the generosity of the feeling; the disdain of everything shifting, shuffling, and base; the contempt of all the expedients of low cunning, and vulgar policy; the magnanimous frankness, the simple wisdom, the elevated love of freedom, the benevolent love of peace, the detestation of all interference with the rights of others, however imposing the form, or plausible the pretext. Mr. Fox thought that the liberties of his own country were endangered by the measures that the government were adopting, and sanctioning under the influence of alarm; Mr. Pitt thought there was no other chance of preserving these liberties. The student must decide. Mr. Fox thought that the liberties of England and mankind would be at an end, if the allied powers succeeded in putting down the Revolution in France, and that it was for England on no account to participate in the shame and guilt of so atrocious an enterprise. Mr. Pitt was not disposed to admit that we were going to be engaged in any such enterprise, but he maintained, that the proceedings and principles of the French leaders must be resisted. "They are then best resisted by peace," said Mr. Fox. "By war," said Mr. Pitt, 66 nor can we avoid it." "You use no proper means," rejoined Mr. Fox," to avoid it." The student must judge between these distinguished statesmen; and if he takes the trouble I have proposed to him, he may.

A question now remains behind, which will certainly be asked by those who accede to the war system of Mr. Pitt,-Could we ultimately have escaped the war? If not entered upon in the beginning of 1793, must it not have been entered into in 1794? Would the violence and revolutionary spirit of the Jacobins have left us any alternative? To this, the answer seems to be, that the uncertainty of human affairs is at all times great, and particularly during the period of the Revolution of France; that it could not be just to go to war upon presumptions like these; that the objection supposes a better case hereafter; that this case must then be waited for; that no war can be lawful, till such last and best case arrives-the case of clear and strict necessity. War is not to be made sure of, but rather the chances of peace. We were in no such situation as has sometimes occurred; when a weaker nation must anticipate war, against a stronger, even as the last and best hope of safety. Our resources were great, and we were in no fear.

It would be to partake of the party violence of the times, to accuse Mr. Pitt of being unfriendly to the liberties of mankind, still less to those of his own country; no doubt he thought he

was acting in the defence of both; but the crisis was of the most singular nature, and his remedy was war; was this prudent? He meant to resist the new opinions; was war the best mode? to weaken the influence, and to destroy, if possible, the Jacobins; was war the best expedient? Did not war, on the contrary, throw everything into the hands of the Jacobins, who could thus identify their power and their measures with the defence of the country? He meant to support our establishments; was war the best means of doing so? What danger could they run, as the people had shown their attachment to them, but from the increase of the national debt? There might be difficulty in the case from the extraordinary nature of the times, from the folly and fury of the French Convention, passing decrees by acclamation, amid the uproar of a revolution, and the intoxication of success on the repulse of an invading enemy; but was he to accommodate himself to such extraordinary times or not, for the sake of peace, and of such considerations, as we have mentioned? Was he not, as Mr. Fox advised, at least to negotiate; at least, to state our wrongs, and demand redress from those who were alone competent to afford it? Is it any answer to say with Dr. Marsh, that this would have been to betray fear, and could not have been successful; or with Mr. Burke, and the furious people of these times, that it was impossible to negotiate with ruffians and assassins? These are the questions which the student must ask himself, and Mr. Pitt's fame as a minister must depend on the answer. That his intentions were the best, there can be no doubt; but this is not sufficient. Mr. Pitt has been celebrated as the pilot that weathered the storm; but the storm is the national debt, and is not weathered. In great and perilous conjunctures, ill fares it with a land, where its rulers are men, accustomed to give the law, with haughtiness in their temperament, and eloquence in their tongue; conscious of commanding talents, with all the imposing merits, but all the dangerous faults of genius. "Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia."-Prudence is the one thing needful in a minister. Walpole in our own country, Washington in America, men of calm minds and circumspect understandings; this is the description of men that can alone be intrusted, on critical occasions, with the interests of their own country and the welfare of mankind; the patrons of mild government, the votaries of peace.

After all, it is possible that war might have been avoided by both countries, if the popular party in France (that guilty party)

could but have behaved with any tolerable moderation and justice to their fallen monarch. The Duke of Brunswick's invasion and manifestoes, no doubt, were most unfortunate. But the allied powers had been driven back; the Convention had assembled, and seized and administered all the authority of the state; the supporters of the old opinions had been overpowered, had been taught to respect the convulsive strength, at least, of the wild democracy of France; and if a pause could but have now ensued, if the Jacobins could but have been now wise and magnanimous and just, or if the Girondists could but have prevailed, and if the king in consequence, and the royal family, had but been dismissed (to America for instance), it is possible that France and Europe might have been saved a long and dreadful series of the most appalling calamities;-it is possible, but it was no longer possible, when the Convention had not only brought to trial their benevolent and well-intentioned monarch (for such virtues were never denied him), but had even, with such intolerable cruelty, deliberately shed his blood; then, indeed, no terms were any longer to be kept with the new opinions, or their defenders. That a civil war would ensue in France (it did break out in La Vendée) was the general expectation; and even in England, such was the alarm created by the proselytizing spirit of the new opinions, such the indignation, detestation, and horror naturally produced by the 10th of August, the massacres of September, and above all, by the execution of the king, that all that could be done by the popular party, Mr. Fox at their head, was to attempt, and in vain attempt, to keep the two countries from going to war, and maintain, if possible, the existence of the free spirit, and free maxims of the constitution of England. Even to make these attempts at all, required all the exertions of the most transcendent eloquence, and the most resolute devotion to the general principles of freedom, amidst the impatient and indignant hatred of the very name of freedom that now generally prevailed, and that naturally resulted from the long-witnessed licentiousness of the mobs of Paris, and from the unprincipled reasonings and atrocious conduct of this upstart and merciless Convention. "With whom shall we treat?" was the question triumphantly asked, when peace with France was proposed; "ruffians, banditti in their cave," were the only appellations that could be found for her rulers; and all Europe, as in the times of the crusades, seemed now loosened from its hold, and ready to precipitate itself upon this one detested country. The leaders of the Revolution in France had therefore to defend

of

their Revolution against the world; the European governments were resolved, if possible, to put the Revolution down. Each party had their appropriate means of attack and defence; but the great calamity was, that the dispute, like other disputes among mankind, was to be decided by arms. The Revolutionists produced everywhere their doctrines, "liberty," "equality, "the rights of man,' "the abuses of government," "the miseries of mankind," which were all imputed to the tyranny their rulers, but they also produced their armies. Their opponents in like manner, while they insisted, in their manifestoes and reasonings, upon the wild anarchy and horrors that had followed the success of the new opinions in France, on the necessity of order, of the maintenance of the existing institutions of society, the distinctions of ranks, and the rights of property, omitted not to draw out their armies also, to enforce their arguments; and no crisis in the affairs of mankind, since the attack of the Roman empire by the northern nations, could ever be likened to the crisis which now ensued; for even the followers of Mahomet with their Koran, and their sword, as they came with an adverse faith, and uncongenial habits and manners, were not nearly such formidable opponents to the established governments and institutions of Europe, as were the French commissioners and generals, with irresistible military science, their innumerable hosts of soldiers totally reckless and prodigal of life, and their doctrines of liberty and equality (war to the palace, and peace to the cottage); so animating to themselves, so terrifying to their opponents, so plausible, so exciting, and so flattering wherever they turned, to all the most deeply-rooted prejudices and passions of the lower orders of society. This, then, is the contest, this the crisis, which you are now to consider. It was so from the first, in the opinion of Mr. Burke; undoubtedly it became so from the moment that the 10th of August, the invasion of the Duke of Brunswick, the massacres of September, and the execution of the king, had so entirely infuriated the contending parties, as to leave no sentiments in their bosoms, but those of mutual indignation, disgust, and terror of the success of each other, and to render all councils of moderation and peace, in their own opinion, at least, impossible.

LECTURE XXXVI.

GODWIN-1792, 1793.

THE French Revolution was a great crisis in the affairs of the world. On this crisis of the world we must dwell a little longer; we must endeavour to explain it a little further. It is in retrospects of this nature that the edification of history consists. This crisis was perceived by Mr. Burke very early. This was his merit, and a very extraordinary merit, and I have stated it to you. Whether he took the most skilful method to medicine the world is another question; but the situation of the world and its diseases he saw, he saw clearly; he was a political and he was a moral prophet: every thing appeared to him to have taken a wrong direction in politics, in manners, and in morals. The few extracts that I have made from his Reflections will show this very sufficiently. He published this work in the autumn of 1790, and every event and every appearance answered, and long continued to answer, his predictions. The new opinions prevailed; and as they more and more prevailed, they more and more departed from the old. In politics the great doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, in morals the great principle of utility, was each more and more misunderstood and caricatured; till at last, about the period we are now considering, there seemed no bounds to the speculations, or rather the aberrations, of the human mind. In my lecture on the reign of Louis XV., I mentioned to you the writings of Voltaire, of Montesquieu, of the authors of the Encyclopédie, and above all, of Rousseau; then those again of the materialists; finally, those of immoral and irreligious men, authors of the lowest description. All these, assisted by political circumstances, had produced their full effect in France on the minds and hearts of the generation of men, that were ready in all the vigour of rising manhood to take a part in the Revolution, when it oroke out in 1789. Whatever is felt in France soon circulates through Europe, and it was afterwards found, that wherever the French armies went, their work seemed already done; their admirers were ready, and a large party prepared to receive their new doctrines with acclamations and applause. Every thing was more or less in a state of restlessness and dissatisfaction, of distrust and alarm, in the old governments. How this state of things was to be remedied by