im to
protect?

The only offence of this unhappy monarch towards his people was his
attempt, under a monarchy, to give them a free Constitution. For this,
by an example hitherto unheard of in the world, he has been deposed. It
might well disgrace sovereigns to take part with a deposed tyrant. It
would suppose in them a vicious sympathy. But not to make a common cause
with a just prince, dethroned by traitors and rebels, who proscribe,
plunder, confiscate, and in every way cruelly oppress their
fellow-citizens, in my opinion is to forget what is due to the honor and
to the rights of all virtuous and legal government.

I think the king of France to be as much an object both of policy and
compassion as the Grand Seignior or his states. I do not conceive that
the total annihilation of France (if that could be effected) is a
desirable thing to Europe, or even to this its rival nation. Provident
patriots did not think it good for Rome that even Carthage should be
quite destroyed; and he was a wise Greek, wise for the general Grecian
interests, as well as a brave Lacedaemonian enemy and generous conqueror,
who did not wish, by the destruction of Athens, to pluck out the other
eye of Greece.

However, Sir, what I have here said of the interference of foreign
princes is only the opinion of a private individual, who is neither the
representative of any state nor the organ of any party, but who thinks
himself bound to express his own sentiments with freedom and energy in a
crisis of such importance to the whole human race.

I am not apprehensive, that, in speaking freely on the subject of the
king and queen of France, I shall accelerate (as you fear) the execution
of traitorous designs against them. You are of opinion, Sir, that the
usurpers may, and that they will, gladly lay hold of any pretext to
throw off the very name of a king: assuredly, I do not wish ill to your
king; but better for him not to live (he does not reign) than to live
the passive instrument of tyranny and usurpation.

I certainly meant to show, to the best of my power, that the existence
of such an executive officer in such a system of republic as theirs is
absurd in the highest degree. But in demonstrating this, to _them_, at
least, I can have made no discovery. They only held out the royal name
to catch those Frenchmen to whom the name of king is still venerable.
They calculate the duration of that sentiment; and when they find it
nearly expiring, they