f the restraints of morality--in wickedness which
acknowledges no limit but the extent of its own power. Let any one
reflect a moment; and he will feel that a new world of forces is opened
to a Being who has made this desperate leap. It is a tremendous
principle to be adopted, and steadily adhered to, by a man in the
station which Buonaparte occupies; and he has taken the full benefit of
it. What there is in this principle of weak, perilous, and
self-destructive--I may find a grateful employment in endeavouring to
shew upon some future occasion. But it is a duty which we owe to the
present moment to proclaim--in vindication of the dignity of human
nature, and for an admonition to men of prostrate spirit--that the
dominion, which this Enemy of mankind holds, has neither been acquired
nor is sustained by endowments of intellect which are rarely bestowed,
or by uncommon accumulations of knowledge; but that it has risen from
circumstances over which he had no influence; circumstances which, with
the power they conferred, have stimulated passions whose natural food
hath been and is ignorance; from the barbarian impotence and insolence
of a mind--originally of ordinary constitution--lagging, in moral
sentiment and knowledge, three hundred years behind the age in which it
acts. In such manner did the power originate; and, by the forces which I
have described, is it maintained. This should be declared: and it
should be added--that the crimes of Buonaparte are more to be abhorred
than those of other denaturalized creatures whose actions are painted in
History; because the Author of those crimes is guilty with less
temptation, and sins in the presence of a clearer light.

No doubt in the command of almost the whole military force of Europe
(the subject which called upon me to make these distinctions) he has,
_at this moment_, a third source of power which may be added to these
two. He himself rates this last so high--either is, or affects to be, so
persuaded of its pre-eminence--that he boldly announces to the world
that it is madness, and even impiety, to resist him. And sorry may we be
to remember that there are British Senators, who (if a judgement may be
formed from the language which they speak) are inclined to accompany him
far in this opinion. But the enormity of this power has in it nothing
_inherent_ or _permanent_. Two signal overthrows in pitched battles
would, I believe, go far to destroy it. Germans, Dutch, Italians,