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 our own. But at the first touch the whole fabric of old France fell to pieces. Kings, nobles, society itself were hurled down; all in the name of some imaginary ‘natural rights’ of everybody to have an equal share in government. A Republic was set up; King Louis XVI was put to death. A new kind of ‘Gospel’ was preached; ‘all men are equal’, ‘all government is tyranny, all religion is a sham’, ‘down with everything and up with ourselves’ (‘ourselves’ being the bloodthirsty mobs of Paris and other great cities). This precious Republic proceeded to offer its alliance to all the peoples of Europe who wished to abolish their kings and ‘recover their liberty’. It declared war on Austria and Prussia, and began by invading Belgium and threatening Holland, which had been our ally since 1688.

Then, at the opening of 1793, Pitt felt bound to interfere. The nation was heartily at his back. Scenes of the utmost horror and cruelty had taken place in France, and the French people, once the most civilized in Europe, seemed to have gone mad. There were a few noisy politicians in Britain, both in and outside Parliament, who sympathized with the French, and cried out for ‘Radical Reform’ and a ‘National Convention’ of the whole British people; but they were very few. The worst of them was the Whig orator, Charles Fox, who had rejoiced over every disaster of his country during the war against America. A good deal of wild nonsense was also written in some of the Whig newspapers. Daily newspapers began early in the eighteenth century; but they were still expensive, and, as yet, few of the poorer classes could read, so the newspapers used to be passed from hand to hand, or read aloud in the public-house. On the