A king without authority; nobles without union or subordination; a
people without arts, industry, commerce, or liberty; no order within, no
defence without; no effective public force, but a foreign force, which
entered a naked country at will, and disposed of everything at pleasure.
Here was a state of things which seemed to invite, and might perhaps
justify, bold enterprise and desperate experiment. But in what manner
was this chaos brought into order? The means were as striking to the
imagination, as satisfactory to the reason, and soothing to the moral
sentiments. In contemplating that change, humanity has everything to
rejoice and to glory in; nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to suffer.
So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated public
good which ever has been conferred on mankind. We have seen anarchy and
servitude at once removed; a throne strengthened for the protection
of the people, without trenching on their liberties; all foreign cabal
banished, by changing the crown from elective to hereditary; and what
was a matter of pleasing wonder, we have seen a reigning king, from
an heroic love to his country, exerting himself with all the toil,
the dexterity, the management, the intrigue, in favour of a family of
strangers, with which ambitious men labour for the aggrandizement of
their own. Ten millions of men in a way of being freed gradually,
and therefore safely to themselves and the state, not from civil or
political chains, which, bad as they are, only fetter the mind, but
from substantial personal bondage. Inhabitants of cities, before without
privileges, placed in the consideration which belongs to that improved
and connecting situation of social life. One of the most proud,
numerous, and fierce bodies of nobility and gentry ever known in the
world, arranged only in the foremost rank of free and generous citizens.
Not one man incurred loss, or suffered degradation. All, from the king
to the day-labourer, were improved in their condition. Everything was
kept in its place and order; but in that place and order everything was
betterd. To add to this happy wonder (this unheard-of conjunction of
wisdom and fortune), not one drop of blood was spilled; no treachery;
no outrage; no system of slander more cruel than the sword; no studied
insults on religion, morals, or manners; no spoil; no confiscation; no
citizen beggared; none imprisoned; none exiled: the whole was effected
with a policy, a discretion, a unanimity and secrecy, such as have
never been before known on any occasion; but such wonderful conduct was
reserved for this glorious conspiracy in favour of the true and genuine
rights and interests of men. Happy people, if they know how to proceed
as they have begun! Happy prince, worthy to begin with splendour, or to
close with glory, a race of patriots and of kings: and to leave
"A name, which ev'ry wind to heav'n would bear,
Which men to speak, and angels joy to hear."
To finish all--this great good, as in the instant it is, contains in
it the seeds of all further improvement, and may be considered as in
a regular progress, because founded on similar principles, towards the
stable excellency of a British constitution.
Here was a matter for congratulation and for festive remembrance through
ages. Here moralists and divines might indeed relax in their temperance,
to exhilarate their humanity. But mark the character of our faction. All
their enthusiasm is kept for the French revolution. They cannot pretend
that France had stood so much in need of a change as Poland. They cannot
pretend that Poland has not obtained a better system of liberty, or of
government, than it enjoyed before. They cannot assert, that the Polish
revolution cost more dearly than that of France to the interests and
feelings of multitudes of men. But the cold and subordinate light in
which they look upon the one, and the pains they take to preach up
the other of these revolutions, leave us no choice in fixing on their
motives. Both revolutions profess liberty as their object; but in
obtaining this object the one proceeds from anarchy to order; the other
from order to anarchy. The first secures its liberty by establishing its
throne; the other builds its freedom on the subversion of its monarchy.
In the one their means are unstained by crimes, and their settlement
favours morality. In the other, vice and confusion are in the very
essence of their pursuit, and of their enjoyment. The circumstances
in which these two events differ, must cause the difference we make in
their comparative estimation. These turn the scale with the societies in
favour of France. Ferrum est quod amant. The frauds, the violences, the
sacrileges, the havoc and ruin of families, the dispersion and exile of
the pride and flower of a great country, the disorder, the confusion,
the anarchy, the violation of property, the cruel murders, the inhuman
confiscations, and in the end the insolent domination of bloody,
ferocious, and senseless clubs--these are the things which they love and
admire. What men admire and love, they would surely act. Let us see what
is done in France; and then let us undervalue any the slightest danger
of falling into the hands of such a merciless and savage faction!