“ You are quite wrong, sir; you deceive yourself—they are not fighting—do not disturb them—they are merely pausing! This man is not expiring with agony—that man is not dead—he is only pausing! Lord help you, sir! they are not angry with one another; they have now no cause of quarrel; but their country thinks that there should be a pause. All that you see, sir, is nothing like fighting—there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it whatever; it is nothing more than a political pause! It is merely to try an experiment—to see whether Bonaparte will not behave himself better than heretofore ”

“ For under what other auspices than Christianity have the lost and subverted liberties of mankind in former ages been reasserted? By what zeal, but the warm zeal of devout Christians, have English liberties been redeemed and consecrated? Under what other sanctions, even in our own days, have liberty and happiness been spreading to the uttermost corners of the earth? What work of civilization, what Commonwealth of greatness, has this bald religion of nature ever established? ”

“ Her only effectual ally was the spirit of her people, and her policy flowed from that magnanimous nature which in the hour of peril teaches better lessons than those of cold reason. Her great heart inspired her with a higher and a nobler wisdom—which disdained to appeal to the low and sordid passions of her people even for the protection of their low and sordid interests, because she knew, or, rather, she felt, that these are effeminate, creeping, cowardly, short-sighted passions, which shrink from conflict even in defence of their own mean objects. ”

“ These feeble states—these monuments of the justice of Europe—the asylum of peace, of industry, and of literature—the organs of public reason—the refuge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth, have perished with those ancient principles which were their sole guardians and protectors. They have been swallowed up by that fearful convulsion which has shaken the uttermost corners of the earth. They are destroyed and gone forever. ”

“ Now, sir, what was the conduct of your own allies to Poland? Is there a single atrocity of the French, in Italy, in Switzerland, in Egypt, if you please, more unprincipled and inhuman than that of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in Poland? What has there been in the conduct of the French to foreign powers; what in the violation of solemn treaties; what in the plunder, devastation, and dismemberment of unoffending countries ”

“ I hope by this time we are all convinced that a republican government, like that of America, may exist without danger or injury to social order, or to established monarchies. They have happily shown that they can maintain the relations of peace and amity with other states. They have shown, too, that they are alive to the feelings of honor; but they do not lose sight of plain good sense and discretion. They have not refused to negotiate with the French, and they have accordingly the hopes of a speedy termination of every difference. We cry up their conduct, but we do not imitate it. ”

“ Is it certain that with his army confined within France, and restrained from inroads upon her neighbors, that he can maintain, at his devotion, a force sufficiently numerous to support his power? Having no object but the possession of absolute dominion, no passion but military glory, is it to be reckoned as certain that he can feel such an interest in permanent peace as would justify us in laying down our arms, reducing our expense, and relinquishing our means of security, on the faith of his engagements? ”

“ BONAPARTE TO THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE.
“It is to deliver the finest country in Europe from the iron yoke of the proud house of Austria, that the French army has braved obstacles the most difficult to surmount. Victory in union with justice has crowned its efforts. The wreck of the enemy’s army has retired behind the Mincio. The French army, in order to follow them, passes over the territory of the Republic of Venice; but it will never forget that ancient friendship unites the two republics. Religion, government, customs, and property shall be respected. ”

“ This great and gallant nation, which has fought in the front of every battle against the oppressors of Europe, has sometimes inspired fear, but, thank God, she has never felt it. We know that they are our real, and must soon become our declared foes.31 We know that there can be no cordial amity between the natural enemies and the independence of nations. We have never adopted the cowardly and short-sighted policy of silencing our press, of breaking the spirit and palsying the hearts of our people for the sake of a hollow and precarious truce. ”

“ If it had been otherwise, gentlemen, if the bar could have been silenced or overawed by power, I may presume to say that an English jury would not this day have been met to administer justice. Perhaps I need scarce say that my defence shall be fearless, in a place where fear never entered any heart but that of a criminal. But you will pardon me for having said so much when you consider who the real parties before you are.
I. Gentlemen, the real prosecutor is the master of the greatest empire the civilized world ever saw. The defendant is a defenceless, proscribed exile. ”

“ It would be an insult to humanity. No! Better, ten thousand times better, would it be that every press in the world were burned; that the very use of257 letters were abolished; that we were returned to the honest ignorance of the rudest times, than that the results of civilization should be made subservient to the purposes of barbarism, than that literature should be employed to teach a toleration for cruelty, to weaken moral hatred for guilt, to deprave and brutalize the human mind. ”

“ Unfortunately for the repose of mankind, great states are compelled, by regard to their own safety, to consider the military spirit and martial habits of their people as one of the main objects of their policy. Frequent hostilities seem almost the necessary condition of their greatness; and, without being great, they cannot long remain safe. Smaller states exempted from this cruel necessity—a hard condition of greatness, a bitter satire on human nature—devoted themselves to the arts of peace, to the cultivation of literature, and the improvement of reason. ”

“ I conclude, sir, with repeating what I said before: I ask for no gentleman’s vote who would have reprobated the compliance of ministers with the proposition of the French Government. I ask for no gentleman’s support to-night who would have voted against ministers, if they had come down and proposed to enter into a negotiation with the French. But I have a right to ask, and in honor, in consistency, in conscience, I have a right to expect, the vote of every honorable gentleman who would have voted with ministers in an address to his Majesty, diametrically opposite to the motion of this night. ”

“ That spirit is, I trust in God, not extinct; and if any modern tyrant were, in the drunkenness of his insolence, to hope to overawe an English jury, I trust and I believe that they would tell him: “Our ancestors braved the bayonets of Cromwell; we bid defiance to yours. Contempsi Catilinæ gladios—non pertimescam tuos!”
What could be such a tyrant’s means of overawing a jury? As long as their country exists, they are girt round with impenetrable armor. ”

“ He has told you that he does not mean to attack political discussion. He has told you, also, that he does not consider every intemperate word into which a writer, fairly engaged in narration or reasoning, might be betrayed, as a fit subject for prosecution. The essence of the crime of libel consists in the malignant mind which the publication proves, and from which it flows. A jury must be convinced, before they find a man guilty of libel, that his intention was to libel, not to state facts which he believed to be true, or reasonings which he thought just. ”

“ One asylum of free discussion is still inviolate. There is still one spot in Europe where man can freely exercise his reason on the most important concerns of society, where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts of the proudest and most powerful tyrants. The press of England is still free. It is guarded by the free constitution of our forefathers. It is guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen, and I trust I may venture to say that if it be to fall, it will fall only under the ruins of the British empire. ”

“ Awakened from their dreams of Democracy, the noise subsided that deafened their ears to the voice of humanity; the film fallen from their eyes which hid from them the blackness of their own deeds; haunted by the memory of their inexpiable guilt; condemned daily to look on the faces of those whom their hands made widows and orphans, they are goaded and scourged by these real furies, and hurried into the tumult of new crimes, which will drown the cries of remorse, or, if they be too depraved for remorse, will silence the curses of mankind. ”

“ This war, gentlemen, had the effect of raising up from obscurity the great Prince of Orange, afterward King William III., the deliverer of Holland, the deliverer of England, the deliverer of Europe; the only hero who was distinguished by such a happy union of fortune and virtue that the objects of his ambition were always the same with the interests of humanity; perhaps the only man who devoted the whole of his life exclusively to the service of mankind. ”

“ Is military despotism a theory? One would think that that is one of the practical things which ministers might understand, and to which they would have no particular objection.169 But what is our present conduct founded on but a theory, and that a most wild and ridiculous theory? For what are we fighting? Not for a principle; not for security; not for conquest; but merely for an experiment and a speculation, to discover whether a gentleman at Paris may not turn out a better man than we now take him to be. ”

“ I have used the word Republican because it is the name by which this atrocious faction describes itself. The assumption of that name is one of their crimes. They are no more Republicans than Royalists. They are the common enemies of all human society. God forbid that by the use of that word I should be supposed to reflect on the members of those respectable Republican communities which did exist in Europe before the French Revolution. That Revolution has spared many monarchies, but it has spared no republic within the sphere of its destructive energy. ”

“ They leave the luxuries of servitude to the mean and dastardly hypocrites, to the Belials and Mammons of the infernal faction. They pursue their old end of tyranny under their old pretext of liberty. The recollection of their unbounded power renders every inferior condition irksome and vapid; and their former atrocities form, if I may so speak, a sort of moral destiny which irresistibly impels them to the perpetration of new crimes. They have no place left for penitence on earth. They labor under the most awful proscription of opinion that ever was pronounced against human beings. ”

“ It can only be employed in spreading civilization and enjoyment over the earth; and by the unchangeable laws of nature, in spite of the impotent tricks of government, it is now partly applied to revive the industry of those very nations who are the loudest in their senseless clamors against its pretended mischiefs. If the blind and barbarous project of destroying English prosperity could be accomplished, it could have no other effect than that of completely beggaring the very countries who now stupidly ascribe their own poverty to our wealth. ”

“ We must keep Bonaparte for some time longer at war, as a state of probation. Gracious God, sir! is war a state of probation? Is peace a rash system? Is it dangerous for nations to live in amity with each other? Are your vigilance, your policy, your common powers of observation, to172 be extinguished by putting an end to the horrors of war? Can not this state of probation be as well undergone without adding to the catalogue of human sufferings? “But we must pause!” What! must the bowels of Great Britain be torn out—her best blood be spilled—her treasure wasted—that you may make an experiment? ”

“ The last and distinguishing feature is a perfidy which nothing can bind, which no tie of treaty, no sense of the principles generally received among nations, no obligation, human or divine, can restrain. Thus qualified, thus armed for destruction, the genius of the French Revolution marched forth, the terror and dismay of the world. Every nation has in its turn been the witness, many have been the victims of its principles ”

“ Under all the circumstances of his personal character, and his newly acquired power, what other security has he for retaining that power but the sword? His hold upon France is the sword, and he has no other. Is he connected with the soil, or with the habits, the affections, or the prejudices of the country?81 He is a stranger, a foreigner, and a usurper. He unites in his own person every thing that a pure republican must detest; every thing that an enraged Jacobin has abjured; every thing that a sincere and faithful royalist must feel as an insult. ”

“ Of all the stimulants which arouse it into action, the most powerful among us is certainly the press; and it can not be restrained or weakened without imminent danger that the national spirit may languish, and that the people may act with less zeal and affection for their country in the hour of its danger.
These principles, gentlemen, are not new—they are genuine old English principles. And though in our days they have been disgraced and abused by ruffians and fanatics, they are in themselves as just and sound as they are liberal ”

“ Such was the result of the only war hitherto avowedly undertaken to oppress a free country because she allowed the free and public exercise of reason. And may the God of justice and liberty grant that such may ever be the result of wars made by tyrants against the rights of mankind, especially against that right which is the guardian of every other! ”

“ He who strives to make twenty-four millions of persons violate the oaths they have taken to their present constitution,160 and who desires to re-establish the House of Bourbon by such violation of their vows. I put it so, sir, because, if the question of oaths be of the least consequence, it is equal on both sides! He who desires the whole people of France to perjure themselves, and who hopes for success in his project only upon their doing so, surely can not make it a charge against Bonaparte that he has done the same! ”

“ The paramount interest of every state—that which comprehends every other—is security. And the security of Great Britain requires nothing on the continent but the uniform observance of justice. It requires nothing but the inviolability of ancient boundaries and the sacredness of ancient possessions,203 which, on these subjects, is but another form of words for justice. A nation which is herself shut out from the possibility of continental aggrandizement can have no interest but that of preventing such aggrandizement in others. ”

“ I own that, after much reflection, I am not able to conceive an error more gross than that of those who believe in the possibility of erecting a republic in any of the old monarchical countries of Europe, who believe that in such countries an elective supreme magistracy can produce any thing but a succession of stern tyrannies and bloody civil wars. It is a supposition which is belied by all experience, and which betrays the greatest ignorance of the first principles of the constitution of society. ”

“ Even this was not all; one of the articles of the decree of the fifteenth of December was expressly, “that those who should show themselves so brutish and so enamored of their chains as to refuse the restoration of their rights, to renounce liberty and equality, or to preserve, recall, or treat with their prince or privileged orders, were not entitled to the distinction which France, in other cases, had justly established between government and people; and that such a people ought to be treated according to the rigor of war, and of conquest.” Here is their love of peace ”

“ Are we talking of a stranger of whom we have heard nothing? No, sir, we have heard of him; we, and Europe, and the world, have heard both of him and of the satellites by whom he is surrounded, and it is impossible to discuss fairly the propriety of any answer which could be returned to his overtures of negotiation without taking into consideration the inferences to be drawn from his personal character and conduct. I know it is the fashion with some gentlemen to represent any reference to topics of this nature as invidious and irritating ”