What a number of faults have led to this multitude of misfortunes, and almost all from this one source,--that of considering certain general maxims, without attending to circumstances, to times, to places, to conjunctures, and to actors! If we do not attend scrupulously to all these, the medicine of to-day becomes the poison of to-morrow. If any measure was in the abstract better than another, it was to call the States: _ea visa salus morientibus una_. Certainly it had the appearance. But see the consequences of not attending to critical moments, of not regarding the symptoms which discriminate diseases, and which distinguish constitutions, complexions, and humors.
Mox erat hoc ipsum exitio; furiisque refecti Ardebant; ipsique suos, jam morte sub ægra, Discissos nudis laniabant dentibus artus.
Thus the potion which was given to strengthen the Constitution, to heal divisions, and to compose the minds of men, became the source of debility, frenzy, discord, and utter dissolution.
In this, perhaps, I have answered, I think, another of your questions,--Whether the British Constitution is adapted to your circumstances? When I praised the British Constitution, and wished it to be well studied, I did not mean that its exterior form and positive arrangement should become a model for you or for any people servilely to copy. I meant to recommend the _principles_ from which it has grown, and the policy on which it has been progressively improved out of elements common to you and to us. I am sure it is no visionary theory of mine. It is not an advice that subjects you to the hazard of any experiment. I believed the ancient principles to be wise in all cases of a large empire that would be free. I thought you possessed our principles in your old forms in as great a perfection as we did originally. If your States agreed (as I think they did) with your circumstances, they were best for you. As you had a Constitution formed upon principles similar to ours, my idea was, that you might have improved them as we have done, conforming them to the state and exigencies of the times, and the condition of property in your country,--having the conservation of that property, and the substantial basis of your monarchy, as principal objects in all your reforms.