majority of the nation, should have been able not only to resist the
efforts of so many powers combined against it, but even to proceed from
defence to conquest, and to mingle surprize and terror with those
sentiments of contempt and abhorrence which it originally excited.

That wisdom or talents are not the sources of this success, may be
deduced from the situation of France itself. The armies of the republic
have, indeed, invaded the territories of its enemies, but the desolation
of their own country seems to increase with every triumph--the genius of
the French government appears powerful only in destruction, and inventive
only in oppression--and, while it is endowed with the faculty of
spreading universal ruin, it is incapable of promoting the happiness of
the smallest district under its protection. The unrestrained pillage of
the conquered countries has not saved France from multiplied
bankruptcies, nor her state-creditors from dying through want; and
the French, in the midst of their external prosperity, are often
distinguished from the people whom their armies have been subjugated,
only by a superior degree of wretchedness, and a more irregular
despotism.

With a power excessive and unlimited, and surpassing what has hitherto
been possessed by any Sovereign, it would be difficult to prove that
these democratic despots have effected any thing either useful or
beneficent. Whatever has the appearance of being so will be found, on
examination, to have for its object some purpose of individual interest
or personal vanity. They manage the armies, they embellish Paris, they
purchase the friendship of some states and the neutrality of others; but
if there be any real patriots in France, how little do they appreciate
these useless triumphs, these pilfered museums, and these fallacious
negotiations, when they behold the population of their country