o 4' ^ ON THE STATE OF EUROPE IN JANUARY 1815. By GEORGE ENSOR, Esq. LONDON; PRINTED FOR R. HUNTER, SUCCESSOR TO MR. JOHXSON, 72, ST. Paul's churchyard. 9 082 e'"^' lichard and Arthur Taylor, Shoe-Lant, London. ^^ STATE OF EUROPE «2 IN JANUARY 1316. - EC Another revolution bein£[ added to this eventful cera, many speculate on the past, deplore the present, o^and with averted curiosity and startling forecast '~' ponder their own fortunes and the destiny of Europe. Ai I also share in the general interest, and I shall Qc proceed to make some observations on the sad pecu- "^ liarity of the time and the exigency of public affairs. Without scrutinizing orio-inal motives, or dwelling on' past circumstances, I shall first relate some facts which prepared the subsequent convulsions ; and without intending a connected series or a syste- matic exemplification of causes and effects, I shall, by a summary retrospect, endeavour to quicken ^ the recollection, and if possible stimulate the atten- § tion, of the reader. For some among us, who would ="= be esteemed thinking men, entertain the most mo- mentous 30099^ nicntOLis occurrences with the same levity that Boc- cacio's coterie did the reciprocal tale which was to beguile the passing hour of its tediousness ; and thus it happens lliat, Avhile the propensity to hear is in- creased, facts are repeated to little purpose, memory collects few materials, and experience affords no knowledge. I shall speak without subterfuge or disguise con- cerning the political world, concerning ministers and plenipotentiaries, appalling as they are; and even crowned heads (saving courtesy) shall lind in me a direct interpreter of their language and actions. Truth, it is known, has long been denounced, and it has been prohibited and persecuted with tremendous penalties by tribunals esteemed the sanctuaries of justice. Yet I must say that truth is a wise coun- sellor, while flattery panders to every bad passion. So pernicious is flattery to gocd government, that were the quantity of this allo}-- of language in any state ascertained, and a political scale graduated with bad, worse, and worst, the mediocrity or baseness of its laws and administration \\ould be capable of an easy and scientific solution. Even the flattery of poets, those chartered counter- feits, promotes extravagant pretensions and lawless anibidon. When Horace became laureat, the JuHuni Sidus shone brightest in the firmament ; and Augustus while living was honoured with vows and altars ; many hailed his matchless heroism and Atlantean policy; and as the poet sang the prince presumed, and the people shouted. Flattery, the Attic dialect of courts, the cardinal vice of monarchies, increased in imperial Kouie Rome — " a louder yet and yet a louder strain," and Domitian prefaced his edicts " Dominus et Deus noster sic fieri jussit." All acquiesced in silence or sadness, or in joy and loyalty. Nor were the imperial Romans alone distinguished for this abject admira- tion ; it is by no means peculiar to them, or to any country or profession, though it is most agreeable to mighty captains, as Ilolofernes, who exclaimed " ^Fho is God but Nabuchodonozor ?" Though there are no kin^s in after a2:es who have spaces allotted to them in heaven, for the Georgium Sidus is only honoured bya philosopher with a king's name, yet A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, Whose compass is no bigger tlian thy head. And though poets are rather more reserved than formerly, yet they are so complimentary as to alarm a thinker in mere prose. Boileau with no Pindaric excuse glorified Louis XIV. till he outrao;ed the kins; with his adulation ; yet he added " Grand roi, c'est mon defaut, je ne saurois flatter." Yes truly, a plain chronicler of matters of fact ! like tlie pensioned rimers of other countries. In conse- quence of this improvement, our birtli-day odes and loval effusions recall the memory of the water-poets ; and as our princes pledge their heralds, they have tliluted the proof-spirit of the prerogative royal with promises which they have forgotten to keep, if indeed thev ever designed to keep them. Kings now do not claim the rank of godship, or. a kindred with the gods; some have even renounced 'the right divine, as an essence concrete in king Adam, B 2 and and discrete ill all the kings of the earth, which, while it promotes the metaphysics of royalty, impairs i'n no degree the king's inheritance, as Burke has rhetorically proved. This new right, which is neither divine nor human, has since the restoration of Louis XVIII, obtained a name, that is a being, as according to Locke a nameless mixed mode is little more than a crotchet of the brain : this right is termed the legiti- macy of kings. Under this titular regeneration of royal rights, kings are only reputed the vicegerents of God, the Lords; anointed, kings by the grace of God ; though, with reverence be it said, humanly speaking, some of thera should rather substitute for God's grace Bonaparte's mercy. Kings also continue to enjoy superhuman attributes : they are impeccable, irresponsible ; and the dogma that the kinut it is clear that kings assume in their own person's qualities which the law, when most overweening, does not exceed. From this also I dissent. Nor let sove- reigns be alarmed : this is not the first time that truth has been addressed to them. " Tlicn the king and tht after tlie second restoration of Louis le DHes rejected their applications. Charles dissolved the parliament; Louis dismissed the notables. Both re- iterated their eftbrts to obtain money by public au- thority; and again botli were disappointed. Both kina;s exhibited petulance and resentment. Charles frequently dissolved the parliament of England ; Louis banished the parliament from Paris. Both kings pursued the same violent proceedings. Chai'les raised contributions by forced loans, by benevolences and ojeneral warrants, without the concurrence of the parliament of England ; Louis levied taxes by edicts without the registry of the parliament of Paris. Again, and for the last time, these kings appealed to tlieir people ; the parliament was assembled in England, and tlie states general met in France. Louis and Charles equally attempted to corrupt' or overawe these national assemblies, and they failed. The dif- ferent chambers of each legislature ultimately coa- lesced into one body. — After this, to the trial and execution of Charles and Louis, the parallel is im- perfect, in consequence of the different circumstances of France, England, and Europe, when these revolu- tions occurred. In the time of Charles, Europe laad been exhausted witli wars, and France suffered a minority. Mazarin^, though alarmed at the esta- blishment of a republic in England, was obliged to temporize ; and though the sovereigns of Europe felt personally the outrage of subjects who dare resist a lawless prince, they wanted ability to chastise the • See Whitelock, p. 39, and Vie de Mirabeau. I Mably, Droit Publique, &c., t. iii. p. 66. E]iglish i;xi English rebels. Besides, if Eiiiflaiul were ot" difficult approach, its insular situation also rendered the example and principles of liberty less infectious. In consequence, even if the continental kings Avere dis- posed to })reach a crusade against British freedom, the danger to their despotism was not so intimate and pressing as to bind them blindly to collect all their might to force monarchy and the Stuarts on the EnQ;lish nation. On the contrary, while France en- joyed the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the narrow seas, even to the northern ocean, as her maritime boundary, her territorial frontier swept a circle of twelve hundred miles, cuttinir through the heart of Europe, and resting on the confines of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. The despots perceived that, if France could establish a republic, she must, were she disposed to violence, break through their crazy bulwarks as easily as the Tartars overleaped the wall of China; and that, if her temper were tranquillity, the improvement of her numerous active people in arts and institutions must irresistibly work the restoration of lost rights, and liberate their subjects from military bondage. Thence the kings of Europe communicated, assembled, and bound themselves in leagues too sacred for the world's eye. Troops were raised, and hurried towards France ; and as all shores were blockaded by England, from the Ionian isles to the Categat, so the provinces of France were border-bound by troops, from Dunkirk to Genoa. This the confederate powers executed confessedly to prevent the obtrusion of French prin- ciples into their dominions ; and we may, after this device. device, expect to hear of their sons casting the equator into a shade by an awning raised on the masts of the British navy. Leopold died ; and Francis and a reign of vigour succeeded. The aUies concentrated their forces. On tlie 25th July, 1792, the duke of Brunswick issued his notorious manifesto : in this he avowed the senti- ments of the allies, and of his army — that " they will inflict on those who shall deserve it, the most exem- plary and ever-memorable avenging punishments, by giving up the city of Paris to military execution, and exposing it to total destruction," &c. With these threats he marched forward, determined to restore the monarchy of France, with all its pains and penal- ties of titlies and priests and nobles, and their ex- emptions. This duke, who has since paid the forfeit of his insolence by the loss of a casual reputation' and his life, thought that he could master Paris as easily as he had gained Amsterdam ; but he should rather have estimated his chance by the failure of Alva than by his own facility. It was Holland redeemed from the slavery of Philip, and not Holland gradually de- graded by stadtholders, that should have afforded a parallel to France emancipated from Louis. This manifesto, which the duke presented as Per- seus the Gorgon's head, paralysed no hand, dismayed -no heart, promoted no spleen, exasperated no anti- ' This duke in a conversation with Mirabeau said, " Jamais Jiomme sense, surtout avan^ant en age, ne comproniettra sa re- putation dans une carriere si hasardeuse (la guerre) s'il peat s'en dispenser." Yet exactly twenty years after this he as- jpumed the rank of generalissimo : — the defeat at Jena was the consequence, pa thy : "14? pathy : it neither perverted the friendly, nor rendered tlie Mavering unkind. On the contrary, the whole nation resented his menaces Avith contumely, and foreign m ar restored internal peace. Tliis j)reface of tlie allies was not so much error as infatuation, the creature of ignorance and scorn. Had they allowed the French to regulate their own aflairs, as the English had been permitted, the pro- gress of events in England in the middle of the se- venteenth century would ])robal:>iy have been repeated in France at the close of the century which suc- ceeded. War, which became universal, would not have transgressed the bounds of France ; domestic enmity would have carried its own antidote ; factions Mith time would have abated their rancour; parties ■would have made reciprocal concessions ; tranquillity ^vould have been restored ; and some materials uould now remain, with which a constitution considerate witli respect to prejudices, without compromising utility and truth, might be permanently erected in France. But these senseless kings, precipitated by ma- levolence and insolence, thought that the French must fall an easy conquest in the crisis of their revolution. I'hey acted as the Veii, who, perceiving that the patricians and plebeians were at variance, assailed the Romans: they, recalled to reason by their com- mon danger, discliarged tlieir mutual ferocity on the connnon enemy ; and the late of the Veii and of tlie allies exhibited a miserable cohicidence. Had none of all the cabinet ministers, and of all the crowned heads, read this historical event? had none beard of Machiavels connnentary ? '' Et pero se i Veicnti fusbino stati savi, eglino harcbbono, quanto pill plii dlsiinita vedevano Roma, tan to piu tenuta da loro la guerra discosto, e con V arti della pace, cerco d' oppressargli." (Discorsi, lib. 2. c. 25.) This portentous manifesto counteracted the inten- tion of the confederates in every particular. Instead of restoring the royal family to absolute dominion, or securing them from importunity, it hastened if it did not determine their fate. This proclamation of the duke of Brunswick confirmed the presumption of the people tlmt the royal family were their greatest enemies.- They had lost all confidence in the pro- fessions of Louis XVI. after lie had attempted to fly to the invaders of his country, and had left on his de- parture his " protest against all acts performed by him during his capdvity." Indeed there was litde doubt but Louis le trap Bon was as insincere as Charles the Martyr, to any one .who did not enjoy Hume's ' pre- dilections for royalty and the Stuarts. I am far from defending the king's execution, inde- pendently of my abhorrence of all deeds of blood ; but at the same time we should not forget the time and circumstances which preceded that catastro])he. "Wliat could the revolutionists expect from Russians, Prussians and Austrians, who were partitioning Po land, an inoffensive country? — The manifesto of the duke of Brunswick alone decided that question, were ' He reflects on historians who doubted the sincerity of Charles, though his reign was a series of inconstancy and dupli- city. See for a late published instance of the latter, Archseologia, vol. 17, communicated by G. Duckett, Esq. Yet Flume doubts the sincerity of Pym and others, though he relates that they had early in this reign taken their passage for America, in disgust with English uilkirs. The king prevented their sailing: it IKJ It Otherwise doubtful . There was no alternative. He who has no hope soon becomes fearless, and courage changes to desperation. Pressed by military myriads abroad ; vi ith treachery at home ; the fortresses un- j)rovided ; the army disorganized ; what could the people do — what think ? They had no time to think ; they w^ere condemned as rebels, outlaws, and traitors,, for their treatment of Louis. Were the king dead, they could suffer no more than the most exemplary and ever-memor able avenging punishments. So long as potentates are subject to the vices of mankind, and there exists no authentic mode for correcting their mis- deeds, those who are intolerably afflicted, I do not say they may, but they must resist them : this all men inherit in ridit of tiieir being. The fiction' that the king can do no wrong, must yield, as every other fic- tion when confronted w ith fact ; and to say that he ■who does wrong is irresponsible, is to give the pre- eminence to mans word above God's law, and to respect figurative flattery in defiance of the eternal decrees. To tell the king that by law he enjoys un- limited licentiousness, is to tell the people, that with regard to lavv and king they enjoy a state of nature. Equally reprobating the executions of Louis and Charles, I am, however, most adverse to grant the honorary title of Martyr to the latter, which the high- church party caught unwittingly from the puritanical extravaiiance of the time. I neither believe with o ' " He hath a double relation, one as king, the other as a man ; and the unitinj^ of both in one person hath cheated many a man of his judgement in case of prerogative." N. Bacon on Govern- ment, part 2. p. 11. Harrison Harrison that his execution was " the work of God," (State Trials,) nor with others that it was the work of the Devil : yet t cannot refrain from stating, that there exists among all free nations an express con- tract between the people and their rulers. In some states the king has been declared responsible by law ; and in such constitutions so far were the speculations of pure royalists from being realised, that the frame of the world was not dissolved ; no, nor does it ap- pear that, in consequence, society was incommoded by the subjection of the royal person to law and judgement. The royalists supposed and suppose that, were -the king responsible, he would be perpetually summoned before the grand tribunal : as if the public ■should be always peevish, and the king always sin- ning. What induces this presumption? Ministers are responsible : yet who will deny that many offences have been committed by them in this long reign, and yet how many of them have been tried and convicted ? Nor is any position more absurd, or more falsified by experience, than that the inviolability of the reigning prince is essential to the government of the nation. Every country in Europe can disprove the doctrine ; nay, it has been ascertained that a kingdom can be ruled without a king or his nominee ; witness Spain, which worked its liberation while Ferdinand the Be- loved was in duress : witness England, in which or- ders have been issued in the king's name when the king could not direct himself :- and repeatedly neither king nor regent has f)resided in Great Britain, yet the state survived. Ueaily, the friends of church and state talk of kings as v.ere they magicians. C ^ The 28 TFie irresponsibility of kings is a favourite dogma witli royalists, v\ho ^vould extend it to all case* and circumstances : yet why is it not as likely to ren- der kings dissolute, as that their responsibility should render the people peevish and pragmatical ? Let us proceed to facts and authorities. The king of England, like other kings of Europe, takes an oath at his coronation, which is no revolutionary device, for the essential parts of the modern coronation oath are detailed in The Mirror (p. 28), and the 1st of Wil- liam and Mary only renders the ancient oath more precise, in order to make it more compulsory on the party taking it. By this oath the king binds himself to act legally to the people, and the king's oath to execute the laws precedes their oath of obedience to him. Besides, his oath is of paramount sanctity, as its application is universal ; and in this opinion The Mirror also concurs : " the first and sovereign abuse is for the kin!^ to be beyond the law, whereas he ■ ''' should be subject to it as contained in his oath." , Again, it does not appear so very manifest that the king by the ancient law was irresponsible. One rea-r son given for the dogma of irresponsibility is truly lawyer-like — that the king has no peer: but Bracton says, '' Ilex habet superiorcm Dcum, item legem per quam factus est Rex : item curiam suam, videlicet comites barones, quia comites dicuntur quasi socii regis, et qui habet socium habet magistrum," ttc. lib. 2. c. 16. If this be true, the friends of the irresponsi- bility of kings in all cases have not even technicality wholly ill favour of their opinion. This however is certain : the king. is sworn to a specific discharge of particular 19 particular duties; that to violate an oath is perjur}'; and that a crime is aggravated in proportion to the operation of the mischief and the effect of tiie exam- ple : and it is also true that if the statute' law be si- lent, the customary law is sufficiently explicit ; the consuetudo regni has become effectually b. droit pub- liqiie ; for almost every kingdom in Europe within these twenty-five years has exhibited the substitution, abdication, or the dethronement of the reigning prince. And it is gratifying to reflect that, among those nume- rous vicissitudes, only one prince has been privately assassinated, and one publicly executed ; and I trust that Louis XVL will be the last sacrifice. But be- fore I quit this subject let me observe that the exam- ple of regicide was not begun by the executioners of Charles L, but by a queen on a queen, by Elizabeth on Mary queen of Scots. Nor was less management and artifice practised by Elizabeth to destroy Mary, than by those who conducted the trials of Charles and Louis. Never was less justice done to woman than by this queen to a sister queen in a foreign land. Hatton, Elizabeth's confidant, advised ]\Iary to laij aside her bootless privilege of royal dignity. Never was trial so extraordinary; ]\lary was trepanned, treated with bru- tality, and her execution was precipitated by tales of popish plots, and finally by a rumour that the Spaniards were preparing to land at Milford. The puritans of England and the democrats of France did not originate ' It is said in " Considerations on the Law of Forfeiture, " re- specting the forfeiture of the English king — The law will make no answer J but history will give one. C 2 the ^0 the trial of crowned heads ; tliey followed at a di- stance the example prepared for them by one who could do no wroni!;. The trial of Louis XVI. was prepared by those of Charles and IMary, and the deminciation of the allies with their confederate forces decided the kin^s fate. When the duke of Brunswick published his mani- festo he displayed a flag red with the blood of Polish patriots, whose spirits the reckless partitioners of Poland saw revive in the revolution of France. Thu^ both parties were exasperated against each other : the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian sovereigns feared lest their triple folds should be unable to secure their prey, while the French read in the fate of Poland the prognostic of their own doom. If they should escape this catastro})he, they were apprized of the enmity of tlie king and of the nobles : and many had felt their partiality, caprice, and consuming terrors before the revolution had aggravated their suspicions and re- venge : thus, as the danger pressed on the people and their enemies thronged round them, they became lesr* considerate, less scrupulous : the declared opponents of the revolution were swept away with summary ven- geance ; the dangerous in the sequel also suffered with- ,out mercy ; reserve was reputed contumacy, modera- tion deep design, frankness an improvement on sub- terfuge, philanthropy a cutting satire on the whole sanguinary state faction ; and finally, not to be mad witli the insane was held to be treason against the reigning delirium. Such was the government of France when the Jacobin society was the cabinet coun- cil, 2i cil, and Robespierre and his fellows the back stairs "fjiiluence \vhich directed the Convention. The number, discipline, and appointment of the ti'oops opposed to the French, forced them to adopt prompt measures to recruit tb.eir armies and to sup- ply the exchequer. Thence the conscription, thence confiscations ; and as abdication of go\ errmient was held to be an abandonment of the royal office by the authors of the English revolution, go was emigration from France reputed by the French revolutionary leaders a dereliction of country : and as by the English law, to fiy from justice, though innocent, was expi- ated by loss of goods; so by the custom of France the same act drew on the offender the forfeit of his pos- sessions. Thus they punished their enemies and supplied their coflers. Nor was this altogether in- equitable : the noblesse and the clergy, the principal emigrants, had for ages avoided the payment of many direct contributions, and while they exonerated themselves, they iniposed on the people a double burthen : these t^vo orders, who were the richest in the state, and should have been principally taxed, M'ere therefore lialile in equity to a forced surrender of that share of the public income which they had ^selflshly and iniquitously v.ithheld. It is among the chief extravagancies of the time, and evinces the maddened state of the English mind, that the worst part of th.e ecclesiastical establishment in France found advocates amons: us ; and that while a catholic priest a native of the British empire was endured with difficulty, and catholic laymen were stig- »iatized by the British parliament as unworthy of honour b0 honour or trust, catholic French emisrants were raised to important oftices, and a considerable fund esta- blished by parliament to support the emigrant clergy of the catholic persuasion. The conduct of the na* tional assembly toward the French clergy was extreme, but the power of the clergy was extreme and they provoked the severity ; tliey had never exerted them- selves for the nation under the old or the new order of things, nor had their dominion and possessions been curtailed in conformity to the policy of other nations. In England, Henry the defender of the faith reduced the greater incumbrances of the establishment, and the Loni: Parliament confiscated the lands of deans and chapters, though these reductions were either restored or are partially repaired by the increase of the income of the church, -which is enhanced beyond* that of any other order in the state, and by the annual grant from parliament of 100,000/. to the clergy. Towards the close of the sixteenth century, and in 1633, Scotland resumed various ])ossessions which had been conferred on the church in barbarous ages. In Russia also the patriarchal^ dignity M-as abolished so early as the reign of Petei- the Great ; and the civil power has been enabled, by this and other abate- ments of ecclesiastical pretensions, to adujit all the subjects of the empire whatever be their creed to serve the stale. Different 'sovereigns of Geitnany have likewise applied the possessions of the church ' Tithe from 179 to 1804 increased in England 48 per cent. See Coramunicationo made to the Board of Agriculture, vol. 5. * At a' great feast in London, after the Emperor's health was drunk the Patriarch's. Finct's Ambassadors, p. 110. to 23 to the services of their respective nations, as Joseph the Second did those in the Low Countries, while al- most all the powers of Europe have confiscated the property of the Jesuits ; and even Congress has secu- larized the revenue of the Prince Primate, OTantino; him in lieu of his possessions an annuity for life. The application of the property of the noblesse and clergy, who were inimical to the revolution, Avas also a just judgement on these orders for their treatment of their monarch. Louis was in the utmost distress, and the state destitute ; yet they would not contribute to his necessities. They Avere more degraded than the hey ■day royalists among us, who love the prince as ch.ap men do prodigals ; for though government never raised money more disadvantageously than by the loyalty loan, those who subscribed to it served the government a little by serving themselves much ; but' the clergy and noblesse of France would not serve the king even to save the monarchy and themselves. To revile the French revolution and the incidents attendinfj; on it without cognizance of the state of French affairs is pure stupidity : it was not the lite- rary nor the philosophical who occasioned the revo- lution, but the privileged orders — who have ever been its mortal enemies under every regimen. Necker says, " L'autorite sous lancien regime etoit souvent ti- mide et mal assuree. On avoit a combattre des re- sistances cle toute esp^ce — privileges de la noblesse, privileges du clerge — en sorce qu'au milieu des abus de la taille, des gabelles et des aides, il falloit, pour soumettre des impots vicieux a un nouveau syst^mCj entrer en guerre avec une partie du royaume," &c. (Dernieres 24' (Derni^rcs Vues, kc. p. 389). Tlie ancient constitution of France presented a violentcontrastin all jiarticulars ; in it the poor paid all and the rich nothing; njuch was received forthe exchequer and little Avas paid into it; the king, the master of )iis subjects' lives, wanted the use of his own fortune : he was a despot' enslaved, and the crea- tures of his power were the enemies of his dominion. It is repeated, that supposing vices and imperfec- tions had increased during the lapse of time, why were they not moderately reformed ? Does any Briton ~ ask this question, and recollect the fruitless efforts of all the ablest men from \\'illiam Pitt in 1782 to Sir S. Romilly in the last year to reform our un- couth code of laws, and the illusory representation of the people of England, by the mildest process? The French" clergy and nobles would not be reform- ed : a thousand salutary schemes were proposed, even from the age of Vauban to that of Necker, to ame- liorate the constitution ; yet the clergy and nobility rejected them with indignation or disdain, even when they -were vagabond through Euiope ; and now when they hold after a second return to France a doubtful tenure of their country, they speak and speculate as scornfully as were France irretrievably the victim of , Iheirpride and avarice. If the nobles were treated with severity, what entided them to tenderness and respect ? Even Mv. Burke is scanty in their commendation. IMr. Burke, whose eulogy embraces every thing cle- rical down lo lazj/ monhs singing hi the choir (Re- flect, p. 238), avoids being their apologist — Mr. Burke, who would not deprive monkery of its territorial pos-» ' Piop Cassias speaks to the same effect of Claudius, lib. 60. c.2. spesions, 25 sessions, because the revenue arising from them was as well employed in the coiistructioji and repair of the 77iqjestic edijices of religion, as in the painted booths and sordid sties of rice and luxury. This, I must observe, is artless rhetoric ; yet was it esteemed, during the perdition of the British intellect, bravely eloquent. " Est eloquentia sicut reliquarum rerum fundamentum sapientia." Thus Cicero wrote ; but there was a new reading of the passage — " J'^cris en insense, mais j'^cris pour des fous." On quitting the subject of the French revolution, we may conclude generally, that in the beginning it was li- berally intended and necessary ; that afterward die threats and the military array of the allied kings ini- posed power on the rulers of France which they abuserl. Yet it must be admitted that, if they did much eizil, none ever performed so much good in tlie same time; which is proved by the permanency of their reformations under every vicissitude and extreme; thatif the revolu- tionary government, the creature of emergency, enjoyed the shortest existence, it possessed the greatest energy ; for what government witii such means ever performed such exploits? — It was a whirlpool, which shifting with adverse storms and contrary currents, swallowed whole ; and, having shattered and confounded all things in its convulsions, dissipated the fragments of a common ruin along the shores of the ocean. Having dwelt so long on this part of the subject, I shall dispatch the eventful period from the com- mencement of hostilities in 179- to their conclusion in 1814. Coalition after coalition was formed, prin- cipally by the eagerness of England and her seductive subsidie* 25 subsidies. Tiiey had all tlie same issue : Avaste of men and money, and loss of territory and reputation. During these disasters, the parliament of England sanctioned every measure of every minister ; and an immaculate house of commons declared that the ex- pedition to Walcheren was planned with skill and executed with ability. These rash confederacies, widi which the people of no country liad any sym- pathy, and against which many of them protested, dismissed the Stadtholder from Holland ; and many electors, })rinces, and potentates eventually resembled on earth lleQ;no Rc^nas Rcunavi amoncf the dramatis personam of an ancient Morality. At lcn<]jth fortune chana;ed when discretion was forgotten. To the Spanish Avar Bonaparte superadded the invasion of Russia. In attempting this complex labour he in some measure imitated the British mi- nistry, whose axiom in warfare seems to be, Destroy your power by dividing your means, and add to your enemies as your friends decrease. Bonaparte sought to effect at the same time an establishment in Spain and the conquest of Russia. The Romans taught no such lesson ; and his own success, when he was free to choose, depended chiefly in abandoning all projects for one till that was accomplished ; and thus he con- tinued to fight and conquer by directing a concentrated force against the heart of a single enterprise. Yet, in despite both of his success and of his failures, he en- countered this double difficulty. Spain he could not subdue from the impossibility of subsisting large armies in that country ; and he had experienced the difficulties of a Polish campaign, when he exclaimed, on seeing the 27 the Russians advance to that most tremendous conflict . — " Oh, sun of Austerlitz ! fate drives them on !" He, arrogant man, spoke his own infatuation. Yet with infinite troops, such as Europe never before saw impelled in one direction, he passed the Russian fron- tiers; and with his unmatched ability and the un- abated ardour of.his soldiers he fought and conquered the Russians in repeated battles ; yet his victories did not proceed from superiority of courage or discipline, but h'om superior numbers. As he conquered, he prepared the means of his own defeat ; as he ad- vanced, he retreated from his supplies ; while the re- ' pulses of the Russians quickened the junction of their recruits ; and as they retired they approached the centre of their strength. Bonaparte pursued the enemy with assurance : but when he reached the sroal of con- quest, whence the victory imparadised was to dictate submission to an abject world, he beheld no trophies, nor did his followers find spoil, nor comfort, nor re- pose, nor hope — Moscow, in flames, was to them as the cope of hell to the numberless bad a7ie;els, " 'Twixt upper nether and surrounding fires." I should be extremely grieved to insinuate any thing which could be perverted into an innuendo unfriendly to the courage of the Russians : it would be the worst slander. Yet I cannot, in respect to liberty, avoid making, though it may appear extra-judicial, an observation on a speech of Mr. Canning to his electors at Liverpool on this subject. This gentleman, having eulogized the prowess of the Russians, passed with sneering super- ciliousness and bickering exultation to reprove those who had the temerity to avow tliat freedom was ne- cessary 28 cessary for patiiotic achievemenU. The chiefs of the corporation and tlie retired sl^ve-dcalcrs heard and were exhilarated by this man of infinite jest — it co- incided so patly with all their own speculations — they pronounced him witty indeed. True wit is nature to advantage drcss'd, Which oit was thought, but ne'er so well express'd. I wonder that this popular candidate did not add, that when the British attempted to destroy Constantinople, " the shij>s of war in the harbour were at once manned with a piomiscuous crowd of soldiers, sailors, - and citizens ;" and that these slaves rendered abortive the attempt of the English, ihe freest of men. (liob- houses Travels, p. 1 19-) According to ]\Ir. Canning, w^e must conclude that the influence of liberty on liumau exertion is a vulgar error. And did not Suwarrow and the Russians conquer Kosciusko and the Poles ? This is a noble theme, but it is not entirely new : Xerxes had anticipated Mr. Canning's dis- covery : I allude to the colloquy of the great king with Demaratus the Spartan, in the seventh book of Herodotus. Yet how does this ex-secretary's petu- lance disparage the pre-eminence of liberty ? What if the vassals of Alexander fighting for their homes, re- sisted the vassals of Bonaparte fighting for the vanity of their general in a far distant land ? Mr. Canning, no doubt, has in reserve for the next corporation dinner an anti-jacobin sapphic on the enemies of sinecures ; and he may detail -on the occasion his owij non-services to no court at a salary and perquisites of 1 7,500/. a year, which cannot fail to set the table in a roar. To To return : Bonaparte having lost his armies on tiiel^ retreat, resumed the contest in the ibllovving year; and after vai'ious changes and mighty exertions he was again overpowered. Finally, the allies entered Paris, and Bonaparte abdicated the throne. The magnanimous allies, the liberators of Europe, retired to Vienna, and there they employed their wisdom and virtue in regulating the affairs of Europe. Great were the expectations of an overjoyed world when they remembered tlie declaration of the allies from Frankfort. Yet there were some who conjectured that the professed moderation of the allies hitherto was not wholly referable to royal reformation and progressive humanity ; but to royal suffering and pressing exi- gency — " paulatimque anima caluerint moUia saxa ;"' and such Pyrrhonists in politics did suspect that when they had secured their power they would return to their inveterate habits. This was called petulant, impossible, slanderous — yet between the signing of tlie treaty of Paris and the determination of Congress the affairs of Spain afforded an ominous expectation of the result ; and thinking men imagined that if Astrea had returned, she did not intend to prolong her stay on earth. Mark the particulars : Ferdinand, who for some unknown virtue had been substituted for his father on the throne, visited France in submission to Bona- parte ; he was seized ; and he abdicated the Spanish monarchy. Wiiile Ferdinand drivelled away his life at Valency, the French overran Spain. The British assisted the Spaniards with an army and supplies of , every every kind ; subsidies of men and arms and ainmiim- tion. Flope returned ; and the cortes assembled : v.ith this assembly and its innnediate origan the Biitish mi- nistry lurmed the strictest intimacy. The cortes were Britain's actual ally; they treated Britain vvitl) confi- dence, and appointed the Bridsh general generalis- simo of the Spanish forces. Ferdinand returned to Spain ; and a British general and Biidsh money li- terally conveyed him to Madrid. Instantly Ferdi- nand and his council proclaimed the cortes illegal and their deeds criminal : and the most enlightened and strenuous patriots, members of that assembly, were persecuted and imprisoned. Thus Ferdinand the ally ot' France treated the cortes the allies of Britain ; and they languished in prison, or, like the i2;ood and great Ar^uelles, suffer a soldier's life in an African garrison. Observe, this outrage, this hideous barbarity, does not depend on a story related by Mr. Canninc;, founded on secret articles and a nameless tatler ; nor on letters produced by Lord Castlereagh from the sacred cabinet of Mons. Blacas ; — the v.orld speaks trumpet tongued the deep damnation of their takins: off. What have En2;land and her canting egotists performed for Iku' friends and humanity ? There was a time when lier ambassador Mr. V/rough- ton could give shrewd and spirited advice to a bigoted party in Poland ; but noiv legitimacy absorbs the interest of all the cal)inct. We are told it is not decorous, it would be pre- suming, to interfere with the government of nations, should ministers utter a saving e.xpression to the basest tyrant in favour of their most zealous allies, associates 5i associates and friends : that is, when a military despo^ tism conspires with the inquisition and tortures, and assassinates our friends and the friend? of liberality and justice, we should abstain from attempting to interrupt the ruling power in the exercise of his lawful preroga- tive. But if the people would reform their laws, limit iniquitous privileges, reduce a plethoric establishment toa healthy state, modify feudal impositions, or with- draw their allegiance from di prince who had forfeited his promise by every sort of mal-administration, then the doctrine of ministerial reserve is inverted — then interfering is a bounden duty ! Then crusade after crusade shall be preached and undertaken to force a king and his train of evils on the people. The same bias perverts the government in various instances. Every French outcast with a lie of loyalty was cherished and rewarded for his mighty sufferings and chivalrous virtue, while the proscribed patriots of Spain and Poland scarcely obtain a negative hos- pitality in the land. Nay, two patriots who took re- fuge in Gibraltar were returned to their persecutors that justice might be executed on them. What was their j^uilt ? The crime allco-ed against Antonio Vxiw- blanc was, that he had composed a work entitled "The Inquisition unmasked." Thus the officers, princes, and ministers of Spain and England treat each other with the utmost condescension and amity; and the Prince Regent of England and Ferdinand the Beloved exchanged orders of knighthood, England also con- cluded a subsidiary treaty with Spain ; and the arma- ment prepared at Cadiz against Spanish America was equipped in a great degree by stores sent froni this 32 this country, ^lost of these events happened while Congress was in secret council on the life and death of nations : and these deeds by England and Spain were reputed inauspicious to their final deliverance. I shall now consider the deeds of Congress : and surely after " the Declaration at Frankfort/' and " the Declaration on the breaking off the negotiations at Cliatillon," mankind had reason to expect a different result. This latter declaration has been frequently referred to in subsequent negotiations; and in one respect it is remarkable, as it holds as incontrovertible that nations should respect their mutual independence. Yet the high contracting powers violently annexed Genoa to Piedmont. Is this respecting the inde- pendence of nations ? It was a fraud on the prospects of the Genoese in various ways : Lord William Ben- tinck in his proclamation of March the 14tii promised that they should be restored to independence ; and Lord Bathnrst, in conforinily to this proclamation, in a dispatch to Lord William Bentinck, wrote — " Do not take possession of Genoa without the consent of the people ;" yet Lord Castlcreagh says that they were conquered. It is false in every possible interpreta- tion of laniTViaiic. lie and his implicit friends might better say that the English conquered Spain : — ths English and Spaniards relieved Spain from the French ; the English and the (jenoese relieved Genoa from the same oppressors. Lord Castlereagh, in the sequel of his sj)eech, waved the morality and pure justice of the transfer ; he founded it expressly on expediency. This was explicit, which we should least expect from his lordship, it was brave ; for thouglv ministers :)j Iriiiiisters, and those of France aI=o, long since had "their pretensions of dependencies and the droit de bienseance,^^ which Sir William Temple (no^v unlike our present negotiators !) lamented as most pernicious ; such crimes were not publicly avowed, but were re- served for the confidential intercourse of the cabinet or council chamber. Lord Castlereagh is the first minister wlio audaciously avowed that in his diplo- matic creed expediency had displaced equity. The transfer of Norway, which is forgotten amidst the enormities of Congress, was not so defended. All have treated with indignation " necessity, the tyrant's plea." But expediency is the same plea enlarged by a most comprehensive licentiousness. What is this expediency ? That Genoa united with Piedmont will strengthen the Italian frontier against France. If an union of these countries be advisable, why is not Piedmont rather combined with Genoa than the contrary ? Why do they not form an incor- porate aristocracy ? Piedmont had long lost its inde- pendency when Genoa was free. Genoa is a far mightier name in history than Piedmont or Sardinia ; nor do I perceive why a doge and senate are not as likely to uphold the inviolability of a nation's soil as a mere king. They enjoy neither less power nor less respect, as was proved by the conduct of the French to these two governments. The French at the com- mencement of hostilities besieged and took Onedia. a town of the king of Sardinia ; and though it was al- most incorporated with the Genoese territories, the French did not infringe them. This forced connexion will be attended with weakness and texation. Li- l> guria giirla nill sink into imbecility, if it be patient, anil become a pitiful province of a pitiful kingdom : — even now the Barbary pirates plunder its sliores; and such distraction harasses the hereditary states of the kin^, tiiouvould be unnatural, says the emperor, for one who had armed in defence of his country to make conquests ; — yet I seize the duchy of Warsaw. The Russian em- pire possesses unconquerable strength, M'hich cannot be increased by external acquisitions; yet the union of the greater part of the duchy of Warsaw untler my ftccjitre is proved to be absolutely necessary for the safety of my frontiers and the establijihmcnt of a general 4/ general balance of power. Tliis is unanswerable. Yet if the balance of power have any meaning, the emperor might as eflectually have added to his own political weight by improving Avhat he possessed, as by adding to his acquisitions. Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1 786 painted for the empress Catherine an infant Hercules strangling serpents, — alluding to the difficulty of ci- vilizing Russia. Is Russia civilized, — or is that hopeless ? In this political jostle what has become of the Poles ? The Congress announced — " The Poles, sub- jects respectively of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, shall obtain a representation and national institu- tions, regulated according to the mode of political ex- istence that each of the governments to which they belong shall judge useful and convenient for them." That is, we the Congress leave them h? statu quo. It would perplex the most ingenious diviner to guess what approach to freedom the emperor of Austria will consider expedient for the Poles, if indeed he or they should ever think again on the subject. The Pole^ are abandoned to their enemies ; and (at least by Lord Castlereagh in Congress) the partition of Poland is sanctioned by Great Britain. Excellent diplomatist, who has epitomized the British empire within the first pronoun ! Consummate negotiator, who exceeds De Dunois, D"Ossat, Jeannin, Beverning, Walsingham, Temj)le, and Marlborough ! who has ratified that deed, which, compared to all tlie excesses . of Bonaparte, exhibits him an angel of light ; which first impaired the integrity and then. effected the extinc- tion of a gi'eat nation ; which " brought death into the world, world, and all our woe !" authorizing the depredation-; throuszhout Europe, which were continued hy Franco and consunnnatcd by Congress. " Go," said Oxen- stiern to his son, who was preparing to repair to a con- gi'ess of ambassadors, " go and see with your own eyes how little wisdom those have who govern the world.'" Had he directed him to the Congress at Vienna, to the paucity of their wisdom he might have added the nullity of their virtue. '• O wretched people," said Erasmus on a similar occasion, " who submit to those whom no honest man would -endure among the ser- vants of his household!' We now a[)proach the chef-d'oeuvre of Congress, the transcendental policy, at once just, ingenious, and fortunate, the kingdom of the Netherlands ! It is necessary to precede this inquii^' by stating a few leading facts-. The S^ven United Provinces were detached from France at the close of the year 1813. The stadtholder then returned to his country, after an exile of about nineteen years. Scarcely had he touched the soil, when in the extravagance of the hour, amidst " Oranje hoven,'' he was hailed Sove- reign Prince of the Netherlands! And no doubt his reception in December 1813 was as cordial as his rejection in 17.95 ; for, if the people liad been dis- satisfied with him then, they had been more dissatisfied with the French since his abdication. Yet who ever heard of any nomination comparable to this of Wil- liam First Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands.-^ Never let any loyalist revile a British mob : hence- forwards, those ^^ho followed Lord George Gordon siiall be held orthodox Christians, and those who broke •*tf broke windows during the last session of parliament be reputed absolute masters of political oeconomy. The persons who first announced by acclamation William's ascent to royalty were the loosest members of society — 'those who gaze because one gazes, who arrest their pace because another stops, who run be- cause another hastens — those who condemn by im- pulse, and praise by vibration — such were they who first cried Prince of the Netherlands ! By Avhat right did ^yilliam assume the title of Prince of the Nether- lands ? At that time it was said this title induced a beli'ef that he should obtain an increase of territory, and that Brabant, and perhaps Flanders, should be added to liis dominion. This the ministerial papers treated as libellous. On the '29th of March 1814 the Prince Sovereign of the Netherlands met the notables at Amsterdam, who had been assembled to discuss the new constitu- tion of the United Provinces. I'he prince then in- formed them that he Avould accept the sovereignty " on ouc comUtioii^ "viz. that a constitution founded on the 7iecessities of Holland and on the present state of Europe should duUj ensure the freedom of persons,'' Sec. that is, Make me monarch : only monarchies suit Plolland and Europe. Since that time, according to the doctrine of equivalents, this prince sovereign has given East Friesland to Hanover, and obtained in return the ten provmces of Belgium ; which sixteen provinces are intended to strengthen the frontier against France in this direction, as much as Genoa and Sardinia on the other. It is no secret that queen Elizabeth and Henry IV. E , of oyf of France speculated on the union of the Netherlands (Hume, vol. 5, j). 434) ; but it never occurred to those princes (who ^vere not Jacobins, and none have since approached them in sagacity and decision,) that the Strength of their union would be confirmed by con- verting them into one monarchy : they designed to combine them into a republic. Indeed no two reigns are more adverse than this of his present majesty and Elizabeth s : she was offered the sovereignty of the Netlicrlands, and declined it; while the king of England would become king of Corsica, grand master of Malta, and potentate of the Ionian Isles. Elizabeth at a small expense maintained her empire : England's king, after immense expenditure, lost a world. The character of her government was oeco- nomy : of this, unexampled waste — waste of money, waste of honours — honours such as princes can confer. She doled out with the utmost reserve, while our ])rince exceeds all his predecessors. It was said by AVicque- fort, " Le roi d'Anglcterre fait seul plus de chevaliers que tons les autres rois de la Chretiente ensemble." Our prince since his unrestricted regency has dubbed more knislits dian the mint has coined guineas. If there be a contrast between this reign and that of Elizabeth, there is, however, in some particulars a strong coincidence between the reigns of George the Third and of Charles tlic Second. I shall mention only a single instance. AV'illiam ])rince of Orange obtained additional authority from the States-general, on which the minister of Charles wrote to the prince — " to tell you how great an inducement to the peace your highnesses advancement to the hereditary dignity had 51 had been, and with how much more confidence he could now fall into good measures with Holland than before."' And I have little doubt but this prince's suit respecting the princess Mary was as much ad- vanced in the eyes of king Charles and the duke of York by this promotion, as the Hereditary Prince's suit to the princess Charlotte was forwarded at ^ Carleton House by the sovereignty conferred on his father. And no doubt in as much as this compression of provinces into a kingdom might atfbrd a suitable match for a daughter of England, it was a miracle of good sense ; but as a politic establishment, to promote internal happiness and external strength, a favourable result is not so obvious. This question is to be viewed in two points : first, as to the change of constitution ; then, as to the union of the northern and southern provinces into one kingdom. Siiould the United Provinces on reflection cherish a monarchy, their people are greatly changed ; for so lately as 1787 they rebelled against their Stadtholder, thinking his power excessive. Their whole history evinces their bias to liberty. Temple says, that on a proposal of giving William extraordinary powers, 300,000/. sterling were withdrawn from the bank of Amsterdam, and that the actions fell 30 per cent. ; adding that it was a common voice in Holland that " they would rather be subjected to France than to a domestic sovereign." (vol. 2, p. 3^5.) Some may imagine that the Dutch are completely altered by their disasters, and that now they have learned by expe- rience the evils of a constitution bordering on repub- lican liberty. I do not perceive any reason why they E 2 should should permanently reverse their former sentiments. The Dutch are now situated as the English uere at the Restoration, at which time some of those very prerogatives, which they at the expense of a very long war won from the king that claimed them, they offered to Charles the Second without restriction ; yet soon after the commons attempted to trench on the ac- knowledged prerogative of the crown, and the Revo- lution followed. In like manner the Dutch expelled the Stadtholder in 1787, and in 1813 they would crown him. Why should not time perfect the pa- rallel ? It is not probable that the Dutch will rejoice in their monarchy — their affairs will not resume that enterprise nor the people their industry and thrift. 'J'emple speaks, frequently anticipating the change of their constitution from a republic to a kingdom : " a sovereign prince in Holland would certainly soon ruin the trade, and consequently the riches and greatness of the state, and leave a prince, of it without power or consideration." (vol. 1, p. ^99-) The Dutch have not as yet fully known the manner of a king. The people of Wurtemberg have. They say, that ttith the at- tainment of the roifal dignift/ and of a sovereignti/ his mqjestii the king of JViirtemherg has effected a total abolition of the constitution of the coitntty, and Germany has been filled with their lamentations. I shall now consider the union of the Netherlands under the same king. By this arrangement the greater mass is made ac- cessaiy to the less ; for ten provinces which contain a greater comparative population, aie added to seven which are reduced to six by the interloping ambition of 53 ' of the British government. William, however, has been crowned at Brussels. Yet it is doubtful whether this measure will less amuse his new or his old sub- jects : by this the former must feel that their prince by enlarging his territories has divided his affection ; Avhile tl)e people of Belgium will repute his corona- tion in their country a mere act of state policy, and that he, while he exercises the forms of royalty at Brussels, will reserve his partialities and patronage for the Hague. The re-union of the Netherlands, which were con- nected some centuries ago under the same prince, is the theme of the eulogists of the present monarchy : and yet this should rather seem to be an injurious in- . nuendo by the enemies of the coalition ; for it recalls no pleasing recollections, if indeed the association is not ominous. — That connexion of the Netherlands is historical, but their intimacy with France is present ; while their incorporation had so long continued, that all those who approach and who have just attained man- hood have been bred and born under the government of France. Tiie change to these ten provinces is an absolute revolution, and is particularly grievous : it unites a catholic people under a protestant sovereign ; it forces a people who have always been unkindly treated by the Dutch, under the empire of a Dutch prince : it forces them from their friends to their ene- mies ; for the French opened the navigation of the Scheldt to the Belgians, which their present fellow citizens, in pure selfishness, for more than a century and a half rendered to them the waters of Tantalus. This constitution affords no prospect of strength, or cordiality, 04* cordiality, or stability. The Belgian Ijishops (July the i28th) informed the king in their remonstrance, that it filled evtrif heart ivitli const ti'nni ion ; and the sove- reign in iiis j)roclamation, (2.0th August,) alluding to the southern provinces, says, PVc Jiave learned with sorrow that our endeavom^s Jiave been mistaken or mis- understood; adding, that of the notables almost a sixth part of the persons summoned have not appeared in the assemblies : and observe, he speaks of the people sum- moned by himself, who of course were not selected for their hostile disposition. It also appears by the same proclamation, that seven hundred and six of the no- tables present rejected the constitution ; and observe also, that their negative did not precede the battle of Waterloo, but eucceeded it by many weeks : they did not, therefore, negative the prince's proposal prospec- tively to the success of the French, but from an abso- lute aversion to the whole project. The union of a great province to any nation seldom adds to the common strength : on the contrary, it ra- ther encumbers its operation or j)erverts its course, like the bias in a ball ; and in no instance has any free state by its transfer communicated power equivalent to what it possessed during its individual indepen- dence. What did Tyre add to the conqueror's might } or Carthage to Home ? or Athens to any of its nume- rous masters — even to the present Sultan, though it enjoys a signal distinction among Grecian cities, — being patronized by the black eunuch of the palace ? or Venice to Austria? The union of Pistoia to Florence, though effected cheerfully by both, introduced weak- ness and dissension: (Machiavcl, Discorsi, p. 160.) How 55 How tlien can this union of Belgians and Dutch be happy, which is formed by tlie conqueror's pressure amidst hostile armies, and in submission to the will of Congress? Happy unions are formed by easy accre- tion and insensible growth ; the parts must possess aptness, and time and circumstances must assist their consistency and assimilation : under such auspices the cantons of Switzerland approached each other and were cemented. But the later unions in Europe are ravishments, on which the violators prostitute the most sacred name. Such coalitions militate against truth, regularity and nature ; they are the creatures of vio- lence ; they hardly subsist, and soon perish ; they re- semble those cabinet curiosities, half egg, half bird — half fly, half grub — which, crushed as they are dis- closed, bear the remains of their incipient state \vith the infirmity of their present being. Such is the policy of modern times ; while to strengthen a state by liberal institutions, by reforming what was originally wrong, by restoring what has been lost or perverted, is held pernicious, and by none more than by the British ministers. Union of nations and provinces, no matter how, is their simple recipe for strengthening modern monarchies ; and the prince that counts -the greatest numerical population is reputed the greatest sovereign. — -The science by which an ancient sage said he could make a small nation a great state, was more complex.— This discovery in politics boasts another novelty ; for, as it is held that a kingdom is stronger than a republic, so a king is more potent ac- cording to the extent of his pi'erogatives. This cer- tainly deserves the prize from the Royal Academy, and should ou bhoLilcl be honoured willi the king's patent. This re- velation equally escaped Aristotle's logic and tlic rhe- toric of Plato. And INlachiavcl Mas so wholly igno- rant on this topic, that he praised the limited autho- rity of the king of Sparta and of the doge of Venice, saying " Non potcvTino iisare male (juclla autorita." Temple, as I have quoted, missed the secret, when he reflected on the evils which would result from raising the Stadholder to royalty ; and also when, speaking of the revolution in Denmark, he said, '^ for the last change of the government from elective to hereditary has made it seem hitherto of less force and unfitter for action." (vol. i. p. 87.) Yet the king of Denmark and his minister then thought nearly as do the princes and ple- nipotentiaries at Congress ; and Denmark's minister at the congress of Nimeguen actually claimed prece- dence of the plenipotentiary of Louis XlVth, because his master was more absolute in his domimons{\). 441). Yet this absolute power was the ruin' of their succes- sors. This doctrine and its consequences are not new in England. Sir T. Trevor, after discoursing on Brute and king Lucius, said, " our king hath as much poMcr and prerogative as any king in Christendom hath." And Sir W. .Tones, in giving judgement on ship-money, stated, " Tliere is a book which Mr. At- torney remembers well, that tlie king of England hath more power than any other king." The Stadtholder enjoyed ample power to execute the office of iirst magistrate, and the United Provinces were composed, as Bentivoglio observed, of the three ' This was more inimical to his authority in Norway than the Swedish arms and the English fleet. forms. 51 / forms, " cio^ di monarcbia, d' aristocratia, & didcmo- cratia (lib. 1. c. 4.)." And wben tbe Stadtbolder was moderate, peace at bome and power abroad gene- rally distinguisbed tbis country. At one period this repnblic possessed more shipping than all tbe rest ol Europe; yet it scarcely produced within itself one article for ship-building. Tbis republic also when compelled contended successfully against England and France united, and had in 1G66 one hundred men-of-war at sea, a mighty land army, and at the same time it subsidized different nations of Europe. "Will the sovereign prince restore his united kingdom to its republican prosperity? When Holland had scarcely relieved herself from the despotism of Philip, and as an emblem of her misery exhibited a ship without sails, and the motto lucertum quo fata ferunt^ her women listing; with the military thronged to the breaches and repelled the assailants. M'hat has since happened? As the Stadtliolder a])proached royally the ability of the people declined. When the duke of Brims wick advanced he triumphed over the anned burghers after a sanguinary conllict ; but their resist- ance then ceased, and the Stadtliolder returned in triumph when foreigners had conquered his people. After tbis, whoever attacked them succeeded without effort ; they suffered a spurious republic, a monarchy under Louis Bonaparte, an incorporate union with France, all with the same apparent apathy. Now all this is forgotten, all is reversed ; those who expatriated William hail his joyeuse entree, and those who could not endure a stadtliolder because he possessed some- >'i what a too swelling port; now find themselves more thaa JO than able ' to bear the incumbency of a king, nay '' every inch a king," crowned to tlic sound of cannon and military music and U'e Deums — a royal sym- phony. That the sovereign of the Netherlands is a true king, read the following particulars of preroga- tive and dominion. The ecclesiastical establishment by theconstitution extends to all sectaries and teachers, *' and provision shall be made for those sects which have as yet received no salaries from goverament:"- — after which immediately follows, " the sovereign is entitled to exercise over all forms of worslnp the superintendance required by the public interest, and he has besides a direct authority to inspect the ar- rangements of those religious communities which en- joy any revenue from government ;" i. e. the sovereign prince shall touch every teacher of religion with a wand of gold. And it has operated surprisingly; as the priest-orator at his coronation told the king that at that moment Jie became truly the image of the clivi- nity on earth. As this representative of the clergy lias evinced such sagacity in his inaugural oration, no doubt his fellows will be invited to assist the civil authorities with their wisdom : this Ibllows of course, though it was not less hostile to the ancient prepos- sessions of the Hollanders than their distaste of king- ship, as Harrington says, that should a clergyman among them meddle with matters of state, the magi- strate sends him a pair of shoes; and should he not take the hint, he is exjjelled from his charge. (Oceana, p. 181.) By this new constitution the king declares peace and war. The committee of revision in July 13, 1815, authen- 59 authenticate this prerogative by saying this is inherent in a ivell-constituted monarchy. It is necessary to despotisms, and leads to them. It was one of the first prerogatives conferred on Julius Ca^'sar — that he should have die power of making peace and war without consent of the senate or people : (Dion Cassius, lib. 4'2, c. 20.) And however these dogma- tical gentlemen may think, the Swedes had a very different opinion of the beneiit of this prerogative in the reio;n of Charles the Twelfth, for on his death they abolished it (Mably, Droit Pub., t. 2, p. 325.). If the kino- were to rio;ht for all, like David with Goliath, and if out of his own private revenue he were to afford the supplies, and if he alone were to sutler by defeat, he should enjoy this prerogative ; but to submit the fortune and lives of mankind to the understanding of one man, to his caprice, to the ca- price of his minion, or of his mistress, is madness. The duke of Buckingham, from a personal pique, involved England in hostilities, and the duchess^ of Portsmouth changed the whole fate of Europe. This prerogative now assumed by tlie prince sovereign is adverse to the ancient laws of the United Provinces; and to this the dissentients from the modern consti- tution principally objected. They reflected perhaps that it was by this same prince's -exerdons, in con- formity to England's views, for which the people ab- horred the British, that Holland declared war with France, which made its people the victims of twenty years of calamity. In my opinion the ancient mon- archy of the French was much better constituted, for ' Sir William Temple. the uv the French were fieerucn. IJoiilalin ilHors says of it, *' II est reniarriuable a cc siijet, qu'ii Tegard de la paix, leg rois Violent toujours niaities, mais que pour la guerre il falloit Ic consentement de la nation." 8cc. (Mem, Hist. p. 46'.) " Tiie prince sovereign has likewise the exclusive direction ot appointing officers, and removing and granting them half-pay or pensions at pleasure, lie has moreover the direction of tlie finances, appointing and fixing salaries of civil officers paid by the state." " The sovereign grants pardons. With regard to the colonies the power of the sovereign is exclusive." And '' in addition to the cases in which the sovereign has the power of dispensing with existing laws, he may exercise a further dispensing power in a case of urgency during the prorogation of the States General : subject however to the condition of hearing the opi- nion of the High Court, and of communicating his reasons to the States General on their first meeting." Tiiese are some of the prerogatives possessed by the prince of the Netherlands. To this constitution he swore; and he did swear to execute it, he said, because its provisions afforded him the possib'tl'itij of ful tilling his oath. Such is the constitution which is to bind many discordant provinces in union together, which is to obliterate past prejudices, to harmonize religious antipathies, to conciliate the Belgians to the disgrace of being torn from France and made an appendage to the Dutch monarchy. And this kingdom is to become part of those permanent establishments which are to last for ever, for the Congress of Europe has stamped all its proceedings with immortality. Blow 61 Blow sportive bubbles in the beamy sun And call them worlds. , . . Then as they break the slaves of care reprove, And tell them such are all the toys they love. This grand manoeuvre in politics our ministers, my- steriously or openly as they are taciturn or loquacious, consider their maximum in politics : by this they have secured the amity and obedience of the sovereign prince and his subject people. One thing still seems wantins;, namely, to unite the kingdom of tlie Nether- lands to the British empire. — Don"t be startled, reader, this aj^e has effected more inconcrruous com- binations ; and there is a sort of precedent for the proposal. Hume says, *' after the death of ^^ illiam prince of Orange, which was attended with the de- pression of his party and the triumph of the Dutch rejmblicans, the parliament thought that the time was now favourable for cementing a closer confederacy with the States. St. John, cliief justice, who was sent over to the Hague, had entertained the idea of foi'ming a kind of coalition between the two republics, which would have rendered their interests totally in- separable.'' Though this project failed between the republics, who knows what may be etl'ected between those countries now that both are kin«;doms ! Our ministry is vigorous, and every thing may be expected from their capacity and exertions. This happy king- dom of the Netherlands has been protected by our troops, and nourished with our money : in the yea/ 181,5, parliament by the advice of government voted two millions two hundred thousand pounds for the service of the northern provinces, and two millions for D'J for the repair of the fortiticatioiis in the southern pro- vinces. 'J'his was a pretty prefatory expense, to se- cure a complete kingdom for the intended son-in-law of the Prince Regent, which kingdom in the mean time was but an appanage of Russia. But what sig- nify five or ten or twenty millions to complete the balance of Europe ? For this poor naked kingdom of the Netherlands, to which England is a nursing- mother, starts up a Goliath amidst the nations of the earth to fight and defend the balance of Europe ! One observation I beg leave to make on this subject, which obtrudes in every state paper. The balance of Europe has been the especial care of England so long, that its origin must be left to the operose erudition of antiquaries. Historical! v then I only remark, that it claimed paramount attention among the vigorous measures of Henry the Eighth, the defender of the faith, and he regulated his own creed and that of his subjects exactly as he did the balance of Europe. He began by joining the league of Cam- bray. Tlic potentates who composed this conspiracy proposed to divide the Venetian territories, as the partitioning powers have since mangled and distracted Poland. Atterward he coalesced with tiie Emperor against France ; then, to prove his motto, Cui adiufrcn prceest, he threw his weight into the scale of France against the Emperor ; and again he carried his pre- ponderosity over to the Emperor, and invaded France. Cromwell, though some would scarcely suspect him, had very enlightened views on the balance of Europe, as the reader must admit ; for, having granted 6,000 63 6,000 British troops to Mazarin to enable the Trench to conquer Flanders, purposely to preserve the balance of power, he expedited a minister to INIadrid, to inform that court that he would send 10,000 British troops to its service in order to hing back the balance of power. (Temple, vol. 2, p. 49.) Charles the Second transcended the Protector ; and, if he did not equal the perfection to which this science has at length at- tained, we must not refer the defect to the incapacity of that prince. Charles had troops fighting at once on both sides ; and observe his honour — the honour of a prince! — One party required him to recall his troops from France; but he refused, " since there were English troops of greater number in the service of the allies." (Temple, vol. 1, p. 448.) And observe also the consequence which this probity and wisdom conferred on him : " His majesty," said the beUigerents on pro- posing to him the ofiice of mediator, " would have the sole honour of giving peace to Europe, or a balance in the wars.'' (Ibid. p. 49-) And this balance England has enjoyed without stint and without competitor, and she has exercised the office in a manner worthy the splendour of the throne. England has been at war, without considerinsi hostilities in both Americas and in the East, with almost every power in Europe during the last twenty years. By sea, by land, thy matchless worth was known — - Arms thy delight, and war was all thy own'! And as her enemies have also been her friends and allies, she in effect impoverished her friends and sub- sidized her enemies. Her deeds on some occasions have been so perplexed, that it requires extra attention to to apprehend tlieir intricate absurdity. For instance, England armed to assist Turkey to regain Oczakow ti-oni Russia, and failed : afterward she sent a fleet to the Dardanelles to force the Porte to submit to Rus- sia, antl failed : then she assisted the Porte, and failed ; and last year (1815) she engaged to pay Hol- land a debt of 2,200,000/. originally contracted by liussia, in order to prolong that war which secured Oczakow to Russia, and which our great minister at- tempted to disengage from Russia by the fruitless ex- penditure of some millions. Such conduct is esteemed profound policy — con- summate wisdom ; — yet some think otherwise : they repute it egregious folly to fight for the luxury of war- fare, to waste money from a rage for expense, and to destroy mankind merely to amuse a speculative pre- judice. Why is Great Britain, ,stparatcd almost from all the world, hurried from the retirement of her situ- ation to interfere in all continental politics, as if, in- stead of being insular, she was in the midst of Europe circumvented by every power ? The ministers of l-'ngland are of Hugh Peters's opinion, who said, when there was no time for jesting, that he looked on Eng- land to be the cabinet of the world ; and for this rea- son — they hold this cotmtry eternally on the alert to adjust the balance of Europe. "NValler considers this ofHce of trimmer-general as conferred by divine ap- pointment on England. It is indeed in his character of poet, and not of politician : Heaven, that placed this island to give law, To balance Europe, and her states to awe. Nor is this the limit of her responsibility : she would balance balance America; she must balance India, just as Brennus regulated the weight of ransom : '' Foi%" says Sir J. Malcolm, '' the British government in India has been established and must be supported by the sword." (Polit. Hist. &c. p. 479.) Were Britain subtracted from the world, could there be less peace, less confusion ? It is the boast of her ministers that, having abruptly ended all correspondence with Franco, and having dismissed Mons. Chauvelin the Frendi minister, allowing him only eight days to prepare for his departure, she, through love of order and peace, v/aged war for more than twenty years ; that she has created every coalition, and has of course caused all their tremendous consequences. She is not. satisfied in being thought the abettor of the military insurrec- tions in Europe, she in her ambition aspires to be re- puted the destroying angel who " rides in the whirl- wind and directs the storm." She, forsooth, regulates the balance of povv'er, while for twenty years her im- pertinent exertions uniformly added to the confusion and ruin of Europe ; and the utter humiliation of Eu- rope would have been complete, had not the ambition of one man been illimitable. And yet there is a weak- ness leagued with this wickedness that is incredible- Her ministers, who would regulate sea and land, and counterwork the laws of matter ; who in the last mu- tiny act, 56 Geo. III. cap. 2., added to the usual pre- amble the preservation of the balance of Europe, — had in this same session a law passed to enable his majesty to enlist foreign soldiers, and to officer them with fo- reign officers, to the amount of 16,000 men, and to introdiice them into this country during the continu- F ance auce of any war. — Here then this grand regulator of Europe is obliged to recur to foreign mercenaries for her own internal police. Take from England the squandered loans from her money-changers, and what is the amount of her preponderance in the balance of Europe ? and what is this balance ? — a metaphor, and a false one ; it might as well be called a time-keeper, or a compensation pendulum ; and it is, as it has been pursued, worse than vanity : " And %veigh'd in equal scales is found so light, So poorly overbalanced by a bubble." It would be gi'atifyiug to hear from the plenipoten- tiaries how they arrange this balance by the new dis- tribution. The table of regulations which Henry VHI. constructed to direct his balance will not suit our time. The powers of Europe have altered their relative cir- 'cumstances, particularly Russia. So low was Russia even in Elizabeth's reign, that she obtained a mono- poly of the whole trade of the country of the czar : yet the trade of Russia, according to Oddy, has mad^ a greater comparative increase within these thirty years than that of any other country of Europe.— r Russia has also within these few years effected many valuable acquisitions ; i\nd he, of all European powers, has alone been thus successful : he has taken what was convenient to him from the Porte, from Persia, aiid Sweden ; he has strengthened his frontiers in those directions, while he has enlarged his maritime connexions on the Baltic, and obtained the sovereignty of the Euxine Sea. — His possessions in Poland are momentous ; to the shares on the partitions which he had obtauicd, he has added almost the whole of the duchy duchy of Warsaw, with the title of King of Poland ; and h3 may possess, when he pleases, Poland entire, — It is not so long past since Constantine's " Order of the Day," or appeal to the Polish army and nation, was published, that the Poles should forget that Alex- ander made a desperate effort at Congress to reassem- ble the scattered provinces of their country into one kingdom ; they must consider — every thing induces the persuasion — that their present situation is merely pro- visional ; and they must regard Russia as their ulti- mate and only hope for the reunion of their disparted country. I should also remark a peculiarity respect- ing the acquisitions of Russia : they do not contain na- tions averse from superior refinement or the recollec- tion of lost preeminence; to assimilate with that em- pire ; but, on the contrary, the people lately united to Russia enjoy no reproachful trophies, no superior re- linement ; they hold the same rank in civilization, and they use the same language, as the neighbouring pro- vinces of the empire to which they are attached. Be- sides this physical addition of strength, Russia has latterly obtained a distinguished reputation. All the kingdoms of Europe sunk beneath the French : — the Russian empire alone repelled France and its allies. The emperor of Russia has also extended his authority far beyond his reign. Some years since, he was re- puted rattier an Asiatic than an European power, and his dominion was scarcely discovered in the outline : now it appears a perfect portrait. The Ptussians are not spoken of as a remote people, separated from our confines by degrees as others are by leagues; for year after year they traverse the whole extent of Eu- F.2 rope; rope ; and in the last year they passed from tlie Dnie- per and Dwina to the Seine, having entered France nearly as soon as the Austrian troops. Add to this, that Alexander has named the French prime minister ; ""^is troops have alone been praised by the French, and his officers alone have been distinguished by the French kino-. Alexander and his troops have gained almost as much reputation since their last entry into France, as the other kmgs' officers have lost by their pitilul and faithless vengeance. Add to all tliis, his con- nexions by marriages with Wurtcmberg, with the prince of Orange, which is hailed in Flolland by all degrees with the utmost exultation. Who is to ba- lance Russia, ye mystagogues? Is it Sweden and Norway and their dependent king? or Pnissia? a country all frontier and no fortresses, scattered and disjointed, without institutions or liberty, or confi- dence, or consistence; containing a poor peo})le under an exhausting military monarchy ! or Austria r com- posed of nations more incongruous than the four chief characters in the Italian pantomime ! The force ol Austria is confined to his military array ; and that has been so repeatedly baffled, that a century can scarcely restore Its reputation. V/hich of these powers shall balance Russia and his acquisitions ? Yet this is part of the balance of Europe — that balance of power which was critically adjusted at Congress by plenipo- tentiaries the wisest of men. Yet what bignihes, in tlie present enlightened state of the world, if Russia or any other power should preponderate? for now the Platonic desideratum is accomplished — kings are philosophers : no king^shall heiiceforv/ard be ambi- tious, 69 tioiis, or intrifTue or foment dissension among neig-h- hours ; none shall excite hostilities as heretofore, in order to escape from the tediousness of peace, and the insipidity of ruling spontaneous vassals. Or, should any of them still remain unpurified from all mortal alloy, even should the iron age return, the plenipo- tentiaries have so marvellously exercised their politi- cal mechanism, so balanced and counterbalanced the whole, that no derangement can possibly occur. In short, each and every power so intimately guards and besets one another, that though all are armed and ready for battle, none dare strike, as, should any one make the attempt, he on the instant must be stricken. This politico-militaiy pacification the dagger scene in The Critic fully illustrates. THE 70 THE SECOND PART. The treaty of Paris being signed in 1814, theye*- tumstuUorum of the ancients was revived, — His Im- perial Royal Apostolic Majesty obtained from the King of France the cross of the Holy Ghost, and His Most Christian Majesty in return received the grand cross of St. Stephen ; an English prince became a marshal in the Austrian army, and the emperor of Russia was advanced to the command of a regiment in the same service : <' Et montant sur le faite il aspire a descendre." Our own great prince was equally honoured : and as he led the way in war, he outran the master of the re- vels ; the people caught the cue : — " Regis J ad exern- plum totus componitur orbis;" and ail were mum- mers — " Natio comoeda est." Lord Thurlow, Mith the bonhommie of true genius, told this personage in his Carmen Britannicum, " Thames, by thy victories, is set on fire." Tiius does he lack nothing of another personage, * Machiavel has a whole chapter the title of which is, " Che gli peccati de i popoli nascono da i principi." Pra?ster, iPrcGster, — not Prestor John, but Prasster of Lucretius, — whom the Latin poet thus describes : — " Beneath the waves impels the fleecy frame, And sets the foaming element in flame." Some of a prosaic temper deny the truth of Lord Thurlow's assertion ; while others say that " Father Thames" is only a poetic name for the Serpentine river or the pond in St. James's Park. All know (surely all must know) that these two waters were inflamed, the latter particularly by the dangling lanterns and burnt pagoda, which Biackmore described by anticipation in the following couplet in his poem on another great prince : — " Which he, to suit their glory with their height, Adorn'd with globes that reel as drunk with light." We were all overjoyed. The chancellor of the exche- quer was for once jocular : and on opening the budget — an unpromising subject — he was for a second time facetious, for he then proposed the repeal of the pro- perty tax. In this speech the eternal romance of the sinking fund was not forgotten. " The sinking fund," said this minister, " is now sixty millions ; in four years it will amount to one hundred and fifty millions, which in forty-five years will redeem the national del^t." That is, with uninterrupted prosperity and uninterrupted peace for forty-nine years i as a -ttov q-tcv, the British . need ' This agrees within one year of the king of Sweden's expecta- tions as delivered to the diet of Norway. He said : " A repose equally necessary to all, promised at the same time the return of general peace. Statesmen and even philosophers had a right to hope that it was secured for half a century." AMiat philosophers ? who? need not fear the grand statute of baiikruptc}'. Amidst thelsc revelries — when the nevvtera was in complete acr tivity, and Congress had arranged all things for peace Avhich was to be imperturbable for ages — one man landed in the department of Var, and tlie politica) alchemists forfeited all their hopes at the moment of j)rojection. Starvation and the corn bill lost their ter- mors; Mr. Vansittart lost then his jokes; the sovereigns and plenipotentiaries lost their wits, as the Declara- tion of the allies issued at Vienna fully evinces. It states: ''By thus breaking the convention which had established him on the island of Elba, Bonaparte de- stroys the only legal title on which his existence de- pended — and — has deprived himself of the prolcc-r tion of the law." Excellent publicists ! " And though entirely persuaded that all France, rallying round its legitimate sovereign, will immediately annihilate this last attempt of a criminal and impotent delirium,'" &c. Consummate prophets! But what particularly inter- ests in this outlaw ry wJth the bciiejit of assassination, and which %vas signed by eighteen })lenipotentiaries among whom England counts four sapient names, is the assertion, "that by appearing again in France with projects of confusion and disorder, Bonaparte Jias manifested to the universe that there can be neidier peace nor truce with him." This last position includes two consequences: that Bonaparte by return- who ? Lord Keith laid the first stone of South\yark bridge, Tues- day, May2i, 1815: part ofthe inscription is in these words, "And the work was commenced at the glorious termination ofthe longest and most expensive war in which the nation has been ever en- caged." And yet on this day a new war had actually commenced. ' ■ H i o lug from Elba sinned beyond example, and that he sinned against the allied sovereigns, who are the sincerest of men. — I shall briefly rehearse some small perturbations in tlie moral movements of those sub- lunary bodies ; and first of Austria : — The war with France unquestionably originated with the allies : this, which the emperor commenced in 1792, was concluded in October 1797 by the treaty of Campo Formio. This peace was also interrupted by the allies: for, first, it is improbable that the French, if they were disposed towards its infraction, should in the following year send their grand expedition to I^gypt, which contained their best troops; and it is &till more improbable that, after their army was re- duced and their fleet destroyed, they should hurry in the midst of their distresses into a new war. But, on the contrary, it is very probable that the disasters of the French encouraged the emperor of Austria; and that the same spirit which induced the assassination of the French plenipotentiaries at Rastadt impelled the baffled emperor, who was instigated to hostilities also by the assistance of Russia, who had sent a large bodv of forces which had actually entered Moravia in 1798, and by the promised cooperation of England, by sub- sidies, and a diversion in Holland. Via may reason- ably infer that it was not PVance but Austria who in- fringed this first treaty between these two powers. The war commenced; and after various fortune during two campaigns, the battle of F|ohenlinden ended the hopes of Austria, and on February 18th^ 1801, ^he treaty of Luneville was signed. This treaty it is also said Bonaparte set at defiance ; and and the declaration of Austria accused him of assu- ming the crown of Italy and of incorporating Genoa with France. But observe (and surely I never was nor could be the advocate of Bonaparte or any tyrant, but of truth and justice,) that the two acts with which Bonaparte is charged by this declaration were subse- quent to a treaty of concert actually signed between Austria and Russia the 11th of April, which treaty was also posterior to an " official communication ' made to the Russian ambassador at London the 19th of January, explanatory of the views which His Ma- jesty and the emperor of Russia formed for the de- liverance of Europe." This scheme must of course have occupied the attention of these cabinets for some time preparatory to its signature by ministers. But suppose that it merely originated with the date of the communication; still it preceded the coronation of Bonaparte in Italy and the incorporation of Genoa with France nearly six months, for the doge of Ge- noa did not offer to Bonaparte the -incorporation of his country with France till the 4th of June. These acts reprobated in the declaration, therefore, did not proceed from his spontaneous ambition; they were imposed on him by the coalition, of whose proceed- ings he had been apprised. By these treaties and conmiunications of Ruir^sia, England, &c. the Italian republic was to be disposed of by the allies, that is, pillaged and destroyed, should they be successful against France ; Avhile respecting other parts of Italy this official document pronounced : " Nor does the * Presented iu May 1815 to both houses of padiiuncnt by the English minister. past 75 past conduct of Genoa or of any of the other stales give them any claim either to justice or liberality." It must then be a gieat consolation to the friends of freedom that Venice and Genoa were foredoomed to political extinction twenty years ago by our great mi- nister. Yet there is little doubt that this profound villany actually gave Bonaparte a mastery over the Italian republic and Genoa ; — this induced the union of Genoa with France, the perversion of the Italian republic into a kingdom, and the general hostihties which ensued. — Bonaparte was not prepared, for war when Austria invaded Bavaria and approached the Rhine : and I remember it was the theme of the ministerial scribes, that " Bonaparte was surprised." In some measure he was so ; for to oppose the enemy he v/as obliged to commit the protection of Paris to the national guard, to draw his scattered forces from distant points, and to march through the neutral terri- tory of Anspach, and incense Prussia; which he would not have done had he enjoyed leisure to prepare his operations. He however soon surprised Austria in his turn : for in the same year that Austria broke the peace Austria sued for a pacification, and Bonaparte granted it; and in 1805 the treaty of Presburg wds signed by both parties. Austria however again prepared for war. In 1 808 Bonaparte made every exertion to pacify the emperor and conciliate him, and the Austrian ambassador as- sured the French government that his master had no hostile intentions ; yet in April 1 809, when he found Bonaparte involved with the Peninsula, the emperor declared war against him. In a few months Austria was V as again o\ eithrown, and the treaty of Vienna was ratified in October 1809. Bonaparte could not have provoked tJiis war : his disasters in Sj^ain, and the old ruinous promises of England of subsidies and of di- versions, induced Austi'ia a fourth time to reiterate hostilities. — So much for the immaculate virtue of Austria in preserving treaties with Bonaparte. The austerity of Prussia's political faidi is also very edifying. — In 1791 the king of Poland transmitted to Prussia the new constitution of his kin£dom, which had been just proclaimed. The king of Prussia an- nounced his admiration of it ; yet he soon after rey commenced the good work of partitioning. He be- gan by seizing Tliorn and Dantzic, on wliich he pub- ILslied a manifesto, stating that he acted thus from his apprehensions of the Jacobin and the revolutionary opinions in Poland. The third partition foUoAved in 179*5. M'hat was Poland's crime? — It v. as a king- dom, but an elective one ; it was a free state ; and for this the king of Poland and his country were treated by kings as Christ wa$ by the Jews : — on that king's head they planted a crown of thorns, and they gave him gall and vinegar to drink, and they parted his garments by lot. Yet their complicated infamy, their repeated atrocity, — like tliat of the criminals who return and murder those they had robbed, — has been authorized by all the sovereigns and all the plenipotentiaries of Europe, who are womanish in their ribaldry, who are hysterical forsooth because Bonaparte landed in the South of France with half a regiment, the followers of liis fortune. This deed of Poland's partition is authoiized by English ministers; and yet the Speaker of •77 qf the house of commons at the close of the session indulged in the following flaunting viietoric, " The wise and Hberal policy of our government, whk'i amwimced Justice and equality of rig' Ids, has been happily sustained abroad. The British name now stands high in policy as in arms; and an enlightened people has justly applauded the firmness and temper which have conciliated and cemented the interest of the allies, cheered the doubtful, animated the zealous, and united the deliverers and the delivered in a peace honourable and advantageous to all the contracting powers." Prussia's conduct to Great Britain also exhibits a pleasing lesson of practical morality. — In 1794 Prus- sia became a subsidiary ally, and obtained 2,200,000/. for 60,000 troops to be employed against France ; though he was then negotiating a treaty of peace with France, and which he actually ratified witli that power in April 1795. He then, the reigning king of Prussia, seized on Hanover! Yet this mag- nanimous ally rages, among others, at Bonaparte's perfidy. We come to Russia. — Alexander, — who surpasses Philip's first-born, and rivals the son of Priam, who was called Paris by women, and Alexander by men, —became the ally of Prussia in 1 806 : they were re- pulsed, beaten, and Prussia was overwhelmed by Bo- naparte. Some accommodation was necessaiy : — on this Alexander and Bonaparte met on a fixture in a river, which will be more famous than the islet which received Mazarin and De Haro : and by a treaty dated July 7th, 1807, Prussia was abandoned to France, and and Russia also obtained a portion of the Prussian territory. Alexander then made war on our good ally of Sweden and his own relative : " La guerre frater- nelle est chere k ma venQ;eance ;"«— and he seized and appropriated his provinces- He then joined his arms to Bonaparte's, entered the Austrian dominions, and shared the spoils of the vanquished. — I must recur to tlie peace of Tilsit, as it at^ects the integrity and dis- cretion of Great Britain, whose ministers abroad and at home are convulsed when they speak of that out- rage to all faith, Bonaparte's landing in France ! By secret service money, or some such sanctified means of subornation, bribery, and treachery, a British minister obtained an eaves-droppiuG; report that France designed to seize the Danish fleet at Copenhagen. On this an application was made to the Danes by our sovernment to deliver their fleet to us: the British ministers promising at the same time to protect them from the enmity of the French : — though, monstrous contradiction ! these ships they violently seized, lest F'ngland's self should be invaded and spoiled by a French army. The Danes resisted the request, which all who were interested in this atrocity considered manifest proof of a secret understanding between France and Denmark and Russia. On this the ministry commanded a fleet and troops, — which had been in readiness, observe, to assist the Russians, — to sail to Zealand. The troops overran the country, battered the fortifications, and set {ire to Copenhagen, as British troops have since done to Washington : and by this means, from a weak nation at peace, unprepared, unsuspecting, they carried oft' all their shipping and naval naval stores. Never after tliis should the seizure of the Spanish frigates and the attack on tlie Sin3'rna fleet be mentioned, though these acts were atrocious for the times in which they were committed. Without w^ar or provocation, on a report surreptitiously received of the intention of Bonaparte to possess himself of a fleet which he had not the means to execute, the English ministry — the ministry of vigour — actually an- ticipated themselves that villany which they imputed fantastically to be Bonaparte's intention. This tliey performed in the ecstasy of fear. These ministers, who were to lead the van of battle, and who perpe- tually resuscitated the forlorn and astonished nations of Europe by their indomitable bravery, feared a Danish contingent in the ocean ; — they were shaken with teiTors of every kind ; — -they and their people feared the flotilla at Boulogne ; — they feared — I for- get what it was called, but it was among rafts what the kraken is among fishes ! Nay more, this recumbent outlaid forest, which was to carry an army and all its appointments, caused infinite consternation to all men, women, and childi'en in Great Britain. In conse- quence every sort of soldier was arrayed, with militias local and topographical, with innumerable corps of labourers and artisans and gentlemen who were to form the ban and arriere-ban to assist the army on the invasion of the French. Yet it is certain the French never intended to make any such experiment : they repeated a manoeuvre which had been before success- ful, and which I shall relate. " Les troupes que la France fit avancer sur ses c6tes r^pandirent I'alarme ou plut6t la consternation en Angleterre. — Chose ^'trange! «^trange ! un peuple qui se vantoit d'etre le maitre de la mer, craint une descente dans son isle : il oublie la conqu^te de TAmi^rique, et n'est occuj)6 que de son propre salut. II appelle a son secours des Hessois etdes Hanoveriens tandis queles Franpois font passer leur convois en Am^Tique," &c. (Mably, Droit Pub. t. 5. p. 9.55.) This finesse was again effectual. It caused great expense, disconcerted schemes, and pal- sied combinations. Yet this affrighted people were the same nation who extended the a?gis before Eu- rope ; " they that promised to drive away terrors from a sick soul were sick themselves of fear worthy to be laughed at." Would it were only ludicrous! — we were the scorn of Iriends and enemies 1 The English, who had conquered the combined fleets of France and Spain, the paintul effort of five years'" preparation, and who towards the end of 1805 had actually taken nine- teen ships of the line, were alarmed in the middle bf 1807 at the possibility of Denmark adding its ships of war to the \vreck of the French navy after its tre- mendous defeat at Trafalgar ! And, as if there was to be no limit to insolence and infatuation, the Englisli Ciibinet expressed surprise and resentment that, after this unexampled grievance, Denmark was averse to Great Biitain. Nelson, whose treatment of the Danes was sufficiently vigorous, wrote in an official letter (April 9, 1801) " ^Ve have beat the Danes: we wish to make them feel that we are their real friends, there^ fore have spared the town, which we can always set on fire ; and I do not think, if we burned Copenhagen, it would have the effect of attachinii them to us." This mij^ht be caNcd a truism, yet it was more obscure than 81 than a mystery to the British cabinet ; for they \v}io h.ad overwhelmed the Danes by sea and land under Nelson and Cathcart, and wlio with Alexander had lopped Norway off the Danish empire (v\ith Alexander, whose alliance in ] 807 had drawn on Denmark these aggravated calamities), were amazed that the Danes did not cordially, cooperate with them against Bona- parte, who had never injured them. Do these events entitle Great Britain and Russia to exhibit paroxysms of rage because Bonaparte quitted Elba for France? Read Russia's declaration con- cerning the tyranny and mal-treatment of Great Bri- tain, and the British counter-declaration, and you will learn the immaculate virtue of both from unimpeach- able authority. Russia particularly has no pretensions to complain of Bonaparte's faithlessness. Bonaparte granted the peace of Tilsit to Alexander on his faith that he would embrace the continental system, an expression used by him for excluding British manufactures or colonial produce from the continent. Whatever Alexander consented to he was peculiarly bound to execute, as the French, who had driven the king of Prussia to the end of his kingdom, had only approached the frontiers of Russia. Alexander had no plea of necessity. Yet with the exterior of excluding British commerce the order was notoriously evaded, and afterwards it was openly renounced, and the ukase admitting English produce conveyed under a foreign flag was the leadino- aiticle of complaint in the declaration issued by Bo- naparte preparatory to his invasion of Russia in 1812. How tiien can the kings of Europe preserve a show^ of G earnestness earnestness in reprobating Bonaparte for breach of faith or violation of treaties ? One would suppose tliat in sclfishnsss they should modify their censure, lest in condemning him they damned themselves. But it appears he is not to be granted even the latitude of a fair interpretation ; while they can do no wrong to their subjects nor to themselves, though they trepan and circumvent and vilify and rob each other. Nay more, when opposed to Bonaparte they can assume a sanctified character, an ingenuous indignation, a se- raphic fury — for the same act which is just in them, must be iniquitous in him : such is the might of a legitimate king! I say leg it i??iate ; for this prerogative does not belona: to them as contra-distina;uished to Bonaparte, but is inherent in them as opposed to any other king non-legitimate, as is exemplified in the case of Murat. Lord Liverpool in May last stated in re- ply to P2arl Grey, " In October 1813 a negotiation was opened betMcen the same person (Murat) and Austria, and subsequently to that Austria had ex- pressed a fervent desire to conclude peace with the king dc facto of Naples. The peace was concluded, the allied powers agreed to it, and England among the rest acceded upon two conditions : one was his co- operation with them. Soon after the treaty, an opinion began to be entertained that he was acting a double part, and waiting to see which side might have the advantage." Suppose then this most cogent rea- son, viz. an opinion entertained, to have any founda- tion, and that he was not so hearty against his brother-in-law as Francis against his son-in-law, was he less fervent than Ferdinand the legitimate king of Naples 83 Naples when Murat threatened Sicily? Vet General Cockburn (Travels, vol. 1. p. 101.), who was on the staff on that occasion, says that Ferdinand did not contribute one regiment to resist the invasion, leaving the task entirely to the English troops. Was Murat less hearty than this king, who did not make the slightest demonstration of assistance ? Yet the Sicilian government cost England two millions a year. Thus then, if the opinion entertained of Murat be true, and he did little, the legitimate Ferdinand, who is now substituted for Murat, did less : — but he is legitimate, and he entered Naples determined to restore the antient purity ! I proceed to that horror of horrors Bonaparte's return from Elba, which excited such agonies of vi- tuperation — which induced the eighteen plenipoten- tiaries at Vienna to declare that by so doing he had forfeited his only legal title to existence, and which induced them to issue the hue and cry of Congress against a sovereign's life. This is "to tear a passion to tatters, to very rags." This is worse than lunacy : it marks a permanent alienation of mind. Those who consented to and signed that scrap of imbecile ferocity should not sit in the chair of wisdom and pronounce justice and judgement; they should have been execu- tioners to Robespierre when terror was the order of the day. The magnanimous allies spoke of Bonaparte as if they had possessed him, according to the story of Ba- jazet, in an ii'on cage. Yet at no time was he rheto- ricdly their captive ; and Lord Castlereagh stated in the house of commons, to excuse the treaty to which G2 . the 84; the allies permitted his lordship to accede, that Bonapai te then possessed many strong places able to resist the allies for a considerable lime ; and that he had about his person a considerable body of troops de- voted to his fortunes. In fact, he was much more able to prolong hostilities than Austria, whose sovereign he four times pushed from his throne, and restored to empire. Thus he treated Austria — a foe and a stranger to his house 1 And Austria requited his son-in-law by leaguing with his enemies, by dethroning him, de- throning his own grandson, dethroning his daughter — a daughter on whom he forced a marriage, and whom he then widowed by insidiously sacrificing her husband ! Bonaparte and these sovereigns concluded a treaty at Fontainbleau (April 1814): by this he was ac- knowledged a sovereign prince, an emperor ; yet so littie apprehension had the plenipotentiaries of the right \ihich sovereignty conferred, that they issued that declaration which outdoes Termagant ; and even afterward, when ministers might have recovered their wits and improved their apprehension, Lord Castle- reatrh, being questioned concerning the advice which had been given to the British commanders at Elba, said they had instructions. Written instructions? asked Mr. Whitbread. No, said his lordship. Verbal instructions then ? No, he was answered ; but, added Lord Castlereagh, there was an understanding, v^•hicll it appears could not be understood. By this treaty of Fontainbleau, beside his sovereignty and title of em- peror, it was stipulated that he and liis family should enjoy certain revenues and territories. I have never heard any one intimate that this treaty was fullilled b\ 85" by the allies : therefore it is unnecessary to expose minutely its infractions. Some paltry pleading in the Old Bailey style was made concerning times of paying an annual rent, against which even Lord Castlert^aszh remonstrated. But, said his lordship, why did not Bonaparte apply to Congress for redress? What! and give the assembled sovereigns a villanous excuse for executing their meditated transportation of him to St. Helena? That the Congi'ess, or some individuals forming it, did intend this achievement, was repeatedly announced in the public journals. But no : it was not through the plenipotentiaries that this transpired to the public; it was the journals which suggested it to the plenipotentiaries ; and Congress has only adopted the innuendo. The allies preserved inviolate no part of their treaty. So far was Louis XVIIL from equitably paying the stipulated sums to Bonaparte, or to his family, that he confiscated their property. Bonaparte was obliged to borrow money to support himself and his followers. "What cared Louis XVIIL? He could answer as an- other king, when pressed to assist one who had a supe^ rior title to the crown which he Avore : " On the barren mountain let him starve." Nor have the other kings acted less iniquitously by the treaty of Fontainbleau. Parma, Plaeentia, and Guastalla were to be enjoyed by the empress Maria Louisa for her life, and then expressly " they shall pass to her son and to the dcr scendants in the right line." Yet by Congress it is as expressly stated, *' the reversibility of these coun^ tries shall be determined by the common consent of the courts," &c. paying no regard to the son of Na^ poleon— ^ ^6 ppleon, avoiding his name as if they could extinguish his rights and their ivrongs by their silence. The allies violated their faith to Bonaparte, not in trivial things but in the most important : 3'et thev reproach him for breach of treaty. It is false ; he broke no treaty : thev exonerated him by their breach of faith from his obligations : private justice, public law, eter- nal equity, cancelled iiis engagement with them. I have hitherto considered the breach of jaiih by the confederates and by Louis as authorizing Bonaparte's return to France. I shall now proceed to a more pleasing task ; a justification of the conduct of the French people towards Louis the Eighteenth and the Bourbons. On the 30th of March 1814 Prince Schwartzenbcrg from the heights of Belle-ville requested the notables at Paris to assemble, saying that the allies seek in good faith a salutary gaternment in France. The allies entered the city, the conservative senate assem- bled, and they began their salutary work by recalling Louis : and here a prophetic remark of Necker pre- sents itself concerning this senate on its formation — " Je ne sols m^me sil a jamais existe un corps poli- tique 'combing d'une mani^re moins propre a en faire \m conservateur de la constituUon sociale." (Dern. Vues, p. 35.) The conservative senate declared on the 6th of April, " The French people freely call to the throne of France Louis Stanislaus Xavier de France, brother of the "last king," &c. By this first the conservati\ e senate presumed that they \vere the people : secondly, that tiiey were free though Paris had capitulated. To this Louis answered ; " Recalled by 87 \ by the love of our people to the throne of our fa; "r^ ' — How, I repeat, was he recalled by the peop naparte's senate were not the people ; the send base senate, might assume to be, and be recei _ ^j Bonaparte as, the people's proxy, but it was absurd in Louis to echo their words; and observe, what they call '' freely by- the voice of the people" Louis over- weeningly interpreted " the love of our people !" I wonder he did not recollect a question of Louis the Fifteenth. —In his illness, the people or his courtiers had given him the title of Louis le Bien-aim^ ; on which he asked " Qu'ai-je done fait pour ^tre aim6 ainsi ?'* Louis also added another alteration. The senate called him the brother of their last king ; if so, he cfould only be Louis the Seventeenth. He was also entitled by the legislative body, April 7th, king of the French; yet he assumed the old title, " roi de France, &c." These were small matters ; and because they were so, it showed great weakness on this occa- sion to vary the expression. The senate composed the heads of a constitution •which they transmitted to Louis, the last article of which stated, " the present constitution shall be sub- mitted to the a.cceptance of the French people in the form which shall be regulated. Louis Stanislaus Xavier shall be proclaimed king of the French as soon as he shall have signed and sworn by an act stating / accept the constitution : I sxvear to observe It and cause it to be observed. This oath shall be repeated in the solemnity when he shai'l receive- the oath of fidelity of the French." The chief particulars of this constitution the count d'Artois avowed on the i4th eo ^.rfcth of April, "when he assumed the provisional go-r vernment. Yet the question now is, not what parti- cular of the constitution has been violated, but what item has escaped violation ? Not the title of the king; not that the judges should be for life : besides, some of the judges are legislators also, which confusion of powers is not known happily in the commons of Great Britain, except occasionally when a Welsh judge inter- lopes into that assembly. The count d'Artois promised for the king " that pensions, dignities, military honours, should be pre- served ;" yet many military officers w-ere displaced ; as marshal Grouchy, who Mas deprived of his com- mission of colonel-general of hussars, which was con- ferred on some appendage of royalty who just knew as much of military affairs as the keeper of a booth at a review. In short, the noblesse and the emigrants obtruded on every department, particularly on the army, where they appeared like old tapestry figures stitched on a new ground. This was breach of faith, and most impolitic had no faith been given ; it re- called the practice in the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, when the honours of the army were entirely reserved for those of patrician birth. There seemed indeed to be a fixed resolution to disgust the army, which, con- sidering the services, the glory, and the wounded pride of the troo})s, required the utmost tenderness and delicacy : yet instead of their old companions in arms they were subjected to " popinjays," and no doubt they Avere, like Hotspur, " nettled and stung with pismires." — For what purpose but to irritate the army were the gardes Suisscs revived ? The 89 The droits reun'is were promised to be abolished, and they were not. The resistance of the people on this occasion might have advised the government. An ordinance of Louis, Paris, 13th January 1815, notices " very reprehensible excesses in pillaging or destroying the tax-oflices, tearing or burning the re- gisters, and committing acts of violence upon the officers and public functionaries, and also the armed forces charged to protect them :" yet Louis continued to exact these taxes, contrary to the promise of go- vernment. Louis also promised that the sale of national estates should be irrevocable, and property inviolate. Yet circumstances occurred, aided with notorious breaches of public faith, and of paltry equivocation, quite sufficient to alarm the holders of land which had been acquired since the revolution. Pamphlets were published, when the press was sub- jected to the rigid control of government, recommend- ing " the necessity of restoring the estates of emi- grants :" and Chateaubriand said, in his Reflexions Politiques on the same subject, " Never can w^e be reconciled to see the child begging at the gate of the mansion formerly inhabited by his parents : discreet arrangements must be made, by indemnities and trans- fers, to diminish the miseries resulting from the revo- lutionary sale of emigrant estates." This was written by a devout loyalist and one accredited by the court. Had then the people no causes for alarm ? Is it not notorious that, in Leland; the bare suggestion that the catholic descendants of those whose estates were confiscated two centuries ago might reclaim the property of their ancestors, induced many proprietors of DO of land in that country to negative the people's prayer for catholic emancipation ? Nor were these the only disquieting incidents. The king, who was always es- teemed credulous, evinced on ascending the throne a devotion to the clergy, and an abject submission to the most inveterate formalities of popery. He attempted also to graft a puritanism on the national manners, which was unknown to the old monarchy of France, and to almost all the Ronian catholic countries in Europe. If then, thought the people, the king is a devotee, he will become enslaved by the clergy, he will reverse Frederic the Great's advice, " d'etre toujours roi et jamais pr^lre,'' and become " jamais roi et tou- , jours pretre." In such circumstances the clergy, who form.erly were not satisfied with one-third of the pro- perty of the nation, will exert their interest to have the church lands and tithes restored; and under a devotee prince wliat security have the people, that priests, monks, abbots, friars, shall not again swarm thi'ough- out the land ? Louis promised the liberty of the press ; yet this he violated so grossly that marshal Macdonaid, duke of Tarentum, spoke resolutely in the chamber of peers against this breach of faith, as he had done on the alarm respecting the security of property. Ob- serve, this marshal took care of the princes who made their essay in arms at Lyons, and he conducted Louis safely out of his kingdom. De Constant, also a friend to monarchy, and a friend to the Bourbons as much as any Frenchman can be friendly to this spent race, gave his opinion elaborately on this subject. Con- ■ sidcring it retrospectively, he said, *' It was not the liberty 91 liberty of the press that caused the French revolution ; since, had that liberty existed, it would long ago have removed the abuse which engendered that convulsion." And surely it was not the liberty of the press ^vhich obli<5;ed Louis XVIII. to abdicate the throne. The press did not merely colour and distort — it in- dulged in pure inventions ; — the people of Nismes first heard of their own loyal address to Louis le De- sire in the Paris journals. The state of the public press in France, to a people not credulously disposed towards the government, has a direct contrary effect to the intention of the tyrant. All that is published favour- able to the government is scorned, or construed inverse- Iv and treated both as a lie and an insult: and should any thing appear like candour in the court journals, it is reputed a manifest proof of excessive weakness and depravity which cannot be concealed. The pub- lic mind becomes morbid, and every report adds to the disease. The custom in England, where we talk of a free press (classically) as the palladium of our rights, is much more etlicacious, and is a great improvement on the old privilege die rot and the modern censor- ship. Here the public journals are taxed and retaxed by stamp duties; but there is a drawback in favour of tiie ministerial scribes, by proclamations, government advertisements, pensions to editors, and official ap- pointments. Thus, while all the journals apparently stand on the same footing, the limbs of the free jour- nalist are fettered, but those of the hireling are loosed and at the same time he is given wings to soar. Again, the ministerial journalist has a patent for abusing the friends of liberty; while crown lawyers, judges, special juries, Junes, princes, and ministers, penally coerce the high" minded. By this double power of persecution and bribery the English press has in a great measure be- come the servant of the governing few, and the people remain without a sufficient body to advocate their cause. Thus, from the superabundance of ministe- rial .papers, the same theme is repeated a tliousand times ; and hence the ignorance of men on public af- fairs, and the monstrous delusion practised on them. Dr. Thomson, a gentleman of science and curiosity, from reading in English newspapers fine accounts of our magnanimous ally the king of Sweden, was surprised to find on entering that country he had been grossly deceived. Through the same source, and be- cause a minister in the house of lords had called that lunatic tlie emperor of Russia " magnanimous Paul," every paragraph-writer of the loyal press added to this summary panegyric " innumerable virtues." Nor can I apprehend how M. De Constant (Re- flexions, &c.) could assert that *' for a century none have been returned to the British parliament except enlightened men," unless he were deceived' by the same journalists who glorify the British constitution to blasphemy, though no doubt Dc Lolme and other political romancers have also assisted to impose on this respectable author. Such then is the account between Louis le D^sir6 and the French people ; and this is the man of whom it was also said in the house of peers by the eulogist of Paul, that he was " the victim of probity and good faith." This is the king (for he has tran.scended him- self in his after conduct) who was compared to St. Louis, 95 1/Ouis, of whom Hume writes, ''This monarch united to tiie mean and abject superstition of a monk, all the courage and magnanimity of the greatest hero." If he resemble St. Louis, it must be in his sinister pro- file. Louis XVIIT. has been also indirectly asso- ciated with Henry IV^. ; yet such is the revolution in jK)iitical taste, that Henry IV. Avas praised in the reign of Louis XVI. insidiously to contrast the meanness of the one with the magnanimity of the other. When Henry IV. and Louis XVIII. are mentioned together I trust the parallel will be continued, and that Snlly and M. Blacas will also be classed together. There are no two men in history so opposite in reputation as Louis and Henry. Henry's word was sacred, and it was his own eulogy of himself: he thought "with Louis XII., that " if good faith were banished from among men, it should be found in the bosom of princes." Yet was the reign of Louis XVIII. a series of infractions of his compact with the people. — Taxes abolished w-ere reimposed, officers and dignitaries re- moved from their stations, the judges kept in depend- ency, forms and titles disregarded, the press enslaved. Did not Louis XVIII. know tliat a chief charije of tlie conservative senate against Bonaparte, in the act bv Avhich thev dethroned him, was, " considering that the liberty/ of the press, established and consecrated as one of tiie rights of the nation, lias been constantly subjected to the arbitrary censure of his police r'' In this situation of aftairs, Europe disgusted wi Ji the Congress as far as their proceedings were disclosed ; France sick of the Bourbons ; the world in despair of any good from the legitimate monarchs ; Bonaparte' landed, If* landed, and he raised his standaid at the extremity of France ajrainst Louis and his adherents. Louis issued on the 6th of March an ordinance, commencing " Napoleon Bonaparte is declared a traitor and a rebel for having introduced himself by force of arms into the department of Var," &c. PIcre again a so- vereign is proclaimed a rebel. How by force of arms? — Sword was not drawn, shot was not fired. The ordinance commands " all governors, &c. to seize him," &c, ; yet no one civil or military even ar- rested his tour to Paris. But there were abundant ex- pressions of love and loyalty to Louis, and M. Cha- teaubriand made a lofty promise : " Sire, let us be per- mitted to say with the profound and unbounded re- spect which we bear to your crown and your virtues, we are ready to shed for you the last drop of our blood, and to follow ^^ou to the end of the earth." Louis also had addresses from both chambers, and from tiie third regiment of foreigners, and from the noblesse and emigrants, and all and every one of them cried, " Then end life when I end loyalty." Amidst^ these loyal protestations and cheering intelligence-, Bona"};arte marched on, Louis marched off; and his majesty passed the frontier of his country with a priest, a surgeon, and a secretary. Bonaparte arrived at Paris, and he declared his re- pentance. I do not depend on his professions, for he had forfeited them ; nor do I give him credit for his abolition of the slave trade, wliich he had continued^ y^lien he was sufH'eme. Yettis no petition was offered against this trade either durujg his power or since the return of Louis to the throne, we may calculate the zeal zeal with which the abolition of slavery was urged by Lord Castlereagh, or the truth of the grounds on which it was resisted, if indeed the grounds on which it is now said to be abolished did not declare the nullity of both. Bonaparte also appointed Lancasterian schools, on the report of Carnot, which Louis had re- sisted. He assembled a great national representa- tion, corresponding to the ancient Champ de Mars on Champ de Mai : he proposed a. constitution to them, and 1,040,050 voted for it : he proposed peace to the allies, but the immaculate potentates would not deign to give an answer to this illegitimate king. Every sort of nonsense was uttered against him. An eloquent man in the house of commons said he had attempted to establish a government without re- ligion, and this he called a bold experiment. If lie meant without a religious establishment, it v/ould have been no experiment, for the same is the constitution of America, without enumerating other instances. But unfortunately there is a rehgious estabhshment in France, and of Bonaparte's creation; and there was on the 15th of August 1802 a Te Deum sung in all the churches of France in consequence. It was insisted also that there could be no peace with him, that he would be unquiet and disposed to contention. Sir W. Temple said of Louis XIV'. " He would ever make peace with design of a nevv^ war." Yet the minister of that time made peace with Louis. Su|)posing that Bonaparte should not be weary of war, is it certain that the Bourbons, supposing their continuance on the throne, M^il be devoted to peace ? They are not likely to have a satisfied people : then is it probable timt they .90- they will nourish discontent within, or by the violent medium of war throw out the disease from the heart of the kingdom ? By war they may gratily the people and relieve their own government. But Bonaparte was a most dangerous enemy. True, in mind, body, and habit he Avas most formidable : but he was ereatlv altered, not physically, as some fancied, but by for- tune — reverses had disenchanted his name : *' Mais au moindre revers funeste Le masque tombe, I'homme reste Et le heros s'evaiiouit." lie ruled France on his return with a very mitigated sovereignty, and he would have been still more con- trolled had he been placed in less arduous circum- stances ; for though the allies said they made war on Bonaparte, the people of France feared that they struck at their liberty through his dominion. Yet the liberators of Europe would not listen to him : those who had round and round bowed to his majesty, — those who had lackeyed his warlike going forth, — those who had glorified him for his donations, — those who had hailed his forbearance, — Alexander, v\ho travelled to Erfurth to be honoured with his conference, — the emperor of Austria, who gave him his daughter, and who with his empress attended him at Dresden, — neither he nor any of them would treat with common courtesy this man who so lately, was high above all height. In the mean time the allies proceeded to fuilil their treaty of Vienna against Bonaparte. Then the land- sturm and landwehr were invoked : then were Yagers and Hulans, and Cossacks and Brunswickers, and people from the lUack seaand the White sea, and from the the northern and the western oceans, sent forward to war against one man. Yet amidst all this mighty preparation, Lord Castlereagh being asked, Was war necessary ? answered, there was an alternative ; and on the 7th of April, on moving the address, the ques- tion of war was reserved expressly by ministers, though two days prior to this address war was not only resolv- ed on, but the confederates had definitively setded the terms and arranged all the particulars respecting their united hostility. This, however, merely forms the opening of that labyrinth of falsehood and knavery which followed. . Lord Liverpool stated in the house of lords, in reply to the Marquis of Wellesley, April the 27th, that " we did not go to war for the restoration of Louis XVIII. , and that no attempt should be made to dictate a government to the French nation." How has this been fulfilled ? Immediately after the battle of Waterloo, and the advance of the allies into France, the Duke of Wellington seized Cambrai in the name of Louis XVIII. And here let me say that the tale of the battle of Waterloo, or, according to its senti- mental designation, la belle Alliance, is not the least among the extravagancies of this tremendous ro- mance. If we listen to some, Wellington treated Bo- naparte as Hercules did. Liclias; and should we attend to Lord Castlereagh's eulogium on the English, though possibly not one-tenth part of 'those engaged were English, an Englishman now far exceeds the vul- gar superiority attributed to him in the Spectator's time, that he was equal to three Frenchmen. En- gland now surpasses itself H << For ifo « For none but Sampsons and Goliasses She sendeth forth to skirmish : one to ten." T]]e simple fact is, 130,000^ French troops having gained a decisive victory on the l6th of June were defeated by 200,000 on the 18th. Glory heretofore was only to be attained by performing great deeds by inconsiderable means : now the wonder is that 200,000 troops, the advanced body of a million of soldiers, discomfited 130,000 men. The combined armies approached the capital. In such circumstances Bonaparte was obliged to resign the empire, and the chambers elected his son to suc- ceed him. Commissioners from the provisional go- vernment of France were dispatched to signify to the allied sovereigns the resif^nation of Bonaparte, and to solicit a suspension of arms, as Bonaparte was no ' In the official account published by Blncher, he states that on the 16th at Ligny his three corps amounted to 80,000 ; to this Bulow, or the fourth corps, was added on the 18tli at Waterloo, where 130,000 French were engaged with the British, Hanove- rians, &c. who were according to Blucher 80,000 strong. This then makes the contending forces on that day, allies about200j000 against 130,000 French. It is probable that Blucher did not compute the eneir.}' at less or his own forces at more than they actually were. The reverse is mucli more probable, — not that I believe so brave a man could intentionally falsify. There are other grounds for believing that the French were overrated. It is said, indeed, that not more than 110,000 men passed the French frontiers: but when we consider that thewhole army which voted for and against the acte additioncl amounted only to 220,320 ayes, noes 320, — and we may be assured all tl]e army did vote; considering also that there were armies on the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Var, with all the garrisons, 130,000 men are more than probably could be engaged at Waterloo. loniier longer emperor, against Avhose intrusion they had con- fessedly armed. The commission also requested that the monarclis would remember their promises, and permit the French people to regulate their own affairs. Still the monarchs continued to answer fairly, and some expected that they would not dictate a govern- ment to tlie French nation; but others doubted, " for a man"s mind is sometimes wont to tell him more than seven watchmen." The allied armies continued their march, and Paris capitulated. Then the monarchs at once determined unanimously to place Louis XVIII. on the throne of France. The legislative chambers were beset with troops, and the doors closed, and the provisional go- vernment dissolved expressly because they could no longer act with freedom. Louis, who had followed the track of the invading armies, in the mean time entered Paris amidst the impedimenta belli of the eternal enemies c>i his country. Then mounting; the throne of St. Louis and Henry IV. he talked with in- conceivable gravity of the interest of our people, the dignitij of our crown, and the tranquillity of Europe. The allies, and the allies also of Louis, immedi- ately employed him in the dawn of his auspicious re- storation to countersign the requisitions of their mer- cenaries on his good city of Paris, and then he dated ' the 21st year of our reign ;' which is right, for it ac- cords with precedent, and a passage vvhich I proceed to quote from the trial of Sir H. Vane after- the resto- mtion of Charles II. fully evinces the potency of the prerogative royal. " First, the king being out of pos- session, and the power regent in others '*' Here H 2 they 100 they stopped him, not suffering liim to proceed, nor admitting that the king was ever out of possession: to which Sir H. Vane repHed, " Tlie words of the in- dictment ran thus, That he endeavoured to keep out his majesty : and how could he keep him out of the reahn if he were not out?" Louis convoked his chamhers, and the Gazette offi- cielle announced the costume of their nieml}ers. The deputies to have the sleeves and collars of their dress embroidered with fleurs-de-lis in silver ; the peers to have theirs enriched with gold. An ordinance followed, commanding a solemn mass of the Holy Ghost to be exhibited before the members of the two chambers. After this Louis pronounced a speech from the throne, in which he particularly advised the two chambers to make religion reflourish. Indeed this seems to be the ardent desire of all the court. They think that the revolution arose from free-thinking, and therefore devotion is to be its antidote : and thus, as Charles IL conjectured that puritanism made the English rebels, he hoped to turn their hearts to loyalty by perverting their passions to libertinism. Li consequence we soon heard of the procession of the Vow of Louis XIIL, of expiations, and the like : in short, all ancient cere- monies are to be revived, though they should appear the most puerile innovations to the present genera- tion of France. To help the rejuveniscence of reli- gion Louis goes to chapel as often as he can, and the Duchess d'Anjioul^me cultivates zeal at the Thuille- ries ; while her husband the Duke, in loyalty, in ux- oriousness, and in sympathy with the soi-tlisant be-v nignity-of Ferdinand's heart; performs prodigies in the South, 101 South, which combine the sanguinary achievements of St. Bartholomew's day and the consequences of the revocation of the edict of Nantz'. — To return to the allies. Their armies overran France, they pillaged and wasted the country, and they intlicted inhnite misery on the inhabitants. Yet what offence had the people committed against them ? It has been insisted re- peatedly that Bonaparte's success on his return from Elba was solely to be attributed to the soldiers. If so, why take vengeance on the people? If the sin be the soldiers', why did not the magnanimous allies adopt the advice of Mr. Douglas? This gentleman re- commended in the house of commons the extermi-^ nation of the French military, and no one rebuked his ferocity. Yet all may remember that, when the con- vention passed a decree that no quarter should be ♦fiven to the British and Hanoverians, the French sol- diers disobeyed their masters and were merciful. 4/ We are also told that the French inflicted many calamities on the nations they subdued. Surely not the French people. Those who laboured the land or were busied in manufactures in France, could not maraud in distant countries. And here observe the difference between the French armies and those of the ' Keysler says (Letter 47) that he was present when the king and queen of France officiated in washing the feet of twelve chil- dren. Had the Duke and Duchess of Angouleme performed this august ceremony, it could not have failed of producing a good effect. But all will be perfected when Louis is crowned at Rheims, and anointed from la sainte arapoulle by oil the true growth of heavenly olives. Rheims is also as remarkable for gingerbread as Naples for biscuits. allies. 102 allies. The French armies committed excesses against proclaimed enemies ; the armies of the allies against the people of their ally — against the French — and the Treaty of Vienna, dated April 5lh, 1815,' expressly declares, "■ The j)resent treaty is simply and solely entered into with a view to support France." Sec. AV'hile the foreign mercenaries were busy in their vocation, the ministers and their agents were also on the alert ; they claimed the works of art, ike. which had been transferred to Paris in conseauence oi sue- cessive conventions with foreign povvei"s, though in direct contradiction to' the capitulation ot Paris. For the allies consider the traTismission by treaty of cabi- net curiosities, academical furniture, designs of the Flemish school, the Bull of Venice, and the like, to be a flagrant abuse of conquest ; though to seize, in peace, tlie city or the nation in which such ornaments were- deposited, and to subject its free citizens to a hated tyranny, is (expedient, salutary, and meriting permanent and iniperishable glory. Tiiese various curiosities seized in Paris in 1815 were unattemptcd in 1814, alter tlie former capitula- tion of that city. " True," says Lord Castlereagh : " but to pursue the same course under circumstances so essentially different would be, in the judgement of the Prince Regent, equally unwise to France, and unjust towards our allies who have a direct inierest in this question." Had they only an indirect interest iii them in the precediiig year ? If they had any re- siduary claim, it was foreclosed by the capitulation. But their pretensions were extinguished by the treaty of IKJkJ of Paris in 1814, which tacitly confirmed their right of possession ; and again by that of Vienna, in which I repeat they declared that they armed to support France against Bonaparte and his adherents. Every difference in the circumstances of the two epochs ma- terially invalidates and annuls their presumed right in the latter period.. Lord Castlereagh's reason for the allies' relinquish- iog this property in 1814 is memorable: — "This happened," said his lordship, " in order that France, not less subdued by their generosity than by their arms, might be disposed to preserve inviolate a peace which had been studiously framed to serve as a bond between the nation and the kinor." If so, the con- -elusion follows that these articles have since been forced away in order to sever the threads of con- nexion between the nation and the king. The Duke of Wellington, who has been very forward in this vexatious spoliation, also contributes his portion of diplomatic' elucidation. — He says the paintings, sta- tuary, and the like, were conceded to France in 1814 in order to conciliate the French soldiery : a contrary conduct in 181.5 must consequently irritate them. -Was this necessary? But it has inflamed the whole nation ; king, emigrants, and people. To have wrung these trophies from the revolutionary government or ' Lord W — would weaken the import of the security in the capitulation of Paris by relating some bickering between the French commissioners and Marshal Blucher. "Who ever heard of secret articles in a capitulation ? — Yet here we are told of some previous discussion between the parties, which is to annul or qualify an express written stipulation. Bonaparte's 104 Bonaparte'Sj might be explained ; but to seize them by military violence, when Louis the ally of the al- lied sovereigns swayed the sceptre of France, must be referred to fury or infatuation. The Duke of Wellington also aspires on this occa- sion to be instructive ; he descants on the merit of peaceful habits, and recalls to the French nation the evils of war and conquest. When a conqueror de- scends to teach such doctrines to the vanquished, he cannot fail to persuade : nor can I omit observing hov/ happily his grace on this occasion resembles those saints in Smithfield, who, while they tied the heretics to the stake, cheered their suffering with exhortations on the virtue of divine love and christian forgiveness. Yet his OTace miiiht have drawn as impressive a moral from Eastern tales of plunder and conquest, as from any events in the mo- dern story of European warfare. Respecting the seizure of the curiosities at Paris the truth is simply, In 1814 the weakness of the allies prevented them from making any claim, while in 1815 a military million enabled them first to spoil and then sophisti- cate. During the performance of these deeds, the sove- reigns the patrons of justice and the arts proposed terms to Louis ; and in order to quicken his compliance, the invading soldiers who had overwhelmed France exercised indiscriminate brutality and havoc. Fouche drew an elaborate statement of their depredations. His memorial was discredited jis Jacobinical and re- volutionary. The Duke de Richelieu however con- firmed Fouche 's memorial ; and the royalist minister declared, l\JJ declared, in order to palliate the consent of the king and ministry to the humiliating conditions imposed on them by the allied sovereigns, " that the present crisis brought incessantly into action, in the whole extent of France, the principle of an oppression, of an impoverishment, of an irritation, and in short a series of devastation \vhich seemed daily to increase and to acquire new strength : we judged, if we suffered this crisis to be indefinitely prolonged, the fate of France was at stake, even the fate of those who have imposed upon us such great sacrifices, and perhaps the destiny of social order in Europe." With such urgent auxiliaries the allies forced Louis the Eighteenth to submit to a treaty of their dictation ; Louis simied and si2;hed, and thus Louis again ful- filled his promise to the French nation as he always has done : " We will," said he in his parting procla- mation on his escape, " soon return into the midst of this good people, to whom we shall bring once more peace and happiness." Those faultless kings, run down by public ciy For vice, oppression, and for tyranny, con)mence their treaty " in the name of the holy and undivided Trinity." By it they wrest from France Philipville, Marienburg, Sarre- Louis, and Landau , they seize seventeen fortresses, nominally, for five years ; command a contribution of 700 millions of livres to be paid them ; and impose 150,000 mercena- ries on France, who are to be supported at the ex- pense of the French nation ; and thus the allies fulfil their iut> their alliance ratified at Vienna, in which they declare that their especial object is the support of France. X' On the signature of their treaty with Louis, the ministers oi the allies communicated a note to the Duke de Richelieu, in which they felicitate His Most Christian Majesty on the treaty, adding, '' the allied cabinets regard the stability of the order of things happily re-established in that country as one of the essential bases of a solid and duriable tranquillity." Another note followed of the same date, (for the 20th of November vvas truly a day of business,) which was also addressed to the Duke de Richelieu, communi- cating the appointment of the Duke of Wellington to the command of the allied armies in France. As this note is worth all the rest ; as it contains a key to vo- lumes of diploniatic mystery, and to endless verbose speeches in parliament ; as it exposes the cause of twenty-three years' war, which occasionally involved Europe and all the world, with the ruin of many millions of men ; I here insert a large extract from this consummate document : " Although chiefly guided with respect to this measure by motives tending to the safety and welfare of their subjects, and being very far from having any intention of employing their troops in aid of the police, or of the internal administration of France, or in any manner that might compromise or interfere with the free exercise of the royal authority in this country ; the allied sovereigns have, however, IN" CONSIDERATION OF THE IHGH INTP.REST WHICH THEY TAKE IN SUPPORTI^s^G TH-E POWER OP LEGI- TIMATE sovEi{EiGNS,pronHsed to 1 1 is Most Christian ]\Iajcsty to support him with their arms against every retolutionarif iw/ revolutionary convulsion which might tend to ov,erthrow by force the order of things at present established," &c. Here is exhibited the glorious confederacy of four kings, and a fifth as servitor, against the liberty of all European people. They talk of the welfare of their subjects, who have treated their subjects at Congress as so much stuff to be sold and exchanged. These' le- gitimate sovereigns tell the French in effect, Our safety depends on your servitude ; and the tranquillity of Europe is secured by Louis commanding you. Then they should have added to the other titles of Louis — Prince of peace; nor Avould this have interfered with the order of merit conferred on Godoy, prince and paramouir. To the Duke of Wellington they commit Louis and legitimacy, M'ith 150,000 troops, which neither go nor stay in France, but halt on the frontiers, just to give Louis^ a show of empire, v.diile they speculate on the JFrench nation : and it is a risfht noble office for the heroes of Waterloo ! The kings of Europe having forced Louis on the French, leave 150,000 men as representatives (vt'ould we M-ere all so represented !> of their whole power to confirm their appointment. They set up Louis long pi^ondy in the state go-cart, and retire a little in order to see if he can vraddie about with his nursery attendants, les cent Sumes. The foreign mercenaries quit Paris ; but they remain just within call, in order that, should any convulsion disturb the order of things at present established in France, they may be at hand. The cry of havoc is first to pass from Louis to the ambassadors of Russia^ Prussia, Austria, and England, who are to repeat the word, \iord, and then the dogs of war are to be unkennelled and the royal hunt begins. In this conspiracy the English are abetting and assisting : it is indeed said triumphantly they are principals. The sons of those Englishmen whose fathers effected the Revolution, the most distinguished event in the British annals, league to suppress all revolutionary convulsions among the French people. Their conduct indirectly attaints the tratisactions of 1688, and all those interested in them, that is almost the whole British nation ; for the En2;lish of that period abhorred James the Second not less than Frenchmen do now Louis and the Bourbons. This conduct is at once atrocious and silly : it tends to retrieve the almost lost character of the Jacobites ; it advances beyond Mr. Burke's doctrine in his " Ap- peal from the new to the old Whigs :" in one word, it has accomplislied Hume's euthanasy of the British constitution : for, if Britons consent to be a guard in reserve for le grand monarque against the freedom of French cidzcns, absolute monarchy is confirmed among us, the British have abandoned their own liberty; and shoidd they or their descendants reclaim their eternal rights and endeavour to retrieve their condi- tion, the allied kings will again club their ])rerogative and drive their hundred thousand mercenaries in order to restore despotism in Great Britain. What effect must the present coalition of kings have on the superhuman insolence of monarchs ? Their cons}}iracy against the Ireedom of Frenchmen is a direct attack on the expiring remains of independence among man- kind. Yet Britons will not sympathize with the disconso- late *V/C7 late and disgraced French nation. They fear the French ; they dread their improvement ; they secretly rejoice or openly triumph in their manifold distresses ; and there are few men,, hon'ever limited the circle of their acquaintance, who have not heard expressions respecting the catastrophe of the French which be- trayed the most flagitious levity. A great number of Encrlish esteem hatred to Frenchmen the sum of all patriotism; and who has not heard, from our most important pdilicians, that the French are our natural enemies ? And this is as true as another maxim of the same school — that the Austrians are our natural al- lies ! What, is the amity of nations inversely as friendship among men r They might as well talk of a moral sympathy between the Algerines and Americans, or between the Cappadocians and the countrymen of Pericles ! Natural friends are relations, neighbours, acquaintances, of honest minds and consenting dispo- sitions ; and natural allies (for there can be no true alliance between despotisms, as there can be no iirm friendship among the vicious,) are free states wisely constituted and sincerely administered. These pitiful Englishmen fear the improvement of their imputed natural enemies : — selfish and ignorant ! The improvement of one nation exalts all neighbouring states if they have virtue to profit by the example. The improvement in the French code might incline the English to revise their laws, and to adopt the prin- ciples of that legislative genius Jeremy Bentham. The abolition of tithes might teach the possibility of e. modus for England ; an equal representative system might, for shame, dispose this people to parliamentary reform ; reform ; and the free admission of all sects to all offices in France during all the chan and con- spiracies which attempted his life and the extinction of his iamily. Yet Charles was recalled with an un- feigned and general joy. How unlike to the restora- tion of Louis, who was restored against the manifest and universal desire of the French people by toreign mercenaries! And here let me quote an apposite opinion of Lilburne on his trial during the Protec- torate : "If we must have a king, I for my part had rather have the prince (Charles) than any man in the uc^rid, because of his large pretence oi rights, ichich if he came not in bjf conquest by the hand of foreigners, the bare attempting of zvhich may appa- rent lij hazard him the loss of all at once by glueing to- gether 1 oo gethcr the now divided people to join as one man against him Sic Consider the diftbrence between the two restorations in other respects, and that of Louis also appears equally hopeless. In England pro()erty had been only superticially affected, in France the change has been fundamental. In England the ancient institutions and the materials of the monarchy were merely dis- placed, in France they have been destroyed. In England ranks and gradations were scarcely inter- mixed, in France they are inverted ; and the nobles and clergy, who Temple (Works, vol. 1. p. 383) told Charles the Second were alone considerable in France, are now not unlike the gentlemen pensioners of St. James's palace ; while their former vassals are the chief proprietors of the country, or the industrious cultivators of their own land. How then can the Bourbons reimi when the Stuarts could not be en- dured? Yet the Convention parliament was right loyal : so was that which succeeded ; they repealed the trien- nial bijl, as a proof of their duty and respect to the King (Fanshawe's Letters, p. 57). They passed tlie 13th Charles II., which increased the severity of the 25th of Edvvard III. against treason, declaring that ■words should be equivalent to overt acts. The press of England then was also grievously shackled ; there was then an officer called the minister oj the press, a very busy important creature of the court ; and at the trial of Carr, the recorder stated, " it is the opinion of all the judges of England, that it is the lav/ of the land that no person should offer to expose to public know- ledge any thing that concerns the government w ithout the 123 the king's immediate licence." The law against sedi- tious cries in France, and the censorate, and the police, are not much more powerful than these auxiliaries of the government of Cliarles the Second. Besides, the judges were then during pleasure ; and the judgement seat boasted the loyalty of Scroggs and the vigour of Sir G. Jetferies. Yet Charles probably had ceased to reign had he lived longer; and James the Second, the Count d'Artois of that agra, mounted the throne on his brother's death but to escape from it for ever. What then is to support the Bourbons, who want every assistance enjoyed by the Stuarts, and who are cir- cumvented by priests and bigotry and emigrants, and every supposeable perplexity and mischief? Are 150,000 foreigners to keep watch and ward along the frontiers, and to become perpetual appendages to the French monarchy? Their support for five years de- pends on the union of the allies, and alliances are ])roverbially fugitive. How many princes were parties to the Pragmatic Sanction, yet how few busied them- selves to effectuate their treaty ! The allied sovereicrns are now cordially united ; but how long shall selfish- ness, ambition, intrigue, or mere love of change, per- mit their amity to continue ? How many years shall elapse before this armed truce shall change into an armed neutrality ? Suppose that the present alliance should die a natural death, and that it should subsist for five years : what then, are Louis and the Bourbons secure of their diploma to reign in safety ? It is however much more probable that the present league will be of transient existence. How can the allies be true to each other now, v^'ho have been al- ways V24. ways false to all the world? Respecting their de- portment to the French, their conduct and language exhibit a categoiy of falsehoods. They fought only against Bonaparte; yet when he was dismissed, Fouch6 in his letter to the Duke of Wellington requested that his countrymen might be permitted to choose, not a republic, but a king. " They wish," said Fouche, " to be as free as the English ; tliey do not wish to be more free." Yet • this moderate request was not noticed. The allied sovereigns would elect Louis, because they had not suffered sufficiently by their ori- ginal interference with the internal affairs of France. New disasters must recall their apprehension, and when they are ruined they may perhaps become wise. By this fraud and violence thcv have encountered a double difficulty ; to supj)ort a hated king, and to suppress an enraged people : and for this purpose they have imposed tribute and legions on the people of modern Gaul, and according to the Roman policy they have set a king over the vanquished to secure their dominion. This is glorious policy, worthy of J^ord Castlereagh, who achieved the destruction of bis own country, and planned the perdition at Wal- cheren. How forcibly Bacon's remark aj)plies on this occasion, who lamented the injury to public af- fairs when cunning men insinuate themselves into othces which should be reserved for the w ise ! In what particular has his lordship's sagacity appeared in his negotiations ? or what sentence in all his notes, commentaries, and illustrations, exhibits neatness, vigour, or integrity ? How unlike is his lordship to Sir William Temple, of whom Hume speaks as fol- lows ; 1S25 lows : " This man, whom pliilosophy had taught to despise the world without rendering him unfit for it, was frank, open, sincere, superior to the little tricks of vulgar politicians," &c. Such Mas Temple. Of Lord Castlereagh and his politics it may be said in the language of Cicero, " Nihil come, nihil simplex, nihil sv rcig TroXiTiJioig honestum, nihil illustre, nihil forte, nihil liberum.'' Yet this treaty, framed by men who are the reverse of De Wit and Temple, is to bear the impress of permanency ! One would think on the contrary tliat they had contrived it to insure its infraction. Livy speaking for the Privernates, but in the truth of human sensibility, said : " If you grant us a good peace, it will be lasting ; if a bad one, it will be of short duration." And what peace have the allies imposed on France ? Having wasted and spoiled the country, they fixed its ransom, and every livre paid will be loaded with curses ; they seized four fortresses in perpetuity, which shall be gages of new wars till they be returned to France, or France be obliterated ; ^id to crown all, they placed Louis on the throne. This last violence alone insures hostilities. Fox, who was not a cunning man, said that a restoration was commonly the worst revolution ; but this of Louis is worse than worst, as it is a re-restoration. What a king ! How appointed ! A king whom the allied sovereigns had driven through Italy, through Germany from Mittau to Koningsberg, to Warsaw, through Sweden ; an imbecile old man, fitter for the hospital of a convent than civil society ; a diseased old man, yet whose passion for royalty is his worst disease; disease ; a fugitive prince, then cronned by the caprice of the liour ; then a refugee, and who returned sur- reptitiously to resume his throne ! Surely he is an unparalleled sovereign, whose approach to his capital was forerun by mcrcenai'y foreigners and the devasta- tion of his country ; and who not sated with the de- struction of fifty thousand of his countrymen, con- signed many of the survivors to dispersion, to banish- ment, or deatli ! We have in modern days exploded the doctrine of tyrannicide, even under the prospect of restoring liberty : and shall we say it was well done, for one man, in order to restore himself to power, to commit his nation to jeopardy, to assist in tlie slaughter of many thousands of his countrymen ; nay, after all this ruin, to take a lesson from the Roman triumvirs, and stain a proscribed list with blood ? Can this man be endured ? " Malci Tarquinius qui Porsenam, qui Octavium Manilium contra patriam : impi^ Coriolanus qui auxilium petiit a Volscis." Yet what was the audacity and M'ickedness of all these collectively, compared to that of Louis ? Yet forsooth among our loyalists he is to be glorified as the modem Codrus. Thou sceptre-loving king ! respect for your office has fallen as you rose, and human nature itsel^ has suffered by your offences. When Tarquin in his exile leagued with foreigners to regain his crown, the treason rendered royalty execrated, and the king and ro\'alty were banished for ever. Yet the allies expect that tliis miserable king, so enthroned and so sup- jiortcd, shall encourage a disposition to monarchy in Europe, and soothe the French to forbearance and peace. 127 peace. Let any Englishman for a moment make the Frenchman's case his own ; — does not the casual thouo;ht startle him ? Who among us would or could bear the insult? And are the French so abject, so wo-begone, so irretrievably stunned and stupefied, that their submission is necessary ? To me the re- verse seems certain. In every part of the country the hatred of the Bourbons cannot be suppressed by the most anxious police and the severest punishment of offenders : the poorest creatures feel themselves vili- fied by this chrisom of royalty imposed on their na- tion by us and our allies, false, remorseless, and sordid . There is but one feeling in France, one sentiment — the common voice is : " You have beguil'd us with a counterfeit Resembling majesty, which being touch'd and try'd Prov'd valueless : you are forsworn, forsworn, The grappling vigour and rough frown of war Is cold in amity and painted peace, And our oppression hath made up the league. Arm, arm you heavens, against these perjur'd kings !" It is imposible that the government of the Bour- bons can subsist : the wisest man and the most dis- passionate ministry could scarcely rule the French nation, unless the monarchy were ameliorated by the most liberal institutions ; for the diffusion of property negatives all exclusive claims and all individual pre- rogative. Yet now, instead of moving with the gene- ral impulse, every effort is made to disturb its force and direction. The old prev6tal courts are revived, as if a return of the ancient tj'ranny was not sufficiently alarming. The police called the high police in the old old monarchy, from the extent and ahusc of its power, 13 in full activity. The censorship of the press is re- organized, and its despotism over lettei's increased, in order to give the court scribes a complete monopoly. Thus government expects to pervert public opinion. — Vain thought ! They would cure by drops what is nourished by the ocean. They have also passed a law against cries : ^Vliy not against whispers, why not against thinking ? for their actions provoke what they would sujipress. They are also recruiting loy- alists in La Vendue, and l)igots in the south, and tmii^rants every where ; and the lily and white cockade are to effect v/onders. And thus I read, in a late missionary publication, of an august monarch who bad his tent adorned with ostrich feathers to frighten away the wolves. Then as a counter-security for the government, foreign mercenaries are flocking on the frontier, and fortresses are appropriated and occupied. By these means Lord Wellington will be able, ac- cording to ministry, to graduate the temperature of the national feeling by his unerring science in law and politics. Yes, and so shall his grace control the ex- plosion of a volcano by a vent-peg ! Are men never to learn or remember ? How much lower in the scale of humanity do the allies and their ministers esteem the French than the Prussians? Yet their fortifications were possessed, their country divided, and the popu- lation reduced to four or five millions ; they were also ground by contributions : yet this people, this people comparatively servile to the French, when goaded by their wrongs raised and appointed 200,000 troops. — Shall the French do less ? Yet France in its present impaired 129 impaired state still contains twenty-eight millions of people. jVlen who have been free cannot at once inoffensively succumb— they cannot be utterly sub- dued even by the most complicated artifices to en- feeble them. Lysander besieged Athens, and in con- sequence of famine the city surrendered at discretion : he destroyed the free constitution of the Athenians, burned their shipping, destroyed the fortifications of the Piraeus, and placed a garrison in the citadel of Athens. And what was the consequence? No — the free cannot be enslaved — they will rise against oppression ; and the paroxysm of their fury shall triumph over the crisis of their fate. Such is the state of Europe and of France ; and ministers talk of the general pacification, when war, enmity, and vengeance have been strevred through all nations with an unsparing hand. They wish for peace, they say, while their measures decisively proV mote hostilities ; > " Non pacem petimus, siiperi, date gentibus iras." Peace can only be advanced by actions conceived and executed in the spirit of truth and justice. Try the acts of Congress and the treaty of Paris by this criterion. With regard to France, the allies, in defi- ance of their repeated promises, forced a hated monarch on the French nation, and on him they im- posed a treaty. What obligation is this on the French nation ? Yet, lest this vain pernicious ceremony should have any influence, they have accompanied this nul- lity with intolerable outrage and insult. Thus they have acted towards France; while respecting the K people 130 people of Europe they have dashed their hardly-earned pretensions with the saddest return. The people of Europe, though grievously beset, effected a mighty in- surrection to rid the world of universal monarchy. And yet the aUies have treated the people of Europe as they have treated the French nation : they have seized and appropriated at pleasure towns, fortresses, and provinces ; — without compunction or reserve, they have spoiled and given, granted and retracted, states and nations, in defiance of their habits, interests, and sympathies ; — they have })lunged free nations into the abyss of monarchy : even the little republic of Ragusa, which flourished for centuries under the protection of the Porte, has been absorbed by the rapacity of Austria. The allies have to their utmost power broken the bonds of affection between man and his country, between subject and sovereign ; and they have enforced the crime of perjury — for the inhabitants of the spoiled territories, by a dreadful necessity, must recognise ^ their new so\ creigns with an oath : and there can be no allegiance where there is no love. What is the state of Great Britain ? After tuent}^- tliree years' war, she has added to her acquisitions in India, which when they were of inferior extent biassed the true interest of the nation. Britain's king has also obtained a new title: from being Elector he is named ' There is a time granted to the inhabitants of some places to remove if they please. This is absurd ; where are they to go to ? And how could the Genoese, Venetians, Poles, Saxons, emi- grate ? I perceive also that an agent of the king of Prussia, in delivering a portion of territory to the Prince Regent, orders the people to observe the same fidelity to their new as they did to their former sovereign. King 131 King of Hanover ; he has also, by the cession of East Fi'iesland, obtained a military road into Germany : — ■ thus the connexion of Britain and Germany has been ruinously facilitated. Wise nations, when they have called foreign princes to be their sovereigns, have obliged tliem to renounce their pretensions abroad, as Charles duke of Anjou, when raised to the crown of Sicily, disclaimed for himself and his heirs all his pre- tensions in Germany. The politics of the English ministry have been different : and thus England loses the full benefit of her insular situation ; for by her connexion with Hanover every disturbance on the continent involves her supposed interests and impairs her tranquillity. This unfortunately has always been the curse of England. William the Third's accession to. the throne encumbered England with the guardian- ship of the United Provinces. In a former reign the possession of a single town was a source of endless expectation and expense ; and Dunkirk was then, in the diplomatic cant, termed a frontier town. The evil of continental possession was felt in Richard the Second's reign : he required an aid from the commons, who replied that they ought not to bear such foreign charges ; on which the kino; admonished them that Gastoigne concerned the kingdom of England (St. Tr. vol. i. p. 269.). We w^ere told still more respecting Hanover, when Great Britain was involved in war with Prussia about ten years ago, in order to w-rest it from his present Prussian majesty. Such has been the value of our acquisitions by this war. We have also, and it is right to mention all our gains by this twenty-three years' war, been smitten with an incurable 132 incurable propensity for Mar — new luilitary orders, military clubs, and luilitary fetes — the temple of peace has become a sanctuary for the trophies of war ; and generals bear away the highest honours of the king and all the j)raises of the people. By such pursuits of war and conquest, and under the pretended difficulty of levying native troops, sixteen thousand foreign soldiers were voted by parliament last year for home service. Observe, sixteen thousand are precisely the number of William the Third's Dutch guards, and of George the Second's Hanoverian auxiliaries in Britain. And observe, that while these foreign mercenaries excited much discontent in England the bill I have mentioned passed both houses of parliament without observation. Such are some of the fruits of a twenty- three years' war begun for the sake of legitimacy ! We have also expended a sum which set down in figures distracts the sight, and we have reared up an imperial debt of a thousand millions. Taxation, the chancellor of the exchequer said truly, is strained to the utmost in Great Britain ; while in Ireland by every effort barely enough is raised within the year to pay the interest of the national debt. In the mean time the income of individuals declines, and a paper cur- rency substituted for gold by law, is continued without any prospect of the salutary medium of exchange being restored : add to all thiS; corn laws have been passed - thus the proprietors of the soil are declared mono- polists of its produce. And for what have all tliese debts, taxes, vexations, and distress been in- curred by England, who, while she grants millions in foreign subsidies, consigns millions of her people to pauperism ? 133 pauperism ? For what have these complicated evil been incurred ? For legitimacy, in defence of kings- defence of Louis — of Louis the Eighteenth ! that s may enjoy their king — ivoc TravTsg eTravpconai (3u(nKrio Thus a wicked war has ended in a miserable peace; or ratlier an armed truce has followed actual hostili- ties, for was there ever less assurance of tranquillity ? And when was the earth cursed with so great a mili- tary force ? Good cannot succeed. God, no doubt, if man be true to himself, will work light and life out of this dark and deadly chaos ; but a mighty punish- ment must pursue mighty crimes. And surely never were justice and sincerity less regarded than by the rulers of nations during the transactions of this event- ful aera. Their actions record their OAvn infamy ; while their language — quibbling, paltering No: to call it less than it deserves, would be to add one lie to many. " Never did liar in rotten policy cover his working with such deadly wounds." Good cannot follow when truth and honesty have been contemned. The sanction of the eternal law must be satisfied : For death from sin no power can separate. FINIS. Printed by Richard and Arthur Taylor, SkoC'Latie. TVorl's by tJic same Author. Sold I'l/ Rowland Hunter, Successor to Mn. Johnson, 72, St. Paul's Church(/uTd. 1. Defects of the English Laws and Tribunals, 8vc price 12v. 2. On National Education. Svo. price 9^. 3. On National Government. 2 vols. Svo. price 1/. \s. 4. THii Independent Man ; or, An Essay on the Forma- tion and Developemcnt of those Principles and Faculties of the Human Mind which constitute Moral and Intellec- -tual Excellence. 2 vols. Svo. \Ss, 5. 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