"If Buonaparté succeeded in re-establishing his authority in France, peace must be despaired of; at least such a peace as we had recently the hope of enjoying. The question now was, whether Europe must once more return to that dreadful system which it had so long pursued; whether Europe was again to become a series of armed nations, and whether Great Britain among them was to abandon that wholesome state into which she was now settling, to resume her station as a military people, and again to struggle for the independence of the world? These were questions of no small magnitude, depending upon events now in issue, depending upon a new and an unexpected contest, in which the liberties of mankind were once more assaulted and endangered."

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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Stewart%2C_Viscount_Castlereagh