The history of Swisserland evinces, that the natives of these mountains are not a degenerate race of men, and that their sentiments are as generous as their feelings are warm. Bold and spirited by nature, the liberty they enjoy gives wings to their souls, and they trample tyrants and tyranny under their feet. Some of the inhabitants of Swisserland, indeed, are not perfectly free; though they all possess notions of liberty, love their country, and return thanks to the Almighty for that happy tranquillity which permits each individual to live quietly under his vine, and enjoy the shade of his fig-tree; but the most pure and genuine liberty is always to be found among the inhabitants of these stupendous mountains. The Alps in Swisserland are inhabited by a race of men sometimes unsocial, but always good and generous. The hardy and robust characters given to them by the severity of their climate, is softened by pastoral life. It is said by an English writer, that he who has never heard a storm in the Alps, can form no idea of the continuity of the lightning, the rolling and the burst of the thunder which roars round the horizon of these immense mountains; and the people never enjoying better habitations than their own cabins, nor seeing any other country than their own rocks, believe the universe to be an unfinished work, and a scene of unceasing tempest. But the skies do not always lower; the thunder does not incessantly roll, nor the lightnings continually flash; immediately after the most dreadful tempests, the hemisphere clears itself by slow degrees, and becomes serene. The dispositions of the Swiss follow the nature of their climate; kindness succeeds to violence, and generosity to the most brutal fury: this may be easily proved, not only from the records of history, but from recent facts.