of its Constitution, even at some expense of blood,
might be seen without much disapprobation. No
confusion could be feared in such an enterprise; because
the establishment to be reformed was itself a state
of confusion. A king without authority; nobles
without union or subordination; a people without arts,
industry, commerce, or liberty; no order within, no
defence without; no effective public force, but a
foreign force, which entered, a naked country at will,
and disposed of everything at pleasure. Here was
a state of things which seemed to invite, and might
perhaps justify, bold enterprise and desperate experiment.
But in what manner was this chaos brought into order?
The means were as striking to the imagination as satisfactory
to the reason and soothing to the moral sentiments.
In contemplating that change, humanity has everything
to rejoice and to glory in,—nothing to
be ashamed of, nothing to suffer. So far as it
has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated
public good which ever has been conferred on mankind.
We have seen anarchy and servitude at once removed;
a throne strengthened for the protection of the people,
without trenching on their liberties; all foreign
cabal banished, by changing the crown from elective
to hereditary; and what was a matter of pleasing wonder,
we have seen a reigning king, from an heroic love
to his country, exerting himself with all the toil,
the dexterity, the management, the intrigue, in favor
of a family of strangers, with which ambitious men
labor for the aggrandizement of their own. Ten
millions of men in a way of being freed gradually,
and therefore safely to themselves and the state, not
from civil or political chains, which, bad as they
are, only fetter the mind, but from substantial personal
bondage. Inhabitants of cities, before without
privileges, placed in the consideration which belongs
to that improved and connecting situation of social
life. One of the most proud, numerous, and fierce
bodies of nobility and gentry ever known in the world
arranged only in the foremost rank of free and generous
citizens. Not one man incurred loss or suffered
degradation. All, from the king to the day-laborer,
were improved in their condition. Everything
was kept in its place and order; but in that place
and order everything was bettered. To add to
this happy wonder, this unheard-of conjunction of
wisdom and fortune, not one drop of blood was spilled;
no treachery; no outrage; no system of slander more
cruel than the sword; no studied insults on religion,
morals, or manners; no spoil; no confiscation; no
citizen beggared; none imprisoned; none exiled:
the whole was effected with a policy, a discretion,
an unanimity and secrecy, such as have never been
before known on any occasion; but such wonderful conduct
was reserved for this glorious conspiracy in favor
of the true and genuine rights and interests of men.
Happy people, if they know to proceed as they have
begun! Happy prince, worthy to begin with splendor
or to close with glory a race of patriots and of kings,
and to leave