m. This will not
clear the discourse from the absurdity, but it will account for the
conduct, which such reasoning so ill defends. What a roundabout way is
this to peace,--to make war for the destruction of regicides, and then
to give them peace in order to insure a stability that will enable them
to observe it! I say nothing of the honor displayed in such a system. It
is plain it militates with itself almost in all the parts of it. In one
part, it supposes stability in their Constitution, as a ground of a
stable peace; in another part, we are to hope for peace in a different
way,--that is, by splitting this brilliant orb into little stars, and
this would make the face of heaven so fine! No, there is no system upon
which the peace which in humility we are to supplicate can possibly
stand.

I believe, before this time, that the more form of a constitution, in
any country, never was fixed as the sole ground of objecting to a treaty
with it. With other circumstances it may be of great moment. What is
incumbent on the assertors of the Fourth Week of October system to prove
is not whether their then expected Constitution was likely to be stable
or transitory, but whether it promised to this country and its allies,
and to the peace and settlement of all Europe, more good-will or more
good faith than any of the experiments which have gone before it. On
these points I would willingly join issue.

Observe first the manner in which the Remarker describes (very truly, as
I conceive) the people of France under that auspicious government, and
then observe the conduct of that government to other nations. "The
people without _any_ established constitution; distracted by popular
convulsions; in a state of inevitable bankruptcy; without any commerce;
with their principal ports blockaded; and without a fleet that could
venture to face one of our _detached squadrons_." Admitting, as fully as
he has stated it, this condition of France, I would fain know how he
reconciles this condition with his ideas of _any kind of a practicable
constitution_, or _duration for a limited period_, which are his _sine
qua non_ of peace. But passing by contradictions, as no fair objections
to reasoning, this state of things would naturally, at other times, and
in other governments, have produced a disposition to peace, almost on
any terms. But, in that state of their country, did the Regicide
government solicit peace or amity with other nations, or even lay