a preamble to the destructive code of their famous
articles for the decomposition of society, into whatever country they
should enter. "La Convention Nationale, apres avoir entendu le rapport
de ses comites de finances, de la guerre, et diplomatiques reunis,
fidele au _principe de souverainete de peuples, qui ne lui permet pas de
reconnaitre aucune institution qui y porte atteinte_" &c., &c.--_Decree
sur le Rapport de Cambon, Dec. 18, 1702_. And see the subsequent
proclamation.

[32] "This state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all
the surrounding powers in one common danger,--without giving them the
right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of
an evil which ... attacks the fundamental principles by which mankind is
united in the bonds of civil society."--_Declaration 29th Oct., 1793_.

[33] Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.

LETTER II.

ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER
NATIONS.

My dear Sir,--I closed my first letter with serious matter, and I hope
it has employed your thoughts. The system of peace must have a reference
to the system of the war. On that ground, I must therefore again recall
your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not
taught me to vary.

My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest, to encounter France,
not as a state, but as a faction. The vast territorial extent of that
country, its immense population, its riches of production, its riches of
commerce and convention, the whole aggregate mass of what in ordinary
cases constitutes the force of a state, to me were but objects of
secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and they have been
often more than balanced. Great as these things are, they are not what
make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly
dreadful. That faction is the evil spirit that possesses the body of
France,--that informs it as a soul,--that stamps upon its ambition, and
upon all its pursuits, a characteristic mark, which strongly
distinguishes them from the same general passions and the same general
views in other men and in other communities. It is that spirit which
inspires into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity.
Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not in that France to
shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm Europe in the manner that we behold.
A sure destruction impends over those infatuated prin