In most of those I found the
condition of the annexed countries even better, certainly not worse,
than the lot of those which were the patrimony of the conqueror. They
wanted some blessings, but they were free from many very great evils.
They were rich and tranquil. Such was Artois, Flanders, Lorraine,
Alsatia, under the old government of France. Such was Silesia under the
King of Prussia. They who are to live in the vicinity of this new fabric
are to prepare to live in perpetual conspiracies and seditions, and to
end at last in being conquered, if not to her dominion, to her
resemblance. But when we talk of conquest by other nations, it is only
to put a case. This is the only power in Europe by which it is
_possible_ we should be conquered. To live under the continual dread of
such immeasurable evils is itself a grievous calamity. To live without
the dread of them is to turn the danger into the disaster. The influence
of such a France is equal to a war, its example more wasting than an
hostile irruption. The hostility with any other power is separable and
accidental: this power, by the very condition of its existence, by its
very essential constitution, is in a state of hostility with us, and
with all civilized people.[30]
A government of the nature of that set up at our very door has never
been hitherto seen or even imagined in Europe. What our relation to it
will be cannot be judged by other relations.
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