red by a man with
a white feather in his hat, or by one with a nightcap on his head? If
there could be any difference, the solemnity with which the thing was
done was an aggravation of the insult. The poorer sort of the French
could plead distress, and could also say that they had endured the
hardships, the toils, and the perils of a winter campaign. But here
was nothing but a naked robbery, without any part taken in the
calamity which gave birth to it. He had alluded to these things merely
for the purpose of giving the Minister an opportunity of disapproving
of them: he hoped he should not hear the principle avowed. Crowned
heads, he thought, were at present led by some fatal infatuation to
degrade themselves and injure mankind. But some, it seems, regard
any atrocity in monarchs as if it had lost its nature by not being
committed by low and vulgar agents. A head with a crown, and a head
with a nightcap, totally altered the moral quality of actions--robbery
was no longer robbery--and death, inflicted by a hand wielding a pike,
or swaying a sceptre, was branded as murder, or regarded as innocent.
This was a fatal principle to mankind, and monstrous in the extreme.
He had lamented early the change of political sentiments in this
country which indisposed Englishmen to the cause of liberty. The worst
part of the revolution in France is, that they have disgraced the
cause they pretended to support. However, none, he was persuaded,
would deny that it was highly expedient to know the extent of our
alliance with Powers who had acted so recently in the manner he
had represented, and to have the object of our pursuit in this war
distinctly known. The Minister may perhaps in future come down to the
House, and say he is sorry, but it has become highly necessary to
interfere with the power of Britain farther, as the crowned ladies and
gentlemen of Europe cannot agree about the partition of France, or
that such a disposition is about to take place, that we shall be worse
off than if we had let France remain as it was. Those who feared the
attachment of men to French principles, argued wrong. From the effect
of the experiment they would never be popular: nothing but crimes and
misery swelled all the accounts from that country. If the peasant
had been represented happy and contented, dancing in his vineyard,
surrounded with a prosperous and innocent family, if such accounts had
come, the tidings would have been gladly received. At pres