though its last and consummating act of villainy, the usurpation of Spain, had not then been perpetrated, was already more atrocious than that of any chieftain who had ever before ruled over a civilized people. On this ground we should take our stand, and openly proclaim to France, and to all Europe, that England never will, on any terms, make peace with Napoleon Buonaparte. It cannot be done with honour, it cannot be done with safety. What would be said of the merchant who should hazard his whole property in engagements with a man notoriously dishonest, but that he deserved the ruin that would befal him? Switzerland, Prussia, and Tuscany, have shown what are the consequences of French friendship. Looking at the question, with reference to our national honour, (and in this point we ought always to behold it,) the argument against treating with Napoleon Buonaparte becomes yet more forcible. The private, personal murders which he has committed, stamp him with a peculiar and individual guilt, which distinguishes him from the other scour ges of mankind, whose pleasure, like his, has been in conquest. That of the Duc d'Enghein, it belonged to the Bourbons, to Germany, and Rus

sia, to avenge. For Pichegru and Villeneuve, it was the business of France to take vengeance. But the murder of Palm was an offence committed against all states and people, against all principles of law and justice and social order; it was an act by which he outlawed himself in human society, and, from the hour in which it was committed, he was under the ban of human nature. There is also one crime committed peculiarly against England, which should for ever preclude the possibility of treating with its perpetrator; the murder of captain Wright, an English officer, put to death in prison. That captain Wright was murdered, no inquest or jury of Englishmen would hesitate to pronounce, from the evidence before them, furnished, as it is, wholly by his murderers. For the sake of the living, as well as the dead, it behoved us to take cognizance of this foul deed; and any minister who should have advised his majesty never to enter into any treaty with the tyrant who committed it, would have received the support of the whole British people. Well had it been for us, if, from the beginning of this war, we had at all times studiously distinguished between the French nation and its ru

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war; that our revenue depended upon our commerce, and that commerce being interdicted as it was by the decrees of Buonaparte, and our own orders in council, the very means of war must fail us. This had a startling sound to those who did not know, that, of the eighty millions collected from the public in the preceding year, the proportion yielded by the customs was less than a sixth part. But if it is easy to persuade the people of England that the country is ruined, they are still more easily persuaded to believe that it is prosperous. Ten years ago, the flourishing state of commerce was the triumphant answer to all who predicted evil from the former war; now, a book was published to shew, that our riches, prosperity, and power, are derived from sources inherent in ourselves, and would not be affected even though our commerce were annihilated; and this doctrine, in its turn, was eagerly received. Mr Spence, the author of the work in question, adopting the principles of the French economists, brought them forward at a time when it suited the comfort of the English to believe them; and his arguments were repeated and enforced by Cobbett, the most popular of our political journalists, who, having been the foremost and loudest bloodhound in the anti-jacobin pack, had now turned with the same rabid ferocity against the very persons whose hands he had formerly licked, and who had hallooed him on. This demagogue, who, treating all subjects with the same confidence, whether he understands them or not, dashes forward, right or wrong, seldom failing, even when most erroneous, to exhibit proofs of a vigorous and fearless mind, eagerly em

ler; stating to France, and to Europe, our readiness to treat with the former under any other head, and our solemn resolution never to negociate with Buonaparte, because it was abundantly proved, that no trust could be placed upon a man who sets all laws human and divine at defiance, and from whom his friends and allies are in as much danger as his enemies. The people at large knew this to be the case; and when they heard of mediations and negociations, their only fear was, that we might be duped again into a treacherous truce; provided, therefore, the pacific overtures of the enemy were rejected, they cared not what formality was made the plea. The manliest way of answering such overtures would have been the best; but an English ministry has to consider, not merely what measures are best in themselves, but what are most defensible against their domestic enemy, the opposition; and the constitution of our cabinet, whatever may be its advantages, is little favourable to a vigorous and decided system of policy. Among those who considered the question of war and peace, with reference only to the mere meaning of words, blind equally to the consequences of the one, and the causes of the other, Mr Roscoe's pamphlets were eagerly received, and the authority of so excellent and celebrated a man was triumphantly quoted in support of their opinion. But these pamphlets produced no other effect; they persuaded no person; no talents could give even the appearance of strength to a cause so feeble. There was, however, another ground taken by the peaceparty: they maintained, that it would soon be impossible to carry on the

braced the doctrine of the Economists, because it was convenient for his immediate purpose, and agreed with his rooted and rancorous hatred of America. These principles were thus made a common topic of discourse, and they met with no inconsiderable success, because they were far more reasonable than the proposition, that our strength, and power, and safety, were built upon such a foundation of sand. There were also many persons who considered a timely check to the manufacturing system, as salutary to the state, because that system was poisoning the health and morals, and wasting the pópulation of the country.

But if there was no cause of fear in pursuing this inevitable and interminable war, the manner in which it was pursued was such as to preclude all hope. Every administration, this like the last, and the last like that before it, all alike treading the same sheep-track of fatuity, proceeded without system; setting sail before the wind from whichever quarter it chanced to blow, they steered a driftless course, being directed by circumstances instead of directing them. The same tardiness, the same indecision, the same half-measures, the same waste of men and money in nugatory expeditions, characterized them all. That they should not have made the wisdom of past ages their own, mournful as it is, is not to be wondered at, so little is this attempted in our routine of education, and so little leisure is left for it in the fatigues of political warfare. But even from the history of their own times

they derived no instruction. Experience seemed to avail them nothing. At the end of fifteen years, years so pregnant with momentous events, England was carrying on the war, with a better cause indeed (for which God be praised) than at the beginning, but still upon the same shortsighted views, or rather with no other views than such as the chance and changes of the hour presented. While we were acting in alliance with the continental powers, our cooperation with them, so far as we cooperated at all, was necessarily guided by their wishes; the mighty strength which we possess in armies and navies was never put forth; and the still mightier force of principle, which, as a free people, we are entitled to exert, never could be brought into action in such co-operation. We were now left to ourselves, not merely with undiminished power, but with power which had grown to the measure of the occasion; never more equal to the enemy than when we felt and acknowledged him to be mightiest, looking steadily at the danger, and knowing our ability to meet it. Yet now, when it became us everywhere to appear, as in reality we were, the only supporters of morals, intellect, and freedom, against the barbarian who aims at the destruction of all, we were still consulting the pleasure of corrupt courts, in opposition to the wishes and the welfare of their subjects; and to the detriment of our own honour as well as interest, still squandering our resources in idle attempts at propping up old governments, whose hour

must come, and which have already cumbered the earth too long. Our path of policy should have been plain. The struggle between the old and new despotisms had been long and obstinate; that struggle was now decided; and its event had proved that the Corsican was not to be overthrown by corrupt courts and effete dynasties. Nothing but the force of good principles, loudly proclaimed and steadily pursued, will successfully oppose a power so gigantic, founded upon evil, supported by evil, and steadily and strenuously pursuing evil as its only good. The continent was, indeed, his for the present. But the seas are ours, and so should the islands be; it is

our business to regenerate Sicily and the Grecian isles, establishing every where such free constitutions, as are suitable to the habits and wishes of the people. Wherever we went, liberty and righteous laws should go with us; commerce and prosperity would follow in their train. The example would reach the continent; the flame would spread through Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany; so would the war become, what it is our fault and folly that we have not, long ere this, reduced it to, a struggle between the principles of good and evil; and God would be with us, manifesting himself in the heart of man.

On the twenty-first of January parliament was opened by commission, and the king's speech read. In this it was stated, that no sooner had the negociations at Tilsit confirmed the influence and controul of France over the powers of the continent, than his majesty was apprized of the enemy's intention to combine those powers in one general confederacy against Great Britain; that, for this purpose, states, which had hitherto been allowed to maintain or purchase their neutrality, were to be forced into hostility against us, and the whole naval force of Europe, the fleets of Portugal and Denmark in particular, brought to act against different points of these dominions. To place those fleets out of the power of such a confederacy, became, therefore, the indispensable duty of the king. In the execution of this duty it was with the deepest reluctance that he found himself compelled, after his earnest endeavours to open a negociation with the Danish government had failed, to resort to the extremity of force. But he had the greatest satisfaction in congratulating his parliament upon the success of this painful though necessary service. The course pursued towards Portugal was happily of a nature more congenial to his feelings. The timely and unreserved communication by

the court of Lisbon of the demands and designs of France, confirmed the truth of the advices which were received from other quarters. The fleet of Portugal was rescued from France, and was then employed in conveying to its American dominions the hopes and fortunes of the Portugueze monarchy. His majesty implored the protection of Divine Providence upon that enterprise, rejoicing in the preservation of a power so long the friend and ally of Great Britain, and in the prospect of its establishment in the new world, with augmented strength and splendour. The speech proceeded to state the hostile measures which had been taken by our late allies the Emperors of Russia and Austria, and the King of Prussia, measures for which a statement of imaginary wrongs and grievances had been made the plea by the former power, but for which the two latter had alleged no pretence of justification whatsoever, nor even assigned any distinct cause. That our attempts to make peace with Turkey had been frustrated. That the King of Sweden remained firm to his alliance; his majesty, therefore, entertained no doubt, that his parliament would feel with him, the sacredness of the duty imposed upon him, by the firmness and fidelity of this ally, and would