stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of
metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some gentlemen
pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its
distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances
are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious
to mankind. Abstractedly speaking, government, as well as liberty,
is good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago, have felicitated
France on her enjoyment of a government (for she then had a
government) without inquiry what the nature of that government was, or
how it was administered? Can I now congratulate the same nation upon
its freedom? Is it because liberty in the abstract may be classed
amongst the blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate
a madman, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and
wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of
light and liberty? Am I to congratulate a highwayman and murderer
who has broke prison upon the recovery of his natural rights? This
would be to act over again the scene of the criminals condemned to the
galleys, and their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic Knight of the
Sorrowful Countenance.

    When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong
principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know
of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose; but we
ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a
little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see
something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy
surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to
congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received
one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver, and
adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. I
should, therefore, suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of
France until I was informed how it had been combined with
government, with public force, with the discipline and obedience of
armies, with the collection of an effective and well-distributed
revenue, with morality and religion, with the solidity of property,
with peace and order, with civil and social manners. All these (in
their way) are good things, too, and without them liberty is not a
benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The
effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please;
we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk
congratulations which may be soon turned into complaints. Prudence
would dictate this in the case of separate, insulated, private men,
but liberty, when men act in bodies, is power. Considerate people,
before they declare themselves, will observe the use which is made
of power and particularly of so trying a thing as new power in new
persons of whose principles, tempers, and dispositions they have
little or no experience, and in situations where those who appear
the most stirring in the scene may possibly not be the real movers.

    ALL these considerations, however, were below the transcendental
dignity of the Revolution Society. Whilst I continued in the
country, from whence I had the honor of writing to you, I had but an
imperfect idea of their transactions. On my coming to town, I sent for
an account of their proceedings, which had been published by their
authority, containing a sermon of Dr. Price, with the Duke de
Rochefoucault's and the Archbishop of Aix's letter, and several
other documents annexed. The whole of that publication, with the
manifest design of connecting the affairs of France with those of
England by drawing us into an imitation of the conduct of the National
Assembly, gave me a considerable degree of uneasiness. The effect of
that conduct upon the power, credit, prosperity, and tranquility of
France became every day more evident. The form of constitution to be
settled for its future polity became more clear. We are now in a
condition to discern, with tolerable exactness, the true nature of the
object held up to our imitation. If the prudence of reserve and
decorum dictates silence in some circumstances, in others prudence
of a higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts. The
beginnings of confusion with us in England are at present feeble
enough, but, with you, we have seen an infancy still more feeble
growing by moments into a strength to heap mountains upon mountains
and to wage war with heaven itself. Whenever our neighbor's house is
on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our
own. Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined
by too confident a security.

    Solicitous chiefly for the peace of my own country, but by no
means unconcerned for yours, I wish to communicate more largely what
was at first intended only for your private satisfaction. I shall
still keep your affairs in my eye and continue to address myself to
you. Indulging myself in the freedom of epistolary intercourse, I
beg leave to throw out my thoughts and express my feelings just as
they arise in my mind, with very little attention to formal method.
I set out with the proceedings of the Revolution Society, but I
shall not confine myself to them. Is it possible I should? It
appears to me as if I were in a great crisis, not of the affairs of
France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps of more than Europe. All
circumstances taken together, the French revolution is the most
astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world. The most
wonderful things are brought about, in many instances by means the
most absurd and ridiculous, in the most ridiculous modes, and
apparently by the most contemptible instruments. Everything seems
out of nature in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all
sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies. In viewing
this monstrous tragicomic scene, the most opposite passions
necessarily succeed and sometimes mix with each other in the mind:
alternate contempt and indignation, alternate laughter and tears,
alternate scorn and horror.

    It cannot, however, be denied that to some this strange scene
appeared in quite another point of view. Into them it inspired no