It is, then, plain, by a conduct which overturns a thousand
declarations, that we take the Royalists of France only as an instrument
of some convenience in a temporary hostility with the Jacobins, but that
we regard those atheistic and murderous barbarians as the _bona fide_
possessors of the soil of France. It appears, at least, that we consider
them as a fair government _de facto_, if not _de jure_, a resistance to
which, in favor of the king of Prance, by any man who happened to be
born within that country, might equitably be considered by other
nations as the crime of treason.
For my part, I would sooner put my hand into the fire than sign an
invitation to oppressed men to fight under my standard, and then, on
every sinister event of war, cruelly give them up to be punished as the
basest of traitors, as long as I had one of the common enemy in my hands
to be put to death in order to secure those under my protection, and to
vindicate the common honor of sovereigns. We hear nothing of this kind
of security in favor of those whom we invite to the support of our
cause.
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