"And since, in this manner, we ourselves are the Revolutionary Administration, all that is against the rights of the people must be overthrown at our entry—We must display our principles by actually destroying all tyranny; and our generals after having chased away the tyrants and their satellites, must proclaim to the people that they have brought them happiness; and then, on the spot, they must suppress tithes, feudal rights, and every species of servitude."
"But we shall have done nothing if we stop here. Aristocracy still domineers—we must therefore suppress all authorities existing in the hands of the upper classes.—When the Revolutionary Authority appears, there must nothing of the old establishment remain.—A popular system must be introduced—every office must be occupied by new functionaries—and the Sans Cullottes must every where have a share in the Administration.
"Still nothing is done, till we declare aloud the precision of our principles to such as want only half freedom.—We must say to them—If you think of compromising with the privileged casts, we cannot suffer such dealing with tyrants—They are our enemies, and we must treat them as enemies, because they are neither for Liberty nor Equality.—Show yourselves disposed to receive a free constitution—and the Convention will not only stand by you, but will give you permanent support; we will defend you against the vengeance of your tyrants—against their attacks, and against their return.—Therefore abolish from among you the Nobles, and every ecclesiastical and military incorporation. They are incompatable with Equality.—Henceforward you are citizens, all equal in rights—equally called upon to rule, to defend, and to serve your country.—The agents of the French Republic will instruct and assist you in forming a free constitution, and assure you of happiness and fraternity."
This Report was loudly applauded, and a decree formed in precise conformity to its principles. Both were ordered to be translated into all languages, and copies to be furnished to their generals, with orders to have them carefully dispersed in the countries which they invaded.
And, in completion of these decrees, their armies found it easy to collect as many discontented or worthless persons in any country as sufficed for setting up a tree of liberty. This they held as a sufficient call for their interference.—Sometimes they performed this ceremony themselves—a representation was easily made up in the same way—and then, under the name of a free constitution, the nation was forced to acquiesce in a form dictated at the point of the bayonet, in which they had not the smallest liberty to choose—and they were plundered of all they had, by way of compensating to France for the trouble she had taken.—And this they call Liberty.—It needs no comment.—
Thus have I attempted to prove that the present awful situation of Europe, and the general fermentation of the public mind in all nations, have not been altogether the natural operations of discontent, oppression, and moral corruption, although these have been great, and have operated with fatal energy; but that this political fever has been carefully and systematically heightened by bodies of men, who professed to be the physicians of the State, and, while their open practice employed cooling medicines, and a treatment which all approved, administered in secret the most inflammatory poisons, which they made up so as to flatter the diseased fancy of the patient. Although this was not a plan begun, carried on, and completed by the same persons, it was undoubtedly an uniform and consistent scheme, proceeding on the same unvaried principle, and France undoubtedly now smarts under all the woes of German Illumination.
I beg leave to suggest a few thoughts, which may enable us to draw some advantage from this shocking mass of information.
General Reflections.
I. I may observe, in the first place, and I beg it may be particularly attended to, that in all those villainous machinations against the peace of the world, the attack has been first made on the principles of Morality and Religion. The conspirators saw that till these are extirpated, they have no chance of success; and their manner of proceeding shews that they consider Religion and Morality as inseparably connected together. We learn much from this—Fas est et ab hoste doceri.—They endeavour to destroy our religious sentiments, by first corrupting our morals. They try to inflame our passions, that when the demands from this quarter become urgent, the restraints of Religion may immediately come in sight, and stand in the way. They are careful, on this occasion, to give such a view of those restraints, that the real origin of them does not appear.—We are made to believe that they have been altogether the contrivance of Priests and despots, in order to get the command of us. They take care to support these assertions by facts, which, to our great shame, and greater misfortune, are but too numerous. Having now the passions on their side, they find no difficulty in persuading the voluptuary, or the discontented, that tyranny, actually exerted, or resolved on in future, is the sole origin of religious restraint. He seeks no further argument, and gives himself no trouble to find any. Had he examined the matter with any care, he would find himself just brought back to those very feelings of moral excellence and moral depravity that he wishes to get rid of altogether; and these would tell him that pure Religion does not lay a single restraint on us that a noble nature would not have laid on itself—nor enjoins a single duty which an ingenuous and warm heart would not be ashamed to find itself deficient in. He would then see that all the sanctions of Religion are fitted to his high rank in the scale of existence. And the more he contemplates his future prospects, the more they brighten upon his view, the more attainable they appear, and the more he is able to know what they may probably be. Having attained this happy state of mind, (an attainment in the power of any kind heart that is in earnest in the enquiry) he will think that no punishment is too great for the unthankful and groveling soul which can forego such hopes, and reject these noble proffers, for the comparatively frivolous and transitory gratifications of life. He is not frightened into worthy and virtuous conduct by fears of such merited punishment; but, if not enticed into it by his high expectations, he is, at least, retained in the paths of virtue by a kind of manly shame.