Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/117

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( 107 )

¬sumed in the flames her madness had kindled ; and even after they had spread beyond her own territories, and were laying waste our world, Armata, in various stages, might, under other counsels, have extinguished them. — Had the new dynasty of Capetia, when it became firmly established and supported by the undoubted voice of her people, been sincerely acknowledged by other nations before their resistance to it had first overwhelmed them, I see no reason ' for thinking that the general tranquillity might not have been more securely settled than by the destructive scenes that followed, which besides the waste of human life and the enormous ad- ditions to our public burthens, gave a new and alarming character to other nations, from the necessity of large military establishments, coun- tenancing in our own country, from the danger of foreign combinations, a force beyond our finances, and at variance with the spirit of our free constitution. ¬" But the practicability of safe pacification ¬had ¬