of a military chief over a conquered people. The nation did not rise to resist Buonaparte or defend Louis, because the nation could not rise up on the army. Her mind as well as her constitution was conquered; in fact there was no nation-every thing was army, and every thing was conquest. Buonaparte, it seems, is to reconcile every thing by the gift of a free constitution: He took possession of Holland, he did not give her a free constitution-he took possession of Spain, he did not give her a free constitution-he took possession of Switzerland, whose independence he had guaranteed, he did not give her a free constitution-he took possession of Italy, he did not give her a free constitution-he took possession of France, he did not give her a free constitution. On the contrary, he destroyed the directorial constitution he destroyed the consular constitution-and he destroyed the late con stitution, formed on the plan of Eng. land. But now he is, with the assist ance of the jacobins, to give her liber ty; that is, the man who can bear no freedom, unites to form a constitution with a body who can bear no govern ment. In the mean time, while he professes liberty, he exercises despotic power-he annihilates the nobles he banishes the deputies of the people and he sequesters the property of the emigrants;-now he is to give liberty! I have seen his constitution, as exhibited in the newspaper-there are faults innumerable in the frame of it, and more in the manner of accepting it: It is to be passed by subscription without discussion; the troops are to send deputies, and the army is to preside. There is some cunning, however, in making the subscribers to the constitution renounce the House of Bourbon. They are to give their word for the deposition of the king, and take Napoleon's word for their

own liberty. The offer imports no thing which can be relied on, except that he is afraid of the allies. Dis perse the alliance, and farewell to the liberty of France, and safety of Eu rope."

The point of immediate war, rather than the dubious and uncertain state of armed peace, which seemed to be recommended by Lord Grey and the gentlemen of the opposition, was well argued by Mr Plunket, who showed that the chance of success by a present effort, when we could reckon on the co-operation of all Europe, and a considerable portion of France herself, was greater now than it could be at any subsequent period. "When we saw the situation in which Buonaparte now stood; when we saw him reduced to make professions contrary to his very nature; when we saw the vessel in which his fortunes were embarked labouring with the storm, and its mast bowed down to the water's edge, it would be the height of impolicy and absurdity to hesitate on the course that we had to pursue. We had now a most powerful combination of allies, not fomented by us, but acting from the moral feeling which pervaded all Europe. If we were foolish enough to throw away those means, we could never hope to recall them. Those of his friends who had talked the most about husbanding the resources of the country, had confessed, that when an occasion should arrive when some important blow could be struck against the enemy, that system should no longer be persevered in. That important crisis had now arrived. It was vain to expect that a more favourable opportunity would ever arrive. All the great powers of Europe were now with us, and a considerable portion of the population of France. It had been said, that invading France would be the way to unite the population of that country. The fact, however, was

directly the reverse. The not invading France would be the sure means of reducing the whole population under the power of the present ruler. He considered, that we had, in fact, no option between peace and war. As for peace, we could have no more than a feverish, unrefreshing dream of peace, still haunted by the spectre of war. In point of finances, we should find a peace, with a war establishment, an evil much greater than war itself. If we did not now go to war in conjunction with all the great powers of Europe, we would soon be reduced to a war single-handed against France. If we did not now invade France, and carry on the war upon her territories, the time might arrive when our country would become the seat of war, and we would fall unpitied and despised. If we were now to turn our back upon the great powers that were our allies, we should deserve that all nations should turn their backs upon us when we began to feel the consequences of our impolicy."

Similar conclusions were yet more forcibly deduced by Mr Grattan. Of the Bourbons he spoke as of a dynasty, under whose sway all subjects, except the administration, had been open to free discussion; so that learning, arts, and sciences, had made rapid progress, and England had borrowed not a little from the temperate meridian of that government. Her court stood controlled by opinion, limited by principles of honour, and softened by the influence of manners; and, on the whole, there was an amenity in the condition of France which rendered the French an amiable, an enlightened, a gallant, and accomplished race over this gallant race you see imposed an oriental despotism; their present court has gotten the idiom of the east as well as her constitution; a fantastic and barbaric expression, an unreality, which leaves in the shade

:

the modesty of truth, and states nothing as it is, and every thing as it is not the attitude is affected, the taste is corrupted, and the intellect perverted. Do you wish to confirm this military tyranny in the heart of Europe? -a tyranny founded on the triumph of the army over the principles of civil government-an experiment to relax the moral and religious influences, and to set heaven and earth adrift from one another-an insurrectionary hope to every bad man in the community, and a frightful lesson of profit and power, vested in those who have pandered their allegiance from king to emperor, and now found their pretensions to domination on the merit of breaking their oaths, and deposing their sovereign. Should you do any thing so monstrous as to leave your allies, in order to confirm such a system,-should you forget your nameforget your ancestors, and the inheritance they have left you of morality and renown,-should you astonish Europe by quitting your allies, to render immortal such a composition, would not the nations exclaim, 'You have very providently watched over our interests, and very generously have you contributed to our service, and do you faulter now? In vain have you stopped, in your own person, the flying fortunes of Europe,-in vain have you taken the eagle of Napoleon, and snatched invincibility from his standard, if now, when confederated Europe is ready to march, you take the lead in the desertion, and preach the penitence of Buonaparte and the poverty of England.'

"As to her poverty, you must not consider the money you spend in your defence, but the fortune you would lose if you were not defended; and, further, you must recollect you will pay less to an immediate war than to peace with a war establishment, and a war to follow it; recollect further, that

whatever be your resources they must outlast those of all your enemies; and further, that your empire cannot be saved by a calculation: besides, your wealth is only part of your situation; the name you have established, the deeds you have achieved, and the part you have sustained, preclude you from a second place among nations; and when you cease to be the first, you are nothing."

Such were the arguments used in the parliament of Britain on this momentous occasion. Fortunately, not for this country only, but for Europe, those prevailed which preferred an instant and a manly assertion of our rights to enforce the broken treaties of Fontainbleau and Paris, to the equally expensive, and far less effectual measures, of armed neutrality and husbanding our resources, recommended by the opposition. The division in the House of Peers was 156 in favour of the address, to 44 for the amendment moved by Lord Grey. In the House of Commons the parties divided 92 to 331.

If any thing could have rendered the war more a necessary measure in the eyes of the friends of good order, it must have been the views taken of it by those who are almost the professed contemners of the constitution and character of their country, and who have used the right of petitioning only to insult the legislature with the effrontery of sturdy beggars, whose mode of solicitation is threats and abuse. A petition from the inhabitants of Westminster was presented by Sir Francis Burdett. This document stigmatized the proposed war against France as an act not only flagrantly unjust, but resembling desperation or insanity, which they could only impute to the policy of those domestic enemies, who had an interest in stirring up foreign war, that they might cheat the people of their

The formidable total amounted to one million and eleven thousand soldiers.

It was the wealth of Britain alone by which this formidable array could be put in motion. The sum which was to be paid in lieu of her full contingent of troops, was two millions and a half. A similar sum was voted to be applied to the aid of the confederacy, in the mode which should be judged most advisable. This sum of five millions, with one million for the reparation of the fortifications in Holland and Flanders, was voted by the great majority of one hundred and sixty-seven to seventeen votes. The few members who made this opposition, having dwelt much on the ex

pense incurred in the preceding war with France, were called on by Mr Charles Grant to remember the triumphant effect to which these subsidies had led, and exhorted to expect from the present a result still more triumphant and decisive.

These determined measures on the part of the allies served to convince France and her present ruler, that

there was no hope of peace in the present circumstances, or of any aid to be obtained from beyond the frontiers of France, excepting in case of the success of Murat. The enterprize of that person is so closely connected with the history of France, that it becomes necessary to trace it to a period, before completing that of Buonaparte himself,