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66 rope, that the vast hordes which have been | France, according to which the allied arpoured out from her bosom to ravage all mies are to evacuate the French territory parts of the Continent, should be restored by the 1st day of June; and, yet, in the "gradually and quietly to their country, face of this, this friend of your Majesty "under such regulations and restrictions would fain have these armies remain lonas would ensure their return to the habitsger, to harrass and oppress the people of "and pursuits of peaceful industry. We France. But, what are the alledged moearnestly hope that these considerations tives for this violation of a solemn com"will have their weight with the Allied pact, and that, too, while France has been "Sovereigns, and induce them to adopt a fulfilling her part of it with all possible di"cautious system in replacing France on ligence? Why, to compel your Majesty 66 a basis of social order. We read too to disband all your veteran soldiers; to "much in the addresses to the French lay down your army altogether, and to abo"Sovereign of the GLORY of the armies. lish the easy means of raising another! "That glory has been in the majority of This measure, and upon such grounds, is "instances an indelible disgrace to the openly recommended to the Allies, who en"French name, and a source of misery to tered France with a declaration, that "all that France possesses of virtuous or France ought to be great and happy! truly noble. What glory was there in "the massacre of Madrid, in the destruc"tion of Saragossa, in the cruel persecution "of the brave Hamburghers? We do not "wish to revert to these scenes of horror; "but when we see them alluded to in so 66 very different a light, IT IS TIME TO "SPEAK OUT.". These are memorable words. When your Majesty considers whence they spring, they ought to make a deep impression upon your mind, and upon the minds of all Frenchmen.If this man were asked why he has such an antipathy to the Conscription; why he is so uncommonly anxious to induce the Allies to compel you to abolish it, I wonder what his answer would be?- -It is all out of pure regard for your Majesty !— Pure regard for you makes him so anxious about it! Pure regard for you will not let him rest, day or night, till he has got all your army quietly disbanded! Pure regard for you, too, as you are about to see; pure regard for the happiness of France, has induced him to press upon the Allies to remain with their armies in the French territory, and to take away with them your statues and pictures! If you doubt of the insincerity of such friends, your Majesty must be credulous indeed.

Thus have I produced proof of the truth of the 2d, 3d, and 4th charges; but, before I proceed to the others, I must offer a few remarks upon the passages which I have here quoted, in order more fully to expose the baseness of the writer, and the detestable motives whence his publications have sprung.

It is well known, and to this writer as well as to others, that there is a Convention, signed by our Minister and that of

The writer says, that your soldiers, when they return, will be banditti. Who are these soldiers? The men raised by the Conscription. They will not dig, it is asserted, and to beg they will be ashamed.— Therefore, he recommends, that the Allies should, in the teeth of the Convention, keep them, and restore them gradually and quietly, and under such restrictions and regulations as shall ensure their return to the habits of peaceful industry.――In truth, he is afraid of them. He has witnessed their valour. "He wishes them to rot in prison. He is not yet glutted with their unheard-of sufferings, which › have all been unable to shake their fidelity to their country and its cause.

-But, mark the hypocrisy of this man.' He has been ringing in our ears, for months and months, the cruelty of the Conscription; he has been, with Mr. Canning, giving us the most pathetic descriptions of the weepings of the mothers and fathers of these poor conscripts; he has been deploring the fate of unhappy France, left to be cultivated by old men, women, and children, though, by the bye, she has always had corn to sell us. And now, behold! when the happy moment is arrived for the return of these poor youths to their mothers, he will not let them go! He is afraid that they will become banditti! He has lost all recollection of the tender parting scenes, and looks upon them as in love with a roving fighting life! And he is willing still to leave poor France to be tilled by old men, women, and children! What is the world to think of such a man? The truth is, be knows how brave and faithful they have been; and he wishes to see them die in captivity. England, in proportion to her

population, has had more men in arms than France. What does this man mean to do with them? Are they made of such materials as not to make them at all dangerous? Then there are, perhaps, two millions of soldiers belonging to the Allies. Are they to be kept in prison; or what is to be done with them? Is there no military mania any where but in France? The French soldiers are, it seems, neither to be disbanded nor kept up. No; he would have them stifled: he would have them pine out their lives in prisons. I wonder he does not propose, at once, the cutting of all their throats.Your Majesty will hear of such sentiments with indignation and horror.

And, what reason has this man to suppose, that the French prisoners of war will not, if disbanded, be ready to fall into the habits and pursuits of industry? Experience would tell him to draw a contrary conclusion. For, was there ever heard of in the world more industrious and ingenious people than the Frenchmen in our prisons? Sabots, list shoes, leather shoes, lace, straw hats. In short, what did they not make, as long as they were permitted, in their prisons? It was necessary to restrain them from working. I remember one instance wherein a man and his son too, I believe, were punished for supplying them with straw for their manufactures! As to the liberality of the nation where this took place, as to the wisdom and justice of the prevention, I have nothing to say. It might all be very wise, just, and liberal; but that does not disprove the fact, that the French prisoners discovered, while in our keeping, industry surpassed only by their fortitude and fidelity. What danger can there be, then, to their country; what danger can there be to France, to send such men out of our prisons, and from the wilds of Siberia, to their fathers and mothers in their own fruitful and pleasant country? Your Majesty and the French nation will not fail to call to mind, that, for many years past, these same writers have been railing against Napoleon, on account of his not consenting to an exchange of the prisoners of war. He was represented as a most cruel and ungrateful monster, who suffered to die in prisons and in hulks, those who had fought his battles. Means in abundance were employed, by these writers, to instil such sentiments into the minds of the French prisoners, who had free access to publica

tions of the kind. They were not convinced, it seems. But, what are we to, think of the sincerity of these writers? What are we to think of the compassion they expressed for the prisoners of war? What are we to think of their imputations against Napoleon, because he would not agree to our terms of exchange? What are we now to think of all these profes sions or the part of these writers and their associates, when we see them doing all they can to prolong the duration of the сарtivity of these unfortunate Frenchmen, even after peace has been made with France, and that, too, accompanied with the restoration of the ancient family? Is there in France; is there in England; is there in the whole world, one generous, one humane bosom, which will not swell with indignation at the suggestions of such implacable and base malignity?

These writers, as your Majesty will perceive, are angry that Frenchmen should still talk of their glory. They find fault with the language that has passed between you and your Marshals, as calculated to flatter the vanity of the people. They call it insolence towards us and our Allies.They say that such notions ought to be discouraged by you, because they tend to keep alive that military mania, which may be your ruin; and, lest this consideration should not have its weight with you, they appeal to the wisdom of the Allies, and call upon them to see your army reduced to National Guards, before they withdraw their troops from your territory. Now, what is the reason that you and your people are not to talk of the glory of the French army? Nothing that has happened can lessen the renown acquired by that army. Such prodigious feats of valour were never before performed by any nation in the world. No nation ever carried its arms to such an extent of conquest. All the capitals of the Contincnt have been in the hands of Frenchmen. No nation ever had the power to produce such wonderful changes in the state of society. The bare narrative of the great battles and victories of the French armies would fill many large volumes. Why, then, are the French not to be permitted to cherish the idea of their military glory? Why is your Majesty to be sneered at by these writers, because you rest upon those who have ac quired this glory? Upon what ground is this language in France denominated vanity and insolence? What! do these men

expect, that, because their eye-balds are seared at the sight of the pages which record, and which will for ever record, the valour of the French arms, in so many battles against all the nations of the Continent; do they expect, that you and your people are to burn this record, that you are to efface all the means of calling to mind the heroic deeds of Frenchmen; do they expect, that, because we very naturally wish to drown the recollection of Corunna, the Helder, and of many other things, you and your people are to have the same wishes? Do they expect that you, above all others, are to act as if you thought your kingdom disgraced in the eyes of the world? Do they expect you to acknowledge yourself as the sovereign of a fallen people, and to endeavour to stifle in their bosoms that feeling, which alone can preserve your country from being parcelled out amongst invaders? This they do not now expect; and their rage proceeds from their disappointment. They blame your Majesty for preserving the Legion of Honour. They call it the creature of crime, They say, to maintain it is to sanction immorality. They forget, good moral souls, that our august and magnanimous Allies are all honorary members of that Order. Good moral souls, they forget, that the Emperors of Austria and Russia, the King of Prussia, the Crown Prince of Sweden, the King of Denmark, the Prince Regent of Portugal, the King of Bavaria, the King of Wirtemburgh, the King of Saxony, the Grand Duke of Baden, together with the greater part of their principal Ministers and Generals, belong to this Legion of Honour. The good moral souls surely forget this, or they .would not blame your Majesty for maintaining it. They surely would not call it the creature of crime, and the symbol of immorality.

But, it will strike your Majesty as something worthy of attention, that, while these writers, who, it must be observed, are not so very singular in their opinion as I could wish it must strike you as worthy of attention, that, while these writers are so zealously endeavouring to dissuade your Majesty from giving the smallest degree of encouragement to the army of France; while they would even forbid you and your people to talk about French military glory; they discover no such dislike to the thing at home. We are permitted to talk about the glory that we have acquired in fighting

the French, and in our invasion of France. We make Dukes and Lords of those who have been fighting against France. We have made more Lords than France has made Marshals. And, even in our war, now to be carried on against the Americans, the fleets and armies are reminded of the glory they have gained in the war against France. Perhaps all the battles that we have been engaged in during this war of twenty years do not, in point of magnitude, amount to one battle like that of Austerlitz or of Marengo. And yet we are to talk of our military glory; we are to talk of it eternally; and the French, the poor insignificant French, are to be as silent as so many mice; you and they are to be accused of vanity, and even insolence, if you open your lips upon the subject of the achievements of the armies of France.Whatever else your Majesty may think of these writers, you will certainly allow them to be the most modest of all mankind.

Your Majesty is called upon to look coldly upon your army of veterans. You are told, that their military notions are mischievous. You are assured that they are banditti, vagabonds, robbers; and that they ought by no means to be encouraged; that they, and even their profession, ought to be held in abhorrence, as tending to national immorality. You will not fail, however, to observe, that this opinion of these writers does not prevent them from approving of the honours and the pensions bestowed (I say not unjustly) on our fighters; and that they extol by anticipation the intention of our Government to make an addition to the peace-pay of our military and naval officers. These good moral men see no danger in all this. They see no danger in keeping alive, by all possible means, the love of a military life and of the military profession here. They can see no danger, indeed, of this being done in any country except France; a view of the subject, which would seem wholly irreconcileable to common sense, if we did not recollect, that the same persons have told us to look upon France as being radically and systematically our enemy; than which your Majesty will surely want no other explanation of this secming inconsistency.

If, after what has been produced and observed, your Majesty could entertain the smallest doubt, that these writers and their associates wish you to adopt a line of conduct that would cripple France; make her a feeble and contemptible nation,

sink her for a century in the scale of "puted fact with posterity, by leaving it power. If you could entertain the smallest" robed in all its unprincipled acquisitions. doubt, that their first wish is the degrada- " Neither in liberality nor in policy, is it tion of France, as the means of giving" a matter of mean consideration, that the England a complete preponderance against "princes and nobles of the plundered her. If you could entertain the shadow" kingdoms should be remitted to the bare of a doubt, that this is the main drift of" walls of the ravaged temples and gutted. all their present efforts, the proofs I am "palaces. What is modern Italy without now about to produce, must remove even "her monuments? To the grave Italian, that shadow. "his country has no existence but in her V.-I charge these writers with sug"annals. Why take from him the congesting to the Allies the idea, and, indeed, "solation of beholding the proofs of what actually recommending the measure, of "he has been? Why break away the fine stripping the Museums and Galleries of "associations of every classic and cultiParis of the statues, pictures, and other" vated mind, which connects the once invaluable curiosities brought by the French" estimable treasures of the Vatican with armies from countries which they had" the antiquity of letters and of arts, while conquered. My proof of the truth of this" in Florence it delights to meditate their charge is in the following extract from the "revival? It may, to be sure, hurt someTIMES newspaper of the 2d of May," what of the Parisian vanity, to find the After noticing, that the Emperor of Russia" Louvre dissected by its emigrant Gods. had expressed the intention of the Allies "The hall of the Apollo may affect the to be, to leave Paris in possession of all "French connoisseur and savant with its curiosities; after censuring this, and "sombre feelings, when the Belvidere paadding a suitable quantity of observations "lace has recovered its immortal guest. on the "robberies," the "rapacity," and " --The Hall des Hommes illustres,' the "vanity" of the French nation, the "the Hall des Romains,' the Hall du writer proceeds thus:-"As the coalesced" Laocoon," the Hall of the Muses, may "Powers have fairly conquered all the "have fewer admirers, when these splen"armies of that nation, who had so long" did appellations become terms of ridi"indulged themselves in every species of "cule, as they now are of reproach. But "rapine throughout Europe and since "let us hope that our Allies may not imi"these victorious Powers, by the capture tate our enemies, by confounding the 4 of Paris, have, at their absolute disposal," good and bad passions of mankind. Let "the whole magazine of revolutionary us hope that, for the sake of the French "plunder, wrenched by fraud or violence" people themselves, an act of high and im"from its just possessors, who can avoid "perious justice may not be set aside from "asking, how that plunder is to be disregard to their unworthy vanity to that posed of? Can any man doubt, that if "sentiment, by pampering which, more the public and private property of France" mischief has resulted to France and to the “be respected by the conquerors, the same "world, than centuries of peace and peconquerors are bound, by a ten-fold obli- " nitence can repay; that sentiment to gation, so far as to respect the public" which we may fairly trace the paroxysms and private property of Flanders and" of their military ambition, their fever of "Venice, of Florence and Rome, as to "empire, and prodigality of blood." “demand it peremptorily from those who have stolen it, and give it back to those "from whom it was so iniquitously stolen? "Not even a statue, not a medal, not a pic"ture capable of removal, ought to be "left where it can only serve to reward "the systematic robberies of the French "Government, and to stand the glittering “evidence of successful crime. It is as "the advocate of consistency, that one "might call upon the triumphant defen"ders of public justice and honour, not to "leave their triumph incomplete, not to "leave the downfall of oppression a dis

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Here there is no disguise. There is nothing crafty. The design and the motive are openly avowed. But, be the event what it may, what must be the envy, the hatred, the rancour; how inveterate, how diabolical, the malice of the minds, in which such advice to the Allies could originate? Your Majesty will, probably, not have forgotten the glee of these same persons, when they saw a prospect of Paris being burnt to ashes. It is the same spirit that is at work here. It is a spirit of envy and of malice, that robs the mind of its reflecting powers. It

STILL THE SAME; that she is ra- · dically and systematically our enemy; and that suspicions and jealousies of France ought FOR EVER to be awake in the breast of a Briton.

is a raneour against France and against Frenchmen, which knows no bounds; which loses sight of all consequences; which thinks nothing of wars, or of civil strife, in the pursuit of its gratification. Was there ever before heard of, in the whole world, Ample proof of the truth of these will be such a thing as confounding booty in war found in the following article from the with highway, or any other robbery? And, COURIER newspaper of the 6th of May, did ever any nation in the world make which article, from the whole of its appearwar for the recovery of such booty? The ance, became worthy of particular notice. Allies, in their treaty concluded at Chau- It is written in a style above that of the ordimont, no longer ago than the 1st of March nary style of the Paper. It had a distinct last, stipulate in these words "The tro- and conspicuous place allotted to it. Its "phies and booty taken from the enemy, tone is such as to induce one to believe, "shall belong to the troops who take them." that it was intended to give a decided diAnd yet have these malignant writers the rection to public opinion upon the importimpudence to advise the stripping of the ant subjects of which it treats. It would Museums of Paris, upon the ground, that seem that the writer was afraid, that, in their contents were the fruit of robbery, the hurry of the late scenes, public feeling though the terms of the capitulation of had carried people away too far, and had Paris expressly forbid any such act of spo- led them, in their joy at the fall of Napoliation. However, it is not so much for leon, to forget that antipathy which he the purpose of exposing the want of reason wished to see kept alive against France, at in these writers, and their associates and all times, and under any dynasty, or any approvers, that I have noticed this part of possible order of things." Most of our their efforts, as for the purpose of clearly" cotemporaries are talking of the prepashewing, that the main object of this de- "rations for the celebration of the gescription of persons is to degrade, to beg-"neral peace. That a general peace is gar, to cripple France. They see in these" indeed a subject for congratulation we do famous Museums, and Libraries, and Gal-"not of course mean to deny; but let us leries, the source of an immense and con- "first have an insight into the terms. Wo stant resort to Paris; they perceive that" know enough to be able to state that resort will tend to the advantage of France" they will be founded upon the bases of in a pecuniary way, at the same time that" the ancient limits of France, so far as it cannot fail to extend and perpetuate the "they relate to France upon the Continent; fame of the French armies. And, so bit-" France as she was in 1789 or 1792. ter is their malice, that they would, I" But is this principle meant to be extend verily believe, plunge us into another long "ed to her Colonies? This is what conand bloody war, rather than leave this advantage to France. The exclusive pos- sion of territory, Prussia get back her session of all the trade of the world is not "own with additions, so will Austriasufficient for them. The means of paying " But what are we to have? It may perall the armies in Europe to fight against "haps appear somewhat ungracious to sug France is not enough. A twenty years" gest a single thought which might damp alliance against France, even that does" the general joy, or awaken a single fear, not glut these men. They wish to leave "where the reins are so fully given to her absolutely nothing but rags and dirt;" hope. The line of discussion we have and even of her soil we shall, I dare say, pursued, does, however, on this occasion, see, by and bye, that they wish to have all require us to express some fears that the the fruit for nothing.-Your Majesty will glow of generous feeling which has been surely admire their generosity, whatever" excited by so many important, and, as tó you may think of their prudence. many of the circumstances, unlooked-for occurrences; the satisfaction which a "virtuous people feels on the fall of eleVI. Endeavouring to prevent, in the pend-"vated villainy, and the pleasure which ing negociations, the restoration of the" the restoration of a legitimate and reold French Colonies to France. And, (6 spectable sovereign to his throne could VII. Inculcating the doctrine that France," not fail in this country to excite, may though Napoleon is overthrown, is" have tended to lull those suspicions and

We now come to my two last charges, namely:

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cerns us.

Russia will get an exten