tion. This it was clear might, in the lapse of a very short space, be disavowed and broken by any party that ousted them that made it, and succeeded to their power, on the pretext of their having made a treaty contrary to the sense and interest of the nation.

Though the same apprehensions were not explicitly acknowledged by the other members of the coalition, they were not without them. Necessity alone had compelled them to negociate with France. It was only when they were brought to the brink of destruction, that Spain and Austria consented to treat. Never otherwise would these two courts have entered into any forms of accommodation with a people that had put their sovereign to death upon a scaffold.

Nor did any more confidence exist in the governors of the French republic, respecting the good faith of the coalesced princes. The motive for their taking up arms was undeniably to revenge the death of a fellow sovereign, and, by restoring royalty in France, to secure it in their own dominions. Hence the republicans were intimately persuaded, that while the European princes retained the power, they would infallibly retain the will to destroy them: no treaties would stand in the way of this determination, which would be executed the moment they could be violated with any prospect of safety and

success.

Such being the real case between the sovereigns of Europe, and the heads of the French republic, little, or rather no, sincerity could be expected in their mutual assurances of pacific inclinations. The mass of the people, both in France and

elsewhere, labouring under the calamities of war, were almost regardless under what government they lived, provided peace were restored. But, as the wishes of the public are usually of not much weight in the councils of those who govern them, the termination of the war seemed as far remote as ever.

The power of that party in France, which was averse to peace, and determined to follow up the success of the republican arms, by the entire overthrow of all princes, had been so decisively fixed by the events of September, 1797, that, since that epocha, it had ruled with irresistible sway, and had confirmed all politicians in the persuasion, daily gaining ground, that either the French republic must be destroyed, or all Europe revolutionized.

The firmest obstacle to this last event, was, at the same time, looked for in France itself. The people there had now ample proofs before them, that their sovereignty was an illu sion. Their representatives had not been able to assert the rights of the public, nor to secure the freedom of their own persons. Both had been trampled on by the executive power, aided by the military. Thus the sole difference between the late and the present government, was, that in the former the supreme power had been lodged in the hands of a single person, and that in the latter it was in the hands of five.

This was manifestly an invasion of the republican constitution, the essence of which consisted in the supremacy of the people, exercised by the medium of those whom they elected for that purpose. The violation of their deputies was an act of high treason against the common

wealth;

wealth; and while unpunished, the boasted liberty of France had no existence, and was an imposition upon the credulity of the nation. It was, in fact, the worst of oligarchies, from the narrowness of its confinement, the extent of the powers it assumed, and the severity with which it exercised them.

These complaints were very general, and the more dangerous for being well-founded. They produced the effect of rendering the directory extremely circumspect in the use of its authority, and of carrying it no further than absolutely requisite for the securing themselves and their adherents from the attempts of their antagonists, numbers of whom were justly suspected of being royalists, under the name of republicans, and of aiming to subvert the directorial power, in order to re-establish that of the

crown.

The party that adhered to the directory could not deny that it had been guilty of excessive stretches of authority upon several occasions: but still they asserted, that though unconstitutional they were not unjustifiable: the republic could not, without them, have been preserved; and had it fallen, the ancient des potism would, unavoidably, have returned. The complaints against the present system proceeded solely from those who sought to overturn it, and to bring back the former. It had, doubtless, its flaws and imperfections; but the disorders and confusions that had accompanied it, originated in its enemies. It was, obviously, much better calculated than monarchy, to promote, equally, the well-being of the people at large. Every man of industry and talents could rise as high as they

would carry him, without meet ing with obstructions from pride or prejudice. Every citizen could, in time, become director; every soldier a general. Courage, capacity, and public services, were now the only road to popular favour, and the most honourable and exalted stations. Would any honest man assert they were the same under the monarchy? The first duty of government was to promote activity and emulation: this the present system did far beyond the monarchy, which held out great honours and rewards only to privileged classes, and thereby extin guished in all others, that hope of adequate remuneration, which is the most powerful incentive to great actions.

The directory, they granted, behaved like men who knew that their lives were forfeited, should the monarchy be restored: but this was a fortunate circumstance for the republic, of which, from that motive, they must necessarily prove the most vigorous and the most faithful defenders. They were, there fore, the more deserving of trust for that reason; and instead of blaming them for the strong measures to which they sometimes had recourse, it were only doing them justice, to believe that they took none that were not warranted by the most pressing necessity.

True it was that the French go vernment entertained spies and emissaries in foreign countries, and that these were commissioned to pro cure adherents to republicanism, and well-wishers to France. But with how ill a grace did the ene mies to the republic impute this as a crime to its rulers? Was not France full of royal agents, who

strove,

strove, indefatigably, to excite the people against the established government?

France had been accused of stripping every country of its contents without moderation or mercy: but it remained to be proved, that its enemies, if victorious, would not have treated it in the same manner, if not a worse. If their threats were a proof of their intentions, and these were usually more to be dreaded than menaces, the condition of France, if conquered, would have been woeful indeed. The enemies of the republic ought to recollect with what inveteracy and virulence they expressed themselves in whatever related to its defenders, and to the foes of monarchy. These had every inducement to be persuaded, that they would have experienced unbounded severity, had the fortune of war declared for the coalition. The barbarous usage of these Frenchmen who, though revolutionists, had espoused the cause of royalty, and made it a part of the constitution, shewed without the admission of any doubt, what the fate of the republican chiefs themselves must have proved, had they fallen into the same hands.

Amidst these continual recriminations, so violently pointed at each other by the French and their numerous enemies, they both equally persisted in every hostile plan they could reciprocally frame. As all confidence was departed from the mutual intercourse which was occasionally necessary between them, little prospect remained of its ever conducing to the general advantage. So rootedly was the directory convinced of the fixed determination of foreign powers to circumvent them, that, while the strongest

propositions of pacific propensities were held upon each side, they still continued the arrangement and the execution of hostile schemes. Thus it was that, regardless of the negociations proposed and accepted between the empire and the republic, and which were viewed by many as preliminary to a general pacification, the French took that very opportunity to execute their projects in Switzerland and Italy.

Exclusive of these, and the many others already accomplished, others still of much greater magnitude were ascribed to the French government at this time. Ever since the conclusion of peace with Spain, the republican ministers at the Spanish court had been employed in paving the way for the introduction of ma terial changes in that country. Partizans to the system established in France were sought and procured in the highest ranks: some were acquired through argument and persuasion, and some, it was said, were purchased. The task of winning over the inferior classes, was conmitted to those numbers of itinerant Frenchmen, who have, time out of mind, been used to travel in every part of Spain, as mechanics and artificers of every denomination. Some of the best officers in the French service had been employed in Spain, during the late war, and were perfectly acquainted with the localities of that country. The inhab tants were much altered in their character; and, since the accession of the present monarch to the throne, had lost, in a great measure, that attachment to their sovereigns, for which they had been as much noted as. any people in Europe. They too hegan to cast a critical and censarious eye upon the nobility and

the

the clergy, and to reason upon the expediency of reforms in both these orders of men, whose immense riches were looked upon with an eye of avidity by the less scrupulous, and not without discontent by the most moderate, as bearing too much disproportion in the general scale of property. The wealth of the clergy, of the monastic orders particularly, excited great murmurs in the labouring and industrious, and indeed in all the other classes of the community. These dispositions, in former days unknown, and but lately apparent, were fomented, with all care, by the emissaries of France, and were daily increasing, to the serious alarm of the friends to the long-standing system in church and state. The internal situation of Spain, in other respects, offered no consolation to these. The inactivity of immense multitudes, either from want of employment, or native in dolence, the discontent of the middling sort, from the stagnation of business, were objects of a dangerous nature, and the more to be dreaded that they appeared without remedy. It was not, therefore, without foundation, that the republicans en tertained some hopes of extending their tenets into Spain, and of reaping the fruits of them sooner than Europe was aware. The Italians, they alleged, were not less devoted to priestly influence than the Spaniards, and yet they had thrown it off, or been taught greatly to disregard it. This was a precedent strongly militating for an attempt to carry the same ideas into Spain, that were now so widely spread throughout Italy. The alliance with the Spanish monarch did not form the least obstacle to the designs of France. Were they to succeed, the,

Spaniards, his own subjects, would be the ostensible instruments employed in their execution; and to them would be committed the charge of disposing properly of their own sovereign. It might be objected, that the majority of the Spanish nation would not coincide with such measures: but activity and resolution were the great and successful agents in all cases of this nature: and herein it was that the republicans and jacobins, for they were synonimous terms, exceeded all others: whatever they had undertaken they had performed, wherever it had been practicable. Though, apparently, in a state of depression, their spirit could not be kept under; their enterprising disposition was still alive; their friends subsisted, and acted under another name and other pretences; the rulers of the French republic were jacobins, and their principles reigned triumphant in all the staunch adherents to republicanism, which was, in fact, founded upon them, though not upon the violence and outrageousness that had characterised its origi nal champions in France. Such were the speculations of many of the French jacobins.

Warned by the fate that had attended so many of these, and by the general odium which their conduct had drawn upon their party, they were become more circumspect, but not less daring. They had renounced the atrocious maxims that had rendered them objects of execration, and only retained that audacity and promptitude in execution which gave them such advantages over their antagonists. Hence, they were, in reality, more likely to succeed in their undertakings, than while governed by that impetuous

ferocity

ferocity which impelled them to the shedding of so much blood, and united all parties against them.

Relying upon the strength to which they fondly hoped the jacobinical party would gradually arise in Spain, their instigators and associates in France had formed sanguine expectations, that the day might come when they would triumph at Madrid as they themselves had done at Paris. But were they not to find themselves in sufficient force to carry so arduous a point, pretexts might, with facility, be found to come to their assistance. The difference yet unsettled between Portug and the republic, would afford occasion for the demand of a passage through Spain to a French army: this obtained, and it could not well be refused, both Spain and Portugal would fall by the same blow; unless it should be supposed, that a remnant of the spirit that once animated these two nations should rouze them from their degeneracy, and excite them to oppose this attempt upon their independence. But this was improbable, considering the number of the disaffected whom the French would find in both these kingdoms, especially the first, and of whose cooperation they were secure.

Were this mighty project to be effected, and the French did not despair of effecting it, the most difficult task would be performed, of the many that were necessary to prepare the way for the final object, the invasion of England. This most formidable of all their rivals would then be reduced to the necessity of standing single and unsupported by any foreign connection, either military or commercial; and France would have the, comVOL. XL.

mand of the riches of Spain and Portugal; this latter, the main source of the English trade and opulence in Europe.

Such were what the French looked upon as rational plans and expectations; but what considerate people were, in general, agreed to regard as the reveries of men inflated with success, and vainenough to imagine that their good fortune would never forsake them. Some of the shrewdest politicians of the time attributed their success much more to the disunion and misconduct of their enemies, than to their own superior prowess or prudence. The constant error of the powers at war with them was, they said, to lend themselves to treaties and negociations, while they ought never to have laid down their arms, and to have run every risk sooner than have desisted from the contest. But, in the opinion of others, these treaties were the work of inevitable necessity, and that those who made them had no other way to save themselves from impending ruin. After Prussia had abandoned the coalition, and Spain was reduced to sue for peace, France stood on the vantage ground, and the chances were clearly, that no impression could be made on the French at that time. Through their policy, they had disunited their enemies : and, allowing valour and military skill to have been equal on both sides, which was no more than a reasonable concession, still theevents of war being in their favour, it would have suited the interests of Europe to induce them, by means of a peace, to return to the occapations of civil life, much more than, by continuing the contest, to compel them to give themselves up

[H]

entirely