The same temper which brings us to solicit a Jacobin peace, will induce
us to temporize with all the evils of it. By degrees our minds will be
made to our circumstances. The novelty of such things, which produces
half the horror, and all the disgust, will be worn off. Our ruin will be
disguised in profit, and the sale of a few wretched baubles will bribe a
degenerate people to barter away the most precious jewel of their souls.
Our constitution is not made for this kind of warfare. It provides
greatly for our happiness,--it furnishes few means for our defence. It
is formed, in a great measure, upon the principle of jealousy of the
crown; and, as things stood when it took that turn, with very great
reason. I go further; it must keep alive some part of that fire of
jealousy eternally and chastely burning, or it cannot be the British
constitution. At various periods we have had tyranny in this
country, more than enough. We have had rebellions, with more or less
justification. Some of our kings have made adulterous connections
abroad, and trucked away for foreign gold the interests and glory of
their crown. But before this time our liberty has never been corrupted.
I mean to say, that it has never been debauched from its domestic
relations. To this time it has been English liberty, and English liberty
only. Our love of liberty and our love of our country were not distinct
things. Liberty is now, it seems, put upon a larger and more liberal
bottom. We are men, and as men, undoubtedly nothing human is foreign to
us. We cannot be too liberal in our general wishes for the happiness
of our kind. But in all questions on the mode of procuring it for any
particular community, we ought to be fearful of admitting those who have
no interest in it, or who have, perhaps, an interest against it,
into the consultation. Above all, we cannot be too cautious in our
communication with those who seek their happiness by other roads than
those of humanity, morals, and religion, and whose liberty consists, and
consists alone, in being free from those restraints which are imposed by
the virtues upon the passions.
When we invite danger from a confidence in defensive measures, we ought,
first of all, to be sure that it is a species of danger against which
any defensive measures that can be adopted will be sufficient. Next we
ought to know that the spirit of our laws, or that our own dispositions,
which are stronger than laws, are susceptible of all those defensive
measures which the occasion may require. A third consideration is,
whether these measures will not bring more odium than strength to
government; and the last, whether the authority that makes them, in
a general corruption of manners and principles, can insure their
execution? Let no one argue from the state of things, as he sees them at
present, concerning what will be the means and capacities of government,
when the time arrives, which shall call for remedies commensurate to
enormous evils.
It is an obvious truth that no constitution can defend itself: it
must be defended by the wisdom and fortitude of men. These are what no
constitution can give: they are the gifts of God; and he alone knows
whether we shall possess such gifts at the time when we stand in need of
them. Constitutions furnish the civil means of getting at the natural;
it is all that in this case they can do. But our constitution has more
impediments than helps. Its excellencies, when they come to be put to
this sort of proof, may be found among its defects.
Nothing looks more awful and imposing than an ancient fortification.
Its lofty, embattled walls, its bold, projecting, rounded towers,
that pierce the sky, strike the imagination, and promise inexpugnable
strength. But they are the very things that make its weakness. You may
as well think of opposing one of these old fortresses to the mass of
artillery brought by a French irruption into the field, as to think of
resisting, by your old laws, and your old forms, the new destruction
which the corps of Jacobin engineers of to-day prepare for all such
forms and all such laws. Besides the debility and false principle of
their construction to resist the present modes of attack, the fortress
itself is in ruinous repair, and there is a practicable breach in every
part of it.
Such is the work. But miserable works have been defended by the
constancy of the garrison. Weather-beaten ships have been brought safe
to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew. But it is here that
we shall eminently fail. The day that, by their consent, the seat of
regicide has its place among the thrones of Europe, there is no longer a
motive for zeal in their favour; it will at best be cold, unimpassioned,
dejected, melancholy duty. The glory will seem all on the other side.
The friends of the crown will appear, not as champions, but as victims;
discountenanced, mortified, lowered, defeated, they will fall into
listlessness and indifference. They will leave things to take their
course; enjoy the present hour, and submit to the common fate.