tinent who very early foresaw the projects which were formed against Turkey, hoped that the imprudent rapidity with which they were deve. loped, would open the eyes of Europe, and he has seen with pleasure, a circumstance which enables his majesty to bring this interesting subject into discussion, and call the attention of all the cabinets to it. His majesty the king of Prussia wrote to him to communicate the desire which the emperor of Russia had expressed, and to send one of his chamberlains; when passports were demanded the emperor neither received nor asked for an explanation. He knew before-hand, and he expressed his opinion upon that point to the king of Prussia, that no hopes of the tranquillity of the world could be founded upon that negotiation; though, perhaps, a favourable opinion might still be entertained of the personal generosity of the emperor Alexander, no favourable result could be expected from a discussion in which his moderation had been so perversely overcome by foreign influence, and by the intrigues of those who surround him-That, in reality, Russia takes no real and sincere part in the interests of the continent; but, indifferent to the happiness of Europe, her intervention in political storms has ever served only to increase ha tred and inflame passion. That, at all times, the quarrels of other powers have been to her only the subject of a mere idle speculation, and that now, occupied as she is, with the progressive annihilation of Persia and Turkey, they can only be to her a momentary subject for diversion or perhaps of fantasy. His majesty, the emperor, however, ordered that the passports should

be sent; and, since then, nothing more has been heard of the chamberlain of the emperor of Russia. It must doubtless be regretted, that an opportunity has been lost of making just and severe representations to Russia on her conduct in Asia on the oppression with which she menaces the Ottoman empire, and on the causes of the alarm which begins to spread every where, at the approach of an event, which threatens to destroy for ever the equilibrium of the south of Europe. It is in this point of view, above all, that his majesty looked upon the proposed negotiation as an advantageous project, which might tend to the general good, and he is afflicted that the caprice of Russia has, in this respect, disappointed his hopes. In exposing, however, on this head, his real views, he does not think himself obliged to enter into any explanation with respect to the pretended dispositions that the letter of M. de Novosiltzoff attributes to him. It is simply this, that an irresolute cabinet, to give a colour to an absurd measure, endeavours to impute to France, contradictions in conduct and language, which do not belong to her. But here the recrimination is only a pretext, and a pretext without truth. Passports solicited and obtained, do not constitute a negotiation. France said nothing. Russia alone made a demonstration, and demanded that one. of her agents should be admitted to be heard. If this demand had been coupled with offensive conditions, with clauses which it is astonishing to see in a note purporting to be official, it would have remained unanswered. The character of his majesty the emperor is too well es tablished in Europe to have the im

possible

France, revived by the peace; it cherished the silly desire to drive the French flag from those seas, in which it had hitherto appeared with distinction, or at least to reduce it, so as that it could no longer appear there but in a state of degradation, unworthy of the rank which France holds amongst nations. But the motives of England did not terminate there; she was urged on by that insatiable avidity, which makes her covet the monopoly of the commerce and industry of all nations; by that unbounded pride, which induces her to look upon herself as mistress of the seas, and which is the only foundation of the extraordinary despotism which she exercises upon them. The cause then that France had to defend, was the cause of Europe, and it was natural to suppose, that neither the intrigues of England, nor the gold which she held forth to all those who might be disposed to be subservient to her ambition, nor her deceitful promises, could engage in her quarrel any of the continental powers. No one of them, in fact, appeared disposed to accept either her propositions or her recommendations.-At ease respect. ing the dispositions of the continent, the emperor turned all his thoughts to the n ritime war, for which every thing was to be created. Flects were built; ports were excavated; camps were formed on the shores of the ocean: the emperor had assembled there all the forces of his empire; and his troops forming them. selves under his inspection for operations altogether new, were preparing for new triumphs. England perceived the dangers with which she was menaced. She wished to obviate them by crimes. Assassins were thrown upon the coast of

France. The English ministers to neutral powers became the agents of a warfare, infamous as atrocious, of a warfare of conspiracies and assassinations.-The emperor saw into these pitiful conspiracies; he treated them with contempt, and was not thereby prevented from offering peace on the same terms which he had before proposed. So much generosity could not assuage, nay, seemed even to augment the frenzy of the cabinet of St. James's. Its answer shewed clearly that it would not think of peace, till the hope should be extinguished of deluging the continent with blood and carnage. But it was sensible, that to accomplish such a design, the association in its views of a power, by its position, almost as unconnected with the continental system as England, would not be sufficient; that not having any thing to expect from Prussia, whose sentiments were too well known, its expectation would be vain, as long as Austria should remain faithful to her neutrality.— Austria, which had twice experienced, at the end of two disastrous wars, at the time of the treaties of Campo-Formio and of Luneville, the generosity that France was dis posed to shew towards a vanquished enemy, did not by any means pay the same religious observance to treaties, as France. Notwithstanding the formal stipulations of these treaties, the debt of Venice was not discharged; it was even declared extinguished. The emperor was aware, that his subjects of Milan and Mantua experienced a denial of justice, and that the court of Vienna had liquidated none of their demands, in contempt of the solema engagements which it had entered into. He was aware that the com

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mercial relations of his kingdom of Italy with the hereditary states, were subject to obstructions, and that his subjects of France and Italy found in Austria a very different reception, from that which a state of peace gave them a right to expect. -In the distribution of the indemnities in Germany, Austria had been treated with a partiality that ought to crown all her wishes, and surpass even her expectations. Yet her conduct shewed, that she was far from being satisfied. She alternately employed arts and menaces to procure from the petty princes the cession of such possessions as suited her. Thus it was that she acquired Lindau on the lake of Constance, and the isle of Menau in the same lake, which placed in her hands one of the keys of Switzerland. She obtained the cession of Altkousen from the Teutonic order, which made her mistress of an important post, the port of Rhinau. She had enlarged her territory by a number of other acquisitions, and was meditating fresh ones. As a means of aggrandizement, she was not afraid to employ evident usurpations, which she sought to conceal under legal forms. Thus it was, that, under colour of a right paramount, (a right which she had renounced by a treaty) and the exercise of which was incompatible with the execution of the recess of the Germanic empire, she appropriated to herself some possessions, which she affected to consider in a state of disherison and without legal proprietors, though the recess had formally disposed of them towards the division of the indemnities. By these means she disappointed many princes of those possessions which it had been thought just to assign them, under pretence of this same

right paramount, which so far an garded the Swiss, she called the ri (d'incamération), she carried considerable sums from Switzerla She

sequestered the fiefs of a neig bouring prince in Bohemia, un pretence of compensations due the elector of Saltzburg, of whi contrary to every right, she claim to be sole arbitress. She persist with menaces, to keep recruiti parties in the Bavarian provine in Franconia and Suabia, and int rupted, by every means in her pa er, the conscription for the electaj army there, abusing the prerogati formerly granted to the head off German empire for the common nefit of the states composing it, now fallen into disuse. She revi them in order to interrupt the exe cise of their sovereignty by neighbouring princes, in those p sessions which fell to their lot in division, and to deprive them of t increase of influence in the die which ought to result from the possessions.-The recess of the c pire, a consequence and fullme of the treaty of Luneville, had fo its object, exclusive of the divisio of the indemnities, to establish, means of this distribution itself, the south of Germany, an equilibri. um, which might insure its depe dence, and to prevent those eventual causes of misunderstanding and war which an immediate contact between the territories of France and Austri might frequently give rise to. Such was the view of the mediators and of the German empire; such was the view of justice, of reason, and of a humane policy, and conform able to the true interests of Austria herself. Thus Austria reversed what the recess had so wisely established, when, by her acquisitions in Suabia,

she