my and
people can be forced by it to perform their duty. This is the rock upon
which Spain has split; and all our measures in any other country which
should afford hopes of resistance to Buonaparte should be directed to
avoid it. The enthusiasm of the people is very fine, and looks well in
print; but I have never known it to produce any thing but confusion. In
France, what was called enthusiasm was power and tyranny, acting through
the medium of popular societies, which have ended by overturning Europe,
and in establishing the most powerful and dreadful tyranny that ever
existed. In Spain, the enthusiasm of the people spent itself in _vivas_
and vain boasting. The notion of its existence prevented even the
attempt to discipline the armies; and its existence has been alleged,
ever since, as the excuse for the rank ignorance of the officers and the
indiscipline and constant misbehaviour of the troops.

I therefore earnestly recommend you, wherever you go, to trust nothing
to the enthusiasm of the people. Give them a strong and a just, and, if
possible, a good government; but, above all, a strong one, which shall
enforce upon them to do their duty by themselves and their country; and
let measures of finance to support an army go hand in hand with measures
to raise it.

I am quite certain that the finances of Great Britain are more than a
match for Buonaparte, and that we shall have the means of aiding any
country that may be disposed to resist his tyranny. But those means are
necessarily limited in every country by the difficulty of procuring
specie. This necessary article can be obtained in sufficient quantities
only by the contributions of the people; and although Great Britain can
and ought to assist with money, as well as in other modes, every effort
of this description, the principal financial as well as military effort,
ought to be by the people of the resisting country.

_Dec. 10, 1811._

* * * * *

_The French System of Predatory War._

In the early days of the revolutionary war, the French, at the
recommendation, I believe, of Brissot, adopted a measure which they
called a _levee en masse_; and put every man, animal, and article, in
their own country, in requisition for the service of the armies. This
system of plunder was carried into execution by the popular societies
throughout the country. It is not astonishing that a nation, among whom
such a system was established, shoul