bition, its audacity of enterprise, its perplexing intrigue. These,
and these alone, remain: and they remain heightened in their principle
and augmented in their means. All the former correctives, whether of
virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old monarchy, are gone. No
single new corrective is to be found in the whole body of the new
institutions. How should such a thing be found there, when everything
has been chosen with care and selection to forward all those ambitious
designs and dispositions, not to control them? The whole is a body of
ways and means for the supply of dominion, without one heterogeneous
particle in it.

Here I suffer you to breathe, and leave to your meditation what has
occurred to me on the _genius and character_ of the French Revolution.
From having this before us, we may be better able to determine on the
first question I proposed,--that is, How far nations called foreign are
likely to be affected with the system established within that territory.
I intended to proceed next on the question of her facilities, _from the
internal state of other nations, and particularly of this_, for
obtaining her ends; but I ought to be aware that my notions are
controverted. I mean, therefore, in my next letter, to take notice of
what in that way has been recommended to me as the most deserving of
notice. In the examination of those pieces, I shall have occasion to
discuss some others of the topics to which I have called your attention.
You know that the letters which I now send to the press, as well as a
part of what is to follow, have been in their substance long since
written. A circumstance which your partiality alone could make of
importance to you, but which to the public is of no importance at all,
retarded their appearance. The late events which press upon us obliged
me to make some additions, but no substantial change in the matter.

This discussion, my friend, will be long. But the matter is serious; and
if ever the fate of the world could be truly said to depend on a
particular measure, it is upon this peace. For the present, farewell.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] See Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.

[35] It may be right to do justice to Louis the Sixteenth. He did what
he could to destroy the double diplomacy of France. He had all the
secret correspondence burnt, except one piece, which was called
_Conjectures raisonnees sur la Situation actuelle de la France dans le
Systeme Politique de l'E