force of the Social machine in oppofition to the violence of temptation and the influence of corruption. Every crime is an infringement of its rules. It is impoffible to conceive an act, injurious either to a community or an individual, which is not a violation of its principles. Under fuch a system the most abandoned characters meet, on all fides, with obftacles to the gratification of their depraved propenfities, and although it is impoffible for it to fupprefs fraud, perfidy, ambition, and injuftice, ftill it takes precautions to guard against their effects, and to check the evils, which cannot be entirely prevented. In proportion to the ftrength of this fyftem, and to the influence of the principles on which it is founded, virtue and happiness must prevail in the world; and it is from the decay of its authority, and the neglect of its rules, that flow those disorders, which embitter human life and disturb the general tranquillity. "If the monsters of the French Revolution had been under the controul of fuch a fyftem, they could never have exhibited fuch fhocking fpectacles of unexampled depravity. They would, doubtlefs, have been pefts to fociety; but they would have been deftitute of thofe means of boundless mifchief, by which they have been enabled infinitely to furpafs all the monfters of former times. Buonaparte himfelf might, perhaps, have paffed as an ordinary villain; or if, impelled by the matchlefs atrocity of his difpofition, he had exceeded the ufual bounds of wickedness, ftill he would have wanted an opportunity of fhewing what dreadful and aftonishing lengths of iniquity human nature can go, when releafed from thofe restraints, legal, moral, and religious, to which, in every preceding period of the world, mankind have, more or lefs, been fubject. "The Revolutionary fyftem, on the contrary, is a nursery of vice, a hot-bed of corruption. The foulest and most destructive crimes grow out of its principles, and are in conformity with its rules. It diffolves every reftraint upon human depravity. It prefents every temptation to human infirmity. It makes crime the only road to fuccefs, the only path to exaltation. Its means of attaining power are tumult, fedition, treafon, rebellion and regicide. Its means of preferving authority are oppreffion, tyranny, confifcation, judicial murder, war, and univerfal excitement to revolt. It calls into action whatever is corrupt or evildifpofed in fociety. By perfidious but fpecious promifes of liberty and happinefs, it unfettles the minds of men, it difturbs their feelings and their habits, and it feduces their affections from inftitutions which they have been accustomed to love and revere. It diffufes a fpirit of licen tioufnefs, it poifons the fountains of virtue, it withdraws from paffion its most powerful restraint, the profpect of a future state, and by thus corrupting the morals of mankind, it renders them an eafy prey to its deftructive fury. It gives a new, an indelible taint to the human heart, and a deeper dye to every fpecies of guilt. It renders difaffection more extenfive, faction more defperate, fedition more active, confpiracy more daring, treafon more malignant, and impiety more blaf phemous. In one word, this horrid fyftem exhibits, in practice, the extraordinary and awful phenomenon of a fet of men, invetted, by the ́ ́O. XXXI, VOL, VIII, C above above means, with the powers of government, and exercising thofe powers for the deftruction of all other governments; attacking the very foundations of all legitimate authority, and endeavouring to overturn the ancient edifice of fociety, in order to erect, upon its ruins, a far more extenfive and oppreffive defpotifm, than has ever yet existed upon the face of the earth. "But can it be true that fyftems, which in principle exhibit fo great a contraft, resemble each other in practice? Can the waters which flow from fuch different fountains be fimilar in quality? This would be ftrange, indeed! It would be contrary to the whole course of nature. It would, in effect, totally confound virtue and vice, and reduce the difference between them to a mere name. Such, however, is the paradox which the advocates of France would perfuade us to admit. Obliged, at length, to give up the purity and perfectibility of the new fyftem, and to acknowledge that, in fpite of all their predictions in its favour, it has not only failed to produce any improvement in the ftate of fociety, but has equalled, in depravity, whatever has gone before it; they now, as their laft refource, and in the hope of ftill prevailing on mankind to believe that its deftruction would not be productive of any advantage, contend that it has only imitated the example of former times; that it has difplayed nothing new in wickednefs, and that it has been guilty of no atrocity, which is not to be matched in the records of hiftory. "If this statement were true; if the deeds of Republican France did not exceed all example of iniquity; ftill the mode of reasoning here reforted to would be the most fallacious that was ever employed. That the history of the world abounds in crime, no perfon attempts to deny. That the perufal of that hiftory often fills the foul with horror, it is impoffible to difpute. That at the moment of fuch perufal the reader is apt, fometimes, to exclaim, can any thing worse have been done by Republican France! the experience of moft readers will confirm. But thefe crimes, which fo juftly excite the utmost indignation, form only a part, though a very confpicuous one, of the picture which history prefents to the view. That picture has its lights, as well as its fhades; it has its bright and cheering parts, as well as thofe which are difguftful and fhocking; it exhibits not only the horrors of war, but the bleffings of peace; it difplays the moft fplendid virtues, as well as the moft atrocious vices, while it holds forth fome characters which excite deteftation, it preferves others which infpire love, and even com. mand admiration; it will perpetuate the memory of an Antoninus Pius, and a George the Third, as well as of a Nero and a Caligula, of a Robespierre, a Marat, and a Buonaparte. How different the picture of Republican France! There nothing meets the eye but one uniform, unmixed scene of wickedness and crime ; -no light,-but only • darkness vifible,'-no interval of peace, -no paufe from the furious rage of defolating war, no virtue to relieve the horrid mass of impiety and vice; not a fingle action which can produce any fentiment but loathing; not a fingle character, amid the vaft Revolutionary group, which can excite any feeling but abhorrence." The The author pursues this contraft, and this strain of reasoning for feveral pages, and he closes with the very just remark, on the French Republic, that "her characteristic is a spirit of deftruction; her animating principle is a love of demolition." The imminent danger of concluding a peace with this enemy of the human race is placed in a strong point of view, and the arguments urged on the subject are fuch as muft produce conviction in every mind in which reason is not wholly blinded by prejudice, or principle utterly fubdued by intereft. The triumph of the Jacobins, on the conclufion of such a peace, is represented in high, but natural, colours. "This idea is fo transporting to them, that they fometimes chaunt their Iö Pæans by anticipation: thus Mr. Wakefield For myself, who have exulted in the fuccefs of the French, and the disgrace of their infolent and odious foes, with a keenness of transport not to be described, I have been long prepared to hail the triumphant entry of a Republican Reprefentative; and fhall exclaim, with equal fincerity and rapture, • Dicite Iö Pæan et Iö bis dicitę Paan. Oh! may I live to hail that glorious day, And fing loud Paans through the crouded way.' "The fame writer thus bears teftimony to the deleterious influence which the neighbourhood of the French Republic would have on the British character and manners- "The neighbouring influence of the French Republic; not her arms, but the filent and tranquil operation of her principles, on our character, our manners, and our policy; an imperceptible, efficacious energy! which nothing can preclude, nothing can counteract, and nothing eventually refift. See a Reply to the Letter of Edmund Burke, Efq. by Gilbert Wakefield, B. A.” And speaking of the "Imperishable feed" fown by the advocates for the Rights of Man, he adds; "The modern philofophers do not defpair because the success of their labours is poftponed, or because the most zealous patrons of their caufe frequently become its martyrs. Of this we are affured, by Mr. Southey, in the following lines: The damning guilt Of Briffot murdered, and the blameless wife Shall pitch their tents in peace.' JOAN OF ARC." C 2 The The character of Buonaparte is ably drawn. We recom mend it, moft earneftly, to the serious contemplation of the liberal and candid men of the age; of those moderate and indulgent gentlemen who would fain exclude from our vocabulary, the unpolite expreffions, Atheist, Deift, Villain, Hypocrite, Thief, Adulterer, Affaffin, cum multis aliis, ejufdem generis; who would hear, with wonderful complacence, the Saviour of the world blafphemed, but would evince the utmoft indignation, if a French Conful were termed a murderer; an American Prefident, a rebel; or an English Patriot, a traitor. Mr. B. demonftrates, from the declarations and the conduct of this revolutionary fiend, that he is ftill, what we have invariably reprefented him to be, a rank, determined, Jacobin. We lament, extremely, the narrowness of our limits which prevents us from giving the whole of this character, which, in the prefent fpirit and temper of the times, ought to be univerfally known, and studied; fome of its leading features, however, we muft lay before our readers, who will fee that the author's fentiments refpecting the panegyric which Mr. Sheridan had the effrontery to pronounce, in the House of Commons, on the revolutionary Hero of France, are perfectly conformable with those which we have invariably declared, whenever the subject has prefented itfelf to our notice. "Incredible as it may feem, there are politicians, whose faith in fuch extravagant reveries would induce them to leave this ambitious tyrant, this confummate hypocrite, in poffeffion of almost one half of Europe, rather than continue a war which, from its commencement, has been attended with a progreffive increase of national security and though he has hitherto disappointed the hopes they entertained of seeing him, like Monk, the champion of royalty, still they are unwilling to doubt of his converfion; or thinking, perhaps, that when he played the Jacobin, he played the hypocrite, they now expect him to blaze out in the character of a great and beneficent Potentate, and, instead of abufing his immense power, to cultivate the arts of peace, to maintain the general tranquillity, and to feek only to make his fubjects happy, and his empire flourishing. Thus an honourable Senator, in the excess of tranfport with which the victory of Marengo infpired him, is reported to have put it to the feelings of every member of the houfe,' (which he addreffed) 'whether every one action of Buonaparte, fince the overtures which he had made in the prefent year, had not tended to raise him in the eftimation of every candid man.' And the fame Senator is further reported to have expreffed a hope that this magnanimous person, though a kind of felf-appointed Dictator, would exercife his power in bringing about the liberty of France.' "Whether the Jacobiniím of Buonaparte be real or pretended, it is pure, genuine Jacobinifm, which is here attributed to a British Senator. For what elfe is it to promote the caufe of anarchy and oppreffion, by a proftitution of the name of liberty? But who, that had had not lived in thefe degenerate days, could believe it poffible for fuck base adulation to be offered, in the prefence of a British parliament, to the most deteftable mifcreant, by whom the vengeance of Heaven has ever punished the fins of mankind? Who could believe it poffible for a British oppofition to be fo loft to every feeling of virtue, patriotism and decency, as to kiss the feet of fuch a wretch, in veneration for his triumphs over the Allies of their country? But although it is now demonftrated by experience, that faction is capable of degrading even Britons to fuch aftonishing depths of infamy, ftill every one who is not factious will rather expect the Ethiopean to change his fkin, and the Leopard his fpots, than Buonaparte ever to be any thing else than a scourge to humanity. Although a Member of Oppofition may confider the battle of Marengo, because it seems to fix an Ufurper in his feat, and to preserve his Republic from the dangers which before impended over it, as a full atonement for his crimes, both in Italy and Egypt, for his numberless murders, for his wanton maffacres, and for his matchless impieties, ftill every heart, in which the moral fenfe is not quite extinct, will but abhor the more fuch a prodigy of guilt, fuch a moniter of cruelty, perfidy and blafphemy, on account of every fuccefs he may obtain in that cause, in which all his paft atrocities have been perpetrated. The very perfons who now idolize this military buccaneer on account of the splendour and importance of his victories, have been accustomed to exclaim against thofe conquerors who are renowned in hiftory for having, to gratify their ambition, invaded the peace of countries which had done them no injury, feized upon territories to which they had no right, and deluged the earth with blood. The cenfure of fuch exploits is certainly juft; and it is fraught with an useful admonition. Mankind have always been too apt to be dazzled by fuccefs, and, in admiration of the triumphs, to forget the crimes of the Alexanders and the Cæfars, who have difturbed the peace of the world. But how comes it to pass that the moral philofophers who judge fo rightly of former times, and who fee in the heroes of antiquity but fo many robbers and murderers, are loft in admiration of Buonaparte, because they think (with Mr. Sheridan) that he has diftanced every military exploit in modern times, and achieved what never has been attempted from the days of Hannibal to the prefent period." "This inconfiftency is the more ftriking, because, admitting, for the fake of argument, that there is no exaggeration in the above statement, although in the judgment of military men the person therein defcribed is but a rafh and defperate adventurer; admitting that a General, fhamefully driven, with his beft troops, from a place not defenfible according to the rules of art, by a naval officer, at the head of a few feamen, and of a garrifon of undisciplined Turks, that fuch a General may vie with a Marlborough or a Suwarrow; admit ting that Buonaparte was raised to the highest pitch of military fame by the battle of Marengo, in which battle, however, he was cer See Sir Sidney Smith's Letter to Evan Nepean, Efq. dated the Tiger off Jaffa, June 19, 1799. C 3 tainly |