Indeed, the loose rein held over the
people in these provinces must be considered as one cause of the
facility with which they lend themselves to any schemes of innovation,
by inducing them to think lightly of their governments, and to judge of
grievances, not by feeling, but by imagination.
[Sidenote: Balance of Germany.]
It is in these Electorates that the first impressions of France are
likely to be made; and if they succeed, it is over with the Germanic
body, as it stands at present. A great revolution is preparing in
Germany, and a revolution, in my opinion, likely to be more decisive
upon the general fate of nations than that of France itself,--other than
as in France is to be found the first source of all the principles which
are in any way likely to distinguish the troubles and convulsions of our
age. If Europe does not conceive the independence and the equilibrium of
the Empire to be in the very essence of the system of balanced power in
Europe, and if the scheme of public law, or mass of laws, upon which
that independence and equilibrium are founded, be of no leading
consequence as they are preserved or destroyed, all the politics of
Europe for more than two centuries have been miserably erroneous.
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