strain him from its abuse. This he would have faithfully administered,
and more than this, I do not believe, he ever wished. But he had a Queen
of absolute sway over his weak mind and timid virtue, and of a character
the reverse of his in all points. This angel, as gaudily painted in the
rhapsodies of Burke, with some smartness of fancy, but no sound sense,
was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her
will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to
her desires, or perish in their wreck. Her inordinate gambling and
dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois, and others of her
clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury,
which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her
opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led
herself to the Guillotine, drew the King on with her, and plunged the
world into crimes and calamities which will for ever stain the pages
of modern history. I have ever believed, that had there been no Queen,
there would have been no revolution. No force would have been provoked,
nor exercised. The King would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom of
his sounder counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the
age, wished only, with the same pace, to advance the principles of their
social constitution. The deed which closed the mortal course of these
sovereigns, I shall neither approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to
say, that the first magistrate of a nation cannot commit treason against
his country, or is unamenable to its punishment: nor yet, that where
there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in
our hearts, and a power in our hands, given for righteous employment in
maintaining right, and redressing wrong. Of those who judged the King,
many thought him wilfully criminal; many, that his existence would keep
the nation in perpetual conflict with the horde of Kings, who would war
against a regeneration which might come home to themselves, and that it
were better that one should die than all. I should not have voted with
this portion of the legislature. I should have shut up the Queen in
a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the King in his
station, investing him with limited powers, which, I verily believe,
he would have honestly exercised, according to the measure of his
understanding. In this way, no void would have been created, courting
the usur