nies, above the ability of the people. In particular, our then fovereigns, King Charles and King James, fell in love with the government of their neighbour, fo flattering to the pride of kings. A fimilarity of fentiments brought on connections equally dangerous to the interefts and liberties of their country. It were well that the infection had gone no farther than the throne. The admiration of a government flourishing and fuccefsful, unchecked in its operations, and feeming therefore to compats its objects more fpecdily and effectually, gained fomething upon all ranks of people. The good patriots of that day, however, ftruggled against it. They fought nothing more anxiously than to break off all communication with France, and to beget a total alienation from its councils and its example, which, by the animofity prevalent between the abettors of their religious fyftem and the affertors of ours, was, in fome degree, effected.

This day the evil is totally changed in France: but there is an evil there. The difeafe is altered; but the vicinity of the two countries remains, and muft remain; and the natural mental habits of mankind are fuch, that the prefent diftemper of France is far more likely to be contagious than the old one; for it is not quite eafy to fpread a paffion for fervitude among the people: but in all evils of the oppofite kind our natural inclinations are flattered. In the case of defpotifm there is the fadum crimen fervitutis; in the laft the falja fpecies libertatis, and accordingly, as the hiftorian fays, prouis auribus accipitur.

In the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of France in the net of a relentless defpotifm. It is not neceffary to fay any thing upon that example. It exifts no longer. Our prefent danger from the example of a people, whole character knows no medium, is, with re

gard

gard to government, a danger from anarchy; a dan ger of being led through an admiration of fuccefsful fraud and violence, to an imitation of the exceffes of an irrational, unprincipled, profcribing, confifcating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy. On the fide of religion, the danger of their example is no longer from intolerance, but from atheism; a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and confolation of mankind; which feems in France, for a long time, to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and almost avowed.

These are our prefent dangers from France: but, in his opinion, the very worst part of the example fet, is in the late affumption of citizenfhip by the army, and the whole of the arrangement, or rather difarrangement of their military.

He was forry that his right honourable friend (Mr. Fox) had dropped even a word expreffive of exultation on that circumftance; or that he feemed of opinion that the objection from standing armies was at all leffened by it. He attributed this opinion of Mr. Fox entirely to his known zeal for the best of all caufes, Liberty. That it was with a pain inexpreffible he was obliged to have even the fhadow of a difference with his friend, whofe authority would be always great with him, and with all thinking people-Que maxima femper cenfetur nobis, et erit que maxima femper -His confidence in Mr. Fox was fuch, and so ample, as to be almost implicit. That he was not afhamed to avow that degree of docility. That when the choice is well made, it ftrengthens inftead of opprefling our intellect. That he who calls in the aid of an equal understanding, doubles his own. He who profits of a fuperior understanding, raises his powers to a level with the height of the fuperior underftanding he unites with. He had found the benefit of fuch a junction, and would not lightly depart from it. He wished almoft, on all occafions,

that

that his fentiments were understood to be conveyed in Mr. Fox's words; and that he wished, as amongst the greatest benefits he could with the country, an eminent share of power to that right honourable gentleman; because he knew that, to his great and mafterly understanding, he had joined the greateft poffible degree of that natural moderation, which is the beft corrective of power; that he was of the most artlefs, candid, open, and benevolent difpofition: difinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable, even to a fault, without one drop of gall in his whole conftitution.

That the houfe muft perceive, from his coming forward to mark an expreffion or two of his best friend, how anxious he was to keep the diftemper of France from the leaft countenance in England, where he was fure fome wicked perfons had fhewn a ftrong dif pofition to recommend an imitation of the French fpirit of reform. He was fo ftrongly oppofed to any the leaft tendency towards the means of introducing a democracy like theirs, as well as to the end itself, that much as it would afflict him, if such a thing could be attempted, and that any friend of his could concur in fuch measures, (he was far, very far, from believing they could); he would abandon his bett friends, and join with his worst enemies to oppofe either the means or the end; and to refift all violent exertions of the fpirit of innovation, fo diftant from all principles of true and fafe reformation; a fpirit well calculated to overturn ftates, but perfectly unfit to amend them.

That he was no enemy to reformation. Almoft every business in which he was much concerned, from the first day he fat in that houfe to that hour, was a bufinefs of reformation; and when he had not been employed in correcting, he had been employed in refifting abufes. Some traces of this fpirit in him now ftand on their ftatute book. In his

opinion,

2

opinion, any thing which unneceffarily tore to pieces the contexture of the ftate, not only prevented all real reformation, but introduced evils which would call, but, perhaps, call in vain, for new teformation.

That he thought the French nation very unwife. What they valued themselves on, was a difgrace to them. They had gloried (and, fome people in England had thought fit to take fhare in that glory) in making a revolution; as if revolutions were good things in themfelves. All the horrors, and all the crimes of the anarchy which led to their revolution, which attend its progrefs, and which may virtually atterid it in its citablishment, pafs, for nothing with the lovers of revolutions. The French have made their way through the deftruction of their country, to a bad conftitution, when they were abfolutely in poffeffion of a good one. They were in poffeffion of it the day the ftates met in feparate orders. Their bufinefs, had they been either virtuous, or wife, dr had been left to their own judgment, was to fecure the Stability and independence of the ftates, according to thofe orders, under the monarch on the throne. It was then their duty to redrefs grievances.

Inftead of redrelling grievances, and improving the fabric of their ftate, to which they were called by their monarch, and fent by their country, they were made fo take a very different eburfe. They firft deftroyed all the balances and counterpoifes which ferve to fix the state, and to give it a fteady direction; and which furnish fure correctives to any violent fpirit which

ay prevail in any of the orders. Thefe balances exifted in their oldeft conftitution; and in the conftitution of this country; and in the conftitution of all the countries in Europe, Thefe they rafhly deftroyed, and then they melted down the whole into one incongruous, ill-connected mafs.

Whet

When they had done this, they instantly, with the moft atrocious perfidy and breach of all faith among men, laid the axe to the root of all property, and confequently of all national profperity, by the principles they established, and the example they fet, in confifcating all the poffeffions of the church. They made and recorded a fort of inftitute and digeft of anarchy,, called the rights of man, in fuch a pedantie abufe of élementary principles as would have difgraced boys at fchool; but this declaration of rights was worfe than trifling and pedantic in them, as by their name and authority they fyftematically destroyed every hold of authority by opinion, religious or civil, on the thinds of the people. By this mad declaration they fubverted the state; and brought on fuch calamities as to country, without a long war, has ever been known to fuffer, and which may in the end produce fuch a war, and, perhaps, many fuch.

With them the question was not between defpotifm and liberty. The facrifice they made of the peace and power of their country was not made on the altar of freedom. Freedom, and a better fecurity for freedom than that they fave taken, they might have had without any facrifice at all. They brought themfelves into all the calamities they fuffer, not that through them they might obtain a British conftitution; they plunged themfelves headlong into thofe calamities, to prevent them felves from fetfling into that constitution, or into any thing resemb ling it.

That if they should perfectly fucceed in what they propofe, as they are likely enough to do, and efti blifh a democracy, or a mob of democracies, in a country circumftanced like France, they will eitablish a very bad government-a very bad fpecies of tyranny.

That, the worst effect of all their proceeding was on their military, which was rendered an army for

every