loves and hatreds of a citizen—of a human
being—acting, in a manner hitherto unprecedented
under the obligation of his human and social nature.
If the conduct of the rapacious and merciless adversary
rendered it neither easy nor wise—made
it, I might say, impossible to give way to that unqualified
admiration of courage and skill, made it impossible
in relation to him to be exalted by those triumphs
of the courteous affections, and to be purified by
those refinements of civility which do, more than any
thing, reconcile a man of thoughtful mind and humane
dispositions to the horrors of ordinary war; it was
felt that for such loss the benign and accomplished
soldier would upon this mission be abundantly recompensed
by the enthusiasm of fraternal love with which his
Ally, the oppressed people whom he was going to aid
in rescuing themselves, would receive him; and that
this, and the virtues which he would witness in them,
would furnish his heart with never-failing and far
nobler objects of complacency and admiration.
The discipline of the army was well known; and as
a machine, or a vital organized body, the Nation was
assured that it could not but be formidable; but thus
to the standing excellence of mechanic or organic
power seemed to be superadded, at this time, and for
this service, the force of
inspiration:
could any thing therefore be looked for, but a glorious
result? The army proved its prowess in the field;
and what has been the result is attested, and long
will be attested, by the downcast looks—the
silence—the passionate exclamations—the
sighs and shame of every man who is worthy to breathe
the air or to look upon the green-fields of Liberty
in this blessed and highly-favoured Island which we
inhabit.
If I were speaking of things however weighty, that
were long past and dwindled in the memory, I should
scarcely venture to use this language; but the feelings
are of yesterday—they are of to-day; the
flower, a melancholy flower it is! is still in blow,
nor will, I trust, its leaves be shed through months
that are to come: for I repeat that the heart
of the nation is in this struggle. This just
and necessary war, as we have been accustomed to hear
it styled from the beginning of the contest in the
year 1793, had, some time before the Treaty of Amiens,
viz. after the subjugation of Switzerland, and
not till then, begun to be regarded by the body of
the people, as indeed both just and necessary; and
this justice and necessity were by none more clearly
perceived, or more feelingly bewailed, than by those
who had most eagerly opposed the war in its commencement,
and who continued most bitterly to regret that this
nation had ever borne a part in it. Their conduct
was herein consistent: they proved that they
kept their eyes steadily fixed upon principles; for,
though there was a shifting or transfer of hostility
in their minds as far as regarded persons, they only
combated the same enemy opposed to them under a different