even they themselves would
admit that he truly belonged to them--the exception would still lie
against the general rule; and will remain till the character of men and
measures materially changes, for the better, assuredly, on the one side,
if not for the worse on the other. Remember what England might have been
with an Administration countenancing French Doctrines at the dawn of the
French Revolution, and suffering them, as it advanced, to be sown with
every wind that came across the Channel! Think what was the state of
Europe before the French Emperor, the apparent, and in too many respects
the real, Idol of Opposition, was overthrown!

Numbers, I am aware, do not cease vehemently to maintain, that the late
war was neither just nor necessary; that the ostensible and real causes
of it were widely different; that it was not begun, and persisted in,
for the purpose of withstanding foreign aggression, and in defence of
social order: but from unprincipled ambition in the Powers of Europe,
eager to seize that opportunity of augmenting their territories at the
expence of distracted and enfeebled France.--Events ever-to-be-lamented
do, I grant, give too much colour to those affirmations. But this was a
war upon a large scale, wherein many Belligerents took part; and no one
who distinctly remembers the state of Europe at its commencement will be
inclined any more to question that the alleged motives had a solid
foundation, because then, or afterwards, others might mix with them,
than he would doubt that the maintenance of Christianity and the
reduction of the power of the Infidels were the principal motives of the
Crusades, because roving Adventurers, joining in those expeditions,
turned them to their own profit. Traders and hypocrites may make part of
a Caravan bound to Mecca; but it does not follow that a religious
observance is not the prime object of the Pilgrimage. The political
fanaticism (it deserves no milder name) that pervaded the Manifesto
issued by the Duke of Brunswick, on his entry into France, proves, that
he and the Power whose organ he was, were swayed on their march by an
ambition very different from that of territorial aggrandizement;--at
least, if such ambition existed, it is plain that feelings of another
kind blinded them to the means of gratifying it. Nevertheless, we must
acknowledge the passion soon manifested itself, and in a quarter where
it was least excusable. The seizure of Valenciennes, in the name