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478 RISE OF THE CONTINENTALevils is better than a peace in which there is nothing to beseen but usurpation and injustice,dwelling with savage delight on the humble, prostrate condition of some timidsuppliant people. We are not in arms against the opinionsof the closet, nor the speculations of the schools. We are atwar with armed opinions; we are at war with those opinionswhich the sword of audacious, unprincipled, and impiousinnovation seeks to propagate amidst the ruin of empiresthe demolition of the altars of all religion, the destructionof every venerable, and good, and liberal institution underwhatever form of polity they have been raised ;and 'this inspite of the dissenting reason of men, in contempt of thatlawful authority which, in the settled order, superior talentsand superior virtues attain,crying out to them not to enteron holy ground, nor to pollute the stream of eternal justiceIf itbe asked whether I am determined to continue the wartill the republic be overthrown 1 I answer, I do not confinemy views to the territorial limits of France I ;contemplatethe principles, character, and conduct of France ;I considerwhat these are ;I see in them the issues of distraction, of infamy, and ruin, to every state in her alliance ;and therefore Isay, that until the aspect of that mighty mass of iniquity andfolly is entirely changed ; until the character of the government is totally reversed ; until, by the common consent ofthe general voice of allmen, I can with truth tell parliament, France is no longer terrible for her contempt of therights of every other nation she no longer avows schemesof universal empire she has settled into a state whosegovernment can maintain those relations in their integrityin which alone civilized communities are to find their security, and from which they are to derive their distinction andtheir glory ;until m the situation of France we have exhibited to us those features of a wise, a just, and a liberalpolicy,I cannot treat with her."The Directory itself soon realized the views of the Britishminister. Ihe scandalous proceedings at the congress ofKastadt; the contumacious bearing of the French ambassadors ;the seizure of Ehrenbreitstein in the midst of thepeace ;above all, the surreptitious attack upon Switzerland,and the treatment she received, afforded stronger evidencethan the ease required. Meanwhile England stood alone on