arms and establishes by conquest the comprehensive system
of universal fraternity. In what light is all this viewed in a great
assembly? The party which takes the lead there has no longer any
apprehensions, except those that arise from not being admitted to the
closest and most confidential connections with the metropolis of that
fraternity. That reigning party no longer touches on its favorite
subject, the display of those horrors that must attend the existence of
a power with such dispositions and principles, seated in the heart of
Europe. It is satisfied to find some loose, ambiguous expressions in
its former declarations, which may set it free from its professions and
engagements. It always speaks of peace with the Regicides as a great and
an undoubted blessing, and such a blessing as, if obtained, promises, as
much as any human disposition of things can promise, security and
permanence. It holds out nothing at all definite towards this security.
It only seeks, by a restoration to some of their former owners of some
fragments of the general wreck of Europe, to find a plausible plea for a
present retreat from an embarrassing position. As to the future, that
party is content to leave it covered in a night of the most palpable
obscurity. It never once has entered into a particle of detail of what
our own situation, or that of other powers, must be, under the blessings
of the peace we seek. This defect, to my power, I mean to supply,--that,
if any persons should still continue to think an attempt at foresight is
any part of the duty of a statesman, I may contribute my trifle to the
materials of his speculation.

As to the other party, the minority of to-day, possibly the majority of
to-morrow, small in number, but full of talents and every species of
energy, which, upon the avowed ground of being more acceptable to
France, is a candidate for the helm of this kingdom, it has never
changed from the beginning. It has preserved a perennial consistency.
This would be a never failing source of true glory, if springing from
just and right; but it is truly dreadful, if it be an arm of Styx, which
springs out of the profoundest depths of a poisoned soil. The French
maxims were by these gentlemen at no time condemned. I speak of their
language in the most moderate terms. There are many who think that they
have gone much further,--that they have always magnified and extolled
the French maxims,--that; not in the least disgusted or d