Great moments have always produced great men, and great actions. The time of conflict is the time in which nature seems to delight in her grandest pr… - William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne

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Great moments have always produced great men, and great actions. The time of conflict is the time in which nature seems to delight in her grandest productions. From the Grecian republics, down even to our modern history, the most resplendent powers of man have been shown in the times of the greatest danger. The present, therefore, is a school for Frenchmen; every youth devotes himself to the cause of liberty, and thus actively engaged on the grand scene, all the powers of his soul take a warlike direction; it becomes a fashion, and the whole of the rising generation are educated in the military art; not, my lords, as our youth are educated to the military art, as one only of the professions in which they may rise to eminence or distinction, but the enthusiasm of war enters into the heart only from the enthusiasm of liberty; and the whole country is taught to feel that their only occupation, their only passion, ought to be arms, because their only good, their only blessing, is independence.