While the war of words and opinions was going forward in this country, Europe was deluged with blood.  They in whose hands power was vested among us, in course of time, lost ground in public opinion, through the failure of their efforts.  Parties were broken and re-composed; but Men who are brought together less by principle than by events, cannot cordially co-operate, or remain long united.  The opponents of the war, in this middle stage and desponding state of it, were not popular; and afterwards, when the success of the enemy made the majority of the Nation feel, that Peace dictated by him could not be lasting, and they were bent on persevering in the struggle, the Party of Opposition persisted in a course of action which, as their countenance of the doctrine of the rights of man, had brought their understandings into disrepute, cast suspicion on the soundness of their patriotic affections.  Their passions made them blind to the differences between a state of peace and war, (above all such a war!) as prescribing rules for their own conduct.  They were ignorant, or never bore in mind, that a species of hostility which, had there been no foreign enemy to resist, might have proved useful and honourable, became equally pernicious and disgraceful, when a formidable foe threatened us with destruction.

I appeal to impartial recollection, whether, during the course of the late awful struggle, and in the latter stages of it especially, the antagonists of Ministers, in the two Houses of Parliament, did not, for the most part, conduct themselves more like allies to a military despot, who was attempting to enslave the world, and to whom their own country was an object of paramount hatred, than like honest Englishmen, who had breathed the air of liberty from their cradles.  If any state of things could supply them with motives for acting in that manner, they must abide by the consequences.  They must reconcile themselves as well as they can to dislike and to disesteem, the unavoidable results of behaviour so unnatural.  Peace has indeed come; but do they who deprecated the continuance of the war, and clamoured for its close, on any terms, rejoice heartily in a triumph by which their prophecies were belied?  Did they lend their voices to swell the hymn of transport, that resounded through our Land, when the arch-enemy was overthrown?  Are they pleased that inheritances have been restored, and that legitimate governments have been re-established, on the Continent?  And do they grieve when those re-established governments act unworthily of the favour which Providence has shown them?  Do not too many rather secretly congratulate themselves on every proof of imbecility or misconduct there exhibited; and endeavour that attention shall be exclusively fixed on those melancholy facts, as if they were the only fruits of a triumph, to which we Britons owe, that we are a fearless, undishonoured, and rapidly improving people, and the nations of the Continent owe their very existence as self-governed communities?