CHAP. II.


FOREIGN POWERS THE ENEMIES OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT--THEIR PART IN THE
PROGRAMME OF THE REBELLION.

The event of the American revolution burst upon the world as the most
startling era in the history of nations. Monarchical Europe had long
envied the proud career and inevitable destiny of these States, which had
been shaken as the brightest jewels from the British Crown. Monarchs,
Emperors, Queens, lords, princes and diplomats, who wield the sceptre of
dominion, could not conceal the joy afforded them by a scene, which
executed, promised the speedy extinguishment of the leading national power
on the globe, and the final demolition of the only altar of liberty upon
which the fires of freedom had continued bright.

The event created the more joy, because it was attributable partly to the
efforts so strenuously put forth for many preceding years by the combined
enemies of American Independence, to poison the American mind and breed
disunion in the ranks of a free, industrious and honest yeomanry, with a
view to the ultimate dissolution of the bonds of the Union.

These enemies, however, for some time anterior to the development of the
fruit of their labors, had begun to despair of the cause in which they had
engaged, and it is possible that the scheme of American wreck and ruin
upon their part had been permanently abandoned, hence their immediate