¹ Du Contrat Social, &c. &c. &c.

¹ The reader will easily perceive that the pretences by which the people of France were instigated to a declaration of war in April 1792 were in the author’s mind in this place. Nor will a few lines be mispent in this note in stating the judgment of the impartial observer upon the wantonness with which they have appeared ready upon different occasions to proceed to extremities.* If policy were in question, it might be doubted, whether the confederacy of kings would ever have been brought into action against them, had it not been for their precipitation; and it might be asked, what impression they must expect to be made upon the minds of other states by their intemperate commission of hostility? But that strict justice, which prescribes to us, never by a hasty interference to determine the doubtful balance in favour of murder, is a superior consideration, in comparison with which policy is unworthy so much as to be named.

¹ This pretence is sustained in Paley’s Moral and Political Philosophy, Book VI, Chap. XII.