internal dissention and external war, fought her way through derision, defeat and disgrace, not only to victory and independence, but to an unexampled degree of military power and glory. In admitting therefore with Lord Grey," that our enemy now holds at his disposal the resources of all those maritime powers, who in former times have disputed even with ourselves the empire of the seas, let us not wantonly and unnecessarily compel him, for his own defence, to call those powers into action. After having united with our allies to render him great by land, let us now at least take care that we do not render him great by sea."

pro

Now in the first place, we can by no means assent to the position, that there is something in the nature of things which ensures to France the acquisition (sooner or later) of every thing necessary to her aggrandizement, merely because it is so. In the next place, we maintain, that in order to make the parallel between the military force of France at the beginning of the revolution and her naval force now, available for any purposes of legitimate argument, there ought to have been a period (which, in point of fact, never existed) at which the French armies were so completely crushed by the allies, that there was no place in which half a dozen regiments could be assembled in order to acquire the necessary practice of discipline and manoeuvre.

This is the true parallel to the present situation of the French marine, and we feel very little apprehension of the day when those ' navies that are now growing in the woods,' and 'those seamen that are now tilling the fields,' will wrest from us the empire of the ocean. Lastly, we should think, that if demand had been in this case so truly the mother of supply,' the want of a navy had been long enough felt for the principle to operate, and that the natural energies of a free people stimulated by necessity, would ere now have created a fleet powerful enough to sweep the English from

the seas.

Mr. Roscoe very properly remarks that there are two systems of carrying on the war-that which is adopted by the present and that which was recommended by the late ministers. Lord Grey, speaking with the weight not only of authority but experience, and justly considering how little likely expeditions are to succeed under the present administration, when they uniformly failed in the abler hands of himself and his colleagues, wishes us to confine ourselves to a purely defensive system. The ministers think it better to employ any force that can be spared from our own immediate defence in striking a blow wherever the enemy appears to be vulnerable. Mr. Roscoe, as may be expected, dislikes expeditions extremely; but what we own surprised us, he dislikes still more the defensive system of his former friends. We despair of conveying his sentiments in any but his own words, which we the more willingly

extract

extract because they form the most brilliant and highly finished passage in his pamphlet.

'That war, under every form, is an evil greatly to be deprecated, will readily be allowed; but when the passions are irritated by wrongs and inflamed by resentment; when to these are superadded the love of glory and the thirst of revenge, we feel, from the sentiments of our common nature, a sympathy with those who engage in the contest, which in victory elevates and expands, and even amidst defeat and slaughter soothes and consoles the mind; but when these incentives are withdrawn; when the courage and ardour of the soldier are relinquished for a cold, calculating, and inextinguishable hatred; when valour and enterprize, the shock of armies and the tented field, are no more, and a nation of warriors devotes itself to lie in wait for opportunities to attack the enemy with advantage, and to protract the calamities of war, we sicken at the cheerless and death-like prospect, and feel no emotions but those of horror and disgust. From the infirmities of our nature, war, as an ultimate appeal, is at times inevitable; but the common interest and the common consent of mankind, require that the struggle should be speedy and decisive, and that the miseries of those who suffer by its consequences, without being partakers in its guilt, should not be unnecessarily prolonged. The thunder may roll, and the bolt may fall; but when the storm is past, let us hope once more to see the atmosphere clear, and to enjoy the brightness of day. The calamities of the physical world are temporary. Earthquakes, plagues and tempests have their season; but a protracted warfare is a perpetual earthquake, a perpetual pestilence, a perpetual storm; and to propose to any people the adoption of such a system, is to propose that they should resolve, not only to live in sorrow, in wretchedness, and in peril themselves, but to entail the same calamities on their descendants.' p. 41.

We had long since flattered ourselves that we were too far removed from the early days of the French Revolution, to be in danger of hearing again this mawkish strain of sentimental nmanity. We really thought it had expired with Anacharsis Cloots. and La Reveillaire Lepeaux-with the theo-philanthropists, and the orators of the human race. But it seems that we were mistaken, and that we are fated to have it revived, not in the juvenile effusions of a boarding-school, but in a serious discussion of a great question of practical policy, by a grave and respectable person, who has lived many years, and published many quartos. Is Mr. Roscoe insensible of the absurdity of this burst of eloquence, and does he require to be told that if a war is unjust, it signifies very little whether it is waged on the offensive or the defensive plan? That if just, it ought to be made offensive or defensive, exactly as the one system or the other appears most likely to conduce to the only legitimate object of all war-that is, safe and honourable peace?-This is the sound, unsentimental view of the question, and this, we are confi

dent,

dent, is the view that is taken of it by every real statesman in the kingdom, in spite of the more refined doctrines that may be maintained by learned and ingenious persons at Liverpool.

Our readers will scarcely believe that in a pamphlet upon such a subject, and published but a few months since, Mr. Roscoe has not thought fit to allude to the affairs of Spain. Perhaps this omission, though singular, is on the whole prudent; for we cannot conceive how any person can bestow a moment's thought upon the situation of the peninsula, without being convinced of the utter impolicy of any attempts to negociate at the present moment.

In the first place, we think it may be assumed as a principle, that a country should not begin to negociate, unless the state of affairs, and the dispositions of the enemy, appear at the time to afford some reasonable prospect of accommodation. This principle, we apprehend, is true, even with respect to a country acting by itself, and if so, it must be much more evident of a country connected with allies whom its conduct may either encourage or depress.-Now to apply this doctrine. Does any such prospect appear at the present moment, or rather has there been a period during the whole war at which the difficulties on both sides were so completely insurmountable? Does Mr. Roscoe think that, with all his love for ships, colonies, and commerce, Buonaparte will consent to quit Spain and Portugal? or has he himself so completely exhausted all his stores of affection and sympathy for freedom and national independence upon the early French Revolutionists, as to think that we ought to abandon these countries-to throw them as a sort of make-weight into the scale, now that at the end of a three years war they still give employment to three hundred thousand men, and, by the assistance of our victorious army, exclude the enemy from all those ports, in which he hoped by this time to have prepared armaments for the invasion of England? No; but then there could be no harm in making offers, even if he were unreasonable enough to reject them; and we should at least have the comfort of knowing that we had done all in our power to put au end to a struggle so shocking to humanity. But in what light would such a step appear to Europe, and particularly to the nations of the peninsula? Should we not be considered by all the world as betraying weakness at a moment when it was most important to display power, and as guilty of vacillation under circumstances that demanded constancy? Or would it be easy to explain to two nations, whose first impression would naturally be, that we were bringing them to market, and bartering them away to the invader-that whereas doubts had arisen in the minds of certain casuists and philanthropists, as to the lawfulness of the contest in which we were engaged with that just and merciful prince Napo

leon,

leon, Emperor, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. therefore we had resolved to make him a proposition, at which we knew he would spurn, in order to put him in the wrong, and to satisfy the consciences of the aforesaid philanthropic persons?-Has Mr. Roscoe quite forgotten that in the last proposition of peace which Buonaparte made to this country, he treated the Spaniards, who had taken up arms for their King and their freedom, as insurgents, as persons that might indeed become objects of his clemency, but whom he could never suffer to be parties in a negociation;-so that every individual of that nation is pronounced by him to be a rebel, whom the universal feeling of mankind does not stigmatize as a traitor? Has any thing happened since that should induce him to recede from this principle? or could we even offer to negociate without appearing to admit that it was a doctrine which we were willing at least to discuss-which we did not think it our duty instantly and peremptorily to reject-which was neither so cruel nor so insulting as to render it unworthy of serious consideration? But it may be said that the Spaniards have abandoned their own cause, and repaid our assistance so as completely to absolve us from the duty of making any farther sacrifices in their behalf. Be it so, for the sake of argument, though even then the question of policy would remain undecided; but still how would this reasoning apply to Portugal ? The Portuguese have embarked with us in the same cause, without reserve, and without retreat; they have fought bravely with us in the same ranks; they have refused us no aid nor comfort which their limited means allowed; they have endured with patience the burning of their towns and the devastation of their country; they clung even in extremity to the hope of independence, and to their alliance with us; they placed their whole trust in the goodness of their cause, and in the valour and faith of England.

Just at the crisis of their fate, we are it seems to begin to negociate at Paris, and coldly to discuss whether they are to be blotted from the list of nations. We are to enter into an intercourse of 'notes verbales,'' officieles,' and' demi-officieles;' to balance them against a sugar island, and to settle what is the precise quantity of ginger and spice to be sacrificed in order to redeem them from the last of their old extortioners and taskmasters, Loison and Junot.

If it be said, that we should not enter into such considerations, we answer, that unless we mean to enter into them, it is evident from the state of affairs, and from the whole tenor of Buonaparte's language and conduct that it is useless to negociate at all. But it is only wasting words to combat the notion of an immediate proposition of peace from us. The country perceives, though Mr. Roscoe will not, that honour and interest alike demand that we should be true to our allies as long as they are true to us and to themselves— as long as they continue to distract the efforts, and resist the tyranny

of

of France; and that all thoughts of negociation must be laid aside till either some new light breaks upon the affairs of the peninsula, or the whole scene closes in utter darkness. We have perhaps already said too much upon this subject, and shall trouble our readers with but one observation more, which the mention of Spain suggests to us with respect to Mr. Roscoe's pamphlet,

Nineteen years have elapsed since what is called the war of the first coalition began-years, every one of which has been marked by some grievous calamity inflicted upon the civilized part of the world by the various forms of revolutionary government which have sprung up in France. The last three years in particular have been made memorable by an act of political wickedness exceeding in kind, and far exceeding in degree, even the worst of those by which it had been preceded. All that had been done before in Italy, in Holland, in Germany, and even in Swisserland, is thrown into the shade by the superior perfidy and atrocity of the circumstances which have attended the invasion of Spain. This too is a transaction still pending-one to which our thoughts are naturally led by every thing that is most calculated to excite attention, and one which is immediately, and, as we should have thought, inseparably connected with the subject on which Mr. Roscoe has thought fit to propose himself a guide to public opinion. And yet, though his zeal against the coalesced powers in 1791 (whom, according to the invariable practice of the school to which he belongs, he represents as having aimed at the subjugation of France,) still burns, as we collect from various passages, with a warmth unabated by time or intervening events; yet the fate of the people of Spain, on whom the French have actually inflicted all those evils which Austria and Russia are wrongfully accused of having meditated against France, does not draw one single sigh of regret, nor extort one expression of moral indignation from this philosopher and friend to the human race! There is a silence which is more expressive than words; and from this omission better than from any thing he could have said, we learn, first, how incomparably more precious the happiness of a nation is, when engaged in the sacred duty of insurrection, than when it is merely fighting for independence under its lawful king, and its ancient government. In the next place, how much more natural it is to sympathize with the enemies than with the allies of England. And lastly, how improper it is to touch at all upon those parts of the Emperor Napoleon's history, which, in the present state of the public feeling, it is not possible to mention with praise.

We owe some apology to our readers for having extended our remarks to such a length, upon a pamphlet as inconsiderable in point of merit as of size. But the subject is highly important, and

the