t was
in order to be preserved from spirit-breaking submissions--from the
guilt of seeming to approve that which they had not the power to
prevent, and out of a consciousness of the danger that such guilt would
otherwise actually steal upon them, and that thus, by evil
communications and participations, would be weakened and finally
destroyed, those moral sensibilities and energies, by virtue of which
alone, their liberties, and even their lives, could be preserved,--that
the people of Great Britain determined to encounter all perils which
could follow in the train of open resistance.--There were some, and
those deservedly of high character in the country, who exerted their
utmost influence to counteract this resolution; nor did they give to it
so gentle a name as want of prudence, but they boldly termed it
blindness and obstinacy. Let them be judged with charity! But there are
promptings of wisdom from the penetralia of human nature, which a people
can hear, though the wisest of their practical Statesmen be deaf towards
them. This authentic voice, the people of England had heard and obeyed:
and, in opposition to French tyranny growing daily more insatiate and
implacable, they ranged themselves zealously under their Government;
though they neither forgot nor forgave its transgressions, in having
first involved them in a war with a people then struggling for its own
liberties under a twofold infliction--confounded by inbred faction, and
beleagured by a cruel and imperious external foe. But these remembrances
did not vent themselves in reproaches, nor hinder us from being
reconciled to our Rulers, when a change or rather a revolution in
circumstances had imposed new duties: and, in defiance of local and
personal clamour, it may be safely said, that the nation united heart
and hand with the Government in its resolve to meet the worst, rather
than stoop its head to receive that which, it was felt, would not be the
garland but the yoke of peace. Yet it was an afflicting alternative; and
it is not to be denied, that the effort, if it had the determination,
wanted the cheerfulness of duty. Our condition savoured too much of a
grinding constraint--too much of the vassalage of necessity;--it had too
much of fear, and therefore of selfishness, not to be contemplated in
the main with rueful emotion. We desponded though we did not despair. In
fact a deliberate and preparatory fortitude--a sedate and stern
melancholy, which had no su