Let us not deceive ourselves: we are at the beginning of great troubles.
I readily acknowledge that the state of public affairs is infinitely
more unpromising than at the period I have just now alluded to; and the
position of all the powers of Europe, in relation to us, and in relation
to each other, is more intricate and critical beyond all comparison.
Difficult indeed is our situation. In all situations of difficulty men
will be influenced in the part they take, not only by the reason of the
case, but by the peculiar turn of their own character. The same ways
to safety do not present themselves to all men, nor to the same men in
different tempers. There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a
false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution, but of fear. Under
misfortunes it often happens that the nerves of the understanding are so
relaxed, the pressing peril of the hour so completely confounds all the
faculties, that no future danger can be properly provided for, can be
justly estimated, can be so much as fully seen. The eye of the mind is
dazzled and vanquished. An abject distrust of ourselves, an extravagant
admiration of the enemy, present us with no hope but in a compromise
with his pride, by a submission to his will. This short plan of policy
is the only counsel which will obtain a hearing. We plunge into a dark
gulf with all the rash precipitation of fear. The nature of courage is,
without a question, to be conversant with danger: but in the palpable
night of their terrors, men under consternation suppose, not that it is
the danger, which, by a sure instinct, calls out the courage to resist
it, but that it is the courage which produces the danger. They therefore
seek for a refuge from their fears in the fears themselves, and consider
a temporizing meanness as the only source of safety.
The rules and definitions of prudence can rarely be exact; never
universal. I do not deny, that, in small, truckling states, a timely
compromise with power has often been the means, and the only means, of
drawling out their puny existence: but a great state is too much envied,
too much dreaded, to find safety in humiliation. To be secure, it must
be respected. Power, and eminence, and consideration, are things not
to be begged. They must be commanded: and they who supplicate for mercy
from others, can never hope for justice through themselves. What justice
they are to obtain, as the alms of an enemy, depends upon his character;
and that they ought well to know before they implicitly confide.