t horrid means, that such miseries
could have been brought upon Europe. It is this paradox, which we must
always keep in mind when we are discussing any question relative to
the effects of the French revolution. Groaning under every degree of
misery, the victim of its own crimes, and, as I once before expressed
it in this House, asking pardon of God and of man for the miseries
which it has brought upon itself and others, France still retains
(while it has neither left means of comfort nor almost of subsistence
to its own inhabitants) new and unexampled means of annoyance and
destruction against all the other Powers of Europe.

Its first fundamental principle was to bribe the poor against the
rich, by proposing to transfer into new hands, on the delusive notion
of equality, and in breach of every principle of justice, the whole
property of the country; the practical application of this principle
was to devote the whole of that property to indiscriminate plunder,
and to make it the foundation of a revolutionary system of finance,
productive in proportion to the misery and desolation which
it created. It has been accompanied by an unwearied spirit of
proselytism, diffusing itself over all the nations of the earth; a
spirit which can apply itself to all circumstances and all situations,
which can furnish a list of grievances, and hold out a promise of
redress equally to all nations, which inspired the teachers of French
liberty with the hope of alike recommending themselves to those who
live under the feudal code of the German Empire; to the various
states of Italy, under all their different institutions; to the old
republicans of Holland, and to the new republicans of America; to
the Catholic of Ireland, whom it was to deliver from Protestant
usurpation; to the Protestant of Switzerland, whom it was to deliver
from popish superstition; and to the Mussulman of Egypt, whom it was
to deliver from Christian persecution; to the remote Indian, blindly
bigoted to his ancient institutions; and to the natives of Great
Britain, enjoying the perfection of practical freedom, and justly
attached to their constitution, from the joint result of habit, of
reason, and of experience. The last and distinguishing feature is a
perfidy which nothing can bind, which no tie of treaty, no sense of
the principles generally received among nations, no obligation, human
or divine, can restrain. Thus qualified, thus armed for destruction,
the genius o