true glory, if fpringing from juft and right; but it is truly dreadful if it be an arm of Styx, which springs out of the profoundeft depths of a poifoned foil. 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 leaft difgufted or difcouraged by the monftrous evils, which have attended these maxims from the moment of their adoption, both at home and abroad, they ftill continue to predict, that in due time they muft produce the greateft good to the poor human race. They obftinately perfift in ftating those evils as matter of accident; as things wholly collateral to the fyftem.

It is obferved, that this party has never spoken of an ally of Great Britain with the smallest degree of refpect or regard; on the contrary, it has generally mentioned them under opprobrious appellations, and in fuch terms of contempt or execra tion, as never had been heard before, becaufe no fuch would have formerly been permitted in our public affemblies. The moment, however, that any of thofe allies quitted this obnoxious connexion, the party has inftantly paffed an act of indemnity and oblivion in their favour. After

this,

this, no fort of cenfure on their conduct; no imputation on their character! From that moment their pardon was fealed in a reverential and mysterious filence. 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 ceafe. She became in an inftant dear to our affections, and one with our interefts. All other nations we ought to have commanded not to trouble her facred throes, whilft in la-. bour to bring into an happy birth her abundant litter of conftitutions. We ought to have acted under her aufpices, in extending her falutary influence upon every fide. From that moment England and France were become natural allies, and all the other States natural enemies. The whole face of the world was changed. What was it to us if the acquired Holland and the Auftrian Netherlands? By her conquefts fhe only enlarged the sphere of her beneficence; fhe only extended the bleffings of liberty to fo many more foolishly reluctant nations. What was it to England, if by adding thefe, among the richest and most peopled

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countries of the world, to her territories, fhe thereby left no poffible link of communication between us and any other Power with whom we could act against her? On this new fyftem of optimism, it is fo much the better;-fo much the further are we removed from the contact with infectious defpotifm. No longer a thought of a barrier in the Netherlands to Holland against France. All that is obfolete policy. It is fit that France should have both Holland and the Auftrian Netherlands too, as a barrier to her against the attacks of defpotifm. She cannot multiply her fecurities too much; and as to our fecurity, it is to be found in her's. Had we cherished her from the beginning, and felt for her when attacked, fhe, poor good foul, would never have invaded any foreign nation; never murdered her Sovereign and his family; never profcribed, never exiled, never imprifoned, never been guilty of extrajudicial maffacre, or of legal murder. All would have been a golden age, full of peace, order, and liberty! and philofophy, raying out from Europe, would have warmed and en-lightened the univerfe: but unluckily, irritable philofophy, the most irritable of all things, was put into a paffion, and provoked into ambition abroad and tyranny at home. They find all this very natural and very juftifiable. They chufe to forget, that other nations ftruggling for freedom, have been attacked by their neighbours; or that their

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their neigbours have otherwife interfered in their affairs. Often have neighbours interfered in favour of Princes against their rebellious fubjects; and often in favour of fubjects against their Prince. Such cafes fill half the pages of history, yet never were they used as an apology, much less as a juftification, for atrocious cruelty in Princes, or for general maffacre and confifcation on the part of revolted fubjects; never as a politick caufe for fuffering any fuch powers to aggrandize themselves without limit and without measure. A thousand times have we feen it afferted in publick prints and pamphlets, that if the nobility and priesthood of France had ftaid at home, their property never would have been confifcated. One would think that none of the clergy had been robbed previous to their deportation, or that their deportation had, on their part, been a voluntary act. One would think that the nobility and gentry, and merchants and bankers, who ftaid at home, had enjoyed their property in fecurity and repofe. The affertors of thefe pofitions well know, that the lot of thoufands who remained at home was far more terrible; that the moft cruel imprisonment was only a harbinger of a cruel and ignominious death; and that in this mother country of freedom, there were no lefs than Three Hundred Thousand at one time in prifon. I go no further. I inftance only these representations of

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the party as ftaring indications of partiality to that fect, to whose dominion they would have left this country nothing to oppofe but her own naked force, and confequently fubjected us, on every reverse of fortune, to the imminent danger of falling under thofe very evils in that very fyftem, which are attributed,, not to it's own nature, but to the perverfenefs of others. There is nothing in the world fo difficult as to put men in a state of judicial neutrality. A leaning there must ever be, and it is of the first importance to any nation to observe to what fide that leaning inclineswhether to our own community or to one with which it is in a ftate of hoftility.

Men are rarely without fome fympathy in the fufferings of others; but in the immenfe and diverfified mafs of human mifery, which may be pitied, but cannot be relieved, in the grofs, the mind must make a choice. Our fympathy is always more forcibly attracted towards the misfortunes of certain perfons, and in certain defcriptions: and: this fympathetic attraction difcovers, beyond a poffibility of miftake, our mental affinities, and elective affections. It is a much furer proof, than the ftrongeft declaration, of a real connexion and of an over-ruling bias in the mind. I am told that the active fympathies of this party have been chiefly, if not wholly attracted to the sufferings of the patriarchal

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