When
we have our true situation distinctly presented to us, if then we
resolve, with a blind and headlong violence, to resist the admonitions
of our friends, and to cast ourselves into the hands of our potent and
irreconcilable foes, then, and not till then, the ministers stand
acquitted before God and man for whatever may come.
Lamenting, as I do, that the matter has not had so full and free a
discussion as it requires, I mean to omit none of the points which seem
to me necessary for consideration, previous to an arrangement which is
forever to decide the form and the fate of Europe. In the course,
therefore, of what I shall have the honor to address to you, I propose
the following questions to your serious thoughts.--1. Whether the
present system, which stands for a government, in France, be such as in
peace and war affects the neighboring states in a manner different from
the internal government that formerly prevailed in that country?--2.
Whether that system, supposing its views hostile to other nations,
possesses any means of being hurtful to them peculiar to itself?--3.
Whether there has been lately such a change in France as to alter the
nature of its system, or its effect upon other powers?--4. Whether any
public declarations or engagements exist, on the part of the allied
powers, which stand in the way of a treaty of peace which supposes the
right and confirms the power of the Regicide faction in France?--5.
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