t is a matter to which they are sufficiently
competent, because it is a matter of feeling. The _causes_ of a war are
not matters of feeling, but of reason and foresight, and often of remote
considerations, and of a very great combination of circumstances which
_they_ are utterly incapable of comprehending: and, indeed, it is not
every man in the highest classes who is altogether equal to it. Nothing,
in a general sense, appears to me less fair and justifiable (even if no
attempt were made to inflame the passions) than to submit a matter on
discussion to a tribunal incapable of judging of more than _one side_ of
the question. It is at least as unjustifiable to inflame the passions of
such judges against _that side_ in favor of which they cannot so much as
comprehend the arguments. Before the prevalence of the French system,
(which, as far as it has gone, has extinguished the salutary prejudice
called our country,) nobody was more sensible of this important truth
than Mr. Fox; and nothing was more proper and pertinent, or was more
felt at the time, than his reprimand to Mr. Wilberforce for an
inconsiderate expression which tended to call in the judgment of the
poor to estimate the policy of war upon the standard of the taxes they
may be obliged to pay towards its support.

35. It is fatally known that the great object of the Jacobin system is,
to excite the lowest description of the people to range themselves under
ambitious men for the pillage and destruction of the more eminent orders
and classes of the community. The thing, therefore, that a man not
fanatically attached to that dreadful project would most studiously
avoid is, to act a part with the French _Propagandists_, in attributing
(as they constantly do) all wars, and all the consequences of wars, to
the pride of those orders, and to their contempt of the weak and
indigent part of the society. The ruling Jacobins insist upon it, that
even the wars which they carry on with so much obstinacy against all
nations are made to prevent the poor from any longer being the
instruments and victims of kings, nobles, and the aristocracy of
burghers and rich men. They pretend that the destruction of kings,
nobles, and the aristocracy of burghers and rich men is the only means
of establishing an universal and perpetual peace. This is the great
drift of all their writings, from the time of the meeting of the states
of France, in 1789, to the publication of the last Morning Chroni