After the weighty and respectable part of the people had been murdered, or driven by the menaces of murder from their houses, or were dispersed in exile into every country in Europe,—­after the soldiery had been debauched from their officers,—­after property had lost its weight and consideration, along with its security,—­after voluntary clubs and associations of factious and unprincipled men were substituted in the place of all the legal corporations of the kingdom arbitrarily dissolved,—­after freedom had been banished from those popular meetings[25] whose sole recommendation is freedom,—­after it had come to that pass that no dissent dared to appear in any of them, but at the certain price of life,—­after even dissent had been anticipated, and assassination became as quick as suspicion,—­such pretended ratification by addresses could be no act of what any lover of the people would choose to call by their name.  It is that voice which every successful usurpation, as well as this before us, may easily procure, even without making (as these tyrants have made) donatives from the spoil of one part of the citizens to corrupt the other.

The pretended rights of man, which have made this havoc, cannot be the rights of the people.  For to be a people, and to have these rights, are things incompatible.  The one supposes the presence, the other the absence, of a state of civil society.  The very foundation of the French commonwealth is false and self-destructive; nor can its principles be adopted in any country, without the certainty of bringing it to the very same condition in which France is found.  Attempts are made to introduce them into every nation in Europe.  This nation, as possessing the greatest influence, they wish most to corrupt, as by that means they are assured the contagion must become general.  I hope, therefore, I shall be excused, if I endeavor to show, as shortly as the matter will admit, the danger of giving to them, either avowedly or tacitly, the smallest countenance.

There are times and circumstances in which not to speak out is at least to connive.  Many think it enough for them, that the principles propagated by these clubs and societies, enemies to their country and its Constitution, are not owned by the modern Whigs in Parliament, who are so warm in condemnation of Mr. Burke and his book, and of course of all the principles of the ancient, constitutional Whigs of this kingdom.  Certainly they are not owned.  But are they condemned with the same zeal as Mr. Burke and his book are condemned?  Are they condemned at all?  Are they rejected or discountenanced in any way whatsoever?  Is any man who would fairly examine into the demeanor and principles of those societies, and that too very moderately, and in the way rather of admonition than of punishment, is such a man even decently treated?  Is he not reproached as if in condemning such principles he had belied the conduct of his whole life, suggesting that his life