This desperate profanation was emulated in the provinces. Fouché, in Lyons, ordered a civic festival in honour of one Chalier. An ass, with a mitre on its head, and dragging a Bible at its tail, formed a characteristic portion of the ceremony; the Bible was finally burnt, and its ashes scattered to the winds.
"Thus Christianity," said the noble speaker, "was stigmatized, through the president of the Convention, amid the applauses of the whole audience, as a system of murder and massacre, incapable of being tolerated by the humanity of a republican government. The Old and New Testaments were publicly burnt, as prohibited books. Nor was it to Christianity that their hatred was confined; the Jews were involved in this comprehensive plan. Their ornaments of public worship were plundered, and their vows of irreligion were recorded with enthusiasm. The existence of a future state was openly denied, and modes of burial were devised, for the express purpose of representing to the popular mind, that death was nothing more than an everlasting sleep; and, to complete the whole project, doctrines were circulated under the eye of the government, declaring that 'the existence of a Supreme God was an idea inconsistent with the liberty of man.'"
In England, we are verging on democracy from year to year. We have begun by unhinging the national respect for the religion of the Scriptures, in our zeal to introduce the religion of the Council of Trent into the constitution. The malecontents in the Established Church are contributing their efforts to bring Protestantism into contempt, by their adoption of every error and every absurdity of the Papist. The bolder portion of these malecontents have already apostatized. The Church once shaken, every great and salutary support of the constitution will follow, and we shall have a government impelled solely by faction. When that time arrives, the minister will be the mere tool of the multitude; the faction in the streets will have its mouthpiece in the faction of the legislature. Property will be at the mercy of the idle, the desperate, and the rapacious – Law will be a dead letter – Religion a mockery – Right superseded by violence – and the only title to possession will be the ruffian heart and the sanguinary hand.
We are perfectly aware, that a large portion of the country cannot be persuaded that it is necessary for them to disturb their own comfort, quiet, and apathy, for any possible reason – that they believe all change to be of too little moment to demand any resistance on their part; and that, at all events, they trust that the world will go on smoothly for their time, whatever may be the consequence of their scandalous and contemptible apathy hereafter. But, such thinkers do not deserve to have a country, nor to be protected, nor to be regarded as any thing but as the cumberers of the earth. On such men no power of persuasion can act; for no argument would convince. They wrap themselves up in their snug incredulity, leave it to others to fight for them, and will not hazard a shilling, nor give a thought, for the salvation of their country! Yet even they are no more secure than the rest. The noble, the priest, and the man of landed wealth, are not those alone on whom the heavy hand of rabble robbery will fall. We give them, on this head, a fragment from the report of the well-known Barrère, from the "Committee of Public Welfare," constituting, in fact, the rule of conduct to the Republic. It begins by declaring the "necessity of abandoning the idea of mercy in republican government." It pronounces the necessity of the law to act, for the "arrest of suspected persons." It declares every "remnant of the gentry of France to be an object of suspicion." It declares the "business of bankers to render them objects of suspicion." It declares "their reluctance to receive assignats, and their sordid attachment to their own interests," to make all merchants objects of suspicion. It declares "all the relatives of emigrants" to be objects of suspicion. It declares "all the clergy who have refused the constitutional oath, and all the former magistracy," to be objects of suspicion. All those classes of society are to be sentenced at once, "without being heard." Let us strike at once, says this desperate document, "without trial and without mercy. Let us banish all compassion from our bosoms. Oh! what innumerable mischiefs may be produced by a false sentiment of pity?"
This decree, which made every man a victim who had any thing to lose, instantly crowded the French prisons with the merchants, the bankers, and the whole monied class in France. Those who could be plundered no longer, were sent to execution. In Paris alone, within six months, a thousand persons of the various professions had been murdered by the guillotine. During the three years of the democracy, no less than eighteen thousand individuals, chiefly of the middle order, perished by the guillotine.
This frightful catalogue closed with a remark on the belligerent propensities which such a state of society must produce. "It must be the immediate interest of a government, founded on principles wholly contradictory to the received maxims of all surrounding nations, to propagate the doctrines abroad by which it subsists at home; to assimilate every neighbouring state to its own system; and to subvert every constitution which even forms an advantageous contrast to its own absurdities. Such a government must, from its nature, be hostile to all governments of whatever form; but, above all, to those which are most strongly contrasted with its own vicious structure, and which afford to their subjects the best security for the maintenance of order, liberty, justice, and religion."
Sheridan made a speech, of great beauty and animation, in reply. But his whole argument consisted in the sophism, that the French had been rendered savage by the long sense of oppression, and that the blame of their atrocities, (which he fully admitted,) should be visited on the monarchy, not on the people.
Lord Mornington's was acknowledged to be the ablest speech on the ministerial side; and though eclipsed by the richness and power of Sheridan – and what speaker in the records of English eloquence ever excelled him in either? – it yet maintained a distinguished superiority in the force of its reasoning, and the fulness of its statements. Sheridan, in his peroration, had thrown out some bitter pleasantries on the ministerial favours, whose prospect he regarded as the only motive of those abandonments which had left the Whig party suddenly so feeble. "Is this a time," exclaimed the orator, "for selfish intrigues and the little traffic of lucre? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Nay, even for those who have no direct object, what is the language which their actions speak? 'The throne is in danger' – 'we will support the throne; but let us share the smiles of royalty.' 'The order of nobility is in danger' – 'I will fight for nobility,' says the viscount. 'But my zeal would be much greater, if I were made an earl.' 'Rouse all the marquess within me!' exclaims the earl, 'and the peerage never turned out a more undaunted champion in the cause.' 'Stain my green riband blue,' cries out the gallant knight, 'and the fountain of honour will have a fast and faithful servant.' But, what are the people to think of our sincerity? What credit are they to give to our professions? It there nothing which whispers to that right honourable gentleman, that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the hackneyed means of ordinary corruption?"
Wyndham pronounced, that the speech of the noble lord had recapitulated the conduct of France in a manner so true, so masterly, and so alarming, "as to fix the attention of the House and the nation." Pitt spoke in terms still more expressive. "The speech of my noble friend," said he, "has been styled declamatory; on what principle I know not, unless that every effort of eloquence, in which the most forcible reasoning was adorned and supported by all the powers of language, was to be branded with the epithet declamatory." This debate was decisive; two hundred and seventy-seven voted for the vigorous prosecution of the war: for Fox's amendment, only fifty-seven. We have now to follow the career of the noble lord to another quarter of the globe, where his presence was more essential, and where his capabilities had a still wider field.
The resignation of Sir John Shore had left the government of India vacant; and the conspicuous exertions of Lord Mornington in the late debates had placed him in a high position before the ministerial eye. He was now fixed on for the Governor-generalship. His connexion with Indian affairs as a member of the Board of Control, had given him official knowledge; his education had given him the accomplishment suited to diplomatic distinction; and his abilities, his ardour, and his time of life, rendered him the fittest man for the arduous