of any persons in France, or to persuade them to join our standard, it is impossible that they should not be more easily led, and more readily formed and disciplined, (civilly and martially disciplined) by those who speak their language, who are acquainted with their manners, who are conversant with their usages and habits of thinking, and who have a local knowledge of their country, and some remains of ancient credit and consideration, than with a body congregated from all tongues and tribes. Where none of the respectable native interests are seen in the transaction, it is impossible that any declarations can convince those that are within, or those that are without, that any thing else than some sort of hostility in the style of a conqueror is meant. At best it will appear to such wavering persons, (if such there are) whom we mean to fix with us, a choice whether they are to continue a prey to domestick banditti, or to be fought for as a carrion carcass, and picked to the bone by all the crows and vultures of the sky. They may take protection, (and they would I doubt not) but they can have neither alacrity nor zeal in such a cause. When they see nothing but bands of English, Spaniards, Neapolitans, Sardinians, Prussians, Austrians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Sclavonians, Croatians, acting as principals, it is impossible they should think we come with a beneficent design. Many of those fierce and bar

barous

barous people have already given proofs how little they regard any French party whatsoever. Some of these nations the people of France are jealous of; such are the English, and the Spaniards-others they despise; such are the Italians-others they hate and dread; such are the German and Danubian powers. At best such interposition of ancient enemies excites apprehension; but in this case, how can they suppose that we come to maintain their legitimate monarchy in a truly paternal French government, to protect their privileges, their laws, their religion, and their property, when they see us make use of no one person who has any interest in them, any knowledge of them, or any the least zeal for them? On the contrary, they see, that we do not suffer any of those who have shewn a zeal in that cause, which we seem to make our own, to come freely into any place in which the allies obtain any footing.

If we wish to gain upon any people, it is right to see what it is they expect. We have had a proposal from the royalists of Poitou. They are well entitled, after a bloody war maintained for eight months against all the powers of anarchy, to speak the sentiments of the royalists of France. Do they desire us to exclude their princes, their clergy, their nobility? The direct contrary. They earnestly solicit that men of every one of these descriptions should be sent to them. They do not

call

call for English, Austrian, or Prussian officers. They call for French emigrant officers. They call for the exiled priests. They have demanded the Compte d'Artois to appear at their head. These are the demands (quite natural demands) of those who are ready to follow the standard of monarchy.

The great means therefore of restoring the monarchy which we have made the main object of the war, is to assist the dignity, the religion, and the property of France, to repossess themselves of the means of their natural influence. This ought to be the primary object of all our politicks, and all our military operations. Otherwise every thing will move in a preposterous order, and nothing but confusion and destruction will follow.

I know that misfortune is not made to win respect from ordinary minds. I know that there is a leaning to prosperity however obtained, and a prejudice in its favour; I know there is a disposition to hope something from the variety and inconstancy of villany, rather than from the tiresome uniformity of fixed principle. There have been, I admit, situations in which a guiding person or party might be gained over, and through him or them, the whole body of a nation. For the hope of such a conversion, and of deriving advantage from enemies, it might be politick for a while to throw your friends into the shade. But examples drawn from history in occasions like the present

present will be found dangerously to mislead us. France has no resemblance to other countries which have undergone troubles and been purified by them. If France, jacobinized as it has been for four full years, did contain any bodies of authority and disposition to treat with you, (most assuredly she does not) such is the levity of those who have expelled every thing respectable in their country, such their ferocity, their arrogance, their mutinous spirit, their habits of defying every thing human and divine, that no engagement would hold with them for three months; nor indeed could they cohere together for any purpose of civilized society, if left as they now are.

There

must be a means not only of breaking their strength within themselves, but of civilizing them; and these two things must go together, before we can possibly treat with them, not only as a nation, but with any division of them. Descriptions of men of their own race, but better in rank, superiour in property and decorum, of honourable, decent, and orderly habits, are absolutely necessary to bring them to such a frame as to qualify them so much as to come into contact with a civilized nation.. A set of those ferocious savages with arms in their hands, left to themselves in one part of the country, whilst you proceed to another, would break forth into outrages at least as bad as their former. They must, as fast as gained (if ever they are gained)

VOL. VII.

L

gained) be put under the guide, direction, and government, of better Frenchmen than themselves, or they will instantly relapse into a fever of aggravated jacobinism.

We must not judge of other parts of France by the temporary submission of Toulon, with two vast fleets in its harbour, and a garrison far more numerous than all the inhabitants able to bear arms. If they were left to themselves, I am quite sure they would not retain their attachment to monarchy of any name for a single week.

To administer the only cure for the unheard-of disorders of that undone country, I think it infinitely happy for us, that God has given into our hands more effectual remedies than human contrivance could point out. We have in our bosom, and in the bosom of other civilized states, nearer forty than thirty thousand persons, providentially preserved not only from the cruelty and violence, but from the contagion of the horrid practices, sentiments, and language, of the jacobins, and even sacredly guarded from the view of such abominable scenes. If we should obtain, in any considerable district, a footing in France, we possess an immense body of physicians and magistrates of the mind, whom we now know to be the most discreet, gentle, well-tempered, conciliatory, virtuous, and pious persons, who in any order probably existed in the world. You will have a missioner of peace and