ABSTRACT
A SURVEY of the actual situation of a great part of Europe, is calculated to excite the liveliest apprehension, and the keenest sensibility, in the breast of every friend to humanity. It is not merely the calamities of war— nor the ravages of desolating armies—nor the shock attending the fall of Fmpires, that disturb the tranquillity and menace the welfare of this quarter of the globe. Such evils have often occurred; and, however dreadful in their progress and effects, they have gradually subsided, and, in the natural course of things, given way to peaceful and orderly scents. But an evil, as unprecedented 228in its nature as alarming in its tendency, was reserved for modern times; an evil which, besides carrying in its train all the misfortunes that have hitherto afflicted the human race, seems, if not timely checked, to be pregnant with mischiefs that surpass all experience, and defy all remedy; an evil which threatens to subvert the very foundations of human felicity, and to occasion the total loss of all the advantages resulting from a state of society.
