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, and it is left for us
to decide whether we will compromise with such a danger, while we have
yet resources to supply the sinews of war, while the heart and spirit
of the country is yet unbroken, and while we have the means of calling
forth and supporting a powerful co-operation in Europe.
Much more might be said on this part of the subject; but if what I
have said already is a faithful, though only an imperfect, sketch of
those excesses and outrages, which even history itself will hereafter
be unable fully to record, and a just representation of the principle
and source from which they originated, will any man say that we ought
to accept a precarious security against so tremendous a danger? Much
more will he pretend, after the experience of all that has passed, in
the different stages of the French revolution, that we ought to be
deterred from probing this great question to the bottom, and from
examining, without ceremony or disguise, whether the change which has
recently taken place in France is sufficient now to give security, not
against a common danger, but against such a danger as that which I
have described?
In examining this part of the subject, let it be remembered that there
is one other characteristic of the French revolution, as striking as
its dreadful and destructive principles; I mean the instability of
its Government, which has been of itself sufficient to destroy all
reliance, if any such reliance could, at any time, have been placed
on the good faith of any of its rulers.
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