NOTE
ON
THE WAR-SONG.
O! had they mark'd the avenging call
Their brethren's murder gave.—P. [449]. v. 2.
The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss guards, on the fatal 10th August, 1792. It is painful, but not useless, to remark, that the passive temper with which the Swiss regarded the death of their bravest countrymen, mercilessly slaughtered in discharge of their duty, encouraged and authorized the progressive injustice, by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people upon the continent, have, at length, been converted into the citadel of a foreign and military despot. A state degraded is half enslaved.
FOOTNOTES:
[101] The Royal Colours.