ate its religion, happiness,
independence, territories, and real constitution.'--'On this ground,
they hoped that all empires and all states would be unanimous; and
becoming the firm guardians of the happiness of mankind, that they
could not fail to unite their efforts to rescue a numerous nation from
its own fury, to preserve Europe from the return of barbarism, and the
universe from the subversion and anarchy with which it was
threatened.' The whole of that noble performance ought to be read at
the first meeting of any congress which may assemble for the purpose
of pacification. In that piece 'these powers expressly renounce all
views of personal aggrandisement,' and confine themselves to objects
worthy of so generous, so heroic, and so perfectly wise and politic an
enterprise. It was to the principles of this confederation, and to no
other, that we wished our sovereign and our country to accede, as a
part of the commonwealth of Europe. To these principles with some
trifling exceptions and limitations they did fully accede. And all our
friends who took office acceded to the ministry (whether wisely or
not), as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the
principles of that declaration.

As long as these powers flattered themselves that the menace of force
would produce the effect of force, they acted on those declarations:
but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new
direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to
be purchased by millions of rix-dollars. It is a dreadful truth, but
it is a truth that cannot be concealed; in ability, in dexterity, in
the distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They
saw the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first
motives to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and
for its objects, it was a _civil war_; and as such they pursued it. It
is a war between the partisans of the ancient, civil, moral, and
political order of Europe, against a sect of fanatical and ambitious
atheists which means to change them all. It is not France extending a
foreign empire over other nations; it is a sect aiming at universal
empire, and beginning with the conquest of France. The leaders of that
sect secured the _centre of Europe_; and that secured, they knew, that
whatever might be the event of battles and sieges, their _cause_ was
victorious. Whether its territory had a little more or a little le