Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/66

 ever breathe a syllable on the subject of peace, and then only to avert it. Whenever "a spurious and mawkish beneficence" gives an alarm of peace, the dogs of war stand ready on the slip to hunt it down.

"I have stated to you" (To the Editor of the Times) "as the only legitimate basis of a treaty, if not on the part of the continental Allies, at least for England herself, that she should conquer all she can, and keep all she conquers. This is not by way of retaliation, however just, upon so obdurate and rapacious an enemy—but as an indispensable condition of her own safety and existence."

That which is here said to be the only legitimate basis of a treaty is one, which if admitted and acted upon, would make it impossible that any treaty should ever be formed. It is a basis, not of lasting peace, but of endless war. To call that the basis of a treaty which precludes the possibility of any concession or compensation, of every consideration either of the right or power of each party to retain its actual acquisitions, is one of those misnomers which the gravity of Vetus's manner makes his readers overlook. After the imposing and guarded exordium which ushers in the definition of our only legitimate basis of a treaty, we are not prepared to expect Vetus's burlesque solution of the difficulty—"that we are not to treat at all." The human mind is naturally credulous of sounding professions, and reluctantly admits the existence of what is very common, and common for that reason—pompous nonsense. It seems, however, that this basis of a treaty is to apply only to one of the contracting powers, namely, England, it is equivocal as to the Allies, and with respect to France, it is, we suppose, meant to be altogether null. For in a former letter, after asking, "Who are to be the judges of his (Bonaparte's) rights?" he answers emphatically, "We and our Allies!" Bobadil did not come up to this exquisite pacificator of the world! To make common sense of Vetus's axiom with reference to any state whatever, "that it should keep all it conquers," it seems necessary to add this trifling condition, "if it