Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution, Volume 3

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Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1818 - France

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Page 309 - One stain only obscures the perfect splendor of reason that vivifies that country ; slavery still subsists in the southern provinces ; but when congress shall have found a remedy for that evil, how shall we be able to refuse the most profound respect to the institutions of the United States ? Whence comes it then, that many English allow themselves to speak with disdain of such a people ? " They are shop-keepers,
Page 227 - Attorney-General (indeed, there can be no possible doubt), that if the same pistol had been maliciously fired by the prisoner in the same theatre at the meanest man within its walls, he would have been brought to immediate trial, and, if guilty, to immediate execution. He would have heard the charge against him for the first time when the indictment was read upon his arraignment.
Page 403 - ... more, unite in the holy league. Is it then from the calculations of interest, is it from bad motives, that men so superior, in situations and countries so different, should be in such harmony in their political opinions ? Without doubt, knowledge is necessary to enable us to soar above prejudices ; but it is in the soul also that the principles of liberty are founded ; — they make the heart palpitate like love and friendship, — they come from nature, — they ennoble the character. One connected...
Page 226 - The scene which we are engaged in, and the duty which I am not merely privileged, but appointed by the authority of the Court to perform, exhibits to the whole civilized world a perpetual monument of our national justice. " The transaction, indeed, in every part of it, as it stands recorded in the evidence already before us, places our country, and its government, and its inhabitants, upon the highest pinnacle of human elevation.
Page 229 - An attack upon the King is considered to be parricide against the State, and the jury and the witnesses, and even the Judges, are the children. It is fit, on that account, that there should be a solemn pause before we rush to judgment. And what can be a more sublime spectacle of justice than to see a statutable disqualification of a whole nation for a limited period, a fifteen days...
Page 193 - Jeffreys succeeded after some interval, and showed the people that the rigors of law might equal, if not exceed, the ravages of military tyranny. This man, who wantoned in cruelty, had already given a specimen of his character in many trials where he presided, and he now set out with a savage joy, as to a full harvest of death and destruction.
Page 402 - Stael, that throughout the world, wherever a certain depth of thought exists, there is not to be found an enemy to freedom. From one end of the world to the other, the friends of freedom maintain communication by knowledge, as religious men by sentiments ; or rather knowledge and sentiment unite in the love of freedom, as in that of the Supreme Being. Is the question, the abolition of the slave trade, or the liberty of the press, or religious toleration ? — Jefferson thinks as Lafayette ; Lafayette,...
Page 191 - Kirke, a soldier of fortune, who had long served at Tangiers, and had contracted, from his intercourse with the Moors, an inhumanity less known in European and in free countries. At his first entry into Bridgewater, he hanged nineteen prisoners, without the least inquiry into the merits of their cause : as if to make sport with death, he ordered a certain number to be executed, while he and his company should drink the king's health, or the queen's, or that of chief-justice Jefferies : observing...
Page 196 - ... heard of their joining the rebellion of Monmouth: That though she might be obnoxious on account of her family, it was well known, that her heart was ever loyal, and that no person in England had shed more tears for that tragical event, in which her husband had unfortunately borne too great a share : and that the same principles, which she herself had ever embraced, she had carefully instilled into her son, and had, at that very time, sent him to fight against those rebels whom she was now accused...
Page 194 - And on the whole, besides those who were butchered by the military commanders, two hundred and fifty-one are computed to have fallen by the hand of justice. The whole country was strewed with the heads and limbs of traitors. Every village almost beheld the dead carcass of a wretched inhabitant. And all the rigours of justice, unabated by any appearance of clemency, were fully displayed to the people by the inhuman Jefferies.

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