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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 Excerpt: ...Yet was I, because always inoffensive, never molested; as safe there, another would say, as in London; but you will not say so; the safety of deliberate prudence, or of retiring timidity, is not such as would satisfy a mind glowing for freedom like yours: it satisfies, indeed, no mind, it merely suffices for bodily security. It was the choice of my companion, not of my taste, that drew me to such a residence. Personally, for the reason I have assigned, I was always well treated, and personally I was happy: but you know me, I am sure, better than to suppose me such an egotist as to be really happy or contented where corporal liberty could only be preserved by mental forbearance, i. e. subjection. The panic impressed upon all the inhabitants, whether natives or visitors, by the late invasion, and its consequences, would have cured any one not absolutely incurable, of a revolutionary taste; and you are too fair and too liberal ever wilfully to blind yourself against visible facts, or to resist powerful conviction. The Belgians have lor so many centuries been accustomed to sanguinary conflicts, and violent or mercenary change of masters, that I really thought, from the placid state in which, when seeking here an asylum, I found them, that they were utterly indifferent to the result of the neighbouring struggle, and would just as willingly fall again into the hands of Bonaparte as not. They never, of their own accord, opened upon the subject, nor considered or treated us poor fugitives but as common visitors. I imagined they had gone through too many political changes to deem one or two, more or less an addition worth ruffling their serenity. And Bonaparte, whether from hearing of this passive philosophy, or whether from motives yet unknown, certainly expected n...

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