While sentiments of patriotism were entertained in our country,—clouded, indeed, by fears of an opposite tendency, as noticed before,—the attention of all was drawn aside to view the confederacy of despots directed to shackle the understandings of mankind, and to keep them in slavery and degradation. Would any man in his senses, in the present enlightened state of the civilized world, have thought this possible? And yet, as a finish, they have called it the “Holy Alliance.” My most fervent prayer is, that no king of the British Isles will ever keep such company; but that our sovereigns will ever stand firm, uncontaminated by the infectious effluvia of arbitrary power, upon this proud ground—this soil fitly tilled, but only wanting some weeding to render it perfectly ready to produce a rich crop of liberty.
Most men were beginning to hope that emperors and kings had discovered that, if the people were not enlightened, it was high time for them to use their kingly influence to make them so; and that it is far safer and better, as well as more honourable, to preside over an intelligent people, than to govern men brought down to the level of unreasoning brutes. The wretchedly bigoted, and consequently oppressed, people of Spain will, no doubt, see things in their true light at some future day, and free their fine country from misrule. The times in which Galileo lived have passed away, but we still see the same kind of despotism and superstition ready as ever to burn such men alive, and to strew their ashes in the wind. The affairs of mankind, managed in this way, will be likely at no distant period to put such kings and their priests out of fashion. Superstition makes despots and tyrants of all the sovereigns whom it influences: they become the confirmed enemies of knowledge. The die is then cast. Superstition never did, nor ever will, listen to reason; for credulity is the offspring of ignorance, and superstition is the child of credulity; and this breed is nursed and kept up by despotism, as its mainstay and darling. The sun of reason may be clouded for a time. As long as falsehood in the garb of truth continues to lead the great mass of mankind, so long will they struggle in vain to attain the paths which lead to perfection and happiness.