If we wish to gain upon any people, it is right to see what it is they
expect. We have had a proposal from the Royalists of Poitou. They are
well entitled, after a bloody war maintained for eight months against
all the powers of anarchy, to speak the sentiments of the Royalists of
France. Do they desire us to exclude their princes, their clergy, their
nobility? The direct contrary. They earnestly solicit that men of every
one of these descriptions should be sent to them. They do not call for
English, Austrian, or Prussian officers. They call for French emigrant
officers. They call for the exiled priests. They have demanded the Comte
d'Artois to appear at their head. These are the demands (quite natural
demands) of those who are ready to follow the standard of monarchy.
The great means, therefore, of restoring the monarchy, which we have
made _the main object of the war_, is, to assist the dignity, the
religion, and the property of France to repossess themselves of the
means of their natural influence. This ought to be the primary object of
all our politics and all our military operations.
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