to
incorporate themselves for the subversion of nothing short of the
_whole_ Constitution of this kingdom,--to incorporate themselves for the
utter overthrow of the body of its laws, civil and ecclesiastical, and
with them of the whole system of its manners, in favor of the new
Constitution and of the modern usages of the French nation,--I think no
party principle could bind the author not to express his sentiments
strongly against such a faction. On the contrary, he was perhaps bound
to mark his dissent, when the leaders of the party were daily going out
of their way to make public declarations in Parliament, which,
notwithstanding the purity of their intentions, had a tendency to
encourage ill-designing men in their practices against our Constitution.

The members of this faction leave no doubt of the nature and the extent
of the mischief they mean to produce. They declare it openly and
decisively. Their intentions are not left equivocal. They are put out of
all dispute by the thanks which, formally and as it were officially,
they issue, in order to recommend and to promote the circulation of the
most atrocious and treasonable libels against all the hitherto cherished
objects of the love and veneration of this people. Is it contrary to the
duty of a good subject to reprobate such proceedings? Is it alien to the
office of a good member of Parliament, when such practices increase, and
when the audacity of the conspirators grows with their impunity, to
point out in his place their evil tendency to the happy Constitution
which he is chosen to guard? Is it wrong, in any sense, to render the
people of England sensible how much they must suffer, if, unfortunately,
such a wicked faction should become possessed in this country of the
same power which their allies in the very next to us have so
perfidiously usurped and so outrageously abused? Is it inhuman to
prevent, if possible, the spilling _their_ blood, or imprudent to guard
against the effusion of _our own?_ Is it contrary to any of the honest
principles of party, or repugnant to any of the known duties of
friendship, for any senator respectfully and amicably to caution his
brother members against countenancing, by inconsiderate expressions, a
sort of proceeding which it is impossible they should deliberately
approve?

He had undertaken to demonstrate, by arguments which he thought could
not be refuted, and by documents which he was sure could not be denied,
that no co