This theme was pursued in the House of Commons with great eloquence by Mr. Charles Grant. “If,” said he, “we had shown a dastardly spirit at the commencement of these troubles, where now would have been the deliverance of Europe? There will be no prouder page in history than that which tells of this struggle and its victorious result, ... which tells that at a time when the foundations of the world seemed to be shaken, when all former constitutions were swept away, rather as if by a sudden whirlwind than by any of the ordinary means of destruction, ... there was yet one nation, which, reposing under the shade of a happy constitution, proud of its ancient liberties and worthy to defend them, dared to measure its strength at one time against the unnatural energies of a frantic democracy, at another time against the gigantic resources of the most tremendous despotism that ever scourged the world. If, after this narration, history were obliged to add that in this struggle at last we fell, but that we fell gloriously, with our arms in our hands and our faces to the foe, even this would have been no mean praise: but, thank God, history will be called, not to lament the fall of British greatness, but to celebrate its renewed exploits and its living triumphs.... It is to the theatre of these triumphs, it is to that soil which but lately seemed incapable of producing a single effort, that the moralist of after-ages will resort for examples when he denounces the fall of unhallowed greatness. There too will the patriot look for lessons of enthusiasm and disinterested virtue; and this is the glorious feature of the present war. I have heard it observed of America, that her conduct has dispelled those classical associations which we have been accustomed to indulge of republican virtue and republican excellence. The remark was not more eloquently than justly made. But if we are obliged to give up that class of associations, I perceive with exultation that there is another which we may now cherish with additional fondness; I mean, those associations which enforce the belief of instinctive patriotism, of unbidden enthusiasm in the cause of virtue, of the grandeur of self-devotion, of the magnanimity of great sacrifices for great objects, for honour, for independence. We must all recollect with what delight we imbibed these sentiments at the fountains of classical learning, and followed them out into action in the history of great men and illustrious states. But of late there seems to have crept into this nation a sort of spurious and barren philosophy, of which it was the object to decry these associations, to represent them as the illusions of ignorance, or frenzy, or falsehood, to curb the original play of nature, to inculcate coldness and selfishness upon system, and to substitute in the place of all that formed the delight of a higher philosophy, a spirit of lazy deliberation, conducted by apathy, and ending therefore in meanness and dishonour.