1823.) 
he for that reason always in the right, 
and you always in the wrong? If so, 
there is no need of arguing farther,— 
the very same plea which the reviewer 
here sets up for government, may be 
set up in favour of every crime all the 
world over; and so there is no need 
for a single word more. But, grant- 
ing that in all the measures in which 
government have the initiative, they 
are necessarily in the right ; then, ac- 
cording to the reviewer’s own showing, 
the opposition must, in all the mea- 
sures in which they have the initiative, 
be in the right too; and, in short, 
whatever is proposed by any one per- 
son or party should be instantly gone 
into by every other. The claims of 
the Catholics and Dissenters should 
be granted, Parliament should be re- 
formed, corporations and tithes should 
be abolished, the taxes should be re- 
duced, sinecures should be pitched to 
the deuce, and, to crown all, the Fo- 
reign Enlistment Bill should be re- 
ealed; and Britain, instead of a 
ankering, unnatural, and smuggled, 
regard for the Holy Alliance, should 
instantly shake hands with the Spanish 
patriots,—the Spanish people: be- 
cause all these have had their “ initia- 
tive” with the opposition, and been 
resisted by the government; therefore 
in all these cases the opposition must 
be in the right, and the government in 
the wrong. ‘This reviewer is really a 
wise one,—a wight 
“To suckle fools, and chronicle small 
eer. 
The fact is that, to give him two of 
Spain. 
99 
tive but the good of his country ; your 
ministerial man may have that, but he 
must have something else; therefore 
the great bulk of the people,—discount- 
ing of course those who are paid for 
their opinions, and whose opinions of 
course go for nothing,—have always 
thought, and always must think, that 
the opposition are generally in the 
right, and the government in the 
wrong; and in no case has this opi- 
nion, — discounting as aforesaid,— 
been more unanimous than in the 
case of Spain. 
So perfect, indeed, is this unanimity, 
that we hold it as being perfectly de- 
monstrative of the enormity of the 
Holy Alliance. We pointed out a few 
features of the enormity some time 
ago, and also noticed one or two of 
the probable causes; to these we shall 
not accordingly revert, in the mean 
time, farther than to say, that every 
step which has been taken in the busi-' 
ness tends to prove more clearly that 
this enormity is not the voluntary and’ 
individual act of. the French govern- 
ment; but forms.a part of that plan, 
for -keeping the’ world in slavery, 
which was made by the one despot (for 
the others are mere tools in his hands) 
of the North, who may very natu- 
rally quarrel with her for so doing; 
and, ere long, we may expect to see 
the banks of the Seine, the Loire, and 
the Rhone, peopled with Cossacks, and 
the light which dawned upon France 
at the Revolution veiled in the shades 
of polar night. If, on the other hand, 
France continues the war, she must 
the words, if it be not possible to give_Aecome so exhausted, that she will not. 
him any of the meaning, of logic,— have the weight of a feather in the 
the measures of the government issue 
from them absolute, and they are ‘right 
secundum quid; and it so happens in 
this case of their conduct to the Spa- 
niards, that the whole evidence of 
sound writers upon national law, and 
rational and unfettered thinkers in the 
country, are against them. Canning’s 
opinion is not in itself one jot better 
than the opinion of Brougham, or 
Mackintosh, or Burdett, or Macdo- 
nald, or Abercromby; and it cannot 
be given just so freely, because there 
is such a thing as a man’s losing his 
place. In like manner, Liverpool’s 
opinion is not a jot better than Grey’s; 
and the latter is free, while the former 
may be fettered. Your opposition- 
man has nothing to sway him in those 
measures of which he has the initia- 
2 
general councils of Europe. The war 
against Spain is far different from her 
wars at the Revolution, or under Bo- 
naparte. In the former, she had the 
name and the stimulus of liberty to 
cheer her on; and, in the latter, the 
burden of the war fell upon the 
enemy. France herself was spared, 
except in conscriptions of men, lived 
in peace, and waxed rich, while her 
armies were overrunning the territo- 
ries, and consuming. the revenues, of 
all the states on the Continent. Inthe 
present case, it is far different: the 
resources of France are exhausted by 
a double, or rather by a triple, drain, 
—the direct support of her own in-- 
vading army, the support of her parti- 
zans in Spain, and the. sums that are 
constantly expended in corrupting, or 
attempting 
