But though he fails in his argument, the moral is not less instructive. He teaches us on what grounds a genuine English patriot goes to war, and on what terms he will make peace. A patriot of this exclusive stamp, who is troubled with none of the symptoms of a "spurious and mawkish beneficence," threatens France with the restoration of the Bourbons, only to throw her into the convulsions of anarchy, and withdraws that kindly interference, only that she may sink into the more fatal lethargy of despotism. It is the same consistent patriot who kindles the fires of La Vendée, and whenever it suits his purpose, is no longer borne away by the "torrent of royal, flaming, unreflecting sympathies!" It is the same tried friend of his country, who carries on a twenty years' war for the preservation of our trade and manufactures, and when they are mentioned as inducements for peace, disdains "all gross, commercial calculations." It is the same conscientious politician, who at one time makes war for the support of social order, and the defence of our holy religion;—who, at another, hails the disappearance of "the last glimmering of education among a people grown old in arts and letters," and who rejoices "to see the Christian religion made studiously contemptible by the poverty and debasement of its professors!" It is the same true patriot, the same Vetus, who "beholds with unmingled joy, the growth and accumulation of a savage despotism, which is to crush and bow down France under our feet;"—who holds "the whip of scorpions over her head;"—who "arms a scorching tyranny with sweeping scimeter and consuming fire" against her;—who pushes her headlong down "the yawning gulf of irretrievable destruction;"—it is the same Vetus, who, suddenly recovering all the severity of justice, and all the tenderness of humanity, makes a piteous outcry about "the dreadful sufferings we have endured," in attempting to heap coals of fire on our adversary, demands the payment of "two hundred millions of debt, in which her government have wantonly involved us," complains of our being "driven to beggary and want" in this unnatural conflict, calls for the release of our countrymen,
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