234] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



succession of events. Revolutions 

 in Europe were universally predict- 

 ed, after the great revolution in 

 America, yet they came sooner than 

 they were expected. Towards the 

 close of the eighteenth century, the 

 balance of political power was 

 overthrown : the world was sudden- 

 ly turned upside down. The au- 

 thority of religion, in some coun- 

 tries, was subverted. In others it 

 was tinged by new sentiment and 

 new political connections. The 

 Greek and Protestant churches, nay, 

 the Mahometans, were the patrons 

 of the pope, and the Catholic reli- 

 gion. The French nation, formerly 

 the first in devotion to the ladies, 

 the church, and the grand monarch, 

 departed from their refined gal- 

 lantry, and abandoned themselves 

 to mere sensuality ; they persecuted 

 the church, and they killed the 

 king. Generous sentiment and af- 

 fection in France,andother affiliated 

 democracies, waslostinselfishness,or, 

 according to their new word, egoism. 

 If their wild and savage common- 

 wealth could be realized, it would 

 exhibit a picture of men, walking, 

 like wanton school boys, on their 

 hands and head, instead of their 

 feet. 



This delirium, however, is not to 

 be of long continuance. The senti- 

 ments of nature must return. A 

 sense of duty is not to be eradi- 

 cated from the human mind. Nor 

 yet is a sense of religion from the 

 breasts of nations. The religious 

 sentiment already re-appears in 

 France. The present government 

 wisely fosters it. 



Yet in an age and nation, whose 

 only hope was in this world, and 

 whose chief good neither was, nor 

 could be, on their principles, any 

 other than sensual gratification, the 

 most intrepid courage was displayed 



not only in the field of battle, but 

 the more trying scenes of judicial 

 condemnation to death, and lega- 

 lized massacres. Never, in any 

 age or country, did so great a num- 

 ber of men and women display, at 

 any one period of their history, such 

 undaunted resolution, and such a 

 contempt of death. 



If so great a portion of the people 

 renounced religion and moral senti- 

 ment, the same profligate contempt 

 of both was apparent, and even 

 avowed, in the conduct of the rulers 

 of nations. The wars that had been 

 made from religious sympathies or 

 antipathies, attachments to particu- 

 lar families, and the preservation of 

 the political balance, were succeed- 

 ed by wars for sharing and dividing 

 the spoils of the weaker among the 

 stronger. This partitioning policy 

 was called a system of indemnities : 

 Indemnities not for any loss sustain- 

 ed, but to balance the robberies 

 committed by their neighbours. In- 

 stead of checking, as formerly, un- 

 principled aggression, from a wise 

 desire of maintaining the common- 

 wealth of Europe, pretty well set- 

 tled by the treaty of Westphalia, 

 great potentates winked at the ra- 

 pacity of one another, and then 

 urged the necessity of following 

 each other's example. So that, on 

 the whole, we cannot affirm, that 

 there has been, in our age, any 

 practical progress in religion and 

 morality. As to the former, it may 

 be questioned whether there be any 

 such thing as progress in religion. 

 Religions, in their movements, are 

 all rather retrograde. The noble 

 andanimating enthusiasm that con- 

 nects religious sects at their com- 

 mencement grows colder and colder, 

 and sinks at last into a dead indif- 

 ference. In vain do priests and 

 politicians whip and spur, and en- 



