But even in the wars you allude to, if you examine, you will generally find them originate in the love of justice, which is the basis of good sense, not from any insane desire of conquest or glory.

A man, however sensible, must have a heart in his bosom, and a great nation cannot be a piece of selfish clockwork.

Suppose you and I are sensible, prudent men, and we see in a crowd one violent fellow unjustly knocking another on the head, we should be brutes, not men, if we did not interfere with the savage; but if we thrust ourselves into a crowd with a large bludgeon, and belabour our neighbours, with the hope that the spectators would cry, 'See what a bold, strong fellow that is!'-- then we should be only playing the madman from the motive of the coxcomb.

I fear you will find in the military history of the French and English the application of my parable." "Yet still, I confess, there is a gallantry, and a noblemanlike and Norman spirit in the whole French nation, which make me forgive many of their excesses, and think they are destined for great purposes, when experience shall have sobered their hot blood.

Some nations, as some men, are slow in arriving at maturity; others seem men in their cradle.