He insisted that it was a travelling delusion, that nations were not to interfere with each other: for if any nation endeavoured to confuse, to tramp… - Edmund Burke

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He insisted that it was a travelling delusion, that nations were not to interfere with each other: for if any nation endeavoured to confuse, to trample upon, violate or despise the rights of others, the interests of human society required that all should join against them. If, by the subversion of all law and religion, a nation adopts a malignant spirit to produce anarchy and mischief in other countries, it is the right of nations to go to war with them. In support of this doctrine, he quoted the authority of Vattel, who lays it down, that if one nation adopt principles injurious to all government and order, such a nation is to be opposed from principles of common safety. This, he insisted, was the spirit of France; and what was to keep the effects of it from England? War, and nothing else. Until, therefore, we could find that security in their principles and practices which could alone make peace permanent, he would never agree to prostrate the throne of Great Britain at the foot of any National Convention or Jacobin club whatever.