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In estimating danger, we are obliged to take into our calculation the
character and disposition of the enemy into whose hands we may chance to
fall. The genius of this faction is easily discerned, by observing with
what a very different eye they have viewed the late foreign revolutions.
Two have passed before them: that of France, and that of Poland. The
state of Poland was such, that there could scarcely exist two opinions,
but that a reformation of its Constitution, even at some expense of
blood, might be seen without much disapprobation. No confusion could be
feared in such an enterprise; because the establishment to be reformed
was itself a state of confusion. A king without authority; nobles
without union or subordination; a people without arts, industry,
commerce, or liberty; no order within, no defence without; no effective
public force, but a foreign force, which entered, a naked country at
will, and disposed of everything at pleasure. Here was a state of things
which seemed to invite, and might perhaps justify, bold enterprise and
desperate experiment.


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