and manfully, as I trust they always will do, and with distinguished powers, for the monarchy and the legitimate Constitution of their country.  I am sure, if I were to suppose myself at Vienna at such a time, I should, as a man, as an Englishman, and as a Royalist, protest in that case, as I do in this, against a weak and ruinous principle of proceeding, which can have no other tendency than to make those who wish to support the crown meditate too profoundly on the consequences of the part they take, and consider whether for their open and forward zeal in the royal cause they may not be thrust out from any sort of confidence and employment, where the interest of crowned heads is concerned.

These are the parties.  I have said, and said truly, that I know of no neutrals.  But, as a general observation on this general principle of choosing neutrals on such occasions as the present, I have this to say, that it amounts to neither more nor less than this shocking proposition,—­that we ought to exclude men of honor and ability from serving theirs and our cause, and to put the dearest interests of ourselves and our posterity into the hands of men of no decided character, without judgment to choose and without courage to profess any principle whatsoever.

Such men can serve no cause, for this plain reason,—­they have no cause at heart.  They can, at best, work only as mere mercenaries.  They have not been guilty of great crimes; but it is only because they have not energy of mind to rise to any height of wickedness.  They are not hawks or kites:  they are only miserable fowls whose flight is not above their dunghill or hen-roost.  But they tremble before the authors of these horrors.  They admire them at a safe and respectful distance.  There never was a mean and abject mind that did not admire an intrepid and dexterous villain.  In the bottom of their hearts they believe such hardy miscreants to be the only men qualified for great affairs.  If you set them to transact with such persons, they are instantly subdued.  They dare not so much as look their antagonist in the face.  They are made to be their subjects, not to be their arbiters or controllers.

These men, to be sure, can look at atrocious acts without indignation, and can behold suffering virtue without sympathy.  Therefore they are considered as sober, dispassionate men.  But they have their passions, though of another kind, and which are infinitely more likely to carry them out of the path of their duty.  They are of a tame, timid, languid, inert temper, wherever the welfare of others is concerned.  In such causes, as they have no motives to action, they never possess any real ability, and are totally destitute of all resource.