still
consider liberty an inestimable blessing, we must hate and detest
these principles. But more, I do not think they even exist in France;
they have there died the best of deaths, a death I am more pleased to
see than if it had been effected by a foreign force; they have stung
themselves to death, and died by their own poison. But the honourable
gentleman, arguing from experience of human nature, tells us that
Jacobin principles are such, that the mind that is once infected with
them, no quarantine, no cure can cleanse. Now if this be the case, and
that there are, according to Mr. Burke's statement, eighty thousand
incorrigible Jacobins in England, we are in a melancholy situation.
The right honourable gentleman must continue the war while one of the
present generation remains, and consequently we cannot for that period
expect those rights to be restored to us, to the suspension and
restrictions of which the honourable gentleman attributes the
suppression of these principles. A pretty consolation this, truly!
Now I contend that they do not exist in France to the same extent as
before, or nearly. If this, then, be the case, what danger can be
apprehended? But if this, then, be true, and that Buonaparte, the
child and champion of Jacobin principles, as he is called, be resolved
to uphold them, upon what ground does the honourable gentleman presume
to hope for the restoration of the House of Bourbon? So far I have
argued on the probability of the object, but the honourable gentleman
goes on, and says, there is no wish to restore the monarchy without
the consent of the people. Now if this be the case, is it not better
to leave the people to themselves, for if armies are to interfere, how
can we ascertain that it is a legitimate government established with
the pure consent of the people? As to Buonaparte, whose character has
been represented as marked with fraud and insincerity, has he not made
treaties with the Emperor and observed them? Is it not his interest to
make peace with us? Do you not think he feels it? And can you suppose,
that if peace were made, he has not power to make it be observed by
the people of France? And do not you think that the people of France
are aware that an infraction of that peace would bring with it a new
order of things, and a renewal of those calamities from which they are
now desirous to escape? But, Sir, on the character of Buonaparte I
have better evidence than the intercepted letters, I