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 commanding officers, ever considered the inhabitants they were defending more as their enemies than their friends. Thus the more populous the country, the greater resource (instead of the greater opposition) the enemy found in it; and his first measure was to put in requisition every article he wanted. By means of this system of requisition, those persons, who had sheltered themselves under the mask of neutrality, while the Combined Armies protected them, aided and assisted the French on their arrival, in the warm hope of purchasing by treachery an exemption from the general pillage.

As the enemy advanced they recruited their army with the disaffected, and raised contributions upon the rich, increasing their numbers, both from the love of plunder and the motive of fear; but not one generous, one patriotic struggle against them has been made on the Continent by any one people or state; not one government has ventured to levy its subjects in a mass, or even to organize a system of defence in which the people had a share.

France poured forth her hundreds of thousands on a disunited coalition. While these were pressing in the front, the discontented, the dissolute, the demagogues, the athiests, the illuminati, were in the bosom of the country, magnifying their numbers, extolling their