a just speculation of danger.  Does he mean to include this war, which we are now carrying on, amongst those speculative wars which this Jacobin peace is to teach sovereigns to avoid hereafter?  If so, it is doing the party an important service.  Does he mean that we are to avoid such wars as that of the Grand Alliance, made on a speculation of danger to the independence of Europe?  I suspect he has a sort of retrospective view to the American war, as a speculative war, carried on by England upon one side and by Louis the Sixteenth on the other.  As to our share of that war, let reverence to the dead and respect to the living prevent us from reading lessons of this kind at their expense.  I don’t know how far the author may find himself at liberty to wanton on that subject; but, for my part, I entered into a coalition which, when I had no longer a duty relative to that business, made me think myself bound in honor not to call it up without necessity.  But if he puts England out of the question, and reflects only on Louis the Sixteenth, I have only to say, “Dearly has he answered it!” I will not defend him.  But all those who pushed on the Revolution by which he was deposed were much more in fault than he was.  They have murdered him, and have divided his kingdom as a spoil; but they who are the guilty are not they who furnish the example.  They who reign through his fault are not among those sovereigns who are likely to be taught to avoid speculative wars by the murder of their master.  I think the author will not be hardy enough to assert that they have shown less disposition to meddle in the concerns of that very America than he did, and in a way not less likely to kindle the flame of speculative war.  Here is one sovereign not yet reclaimed by these healing examples.  Will he point out the other sovereigns who are to be reformed by this peace?  Their wars may not be speculative.  But the world will not be much mended by turning wars from unprofitable and speculative to practical and lucrative, whether the liberty or the repose of mankind is regarded.  If the author’s new sovereign in France is not reformed by the example of his own Revolution, that Revolution has not added much to the security and repose of Poland, for instance, or taught the three great partitioning powers more moderation in their second than they had shown in their first division of that devoted country.  The first division, which preceded these destructive examples, was moderation itself, in comparison of what has been, done since the period of the author’s amendment.

This paragraph is written with something of a studied obscurity.  If it means anything, it seems to hint as if sovereigns were to learn moderation, and an attention to the liberties of their people, from the fate of the sovereigns who have suffered in this war, and eminently of Louis the Sixteenth.