humane and virtuous sovereign and civilized people.  I have heard that a Tartar believes, when he has killed a man, that all his estimable qualities pass with his clothes and arms to the murderer; but I have never heard that it was the opinion of any savage Scythian, that, if he kills a brother villain, he is, ipso facto, absolved of all his own offences.  The Tartarian doctrine is the most tenable opinion.  The murderers of Robespierre, besides what they are entitled to by being engaged in the same tontine of infamy, are his representatives, have inherited all his murderous qualities, in addition to their own private stock.  But it seems we are always to be of a party with the last and victorious assassins.  I confess I am of a different mind, and am rather inclined, of the two, to think and speak less hardly of a dead ruffian than to associate with the living.  I could better bear the stench of the gibbeted murderer than the society of the bloody felons who yet annoy the world.  Whilst they wait the recompense due to their ancient crimes, they merit new punishment by the new offences they commit.  There is a period to the offences of Robespierre.  They survive in his assassins.  “Better a living dog,” says the old proverb, “than a dead lion.”  Not so here.  Murderers and hogs never look well till they are hanged.  From villany no good can arise, but in the example of its fate.  So I leave them their dead Robespierre, either to gibbet his memory, or to deify him in their Pantheon with their Marat and their Mirabeau.

It is asserted that this government promises stability.  God of his mercy forbid!  If it should, nothing upon earth besides itself can be stable.  We declare this stability to be the ground of our making peace with them.  Assuming it, therefore, that the men and the system are what I have described, and that they have a determined hostility against this country,—­an hostility not only of policy, but of predilection,—­then I think that every rational being would go along with me in considering its permanence as the greatest of all possible evils.  If, therefore, we are to look for peace with such a thing in any of its monstrous shapes, which I deprecate, it must be in that state of disorder, confusion, discord, anarchy, and insurrection, such as might oblige the momentary rulers to forbear their attempts on neighboring states, or to render these attempts less operative, if they should kindle new wars.  When was it heard before, that the internal repose of a determined and wicked enemy, and the strength of his government, became the wish of his neighbor, and a security, against either his malice or his ambition?  The direct contrary has always been inferred from that state of things:  accordingly, it has ever been the policy of those who would preserve themselves against the enterprises of such a malignant and mischievous power to cut out so much work for him in his own states as might keep his dangerous activity employed at home.