like those I have been alluding to, the asserters of high principles of government, men who suppose themselves the defenders of order, of the peace of the community, of the morals, virtues, and religion of mankind, so do these men disgrace their cause, by denouncing the asserters of freedom under whatever form they appear; and by imputing to them exclusively, the evils which may be produced by various untoward and unexpected contingencies, such as occur in human affairs, and such as are mainly produced, it must be added, by the asserters of high principles themselves, who will show no timely sympathy with the best interests of the community; who will improve nothing; who neither know nor can be taught their own duties, and the rights of their fellow-creatures; who are callous to every representation that can be made to them; and who exercise their ingenuity, like Mr. Windham, only to justify abuses, disguise oppression, and ridicule those sacred feelings of the human heart, for which men have died in dungeons, or perished on the scaffold, or in the field.

Of this unhappy indisposition to all generous and elevated wisdom in those who bore rule in France and on the continent, the whole of the history of the French Revolution gives ample testimony; the whole is unintelligible without taking this circumstance into account. I cannot exhibit to you the detail, but I would wish to leave upon your memory the leading points which I have mentioned :-that, first, the maxim of the higher

orders was, "all or nothing;' "tout ou rien," that is, at all

events, a counter-revolution; secondly, that they ruined Necker's measure of the 23rd of June, 1789; thirdly, that they produced the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick; and fourthly, that La Fayette was never treated, neither his motives nor his conduct, with even the common decency of candour and justice. Dumourier, indeed, who joined the Jacobins in the crisis of their fate, after the 10th of August, and was the chief reason why La Fayette failed, and was obliged to fly,-Dumourier, indeed, was received, and died in honour, or something like it, in England, for he had not originally asserted the cause of freedom; but La Fayette, who had been guilty of first feeling for the situation of his country, though he hazarded his life afterwards for the monarchy, was left unpitied in his dungeon, from which he was only at last rescued by the very republicans of France, whose opinions he had endeavoured to put down.

Such was then the general tone and manner of the rulers of France and of the continent, whenever their real dispositions

could be seen. We say, that this conduct never ceased to be blameable in the high party of France from the first of the Revolution; in the allied courts, not clearly from the first, but decidedly more and more imprudent as the Revolution proceeded, and at last totally indefensible: for the publication of the Duke of Brunswick's manifesto, when coupled with a positive invasion of the country, left no hope in the minds of intelligent men for the interests of mankind, but in the disgrace of their counsels, and the defeat of their armies. And having called your attention to such particulars as I have mentioned, it is in vain to refer to the prior manifestoes and state papers that issued from the combined powers. Nothing can be more reasonable and true than the descriptions they give of the ferocious party in France, and particularly in Paris; and nothing more reasonable and true than the observations they make in their able manifesto of the 4th of August, 1792, on the French Revolution :

First, As it personally regarded his Most Christian majesty— which is the first part of the manifesto.

Secondly, As it respected the French nation.

Thirdly, As it respected the princes of Germany who have possessions in France.

Fourthly, As it respects the tranquillity of Europe, and the happiness of all nations.

You will see this state paper in the Annual Register, and it well deserves your study.

All this must be admitted; but observe what the whole comes to. After we have assented to the sentiments expressed, and to the blame imputed to the French patriots and rulers, observe the result; observe how frightful is the close of the whole subject, contained in the last paragraph. In this paragraph it is declared, "that the allied powers were resolved to procure to the king perfect security in some frontier town of his kingdom, and the means of collecting there his family, and the princes his brothers, until his Most Christian majesty could enter his capital with honour, and enjoy there the satisfaction of seeing his subjects repent, of conferring new favours upon them, of granting them real liberty, and consequently of finding them submissive to his supreme authority." This was to say, in other words, that they were resolved upon effecting an entire and unlimited counter-revolution; and it well behoved those of the king's subjects, who were not disposed to "repent," or be "submissive to his supreme authority," to consider how they or their country

were likely to be affected by such a change, as would evidently be produced by the success of the arms of such mediators between them and their sovereign.

And now I must make one observation more, not on the want of all elevation in the sentiment, but on the want of all policy in the conduct of the combined powers. Could anything but these continual denunciations, issued against the popular party; could anything but the expected invasion; could anything but the visible and immediate approach of the combined armies have enabled the Girondists, and still more the dreadful demagogues of Paris, to have created such a fervour of opposition, such a determination from the first to resist, and successfully to resist, or to die?

In writers on each side of the question, the revolutionary tide is said to have continually rolled on, so that all opposition to it was vain; and the more modern writers, Mignet and Thiers, the most able of all, have even resolved the whole, very strangely, into a sort of necessity, from which it would have been as useless for the actors in the scene to have endeavoured to escape, as from a decree of Providence. But from whence arose this steadiness and impetuosity of the current; whence but from the language and practices, however intended, of the combined powers; whence but from the terror, that could thus be infused into the people, of a counter-revolution? How came it, that the revolutionary friends of Paris could always engage on their side the physical strength of the population; that even in the interior as well as Paris, imprisonments, murders, everything and anything was tolerated that was proclaimed to be necessary to what was called the public safety; in other words, that was necessary to the beating back the enemies of the Revolution, and to the prevention, at all events, of any counter-revolution? Men may lead assemblies and committees, but they must have some appeal to their hearts, some fulcrum on which to rest their engines.

The democratic writer, Bailleul, a member of the Assembly, and a sufferer for some time in one of the prisons, goes through all the dreadful scenes of the Revolution; seems calm and undisturbed; rejects all explanations; and continually refers to some mysterious solution of the whole which is present to his own mind, which seems to reconcile him to every event, and which he condescends not to impart to his reader. If there really be any sense or meaning in this species of ineffable secret (and he is an able writer), what is it but this-that the people had got

so inflamed with the love of liberty, so determined on their Revolution, that no other notion could find access to their feelings, and that every other consideration, human and divine, disappeared at the very approach of it; that the whole community had got into this tremendous situation by the incessant action of hope, of irritation, impatience of opposition, terror of the loss of their object, indignation and rage at their enemies; that the popular leaders and the populace on this occasion were as little in a state of sanity or reflection, as those who are goaded on by the fury of delirious feelings.

I do not think this account at all unreasonable: it is the solution to which the phenomena lead. But in this solution is involved the impolicy, and the objectionable nature of the political opinions of the allied powers and the higher orders in France, who by their menaces, invectives, and hostile demonstrations, never suffered the French people to be at ease about their Revolution, never to get cool; kept urging on the tide with fresh waters of bitterness continually supplied; and at last, by the Duke of Brunswick's manifesto, and by their open invasion, summoned forth all the demons of the storm-terror, and indignation, and hate-to lash the waves into madness. This is no unfair picture of the state of Paris and of France during the months of August and September, 1792. And while the allied powers and all Europe expected that the Duke of Brunswick would have marched to Paris, the demagogues, in and out of the city, could have sent thousands and tens of thousands to perish, like insects that extinguish a flame by their expiring myriads, rather than a counter-revolution should have been effected.

This is not to justify the leaders of the Revolution at this period; this is not to say, that many motives may not have affected their conduct besides those now described; but it is to explain the sources of their influence and power; to exhibit the impolicy of their enemies; to show the means that were put unwarily into their hands; the appeal that they could always make not only to the wild and bad passions of their mobs, but to the reflection of the community. Nor is it now denied, that the early patriots originally, and from the first, gave occasion to irritated and very unfriendly feelings in the combined powers; but when these powers became in their turn unreasonable and violent, and hostile to the very name of freedom, making no excuses for the nature of human passions, and not understanding the rights and fair claims of their fellow-creatures, a reaction was

produced, marked by the most tremendous excesses and astonishing events, and for which no solution sufficiently adequate and comprehensive can be given, but that which is thus submitted to your consideration.

From the whole of this lecture, then, you will bear away this impression that while you are justly detesting the faults and execrating the crimes of the popular party in this French Revolution, you are not to be insensible to the faults of their opponents; that as freedom has had its friends, who managed its cause ill-I condescend not to allude to the low party of the Jacobins-so has it had its enemies, who would not have acceded to its cause, however managed and however recommended to them; that as there are in men popular feelings, that lead to nothing but disorder, misery, and bloodshed, so are there too often in men, elevated by rank, and improved by education, high notions of government, that are quite inconsistent with the rights of mankind; and finally, that as I have presumed in prior lectures to blame the faults of the former description of men, I have thought it but equal justice in the present lecture to bear humble testimony against those of the latter.

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LECTURE XXXIII.

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE KING.

WHEN the Duke of Brunswick, to the astonishment of Europe, was repulsed, and the enemy was now cleared away, the cause of the Revolution was triumphant. The Convention were sitting undisturbed, and without an opponent; the republic was established; the cause of royalty at an end; the king and his family prisoners in the Temple. Here, then, was an opportunity for this great nation to have exhibited still further the virtues of the new character they had assumed, the character of a new republic. It was for the popular leaders now really to have displayed in practice those high qualities of grandeur and magnanimity which resounded in their speeches, and which, they knew, had so often distinguished those free governments of antiquity which they affected to imitate and admire. But nothing could ever less deserve the name of magnanimity, than the conduct they now pursued. Their king, surrounded by his family, was before them, disarmed and helpless they had dethroned him, and committed him to one of