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yet are arrayed like Solomon in his glory. In fine, it teaches a lesson, which indeed they might have learned from Epictetus —that it is sometimes good not to be over-virtuous: it shows, that in proportion as our distresses increase, the munificence of the crown increases also; in proportion as our clothes are rent, the royal mantle is extended over us.

44.

FALLACY OF MR. TIERNEY'S ARGUMENT ON A MOTION FOR
PEACE WITH THE FRENCH.-Canning.

So much, sir, as to the particular argument, that the past conduct of our former allies ought to lead us to withhold all credit from their future professions. There is, however, another and more general argument, comprehending alike these and the other powers of Europe; which, but that it has been stated by the honorable gentleman, I should really have thought scarcely worth confutation. We, it seems-a wise, prudent, reflecting people are much struck with all the outrages France has committed upon the continent, but on the powers of the continent itself, no lasting impression has been made. Is this probable? Is it possible? Is it in the nature of things, that the contemplation of the wrongs and miseries which others have endured, should have worked a deeper impression upon our minds, than the suffering of those miseries and wrongs has left in the minds of those on whom they were actually inflicted?

"Segniùs irritant animos demissa per aures,

Quàm quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus."

Yet the echo and report of the blows by which other countries have fallen, are supposed to have more effect upon us, than the blows themselves produced upon the miserable victims who sunk beneath them.

The pillage and bloody devastation of Italy strikes us with horror; but Italy, we are to believe, is contented with what has befallen her. The insults which are hurled by the French garrison from the walls of the citadel of Turin, rouse resentment in our breasts, but have no effect on the feelings of the Piedmontese. We read with indignation of the flag of Bernadotte displayed in mockery and insult to the emperor and his subjects; but it flaunted in the eyes of the people, without exciting any emotions of hatred or resentment. The invasion of

a province of a friendly power, with whom they had no cause nor pretence for hostility, has created in us a decided detesta

tion for the unprincipled hypocrisy and ambition of the directory; but the Ottoman Porte sits down contented with the loss of Egypt; feels no injury, and desires neither reparation nor revenge. And then, sir, the wrongs of Switzerland! they, too, are calculated to excite an interest here; but the Swiss, no doubt, endured them with quiet resignation and contented humility. If, after the taking of Soleure, the venerable magistrates of that place were first handed round the town in barbarous triumph, and afterwards, contrary to all the laws of war, of nations, and nature, were inhumanly put to death; if, when the unoffending town of Sion capitulated to the French, the troops were let loose to revel in every species of licentiousness and cruelty ;-if, more recently, when Stantz was carried after a short, but vigorous and honorable resistance, such as would have conciliated the esteem of any but a French conqueror, the whole town was burnt to the ground, and the ashes quenched with the blood of the inhabitants !-The bare recital of these horrors and atrocities awakens in British bosoms, I trust it does awaken, I trust it will long keep alive an abhorrence of the nation and name of that people by whom such execrable cruelties have been practised, and such terrible calamities inflicted; but on the Swiss, we are to understand, these cruelties and calamities have left no lasting impression; the inhabitants of Soleure, who followed, with tears of anguish and indignation, their venerated magistrates to a death of terror and ignominy; the husbands, and fathers, and sons, of those wretched victims who expired in torture and in shame, beneath the brutality of a savage soldiery at Sion; the wretched survivors of those who perished in the ruins of the country at Stantz, they all felt but a transient pang; their tears by this time are dried; their rage is hushed; their resentment silenced; there is nothing in their feelings which can be stimulated into honorable and effectual action; there is no motive for their exertions upon which we can safely and permanently rely! Sir, I should be ashamed to waste your time by arguing such a question.

45.

INDIGNANT REBUKE ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF INDIANS IN
CIVILIZED WARFARE.- -Chatham.

I am astonished!-shocked! to hear such principles confessed to hear them avowed in this house, or in this country: principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian!

My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon

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our brethren and countrymen in America, of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion, endeared to us by every tie that should sanctify humanity.

My lords, this awful subject, so important to our honor, our constitution, and our religion, demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry. And I again call upon your lordships, and the united powers of the state, to examine it thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And I again implore these holy prelates of our religion, to do away these iniquities from among us. Let them perform a lustration; let them purify this house, and this country, from this sin.

My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.

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Search creation round, where can you find a country that presents so sublime a view, so interesting an anticipation ? What noble institutions! What a comprehensive policy! What a wise equalization of every political advantage! The oppressed of all countries, the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or superstitious phrenzy, may there find refuge; his industry encouraged, his piety respected, his ambition animated; with no restraint but those laws which are the same to all, and no distinction but that which his merit may originate. Who can deny that the existence of such a country presents a subject for human congratulation! Who can deny that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the most rational conjecture! At the end of the very next century, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit! Who shall say for what purpose mysterious Providence may not have designed her! Who shall say that when in its follies or its crimes the old world may have buried all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the new! when its temples and its trophies shall have moldered into dust-when the glories of its name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of its achievements live only in song; philosophy will revive again in the sky of her Franklin, and

glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington. Is this the vision of romantic fancy? Is it even improbable? Is it half so improbable as the events, which, for the last twenty years, have rolled like successive tides over the surface of the European world, each erasing the impressions that preceded it? Many, I know there are, who will consider this supposition as wild and whimsical; but they have dwelt with little reflection upon the records of the past. They have but ill observed the neverceasing progress of national rise and national ruin. They form their judgment on the deceitful stability of the present hour, never considering the innumerable monarchies and republics, in former days, apparently as permanent, their very existence become now the subject of speculation-I had almost said of scepticism. I appeal to history! Tell me, thou reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the illusions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of an universal commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or all the establishments of this world's wisdom, secure to empire the permanency of its possessions? Alas, Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam lives only in song! Thebes thought so once, yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate! So thought Palmyra-where is she! So thought Persepolis, and

now

"Yon waste, where roaming lions howl,

Yon aisle, where moans the grey-eyed owl,
Shows the proud Persian's great abode,
Where sceptred once, an earthly god,

His power-clad arm controlled each happier clime,

Where sports the warbling muse, and fancy soars sublime."

So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan, yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ottoman! In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their imagined immortality, and all its vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps! The days of their glory are as if they had never been; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their bards! Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, yet soar to be what Athens was! European column shall have mal

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