For present annoyance his power is, no doubt, mighty:  but liberty—­in which it originated, and of which it is a depravation—­is far mightier; and the good in human nature is stronger than the evil.  The events of our age indeed have brought this truth into doubt with some persons:  and scrupulous observers have been astonished and have repined at the sight of enthusiasm, courage, perseverance, and fidelity, put forth seemingly to their height,—­and all engaged in the furtherance of wrong.  But the minds of men are not always devoted to this bad service as strenuously as they appear to be.  I have personal knowledge that, when the attack was made which ended in the subjugation of Switzerland, the injustice of the undertaking was grievously oppressive to many officers of the French army; and damped their exertions.  Besides, were it otherwise, there is no just cause for despondency in the perverted alliance of these qualities with oppression.  The intrinsic superiority of virtue and liberty, even for politic ends, is not affected by it.  If the tide of success were, by any effort, fairly turned;—­not only a general desertion, as we have the best reason to believe, would follow among the troops of the enslaved nations; but a moral change would also take place in the minds of the native French soldiery.  Occasion would be given for the discontented to break out; and, above all, for the triumph of human nature.  It would then be seen whether men fighting in a bad cause,—­men without magnanimity, honour, or justice,—­could recover; and stand up against champions who by these virtues were carried forward in good fortune, as by these virtues in adversity they had been sustained.  As long as guilty actions thrive, guilt is strong:  it has a giddiness and transport of its own; a hardihood not without superstition, as if Providence were a party to its success.  But there is no independent spring at the heart of the machine which can be relied upon for a support of these motions in a change of circumstances.  Disaster opens the eyes of conscience; and, in the minds of men who have been employed in bad actions, defeat and a feeling of punishment are inseparable.

On the other hand; the power of an unblemished heart and a brave spirit is shewn, in the events of war, not only among unpractised citizens and peasants; but among troops in the most perfect discipline.  Large bodies of the British army have been several times broken—­that is, technically vanquished—­in Egypt, and elsewhere.  Yet they, who were conquered as formal soldiers, stood their ground and became conquerors as men.  This paramount efficacy of moral causes is not willingly admitted by persons high in the profession of arms; because it seems to diminish their value in society—­by taking from the importance of their art:  but the truth is indisputable:  and those Generals are as blind to their own interests as to the interests of their country, who, by submitting to inglorious treaties or by other misconduct, hazard the breaking down of those personal virtues in the men under their command—­to which they themselves, as leaders, are mainly indebted for the fame which they acquire.