off the materials,
of their neighbour's house. Their provident fears were changed into
avaricious hopes. They carried on their new designs without seeming to
abandon the principles of their old policy. They pretended to seek, or
they flattered themselves that they sought, in the accession of new
fortresses, and new territories, a _defensive_ security. But the
security wanted was against a kind of power which was not so truly
dangerous in its fortresses nor in its territories, as in its spirit
and its principles. The aimed, or pretended to aim, at _defending_
themselves against a danger from which there can be no security in any
_defensive_ plan. If armies and fortresses were a defence against
Jacobinism, Louis the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful
monarch over a happy people.

This error obliged them, even in their offensive operations, to adopt
a plan of war, against the success of which there was something little
short of mathematical demonstration. They refused to take any step
which might strike at the heart of affairs. They seemed unwilling to
wound the enemy in any vital part. They acted through the whole, as if
they really wished the conservation of the Jacobin power, as what
might be more favourable than the lawful government to the attainment
of the petty objects they looked for. They always kept on the
circumference; and the wider and remoter the circle was, the more
eagerly they chose it as their sphere of action in this centrifugal
war. The plan they pursued, in its nature demanded great length of
time. In its execution, they, who went the nearest way to work, were
obliged to cover an incredible extent of country. It left to the enemy
every means of destroying this extended line of weakness. Ill success
in any part was sure to defeat the effect of the whole. This is true
of Austria. It is still more true of England. On this false plan, even
good fortune, by further weakening the victor, put him but the
further off from his object.

As long as there was any appearance of success, the spirit of
aggrandisement, and consequently the spirit of mutual jealousy, seized
upon all the coalesced powers. Some sought an accession of territory
at the expense of France, some at the expense of each other, some at
the expense of third parties; and when the vicissitude of disaster
took its turn, they found common distress a treacherous bond of faith
and friendship.

The greatest skill conducting the greatest mili