conquest of her capital has been unable | to tame her pride; and nothing but the consummate talents and courage of Louis Philippe, joined to the philosophic wisdom of M. Guizot, have been able to prevent her from rushing again into the career of glory, of suffering, and of punishment.* 67. The French Revolution, therefore, is to be regarded as a great whole, of which the enthusiasm and fervour of 1789 were the commencement; the rebellion against government and massacre of the King, the second stage; the Reign of Terror and charnel-house of La Vendée, the third; the conquests and glory of Napoleon, the fourth; the subjugation of France and treachery of Fontainebleau, the consummation. Its external degradation and internal infamy at the latter period, were as necessary a part of its progress, as inevitable a result of its principles, as the harvest reaped in autumn is of the seed sown in spring. The connection-the necessary connection between the two now stands revealed in colours of imperishable light; they are stamped in characters of fire on the adamantine tablets of history. Therefore it is that any narrative of the Revolution which does not follow it out to its fall, must necessarily be imperfect, both in the fidelity of its picture and the truth of its moral. To stop at the accession of the Directory, or the seizure of supreme power by Napoleon, as many have done, is to halt in our account of a fever at the ninth or thirteenth day, when the crisis did not come on till the twentyfirst. And he who, after reflecting on the events of this marvellous progress, in which the efforts of ages and the punishment of generations were all concentrated into one quarter of a century, does not believe in the Divine superintendence of human affairs, and the reward of virtuous and punishment of guilty nations in this world, would not be converted though one rose from the dead. "Sedere Patres censere parati, Auxiliumque petat: melius, quod plura ju- bere -LUCAN, Pharsalia, iii. 110. 68. An author in whom simplicity or beauty of expression often conceals depth and justice of thought, has thus explained the mode of the Divine administration, and the manner in which it works out its decrees by the instrumentality of free agents:-"The beauty and magnificence," says Blair, "of the universe are much heightened by its being an extensive and complicated system, in which a variety of springs are made to play, and a multitude of different movements are with admirable art regulated and kept in order. Interfering interests and jarring passions are in such manner balanced against one another, such proper checks are placed on the violence of human pursuits, and the wrath of man is made so to hold its course, that how opposite soever the several motions at first appear to be, yet they all concur at last in one result. While among the multitudes that dwell on the face of the earth, some are submissive to the Divine authority, some rise up in rebellion against it; others, absorbed in their pleasures and pursuits, are totally inattentive to it; they are all so moved by an imperceptible influence from above, that the zeal of the dutiful, the wrath of the rebellious, and the indifference of the careless, contribute finally to the glory of God. All are governed in such a manner as suits their powers, and is consistent with their moral freedom; yet the various acts of these free agents all conspire to work out the eternal purposes of Heaven. The system upon which the Divine government plainly proceeds, is, that men's own wickedness should be appointed to correct them, that they should be snared in the work of their own hands. When the vices of men require punishment to be inflicted, the Almighty is at no loss for the ministers of justice. No special interpositions of power are requisite. He has no occasion to step from His throne and interrupt the majestic order of nature. With the solemnity which befits Omnipotence, his idols; let him alone.' He leaves He pronounces, 'Ephraim is joined to transgressors to their own guilt, and punishment follows of course. Their own sins do the work of justice. They lift the scourge; and with every stroke they inflict on the criminal, they mix the severe admonition that he is reaping only the fruit of his own deeds, and deserves all that he suffers." morse, the sinner proceeds in his course till he waxes bold in guilt and becomes ripe for ruin. We are imperceptibly betrayed; from one licentious attachment, one criminal passion, led on to another, till all self-government is lost, and we are hurried to destruction. In this manner, every criminal passion in its progress swells and blackens, till what was at first a small cloud, no bigger than a man's hand rising from the sea, is found to carry the tempest in its womb." What is the career of the drunkard, the gamester, or the sensualist, but an exemplification of the truth of this picture? Reader, if you have any doubt of the reality of this moral law, search your own heart, call to mind your own ways. Exactly the same principle applies to nations. What is the history of the French Revolution, in all its stages, but an exemplification of this truth when ap plied to social passions? And how did the vast colossus of earthly passion, which had so long bestrode the world, ultimately break up? Despite the bright and glowing colours with which its youth arose, despite the great and glorious deeds by which its manhood was emblazoned, it sank in the end amidst the basest and most degrading selfishness. It perished precisely as a gang of robbers does, in which, when the stroke of adversity is at last felt, each, true to the god of his idolatry, strives to save himself by betraying his leader. The same law which makes an apple fall to the ground regulates the planets in their course. 69. Without pretending to explain the various modes by which this awful and mysterious system of Divine administration, in which ourselves are at once the free agents, and the objects of reward and punishment, is carried on, it is impossible not to be struck with the powerful operation of two moral laws of our being, with the reality of which every one, from the experience of his own breast, as well as the observation of those around him, must be familiar. The first is, that every irregular passion or illicit desire acquires strength from the gratification which it receives, and becomes the more uncontrollable the more it is indulged. The second, that the power of self-denial, the energy of virtue, the generosity of disposition, increase with every occasion on which they are called forth, until at length they become a formed habit, and require hardly any effort for their exercise. On the counteracting force of these two laws the whole moral administration of the universe hinges; as its physical equilibrium is dependent on the opposite influences of the centripetal and centrifugal forces. 70. It is by gradual and latent steps that the destruction of virtue, whether in the individual or in the community, begins. The first advances of sin are clothed in the garb of liberality and philanthropy; the colours it then as- 71. The second moral principle, not sumes are the homage which vice pays less universal, alike in individuals and to virtue. If the evil unveiled itself at nations, than the first, is open to the the beginning-if the storm which is daily observation of every one, equally to uproot society discovered as it rose in his own breast and the conduct of all its horrors, there are few who would others. Every one has felt in his own not shrink from its contact. But its experience, however little he may have first appearance is so attractive that practised it-every teacher of youth few are sensible of its real nature: and, has ascertained by observation-every strange to say, the most hardened moralist from the beginning of time egotism in the end derives its chief has enforced the remark as the last strength in the outset from the gener- conclusion of wisdom-that the path ous affections. By degrees "habit gives of virtue is rough and thorny at the the passions strength, while the ab- outset; that habits of industry and sence of glaring guilt seemingly jus- self-denial are to be gained only by tifies them; and, unawakened by re-exertion; that the ascent is rugged, the path steep, but that the difficulty with the partition of Poland and the diminishes as the effort is continued; attempted partition of France, termiand that, when the "summit is reach-nated with the flames of Moscow and ed, the heaven is above your head, and the pardon of Paris. at your feet the kingdom of Cashmere." And such is the effect of effort strenuously made in the cause of virtue, that it purifies itself as it advances, and progressively casts off the intermixture of worldly passion, which often sullied the purity of its motives in the outset. Hence the constant elevation often observed in the character of good men as they advance in life, till at its close they almost seem to have lost every stain of human corruption, and to be translated, rather than raised, by death to immortality. It is in this moral law that the antagonist principle of social as well as individual evil is to be found, and it was by its operation upon successive nations that the dreadful nightmare of the French Revolution was thrown off the world. Many selfish desires, much corrupt ambition, great moral weakness, numerous political sins, stained the first efforts of the coalition, and in them at that period England had her full share. For these sins they suffered and are suffering; and the punishment of Great Britain will continue as long as the national debt endures *. of Russia and Prussia as long as Poland festers, a thorn of weakness, in their sides. But how unworthy soever its champions at first may have been, the cause for which they contended was a noble one. It was that of religion, fidelity, and freedom; and, as the contest rolled on, they were purified in the only school of real amelioration — the school of suffering. Gradually the baser elements were washed out of the confederacy; the nations, after long agony, came comparatively pure out of the furnace. At last, instead of the selfishness and rapacity of 1794, were exhibited the constancy of Saragossa, the devotion of Aspern, the heroism of the Tyrol, the resurrection of Prussia; and the war, which had commenced * If England had acted in the outset of the war as she did at the close, the contest would have been terminated in 1793, and £600,000,000 saved from the national debt. 72. Is, then, the cause of freedom utterly hopeless? does agitation necessarily lead to rebellion, rebellion to revolution? and must the prophetic eye of wisdom ever anticipate in the infant struggles of liberty the bloodshed of Robespierre, the carnage of Napoleon, the treachery of Fontainebleau? No. It is not the career of freedom, it is the career of sin which leads, and ever will lead, to such results. It is in the disregard of moral obligation when done with beneficent intentions; in the fatal maxim, that the end will justify the means; in the oblivion of the Divine precept, that "evil is not to be done that good may come of it;" and not in any fatality connected with revolutions, that the real cause of this deplorable downward progress is to be found. And if the supporters of freedom would avoid this otherwise inevitable retribution; if they would escape being led on from desire to desire, from acquisition to acquisition, from passion to passion, from crime to crime, till a Moscow retreat drowns their hopes in blood, or a treachery of Fontainebleau for ever disgraces them in the eyes of mankind-they must resolutely in the outset withstand the tempter, and avoid all measures, whatever their apparent expedience may be, which are not evidently based on immutable justice. If this, the only compass in the dark night of revolution, is not steadily observed; if property is ever taken without compensation being given; or blood shed without the commission of crimes to which that penalty is by law attached; or institutions uprooted, sanctioned by the experience of ages, when their modification was practicable; if, in short, the principle is acted on, that the end will justify the means, unbounded national calamities are at hand, and the very objects for which these sins are committed will be for ever lost. 73. What are the difficulties which now beset the philosophic statesman in the attempt to construct the fabric of constitutional freedom in France? | peculiarities in the present political They are, that the national morality and social condition of France, but has been destroyed in the citizens of the effects of the very revolutionary towns, in whose hands alone political measures which were the object of such power is vested that there is no mo- unanimous support and enthusiasm at ral strength or political energy in the its commencement? This was the excountry that no great proprietors pedience for which the crimes of the exist to steady or direct general opin- Revolution were committed! For this ion, or counterbalance either the en- it was that they massacred the king, croachments of the executive or the guillotined the nobles, annihilated the madness of the people that France church, confiscated the estates, renderhas fallen under a subjection to Paris, ed bankrupt the nation, denied the to which there is nothing comparable Almighty!-to exchange European for in European history: that the Præto- Asiatic civilisation; to destroy the rian guards of the capital rule the foundations of freedom by crushing state that nearly six millions of sepa- its strongest supports; and, by weakenrate proprietors, the great majority at ing the restraints of virtue, render the plough, can achieve no more in the unavoidable the fetters of force! Truly cause of freedom than an army of pri- their sin has recoiled upon them; they vates without officers: that commer- have indeed received the work of their cial opulence and habits of sober judg- own hands. Mr Burke long ago said, ment have been destroyed, never to "that without a complete and entire revive that a thirst for excitement restitution of the confiscated property, everywhere prevails, and general selfish- liberty could never be re-established in ness disgraces the nation: that religion France." And the justice of the obhas never resumed its sway over the servation is now apparent, for by it influential classes: that rank has ceased alone could the elements and bulwarks to be hereditary, and, having become of freedom be restored. But restituthe appanage of office only, is a virtual tion, it will be said, is now impossible; addition to the power of the sovereign; the interests of the new proprietors and that the general depravity renders are too immense, their political power indispensable a powerful centralised too great; the Restoration was based and military government. In what on their protection, and they cannot be respect does this state of things differ interfered with. Very possibly it is so, from the institutions of China or the but that will not alter the laws of nature. Byzantine empire? "The Romans," If reparation has become impossible, says Gibbon, aspired to be equal: RETRIBUTION must be endured; and they were levelled by the equality of that retribution, as the necessary result Asiatic servitude." of the crimes of which it is the punishment, is the doom of Oriental slavery. 66 74. And yet, what are all these fatal CHAPTER XC. - ITS PHYSICAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES. 1. Ir the friends of freedom are often led to despair of its fortunes amidst the dense population, aged monarchies, and corrupted passions of the Old World, the aurora appears to rise in a purer sky and with brighter colours in the other hemisphere. In those immense regions which the genius of Columbus first laid open to European enterprise, where vice had not yet spread its snares nor wealth its seductions, the free spirit and persevering industry of England have penetrated a yet untrodden continent, and laid in the wilderness the foundations of a vaster monument of civilisation than has ever yet been raised by the efforts of man. Nor has the hand of nature been wanting to prepare a fitting receptacle for the august structure. Far beyond the Atlantic wave, amidst forests trodden only by the foot of the savage, her creative powers have been, unknown to us, in ceaseless activity: in the solitudes of the Far West, the garden of the human race has been for ages in preparation; and amidst the onward and expanding energies of the Old World, her prophetic hand had silently prepared, in the solitude of the New, unbounded resources for the future increase of man. 2. There is a part of the New World where nature appears clothed with the brilliant colours, and decked out in the gorgeous array of the tropics. In the Gulf of Mexico, the extraordinary clearness of the water reveals to the astonished mariner the magnitude of its abysses, and discloses, even at the depth of thirty fathoms, the gigantic vegetation which, so far beneath the surface, is drawn forth by the attraction of a vertical sun. In the midst of these glassy waves, rarely disturbed by a ruder breath than the zephyrs of spring, an archipelago of perfumed islands is placed, which repose like baskets of flowers on the tranquil surface of the ocean. Everything in those enchanted abodes appears to have been prepared for the wants and enjoyments of man. Nature has superseded the ordinary necessity for labour. The verdure of the groves, and the colours of the flowers and blossoms, derive additional vividness from the transparent purity of the air and the deep serenity of the heavens. Many of the trees are laden with fruits, which descend by their own weight to invite the indolent hand of the gatherer, and are perpetually renewed under the influence of an ever-balmy air. Others, which yield no nourishment, fascinate the eye by the luxuriant variety of their form or the gorgeous brilliancy of their colours. Amidst a forest of perfumed citron-trees, spreading ba nanas, graceful palms, wild figs, roundleaved myrtles, fragrant acacias, and gigantic arbutuses, are to be seen every variety of creepers, with scarlet or purple blossoms, which entwine themselves round the stems, and hang in festoons from tree to tree. 3. The trees are of a magnitude unknown in northern climes. The luxuriant vines, as they clamber up the loftiest cedars, form graceful inverted arches of vegetation; grapes are so plenty upon every shrub, that the surge of the ocean, as it lazily rolls in upon the shore with the quiet winds of summer, dashes its spray upon the clusters; and natural arbours form an impervious shade, which not a ray of the sun of July can penetrate. Cotton, planted |