There are cases in which we cannot take up with names
and abstractions. You may call half a dozen leading individuals, whom we
have reason to fear and hate, the nation. It makes no other difference
than to make us fear and hate them the more. If it had been thought
justifiable and expedient to make such a revolution by such means and
through such persons as you have made yours, it would have been more
wise to have completed the business of the fifth and sixth of October.
The new executive officer would then owe his situation to those who are
his creators as well as his masters; and he might be bound in interest,
in the society of crime, and (if in crimes there could be virtues) in
gratitude, to serve those who had promoted him to a place of great lucre
and great sensual indulgence,--and of something more: for more he must
have received from those who certainly would not have limited an
aggrandized creature as they have done a submitting antagonist.
A king circumstanced as the present, if he is totally stupefied by his
misfortunes, so as to think it not the necessity, but the premium and
privilege of life, to eat and sleep, without any regard to glory, can
never be fit for the office. If he feels as men commonly feel, he must
he sensible that an office so circumstanced is one in which he can
obtain no fame or reputation. He has no generous interest that can
excite him to action.
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