to be free! The military circumstances that now unite themselves to
France, are such as the despots of the earth know nothing of, and can
form no calculation upon. They know not what it is to fight against a
nation; they have only been accustomed to make war upon each other,
and they know, from system and practice, how to calculate the probable
success of despot against despot; and here their knowledge and their
experience end.

But in a contest like the present a new and boundless variety of
circumstances arise, that deranges all such customary calculations. When
a whole nation acts as an army, the despot knows not the extent of the
power against which he contends. New armies arise against him with the
necessity of the moment. It is then that the difficulties of an invading
enemy multiply, as in the former case they diminished; and he finds them
at their height when he expected them to end.

The only war that has any similarity of circumstances with the present,
is the late revolution war in America. On her part, as it now is in
France, it was a war of the whole nation:--there it was that the enemy,
by beginning to conquer, put himself in a condition of being conquered.
His first victories prepared him for defeat. He advanced till he could
not retreat, and found himself in the midst of a nation of armies.

Were it now to be proposed to the Austrians and Prussians, to escort
them into the middle of France, and there leave them to make the most
of such a situation, they would see too much into the dangers of it to
accept the offer, and the same dangers would attend them, could they
arrive there by any other means. Where, then, is the military policy of
their attempting to obtain, by force, that which they would refuse by
choice? But to reason with despots is throwing reason away. The best of
arguments is a vigorous preparation.

Man is ever a stranger to the ways by which Providence regulates the
order of things. The interference of foreign despots may serve to
introduce into their own enslaved countries the principles they come
to oppose. Liberty and Equality are blessings too great to be the
inheritance of France alone. It is an honour to her to be their first
champion; and she may now say to her enemies, with a mighty voice, "O!
ye Austrians, ye Prussians! ye who now turn your bayonets against us,
it is for you, it is for all Europe, it is for all mankind, and not for
France alone, that she raises the standard of