Revolutions are favorable to confiscation; and it is
impossible to know under what obnoxious names the next confiscations
will be authorized. I am sure that the principles predominant in
France extend to very many persons and descriptions of persons, in all
countries, who think their innoxious indolence their security. This
kind of innocence in proprietors may be argued into inutility; and
inutility into an unfitness for their estates. Many parts of Europe
are in open disorder. In many others there is a hollow murmuring under
ground; a confused movement is felt that threatens a general
earthquake in the political world. Already confederacies and
correspondencies of the most extraordinary nature are forming in
several countries.*(2) In such a state of things we ought to hold
ourselves upon our guard. In all mutations (if mutations must be)
the circumstance which will serve most to blunt the edge of their
mischief and to promote what good may be in them is that they should
find us with our minds tenacious of justice and tender of property.
* "Si plures sunt ii quibus improbe datum est, quam illi quibus
injuste ademptum est, idcirco plus etiam valent? Non enim numero
haec judicantur sed pondere. Quam autem habet aequitatem, ut agrum
multis annis, aut etiam saeculis ante possessum, qui nullum habuit
habeat; qui autem habuit amittat? Ac, propter hoc injuriae genus,
Lacedaemonii Lysandrum Ephorum expulerunt: Agin regem (quod nunquam
antea apud eos acciderat) necaverunt: exque eo tempore tantae
discordiae secutae sunt, ut et tyranni existerint, et optimates
exterminarentur, et preclarissime constituta respublica dilaberetur.
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