It is observed, that this party has never spoken of an ally of Great Britain with the smallest degree of respect or regard:  on the contrary, it has generally mentioned them under opprobrious appellations, and in such terms of contempt or execration as never had been heard before,—­because no such would have formerly been permitted in our public assemblies.  The moment, however, that any of those allies quitted this obnoxious connection, the party has instantly passed an act of indemnity and oblivion in their favor.  After this, no sort of censure on their conduct, no imputation on their character.  From that moment their pardon was sealed in a reverential and mysterious silence.  With the gentlemen of this minority, there is no ally, from one end of Europe to the other, with whom we ought not to be ashamed to act.  The whole college of the states of Europe is no better than a gang of tyrants.  With them all our connections were broken off at once.  We ought to have cultivated France, and France alone, from the moment of her Revolution.  On that happy change, all our dread of that nation as a power was to cease.  She became in an instant dear to our affections and one with our interests.  All other nations we ought to have commanded not to trouble her sacred throes, whilst in labor to bring into an happy birth her abundant litter of constitutions.  We ought to have acted under her auspices, in extending her salutary influence upon every side.  From that moment England and France were become natural allies, and all the other states natural enemies.  The whole face of the world was changed.  What was it to us, if she acquired Holland and the Austrian Netherlands?  By her conquests she only enlarged the sphere of her beneficence, she only extended the blessings of liberty to so many more foolishly reluctant nations.  What was it to England, if, by adding these, among the richest and most peopled countries of the world, to her territories, she thereby left no possible link of communication between us and any other power with whom we could act against her?  On this new system of optimism, it is so much the better:  so much the further are we removed from the contact with infectious despotism.  No longer a thought of a barrier in the Netherlands to Holland against France.  All that is obsolete policy.  It is fit that France should have both Holland and the Austrian Netherlands too, as a barrier to her against the attacks of despotism.  She cannot multiply her securities too much; and as to our security, it is to be found in hers.  Had we cherished her from the beginning, and felt for her when attacked, she, poor, good soul, would never have invaded any foreign nation, never murdered her sovereign and his family, never proscribed, never exiled, never imprisoned, never been guilty of extra-judicial massacre or of legal murder.  All would have been a golden age, full of peace, order, and liberty,—­and philosophy, raying out from Europe, would have warmed and enlightened