hour a source of slavery in Africa. And these circumstances, sir, with a solitary instance or two of human sacrifices, furnish the alleged proofs, that Africa labors under a natural incapacity for civilization; that it is enthusiasm and fanaticism to think that she can ever enjoy the knowledge and the morals of Europe; that Providence never intended her to rise above a state of barbarism; that Providence has irrevocably doomed her to be only a nursery for slaves for us free and civilized Europeans. Allow of this principle, as applied to Africa, and I should be glad to know why it might not also have been applied to ancient and uncivilized Britain. Why might not some Roman senator, reasoning on the principles of some honorable gentlemen, and pointing to British barbarians, have predicted with equal boldness, “There is a people that will never rise to civilization - there is a people destined never to be free - a people without the understanding necessary for the attainment of useful arts; depressed by the hand of nature below the level of the human species; and created to form a supply of slaves for the rest of the world." Might not this have been said, according to the principles which we now hear stated, in all respects as fairly and as truly of Britain herself, at that period of her history, as it can now be said by us of the inhabitants of Africa?

We, sir, have long since emerged from barbarism we have almost forgotten that we were once barbarians we are now raised to a situation which exhibits a striking contrast to every circumstance by which a Roman might have characterized us, and by which we now characterize Africa. There is indeed one thing wanting to complete the contrast, and to clear us altogether from the imputation of acting, even to this hour, as barbarians; for we continue to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves; we continue it even yet in spite of all our great and undeniable pretensions to civilization. We were once as obscure among the nations of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our morals, as degraded in our understanding, as these unhappy Africans are at present. But in the laspe of a long series of years, by a progression slow, and for a time almost imperceptible, we have become rich in a variety of acquirements, favored above measure in the gifts of Providence, unrivalled in commerce, preeminent in arts, foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and established in all the blessings of civil society: we are in the possession of peace, of happiness, and of liberty; we are under the guidance of a mild and beneficent religion; and we are protected by impartial laws, and the purest administration of justice; we are living under a system of government, which our own happy experience leads us to pronounce the best and wisest which has ever yet been framed; a system which has become the admiration of the world. From all these blessings we must forever have been shut out, had there been any truth in those principles which some gentlemen have not hesitated to lay down as applicable to the case of Africa. Had

those principles been true, we ourselves had languished to this hour in that miserable state of ignorance, brutality, and degradation, in which history proves our ancestors to have been immersed. Had other nations adopted these principles in their conduct towards us; had other nations applied to Great Britain the reasoning which some of the senators of this very island now apply to Africa, ages might have passed without our emerging from barbarism; and we, who are enjoying the blessings of British civilization, of British laws, and British liberty, might at this hour have been little superior, either in morals, in knowledge, or refinement, to the rude inhabitants of the coast of Guinea.

If then we feel that this perpetual confinement in the fetters of brutal ignorance would have been the greatest calamity which could have befallen us; if we view with gratitude and exultation the contrast between the peculiar blessings we enjoy and the wretchedness of the ancient inhabitants of Britain; if we shudder to think of the misery which would still have overwhelmed us, had Great Britain continued to the present times to be the mart for slaves to the more civilized nations of the world, through some cruel policy of theirs, God forbid that we should any longer subject Africa to the same dreadful scourge, and preclude the light of knowledge, which has reached every other quarter of the globe, from having access to her coasts?

CHARLES JAMES Fox. 1749-1806.

353. FROM HIS SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS ON THE KING'S SPEECH, Nov. 26, 1778.

You have now two wars before you, of which you must choose one, for both you cannot support. The war against America has hitherto been carried on against her alone, unassisted by any ally; notwithstanding she stood alone, you have been obliged uniformly to increase your exertions, and to push your efforts in the end to the extent of your power, without being able to bring it to any favorable issue: you have exerted all your force hitherto without effect, and you cannot now divide a force found already inadequate to its object. My opinion is for withdrawing your forces from America entirely, for a defensive war you can never think of; a defensive war would ruin this nation at any time, and in any circumstances: an offensive war is pointed out as proper for this country; our situation points it out, and the spirit of the nation impels us to attack rather than defence: attack France, then, for she is your object. The nature of the war with her is quite different: the war against America is against your own countrymen you have stopped me from saying against your fellow-subjects; that against France is against your inveterate enemy and rival. Every blow you strike in America is against yourselves; it is against

all ideas of reconciliation, and against your own interest, though you should be able, as you never will, to force them to submit. Every stroke against France is of advantage to you; the more you lower the scale in which France lays in the balance, the more your own rises, and the more the Americans will be detached from her as useless to them. Even your own victories over America are in favor of France, from what they must cost you in men and money; your victories over France will be felt by her ally. America must be conquered in France; France never can be conquered in America.

The war of the Americans is a war of passion; it is of such a nature as to be supported by the most powerful virtues - love of liberty and of country; and, at the same time, by those passions in the human heart, which give courage, strength, and perseverance to man

the spirit of revenge for the injuries you have done them; of retaliation for the hardships you have inflicted on them; and of opposition to the unjust powers you have exercised over them. Everything combines to animate them to this war, and such a war is without end; for, whatever obstinacy enthusiasm ever inspired man with, you will now find it in America; no matter what gives birth to that enthusiasm, whether the name of religion or of liberty, the effects are the same; it inspires a spirit that is unconquerable, and solicitous to undergo difficulty, danger, and hardship: and as long as there is a man in America, a being formed such as we are, you will have him present himself against you in the field.

The war of France is of another sort; the war of France is a war of interest: it was her interest first induced her to engage in it, and it is by that interest that she will measure its continuance. Turn your face at once against her; attack her wherever she is exposed, crush her commerce wherever you can, make her feel heavy and immediate distress throughout the nation: the people will soon cry out to their government. Whilst the advantages she promises herself are remote and uncertain, inflict present evils and distresses upon her subjects; the people will become discontented and clamorous: she will find the having entered into this business a bad bargain; and you will force her to desert an ally that brings so much trouble and distress, and the advantages of whose alliance may never take effect.

354. FROM HIS SPEECH ON THE OVErtures of PEACE FROM THE FIRST CONSUL, Feb. 3, 1800.

Now, sir, what was the conduct of your own allies to Poland? Is there a single atrocity of the French, in Italy, in Switzerland, in Egypt, if you please, more unprincipled and inhuman than that of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in Poland? What has there been in the conduct of the French to foreign powers; what in the violation of solemn treaties; what in the plunder, devastation, and dismemberment of unoffending countries; what in the horrors and murders per

petrated upon the subdued victims of their rage in any district which they have overrun; worse than the conduct of those three great powers in the miserable, devoted, and trampled-on kingdom of Poland, and who have been, or are, our allies in this war for religion, social order, and the rights of nations? "O! but we regretted the partition of Poland!" Yes, regretted! You regretted the violence, and that is all. you did. You united yourselves with the actors; you, in fact, by your acquiescence, confirmed the atrocity. But they are your allies; and though they overran and divided Poland, there was nothing, perhaps, in the manner of doing it, which stamped it with peculiar infamy and disgrace. The hero of Poland, perhaps, was merciful and mild! He was as much superior to Bonaparte in bravery, and in the discipline which he maintained, as he was superior in virtue and humanity! He was animated by the purest principles of Christianity, and was restrained in his career by the benevolent precepts which it inculcates! Was he? Let unforunate Warsaw, and the miserable inhabitants of the suburb of Praga in particular, tell! What do we understand to have been the conduct of this magnanimous hero, with whom, it seems, Bonaparte is not to be compared? He entered the suburb of Praga, the most populous suburb of Warsaw, and there he let his soldiery loose on the miserable, unarmed, and unresisting people! Men, women, and children, nay, infants at the breast, were doomed to one indiscriminate massacre! Thousands of them were inhumanly, wantonly butchered! And for what? Because they had dared to join in a wish to meliorate their own condition as a people, and to improve their constitution, which had been confessed by their own sovereign to be in want of amendment. And such is the hero upon whom the cause of "religion and social order" is to repose! And such is the man whom we praise for his discipline and his virtue, and whom we hold out as our boast and our dependence, while the conduct of Bonaparte unfits him to be even treated with as an enemy!

FROM BUTLER'S "REMINISCENCES."

355. CHARACTER OF MR. FOX AND MR. PITT.

Almost the whole of Mr. Fox's political life was spent in opposition to his Majesty's ministers. It may be said of him, as of Lord North, that he had political adversaries, but no enemy. Good nature, too easily carried to excess, was one of the distinctive marks of his character. In vehemence and power of argument he resembled Demosthenes; but there the resemblance ended. He possessed a strain of ridicule and wit which nature denied to the Athenian;, and it was the more powerful, as it always appeared to be blended with argument, and to result from it. To the perfect composition which so eminently distinguishes the speeches of Demosthenes, he had no pretence.

The moment of his grandeur was, when, after he had stated the argument of his adversary, with much greater strength than his adversary had done, and with much greater than any of his hearers thought possible, he seized it with the strength of a giant, and tore and trampled on it to destruction. If, at this moment, he had possessed the power of the Athenian over the passions or the imaginations of his hearers, he might have disposed of the House at his pleasure, but this was denied to him: and, on this account, his speeches fell very short of the effect which otherwise they must have produced.

It is difficult to decide on the comparative merit of him and Mr. Pitt: the latter had not the vehement reasoning or argumentative ridicule of Mr. Fox; but he had more splendor, more imagery, and much more method and discretion. His long, lofty, and reverential panegyrics of the British constitution, his eloquent vituperations of those whom he described as advocating the democratic spirit then let loose on the inhabitants of the earth, and his solemn adjuration of the House to defend and to assist him in defending their all against it, were, in the highest degree, both imposing and conciliating, In addition, he had the command of bitter contemptuous sarcasm, which tortured to madness. This he could expand or compress at pleasure : even in one member of a sentence, he coult inflict a wound that was never healed.

Mr. Fox had a captivating earnestness of tone and manner; Mr. Pitt was more dignified than earnest. The action of Mr. Fox was easy and graceful; Mr. Pitt's cannot be praised. It was an observation of the reporters in the gallery, that it required great exertion to follow Mr. Fox while he was speaking; none to remember what he had said: that it was easy and delightful to follow Mr. Pitt; not so easy to recollect what had delighted them. It may be added, that, in all Mr. Fox's speeches, even when he was most violent, there was an unquestionable indication of good humor which attracted every heart. Where there was such a seeming equipoise of merit, the two last circumstances might be thought to turn the scale: but Mr. Pitt's undeviating circumspection, sometimes concealed, sometimes ostentatiously displayed, - tended to obtain for him, from the considerate and the grave, a confidence which they denied to his rival.

356. ATTACK UPON MR. FLOOD.

Thus defective in every relationship, whether to constitution, commerce, and toleration, I will suppose this man to have added much private improbity to public crimes; that his probity was like his patriotism, and his honor on a level with his oath; he loves to deliver panegyrics on himself. I will interrupt him, and say, Sir, you are