truth, and took good care not to commit | themselves in an unequal contest. It did not escape their observation, that, to carry on a long war, it was necessary that it should press lightly upon the people who had to support it. Within the last twelve months, the war has cost England more blood than she had previously shed from the period when she broke the peace of Amiens: committed in the battles of Spain and Portugal, whence her duty and her interest forbid her to recede, she will see those countries become the tomb of her bravest warriors. Sorrow for their loss will at length produce in the minds of the English people a well-founded abhorrence of those cruel men, whose ambition and frantic hatred dared to pronounce the expression of eternal war. It will excite in that people the wish for a general peace, which every man of good sense may predict to be near at hand, if the English persist in a continental contest.-I am with respect, &c.

The Minister at War,

COUNT DE HUNNEBURCH.

Report of the Motives of the Projet of the Senatus Consultum, relative to a Levy of 36,000 Conscripts, on the classes of 1806, 1807, 1805, 1809, and 1810, by the Count de Cessac, Orator of the Council of State.

This Report, after many adulations on the genius of the Emperor and King, and a high-coloured panegyric on the loyalty and exertions of the French nation, proceeds to explain the causes of the levy:"The enemies of France," says the Orator, "observing that we levied the classes of 1809, and 1810, before the period in which they were to be called into action, thought, without doubt, that we had recourse to that mode, because none of the resources of former years were left to us. How great was their mistake! If the French Government had adopted that line of conduct, it was because it could never be brought to think that the English Government had determined to wage perpetual war with France; it was because it could never be brought to think that the Austrian Government, to which peace was so important, so necessary that that Go-' vernment, to which a liberal and unexpected peace had been granted, had a right to cope again with the French armies, directed by Napoleon the Great, and electrified by his presence. Emperor, therefore, calculating upon a

Our

speedy and long peace, was willing to divide the weight of the war among several classes, in order that it might press the lighter upon each of them. He was also desirous that the French, who constituted these two classes, and who, according to the proper estimate of public duties, might have been deprived of their share of military glory, should be furnished with an opportunity of acquiring it. Disappointed in his first expectations, the Emperor had recourse to those supplies of men which he had, from principles of prudence, left in reserve. Twice did he apply for succours, and twice were the contingents which he deemed necessary furnished with rapidity. Our moderation had thrown a veil over our strength, but our moderation is desirous now of manifesting our strength. Let us put an end to an error so fatal to our enemies, and which may become still more disastrous to them! When they shall be well acquainted with our resources, they will, no doubt, be convinced that a frank and solid peace is the only part, the only post in which they can find safety. It belongs to weak governments their weakness, and the exaggerations of to seek for security in the concealment of their strength. It is the duty of France to make known to her friends and enemies her true situation; that situation is such as to inspire the former with more energy, and to warn the latter, that, in taking up arms, they must expose themselves to certain loss. The following, Senators, is the precise state of the conscriptional force of France, and I can pledge myself for its accuracy: The class of 1806 consisted of 423,000, according to the lists of conscription.

That class comprising 15 months 423,000 That of 1807

1808

1809

1810

Total

352,000

session of all the naval ports and means of continental Europe; we see him with all the facilities of doubling in a year the amount of his navy, already large; we see him, in this last act of pacification, not forgetting his war with us, and his means of assailing us; and, what is of more consequence than all the rest put together, we see, in our government, those qualities which he has met with in, the governments, which he has overturned and annihilated, and moreover, while we see, in our rulers, the same pertinacious adherence to that of which the great mass of people so justly complain, we see, amongst too many of ourselves, that coldness, that listlessness, that indifference, that want of public spirit, which of all symptoms is the most alarming, because it denotes, that there is wanting the only thing by which a nation can finally be saved. Much of big talk have you, Gentlemen, lately heard from the Curtises and the Dixons and the Jackses; much about a contrast between this nation and the fallen nations of the continent of Europe; but, I do beseech you to bear in mind, that there is not one; no, not one; not any single nation or state amongst them, which has not, in its turn, been the object of the praises, of the applause and admiration of these your city courtiers; these your smooth-tongued placehunters. Every one of these fallen nations has, first or last, been the ally of England; all their rulers have, in their turn, been praised for their wisdom and their piety; their kings have all been ardently beloved by their people, and their queens have all been amiable and virtuous; their people have all been devoted to their "holy "altars," have been full of " loyalty," and have mortally hated the French. Is not this so? Have you not been told this? Has not this been dinned in your ears even to the danger of stunning? Yet, all these nations have fallen before the conqueror; all these nations with their pious kings, amiable and virtuous queens, wise governments, and people happy, contented, religious, loyal and hating the French, have all, one after another, yielded to those same French, who have not only beaten them in the field, but have revolutionized their governments, and, in most cases, have furnished them with new sovereigns. Well, then, what becomes of this contrast, so fashionable with your city orators? They tell you, for instance, of what Holland is now; but, they do not remind you of what they told you about Holland before it was subdued

by France. In short, this is the truth of the matter: such as they describe England to you now, they have, each in its turn, described those nations to be, which they now bid you look at as objects of triumphant comparison; whereas, if they wished you to derive any benefit from their observations, they would bid you beware, for that all those nations, who, but a little while ago, were, according to their ac count, what England now is, have now been subdued by the enemy of England.

Folly and wickedness, which are, generally in the end, their own chastisers, do, nevertheless, sometimes derive benefit, or, at least, temporary impunity, from their long continuance. So has it happened with respect to the folly and the wickedness of those, who at the end of a seventeen year's contest for "security," have brought us into a situation, in which we not only are not secure, but in which we have not left the smallest chance of seeing security provided for the times of our children. This contest has continued so long, and so numerous have been the follies and the acts of wickedness, on the part of those who have had a principal share in it, that the public, weary with attempting to preserve a recollection of them, content themselves with a retrospect of a few months, the catalogue for which time is, indeed, quite sufficient to occupy any ordinary mind.

Were it not for this circumstance, it surely would be unnecessary for me to remind the Citizens of London of the share which they have had in causing all those measures to be adopted, which have most powerfully contributed towards the bringing of us into our present disgraceful state, and the still-operating effect of which measures will, like that of a fever in its last stages, press daily upon the vitals of the nation with accelerated force. There was no folly, no egregious folly, nor any vice, in the undertaking or the conducting of this contest, in which you did not eminently share. To you, from long habit, the other parts of the kingdom locked for example; and, instead of giving them an example of wariness in listening to the insinuations of an artful minister, or his minions, you gave them an example of seemingly wilful cullibility. In short, you became, and continued, the mere puppets in the hands of the minister of the day. You sauctioned all he did; you joined him in all his undertakings; you hissed or you clapped as he commanded.

You shouted for joy when he bade you shout; and you wept, or affected to weep, when he bade your tears flow. No pump, no anvil, no bit of dough or of dirt, was ever more completely at the command of the possessor, than you were at the command of the minister and his underlings; and, it was reserved for this reign, in honour of which we have just witnessed a Jubilee, and for the "blessings" of which there are men to be found to "thank God," and apparently, without dreading any chastisement; this reign, which will be distinguished, in the history of England (if England shall hereafter have a history), by its calamities and its disgraces, civil as well as military; it wast reserved for this reign to see the Citizens of London, distinguished in all former times for their good sense, and par ticularly for their firmness in resisting acts of oppression; yes, it was reserved for this reign to see the Citizens of London not only become the dull and stupid tools of a minister in giving currency to all his doctrines relative to war and peace, but to suffer him to assault the liberties of the country, to see, in silence, the suspension of laws made for the protection of the people, and other laws passed creating new political offences, and, to your everJasting shame be it recorded, you openly applauded the persecution of those few Englishmen, who had the courage to make a stand in the cause of that freedom, to preserve which for you your fathers had fought and bled. To you this nation has a right to look for no small part of all its losses of every sort. Against your voice the fatal measures never could have been adopted; nor, indeed, could they have been adopted without your approbation actively given. You might have prevented all those measures; and, therefore, I repeat, that to you the nation has a right to look as to the authors, or, at least, the joint authors, of all that it now suffers, and all that reason bids it anticipate. If the Citizens of London had acted with only common spirit, is it to be believed, that things would have come to their pass? But, such has been their tameness, nay, their cowardice, that, at last (until very lately) they have become an object of so much contempt, that the minister of the day appears to have doubted, whether they were worth using any longer; and, upon two or three occasions, the offer of their services seemed to be scarcely accepted of. I am aware, that it has, in

your defence, been urged, that the City of London is not what it formerly was;that the merchants and tradesmen, properly so called, have, in consequence of the increase of the government debt and the Pitt-system of banking, and especially by the erection of a new power in the East India Company, been, in a great measure, put aside, and that the persons now calling themselves "The City of London," are a set of contractors, brokers, jews, jobbers, nabobs, and seat-dealers, the interest of every wretch of whom it is to create and support pretences for expending the public money, and to prevent, by all means, and at any risk to the national welfare, every one guilty of any act of publicrobbery, great or small; -that, such is the influence, and, indeed, the direct power, of this numerous swarm of keen and indefatigable enemies of the country, that all attempt at resistance is vain ;and that, seeing that it was from these wretches that proceeded all the support that was given to the measures that have produced our present danger, the Citizens of London are not without discrimination to be blamed.

To this I answer, that, if the persons to be influenced, or domineered over, were few in number, it would not be, with me, a matter of much surprise, that the real voice of the City should be stifled. But, when it is well known, that the Livery of London consist of, at least, from ten to twelve thousand, is not the City of London, without any discrimination, to be charged with the principles of Curtis, Shaw, Birch, and the like? It is in vain to talk; for, if ten thousand of the principal people in the City can be influenced, the blame lies upon the people of the City much more than upon those by whom they are influenced. As if, however, this were not enough, whereon to convict the Citizens of London of having been the cause of their country's ruin, there is, annually, an opportunity for them to express their sentiments, in a manner, which, if they do not express them with effect, leaves them no excuse whatever. I allude to the election of persons to represent them in Common Council, and, in which election every Citizen householder has a voice. Here, then, we have every man to vote, who, upon any occasion, ought ever to be permitted to vote. These Citizen Householders amount, perhaps, to a hundred thousand in number; and, therefore, if influence can prevail here, the mass is too corrupt ever to be cured.