leaders from followers, seducers from the seduced, and then, by following the same principles in the same detail, to class punishments, and to fit them to the nature and kind of the delinquency.  If that were once attempted, we should soon see that the task was neither infinite nor the execution cruel.  There would be deaths, but, for the number of criminals and the extent of France, not many.  There would be cases of transportation, cases of labor to restore what has been wickedly destroyed, cases of imprisonment, and cases of mere exile.  But be this as it may, I am sure, that, if justice is not done there, there can be neither peace nor justice there, nor in any part of Europe.

History is resorted to for other acts of indemnity in other times.  The princes are desired to look back to Henry the Fourth.  We are desired to look to the restoration of King Charles.  These things, in my opinion, have no resemblance whatsoever.  They were cases of a civil war,—­in France more ferocious, in England more moderate than common.  In neither country were the orders of society subverted, religion and morality destroyed on principle, or property totally annihilated.  In England, the government of Cromwell was, to be sure, somewhat rigid, but, for a new power, no savage tyranny.  The country was nearly as well in his hands as in those of Charles the Second, and in some points much better.  The laws in general had their course, and were admirably administered.  The king did not in reality grant an act of indemnity; the prevailing power, then in a manner the nation, in effect granted an indemnity to him.  The idea of a preceding rebellion was not at all admitted in that convention and that Parliament.  The regicides were a common enemy, and as such given up.

Among the ornaments of their place which eminently distinguish them, few people are better acquainted with the history of their own country than the illustrious princes now in exile; but I caution them not to be led into error by that which has been supposed to be the guide of life.  I would give the same caution to all princes.  Not that I derogate from the use of history.  It is a great improver of the understanding, by showing both men and affairs in a great variety of views.  From this source much political wisdom may be learned,—­that is, may be learned as habit, not as precept,—­and as an exercise to strengthen the mind, as furnishing materials to enlarge and enrich it, not as a repertory of cases and precedents for a lawyer:  if it were, a thousand times better would it be that a statesman had never learned to read,—­vellem nescirent literas.  This method turns their understanding from the object before them, and from the present exigencies of the world, to comparisons with former times, of which, after all, we can know very little and very imperfectly; and our guides, the historians, who are to give us their true interpretation, are often prejudiced, often ignorant, often fonder of