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* none but Jacobins would make peace trith such a fellow as Buonaparte ^ ' Sir , so long as I am conscious of a loyal attachment to my king , and to the constitutional- government of my country I care very little what I am cail d , by men who are themselves the true Jacobins , and who labour to keer > ? : live a
party spirit , which the conductors of the present transaction have sought wholly to dismiss . But why are we not to make peace WiUa Buonaparte ?—btcause he is a tyrant , —Granted , he is a tyrant—but what is that to us ? Have
we never shaken hands with tyrants ? "What then was Catherine of Russia , who in her palace of Tsarsko-selo always dined with two pictures full in her view representing the butcheryof Ismail , and the murderous storm of Atchakof ?
Did we nut court the friendship of her grandson Paul ? and are we not , at this moment , the allies of the most holy Inquisition of Madrid ? But it avails nothing to reason with men like these , and I will not waste another argument upon their pitiful abuse . I say to them—Go on .
your censure is our best reward i—I propose the 1 st resolution for the consideration of the meeting , " The 2 d resolution was seconded by the ftev . Mr . Mitchell , in the following terms : — ^ " Sir , and Gentlemen—Permit me
to express my approbation of the , object of this meeting , and of the resolution which has just been moved : and to observe , that it gives me unspeakable satisfaction to see so numerous and respectable an assembly convened in this toufl for the purpose of petitioning the legislature for the speedy restoration of
peace . y € i In its mildest form war is an evil ever to be deplored . The princi ples from which it originates , and the maxims by which it is usually conducted , are as repugnant to the dictates of humanity as to the mild spirit of the Christian religion ; an < t whatever temporary advantages it may in some
instances afford , it is ever found to be ultimately as inimical to the welfare of states as to the happiness of individuals . ** The contest in which we are at present engaged , gentlemen , is awfully 4 istinguishcd not only by the mighty energies which it has called into action , but also by the unparalleled miseries which it has occasioned . Excepting nly a short interval of repose , it has
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continued to rage now nearly twenty years , during which melancholy period millions of -he human species have been cut off—the whole European continent agitated and convulsed—and misery eittended into almost every qiiar ' er of the giooe . Were it possible , gentlemen , to
give any thing like a perfect repress . itation of the multip lied horrors and calamtt . es wiih whicLi the presen . wir has afflicted ths nations of the earth , 1 question , whtther any of us would h ive fortitude enough onl y to contemplate ( . he hideous spectacle !
** We reiil .-xt with pleasure and gratitude , that in no stage of this lung-protrao ed and disastrous struggle .-has this country been the seat of vai —Encircled by watery bulwarks—guarded by an invisible Providence , oar shores have been preserved in peace , and the sword has never been drawn for the purposes
of shedding imm 3 n biood amon . ^ ourselves : but , having token a decided and a principal part " n supporting and prolonging the content -.. e deeply participate , as might tiAvc beci expected in its ruinous consequences . Gentlemen , I will not torture your feelings « -y recalling to your recollection the
sufferings of thousands of our brave countrymen abroad , who have either fallen in the field of battle , or are at this moment enduring all the rigours of war —nor will I enlarge on ( he affecting s ^ rnes of domestic woe , which the war has occasioned at home—how manj r peaceful dwellings it has onvcrttd into houses of
mourning 1 — how many parent * , widows , and orphans , it has bereaved of those who were dearer to them than their own lives ! —But , I ask , to what cause are we to ascribe those almost insupportable privations and burdens which now oppress every ( lass in tKc cvmjnunity—MPeci a lly i -iiy . pooh . /> ;\» middle fLASSKS ?—( . ' ont rastm > i the
internal condition of th . s country at present , wkh what some of ui lec ^ llcct it to have been twenty years ago , do vve not perceive a most melancholy alteration * ¦ What has produced this . uteration ? —It is not necessary to inform you , gentlemen , that our national debt Is
now augmented to the enormous » um of 8 ou millions—that our taxes are multiplied till financial ingenuity can scarcely invent a new impost—that our commerce , on which our individual support as well as our national superiority depends , has long been crippled ,.
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Peace . —Proceedings at Leicester " . GB
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VOL . VIII , K
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1813, page 65, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2424/page/65/
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