Everything done
to prevent it will provoke a foreign war. Everything, when we let it
proceed, will produce domestic distraction. We shall be in a perpetual
dilemma. But it is easy to see which side of the dilemma will be taken.
The same temper which brings us to solicit a Jacobin peace will induce
us to temporize with all the evils of it. By degrees our minds will be
made to our circumstances. The novelty of such things, which produces
half the horror and all the disgust, will be worn off. Our ruin will be
disguised in profit, and the sale of a few wretched baubles will bribe a
degenerate people to barter away the most precious jewel of their souls.
Our Constitution is not made for this kind of warfare. It provides
greatly for our happiness, it furnishes few means for our defence. It
is formed, in a great measure, upon the principle of jealousy of the
crown,--and as things stood, when it took that turn, with very great
reason. I go farther: it must keep alive some part of that fire of
jealousy eternally and chastely burning, or it cannot be the British
Constitution. At various periods we have had tyranny in this country,
more than enough.
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