Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/88

 great statesmen-like views of things, "this large discourse of reason, looking before and after," are, we confess, beyond us. We recollect indeed a similar prophecy to that of Vetus, couched in nearly the same terms, when in the year 1797, the French were said to be "on the verge, nay, in the very gulph of bankruptcy," and that their finances could not hold out six months longer. Vetus, however, taught by the failure of past prognostics, constructs his political calculations for the ensuing century, instead of the ensuing year, and puts off the day of reckoning to a period when he and his predictions will be forgotten.

Such are the charitable grounds on which our author wishes to secure Bonaparte on the throne of France, and thinks that peace may at present be made with him, on terms consistent with our safety. He is not, like others, "ready to shake hands with the Usurper over the tomb of the murdered D'Enghien, provided he will return to the paths of religion and virtue;" but he will shake hands with him over the ruins of the liberty and happiness of France, on the express condition that "he never returns to the paths of religion and morality." Vetus is willing to forget the injuries which Bonaparte may have done to England, for the sake of the greater mischiefs he may do to France. These are the "obligations" which Vetus owes to him—this the source of his gratitude, the sacred pledge that reconciles him to "that monster whom England detests." He is for making peace with the "tyrant," to give him an opportunity to rivet on the chains of France, and fix her final doom. But is Vetus sincere in all this? His reasoning comes in a very questionable shape; and we the more doubt it, because he has no sooner (under the auspices of Bonaparte) hurled France down the gulf of irretrievable destruction, than he immediately resumes the old topic of eternal war or perpetual bondage, as the only alternative which this country can look to. Why, if he is in earnest, insist with Lord Castlereagh on the caution with which we must grant terms to "such an enemy," to this disabled and paralyzed foe? Why assert, as Vetus did in his very last letter, that "nothing short of unconditional