ir empire, either in possession or dependence, new barriers, many
frontier places of strength, a large sea-coast, and many sea-ports." He
ought to have stated it, that they would annex to their territory a
country about a third as large as France, and much more than half as
rich, and in a situation the most important for command that it would be
possible for her anywhere to possess.

To remove this terror, (even if the Regicides should carry their
point,) and to give us perfect repose with regard to their empire,
whatever they may acquire, or whomsoever they might destroy, he raises a
doubt "whether France will not be ruined by _retaining_ these conquests,
and whether she will not wholly lose that preponderance which she has
held in the scale of European powers, and will not eventually be
destroyed by the effect of her present successes, or, at least, whether,
so far as the _political interests of England are concerned_, she
[France] will remain an object of as _much jealousy and alarm as she was
under the reign of a monarch_." Here, indeed, is a paragraph full of
meaning! It gives matter for meditation almost in every word of it. The
secret of the pacific politicians is out. This republic, at all hazards,
is to be maintained. It is to be confined within some bounds, if we can;
if not, with every possible acquisition of power, it is still to be
cherished and supported. It is the return of the monarchy we are to
dread, and therefore we ought to pray for the permanence of the Regicide
authority. _Esto perpetua_ is the devout ejaculation of our Fra Paolo
for the Republic one and indivisible. It was the monarchy that rendered
France dangerous: Regicide neutralizes all the acrimony of that power,
and renders it safe and social. The October speculator is of opinion
that monarchy is of so poisonous a quality that a moderate territorial
power is far more dangerous to its neighbors under that abominable
regimen than the greatest empire in the hands of a republic. This is
Jacobinism sublimed and exalted into most pure and perfect essence. It
is a doctrine, I admit, made to allure and captivate, if anything in the
world can, the Jacobin Directory, to mollify the ferocity of Regicide,
and to persuade those patriotic hangmen, after their reiterated oaths
for our extirpation, to admit this well-humbled nation to the fraternal
embrace. I do not wonder that this tub of October has been racked off
into a French cask. It must make its for