Any of the slightest pretences, any of the most loose, formal,
equivocating expressions, would justify us, under the peroration of this
piece, in again sending the last or some other Lord Malmesbury to Paris.
I hope I misunderstand this pledge,--or that we shall show no more
regard to it than we have done to all the faith that we have plighted to
vigor and resolution in our former Declaration. If I am to understand
the conclusion of the Declaration to be what unfortunately it seems to
me, we make an engagement with the enemy, without any correspondent
engagement on his side. We seem to have cut ourselves off from any
benefit which an intermediate state of things might furnish to enable us
totally to overturn that power, so little connected with moderation and
justice. By holding out no hope, either to the justly discontented in
France, or to any foreign power, and leaving the recommencement of all
treaty to this identical junto of assassins, we do in effect assure and
guaranty to them the full possession of the rich fruits of their
confiscations, of their murders of men, women, and children, and of all
the multiplied, endless, nameless iniquities by which they have obtained
their power. We guaranty to them the possession of a country, such and
so situated as France, round, entire, immensely perhaps augmented.
"Well," some will say, "in this case we have only submitted to the
nature of things." The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy
adversary.
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