capacity, whenever charity to them, or a care of my own safety, calls forth my activity?  Circumstances perpetually variable, directing a moral prudence and discretion, the general principles of which never vary, must alone prescribe a conduct fitting on such occasions.  The latest casuists of public law are rather of a republican cast, and, in my mind, by no means so averse as they ought to be to a right in the people (a word which, ill defined, is of the most dangerous use) to make changes at their pleasure in the fundamental laws of their country.  These writers, however, when a country is divided, leave abundant liberty for a neighbor to support any of the parties according to his choice.[36] This interference must, indeed, always be a right, whilst the privilege of doing good to others, and of averting from them every sort of evil, is a right:  circumstances may render that right a duty.  It depends wholly on this, whether it be a bona fide charity to a party, and a prudent precaution with regard to yourself, or whether, under the pretence of aiding one of the parties in a nation, you act in such a manner as to aggravate its calamities and accomplish its final destruction.  In truth, it is not the interfering or keeping aloof, but iniquitous intermeddling, or treacherous inaction, which is praised or blamed by the decision of an equitable judge.

It will be a just and irresistible presumption against the fairness of the interposing power, that he takes with him no party or description of men in the divided state.  It is not probable that these parties should all, and all alike, be more adverse to the true interests of their country, and less capable of forming a judgment upon them, than those who are absolute strangers to their affairs, and to the character of the actors in them, and have but a remote, feeble, and secondary sympathy with their interest.  Sometimes a calm and healing arbiter may be necessary; but he is to compose differences, not to give laws.  It is impossible that any one should not feel the full force of that presumption.  Even people, whose politics for the supposed good of their own country lead them to take advantage of the dissensions of a neighboring nation in order to ruin it, will not directly propose to exclude the natives, but they will take that mode of consulting and employing them which most nearly approaches to an exclusion.  In some particulars they propose what amounts to that exclusion, in others they do much worse.  They recommend to ministry, “that no Frenchman who has given a decided opinion or acted a decided part in this great Revolution, for or against it, should be countenanced, brought forward, trusted, or employed, even in the strictest subordination to the ministers of the allied powers.”  Although one would think that this advice would stand condemned on the first proposition, yet, as it has been made popular, and has been proceeded upon practically, I think it right to give it a full consideration.