75/82 The opposition was revolutionary. Fox and Burke, then friends, were most earnest in their desire for the liberty of the Continent[9]. We must render this justice to England, that the moral and popular principle concealed in the foundation of its constitution, has never stultified itself by combating the efforts of other nations to acquire a free government. It has everywhere accorded the liberty similar to its own. Its object was to detach the king of Prussia from his alliance with the emperor Leopold, whose coronation was not yet known, and to persuade the cabinet of Berlin into an alliance with revolutionary France. |