That day was, I fear, the fatal term of LOCAL patriotism. On that day,
I fear, there was an end of that narrow scheme of relations called our
country, with all its pride, its prejudices, and its partial affections.
All the little quiet rivulets, that watered an humble, a contracted,
but not an unfruitful field, are to be lost in the waste expanse, and
boundless, barren ocean of the homicide philanthropy of France. It is
no longer an object of terror, the aggrandizement of a new power, which
teaches as a professor that philanthropy in their chair; whilst it
propagates by 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 favourite
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 discouraged by
the monstrous evils, which have attended these maxims from the moment of
their adoption both at home and abroad, they still continue to predict,
that in due time they must produce the greatest good to the poor human
race. They obstinately persist in stating those evils as matter of
accident; as things wholly collateral to the system. It is observed,
that this party has never spoken of an ally of Great Britain with the
smallest degree of respect or regard; on the contrary, it has generally
mentioned them under opprobrious appellations, and in such terms of
contempt or execration, as never had been heard before, because no such
would have formerly been permitted in our public assemblies. The moment,
however, that any of those allies quitted this obnoxious connection,
the party has instantly passed an act of indemnity and oblivion in their
favour. After this, no sort of censure on their conduct; no imputation
on their character! From that moment their pardon was sealed in a
reverential and mysterious silence. With the gentlemen of this minority,
there is no ally, from one end of Europe to the other, with whom we
ought not to be ashamed to act. The whole college of the states of
Europe is no better than a gang of tyrants. With them all our connexions
were broken off at once. We ought to have cultivated France, and France
alone, from the moment of her revolution. On that happy change, all our
dread of that nation as a power was to cease. She became in an instant
dear to our affections, and one with our interests. All other nations
we ought to have commanded not to trouble her sacred throes, whilst in
labour to bring into a happy birth her abundant litter of constitutions.