arms shall be carried into every part of the
Continent? No: such is the present condition of Europe, that I earnestly
pray for what I deem would be a mighty blessing. France has already
destroyed, in almost every part of the Continent, the detestable
governments with which the nations have been afflicted; she has
extinguished one sort of tyranny, but only to substitute another. Thus,
then, have the countries of Europe been taught, that domestic
oppression, if not manfully and zealously repelled, must sooner or later
be succeeded by subjugation from without; they have tasted the
bitterness of both cups, have drunk deeply of both. Their spirits are
prepared for resistance to the foreign tyrant, and with our help I think
they may shake him off, and, under our countenance, and following (as
far as they are capable) our example, they may fashion to themselves,
making use of what is best in their own ancient laws and institutions,
new forms of government, which may secure posterity from a repetition of
such calamities as the present age has brought forth. The materials of a
new balance of power exist in the language, and name, and territory of
Spain, in those of France, and those of Italy, Germany, Russia, and the
British Isles. The smaller States must disappear, and merge in the large
nations and wide-spread languages. The possibility of this remodelling
of Europe I see clearly; earnestly do I pray for it; and I have in my
mind a strong conviction that your invaluable work will be a powerful
instrument in preparing the way for that happy issue. Yet, still, we
must go deeper than the nature of your labour requires you to penetrate.
Military policy merely will not perform all that is needful, nor mere
military virtues. If the Roman State was saved from overthrow, by the
attack of the slaves and of the gladiators, through the excellence of
its armies, yet this was not without great difficulty;[22] and Rome
would have been destroyed by Carthage, had she not been preserved by a
civic fortitude in which she surpassed all the nations of the earth. The
reception which the Senate gave to Terentius Varro, after the battle of
Cannae, is the sublimest event in human history. What a contrast to the
wretched conduct of the Austrian government after the battle at Wagram!
England requires, as you have shown so eloquently and ably, a new system
of martial policy; but England, as well as the rest of Europe, requires
what is more difficult to gi