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Untitled Article
the principles of men to whom the enlightened part of the nation looked with hope as destined one day to be its deliverers from the obstinate , sanguinary , and ruinous policy by which it was then governed . The Regency destroyed this ground of popularity * The Prince identified himself with his father ' s advisers ; from whom it was perhaps a hasty
inference that he ever differed in political principle to any material extent ; and the unlooked-for success with which the war terminated gave him a yet more noisy and general popularity . This feeling was soon checked , and reversed , by the distresses of the people , the manner in which their complaints were dealt with by the Castlereagh administration , and the proceedings against his unfortunate consort , which form the foulest blot upon his
memory . It is with heartfelt pleasure that we dismiss personal considerations to contemplate the leading characteristics of the late reign . Here we find a theme of complacency and of hope . The last ten years of our country ' s history are full of encouragement to the philanthropist . We survey them
with lively gratitude to Providence . Whatever distress may be abroad at the present moment , there has certainly been no increase in its amount during that period . In whatever particulars , and there are unhappily too many , the course of improvement has been for a time delayed , there are many also in which we may trace a rapid and exhilarating progress .
If we look abroad on the world at large , ( and with what part of the world is not our country connected ?) that short period will by no means appear to have been an unimportant one . Spain , Portugal , and Italy have attempted to obtain just and liberal institutions . Their attempts have failed ; but even unsuccessful aspirations after freedom may be evidence of improvement in a people ; and as to Spain and Portugal it is evident that the defeat is not final , and the triumph probably not very long deferred . France has
been passing through the vicissitudes of an unbloody conflict between enlightened opinions and superannuated prejudices ; and to what result that conflict is tending can now scarcely be mistaken . The new states of South America have been admitted amongst nations ; they have attained a Tank from which they cannot recede ; their political creation has reached its sixth day , and may it now have its sabbath of rest and blessing . Whatever
questions yet remain unsettled respecting Greece , its independence of its ancient oppressors is a question no longer . Altogether , this is far from being a gloomy picture . There have been not many better decades than this in universal history . With all the disappointments and regrets which it may , in its course , have inflicted on the philanthropist , he has yet ample reason to bless Providence on behalf of humanity .
They have been years of peace and of a pacific policy , the generality and permanence of which we trust we may anticipate . The unprecedented exertions and calamities of the revolutionary conflict seem to have produced not only exhaustion but reflection . It has been seen how easily and safely peace may be preserved when Governments are really in earnest for its preservation . The example will remain when the temporary pressure which occasioned it shall have passed away . It may be hoped that we have
become a more peaceful people ; that something has been done towards taming the pugnacity of our national character . If so , we are more Christian . Happy will it be if the necessity of peace shall have grown 9 or be growing , into the love of peace , and that love become a dominant principle in the management of our public affairs . This would redeem many of the errors , we had almost said basenesses , of our foreign policy . To take the 2 o 2
Untitled Article
On the Reign of George the Fourth , 507
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 507, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/3/
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