S86 Topic of the 



ment of the revolt of what were once 

 the British colonies in North America, 

 the occasions of w ar were usually the 

 disputes and jealousies of kings, or for 

 a considerable time a struggle between 

 the old Lady of Eabjlon and the Re- 

 formed Church: and, as the people 

 had nothing whatever to do with the 

 former, but to pay their money and 

 shed their blood, and as the interest 

 of the latter was to a certain degree 

 vague or hypothetical, they could have 

 no deep or personal interest either in 

 the contest or its result ; farther than 

 that esprit du pays, which makes peo- 

 ple huzza and toss up their caps when 

 their side gains, and hang their heads 

 and look gloomy when their side loses. 

 The American war, however, exhi- 

 bited for the first time (except per- 

 haps the civil war in England,) govern- 

 ment and people arrayed against each 

 other; and, which was stranger still, it 

 saw the most despotic gnvernments of 

 Europe arranged on the side of the 

 people, against that government which 

 had unquestionably much more both 

 of the principles and the practice of 

 freedom in it than their own. Such a 

 combination naturally led the people 

 who lived under those despotisms to 

 think that themselves had such things 

 as rights ; and tliat, if their monarchs 

 volunteered considerable expense for 

 the establishment of liberty in a dis- 

 tant country, to the inhabitants of 

 which they owed nothing, then, d 

 fortiori, they could not very well refuse 

 liberty to those by whom they were 

 supported, when it was sought for, and 

 would cost them nothing. The peo- 

 ple of the Continent evidently did not 

 see that this support of liberty arose 

 not from any love of that which they 

 supported, but of hatred of that against 

 which their rancour was directed ; and 

 the kings themselves, in the ardent 

 prosecution ot their old dislike of the 

 liberal govcrn-nent of tbii country, lost 

 sight of the fact that they themselves 

 were sowing the seeds of something 

 more liberal still. The result soon 

 came out, however, in the actual revo- 

 lution in France, and the disposition 

 to a more liberal system of govern- 

 ment in all the nations of Europe. The 

 weakness and vacillation of the French 

 government, now bowing to liberty 

 and now cleaving to the old leaven of 

 despotism, made that revolution gene- 

 ral and violent which a more firm and 

 wise administration might have ren- 

 dered a happy and bloodless reform ; 

 and the events which follgwedinTolved 



Month. [3 ure i, 



all the world in the strife, and, ulti- 

 mately, made it not a contest between 

 kings and people, as it had been at the 

 commencement, but a mere scramble 

 as to whether the old and heavy des- 

 potisms should still rot away their 

 years and their revenues in intrigues, 

 plots, debaucheries, and squabbles"with 

 each other, or should all tumble down 

 in the dust before one gigantic idol of 

 military despotism, which, having by 

 accident armed itself with the awa- 

 kened energies of the people, threat- 

 ened to cut their sceptres asunder 

 with a sabre red in the blood of their 

 minions. 



The despots were enabled, by the 

 gold and the arms of this country, to 

 protract the struggle till the people of 

 France, and of the other countries to 

 whom the earlier years of the revolu- 

 tion had given freedom, found that, 

 though theirs was still the labour and 

 the waste of life, the advantage was 

 no longer to them ; but that every new 

 victory called for a fresh levy of mo- 

 ney, and a fresh conscription of men ; 

 and that no eye could see the end of 

 that vista of ambition which had been 

 opened. This discovery withdrew the 

 support of their hearts; and, when that 

 was once gone, the support of the hand 

 became feeble, and was soon over- 

 powered. The despots, however, did 

 not see, or rather did not choose to see, 

 this; and so, instead of leaguing them- 

 selves for the prevention of another 

 military despotism, they wreaked the 

 whole of their vengeance on their 

 people. They had not in themselves 

 the capacity of discovering, and it was 

 unquestionably not the interest of 

 their ministers to tell them, that there 

 had been for a long time, in the Rus- 

 sian government, symptoms of grasp- 

 ing at an universal sway, which would 

 be far more -barbarous and abomina- 

 ble than that of any other nation on 

 the face of the earth ; and so looking 

 lor their danger, as weak and ignorant 

 persons generally look, in any quarter 

 rather than that where it really is, 

 they turned their fears and precautions 

 wholly against those people by whose 

 labour they were supported. In order 

 to prevent the recurrence of that 

 which, as they imagined, had been the 

 cause of their dangers, they formed 

 that holy league, which is nut only to 

 prevent any person of more talent and 

 energy than themselves, from aspiring 

 to a throne ; but which, by making all 

 power throughout continental Europe 

 emanate from, and continue ^yith, 

 themselves 



