HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



[97 



sill, though the present government 

 might remain ? He did not mean to 

 enter into any discussion of the cha- 

 racter of this extraordinary person ; 

 but he would ask, whether the his- 

 tory of the world, much less the 

 present state of France, moral or 

 civil, furnished a reasonable expec- 

 tation, that either accidents or new 

 convulsions would raise uptopower 

 some character, whose moderation 

 and justice might be more safely 

 reposed in ? 



As to the restoration of the house 

 of Bourbon, he would not enter 

 into what good could be expected 

 for England from such an event. 

 He would, in the teeth of all history 

 and experience, suppose it to be 

 auspicious, and confine himself to 

 its practicability. ,He might assume 

 the utter impossibility of such a 

 change, except by the success of 

 the confederacy. The whole pro- 

 perty of France, real or personal, 

 in the hands of its present possessors, 

 depended on the existence of the 

 present, or some similar govern- 

 ment. It was impossible to restore 

 the princes of the house of Bour- 

 bon, without restitution to those 

 who had been exiled in its defence, 

 which, in effect, raised up the whole 

 property in the nation to support 

 the republic, whatever they might 

 feel concerning its effects. In every 

 view, he disapproved the answer 

 that had been sent by ministers to 

 Buonaparte. It appeared to him to 

 be pregnant with danger, and to 

 entail an awful responsibility on 

 those who advised it, and those who 

 supported it. 



Mr. Pitt, the chancellor of the 

 exchequer and prime minister, con- 

 sidered the French revolution as the 

 severest trial which the visitation 



Vol. XLII. 



of Providence had ever yet inflicted 

 on the nations of the earth. But 

 he could not help reflecting with 

 satisfaction, that this country, even 

 under such a trial, had not only 

 been exempted from those calami- 

 ties which had covered almost 

 every other part of Europe, but ap- 

 peared to have been reserved as a 

 refuge and asylum to those who 

 fled from its persecution, as a bar- 

 rier to oppose its progress, and, 

 perhaps, ultimately as an instru- 

 ment to deliver the world from the 

 crimes and miseries which had at- 

 tended it. This outline, Mr. Pitt 

 filled up in a speech of great length. 

 Before any man could concur in 

 opinion with the learned gentleman 

 who had spoken last, Mr. Pitt con- 

 tended, that he must come within 

 one of the three following descrip- 

 tions: he must either believe that 

 the French revolution neither does 

 now exhibit, nor has at any time 

 exhibited, such circumstances of 

 danger, arising out of the very na- 

 ture of the system, and the internal 

 state of France, as to leave to fo- 

 reign powers no adequate ground 

 of security in negociation; or, se- 

 condly, he must be of opinion, that 

 the change, which had recently 

 taken place, had given that secu- 

 rity, which, in the former stages of 

 the revolution, was wanting; or, 

 thirdly, he must be one who, be- 

 lieving that the danger existed, 

 nevertheless thought, from his 

 view of the present pressure on the 

 country, from his view of its situa- 

 tion and prospects, compared with 

 those of the enemy, that we were, 

 with our eyes open, bound to ac- 

 cept inadequate security for every 

 thing that is valuable and sacred, 

 rather than endure the pressure, or 

 [H] 



