had conceived a project of reducing the different States of Europe into one great Empire, and making Paris the feat of government; and that nothing but his untimely death prevented the attempt. The def:re of conqueft, and aggrandizing themfelves at the expence of their neighbours, appeared yet more flagrant in a fucceeding reign. A million of lives was facrificed in the ftruggle to chaftise their infolence; and had not William checked, and Marlborough, with fuperior skill and good fortune, humbled them by his victories, we, with other nations, might at this day have been the tributaries of France. We all of us remember too well, and even feel the effects of her late unprovoked outrage against the faith of treaties, in our unhappy conteft with the American Colonies. Whatever opinions might be at home refpecting the difpute, there can be but one refpecting the juftice of her interference. Before the French declared themselves the allies of America, the rejoicings at Paris over our loffes were unbounded; and after the furrender of Burgoyne, they joined moft cordially in adding to our diftreffes, and, like ungenerous cowards, attacked us when fallen. But the day of recompence was not far diftant; and the intoxicating draughts of liberty which they then took in, have fince been the poifon of thousands. And is this a people, my countrymen, that you can be brought fo eafily to admire, fo as to admit them to your confidence and counfels? When nearly 2000 years have rolled away, and have uniformly found them marked with the fame traits of character, can you be fo credulous as to fuppofe that the last Revolution in their Government has wrought a total Revolution of Principle? Are you fure that they have rooted from their hearts those ambitious ideas which have fo often embroiled the peace of Europe, and which they hypocritically affect to charge upon their fovereigns? Their conduct even now ftrongly indicates a design to make their neighbours the devoted flaves of the many-headed idol they have fet up, their newfangled Republic; and the project of their Henry IV. already mentioned, has again been agitated, and fondly deemed by thefe organizers of States to be more than ever practicable. Where then would be England, the feat of empire and the nurfe of heroes? Swallowed up by the infatiate maw of this Republican Monster. "Time «Time was, when it was praise and boast enough "That Chatham's language was his mother's tongue, But these honoured names, once fo tremendous to a Frenchman's ear, with all the facred trophies which adorn the ark of our Conftitution, and all the inestimable interefts of an independent people, we are called upon to of fer up at the unhallowed fhrine of foreign Patriotifm. But if we admit that the French have not formed any fuch plan (for what have they hitherto formed that is confiftent?) yet their intrigues with the difaffected of other countries prove, that there is nothing honeft in their de figns; for all good men deteft an alliance with traitors, and do not like to fully the purity of their own intentions with the foulness of theirs. It is but too plain that their unwearied induftry to propagate doctrines which tend to alienate the affections of the governed from their governors, is exerted with this treacherous view, that they may either triumph in the weakness of their neighbours; or, that if they themselves fhould prove unfuccefsful in the eftablishment of their own political schemes, others may be made equally wretched with themselves. What can we fay of men who call themselves Englishmen and Chriftians, but who affociate and form confederacies with thofe that are enemies to England and to Christianity; and who are ready to cry out with those children of Edom, "Down with them, down with them, "even to the ground?" If these men have fold themselves to be the underlings of French fanaticism and villainy, it is a depravity which can be only cured by the whole fome feverity of law and juftice. In all focieties, however equitably governed, we are presented with this melancholy truth, that some men are always to be found who turn with disgust from the general concord of affection and duty. Pride of heart is apt to meet with difappointment, and difappointment begets difaffection. The progrefs is but too eafy and too common. But tell us, ye wifeft of political dreamers, what Government can prevent or fatisfy the claims of all such ? A 3 There There are fome, again, of fo unfortunate a temper, as to be then most difcontented when laid upon the lap of eafe and fecurity. Alarms and tumults, maffacres and rapine, are fights and founds at which they can fmile. God forbid that we fhould have a Marat or Robertspierre among us! But they who can defend the horrid fcenes of murder at which thofe men prefided, are not far from the guilt of their crimes; and (I fhudder while I fay it) an English press has been employed to vindicate those butchers of their fellow-citizens. The human heart too often impofes upon itself, and rarely knows the extent of its own iniquity. The funfhine of occafion calls forth the adder, and that craves wary walking." The wicked Hazael, when told by the Man of God of the cruelties, the devastation and murders he would afterwards commit, faid, with fome furprize, "What, is thy fervant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" He thought himfelf hardly capable of fuch wickedness; but it was becaufe opportunity had not yet given its impulfe to his impetuous paffions. What indeed is not to be apprehended, when we hear those who fhould be minifters of peace and good-will exclaim, like the revengeful Zanga in the gloomy effufion of his foul, "I like this rocking of the battlements; I ardently figh for the deftruction of "ftates and kingdoms, that my own opinions may reign triumphant." Are thefe, my countrymen, the miniftering fpirits of benevolence? or, Are they not the inftruments of hellborn difcord, who can never be gratified but by universal bloodshed and ruin? Yet to thefe, and fuch as thefe, under the fpecious idea of Reform, you are invited, nay almoft compelled by never-ceafing folicitations, to fubmit the difpofal of your property, your liberty, your lives. I believe we are all convinced that it is not the lopping off a few decayed branches, but the cutting down root and branch; that it is not Reform but Ruin which is the object of their Affociations. It is time, therefore, for honest men to make a ftand, while they have any ground to tread on, against all invaders of our prefent quiet, and all confpirators against our future fafety. It not only concerns thofe who love their King and their Conftitution, and those who are in power and opulence, but all who love to live fecure from violence and protected by an im partial partial adminiftration of justice, to refent their infidious defigns with becoming indignation. Afk these flavifh echoes of French Revolutions, what we are to imitate? It is true, that nation ejected the evil fpirit of defpotifm; but it has returned, and finding the manfion of the State swept and garnished, has taken feven other fpirits more wicked than himself to dwell in it. They demolished the Baftile, but have raised another more dreary and formidable for the unhappy man and his family, whose greatest offence feems to be that he was born to a throne. By the bye, it excites one's contempt, as well as deteftation, to read the laboured cruelties of fpeech and the pretty turns of phrase in which they paint their rancorous hatred of regal power. They built a Constitution, “ a "monument forfooth of human wisdom;" but that no veftiges of wisdom might be left to reproach them, they pulled it down. Their National Affembly was depofed; the reign of equality began; and, that nothing might remain like virtue and unlike themselves, they crowded their prisons with the victims of fufpicion and envy. The ruffian hands of violence were let loose to murder and deAtroy; beauty and innocence were dragged forth, stabbed, and trampled upon. But fpare me the recital of deeds of horror which pofterity will wish to have had erased from the annals of the human race. Yet thefe lawless inquifitors, fo deeply drenched in blood, ftill live. Their armies are victorious, and their national representation is renewed; yet these monsters live unpunished, partake in their public councils, and even threaten to repeat their outrages. In the mean time, the iniquity of fo black a complexion is permitted to walk at large, and to boast of its crimes; their National Convention purfues with unrelenting severity the fearful emigrant, whofe only guilt is, that he fought for an afylum in a foreign land, at an hour of universal difmay and danger; at an hour when they themselves acknowledge the magiftracy was unable to protect the lives of unoffending citizens. Such, my countrymen, is the prefent precarious fitua tion, and fuch the injuftice and inhumanity of a people which our English Jacobins prostitute their time and honefty to defend. Through fuch a field of blood these wrong-headed guides would lead us in queft of a fhadow, which never was realized on earth, nor will be in heaven. But indeed they know not what they aim at themselves; A 4 they they exalted into perfection the first change which the French made in their government, but that was undone; and yet our very obfequious patriots have new praises to bestow upon every fucceeding change which vanity and violence can effect. Yet the truth is, that any thing but an established form of government, or any form but that under which they live, they are ready to efpoufe. If their ableft reafoners have fhifted their ground fo often, what have their converts to trust to? The only point to which all their views feem fteadily directed, is to demolith what their ancestors have done. "Do you affift us "to pull down (they fay), and then leave it to us to rebuild when, and how, we think proper. You fee, my friends, how fearlessly our neighbours upon the conti"nent have destroyed their rotten manfion: we cannot fay that they have raised another, becaufe the builders have been quarrelling, and cutting throats; but we "have no doubt they will, as we know their integrity "and capacity. We have learned under them, and they will fupply us with workmen, if we like it. And as we have learned, we want an opportunity to fhew you "a fpecimen of our art. This ftructure of ours has undoubtedly been much admired, because it has been built in a good ftyle, and well proportioned according "to the rules of masonry; but of what ufe are those columns, architrave, and cornice? A plain front will do juft as well; and as thofe are inequalities, we hate them. "The ftructure is indeed tolerably firm; but what of that? The greater glory it will be to make it a ruin.— "Come on then, all ye whose towering aims have been at 66 66 any time blafted by the frown of authority; all ye "whose bankrupt fortunes cannot be repaired but by "fpoiling the induftrious; all ye whom profligacy and idlenefs have rendered obnoxious to the regular ex"ertions of justice; and all ye whose souls by nature are "like the troubled sea, and cannot reft, come forward to " a work fo fuited to your tempers and your hopes. But we need not invite you; you are already enlifted in the "cause by your own paffions, or defperate circumstances, "We therefore next addrels ourselves to the more nume rous claffes of society, the bufy trader, the toiling me"chanic, &c.; and as fome have not the leifure, and "others want the ability to detect our fchemes, we will “dazzle them by our pretenfions to fuperior knowledge; " and |