_The Republican Rattle-snake fascinating the Bedford Squirrel._ _The Rattle Snake is a Creature of the greatest subtilty; when it is desirous of preying upon any Animal which is in a situation above itself it fixes its Eye upon the unsuspecting object & by the noise of its Rattle fascinates & confounds the unfortunate Victim till losing all Sense & discernment, it falls a prey into the Mouth of the horrid Monster._ Pliny’s Nat. Histr. vol. 365—
In the last Address which We shall have to make to the Public, We would willingly review the whole of what has been advanced by Us under the different Heads of our Paper, and leave behind us a Summary of our Opinions upon the state of each subject as We found it, and as We conceive it to stand at the moment when our labours are concluded.
Upon no point, if We are to speak our sincere opinion,is the task more easily to be executed, or in a less compass, than in what relates to Foreign Politics.
In other times, the relations of States to each other have been matter of great study, and difficulty; have been embarrassed with a diversity of views, and a complication of interests, which it might require much experience to calculate, and much political sagacity to reconcile.
At present, there is but one relation among all the States of Europe:—one, at least, there is so paramount, as to confound and swallow up all inferior considerations.
France is bent on the conquest and ruin of them all.To repel this Conquest, to ward off this ruin, various means are tried, according to the power or the prudence of the different Nations. War, Treaty, Supplication, Bribery, timid Neutrality, implicit Submission, and, finally, an Incorporation into the Map of theGreat Republic, are all at this moment exemplified in the conduct of the Countries which surround us.
Our lot, a lot imposed upon us by necessity, but which if it were not so imposed upon us, whoever is not blind, judicially blind to the conduct ofFrancetowards us, and every other Country, would claim by choice, isWar.
The relation in which we may stand to the other States of Europe, or they to each other, is comparatively of little moment. They may reciprocate Missions, and propose Treaties,—theLigurian Republicmay make Peace or War with theCisalpine; theCisalpinewith theRoman;—either of them with theKingofSardinia, withTuscany, or withNaples; and the greater Powers may mediate, or embroil the quarrel, may offer their protection, and talk of their Dignity:—But the question does not lie there.—Francehas the power and the will to controul, to oppress them altogether; to limit or extend their Boundaries, as she sees good; to approve or annul their Internal Regulations, as well as their stipulations with each other: And while she has that power, whether it be by strength in herself, or by the sufferance of others; whether she may choose to vex and harass them in mass, or detail; to keep peace between them, or to set them at variance; to work their revolutions by her own arms, or to delegate that sacred office to their neighbours; or, finally, to insist upon their performing it each for themselves;—the result to us is the same. The People of Europe are equally enslaved;—it matters not whether they are manacled separately, or bolted to the links of a long chain which connects and coerces them in a fellowship of misery.
Mortalia cordaPer gentes humilis stravit pavor.
Mortalia cordaPer gentes humilis stravit pavor.
Mortalia cordaPer gentes humilis stravit pavor.
Mortalia corda
Per gentes humilis stravit pavor.
To Us, the relation of these unhappy Powers, is either that of Friends forced into a Foreign Army to fight against us, or placed, hand-cuffed, on the Deck of a Line of Battle Ship to receive our fire—or it is that of a Captive languishing in a Dungeon against which We are making an attack, and who does not dare to acknowledge his Friend, till he can hail him as his Deliverer.
The Contest betweenGreat BritainandFrance, then, is not for the existence of the former only, but for the Freedom of the World. To look to partial Interests, to talk of partial Successes, as bearing upon the main object and general issue of the War, is to take a narrow and pitiful view of the most momentous and most tremendoussubject that ever was brought under the consideration of mankind.
IfGreat Britain, insensible of what she owes to herself and to the World, flinches (for shecannot fall), in the Contest;—she throws away not herself alone, but the peace and happiness of Nations. If she maintain herself stoutly;—to speculate on the mode, the time, the means by which success adequate to the immensity of the object at stake is to be attained, were, indeed, presumptuous;—but We risk, without apprehension of being thought sanguine in our hopes and expectations, or of being contradicted by the event, the sentiment of the greatest Orator of ancient times—“It is not, it cannot be possible, that an Empire founded on injustice, on rapacity, on perfidy, on the contempt and disregard of everything sacred towards God, or among Men;—it is not possible that such an Empire should endure.”