
 and to our lafiltude, if he means to carry 'the war t0 
 any errd at all, the ftronger he ought to be in his 
 addrefTes to our magnanimity and to our reafon. 
 
 In Hating that Walpole was driven by a popular 
 clamour into a meafure not to be juftifitd, I do not 
 mean wholly to excufe his conduct. My time of 
 obfervation did not exadly coincide with that 
 event ; but I read much of the coniroverfies then 
 carried on. Several years after the contefts of par- 
 ties had ceafcd, the people were amufed, and in a 
 degree warmed with them. The events of that 
 serafeemed then of magnitude, which the revolu- 
 tions of our time have reduced to parochial im- 
 portance ; and the debates, which then fhook the 
 nation, now appear of no higher moment than a 
 difcuilion in a veftry. When I was very young, 
 a general fafh ion told me I was to admire fome of 
 the writings againft that Miniiler; a little more 
 maturity taught me as much to defpife them. I 
 obfcrved one fault in Ins general proceeding. He 
 never manfully put forward the entire itrength of 
 his caufe. He temporifed ; he managed ; and 
 adopting very nearly the fentimsnts of his adverfa- 
 ries, he oppofed their inferences. This, for a po- 
 litical commander, is the choice of a weak pofL 
 His adverfaries had the better of the argument, as 
 he handled ir, not as tiie reafoa and juiucc of his 
 cauie enabled him to manage it. I fay this after 
 
 having
 
 having feen,and withfome care examined, the ori- 
 ginal documents concerning certain important 
 tranfa&ions of thofe times. They perfectly fatif- 
 fied me of the extreme injuftice of that war, and 
 of the falfehood of the colours, which to his own 
 ruin, and guided by a miftaken policy, he fuf- 
 fered to be daubed over that meafure. Some years 
 after, it was my fortune, to converfe with many of 
 the principal aftors againft that Minifter, and 
 with thofe, who principally excited that clamour. 
 None of them, no not one, did in the leaft defend 
 the meafure, or attempt to juftify their conduct, 
 which they as freely condemned as they would have 
 done in commenting upon any proceeding in hif- 
 tory, in which they were totally unconcerned. 
 Thus it will be. They who ftir up the people to 
 improper defires, whether of peace or war, will be 
 condemned by themfelves. They who weakly yield 
 to them will be condemned by hiftory. 
 
 In my opinion, the prefent miniflry are as far 
 from doing fulljufticeto their caufe in this war, as 
 Walpole was from doing juftice to the peace which 
 at that time he was willing to preferve. They 
 throw the light on one iide only of their cafe ; 
 though it is impoflible they mould not obferve, 
 that the other iide which is kept in the (hade, 
 has it's importance too. They muft know, that 
 France is formidable, not only as ihe is France, 
 
 but.
 
 ( 25 ) 
 
 but as she is Jacobin France. They knew from 
 the beginning that the Jacobin, party was not 
 confined to that country. They knew, they 
 felt, the strong dispositions of the same faction 
 in both countries to communicate and to co-ope- 
 rate. For some time past, these two points have 
 been kept, and even industriously kept, out of 
 sight. France is considered as merely a foreign 
 Power ; and the seditious English only as a domes- , 
 tick faction. The merits of the war with the for- 
 mer have been argued solely on political grounds. 
 To prevent ourbeing corrupted with the mischiev- 
 ous doctrines of the latter, matter and argument 
 have been supplied abundantly, and even to sur- 
 feit on the excellency of our own government. 
 But nothing has been done to make us feel in. 
 what manner the safety of that Government is 
 connected with the principle and with the issue of 
 this war. For any thing, which in the late dis^ 
 cussion has appeared, the war is intirely collateral 
 to the state of Jacobinism ; as truly a foreign war 
 to us and to all our home concerns, as the war 
 with Spain in 173Q, about Gard da Costas, th 
 Madrid Convention, and the fable of Captain 
 Jenkins 's ears. 
 
 Some who are advocates at once for Govern- 
 ment, and for peace with the enemies of all Go- 
 vernment, have even gone the length of consider- 
 * ing
 
 4ng the proceedings in France, if at all they af- 
 fecl: us, as rather advantageous to the cause'. of 
 tranquillity and good order in this country. But I 
 reserve my observations on this very extraordinary 
 topic of argument to another occasion : it is now 
 jny business to point out to you, that when- 
 $ver the adverse party has raised a cry for peace 
 with the Regicide, the answer has been little more 
 than this, " that the Administration wished for 
 X such a peace, full as much as the Opposition ; but 
 *< that the time was not convenient for making it/ 1 
 Whatever else has been said was much in the same 
 spirit. Reasons of this kind never touched the sub- 
 stantial merits, of the war. They where in the na- 
 ture of dilatory pleas, exceptions of form, and pre- 
 ripus questions. Accordingly all the arguments 
 against a compliance with the popular desires, (urg- 
 ecj on with all possible vehemence and earnestness 
 by the Jacobins) have appeared flat and languid, 
 feeble and evasive. They appeared to aim only 
 at gaining time. They never entered into the pe- 
 culiar and distinctive character of the war. They 
 spoke neither to the understanding nor to the heart. 
 Cold as ice themselves, they never could kindle in 
 pur breasts a spark of that zeal, which is necessary 
 tq a conflict with an adverse zeal ; much less are 
 they made to infuse into our minds, that stubborn 
 jpersevering spirit, which alone is capable of bear- 
 }ngup againstthose vicissitudes of fortune, that will 
 
 probably
 
 < 
 
 ( 27 ) 
 
 probably occur, and those burthens which must bg 
 inevitably borne in a long war. I speak it empha- 
 tically, and with a desire that it should be marked^ 
 in a long war ; because, without such a war, no ex- 
 perience has yet told us, that a dangerous power 
 has ever been reduced to measure or to reason* I 
 do not throw back my view to the Peloponnesiari 
 war of twenty-seven years ; nor to two of the Pu- 
 hick wars, the first of twenty-four, the second of 
 eighteen ; nor to the more recent war concluded 
 by the treaty of Westphalia, which continued, I 
 think, for thirty. I go to what is but just 
 fallen behind living memory, and immediately 
 touches our own country. Let the portion of our 
 history from the year 1 689 to 1 7 1 3 be brought 
 before us. We shall find, that in all that pe- 
 riod of twenty-four years, there were not above 
 six that could be called an interval of peace ; a'nd 
 this interval was in reality nothing more than a 
 very active preparation for war. During that pe- 
 riod, every one of the propositions of peace came 
 from the enemy. The first, when they were ac- 
 cepted, at the peace of Ryswick. The second, 
 where they were rejected at the congress at Ger- 
 trudenburgh* The last^ when the war ended by 
 the treaty of Utrecht. Even then^ a very great 
 part of the nation^ and that which contained by 
 far the most intelligent statesmen, was against the 
 conclusion of the war. I do not enter into th 
 K 1 merits
 
 ( 28 ) 
 
 merits of that question as between the parties. 
 I only state the existence of that opinion as a fact. 
 I mention the length of the war as a proof, 
 that though the countries which now compose the\ 
 kingdom, for a part of the time were not united, 
 and through all the time continued with a raw 
 and ill cemented union, and though they were 
 further split into parties as vehement, and more 
 equally divided than now they are,and that we were 
 possessed of far less abundant resources in all kinds 
 than we now enjoy. I mean to mark, that under 
 all these disadvantages the English nation was then 
 a great people ; that we had then an high mind, 
 and a constancy unconquerable ; that we were 
 then inspired with no flashy passions, but such 
 as were durable as well as warm ; such as cor- 
 responded to the great interests we had at stake. 
 This force of character was inspired, as all such 
 spirit must ever be, from above. Government gave 
 the impulse. As well may we fancy that of itself 
 the sea will swell, and without winds the billows 
 will insult the adverse shore, as ' that the gross 
 mass of the people will be moved and elevated 
 without the influence of superior authority, or 
 superior mind. 
 
 *:.*rtf 
 
 This impulse ought, in my opinion, to have been 
 given in this war ; and it ought to have been con- 
 tinued to it at every instant. It is made, if ever 
 
 war
 
 . 
 
 war was made, to touch all the great springs of 
 action in the human breast. It ought not to have 
 been a war of apology. The minister had, in this 
 confli A wherewithal to glory in success ; to be 
 consoled in adversity ? to hold high his principle 
 in all fortunes. If it were not given him to sup- 
 port the falling edifice, he ought to bury himself 
 under the ruins of the civilized world. All the 
 art of Greece, and all the pride and power of 
 eastern Monarchs, never heaped upon their ashes 
 o grand a monument. 
 
 There were days when his great mkid was up 
 to the crisis of the world he is called- to a& Ln. 
 His manly eloquence was equal to the elevated 
 wisdom of such sentiments. But the little have 
 triumphed over the great ; an unnatural, not an 
 unusual victory. 1 am sure you cannot forget with 
 how much uneasiness we heard in conversation, 
 the language of more than one gentleman at the 
 opening of this contest, " that he was willing to 
 " try the war for a year or two, and if it did not 
 " succeed, then to vote for peace." As if war was 
 a matter of experiment ! As if you could take it 
 up or lay it down as an idle frolick ! As if the 
 dire goddess that presides over it, with her mur- 
 derous spear in her hand, and her gorgon at her 
 breast, was a coquette to be flirted with ! We 
 QUght with reverence to approach that tremendous 
 
 divinity,
 
 ( 30 ) 
 
 divinity, that loves courage, but commands coun- 
 sel. War never leaves a nation where it was 
 found. The interval between that and peace is 
 indeed " a very hideous dream, in which the ge- 
 " nius and the mortal instruments are seriously at 
 <l work." It is never to be entered into without a 
 mature deliberation ; not a deliberation lengthened 
 out into a perplexing indecision, but a deliberation 
 leading to a sure and fixed judgment. When so 
 taken up it is not to be abandoned without reason 
 as valid, as fully, and as extensively considered ; 
 for peace may be made as unadvisedly as war. No- 
 thing is so rash as fear ; and the counsels of pusil- 
 lanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are al- 
 ways sure to aggravate the evils they would fly from* 
 
 * ' ^ V 
 
 In that grat war carried on against Louis the 
 XlVth, for near eighteen years Government spared 
 no pains to satisfy the people, that though they 
 were to be animated by a desire of glory, glory 
 was not their ultimate object j but that every 
 thing dear to them, in religion, in law, in liberty, 
 every thing which as freemen, as Englishmen, and 
 as citizens of the great common wealth of Christen- 
 dom, they had at heart, was then at stake. Whe- 
 ther they did not exaggerate the danger I will not 
 dispute. A danger, and no small danger, unques- 
 tionably there was ; and that long and.. -arduous 
 war was pursued, upon at least as solid and manly 
 
 ground?.
 
 ( 31 > 
 
 grounds, as the peace was made which put an end to 
 it. A danger to avert a danger a present incon- 
 venience and suffering to prevent a foreseen fu^ 
 ture, and a worse calamity these are the motives 
 that belong to an animal, who, v in his constitution, 
 is at once adventurous and provident ; circum- 
 spect, and daring ; whom his Creator has made, 
 as the Poet says, " of large discourse, looking be- 
 ^ fore and after." But never can a vehement and 
 sustained spirit of fortitude be kindled in a people 
 by a war of calculation. It has nothing that can 
 keep the mind ere<ft under the gusts of adversity. 
 Even where men are willing, as sometimes they are, 
 to barter their blood for lucre, to hazard their safety 
 to gratify their avarice, that passion, like all the 
 passions, must see it's objects distinct and near at 
 hand. The passions are hungry and impatient. 
 Speculative plunder; contingent spoil; future long 
 adjourned uncertain booty; pillage which must en- 
 rich a late posterity, and which possibly may not 
 reach to posterity at all ; these, for any length of 
 time, will never support a mercenary war. The 
 people are in the right." The calculation of profit 
 in all such wars is false. On balancing the ac- 
 count of such wars, ten thousand hogsheads of 
 sugar are purchased at ten thousand times their 
 price. The blood of man should never be shed 
 but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed 
 for our family, for our friends, for our God, for 
 2 our
 
 - ( 32 ) 
 
 ur country, for our kind. The rest is vanity $ 
 the rest is crime. 
 
 In the war of the Grand Alliance, most of these 
 considerations voluntarily and naturally had their 
 part. Some were pressed into the service. The 
 political interest easily went in the track of the 
 natural sentiment. In the reverse course the car- 
 riage does not follow freely. I am sure the natu- 
 ral feeling, as I have just said, is a far more pre- 
 dominant ingredient in this war, than m that of any 
 other that ever was waged by this kingdom. 
 
 If the war made to prevent the union of two 
 crowns upon one head was a just war, this, which 
 is made to prevent the tearing all crowns from all 
 heads which ought to wear them, and with the 
 crowns to smite off the sacred heads themselves, 
 this is a just war.. 
 
 If a war to prevent Louis the XlVth from im- 
 posing his religion was just, a war to prevent the 
 murderers of Louis the XVIth from imposing their 
 irreligion upon us is just ;. a war to prevent the 
 operation of a system, which makes life without 
 dignity, and death without hope, is a just war. 
 
 If to preserve political independence and ci- 
 vil freedom to nations^ was a just ground of war ; 
 
 a war
 
 ( 33 ) 
 
 a war to preserve national independence, property, 
 liberty, life., and honour, from certain uni versa,! 
 havock, is a war just, necessary, manly, pious; 
 and w,e are bound to persevere in it by every 
 principle, divine and human, as long as the system 
 which menaces them all, and all equally, has an 
 existence in the world. 
 
 You, who have looked at this matter with as fair 
 and impartial an eye as can be united with a feel- 
 ing heart, you will not think it an hardy assertion, 
 when I affirm, that it were far better to be con- 
 quered by any other nation, than to have this fac- 
 tion for a neighbour. Before I felt myself autho- 
 rised to say this, I considered the state of all the 
 countries in Europe for these last three hundred 
 years, which have been obliged to submit to a fo- 
 reign law. In most of those I found the condition 
 of the annexed countries even better, certainly 
 not worse, than the lot of those which were the 
 patrimony of the conqueror. Tfrey wanted 
 
 some blessings but they were free from many 
 
 very great evils. They were rich and tranquil. 
 Such was Artois, Flanders, Lorrain, Alsatia, un- 
 der the old Government of France.. Such was 
 Silesia under the King of Prussia. They who 
 are to live in the vicinity of France, are to prepare 
 to live in perpetual conspiracies and seditions -,- 
 and to end at last> in being conquered, if not tp 
 p her
 
 ( 34 ) 
 
 her dominion, to her resemblance. But when we 
 talk of conquest by other nations, it is only to put 
 a case. This is the only power in Europe by which 
 it is possible we should be conquered. To live 
 under the continual dread of such immeasureable 
 evils is itself a grievous calamity. To live without 
 the dread of them, is to turn the danger into the 
 disaster* The influence of such a France is equal 
 to a war; it's example, more wasting than an hos^ 
 tile irruption. The hostility with any other state 
 is separable and accidental ; this state, by the very 
 condition of it's existence, by it's very essential 
 constitution, is in a state of hostility with us, and 
 with all civilized people* 
 
 A Government of the nature of that set up at 
 6ur very door has never been hitherto seen, or 
 even imagined in Europe. What our relation to it 
 will be cannot be judged by other Felations. It is 
 a serious thing to have a connexion with a people, 
 who live only under positive, arbitrary, and 
 changeable institutions ; and those not perfected 
 nor supplied, not explained by any common ac- 
 knowledged rule of moral science. I remember 
 that in one of my last conversations with the late 
 Lord Camdert, we Were struck much in the same 
 manner xvith the abolition in France of the law, as a" 
 science of methodized and artificial equity. 
 France, since her Revolution, is under the sway of 
 
 a
 
 ( 35 ) 
 
 a sect, whose leader have deliberately, at one 
 stroke, demolished the whole body of that juris^ 
 prudence which France had pretty nearly in com- 
 mon with other civilized countries. In that juris- 
 prudence were contained the elements and princi- 
 ples of the law of nations, the great ligament of 
 mankind. With the law* they have of course de- 
 stroyed all seminaries in which jurisprudence was 
 taught, as well as all the corporations established 
 for its conservation. I have not heard of any coun- 
 try, whether in Europe or Asia, or even in Africa 
 on this side of Mount Atlas, which is wholly with- 
 ( out some such colleges and such corporations, 
 except France. No man, in a public or private 
 concern, can divine by what rule or principle her 
 judgments are to be directed; nor is there to be 
 found a Professor in any University, or a Practi- 
 tioner in any Court, who will hazard an opinion of 
 what is or is not law in France, in any case what- 
 ever. They have not only annulled all their old 
 treaties ; but they have renounced the law of na- 
 tions from whence treaties have their force. With 
 a, fixed design they have outlawed themselves, and 
 to their power outlawed all other nations. Instead 
 of the religion and the law by which they were in 
 a great and politick communion with the Christian 
 world, they have constructed their Republick on 
 tjiree basis, all fundamentally opposite to those on 
 w)iich the communities of Europe are built. It's 
 
 foundation 
 
 -:.,
 
 ( 36 ) 
 
 foundation is laid in "Hegicide;' In Jacobinism; 
 and in Atheism ; arid it fi^s joined to those prin- 
 ciples, a body of systematic!! -mariners which se- 
 cures their operation. 
 vb; :*'iMJ& brr^il^Vj 1 ? f:3*M*nb*vtf 
 
 If I am asked how I would be understood irj 
 the use of those terms, Regicide, Jacobinism, A- 
 theism, and a system of correspondent manners 
 and their establishment, I will tell you. 
 
 I call a commonwealth Regicide, which lays it 
 down as a fixed law of nature, and a fundamen-, 
 tal right of man, that all government, not being 
 a democracy, is an usurpation *. That all Kings, 
 as such, are, usurpers ; and for being Kings, may 
 and ought to be put to death, with their wives, fa- 
 milies, and adherents. The commonwealth which 
 acts uniformly upon those principles, and which af- 
 ter abolishing every festival of religion, chooses the 
 most flagrant; a& of a murderous Regicide treason 
 for a fea&t of eternal commemoration, and which 
 
 * Nothing could be more solemn than their promulgation 
 of this principle as a preamble to trSe destructive code of their 
 femous articles for the decomposition of society into whatever 
 country they should enter. " La Convention Nationale, apres 
 avoir entendu le rapport de ses Comites de Finances, de la 
 guerre, & diplomatique, rcunis, fidelle au principe de sonve- 
 rainet!: du peuple qui ne M fermct pas de reconnoitre aucune institu- 
 tion qui y porte nttemtc" & c . &c. Decret sur le Rapport de 
 -Capibon. Dec. 18, 1792, 
 
 forces
 
 { 37 ) 
 
 forces all her people to observe it. This 1 call 
 
 Regicide by establishment. 
 
 Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising ta- 
 lents of a country against it's property. When 
 private men form themselves into associations for 
 the purpose of destroying the pre-existing laws 
 and institutions of their country ; when they se- 
 cure to themselves an army by dividing, amongst 
 the people of no property, the estates of the an- 
 cient and lawful proprietors ; when a state recog- 
 nizes those acts ; when it does not make confis- 
 cations for crimes, but makes crimes for confisca- 
 tions ; when it has it's principal strength, and all 
 it's resources in such a violation of property ; when 
 it stands chiefly upon such a violation ; massacring 
 by judgments, or otherwise, those who make any 
 struggle for their old legal government, and their 
 legal, hereditary, or acquired possessions, I call 
 this Jacobinism by establishment. 
 
 I call \\. Atheism by establishment ^^^ any State, 
 as such, shall not acknowledge the existence of 
 God as a moral Governor of the World ; when it 
 shall offer to Him no religious or moral worship ; 
 when it shall abolish the Christian religion by a 
 regular decree ; when it shall' persecute with a 
 cold, unrelenting, steady cruelty, by every mode, 
 pf confiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death, 
 
 all
 
 ( 38 ) 
 
 aU its ministers ; when it shall generally shut up 
 or pull down churches ; wiien the few buildings 
 which remain of this kind shall be opened only 
 for the purpose of making a profane apotheosis of 
 monsters, -whose vices and crimes have no parallel 
 amongst men, and whom all other men consider 
 as objects of general detestation, and the severest 
 animadversion of law. When, in the place of that 
 religion of social benevolence, and of individual 
 self-denial, in mockery of all religion, they insti-r 
 tute impious, blasphemous, indecent theatric rites 
 in honor of their vitiated, perverted reason, and 
 erect altars to the personification of their own 
 
 corrupted and bloody Republick ; when schools 
 
 and seminaries are erected at public expence to 
 poison mankind, from generation to generation, 
 with the horrible maxims of this impiety, I calj 
 this Aibeim fy establishment* 
 
 When to these establishments of Regicide, of 
 Jacobinism, and of Atheism, you add the corres- 
 pondent system of manners, no doubt can be left on 
 the mind of a thinking man, concerning their de- 
 termined hostility to the human race. Manners 
 are of more importance than laws. In a great mea- 
 sure the laws depend upon them. The law touches ' 
 us but -here and there, and now and then. Man- 
 ners are what vex or sooth, corrupt or purify, 
 exalt or debase^ barbarize or refine us, by a con- 
 steady, uniform, insensible operation, like 
 
 tha;
 
 that of the air we breath in. They give tnetf 
 whole form and colour to our lives. According to 
 their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, 
 or they totally destroy them. Of this the new 
 French Legislators were aware ; therefore, with 
 the same method, and under the same authority, 
 they settled a system of manners, the most licen- 
 tious, prostitute, and abandoned, and at the same 
 time the most coarse, rude, savage, and ferocious. 
 Nothing in the Revolution, no, not to a phrase or 
 a gesture, not to the fashion of a hat or a shoe, 
 \vas left to accident. All was the result of design; 
 all was matter of institution. No mechanical 
 means could be devised in favour of this incredi- 
 ble system of wickedness and vice, that has not 
 been employed. The. noblest passions, the love of 
 glory, the love of country, were debauched into 
 means of it's preservation and it's propagation. All 
 sorts of shews and exhibitions calculated to in- 
 flame and vitiate the imagination, and pervert the 
 moral sense, have been contrived. They have 
 sometimes brought forth five or six hundred 
 drunken women, calling at the bar of the Assem- 
 bly for the blood of their own children, as being 
 royalists or constitutionals. Sometimes they have 
 got a body of wretches, calling themselves fathers, 
 to demand the murder of their sons ; boasting that 
 Rome had but one] Brutus, but that they could 
 shew five hundred. There were instances, in, 
 
 which
 
 ( 40 ) 
 
 which they inverted,, and retaliated the impiety, 
 and produced sons, who called for the execution 
 of their parents. The foundation' of their Repu- 
 blick is founded in moral paradoxes. ; Their pa- 
 triotism is always prodigy. All those instances to 
 be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of 
 a doubtful publick spirit, at /which morality is 
 perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which a 
 frighted nature recoils, are their chosen,and almost 
 sole examples for the instruction of their youth. 
 
 The whole drift of their institution is contrary 
 to that of the wise Legislators of all countries, who 
 aimed at improving instincts into morals, and at 
 grafting the virtues on the stock of the natural af- 
 fections. They, on the contrary, have omitted no 
 pains to eradicate every benevolent and noble pro- 
 pensity in the mind of men. In their culture it is a 
 rule always to graft virtues on vices. They think 
 every thing unworthy ofthe name of publick virtue^ 
 unless it indicates violence on the private. All their 
 new institutions, (and with them every thing is 
 new) strike at the root of our social nature. Other 
 Legislators, knowing that marriage is the origin of 
 all relations, and consequently the first element of 
 all duties, have endeavoured by every art to make 
 it sacred. The Christian Religion, by confining it 
 to the pairs, and by rendering that relation indisso- 
 luble, has,- by these two things, done more towards 
 l the
 
 the peace, happiness,, settlement, and civilisation 
 of the world, than by any other part in this whole 
 scheme of Divine Wisdom. The direct contrary 
 course was taken in the Synagogue of Antichrist^ 
 I mean in that fofge and manufactory of all evil, 
 the sect which predominated in the Constituent 
 Assembly of 1 789. Those monsters employed 
 the same, or greater industry, to desecrate and 
 degrade that State, which other Legislators have 
 used to render it holy and honourable. By a 
 strange, uncalled for declaration, they pronounced, 
 that marriage was no better than a common^ civil 
 contract. It was one of their ordinary tricks, to 
 put their sentiments into the mouths of certain 
 personated characters, which they theatrically 
 exhibited at the bar of what ought to be a serious 
 Assembly. One of these was brought out in the 
 figure of a prostitute, whom they called by the 
 affected name of " a mother without being a 
 wife*" This cfeature they made to call for a 
 repeal of the incapacities, which in civilized States 
 are put upon bastards. The prostitutes of the As- 
 sembly gave to this their puppet the sanction of 
 their greater impudence, In consequence of the 
 principles laid down, and the manners authorised, 
 bastards were not long after put on the footing of 
 the issue of lawful unions. Proceeding in the fpi- 
 rit of the first authors of their constitution^ they 
 went the full length of the principle, and gave a
 
 ( 42 ) 
 
 licence to divorce at the mere pleasure of either 
 party, and at four day's notice. With them the 
 matrimonial connexion was brought into so de- 
 graded a state of concubinage, that, I believe, none 
 of the wretches in London, who keep warehouses 
 of infamy, would give out one of their victims to 
 private custody on so short and insolent a tenure. 
 There was indeed a kind of profligate equity in 
 thus giving to women the same licentious power. 
 The reason they assigned was as infamous as the act, 
 declaring that women had been too long under the 
 tyranny of parents and of husbands. It is not ne- 
 cessary to observe upon the horrible consequen- 
 ces of taking one half of the species wholly out of 
 the guardianship and protection of the other. 
 
 The practice of divorce, though in some coun- 
 tries permitted, has been discouraged in all. In the 
 East, polygamy and divorce are in discredit ; and 
 the manners correct the laws. In Rome, were 
 divorce was allowed, some hundreds of years had 
 passed, without a single example of that kind. Of 
 this circumstance they were pleased to take notice, 
 as an inducement to adopt their regulation : hold- 
 ing outan hope, that the permission would as rarely ' 
 be made use of. They knew the contrary to be true; 
 and they had taken good care, that the laws should 
 be well seconded by the manners. Their law of 
 divorce, like all their laws, had not for it's object 
 
 , the
 
 ( 43") 
 
 the relief of domestick uneasiness, but the total 
 corruption of all morals, the total disconnection 
 of social life. 
 
 It is a matter of curiosity to observe the opera- 
 tion of this encouragement to disorder. I have be* 
 fore me the Paris paper, correspondent to the usu-*, 
 al register of births, marriages, and deaths. Di- 
 vorce, happily, is no regular head of registry a- 
 mongst civilized nations. With the Jacobins it is 
 remarkable, that divorce is not only a regular head 
 but it has the post of honour. It occupies the first 
 place in the list. In the three first months of the 
 year 1793, the number of divorces amounted to 
 562. The marriages were 1785 ; sp that the pro- 
 portion of divorces to marriages was not much less 
 than one to three. A thing unexampled, 1 believe, 
 amongst mankind. I caused an enquiry to be 
 made at Doctor's Commons, concerning the num- 
 ber of divorces ; and found that all the divorces, 
 (which except by special act of Parliament, are 
 separations, and not proper divorces) did not 
 amount for all England, and in an hundred years, 
 to much more than one fifth of those that passed, 
 in the single city of Paris, in three- months. I fol- 
 lowed up the enquiry through several of the sub- 
 sequent months until I was tired, and found the 
 proportions still the same. By this we may take 
 our estimate of the havock that has been made 
 G 2 through
 
 through all the relations of life. With the Jaco- 
 bins of France, vague Intercourse is without re- 
 proach ; marriage is reduced to the vilest concu- 
 binage ; children are encouraged to cut the 
 throats of their parents ; mothers are taught that 
 tenderness is no part of their character ; and to 
 demonstrate their attatchment to their party, that 
 they ought to make no scruple to rake wtih their 
 bloody hands in the bowels of those who came 
 from their own. 
 
 To all this let us join the practice of canniba- 
 lism, with which, in the proper terms, and with 
 the greatest truth, their several factions accuse 
 each other. By cannibalism, I mean their devour- 
 ing, as a nutriment of their ferocity, some part of 
 the bodies of those they have murdered ; their 
 drinking the blood of their victims, and forcing 
 the victims themselves to drink the blood of their 
 kindred slaughtered before their faces. By canni- 
 balism, I mean also to signify their nameless, un- 
 manly and abominable insults on the bodies of 
 those they slaughter. 
 
 As to those whom they suffer to die a natural 
 death, they do not suffer them to enjoy the last con- 
 solations of mankind, or those rights of sepulture, 
 which indicate hope, and which meer nature has 
 taught to mankind in all countries, to soothe the- 
 
 aifli&ions,
 
 afflictions, and to cover the infirmity of moral 
 condition. They disgrace men in the entry into 
 life ; they vitiate and enslave them through the 
 whole course of it ; and they deprive them of all 
 comfort at the conclusion of their dishonoured 
 and depraved existence. Endeavouring to per^ 
 suade the people that they are no better than 
 beasts ; the whole body of their institution tends 
 to make them beasts of prey furious and savage. 
 For this purpose the active part of them is disci- 
 plined into a ferocity which has no parallel. To 
 this ferocity there is joined not one of the rude, 
 unfashioned virtues, which accompany the vices, 
 where the whole are left to grow up together in 
 the rankness of uncultivated nature. But nothing 
 is left to nature in their systems. 
 
 The same discipline which hardens their hearts 
 relaxes their morals. Whilst courts of justice 
 were thrust out by revolutionary tribunals, and 
 silent churches were only the funeral monuments 
 of departed religion, no fewer than ten theatres 
 were kept open at publick expence. At one time 
 I have reckoned fourteen of their advertisements 
 of publick diversion. Among the gaunt, hag- 
 gard forms of famine and nakedness, amidst , the 
 yells of murder, the tears of affliction, and the 
 cries of despair, the song, the dance, the mimick 
 scene, the buffoon laughter, went on as regularly 
 
 as
 
 ( 46 ) 
 
 as in the gay hour of festive peace. I have it from 
 good authority, that under the scaffold of judicial 
 murder, and the gaping planks that poured down 
 blood on the spectators, the space was hired out 
 for a shew of dancing dogs. I think, without 
 conceit, we made the very same remark on reading 
 some of their pieces, which being written for other 
 purposes, let us into a view of their social life. 
 It struck us that the habits of Paris had no resem- 
 blance to the finished virtues, or to the polished 
 vice, and elegant, though not blameless luxury, of 
 the capital of a great empire. Their society was 
 more like that of a den of outlaws upon a doubt- 
 ful frontier : of a lewd tavern for the revels and 
 debauches of banditti, assassins, bravos, smugglers, 
 and their more desperate paramours, mixed with 
 bombastick players, the refuse and rejected offal 
 of strolling theatres, puffing out ill-sorted verses 
 about virtue, mixed with the licentious and blas- 
 phemous songs, proper to their brutal and hard- 
 ened course of life, This system of manners in 
 itself is at war with all orderly and moral society, 
 and is in it's neighbourhood unsafe. If great bo- 
 dies of that kind were any whe.re established in a 
 bordering territory, we should have a right to de- 
 mand of their Governments the suppression of 
 such a nuisance. What are we to do if the Go- 
 vernment and the whole community is of the 
 sam,e description ? 
 
 The
 
 ( 47 ) 
 
 The operation of dangerous and delusive first 
 principles obliges us to have recourse to the true 
 ones. In the intercourse between nations, we are 
 apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. 
 We lay too mueh weight upon the formality of 
 treaties and compacts. We do not acl: much more 
 xvisely when we trust to the interest of men as 
 guarantees of their engagements. The interests 
 frequently tear to pieces the engagements ; and 
 the passions trample upon both. Entirely to trust 
 to either is to disregard our own safety, or not to 
 know mankind. Men are not tied to one an- 
 other by papers and seals. They are led to asso- 
 ciate by resemblances, by conformities, by sym- 
 pathies. It is with nations as with individuals. 
 Nothing is so strong a tie of amity between na- 
 tion and nation as correspondence in law.-, customs, 
 manners, and habits of life. They have more than 
 the force of treaties in themselves. They are obli- 
 gations written in the heart. They approximate 
 men to men, without their knowledge, and some- 
 times against their intentions. The secret, unseen, 
 but irrefragable bond of habitual intercourse,holds 
 them together, even when their perverse and liti- 
 gious nature sets them to equivocate, scuffle, and 
 fight about the terms of their written obligations. 
 
 As to war, if it be the means of wrong and vio- 
 Ience,it is the sole means of justice amongst nations. 
 
 Nothing
 
 Nothing can banish it from the world. They who 
 say otherwise, intending to impose upon us, do 
 not impose upon themselves. But it is one of the 
 greatest objects of human wisdom to mitigate those 
 evils which we cannot remove. The conformity 
 and analogy of which I speak, incapable, like 
 everything else^ of preserving perfect trust and 
 tranquillity among men, has a strong tendency to 
 facilitate accommodation, and to produce a ge- 
 nerous oblivion of the rancour of their quarrels. 
 With this similitude, peace is more of peace, and 
 war is less of war. I will go further. There have 
 been periods of time in which communities, appa- 
 rently in peace with each other, have been more 
 perfectly separated than, in Jater times, many na- 
 tions in Europe have been in the course of long 
 and bloody wars. The cause must be sought in, 
 the similitude in Europe of religion, laws, and 
 manners. At bottom, these are all the same. The 
 writers on public law have often called this aggre- 
 gate of nations a Commonwealth. They had rea- 
 son. It is virtually one great state having the same 
 basis of general law ; with some diversity of pro- 
 vincial customs and local establishments. The na- 
 tions of Europe have had the very same Christian 
 religion, agreeing in the fundamental parts, vary- 
 ing a little in the ceremonies and in the subordi- 
 nate doctrines. The whole of the polity and 
 ceconorny of every country in Europe have been, 
 2 derived
 
 ( 49 ) 
 
 derived from the Tame fources. They were drawn 
 from the old Germanic or Gothic cuftumary; 
 from the feudal inftitutions which muft be con- 
 fidered as an emanation from thofe cuftoms ; and 
 the whole has been improved and digefted into 
 fyftem and difcipline by the Roman law. From 
 hence arofe the feveral orders, with of without a 
 Monarch, which are called States in every coun- 
 try j the ftrong traces of which, where Monarchy 
 predominated, were never wholly extinguifhed or 
 merged in defpotifm. In the few places where 
 Monarchy was caft. off, the fpirit of European 
 Monarchy was (till left. 'Thofe countries flill con- 
 tinued countries of States, that is, of clafles, orders, 
 and diitindtions, fueh as had before fubfifted, or 
 nearly fo. Indeed the force and form of the infti- 
 tution called States, continued in greater perfec- 
 tion in thofe republican countries than under Mo- 
 narchies. From all thofe iburces arofe a iyftem 
 of manners and of education which was nearly 
 fimilar in all countries, and which foftencd, blended, 
 and harmonized the colours of the whole. There 
 was little difference in the form of their Univer- 
 fities for the education of their youth, whether with 
 1 regard to faculties, to fciences, or to that erudition 
 which is ufed to impart, with liberal morals, a kind 
 of elegance to the mind. From this refemblance 
 in the modes of intercourfe, and in the whole 
 form and fafhion of life, no citizen of Europe could 
 H be
 
 be Altogether an exile in any part of it. There 
 nothing more than a pleafmg variety to recreate 
 and inftruft the mind; to enrich the imagina- 
 tion -, and to meliorate the heart. When a man 
 travelled or reficfed for health, pleafure, bufmefs 
 or necefiity, from his own country, he never 
 felt himfelf quite abroad. My friend, Mr. Wyld, 
 the late profeffor of law in Edinburgh, a young 
 man of infinite promife, and whofe lofs at this time 
 is ineftimable, has beautifully applied two lines of 
 Ovid to this unity and diverfity in Europe, before 
 'the curfe of the French Revolution had fallen 
 tpon us all. 
 
 " Facies non omnibus una ; 
 
 ' " Nee diverfa tamen ; qualem decet effe fororum. 
 
 The whole body of this new fcheme of manners 
 in fupport of the new fcheme of politicks, I con- 
 fider as a ftrong and decifive proof of determined 
 ambition aud fyftematick hoilility. I defy the 
 moft refining ingenuity to invent any other caufe 
 for the total departure of the Jacobin Republick 
 from every one of the ideas and uiages, religious, 
 legal, moral, or fbcial, of this civilized world, and 
 to tear herfelf from it's communion with fuch ftu- 
 died violence, but from a formed refolution of 
 keeping no terms with that world. It has not been, 
 as has been falfely and infidioufly reprefented, that 
 thefe mifcreants had only broke with their old Go- 
 vernment.
 
 ( Jl ) 
 
 vernment. They made a fchifm with the whole 
 univerfe, and that fchifm extended to almoft every 
 thing great and fraall. For one, I wifh, fmce ir 
 is gone thus far, that the breach had been fo com- 
 pleat, as to make all intercourie impracticable j 
 but partly by accident, partly by defign, partly 
 from the refiftance of the matter, enough is left to 
 preferve intercourfe, whilfl amity is deftroyed or 
 corrupted in its principle. 
 
 This violent breach of the community of Eu- 
 rope, we muft conclude to have been made, (even 
 if they had not exprefsly declared it over and over 
 again) either to force mankind into an adoption 
 of their fyftem, or to live in perpetual enmity with 
 a community the moft potent we have ever known. 
 Can any perfon imagine, that in offering to man- 
 kind this defperate alternative, there is no indica- 
 tion of a hoftile mind, becaufe men are fuppofed 
 to have a right to act without coercion in their 
 own territories ? As to the right of men to act 
 any where according to their pleafure, without any 
 moral tie, no fuch right exifts. Men are never in 
 a ftate of total independence of each other. It is 
 not the condition of our nature; nor is it conceiv- 
 able how any man can purfue a confiderable courfe 
 of action without its having fome effect upon 
 others j or, of courfe, without producing fome de- 
 gree of refponfibility for his conduct. The fitu- 
 H 2 ations
 
 ( 5* ) 
 
 aliens in which men relatively ftand produce the 
 rules and principles of that refponfibility, and 
 afford directions to prudence in exacting it. 
 
 Diftance of place does not extingwfh the duties 
 or the rights of men ; but it often renders their 
 exercife impracticable. The fame cireumftance of 
 diftance renders the noxious effects of an evil fyf- 
 tem in any community lefs pernicious. But there 
 are fituations where this difficulty does not oc- 
 cur; and in . which, therefore, thefe duties are 
 obligatory, and thefe rights are to be afferted. It 
 has ever been the method of publick juriils to 
 draw the analogies on which they form the law of | 
 nations, from the principles of law which prevail 
 in civil community. Civil laws are not all of 
 them merely pofitive. Thofe which are rather con- 
 clufions of legal reafon, than matters of ftatutable 
 provifion, belong to univerfal. equity, and are uni- 
 verfally applicable. Almoft the whole praetorian 
 law is fuch. There is a Law of Neighbourhood 
 which does not leave a man perfect matter on his 
 own ground. When a neighbour fees a new ercttion, 
 in the nature of a nuifance, fet up at his door, he 
 has a right to reprefent it to the judge -, who, on his 
 part, has a right to order the work to be ftaid ; or if 
 eftabliflied, to be removed. On this head 3 the parent 
 law is exprefs and clear 3 and has made many wife 
 provifions, which, without dcftroying, regulate ano! 
 
 neftrain
 
 C 53 ) 
 
 reftrain the right of owner/hip, by the right of vi- 
 cihage. No innovation is permitted that may re- 
 dound,, even fecondarily, to the prejudice of a 
 neighbour. The whole doctrine of that important 
 head of pretorian law, " De novi opens nunciatione" 
 is founded on the principle, that no new ufe ihould 
 be made of a man's private liberty of operating 
 irpon his private property, from whence a detriment 
 may be juftly apprehended by his neighbour. 
 This law of denunciation is profpeftive. It is 
 to anticipate what is called damnum infeffum, or 
 damnum ncndum facium, that is a damage juftly 
 apprehended but not actually done. Even before 
 it is clearly known, whether the innovation be da- 
 mageable or not, the judge is competent to iflue a 
 prohibition to innovate, until the point can be de- 
 termined. This prompt interference is grounded 
 on principks -favourable to both parties. It is pre- 
 ventive of mifcheif difficult to be repaired, and of 
 kl blood difficult to be foftened. The rule of 
 law, therefore, .which comes before the evil, k 
 amongft the very be ft parts of equity, and juftifies 
 the promptness of the remedy ; becaufe, as it is well 
 obferved, Res damnl infefli celeritatem defiderat, 6? 
 periculofc eft dilatio-. This right of denunciation 
 does not hold, when things continue, however in- 
 conveniently to the neighbourhood, according to 
 the antient mode. For' there is a fort of prefump- 
 tion againft novelty, drawn out of a deep confide- 
 
 ration
 
 ( 54 ) 
 
 ration of human nature and human affairs - 9 and 
 the maxim of jurifprudence is well laid down, 
 Vetuftas fro kgejemper habetur. 
 
 Such is the law of civil vicinity. Now where 
 there is no conflituted judge, as between indepen-, 
 dent ftates there is not, the vicinage itfelf is the 
 natural judge. It is, preventively, the afiertor of it's 
 own rights ; or remedially, their avenger. Neigh- 
 bours are prefumed to take cognizance of each 
 other's afts. " Vidni, vicinorum faffa prefumuntur 
 fare." This principle, which, like the reft, is as 
 true of nations, as of men, has beftowed on the 
 grand vicinage of Europe, a duty to know, and a 
 right to prevent, any capital innovation which may 
 amount to the erection of a dangerous nuifance, 
 Of the importance of that innovation, and the 
 mifcheif of that nuifance, , they are, to be fure,. 
 bound to judge not litigioufly: but it is in their 
 competence to judge. What in civil fociety is a 
 ground of action, in politic fociety is a ground of 
 war. But the exercife of that competent jurifdic- 
 tion is a matter of moral prudence. As fuits in 
 civil fociety, fo war in the political, is ever a 
 matter of great deliberation. It is not this or 
 that particular proceeding picked out here and 
 there, as a fubjed of quarrel, that will do. 
 There muft be an aggregate of mifchief. There 
 muft be marks of deliberation 3 there muft be 
 
 traces
 
 ( 5J ) 
 
 traces of defign. There muft be indications of 
 malice ; there muft be tokens of ambition. There 
 muft be force in the body where they exift j there 
 muft be energy in the mind. When all thefe cir- 
 cumftances combine, or the important parts of 
 them, the duty of the, vicinity calls for the exercife 
 of it's competence ; and the rules of prudence do 
 not reftrain, but demand it. 
 
 In defcribing the nuifance erected by fo peftilen- 
 tial a manufactory, by conftructing fo infamous a 
 brothel, by digging a night cellar for fuch thieves, 
 murderers, and houfebreakers, as never infefted 
 the world, I am fo far from aggravating, that I 
 have fallen infinitely mort of the evil. No man 
 who has attended to the particulars of 'what has 
 been done in France, and combined them with 
 the principles there afierted, can poffibly doubt it. 
 When I compare with this great caufe of nations, 
 the trifling points of honour, the ftill more con- 
 temptible points of intereft, the light ceremonies, 
 the undefinable punctilios, the difputes about pre- 
 cedency, the lowering or the hoiftirigofa fail, the 
 dealing in a hundred or two of wild cat-fkins on 
 the other fide of the Globe, which have often 
 kindled up the flames of war between nations, I 
 ftand aftonimed at thofe perfons, who 4o not feel 
 a refentment, not more natural than politick, at 
 the artrocious infults that this monftrous com- 
 pound
 
 ( 5< > 
 
 pound offers to the dignity of every nation/ anrf 
 who are not alarmed with what it threatens to theJr 
 fafety. 
 
 I have therefore been decidedly of opinion, that 
 the vicinage of Europe had not only a right, but an 
 indifpenfible duty, and an exigent intereft, to de- 
 nunciate this new work before it had produced the 
 danger we have fo forely felt, and which we fliall 
 lang feel. The example of what is done by 
 France is too important not to have a vail and 
 extenfive influence ; and that exam pie backed with 
 It's power, muft bear with great force on thole 
 who are near it; efpecially on thole who fliall re- 
 cognize the pretended Republick on the principle 
 upon which'it now ftands. It is not an old ftruc- 
 ture which you have found as it is, and are not 
 to diipute of the original end and defign with 
 which it had been fo falhioned. It is a recent 
 wrong, and can plead no prefcription. It violates 
 the rights upon which not only the community of 
 .France, but thole on which all communities are 
 founded. The principles on which they proceed 
 are general principles, and are as true in England 
 as in any other country. They who recognize 
 the authority of thefe Regicides and robbers upon 
 principle, juftify their acts; and eftablifh them as 
 precidents. It is a queftion not between France and 
 England. It is a queftion between property and 
 
 force.
 
 ( 57 ) 
 
 force. The property claims. Its claim has been 
 allowed: but it feems that we are to reject the 
 property, and to take part with the force. The pro- 
 perty of the nation is the nation. Thofe who maf- 
 facre, plunder, and expel the body of the proprie- 
 tary, are murderers and robbers. They are no Re- 
 publick, nor can be treated with as fuch. The State, 
 in it's effence, muft be moral and juft ; and it may be 
 fo, though a tyrant or ufurper may be accidentally 
 at the head of it. This is a thing to be lamented : 
 but this notwithstanding, the body of the com- 
 monwealth may remain in all it's integrity and be 
 perfectly found in it's compofition. The prefent 
 cafe is different. It is not a revolution in govern- 
 ment. It is a deftruttion and decompofition of 
 the whole fociety, which never can be made of 
 right, nor without terrible confequences to all about 
 it, both in the act and in the example. This 
 pretended Republic is founded in crimes, and ex- 
 ills by wrong and robbery j and wrong and rob- 
 bery, far from a title to any thing, is war with 
 mankind. To be at peace with robbery is to be 
 an accomplice with it. 
 
 A body politick is not a geographical idea. 
 They who proceed as if it were fuch, I trull, do 
 not underftand what they do. Locality does not 
 conftitute a body politick. Had Cade and his gang 
 got poflefiion of London, they would not have 
 i bee*
 
 been the Lord-Mayor, Aldermen, and Common 
 Council. The body politick of France exifted in 
 the majefty of it's throne ; in the dignity of it's 
 nobility ; in the honour of its gentry , in the fanc- 
 tity of its clergy j in the reverence of it's magi- 
 ftracy ; in the weight and confideration due to it's 
 landed property, in the refpect due to it's move- 
 able fubftance reprefented by the corporations of 
 the kingdom in all countries. All thefe particular 
 molecules united, form the great mafs of what is 
 truly the body politick. They are fo many de- 
 pofits and receptacles of juftice; becaufe they can 
 only exift by juftice. Nation is a moral eflfence, not 
 a geographical arrangement, or a denomination 
 of the nomenclator. France though out of her 
 territorial poffeffion, exifts ; becaufe the fole 
 pofllble claimant, I mean the proprietary, and 
 the government to which the proprietary adheres, 
 exifts and claims. God forbid, that if you were 
 expelled from your houfe by ruffians and afTafTms, 
 that I mould call the material walls, doors and 
 windows of , the ancient and honour- 
 able family of . Am I to transfer to 
 
 the intruders, who not content to turn you out 
 naked to the world, would rob you of your very 
 name, all the efteem and refpect I owe to you ? 
 
 To illuftrate my opinions on this fubject, let us 
 fuppoie a cafe, which after what has happened, we 
 
 cannot
 
 ( 59 ) 
 
 cannot think abfolutcly impoffible, though the 
 augury is to be abominated, and the events depre- 
 cated with our moft ardent prayers Let .us fup- 
 pofe that our gracious fovereign was facrilegioufly 
 murdered; his exemplary queen, at the head^of 
 the matronage of this land, murdered in the fame 
 manner, together with thofe PrincefTes whofe 
 beauty and modeft elegance are the ornaments of 
 t he country, and who are the leaders and patterns 
 of the ingenious youth of their fex j that thefe 
 were put to a cruel and ignominious death, with 
 hundreds of others, mothers and daughters, of 
 the firft diftinftion ; that the Prince of Wales 
 and Duke of York, the hope and pride of the 
 nation, with all their brethren, were forced to fly 
 from the knives of aflaffins that the whole body 
 of our excellent Clergy were either maffacred 
 or robbed of all, and tranfported the Chriftian 
 Religion, in all it's denominations, forbidden and 
 perlecuted ; the law totally, fundamentally, and in' 
 all it's parts deftroyed the judges put to death by 
 revolutionary tribunals---the' Peers and Commons 
 robbed to the laft acre of their eftates -, maflacred if 
 they ftaid, obliged to feek life in flight, in exile and 
 in beggary that the whole landed property mould 
 mare the very fame fate -that every military and 
 naval officer of honour and rank, almoft to a man, 
 fhould be in the fame ilefcription of corrfifcatiQn 
 and exile that the principal merchants and ban- 
 i 2 ker
 
 kers mould be drawn out, as from an hen-coop, 
 for fliughter, and the citizens of our greateft and 
 moft flourifhing cities, when the hand and the ma- 
 chinery of the hangman was not found fufficient, 
 were collected in the fquares, and maffacred by 
 thoufands with cannon if three hundred thoufand 
 others were, in a fituation worfe than death, in noi- 
 fome and peftilential prifons ; in fuch a cafe, is it 
 in the faction of robbers I am to look for my 
 country ? Would this be the England that I, and 
 even ftrangers, admired, honoured, loved, and 
 cherilhed ? Would not the exiles of England alone 
 be my Government and my fellow citizens ? Would 
 not their places of refuge be my temporary country ? 
 Would not all my duties and all my affections be 
 there and there only ? Should I confider myfelf as a 
 traitor to my country, and deferving of death, if I 
 knocked at the door and heart of every Potentate 
 in Chriftendom to fuccour my friends, and to 
 avenge them on their enemies ? Could I, in any 
 way, mew myfelf more a patriot ? What mould I 
 think of thofe Potentates who infulted their fuffer- 
 ing brethren ; who treated them as vagrants, and 
 could find no allies, no friends, but in Regicide 
 murderers and robbers ? What ought I to 
 think and feel, if being geographers inftead of 
 Kings, they recognized the defolated cities, the 
 wafted fields, and the rivers polluted with blood, 
 of this geometrical meafurement, as the honourable 
 
 member
 
 member of Europe, called England ? In that condi- 
 tion, what ihould we think of Sweden, Denmark, or 
 ,HoiIanJ, or whatever power afforded us. a churlilh 
 and treacnerous hofpitality, if they fhould invite 
 us to join the ftandard of our King, our Laws, 
 and our Religion, if they fhould give us a direft 
 promife of protection,--- if after all this, taking ad- 
 vantage of our deplorable fituation, which left us 
 no choice, they were to treat us as the lowed and 
 vileft of all mercenaries ? If they were to fend us 
 far from the aid of our King, and our fuffering 
 Country, to fquander us away in the moft peftilen- 
 tial climates, for a venal enlargement of their own 
 territories, for the purpofe of trucking them when 
 obtained with our murderers? If in that miferablc 
 fervice we were not to be confidered either as 
 Englifh, or as Swedes, or Dutch, or Danes, but as 
 outcafts of the human race ? Whilft we were right- 
 ing thofe battles of their intereft, and as their fol- 
 diersj how mould we feel if we were to be ex- 
 cluded from all their cartels ? How mufl we feel, 
 if the pride and flower of the Englifh Nobility and 
 Gentry, who might efcape the peflilential dime, 
 and the devouring fword, fhould, if taken pri- 
 foners, be delivered over as rebel fubjects, to be 
 condemned as rebels, as traitors, as the vileft of 
 all criminals, by tribunals formed of Maroon ne- 
 groe flaves, covered over with the blood of their 
 matters, who were made free, and organifed into 
 
 judges,
 
 ( * ) 
 
 judges, for their robberies and murders ? What 
 Jhould we feel under this inhuman, infulting, ancj. 
 barbarous protection of Swedes and Hollanders ? 
 Should we not obteft Heaven, and whatever juftice 
 there is yet on earth ? Oppreffion makes wife men 
 madj but the diflemper is flill the madnefs of the 
 wife, which is better than the fobriety of fools. 
 Her cry is the voice of facred mifery, exalted, not 
 into wild raving, but into the fanctified phrenfy 
 of infpiration and prophecy in that bitternefs of 
 foul, in that indignation of fuffering virtue, in 
 that exaltation of defpair, would not perfecuted 
 Engliih Loyalty cry out, with an awful warning 
 voice, and denounce the deftruction that waits on 
 Monarchs, who confider fidelity to them as the 
 moft degrading of all vices j who fuffer it to be 
 punifhed as the moft abominable of all crimes; 
 and who have no refpect but for rebels traitors, 
 Regicides, and furious negro flaves, whofe crimes 
 have broke their chains ? Would not this warm 
 language of high indignation have more of found 
 reafon in it, more of real affection, more of true 
 attachment, than all the lullabies of flatterers, who 
 would hum Monarchs to fleep in the arms of death ? 
 Let them be well convinced, that if ever this ex- 
 ample fhould prevail in its whole extent, it will 
 have its full operation. Whilft Kings fland firm 
 on their bafe, though under that bafe there is a fure- 
 wrought mine, their levees will never want to 
 "- -,' {well
 
 ( 63 ) 
 
 fwell them a fmgle perfon of thofe who are attach- 
 ed to their fortune, .and not to their perfons or 
 caufe. Hereafter none will fupport a tottering 
 throne. Some will fly, for fear of being crulhed 
 under the ruinj fome will join in making it. They 
 will feek in the prefervation of Royalty, fame, and - 
 power, and wealth, and the homage of Kings- 
 with Reubel, with Carnot, and Rovelliere, rather 
 than fufFer exile and beggary with the Condes, or 
 the Broglios, the Caftries, the D'Avrais, the Ser- 
 rents, the Cazales, and the long line of loyal fuf- 
 fering Patriot Nobles, or to be butchered with the 
 victims of the laws, the De Sezes, the d'Efpreme- 
 monils, and the Malflierbes. 
 
 Thefe examples are the fchool of mankind, and 
 they will learn at no other. This war, therefore, 
 is not a war for Louis the Eighteenth, or for the 
 property, virtue, fidelity of France j but for George 
 the Third, Francis the Second, and for all the 
 property, honour, virtue and religion of England, 
 of Germany, and all nations. 
 
 But, fay fome, you force opinion. You can 
 never extirpate opinion without extirpating a whole 
 nation. Nay, by purfuing it, you only increafe 
 its partizans. Opinions are things out of human 
 jurifdiction. I have formerly heard this from the 
 mouths of great men, with more furprize than 
 
 fatisfaction.
 
 ( 64 ) 
 
 fatis faction. They alledged as a proof of their 
 doctrine, the wars of Charles the Fifth, and fome 
 of his fucce'fibrs, againft the Reformation. 
 
 It is fo common, though fo unreafonable, it is 
 hardly worth remarking, that no perfons purfue 
 more fiercely with criminal procefs, and with every 
 kind of coercion, the publication of opinions con- 
 trary to their own, than thofe do, who claim in 
 this 'refpect the moil unbounded latitude to them- 
 felvcs. If it were not for this inconfiftency, then 
 war againft opinions might be juftified as all others, 
 more or lefs, according to the reafon of the cafe : 
 for the cafe judged on by moral prudence, and not 
 by any univerfal abftract principle of right, is to 
 guide government in this delicate point. 
 
 As to the mere matter of extirpation of all kinds 
 of -opinions, whether right or wrong, without the 
 extirpation of a people, it is a thing To very com- 
 mon, that would be clouded and obfcured rather 
 than illuftrated by examples. Every revolution in 
 the predominant opinion made by the force of do- 
 meilic legal government, by the force of anyufur- 
 pation, by the force of any conqueft, is a proof to 
 the contrary ; and there is no nation which has 
 not experienced thofe changes. Inftances enough 
 may be furnifhed of people who have enthufiafti- 
 cally, and with force, propagated thofe opinions, 
 
 which
 
 which fome time before they refilled with their 
 blood. Rarely have ever great changes in opinion 
 taken place without the application offeree, more 
 or lefs. Like every thing elfe in human life and 
 human affairs, it is not univerfally true, that a 
 perfecution of opinions leflens or increafes the 
 number of their votaries. In finding where it may 
 or may not have gathered thefe effects, the fagacity 
 of Government mines or is difgraced, as well as in 
 the time, the manner, the choice of the opinions 
 on which it ought to ufe or forbear the fword of 
 domeftick or of foreign juftice. But it is a falfe 
 maxim, that opinions ought to be indifferent to 
 us, either as men or as a State. Opinion is the 
 rudder of human actions and as the opinion is wife 
 or foolilh, vicious or moral, the caufe of action is 
 noxious or falutary. It has even been the great pri- 
 mary object of fpeculative and doctrinal philofophy 
 to regulate opinion. It is the great object of po- 
 litical philofophy to promote that, which is found; 
 and to extirpate what is mifchievous, and which 
 directly tends to render men bad citizens in the 
 community, and mifchievous neighbours out of it. 
 Opinions are of infinite confequence. They make 
 the manners in fact, they make the laws: they 
 make the Lagiflator. They are, therefore, of all 
 things, thofe to which provident Government 
 ought to look moft to in their beginnings. After 
 4 time they may look to them in vain. When, 
 K therefore,
 
 ( 66 ) 
 
 ' therefore, I &m told that a war is a war of opinions, 
 I am told that it is the moft important of all wars. 
 
 Here I muft not be told that this would lead to 
 eternal war and perfecution. It would certainly, 
 if we argued like metaphyficians run mad, who 
 4o not correft prudence, the queen of virtues, to 
 be any virtue at all, and would either throw the 
 Bridle on the neck of headlong Nature, or tie it 
 up for ever to the poft. No fophiftry no chicane 
 here. Government is not to refine men out of in- 
 nocent and moral liberty by forced inferences, 
 drawn by a torturing logic; or to fuffer them to 
 go down hill the highway that leads diredly to 
 every crime and every vice. 
 
 Without entering much into the comparifon of 
 the two cafes, (ruatof this war and that of Charles 
 the Fifth againft the reformation) which holds, 
 very ill, I mail only beg leave to remark, that 
 theological opinions as fuch, whether found or er- 
 roneous, do not go direftiy to the well being of 
 focial, of civil, or of politick fpciety. But as 
 long as opinion is the very ground and pillar of 
 Government, and the main fpring of human ac- 
 tion, there are opinions which directly afred thefe 
 very things. An opinion, that it is a man's duty to 
 take from me my goods, and to kill me if I refift 
 him. An opinion that he has a right, at his will, 
 
 to
 
 tcTpull down the Government by which I am pro- 
 tected in that life and property, and to place it in the 
 hands of the enemies of both. Thefe it is very ex- 
 traordinary to hear compared to the theological dog- 
 mas concerning grace and juftifieatipn and the 
 nature and effence of the facrament and other pious 
 opinions on the one fide or on the other which 
 left human fociety altogether, or nearly, as it was. 
 They did not preach vices or crimes. The parties 
 difputed on the beft means of promoting virtue, 
 religion and morals. Whether any collateral points 
 relative to thefe queftions or other circumftancesof* 
 a more political nature mingled with them, might 
 or might not juftify a war, is a matter of hiftorica"! 
 criticifm, with which, at this day, we are little con- 
 cerned. But in the cafe before us, Imuft declare, 
 that the doctrine and difcipline of this fet is one of" 
 the moft alarming circumilances relating to it, and 
 the attempt to compare them with the opinions of 
 fchool theologicians, is a thing in itfelf highly alarm- 
 ing. I know that when men poflefs the beft princi- 
 ples, the paffions lead them to act in oppofition to 
 them. But when the moral principles are formed 
 fyftematically to play into the hand of the paffions; 
 when that which is to correct vice and to reftrain 
 violence, is by an infernal doctrine, daringly avow- 
 ed, carefully propagated, enthufiafticallyheld, and 
 practically followed, I mail think my felf treated like 
 a child, when I hear this compared to a controverfy 
 ,' ? f; J K 2 in
 
 ( 68 ) 
 
 in the fchools. When J fee a great country; witfr 
 all its refources, poffeffed by this feel:, and turned 
 to its purpofes, I muft be worfe than a child to con- 
 ceive it a thing indifferent to- me. When this great 
 country is fo near me, and otherwife fo fituated, 
 that except through its territory, I can hardly have 
 a communication with any other, the ftate of moral 
 and political opinion, and moral and political difci- 
 pline in that country, becomes of flill greater im- 
 portance tome. When robbers, afiaflins, and rebels, 
 are not only debauched, but endoftrinated regularly, 
 by a courfe of inverted education, into murder, in- 
 furreftion, and the violation of all property,! hold, 
 that this, inflead of excufing, or palliating their 
 offences, infpires a peculiar venom into every evil 
 aft. they do; and that all fuch univerfities of 
 crimes, and all fuch profeffors of robbery, are in a 
 perpetual ftate of hoftility with mankind. 
 
 Let me now fay a word upon another topic, and 
 on the cafe put to illuftrate it, that is, on the indif- 
 ference with which we ought to regard the plan of 
 Government, and the fcheme of morals that pre- 
 vail in a State, in any queftion of peace and war 
 with it. In fupport of this doftrine, they cite the 
 cafe of Algiers as a ftrong one with an hint, that 
 is the ftronger cafe. I mould take no notice of this 
 fort of inducement, if I had found it only where 
 firft it- was, I do not want refpeft for thofe from 
 
 whom
 
 ( 6? ) 
 
 whom I firft heard it-- but having no contmverfy 
 at prefent' with them, I only think it not amilVto 
 reft on it a little, as I find it adopted with much 
 more of the fame kind, by feveral of thofe on whom 
 fuch reaibning before made no apparent imprefilorr. 
 I was however miftaken j they were not rejected, 
 but only ftored and laid by for an occafion cdndo 
 et compcno qu<e mox depromerepoffim. If it had no force 
 to prevent us from fubmitting co this necefTary war, 
 it furnifhes no better ground for our making an un- 
 neceffary and ruinous peace To this Algerian 
 parallel, however, I have to fay, that arguments of 
 analogy in law are of great weight. Of courfe, in 
 a difcufiion of the juftice of the war I attend to 
 them, provided they are analogies of principle, and 
 not of mere practice. But when they are only ar- 
 guments of analogy adhominem, they only ferve to 
 confute and filence an adverfary, who has acted in 
 fuch a manner, and on fuch principles j but to a 
 perfon who doubts the propriety of the action and 
 the motive which is made the ground of the analo- 
 gy, it can neither fhame or perplex him. This 
 analogical argument would lead us a good way.' 
 The fad is, we ourfelves, with a little corn, others 
 more directly, pay a tribute to the Republick of Al- 
 giers. Is it meant to reconcile us to the payment 
 of a tribute to the French Republick ? That this, 
 with other things more ruinous, will be demanded 
 hereafter, I little doubt ; but for the prefent, this 
 
 will
 
 t 7 ) 
 
 will not be avowed---though our minds are W 
 be gradually prepared for it, 
 
 In truth the arguments from this cafe is worth 
 little even to thofe who approve the buying an 
 Algerine forbearance of piracy. There are many 
 things which men do not approve, that they muft 
 do to avoid a greater evil. To argue from thence, 
 that they are to aft in the fame manner in all cafes, 
 is turning neceffity into a law. Upon what is mat- 
 ter of prudence, the argument concludes the con- 
 trary way. Becaufe we have done one humiliat- 
 ing act, we ought, with infinite caution, to admit 
 more acts of the fame nature, left humiliation 
 fhould become our habitual ftate. Matters of pru- 
 dence are under the dominion of circumftances, 
 and not of logical analogies. It is fo abfurd to take 
 it otherwife. In the mouths of the weak and igno- 
 rant, it makes me laugh ; in the mouths of men of 
 learning and talents, it makes me fick. I, for one 
 do more than doubt the policy of this kind of con- 
 vention with Algiers. 
 
 On thofe who think as I do, the argument can 
 make no fort of imprefiion. I know fomething of 
 the Conftitution and compofition of this very extra- 
 ordinary Republick. It has a Conftitution, I admit, 
 fimilar to the prefent tumultuous military tyranny 
 of France, by which an handful of obfcure ruffians, 
 
 domineer
 
 domineer over a fertile country, and a brave people. 
 For the compofition, too, I admit, the ASgerine 
 community refembles that of France; being the 
 very fcum, fcandal, difgrace, andpeft of the Turk- 
 ilh Afia. The grand Seignior, to difburthen the 
 .country, fuffers the Dey to recruit, in his do- 
 nions, the corps of Janifiaries, or Afaphs which 
 form the Directory, or Council of Elders of the 
 African Republick, one and indvifible. But 
 flotwithftanding this refemblance, which I allow, 
 I never mall fo far injure the Janifarian Repub- 
 lick of Algiers, as to put it in comparifon for every 
 fort of crime, turpitude, and opprefiion with the 
 Jacobin Republick of Paris. There is no queftion 
 with me to which of the two I mould choofe to- 
 be a neighbour or a fubject. But fituated as I am, 
 I am in no danger of becoming to Algiers either the 
 one or the other. It is not fo in my relation to the 
 atheiftical fanaticks of France. Have the Gentle- 
 men who borrowed this happy parallel, no idea 
 of the different conduct to be held with re- 
 gard to the very fame evil at an immenfe dif- 
 tance, and when it is at your door ? when its power 
 is enormous, as when it is comparatively as feeble 
 as its diftance is remote ? and when there is a bar- 
 rier of language and uiagcs, which prevents your 
 being corrupted through certain old correfpon- 
 dences and habitudes, which cannot for a long 
 time be fo wholly taken away, as not to make many 
 
 of
 
 ( 7* ') 
 
 of your people fufceptible of contagion from hor- 
 rible novelties that are introduced into every 
 thing elfe ? I can contemplate, without horror, a 
 royal or a national tyger on the borders of Pegu. 
 I can look at him, with an eafy curiofity, as pri- 
 foner within bars in the menagerie of the Tower. 
 But if, by Habeas Corpus, or otherwife, he was to 
 come into the Lobby of the Houfe of Commons, 
 whilft your door was open, any of you would be more 
 flout than wife, who would not gladly make hit 
 efcape out of die back windows. This Arabafla- 
 dor from Bengal, would difperfe you foorrer than 
 a diflolution by Royal Prerogative. I certainly 
 fhould dread more from a wild cat in my bedi- 
 chamber, than from all the lions th^t war in the 
 deferts behind Algiers. But in this parallel it is 
 the cat that is at a diftance, and the lions and ty^ 
 gers that are in our anti-chambers and our lobbies, 
 Algiers is not near; Algiers is not powerful ; Al* 
 giers is not our neighbour ; Algiers is not infec- 
 tious. Algiers, whatever it may be, is not an old 
 creation ; and we have good data to calculate all 
 the milchief to be cxpeded from it. When I find 
 Algiers transferred to Calais, I will tell you what I 
 think of that point. In the mean time, the cafe 
 quoted from the Algerine reports, will not apply 
 as authority. We fhall put it out of courts and 
 fo far as that goes, let. the council for the Jacobin 
 peace take nothing by their motion. 
 
 When
 
 ( 73 ) 
 
 When we voted as we did, we were. providing 
 for dangers that were direct, home, prelfing, and 
 not remote, contingents uncertain, and formed 
 upon loofe analogies; The whole tenor of con- 
 duct of France, not one or two doubtful or de- 
 tached acts or expreffions. To us it appeared, 
 that the whole body of its discipline, compre-. 
 hending the form of the State, and the fcheme of 
 opinion and mannersj were adopted both as me?ns 
 and ends; as means, to eftablifh univerfarempire; 
 and as ends to fix the fame fyftem in every place to 
 which their empire or their influence could extend, 
 It was againft this fyftem that you and I voted for 
 war. It is with this fyftem that I fhallfor ever de- 
 precate a relation of peace and amity. 
 
 Various perfons may concur in the fame mea- 
 fure on various grounds. They may be various, 
 without being contrary to, or exclufive of, each 
 other. I thought the infolent unprovoked ag- 
 grefiion of the Regicide upon our Ally of Hol- 
 land a good ground of war ; I think his manifeft 
 attempt to overturn the balance of Europe a 
 good ground of war ; as a good ground of war 
 I confider his declaration of war on his Majefty 
 and his kingdom. But though I have taken all 
 thefe to my aid, I confider them as nothing 
 more than as a fort of evidence, to indicate the 
 treafonable ipind within. It was jiot for their 
 i former
 
 ( 74 ) 
 
 former declaration of war, nor for any fpecific act 
 of hoftility that I primarily wifhed to reiift them, 
 or to perfevere in my refiftance. It was becaufe 
 the faction in France had afiumed a form, had 
 adopted a body of principles and maxims, and had 
 regularly and fyftematically acted on them, by 
 which fhe virtually had put herfelf in a pofture 
 which was in itfelf a declaration of war againft 
 mankind. 
 
 It is fit that the people fhould know when the 
 queftion is concerning peace and amity, the true 
 nature, habits, difpofitions, and views of the party 
 with whom they are to cultivate friendfhip. It is 
 of lefs importance to you, what is the character of 
 your enemy, than what are the habits and difpo- 
 fitions of your friend. The relation of enemy 
 to enemy is fimple. Enemies aim by force at 
 each other's deftruction. They are always, there- 
 fore, in a ftate of defiance and diftruft; but the 
 character of a friend is a ferious matter. With a 
 friend, the very nature of the relation muft take off 
 the guard. The people of England have felt their 
 enemies, it is fit that they Ihould know their 
 friends. 
 
 Before our opinions are quoted againft ourfelves, 
 it is proper that, from our ferious deliberation they 
 may be worth quoting. It is without reafon we 
 
 praifc
 
 ( 75 ) 
 
 praiie the wifdom of our conftitution, in putting un- 
 der the difcretion of the Crown, the aweful truft of 
 \var and peace, if the Minifters of the Crown 
 virtually return it again into our hands. It was 
 placed there as a facred depofit, to fecure us againft 
 popular ramnefs in plunging into wars, and againft 
 the effects of popular difmay, difguft, or luffitude 
 in getting out of them as imprudently as we might 
 firft engage in them. To have no other meafurc 
 in judging of thofe great objects than our momen- 
 tary opinions and defires, is to throw us back upon 
 that very democracy which, in this part, our con- 
 flitution was formed to avoid. 
 
 It is no excufe at all for a minifter, who at our 
 defire, takes a meafure contrary to our fafety, that 
 it is our own act. He who does not flay the hand 
 of a fuicide is guilty of murder. To be inftruct- 
 ed, is not to be degraded or enflared. Information 
 is an advantage to us, and we have a right to 
 demand it. He that is bound to act in the dark 
 cannot be faid to act freely. When it appears evi- 
 dent to our governors, that our defires and our in- 
 terefts are at variance, they ought not to gratify the 
 former at the expence of the latter. Statefmen 
 are placed on an eminence, that they may have a 
 larger horizon than we can poflibly comma.nd. 
 They have a whole before them, which we can 
 contemplate only in the parts* and without the 
 
 relations?
 
 relations. Minifters are not only our natural. rulers, 
 but our natural guides. Reafon clearly and man- 
 fully delivered, has in itfelf a mighty force : but 
 reafon in the mouth of legal authority, is, I may 
 fairly fay, irrefiftible. 
 
 I admit that reafon of ftate will not, in many cir- 
 cumftances permit the difclofure of the true ground 
 of a public proceeding. In that cafe filence is 
 manly and it is wife. It is fair to call for truit 
 when the principle of reafon itfelf fufpends its 
 public ufe. I take the diftin&ion to be this. The 
 ground of a particular meafure, making a part of 
 a plan, it is rarely proper to divulge. All the 
 broader grounds of policy on which the general 
 plan is to be adopted, ought as rarely to be con- 
 cealed. They who have not the whole caufe be- 
 fore them, caH them politicians, call them people, 
 call them what you will, are no judges. The diffi- 
 culties of the cafe as well as its fair fide, ought to 
 be prefented. This ought to be done : and it is 
 all that can be done. When we have our true fi- 
 tuation diftindtly prefented to us, if we refolve 
 with a blind and headlong violence, to refift the 
 admonitions of our friends, and to eaft ourfelvcs 
 into the hands of our 'potent and irreconcilable 
 foes, then, and not till then, the minifters {land 
 acquitted before Gcd and man, for whatever may 
 come, 
 
 Lamenting
 
 ( 77 ) 
 
 Lamenting as I do, that the matter has not had 
 fo full and free a difcuflion as it requires, I mean 
 to omit none of the points which feem to me 
 necefifary for confideration, previous to an ar- 
 rangement which is for ever to decide the form 
 and the fate of Europe, In the courfe, there- 
 fore, of what I Ihall have the honour to addrefs to 
 .you, I propofe the following queftions to your fe- 
 TIOUS thoughts, i. Whether the prefent fyftem, 
 which {bands for a Government in France, be fuch 
 as in peace and war affects the neighbouring States 
 in a manner different from the internal Govern- 
 ment that formerly prevailed in that country ? 
 2. Whether that fyftem, fuppofing it's views hof- 
 tile to other nations, pofleffes any means of being 
 hurtful to them peculiar to itfejf ? 3. Whether 
 .there has been lately fuch a change in France, 
 as to alter the nature of it's fyftem or it's effect 
 upon other Powers ? 4. Whether any public de- 
 clarations or engagements exift, on the part of the 
 allied Powers, which ftand in the way of a treaty 
 of peace, which fuppofes the right and confirms 
 the power of the Regicide faction in France ? 
 $. What the ftate of the other Powers of Europe 
 will be with refpect to each other, and their colonies, 
 on the conclufion of a Regicide Peace ? 6. Whe- 
 . ther we are driven to .the abfolute necefiity of 
 .that kind of pea.ce ? 
 
 Thefc
 
 (. 7? ) 
 
 Thefe heads of.enqimy will enable us to make 
 the application of the feveral matters of fact and 
 topics of argument, that occur in this vaft dif- 
 cufiion, to certain fixed principles. I do not 
 mean to confine rnyfelf to the order in which they 
 {land. I mall difcufs them in fuch a manner as 
 mall appear to me the heft adapted for (hewing 
 their mutual bearings and relations. Here then I 
 clofe the public matter of my Letter ; but before 
 J have done, let me fay one word in apology for 
 myfelf. 
 
 In wifhing this nominal peace not to be precipi- 
 tated, I am fure no man living is lefs difpofed to 
 blame the prefent Miniftry than I am. Some of 
 my oldeft friends, (and I wifh I could fay it of 
 more of them,) make a part in that Miniftry. 
 There are fome indeed, " whom my dim eyes in 
 vain explore." In my mind, a greater calamity could 
 not have fallen on the publick than their exclufion. 
 But I drive away that, with other melancholy 
 thoughts. As to the diftinguiflied perfons to whom 
 my friends who remain, are joined, if benefits, nobly 
 and generoufiy conferred, ought to procure good 
 wilhes, they are entitled to my beft vows ; and 
 they have them all. They have adminiftered to me 
 the only confolation I am capable of receiving, 
 which is to know that no individual willfuffer by my 
 
 thirty
 
 ( 79 ); 
 
 thirty years fervice to the public. If things mould 
 give us the comparative happinefs of a ftruggle, I 
 lhall be found, I was going to fay, fighting, (that 
 would be fooliih) but dying by the fide of Mr. Pitt. 
 I mufl add, that if any thing defenfive in our do- 
 meftic fyftem can pofiibly fave us from the diflaf- 
 tcrs of a Regicide pea.ce, he is the;man to faye us. 
 If the finances in fuch a cafe can be repaired, he is 
 the man to repair them.. If I mould lament any 
 of his .acts, it is only when they appear to me 
 to have no refemblance to ads of his. But 
 let him not have a confidence, in himfelf, which 
 no human abilities can warrant. His abilities are 
 fully equal (and that is to fay much for any man) 
 to tho.fe that are oppofed to him. But if we 
 look to him as our fecurity againft the confequences 
 of a Regicide Peace, let us be allured, that a Re- 
 gicide Peace and a Conftitutional Miniftry are 
 terms that will not agree. With a Regicide Peace 
 the King cannot long have a Minifter to ferve 
 him, nor the Minifter a King to ferve. If the Great 
 Difpofer, in reward of the royal and the private 
 virtues of our Sovereign, mould call him from the 
 'calamitous fpe&acles, which will attend a (late .of 
 amity with Regicide, his fucceffor will furely fee 
 them, unlefs the fame Providence greatly antici- 
 pates the courfe of nature. Thinking thus, (and 
 not as I conceive on light grounds) I dare not 
 flatter the reigning fovereign, nor any Minifter he 
 
 has
 
 has or can have, nor his Succeltbr Apparent, nof 
 any of thofe who may be called to ferve him, with 
 what appears to me a falfe ftate of their fituation* 
 We cannot have them and that Peace together. 
 
 I do n6t forget that there had been a confide r- 
 able difference between me and the great man at 
 the head of Miniftry in a>n early ftage of thefe dif<- 
 cufilons. Under this circumftance, his feconding 
 his Majefty's generofity Co me mines with the 
 brighter luftre. But I am fure there was a period in 
 which we agreed better in the danger of a Jacobin 
 exiftence in France. At one time, he and all Europe 
 feemed to feel it. But why am not I converted 
 with fo many great Powers, and fo many great 
 Minifters ? It is becaufe I am old and flow. 
 I am in this year, 1796, only where all the powers 
 of Europe were in 1792. I cannot move with this 
 procefiion of the Equinoxes, which is preparing for 
 us the return of fome very old, I am afraid no golden 
 aera, or the commencement of fome new sera that 
 muft be denominated from fome new metal. In 
 this crifis I muft hold my tongue, or I muft fpeak 
 with freedom. For the few days I have to linger 
 here, I am removed from the bufy fcene of the 
 world ; and not more in fa<5t than in difpofitipn, 
 retired from all it's affairs, and all its pleafures. 
 .But I hold myfelf to be ftill refponfible for every 
 tiling I have done in the Houfe, and in the World'. 
 
 If
 
 
 If the rawdl Tyro in politicks has been influenced 
 by the authority of my grey hairs, and led by any 
 thing in my fpeeches, or my writings, to enter 
 into this war, he has a right to call upon me to 
 know why I have changed my opinions, or why, 
 when thofe I voted with, have adopted better no- 
 tions, I perfevere in exploded errour ? 
 
 - When I feem not to acquiefce in the ads of 
 thofe I refpeft in every degree fliort of fuperfli- 
 tion, I am obliged to- give my reafbns fully. I 
 cannot fet my authority againft their authority, 
 But to reafon is not to revolt againft authority. 
 Reafon and authority do not move in the fame 
 parallel. That reafon is an amicus curias who fpeaks 
 de piano, not fro tribunali - t who makes an ufeful 
 fuggeftion to the Court, without queftioning its 
 jurifdi&ion. Whilft he acknowledges its compe- 
 tence, he promotes its efficiency. 
 
 M - LETTER
 
 LETTER IL 
 
 . 
 the Genius and Character of the French 
 
 Revolution as it regards other Nations. 
 
 MY DEAR SIRj 
 
 < T Clofed my firft Letter with ftribus matter; 
 JL and I hope it has employed your thoughts. 
 The fyftem of peace muft have a reference to 
 the fyftem of the war. On that ground, I muft 
 therefore again recal your mind to, our original 
 opinions, which time and events have not 
 taught me to vary. 
 
 My ideas and my principles led me, in this 
 conteft, to encounter France, not as a State, but 
 as a Faction. The vaft territorial extent of that 
 country, it's immenfe population, it's riches of 
 production, it's riches of commerce and con- 
 vention the whole aggregate mafs 6f what, in 
 ordinary cafes, conftitutes the force of a State, 
 to me were but objects of fecondary confidera- 
 tion. They might be balanced ; and they have 
 M 2 been
 
 ( 8+ ) 
 
 been often more than balanced. Great as thefe 
 things are, they are not what make the faction 
 formidable. It is the faction that makes them 
 truly dreadful. That faction is the evil fpirit 
 that pofiefles the body of France ; that informs 
 it as a foul; that ftamps upon its ambition, and 
 upon- all- its purfuits, a characteriftiek mark, 
 which ftrongly diftinguifhes them from the fame 
 general paffions, and the fame general views, in 
 other men and in other communities. It is that 
 fpirit which infpires into them, a new, a perni- 
 cious, a defolating activity. Conftituted as 
 France was ten years ago,, it was not in that 
 France to fliake, to matter, and to over- 
 whelm Europe in the manner that we behold. 
 A (lire deflru&ion impends over thofe infatuated 
 Princes, who, in the conflict with this -new and 
 overheard-of power, proceeds as if they were en- 
 gaged in a war that bore a refemblance to their 
 former contefb , or that they can make peace 
 in the fpirit of their former arrangements of paci- 
 fication. Here the beaten path is the very rcverfe 
 of the fafe road. 
 
 . As to me, I was always fleadily of opi- 
 nion, that this diforder was not in its nature 
 intermittent. I conceived that the contefl 
 -once begun, could not be laid down again* 
 to be refumed at our difcretion j but that our 
 
 firft
 
 C 8J ) 
 
 firft ftruggle with this evil would alfo be 6tif 
 lanV I never thought we could make peace 
 with this fyftem; becaufe it was not for the fake, 
 of an object we purfued in rivalry with each 
 other, but with the fyftem itfelf that we were at 
 war. As I underftood the matter, we were at 
 war not with it's conduct, but with it's etfift- 
 cncej convinced that it's, ekiitence and it's ho- 
 tility were trie fame. 
 
 The faction is not local or territorial. It is a 
 general evil. Where it lead appears in action, 
 it is ftill full of life. In it's fleep it recruits it's 
 ftrength, and prepares it's exertion. It's fpirit lies 
 deep in the corruptions of our common nature. 
 The focial order which reftrains it, feeds it. It 
 exifts in every country in Europe; and among 
 all orders of men in every country, who look up 
 to France as to a common head. The centre is 
 there. The circumference is the world of Eu- 
 rope, wherever the race of Europe may be fet- 
 tled. Every where elfe the faction is militant ; in 
 France it is triumphant. In France is the bank 
 of depofit, and the bank of circulation, of all 
 the pernicious principles that are forming in 
 every State. It will be a folly fcarcely defer ving 
 of pity, and too milchievous for contempt., to 
 think of reftraining it in any other country 
 whilft it is predominant there. War, inftead of 
 
 being 

 
 being the caufe of it's force; has fufpended it's 
 operation. It has given a reprieve, at.leaft, ttf 
 the Chriftian World. 
 
 The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the be- 
 ginning, was, by moft of the Chriftian Powers, 
 felt, acknowledged, and even in the mod pre- 
 cife manner declared. In the joint manifefto 
 published by the Emperor and the King of' 
 Pruffia, on the 4th of Auguft, 1792, it is ex-^ 
 prefied in the cleared terms, and on principles 
 which could not fail, if they had adhered to 
 them, of clafling thofe monarchs with the firft 
 benefactors of mankind. This manifefto was 
 publifhed, as they themfelves exprefs it, " to 
 " lay open to the prefent generation, as well as 
 " to pofterity, their motives, their intentions, 
 " and the difinterefte'dnefs of their perfonal views; 
 <c taking up arms for the purpofe of preferving 
 " focial and political order amongft all civilized 
 " nations, and to fecure to each ftate it's reli- 
 <c gion, happinefs, independence, territories, 
 " and real conftitution."---" On this ground, 
 " they hoped that all Empires, and all States, 
 " ought to be unanimous j and becoming the 
 " firm guardians of the happinefs of mankind, 
 " they cannot fail to unite their efforts to refcuc 
 " a numerous nation from it's own fury, to pre- 
 " ferve Europe from the return of barbarifm, 
 
 " and
 
 w and the Univerfe from the fubverfion and 
 f( anarchy with which it was threatened." .The 
 whole of that noble performance ought to be 
 read at the firft meeting of any Congrefs, which 
 alTemble for the purpofe of pacification. In that 
 piece " thefe Powers exprefsly renounce all views. 
 " of perfonal aggrandizement," and confine 
 themfelves to objects worthy of fo generous, fo 
 heroic, and fo perfectly wife and politick an en-*- 
 terprife. It was to the principles of this confe- 
 deration and to no other, that we wilhed our 
 Sovereign and our Country to accede ? as a part 
 of the commonwealth of Europe, 
 
 *?C _r "' ' i ^-iV.- ^ > V* 1-* . * * * 
 
 As long as thefe powers flattered themfelves 
 that the means of force would - produce the ef- 
 fect of force, they acted on thofe declarations: 
 but when their menances failed of fuccefs, their 
 efforts took a new direction. It did not appear 
 to them that virtue and heroifm ought to be pur- 
 chafed by millions of rix-dollars. It is a dreadful 
 truth, but it is a truth that cannot be concealed. 
 In ability, in elexterity, in the diftinctnefs of their 
 views, the Jacobins are our fuperiours. They faw 
 the thing right from the very beginning. "What- 
 ever were the firft motives to the war among 
 politicians, they faw that it is in it's fpirit, and 
 for it's objects, a civil war; and as fuch they 
 purfued it. It is a war between the partizans 
 
 of
 
 ( 83 ) 
 
 of the antient, civil, moral, and political order 
 of Europe againft a fed of fanatical and ambi- 
 tious atheifts which mean to change them all. 
 It is not France extending a foreign empire ov^r 
 other nations: it is a fe<5t aiming at univerfal 
 empire, and beginning with the conqueft of 
 France. The leaders of that feet fecured the 
 centre of Europe \ and that fecured, they knew, 
 that wha.tev.er might he the event of .battles and 
 fieges, their caufe was victorious. Whether it's 
 territory, had a little more or a little les peeled 
 from it's furface, or whether an jfland or two 
 was detached from it's commerce^ to them was 
 of little moment. The conqueft of France was 
 a glorious acquifitipn. That once well laid as 
 a bafis of empire, opportunities never could be 
 wanting to regain or to replace what had been 
 loft, and dreadfully to avenge themfelves on the 
 faction of their adverfaries. 
 
 They faw it was a civil wqr. It was their 
 fmefs to perfuade their adverfaries that it ought 
 to be a foreign war. The Jacobins every where 
 (et up a cry a^ainft t^e^jew cru.f^ej and they 
 intrigued with effect in .the .c^inet, in the field, 
 and- in every private fociety in Europe. Their 
 talk was not difficult. The condition of Princes, 
 and fometimes of firft Minifters too, is to 
 be pitied. The creatures of the defli, and 
 '*>-: the
 
 the creatures of favour, had no relifli fof 
 the principles of the manifestoes. They pro- 
 mifed no governments, no regiments, no reve- 
 nues from -whence emoluments might arife, by, 
 perquifite or by grant. In truth, the tribe of 
 vulgar politicians are the loweft of our fpecies. 
 There is no trade io vile and mechanical as go- 
 vernment in their hands. Virtue is not their 
 habit. They are out of themfelves in any courfe 
 of conduct recommended only by confcience 
 and glory r . A large, liberal, and profpe&ive 
 view of the interefts of States pafles with them 
 for romance; and the principles that recom- 
 mended it for the wanderings of a difordered 
 imagination. The calculators compute them 
 out of their fenfes. The jefters and buffoons 
 fhame them out of every thing grand and ele- 
 vatedi Littlenefs in object and in means, to 
 them appears foundnefs and fobriety. They think 
 there is nothing worth purfuit, but that which 
 they can handle; which they can meafure with 
 a two-foot rule; which they can tell upon ten 
 ringers. 
 
 Without their principles, perhaps without 
 any principles at all, they played the game of 
 the Jacobitis. There was a beaten road before 
 ihem. The Powers of Europe were armed; 
 Frari'ce had always appeared dangerous; the
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
 war was eafily diverted from France as a fac- 
 tion, to France as a ftate. The Princes were 
 eafily taught to Hide back into their old' 
 habitual courfe of politicks. They were eafily 
 led to confider the flames that were confuming 
 France, not as a warning, to protect their own 
 buildings, (which were without any party wall, 
 and linked by a contignation into the edifice 
 of France,) as an happy occafion for the pillag- 
 ing the goods, and for carrying off the materials 
 of their neighbour's houfe. Their provident fears 
 were changed into avaricious hopes. They car- 
 ried on their new defigns without feeming to 
 abandon the principles of their old policy. They 
 pretended to feek, or they flattered tbemfelves 
 that they fought, in the acceffion of new for- 
 trefles, and new territories, a defenjive fecurity. 
 But the fecurity wanted was againfl a kind of 
 power, which was not dangerous in its for- 
 treffes nor in it's territories, but in it's fpirit and 
 it's principles. They aimedj or pretended to 
 aim, at defending themfelves againfl a danger, 
 from which there can be no fecurity in any de- 
 fenfive plan. If armies and fortrefles were a de- 
 fence againfl Jacobinifm, Louis the Sixteenth 
 would this day reigu a powerful monarch over 
 an happy people. 
 
 Thi*
 
 (-9* ) 
 
 1 his error obliged them, even in their offen- 
 ifive operations, to adopt a plan of \var, agaiuft 
 .the fuccefs of \vhich tliere was fomething little 
 ihort of mathematical demonftration. They 
 refufed to take any ftep which might ftrike at 
 the heart of affairs. They feemed unwilling -to 
 wound the enemy in any vital part. They 
 afted through the whole, as if they really wifhed 
 the confer.vation of the Jacobin power; as what 
 might be more favourable than the lawful Go- 
 vernment to the attainment of the petty objects 
 they looked for. They always kept on the.cir- 
 : cumference; and the wider and remoter the circle 
 was, the more eagerly they chofe as their fphere 
 of aftion. The plan they purfued, in it's na- 
 ture demanded great length of time. In it's 
 execution they who went the neareft way to 
 work were obliged to cover an incredible e'x- 
 tent of country. It left to the enemy every means 
 of deftroymg this extended line of weaknefs. 
 Jll iuccefs in any part was fure to defeat the 
 effecl; of the whole. This is true of Auftria. It 
 is ftill more true of England. On this falfe 
 plan, even good fortune, by further weakening 
 the viftor, put him but the further off from his 
 
 As long as there was any appearance .of fuc r 
 
 cefs, the fpirit of aggrandizement, and confe- 
 
 N 2 quently
 
 ( 9* ) 
 
 quently the fpirit of mutual jealoufy feized upon 
 all the coalefced Powers. Some fought an ac- 
 ceflion of territory at the expence of France, 
 fome at the expence of each other, fome at the 
 expence of third parties ; and when the vicifli- 
 tude of difafter took it's turn, they found com- 
 mon diftrefs a treacherous bond of faith and 
 mcndfhip. 
 
 The greateft fkill conducling the greateft 
 military apparatus has been employed ; but 
 it has been worfe than ufelefsly employed, 
 through the falfe policy of the \var. The ope- 
 rations of the field fuffered by the errors of the 
 Cabinet. If the fame fpirit continues when 
 peace is made, the peace will fix and perpetuate 
 all the errors of the war; becaufe it will be 
 made upon the fame falfe principle. What 
 has been loft in the field, in the field may be 
 regained. An arrangement of peace in it's na- 
 ture is a permanent fettlement- it is the effect 
 of counfel and deliberation, and not of fortui- 
 tous events. If built upon fome bafis totally 
 and fundamentally erroneous, it ran only be 
 retrieved by" 'fome of thofe uhforefeen difpofi- 
 tions, which the all-wife but myfterious Go- 
 vernor of the World, iometimes interpofes, 
 to fnatch nations from ruin. It would not be a 
 pious error, but a mad and impious prcfump- 
 
 tiorj
 
 ( 93 ) 
 
 jt-ion for any one to truft in an unknown order oj 
 difpenfations, in defiance of the rules of pru- 
 dence, which are formed uppn the known march 
 of the ordinary providence of God. It was 
 not of that fort of war that I was amongft the 
 leaft confiderable, but amongft the molt zealous 
 advifers; and it is not by the fort of peace now 
 talked of that I wifh it concluded. 
 
 It would be to no great rJurpofe to enter into 
 trie particular errours of the war. The whole 
 has been but one errour. It was but nomi- 
 nally a war of alliance. As the allies pur- 
 fued' it there was nothing to hold an alli- 
 ance together. There could be no tie of 
 honour,.in a fociety for pillage. There could be 
 no tie in a common interejl where the objecl did 
 not offer fuch a divifion amongft the parties, as 
 could be equalized. The partition of Poland 
 offered an objeft of fpoil in which the parties 
 might agree. 'They were circumjacent; and 
 each might take a portion convenient to his own 
 territory. They might difpute about the value; 
 but the contiguity to each of the demandants 
 always furnimed the means of an adjuftmentf 
 Though hereafter the world will have caufe to 
 rue this iniquitous meafure, for the moment 
 there was wherewithal in the object to prefervc 
 peace amongft confederates in wrong. But in 
 < *-' ' .the
 
 ( 94 ) 
 
 ( ,hc ipqil of France, it was obvious that .this 
 Jcheme did not afford the fame facilities for ac- 
 commodation. . What might fatLfy the Houfc 
 of Auftria in her Flemiih frontier afforded no 
 -equivalent to tempt the cupidity of the King of 
 Pruffia. What might be defired by Great Bri- 
 tain in the Weft-Indies, could be coldly and 
 remotely, if at all, felt as an intereil at Vienna; 
 and it would be felt as fomething worfe than a 
 negative intereft at Madrid. Auftria, long pof- 
 icdcd with unwife and dangerous deiigns on 
 Italy, could not be^very much in earncft about 
 the confervation of the old patrimony of the 
 Houfe of Savoy : and Sardinia, who owed to 
 an Italian force all her means of (hutting out 
 France from Italy, of which fhe has been lup- 
 pofed to hold the key, would not purchafe the 
 means of ftrength upon one fide by yielding it 
 on the oiher. She would not readily give the 
 gpolieffion of Novara for the hope of Savoy. No 
 continental Power was willing to loie any of 
 it's continental objecls for the encreafe of the 
 ziaval power of Great Britain; and Great Bri- 
 tain would not give up any of the objects fhe 
 fought for as the means of an encrcai'e to her 
 *iaval power, to further their aggrandizement. 
 There was no method of equalizing their icveral 
 pretenfions. They are things incommenfurable. 
 The moment this war came to be confidered as 
 sill * a war
 
 d- war merely Of profit, the aclual- circinrf ~ 
 ftances are fuch, that it" never could become 
 really a war of alliance. Nor Can the peace be a ; 
 peace of alliance, until things are put upon.their 
 right bottom. 
 
 I don't find it denied, that when a treaty is 
 entered into for peace, a demand will be made 
 on the Regicides to furrerider their conquefts 
 on the Continent. Will they, in the prefent 
 ftate of the war, make that iurrender without* 
 an equivalent ?' This continental ceffion muft be 
 made in favour of that party in the alliance, 
 "that has fuffered lofles. That party has nothing, 
 to furnifii towards an equivalent. What equi- 
 valent, for inftance, has Holland to offer, who-- 
 has loft her all? What equivalent can come, 
 from the Emperor, every part of whofe territo- 
 ries contiguous to France, is already within the 
 pale of the Regicide dominion ? What e quiva- 
 lent has Sardinia to 'offer for Savoy and for 
 Nice ? What has me taken from the fatten pf 
 France ? She has loft much ; and me has gained 
 nothing. W r hat equivalent has Spain to, give ? 
 Alas ! me has already paid for hert)wn r anfom 
 the fund of equivalent, and a dreadful equiva- 
 lent it is, to England and to heifelf. But I put 
 Spain out of the queftion. She is a pro vince 
 of the Jacobin Empire. She is in a mocki.og di- 
 lemma*.
 
 ( 9 6 ) 
 
 lemma. In efe.cl: and fubftance, her Crown is* 
 a fief of Regicide Whence then can the 
 compeniatiori be demanded, but from that 
 jpower which alone has made fome conquelts ? 
 That power is England. Will the Allies 
 iheh give away their ancient patrimony, that 
 England may keep Iflands in the Weft In- 
 ches ? They can never protra6l die war in 
 good earneft for that objeft. Nor can they 
 aft in concert with us, in our refufal to 
 grant any thing towards their redemption. In 
 that cafe we are thus fituated Either we muft 
 give Europe, bound hand and foot to France ;' 
 or we muft quit the Weft Indies without any 
 one objeft, great or frnall, towards indemnity 
 and fecurity. If we look to the Eaff, out 
 moil decided eonquefts (fome of them the 
 moft important) are there. I look at the taking 
 pofleffion of the Cape of Good Hope to be the 
 Securing a poft of great moment : it is a mea- 
 fure which docs infinite honour to thofe w r ho' 
 planned it, and to thole who executed that en- 
 terprize. I fpeak of it always as comparatively 
 good ; as good as any thing in this Icheme of 
 war, which repels us from an , and em- 
 
 ploys all our forces, where nothing can be 
 finally deciiive. It is evident, that if we keep 
 our eaftern eonquefts, we keep them at the ex- 
 pence of Holland, our ally; the immediate 
 
 caufe
 
 ( 97 ) 
 
 caufe of the war, the nation whom we had un- 
 dertaken to protect, and not of the Republic 
 \vhich it was our bufmefs to deftroy. If we re- 
 turn the African and the Afiatic conquefts,' we 
 put them into the hands of a nominal State, (to 
 that Holland is reduced) unable to retain them; 
 and which will virtually leave them under the 
 direction of France. If we withhold them, 
 Holland declines ftill more as a State : and me 
 lofes that carriage and that means of keeping up 
 the fmall degree of naval power fhe holds; for 
 which policy, and not for any commercial gain> 
 (lie maintains the Cape, or any fettlement be- 
 yond it. It that cafe, refentment, faftion, and 
 even neceffity will throw her more and more 
 into the power of the new mifchievous Repub- 
 lic. But on the probable ftate of Holland, I 
 fhall fay more, when I come to talk over with 
 you the ftate in which any fort of Jacobin peace 
 will leave all Europe. 
 
 . '*:_C' " ', J ' ?-V ' T? .' '"'.---: .' 
 
 So far as to the Eaft-Indies. 
 
 As to the Weft-Indies, indeed as to either, if 
 we look for matter of exchange in order to ran- 
 fome Europe, it, is eafy to Ihew that we have 
 taken a terrible round-about road. I cannot 
 conceive, -even if, for the fake of holding con- 
 quelh there, we (liould refufe to redeem Hol- 
 o land.
 
 ( 98 ) 
 
 land, and the Auftrian Netherlands and thf 
 hither Germany, that Spain, merely as fhe is- 
 Spain, (and forgetting that the Regicide Anv- 
 baflador governs at Madrid) will fee with per- 
 fe6t fatisfa&ion, Great Britain fole miftrefs of 
 the Ifles. In truth it appears to me, that, when 
 we come to balance our account, we fhall find 
 in the propofed peace only the pure, fimple, and 
 unendowed charms of Jacobin amity. We (hall 
 have the fatisfaclion of knowing, that no blood 
 or treafure has been fpared by the allies for fup- 
 port of the Regicide fyftem. They will reflecl: 
 at leifure on one .great truth, that it was ten 
 times more.eafy totally to deftroy the fyftem it- 
 felf, than when ettablilLed, it would be to re- 
 duce ks power^-and that this Republic, molt 
 formidable abroad,, was, of all things, the weak- 
 eft at home. That her frontier was terrible 
 her interior feeble that it was matter of choice 
 to attack her where (he is invincible ; and to- 
 fpare her where (lie was ready to difTolve by her 
 own internal diforders. They will reflect, that 
 their plan was good neither. for offence nor de- 
 fence.. ., , 
 
 :i">xy 'io "j >.. *;:; "i-,^ /i^v'i .?* 
 My dear Friend, I hold.it impoflible that 
 
 thefe conliderations mould have efcaped the 
 Statefman on both fides of the water, and on 
 both fides of the Houfe of Commons. How^a 
 
 queftioa
 
 ( 99 ) 
 
 *" '*;..>. -.01 .":', '1 ii}O .ff? 3!.J'&r$ 
 
 queftion of peace can be difcuffed without hav- 
 ing them in view, I cannot imagine. If you or 
 others fee a way .out of thcfe difficulties I am 
 happy. I fee indeed a fund from whence equi- 
 valents will be propofcd. I fee it. But I can- 
 not juft now touch it. It is a .queftion of high 
 moment. It opens another Iliad of woes to 
 Europe. 
 
 Such is the time propofed for making a com?- 
 mon political peace^ to which no one circurnftance 
 is propitious. As to the grand principle of the 
 peace, it is left, as if by common confent 3 
 wholly out of the queftion. 
 
 It fcems to me, as if the two parties, who 
 nave long divided and diftracled this kingdom, 
 without abandoning their animofities, had come 
 to an agreement in their fentiments. It looks as 
 if they concurred in the eflablifhment of Jaco- 
 binifm in France, and in the neceffity, if not 
 in the advantage, of admitting it as a fociable 
 and natural member in the republic of Chrifl- 
 endom. So far, and no farther, they are agreed 
 amongft themfelves. Our domeftic peace re- 
 mains where it was ; and AVC feek to make 
 amends for this domeftic diftraftion, by 'giving 
 (as far as it is in our power to give it) peace 
 and eitabliihnient to our enemies. In this 
 2 peace
 
 peace to our foe, we are taught to look, it 
 feems, for the term of all our own evils. 
 
 Viewing things in this light, I have frequently 
 funk into a degree of defpobdency. ?z d dejec- 
 tion hardly to be defcribed ; yet out of the 
 prcfoundeft depths of this defoair, an >n nuife 
 which I have in vain endeavoured to ichit, 
 has urged me to raife one feeble cry agaii:ft 
 
 v this unfortunate coalition which is forn^d a$ 
 home, in order to make a coalition with Fra; ce, 
 fubverfive of the whole ancient o.der of the 
 world. No difatter of war, no calamity of fe^fon 
 could ever tlrike me with half the horn -r which 
 
 '"I felt from what is introduced to us by this 
 junction of parties, under the ioothing name of 
 peace. We are apt to fpeak of a low and pu- 
 i:>!animous fpirit as the ordinary caufe by which 
 dubious wars terminate in humiliating treaties.. 
 It is here the direct contrary. I am perfectly 
 aitoniflied at the bojdnefs of character, at the 
 intrepidity of mind, the firmnefs of nerve, in 
 thofe who are able with deliberation tp face the 
 perils of Jacobin fraternity. 
 
 This fraternity is indeed fo terrible in it'$ 
 nature, and in it's manifeft confequences, that 
 there is no way of quieting our apprehenfions 
 .about it, but by totally putting it ou.t of fight, 
 
 by
 
 by Cubftituting for H, through a fort of periphra- 
 fis, Something of an- ambiguous quality, and 
 defcribing f'uch a connection under the terms of 
 *' the ufual relations of peace and amity :" By this 
 means the propofcd fraternity is huftled in the 
 crowd; of thofe treaties, \vhich imply no change 
 jn the public law. of Europe, and which do not 
 upon lyftem affccl the interior condition of na- 
 tions. It is confounded with thofe conventions 
 in which matters of difpute among fovereign 
 powers are comprornifed, by the taking off a duty 
 more or lefs, by the furrender of a frontier town, 
 or a difputed diftriclon the one fide or the other; 
 by paftions in which the pretenlions of families 
 are fettled, (as by a conveyancer, making family 
 fubftitutions and fucceflions) without any alte- 
 ration in the laws, manners, religion, pri\ ileges 
 and cuftoms of the cities or territories which 
 are the Tubjeft of fuch arrangements. 
 
 All this body of old conventions, compofmg 
 the vaft and voluminous collection called the 
 corps diplomatiqye^ forms the code or ftatute law, 
 as the methodized reafonings of the great pub- 
 licifts and jurids form the digeft and jurifpru- 
 dqnce of the Chriiiian world. ' In thefe trea- 
 fures are to be found the ii/ital relations of peace 
 and amity in civilized Europe; aud there the, 
 
 relations
 
 ( 102 ) 
 
 relations of ancient France were to be found 
 among ft the reft. 
 
 The prefent fyftem in France is not the anr 
 cient France. It is not the ancient France "with 
 ordinary ambition and ordinary means. It is not 
 new power of an old kind. It is a new power of 
 a new fpecies. When fueh a queftionableihape 
 is to be admitted for the firft time into the bro- 
 therhood of Chriftendom, it is not a mattof of 
 idle curiofity to confider how far it is in it's nar 
 tre alliable with the reft, or whether " the re- 
 lations of peace and amity" with this new State 
 are likely to be of the fame nature with the ujual 
 relations of the States of Europe. 
 
 The Revolution in France had the relation 
 of France to other nations as one of it's princi- 
 pal objccls. Tbe changes made by that Revo- 
 lution were not the better to accommodate her 
 to the old and ufual relations, but to produce 
 new ones. The Revolution was made, not to 
 make France free, but to make her formicj- 
 able ; not to make hjer a neighbour, but a mif- 
 trefs; not to make her more obfervapt of laws, 
 but to put her in a condition to impofe them. 
 To make France truly formidable it was necef- 
 fary that France fhould be new modelled. They 
 
 who
 
 who have not followed the train of the late prcf-- 
 ceedings, have beeh led by deceitful reprefenta-* 
 lions (which deceit made a part in the plan) to 
 conceive that this totally new model of a ftate, 
 in which nothing efcaped a change, was made 
 with a view to its internal relations only. 
 
 In the Revolution of France two forts of men 
 were principally concerned in giving a character 
 and determination to its purluits ; the philofo- 
 phers and the politicians. They took different 
 ways, but they met in the fame end. " The philo- 
 fophers had one predominant object, which they 
 purfued with a fanatical fury, that is, the utter 
 extirpation of religion. To that every queftion of 
 empire was fubordinate. They had rather domi- 
 neer in a parifli of Atheifts, than rule over a Chrif- 
 tian world. Their temporal ambition was wholly 
 fubfervient to their profelytizing fpirit, in which 
 they were not exceeded by Mahomet himfelf. 
 
 They who have made but fuperficial ftudies 
 in the natural hiftory of the human mind, 
 have been taught to look on religious opinions 
 as the only caufe of enthufiaftic zeal, and fec- 
 tarian propagation. But there is no doclrine 
 whatever, on which men can warm, that is not 
 capable of the very fame effect. The focial 
 nature of man impels him to propagate his prior 
 
 ciples.
 
 ( 104 ) - 
 
 ciples, as much as pbyfical impulies urge him to 
 propagate his kind. The pailions give zeal and 
 vehemence. The imdcrftanding bellows aefign 
 and fyftem. The whole man moves under the 
 difcipiine of his opinions. Religion is among 
 the mod powerful caufes of enthufiafm. When 
 any thing concerning it becomes an obje6l of 
 much meditation, it cannot be indifferent to the 
 mind. They who do not love religion, hate it. 
 The rebels to God perfectly abhor the Author 
 of their being. They hate him " with all their 
 " heart, with all their mind, wkh all their foul, 
 " and with all their flrength." He never pre- 
 fents himfelf to their thoughts, but to menace and 
 alarm them. They cannot ftrike the Sun out of 
 Heaven, but they are able to raife as moulder- 
 ing fmoke that obfcures him from their own 
 eyes. Not being able to revenge themfelveson 
 God, they have a delight in vicarioufly defacing, 
 degrading, torturing, and tearing in pieces hrs 
 image in man. Let no one judge of them 
 by what he has conceived of them, when they 
 were not incorporated, and had no lead. They 
 were then only paffengers in a common vehicle. 
 They were then carried along with the general 
 motion of religion in the communky, and with- 
 out being aware of it, partook of its influence. 
 In that fituation, at worft their nature was left 
 free to counterwork their principles. They de- 
 
 fpaired
 
 of giving, any very general currency to 
 their opinions. They confideder them as a re- 
 ferved privilege for the chofen few. But when 
 the poffibility of dominion; lead, and propaga- 
 tion p refected themfelves, and -that the am)i- 
 tion, which before had fo often made them hy- 
 .pocrites, might rather gain than lofe by a daring 
 avowal of their fentiments, then the nature of 
 this infernal fpirit, which has " evil for its 
 .good," appeared in its full perfection. Nothing, 
 indeed, but the porTeifion of fome power can, 
 -\vith any certainty, difcover what at the bottom 
 , is the true chara6tcr of any man. Without read- 
 ring the fpeeches of Verginaux, Francais of 
 -Nantz, Ifnard, and fome others of that fort, k 
 would not be eafy to conceive the paffion, ran- 
 cour, and malice of their tongues and hearts. 
 They worked themfelves up to a perfect phrenzy 
 againft religion and all its profeflbrs. They 
 tore the deputation of the Clergy to pieces by 
 their infuriated declamations and inveftiyes, be- 
 fore they lacerated their bodies by their maf- 
 facres. This fanatical atheifm left out, we omit 
 the principal feature in the French Revolution, 
 and a principal confideration with regard to the 
 ^ffecls to be expected from a peace with it. 
 
 The other fort of men were the politicians. 
 To them who had little or not at aril reflected on 
 p the
 
 ( 106 ) 
 
 the fubject, religion was in itfelf no objel of 
 love or hatred. They difbelieved it, and that was 
 all. Neutral with regard to that object, they took 
 the fide which, in the prefent ftate of things, 
 might beft anfwer their purpofes. They foon 
 found that they could not do without the philo- 
 fophers ; and the philofophers foon made them 
 fcnfible, that the deftru&ion of religion was to 
 lupply them with means of conqueft firft at 
 home, and then abroad. The philpfopher 
 were the active internal agitators, and fupplied 
 the fpirh and principles : the fecond gave the 
 general direction. Sometimes the one predo- 
 minated in the competition, fometimes the 
 other. The only difference between them was 
 in the neceffity of concealing the general defign 
 for a time, and in dealing with foreign nations ; 
 the fanatic ks going ftraight forward and openly, 
 the politicians by the furer mode of zig-zag. 
 In the courfe of events, this, among other 
 caufes, produced fierce and bloody contentions 
 between them. But at the bottom they tho- 
 roughly agreed in all the objeds of ambition 
 and irreligion, and fubftantially in all the means 
 of promoting thefe ends. 
 
 Without qucftion, to bring about the un- 
 exampled event of the French Revolution, the 
 concurrence of a very great number of views 
 
 and
 
 and pafliohs was heceffary. In that ftupen- 
 dous workj no one principle by which the hu- 
 man mind may have it's faculties at once in- 
 vigorated and depraved, was left unemployed : 
 but I can fpeak it to a certainty, and fupport 
 it by undoubted proofs, that the ruling prin- 
 ciple of thofe who afted in the Revolution as 
 jlatefmehi had the exterior aggrandizement of 
 France as their ultimate end in the moft minute 
 part of the interior changes that were made. 
 We, who of late years, have been drawn from art 
 attention to foreign affairs by the importance of 
 bur domeftic difcuflions, cannot eafily form a 
 tonception of the general eagernefs of the French 
 nation, previous to it's revolution, upon that 
 Tub] eft. I am convinced that the foreign fpe- 
 culators in France, under the old Governmentj 
 *ere twenty to one of the fame defcription iri 
 England; and few of that defcription there werej 
 who did not emuloufly fet forward the Revolu- 
 tion. The whole official fyftem, particularly iri 
 the diplomatic part, the regular^ the irregulars^ 
 down to the clerks in office (a" corpsj without 
 all comparifon, more numerous than the fame 
 defcription amongft us) co-operated in it. All 
 the intriguers in foreign politicks, all the fpiesj 
 all the intelligencers, actually or late in fun6tion* 
 all the candidates for that fort of employment, 
 acted folely upon that principle. 
 
 p 2 On
 
 n thatx fyftem of 'aggrandizement tlierc 
 was but one mind : but two violent factions, 
 arofe about the means. The firfl wifhed. 
 France, diverted from the politicks- of the 
 Continent, to attend folely to her marine,, 
 to feed it by an encreafe of commerce, and 
 thereby to overpower, England on her own 
 element. They contended, that, if England, 
 were difabled, the Powers on the Continent 
 would fall into their proper fubordination ; that 
 it was England which deranged the whole conti- 
 nental fyftem of Europe; The others, who were 
 by far the^rnore numerous, though not the moft 
 outwardly prevalent at Court, confidered this- 
 plan as contrary to her- genius, her fituation,. 
 and her natural means. They agreed as to the 
 ultimate objccl, the reduction of the Britifh 
 power-; but they confidered an afcendancy o^ 
 the Continent as a neceflary preliminary to that 
 undertaking. They argued, that the proceed- 
 ings of England .herfelf had proved the foundr 
 nefs of this policy. That her greateft and ableft 
 Statefmen had not confidered the fupport of a. 
 continental balance againft France as a devia- 
 tion from the principle of her naval power, but 
 as one of the moft effectual modes of carrying- 
 it into efFecl. That fuch had been her. po- 
 licy fince the Revolution ; during which pe- 
 riod the naval ftrength of Great Britain had. 
 
 gone,;
 
 gone on encfeafing in the direft ratio ; <&" 
 her interference in the politicks of the conti- 
 nent. With much ftronger. reafon ought the 
 politicks of France to take the fame direction I- 
 as well for purRiing. objeHs which her fituatiorv 
 would dictate to her, if England had. ho exift- 
 ence, as for counteracting the politicks of that 
 nation ; to Fran.ce continental politicks are pri- 
 mary; they are only of fecoridary consideration- 
 to England. 
 
 What is truly aflonimiiig, the partizans of 
 thofe two oppofite fyftems were at once preva- 
 lent, and at once employed, and in the very 
 fame tranfa&ions, the one oftenfibly, the other 
 fecretly, during the latter part of the reign o 
 Lewis XV. Nor was there one Court in which 
 an Ambaflador refided on the part of the Mi- 
 nifters, in which another as a fpy on him did- 
 not alfo reticle on the part of the King. They 
 who pu rilied the fcheme For keeping peace oi> 
 the continent, and particularly with Au^lna* 
 acting ofFicially and publicity, the other fac- 
 tion counteracting and oppoiing them. The'e 
 private agents were continually going from their \\ 
 funftior, to the Eaftiile, from the Baitille to em- 
 ployment, and to intereft or favour again. An 
 inextricable cabal was formed, fome of perfons 
 of rankj. others of Ibbordinates. But by this 
 iiv.i njeans
 
 t p j 
 
 ineans the corps of politicians was augmented^ 
 in number, and the whole formed a body of 
 ' aclive, adventuring, ambitious* difcorrtentcd 
 people, defpifing the regular Mimftry, defpif- 
 ing the Courts at which they were employed^ 
 delpiiing the Courts which employed them. 
 
 'the un/ortunate Lewis the Sixteenth* was 
 not the firft caufe of the evil by which he fuf- 
 fered; He cam'e to it, as to a fort of inheritance, 
 by the falfe politicks of his immediate predeccf- 
 
 * It may be right to do juftice to Lewis XVI. He did 
 what he could to deftroy the double diplomacy of France.- 
 He had all the fecret correspondence burnt, except one 
 piece, which was called, CofueSttret raifonnces fur la Situation 
 de la France dam h Syfteme Politique de V Europe ; a work exe- 
 cuted by M. Favier, under the direction of Count Broglie.- 
 A fingle copy of this was faid to have been found in the Ca- 
 binet of Lewis XVI. It was publifhed with foma fubfequent 
 ftate papers of Vergcnnes, Turgot, and others; as, " A new 
 Benefit of the Revolution;" and the advertifement to the 
 publication ends with the following words. " 11 fera facile 
 defe convainc re, qu' Y COMPRIS MEME LA REVOLUTION^ 
 en grande partie, ON TRoUvE DANS CES MEMOIRES ET SES 
 
 CONJECTURES LE GERME DE TOUT CE QJJ ' ARRIVA AU-< 
 
 JOURD'HUI, tff quw ne peut ans lei avoir /us, ttre bien au 
 fait des interetsy & meme des <vues aflueltes des di<verfes puif- 
 fances de I' Europe." The book is entitled, Politique de tout 
 les Cabinets de I' Europe pendant les regnes de Louis XV. & 
 Louis XVI. It is altogether very curious, and worth reading. 
 
 for*
 
 I 111 J 
 
 for. This fyftem of dark and perplexe.d inb 
 ,trigue had come toil's perfection before he came 
 o the throne: and even then the Revolution 
 ftrongly operated in all it's cauies. 
 
 There was no point on which the difcontented 
 diplomatic politicians fo bitterly arraigned their 
 Cabinet, as for the decay of the French influ- 
 ence in all others. From quarrelling with 
 "the Court, they began to complain of Mo- 
 narchy itfelf; as a fyllem of Government too 
 variable for any regular plan of national ag- 
 grandizement. 'They pbferved, that in that 
 fort of regimen too much depended on the 
 perfonal character of the Prince; that the vi- 
 ciffitudes produced by the fucccffion of Princes 
 of a different character, and even the viciffitudes 
 produced in the fame man, by the different views 
 and inclinations belonging to youth^ manhood, 
 and age, difturbed and detracted the policy of 
 a country, made by nature for extenfive empire, 
 or what was ftill more to their taite, for that 
 fort of general over-ruling influence wJhich pre- 
 pared empire or fupplied the place of it. They 
 had continually in their hands the obfervations 
 of Machiavel on Livy. They had Mo'ntefquieu's 
 Grandeur 6? Decadence des Remains as a manual; 
 and they compared with mortification the fyf- 
 tematic proceedings of a Roman feuate wkh the 
 
 fluctuations
 
 [ 11? ) 
 
 fluctuations of a Monarchy. They obfervecl^ 
 the very final I additions of territory which all 
 the power of France, actuated by all the ambi- 
 tion of France, had acquired in two centuries. 
 The Romans had frequently acquired more in 
 a (ingle year. They feverely and in every part 
 -of it criticifed the reign of Louis the XlVth, 
 whofe irregular and defuhory ambition had 
 fnore provoked than endangered Europe. In- 
 deed, they who will be at the pains of feri- 
 oufly confidcring the hiftory of that period will 
 fee, that thqfc French politicians had Tome rea- 
 fon. They who will not take the trouble of 
 reviewing it through all it's wars and all it's 
 negociatians, will confult the fliort but judicious 
 criticiim of the Marquis de Montalambert on 
 that fubjeL It may be read Teparately from his 
 ingenious fyftem of fortification and military- 
 defence, on the practical merit of which 1 ana 
 unable to form a judgment. 
 
 The diplomatic politicians of whom I fpeak, 
 and who formed by far the majority in .that clafs, 
 made difadvantri'geous companions. even between 
 their more legal anil formalifmg Monarchy, 
 and the monarchies of other Hates, as a fyf- 
 tem of power and influence. They obferved, 
 that France not only loft ground hcrlelf, but 
 through the languor and unfteadmeis of her pur- 
 
 .fuits,
 
 fiats, arid from her aiming through commerce 
 at naval force which me never could attain, 
 three great powers, each of them (as military 
 Hates) capable of balancing her, had grown 
 up on the continent. Ruffia and PruiTia had 
 been created almoft within memory ; and Auf- 
 tria, though not a new power, and even cur- 
 tailed in territory, was by the very collifion in 
 which me loft that territory* greatly improved 
 in her military difcipline and force : and that 
 during the reign of Maria Therefa the interior 
 ceconomy of the country was made more to cor- 
 refpond with the fupport of great armies than 
 formerly it had been. As to Pruffia, a merely 
 rnilitary power, they obferved that one war had 
 enriched her with as confiderable a conqueft as 
 France had acquired in centuries. Ruffia had 
 broken the Turkifli power by which Auftria 
 might be, as formerly (he had been, balanced 
 in favour of France. They felt it with pain, 
 that the two northern powers of Sweden and 
 Denmark were in general under the fway of 
 Ruffia; or that at bed, France kept up a very- 
 doubtful conflict, with many fluctuations of 
 fortune, and at an enormous expence in Swe- 
 den. In Holland, the French party feemed, 
 if not extinguiihed, at leaft utterly obfcured, 
 and kept under by a Stallholder, fometimes 
 leaning for fupport on Great Britain, fometimes 
 Q.
 
 on Prutfia, fometimes on both, never on France. 
 Even the fpreading of the Bourbon family had be- 
 come merely a family accommodation ; and had 
 little effect on the national politicks. This alii-- 
 ance, they faid, extinguimed Spain by deftroying 
 all it's energy, without adding any thing to the 
 real power of France iri the acceffion of the 
 forces of it's great rival. In Italy, the fame family 
 accommodation, the fame national infignificance 
 were equally vifible. What cure for the radical 
 weaknefs of the French Monarchy, to which all 
 the means which wit could devife, or nature 
 and fortune could beftow, towards univerfal 
 empire, was not of force to give life, or vigour, 
 or confiftency, but in a republick ? Out the 
 word came ; and it never went back. 
 
 Whether they reafoned right or vvrortg, or 
 that there was fome mixture of right and wrong 
 in their reafoning, I am fure, that in this man- 
 ner they felt and reafoned. The different ef- 
 fects of a great military and ambitious repub- 
 lick, and of a monarchy of the fame description 
 was conftantly in their mouths. The principle 
 was ready to operate when opportunities fhould 
 offer, which few of them indeed forefaw in the 
 extent in which they were afterwards prefented ; 
 but thefe opportunities, in fome degree or other, 
 they all ardently wifhed for. 
 
 When
 
 . 
 
 When I wis in 'Paris hi 1773, ihe treaty of 
 1756 between Auftria and France \vas deplored 
 as a national calamity; becaule it united France 
 in 'friend (hip with a Power, at vvhofe expence 
 alone they could hope any continental aggran- 
 dizement. When the firft partition of Poland 
 was made, in which France had 'no (hare, and 
 which had farther aggrandized every one of the 
 three Powers of which they were moil jealous, 
 I found them in a perfect phrenzy of rage and 
 indignation: Not that they were hurt at the 
 mocking and uncoloured violence and injuflice. 
 of that partition, but at the debility, improvi- 
 dence, and want of activity in their Govern- 
 ment, in ndt" preventing it as 'a means of aggran- 
 dizement to -their rivals, or in not contriving, 
 by exchanges of fome kind or other, to obtain 
 
 their mare of advantage from that robbery. 
 
 R Ti ot 
 
 In that, or nearly in that Hate of thing! 
 and of opinions, came the Aultrian match 
 which promifed to draw the knot, as after- 
 wards in effedl it did, ft ill more clofely be- 
 tween the old rival houfes. This added ex- 
 ceedingly to their hatred aud contempt of 
 their monarchy. It was for this reafon that the 
 late glorious Queen, who on all accounts was 
 formed to produce general" love and admiration, 
 and whole life was as mild and beneficent as her 
 QZ death
 
 ( i? 6 ) 
 
 death was beyond example great and heroic, be- 
 came fo very foon and fo very much the objed 
 of an implacable rancour, never to be extin- 
 guifhed but in her blood. When I wrote my 
 letter in anfwer to M. de Menonville, in the 
 beginning of January, 1791, I had good reafon 
 for thinking that this defcription of revolu- 
 tionifts did not fo early nor fo fteadily point their 
 murderous defigns at the martyr King as at the 
 Royal Heroine. It was accident, and the mo- 
 mentary depreflion of that part of the faction, 
 that gaye to the huiband the happy priority in 
 death. 
 
 From this their reftlefs defire of an over-rul- 
 ing influence, they bent a very great part of their 
 defigns and efforts to revive the old French, 
 which was a ; democratic party in Holland, and 
 to make a revolution there. They were happy at 
 the troubles which the fingular imprudence of 
 Jofeph the Second had ftirred up in the Auf- 
 trian Netherlands. They rejoiced, when they 
 faw him irritate his fubjeds, profefs philo- 
 fophy, fend away the Dutch garrifons, and 
 difmantle his fortifications. As to Holland, 
 they never forgave qther the King or the Mini- 
 ftry, for fuffering that objed, which they juftly 
 looked on as principal in their defign of reduc- 
 ing the power of England, to efcape out of their 
 
 hands.
 
 hands. This was the true fecret of the com? 
 mercial treaty, made, on their part, againft all 
 the old rules and principles of commerce, with 
 a view of diverting the Englifh nation, by an at* 
 tendon to profit, from an attention to the pro- 
 grefs of France in it's defigns upon that Repub- 
 lic. The fyftem of the ceconomifts, .which led 
 to the general opening of comrrjerce, facilitate*:! 
 that treaty, but did not produce it. They were 
 in defpair when they found that the object, to 
 which they had facrifked their manufactures, was 
 loft to their ambition. Above all, this eager de- 
 lire of railing France from the condition into 
 which (he had fallen, as they conceived, from 
 her monarchical imbecility, had been the main 
 fpring of their precedent interference in that un- 
 happy American quarrel, the bad effects of which 
 to this nation have not, as yet,- fully difclofed 
 themfelves. 
 
 Thefe fentiments had been long lurking in 
 their breafts, though their views were only dif- 
 covered now and then, in heat and as by efcapes ; 
 fcut on this pccation they exploded fuddenly.' 
 They were profefled with oftentation, and pro- 
 pagated with zeal. Thefe fentimenis were not 
 produced, as fome think, by their American 
 alliance. The American alliance was produced 
 by their republican principles and republican. 
 
 policy.
 
 policy, 'this new relation undoubtedly did 
 much. The difcourfes and cabals that it pro- 
 duced, the intercourfe that it eftablifhed, and 
 above all, the example, which made it feem prac- 
 ticable to eftablifh a Republick in a great extent 
 of country, nnifhed the work, and gave to that 
 part of the Revolutionary faction a degree of 
 flrength which required other energies than the 
 late King pofleffed, to refift, or even to reftrain. 
 It,fpread every where; but it was no where more 
 prevalent than in the heart of the Court. The 
 palace of Verfailles, by its language, feerned 
 a forum of democracy. To point out to moft of 
 thofe politicians, from thefe difpofitions and move- 
 ments, what has fmce happened, the fall of their 
 own Monarchy, of their own Laws, of their own 
 Religion, would have been to furnim a motive 
 the more for pulhing forward a fyftem on which 
 they confidered all thefe things as incumbrances; 
 
 When I contemplate the fcheme on which 
 France is formed, and when I compare it with 
 thefe fyftems, with which it is, and ever muft be 
 in conflict, thefe things which feem as defects 
 in her polity, are the very, things which make 
 me tremble. The States of the Chriftian World 
 have grown up to their prefent magnitude in a 
 great length of time,, and by a great variety of 
 accidents. They have been improved to what 
 
 we
 
 f "9 ) 
 
 we fee them with greater or lefs degrees of fe- 
 licity and IkilL' Not one of them has heeft 
 formed upon a regular plan, or with any unity 
 of defign. As their Conftitutions are not fyf- 
 tematical, they have not been directed to any 
 peculiar end, eminently diftinguilhed, and fuper- 
 feding every other. The objects which they em- 
 brace are of the greatefl pofllble variety, and have 
 become in a manner infinite. In all thefe old 
 countries the ftate has been made to the people, and 
 not the people conformed to the ftate. Every ftate 
 has purfued, not only every fort of focial advan- 
 tage, but it has cultivated the welfare of every indi- 
 vidual. His wants, his wifhes, even his taftes haVe 
 been confulted. This comprehenfive fcheme, vir- 
 tually produced a degree of perfonal liberty in 
 forms the moft adverfe to it. That was found, un- 
 der monarchies ftiled abfolute, in a degree un- 
 known to the ancient commonwealths. From 
 hence the powers of all our modern ftates, meet in 
 all their movements, with fome obftruftion. It 
 is therefore no wonder, that when thefe ftates are 
 to be confidered as machines to operate for fome 
 one great end, that this diflipated and balanced 
 force is not eafily concentred, or made to bear 
 upon one point. 
 
 The Britifh State is, without queftion, that 
 which purfues the greateft variety of ends, 
 
 and
 
 ( 120 j 
 
 and is the leaft difpofed to facrifke any one of 
 them to -another, 01 to the whole. It aims at 
 taking in the whole circle of human deiires, and 
 fecuring for them their fair enjoymrnt. Our le- 
 giflature has been ever clofely connected, in it's mod 
 efficient part, with individual feeling and indivi- 
 dual intereft. Perfonal liberty, the moft lively of 
 thefe feelings and the moft important of thefe in- 
 terefts, which in other European countries has 
 rather arifen from the fyftem of manners and the 
 habitudes of life, than from the laws of the ftate, (in 
 which it flourimed more from neglect than at- 
 tention) in England, has been a direct objed of 
 Government. 
 
 Fortunately, the great riches of this kingdom^ 
 arifing from a variety of caules, and the difpofition 
 of the people, which is as great to fpend as to accu- 
 mulate, has eafily afforded a difpofeable furplus that 
 gives a mighty momentum to the ftate. This dif- 
 ficulty, with thefe advantages to overcome it, has 
 called forth the talents of the Englifh financiers, 
 fc'ho, by the furplus of induftry poured out by pro- 
 digality, has outdone every thing which has been 
 accomplifhed in other nations. The preient Mi- 
 nifter has outdone his predeceflbrsj and as a 
 Minifter of revenue, is far above rny* power of 
 praife. But flill there are cafes in which Eng- 
 land feels more than feveral others, (though they 
 2 all
 
 all feel) the perplexity of an immenfe body of ba- 
 lanced advantages, and of individual demands, and 
 of fome irregularity in the whole mafs. 
 
 France differs eflentially from all thofe Govern- 
 ments which are formed without fyftem, which 
 exift by habiti and which are confufed with the 
 multitude, and with the complexity of their pur- 
 fuits. What now ftands as Government in France 
 is ftruck out at a heat. The defign is wicked, im- 
 moral, impious, oppreffive ; but it is fpirited ahd 
 daring : it is fyftematick ; it is fimple in it's princi- 
 ple; it has unity and eonfiftency in perfection. In 
 that country entirely to cut off a branch of com- 
 merce, to extinguifh a manufacture, to deftroy the 
 circulation of money, to violate credit, to fufpend 
 the courfe of agriculture, even to burn a city* or to 
 lay wafte a province of their own, does not coft them 
 a moment's anxiety. To them, the will, the wifti, 
 the want, the liberty, the toil, the blood of indivi- 
 duals is as nothing. Individuality is left out of 
 their fcheme of Government. The ftate h all in 
 all. Every thing is referred to the production of 
 force ; afterwards every thing is trufted to the ufe of 
 it. It is military in it's principle, in it's maxims^in 
 it's fpirit, and in all it's movements. The Mate ha* 
 dominion and conqueft for it's fole objects ; do- 
 minion over mi nds by profelytifm, over bodies by 
 arms. 
 
 R Thus
 
 ( 122 ) 
 
 Thus conftituted with an immenfe ,body of na^ 
 tural means, which are leflened in their amount 
 only to be encreafed in their effect, France has 
 fmce the accomplimment of the Revolution, a 
 complete unity in it's direction. It has deftroyed 
 every refource of the State, which depends upon 
 opinion and the good-will of individuals. The 
 riches of convention difappear. The advantages 
 of nature in fome confiderable mcafure remain ; 
 the command over them is complete and abfolute. 
 We go about afking when affignats will expire, 
 and laugh at the laft price of them ; but what 
 fignifies the fate of thefe tickets of defpotifm ? 
 The defpotifhi will find defpotick means offup- 
 ply. They have found the fhort cut to the pro- 
 ductions of Nature, while others in purfuit of 
 them, are obliged to wind th rough the labyrinth 
 of artificial fociety. They feize upon the fruit of 
 the labour ; they feize upon the labourer himfelf. 
 The natural means of France are ftill great. They 
 are very materially leifened, I admit ; but the power 
 over them is increafed. Were France but half of 
 what it is in population, in compadnefs, in applica- 
 bility of it's force, fituated as it is, and being what it 
 is, it would be too ftrong for mod of the States of Eu- 
 rope, conftituted as they are, and proceeding as they 
 proceed. Would it be wile to eftimate what the 
 world of Europe, as well as the world of Afia, had to 
 dread from Jinghiz Khan, upon a contemplation 
 
 of
 
 t **3 ) 
 
 of the refources of the cold and barren fpot inthe 
 remoteft Tartary, from whence firfl iflbed that 
 fcourge of the human race? Ought we to judge 
 from the excife and ftatnp duties of the rocks a or 
 from the paper circulation of the fands of Arabia, 
 the power by which Mahomet and his tribes laid 
 hold at once on the two moft powerful Empires of 
 the world ; beat one of them totally to the ground, 
 broke to pieces the other, and, in not much lon- 
 ger fpace of time than I have lived, overturned go- 
 vernments, laws, manners, religion, , and extended 
 an empire from the Indus to the Pyrennees, 
 
 Material refources never have fupplied, nor ever 
 can fupply the want of unity in defign and con r 
 ftancy in purfuit. But unity in defign, and perfe- 
 verance, and boldnefs in purfuit, have never want- 
 ed refources, and never will. We have not con- 
 fidered as we ought the dreadful energy of a State, 
 in which the property has nothing to do with the 
 Government. Refleft, my dear Sir, refled again 
 and again on a Government, in which the property 
 is in fubjeclion, and where nothing rules but the 
 minds of defperate men. The condition of a com-* 
 monweakh not governed by its property was a 
 combination of things, which the .learned and in- 
 genious fpeculator Harrington, who has tofled 
 about fociety into all forms, never could imagine to 
 be poiTible. We have feen k , the world has felt 
 R it;
 
 ( "4 ) 
 
 jtc ; and if the world will fliut their eyes to thi$ 
 ftate of things, they will feel it more. The Rulers 
 there have found their refources in crimes. The 
 difcovery is dreadful, the mine exhauftlefs. They 
 have every thing to gain, and they have nothing to 
 Jofe. They have a boundlefs inheritance in hope ; 
 and there is no medium for them, betwixt the 
 higheft elevation, and death with infamy. Never 
 can thofe, who from the miferable fervitude of the 
 defk have been raifed to Empire, again fubmit to 
 the bondage of a ftarvihg bureau, or the profit of 
 copying mufic, or writing plaidoyers by the meet. 
 It has made me often fmile in bitternefs, when I 
 heard talk of an indemnity to fuch men, provided 
 they returned to their allegiance. 
 
 From all this, what is my inference ? It is, that 
 this new fyftem of robbery in France, cannot be 
 rendered fafe by any art or any means. That it 
 muft be deftroyed, or that \\ will deftroy all Eu- 
 rope. That by fome, means or other the force op- 
 pofed to her fhould be made to bear, in a contrary 
 diredion, fome analogy and refemblance to the 
 force and fpirit (he employs. 
 
 The unhappy Lewis XVI. was a man of the beft 
 intentions that probably ever reigned. He was by 
 no means de6cient in talents. He had a moii 
 laudable defire to fupply by general reading, and 
 
 even
 
 even by the acquifmon of elemental knowledge, 
 an education in all points o.riginnlly defective; but 
 jiobody told him (and it was no wonder he mould 
 not himfelf divine it) that the world of which he 
 read, and the world in which he lived, were no 
 longer the fame. Defirous of doing every thing 
 for the beft, fearful of cabal, diltrufting his 
 own judgment, he fought his Minifters of all kinds 
 upon public teftimony. But as Courts are the 
 field tor caballers, the public is the theatre for 
 mountebanks and importers. The cure for both 
 thofe evils is in the difccrnment of the Prince. 
 But an accurate and penetrating difcernment is 
 what in a young Prince could -not be looked for. 
 
 His conduct in it's principle was not unwife; but 
 like moft other of his well-meant defigns, it failed 
 in his hands. It failed partly from mere ill fortune, 
 to which fpeculators are rarely pleafcd to affign that 
 very large (hare to which ftie is juftly entitled in 
 all human affairs. The failure, perhaps^ in part 
 was owing to his fuffering his fyftem to be vitiated 
 and difturbed by thofe intrigues, which it is, hu- 
 manly fpeaking, impoffible wholly to prevent in 
 Courts, or indeed under any form of Government. 
 However, with thefe aberrations, he gave himfelf 
 over to a fucceflion of the Itatefman of publick 
 opinion. In other things he thought that he might 
 be a King on the terms of his predeceffors. He 
 
 flattered
 
 flattered himfelf, as mod men in his fituation^viil, 
 that he might confult his eafe without danger to his 
 fafety. It is not at all wonderful that both he and 
 his Minifters, giving way abundantly in other re- 
 fpedls to innovation, fhould take up in policy with 
 the tradition of their monarchy. Under his an- 
 ceftors the Monarchy had fubfifted, and even been 
 ftrengthened by the generation or fupport of Re- 
 publicks. Firft, the Swifs Republicks grew un- 
 der the guardianmip of the French Monarchy. 
 The Dutch Republicks were hatched and che- 
 rifhed under the fame incubation. Afterwards> a 
 republican conftkution was under it's influence 
 eftablifhed in the empire againft the pretenlions of 
 it's Chief. Even whilft the Monarchy of France, 
 by a feries of wars and negotiations, and laftly by 
 the treaties of Weftphalia, had obtained the efta- 
 blimment of the Proteftants in Germany as a law 
 of the Empire, the fame Monarchy under Louis 
 the^XIIIth, had force enough to deftroy the re-, 
 publican fyftem of the Proteftants at home. 
 
 - Louis the XVIth was a diligent reader of hif-. 
 tory, But the very lamp of prudence blinded him. 
 The guide of human life led him aftray.. Aiilent 
 revolution in the moral world preceded the politi- 
 cal, and prepared it. It became of more impor- 
 tance than ever what examples were given, and 
 what meafures were adopted. Their caufes no 
 
 longer
 
 ( 1*7 ) 
 
 lurked in the recefles of cabinets, or in the 
 private confpiracies of the factious. They were 
 no longer to be controlled by the force and influ- 
 ence of the grandees, who formerly had been able 
 ta.ftir up troubles by their difcontents, and to 
 quiet them by their corruption. The chain of fub- 
 ordination, even in cabal and fedition, was broken 
 in its moft important links. It was no longer the 
 great, and the populace. Other interefts were 
 formed, other dependencies, other connexions, 
 other communications. The middle clafs had 
 fwelled far beyond its former proportions. Like 
 whatever is the moft effectively rich and great in 
 fociety, that became the feat of all the adlive poli- 
 ticks ; and the preponderating weight to decide on 
 them. There were all the energies by which for- 
 tune is acquired ; there the confequence of their 
 fuccefs. There were all the talents which aflert 
 their^pretenfions, and are impatient of the place 
 which fettled fociety prefcribes to them. Thefe 
 defcriptions had got between the great and the po- 
 pulace; and the influence on the lower clafles 
 was with them. The fpirit of ambition had ta- 
 ken pofleflion of this clafs as violently as ever it 
 had done of any other. They felt the importance 
 of this fituation. The correfpondence of the 
 monied and the mercantile world, the literary in- 
 tercourfe of academies; but, above all, the prefs, 
 of which they had in a manner, entire pofleflion, 
 
 made
 
 ( I2& ) 
 
 made a kind of electrick communication e\ eif 
 where. The prefs, in reality, has made every Go- 
 vernment, in its fpirit, democratick. Without it 
 the great, the firft movements could not, perhaps, 
 have been given. But the fpirit of ambition, now 
 for the firft time connected with the fpirit of fpe- 
 culation, was not to be reftrained at will. There 
 was no longer any means of arrefting a principle 
 in its courfe. When Louis the XVIth. under the 
 influence of the enemies to Monarchy, meant to 
 found but one Republick, he fet up two. When 
 he meant to take away half the crown of his neigh- 
 bour, he loft the whole of his own. Louis the 
 XVIth could not countenance a new Republick : 
 yet between that dangerous lodgment for an enemy, 
 which he had erected, and his throne, he had the 
 whole Atlantick for a ditch. He had for an out- 
 work the Englifh nation itfelf, friendly to liberty* 
 adverle to that mode of it. He was furrounded by 
 a rampart of Monarchies, moft of them allied to 
 him, and generally under his influence. Yet even 
 thus fecured, a Republic erected under his aufpices^ 
 and dependent on his power, became fatal to his 
 throne. The very money which he had lent to 
 fupport this Republick, by a good faith, which to 
 him operated as perfidy, was punctually paid to 
 his enemies, and became a refource in the hands 
 of his afiaffms. 
 
 With
 
 With this example before their eyes, does any 
 Adminiftratjon in England, does any Adminiftra- 
 tipn in Auftria really flatter itfelf, that it. can 
 erect, not on the remote fhores of the Atlantick, 
 but in their view, in their vicinity, in abfolute con- 
 tact with one of them, not .a, commercial but a 
 martial Republick a Republick not of 'fimple 
 hufbandmen or fifhermen, but of intriguers, and 
 of warriors a Republick of a character the mod 
 reftlefs, 4 the mpft enterprizing, the moft impious, 
 the moft fierce and bloody, the moft hypocritical 
 and perfidious that ever has been feen, or indeed 
 that can be conceived to exift, without their own 
 certain ruin ? 
 
 Such is the Republick to which we are going 
 to give a place in civilized fellowlhip. The Re- 
 publick, which with joint confent we are going to 
 eftablifh in the center of Europe, in a poft that 
 overlooks and commands every, other State, and 
 which eminently confronts and menaces this king- 
 dom. 
 
 '*;>' Jiafc : 
 
 You cannot fail to obferve, that I fpeak as if thefe 
 powers were actually confcnting, ancl not co'm- 
 pelled by events to the eftablimment of this faction 
 in France. The words have not efcaped me. You 
 will hereafter naturally expect that I fhould make 
 them good. But whether in adopting this mea- 
 s fure
 
 fure we are madly active, or weakly pafiive, of pa-* 
 fillanimoufly panick ftruck, the effects will be the 
 fame. You may call this faction, which has fur- 
 prized the monarchy and expelled the proprietary, 
 perfecuted religion and trampled upon law, you 
 may call this France if you pleafe : but of the an- 
 cient France nothing remains but it's dangerous 
 and central geography, it's iron frontier, it's fpirit 
 of ambkion, it's audacity of enterprife, it's perplex- 
 ing intrigue. Thefe and thefe alone remain ; and 
 they remain heightened in their principle and aug- 
 mented in their means. All the old correctives, 
 whether of virtue or of weaknefs, which exifted in 
 the old Monarchy, are gone. No (ingle corrective 
 is to be found in the whole body of the new infti- 
 tutions. How mould fuch a thing be found there, 
 when every thing has been chofen with care and fe- 
 lection to forward all thofe ambitious defigns and 
 difpofitions, not to controul them ? The whole is a 
 body .of ways and -means for the fupply of domi- 
 nion, without one heterogeneous particle in it. 
 
 Here I fuffer you to breathe, and leave to your 
 meditation what has occurred to me on the genius 
 and character of the French Revolution. From 
 having this before us, we may be better able to 
 judge on the firft queftion I propofed, that is, How 
 far nations,^ called foreign, are likely to be affected 
 with' the fyftem efiablimed within that territory ? 
 
 I meant
 
 ( 13* ) 
 
 1 mean to proceed next on the queftion of her fa- 
 cilities, from the internal flate of other nations, and 
 particularly of this, for obtaining her end's : but I 
 ought to be aware, that my notions are controvert, 
 ed. I mean, therefore, in my next letter, to take 
 notice of what, in that way, has been recommend^ 
 ed to me as the moft deferring of notice* In the 
 examination of thofe pieces, I (hall have occafion 
 to difcufs fome others of the topics I have recorru 
 mended to your attention. 
 
 This difcuffion, my Friend, will be long. But 
 the matter is ferious ; and if ever the fate of the 
 world could be truly faid to depend in a particular 
 meafure, it is upon this peace. For the prefent, 
 farewell.
 
 9082 6
 
 from which it was borrowed 
 
 
 QL. 
 
 OCT 1 
 
 t fit OCT 1 
 
 
 1994 
 1994 
 
 OMVERSITY OF CALIFORNU 
 
 AT 
 
 VJS ANGELES 
 UBRARY
 
 A 000 000 289 9