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¬the ground, and was dissolved in blood — that her monarch was cut off — her ancient magis- tracies annihilated, and the persons of her magis- trates destroyed or exiled; whilst the great mass of her people, who in no country are ever indig- nant but when they have suffered indignities, deprived of the support of their departed govern- ment, defective as it was, and too unskilful and distracted to proceed with wisdom or justice in the organization of a new one, became at once the perpetrators and the victims of crimes too horrible for the ear. ¬" It is but justice, however, to this unhappy people to remark, that their history had been widely different from ours. — In the remoter ages, when nations were the property of kings and the people were like the cattle upon the soil, inferior sovereignties had from time to time fallen in by inheritance, or had been annexed by conquest, until the sceptre extended over an immense and various population, with customs as numerous and as different as their origins; without any ¬common ¬
