I have therefore been decidedly of opinion, with our declaration at
Whitehall in the beginning of this war, that the vicinage of Europe had
not only a right, but an indispensable duty and an exigent interest, to
denunciate this new work, before it had produced the danger we have so
sorely felt, and which we shall long feel. The example of what is done
by France is too important not to have a vast and extensive influence;
and that example, backed with its power, must bear with great force on
those who are near it, especially on those who shall recognize the
pretended republic on the principle upon which it now stands. It is not
an old structure, which you have found as it is, and are not to dispute
of the original end and design with which it had been so fashioned. It
is a recent wrong, and can plead no prescription. It violates the rights
upon which not only the community of France, but those on which all
communities are founded. The principles on which they proceed are
_general_ principles, and are as true in England as in any other
country. They who (though with the purest intentions) recognize the
authority of these regicides and robbers upon principle justify their
acts, and establish them as precedents. It is a question not between
France and England; it is a question between property and force. The
property claims; and its claim has been allowed. The property of the
nation is the nation. They who massacre, plunder, and expel the body of
the proprietary are murderers and robbers.
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