It is impossible to dismiss this subject
without observing that this attack against Egypt was accompanied by
an attack upon the British possessions in India, made on true
revolutionary principles. In Europe, the propagation of the principles
of France had uniformly prepared the way for the progress of its arms.
To India, the lovers of peace had sent the messengers of Jacobinism,
for the purpose of inculcating war in those distant regions, on
Jacobin principles, and of forming Jacobin clubs, which they actually
succeeded in establishing, and which in most respects resembled the
European model, but which were distinguished by this peculiarity, that
they were required to swear in one breath, _hatred to tyranny,
the love of liberty, and the destruction of all kings and
sovereigns--except the good and faithful ally of the French Republic_,
CITIZEN TIPPOO.
What, then, was the nature of this system? Was it anything but what
I have stated it to be--an insatiable love of aggrandizement, an
implacable spirit of destruction directed against all the civil and
religious institutions of every country? This is the first moving
and acting spirit of the French revolution; this is the spirit which
animated it at its birth, and this is the spirit which will not desert
it till the moment of its dissolution, 'which grew with its growth,
which strengthened with its strength,' but which has not abated under
its misfortunes nor declined in its decay; it has been invariably the
same in every period, operating more or less, according as accident
or circumstances might assist it; but it has been inherent in the
revolution in all its stages, it has equally belonged to Brissot, to
Robespierre, to Tallien, to Reubel, to Barras, and to every one of the
leaders of the Directory, but to none more than to Buonaparte, in whom
now all their powers are united.
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