THE DANGERS OF THE COUNTRY. Sect. 1. We may be conquered by France. IN the revolutions which overthrow the power and the independency of nations, there is nothing more astonishing than the extreme improvidence which sometimes prepares their fall. Let us mark in the page of history the periods which immediately preceded the subjugation of Greece, by Philip and Alexander, the dreadful overthrow of Carthage, by Rome, and of Rome herself by the Barbarians, and we shall perceive that their fate was long very visibly approaching, that it might probably have been averted by vigour and prudence, but that the devoted nations strangely neglected the obvious means of self-preservation, till the opportunity of using them was lost. How deplorably does the age we live in abound with similar cases! Nations, however, like individuals, seem rarely if ever, to take warning from the fatal errors of each other. Such wisdom is indeed cheaply bought, but not so cheaply reduced into practice; for the measures of preventive prudence generally demand some renunciation of present ease, or apparent advantage. It is easy to see what timely sacrifices others should have made to avoid impending ruin, It is not so easy to make those necessary sacrifices ourselves. Besides, there seems to be an unaccountable prejudice, a sense of inextinguishable vitality, in the Body politic as well as natural, which cheats us into a persuasion, that whatever may have befallen others in similar circumstances, our own existence is secure. "All men think all men mortal but themselves." The same may be said of nations; and the delusion perhaps is still stronger with them, than with individuals. B It seems impossible upon any other principles than these, to account for the apathy of the British public at the present most tremendous crisis. The torrent of French ambition, has now washed away every mound that opposed it on the continent. We stand as on a little spot of elevated ground, surrounded with inundations; and while the waters are still rising on every side, and rapidly undermining our base, we look on with stupid indifference, or torpid inactivity, heedless of the means by which safety might be still attained. These strictures I hope are not now applicable to those with whom the government of the country is intrusted.-Measures are... probably preparing in the cabinet such as our perilous situation demands: but the people at large are not sufficiently awake to the tremendous evils which menace them, and the duties to which they are called. A sufficient proof of this might be found in the spirit of personal and party rivalship, which has abounded in our late parliamentary elections, and that exclusive attention which they excited throughout the country at large. Never in the present reign did the choice of a new parliament produce a greater number of obstinate contests, and never were important national questions less generally involved in the rivalship of contending candidates; yet when has the public mind been more closely intent on the concerns of a general election? It must have been obvious to every calm observer, that the combats of the hustings had more interest than the battles in Saxony, that the state of the poll was the subject of more anxiety than the advance of the Russians, and the subversions of thrones, events of less concern than the rejection of a favourite candidate. Could this disposition be resolved into a magnanimous contempt of danger, it might perhaps be deemed a feature of national character by no means of evil omen. The Spartans, on the eve of the battle of Thermopyla, were seen combing their long hair, and indulging in their usual amusements. But this construction of the public feelings, though complimentary, would not be just. The dangers of the country I fear have not been so much despised, as forgotten; and the patriotic emotions which the conjuncture ought to inspire, have been superseded by the nearer interest of borough or provincial politics. This, however, is by no means the only indication of popular insensibility to the present dangers of the country. Have pride, dissipation, or luxury, contracted in any degree their accustomed range, or are their votaries less intent than before on their favourite pleasures? Has the civil war of parties been suspended; or have we in earnest begun to make our peace with a chastising Providence, by religious and moral reformation? The nations of antiquity, while they possessed their freedom, that true source of patriotic feeling, were neither too gay to mourn, too luxurious to retrench, too factious to unite, nor too proud to repent and pray, in seasons of public danger. A situation like our own, at Sparta, at Athens, or at Rome, in their best days, would have been marked by gravity and mourning, by a suspension of civil feuds, by an emulation in every species of private sacrifice to the public service, and by such propitiations as their religion taught them to offer, to their offended gods. The most distant danger from a foreign enemy, united every Roman in a generous selfdevotion to the state. The rich remitted their exactions, the poor renounced their complaints; the patrician forgot his pride, the plebeian his factious discontent, the tribune his mob-importance, the senators their mutual discord. If the assault or defiance of an enemy found them in the heat of civil commotions, it in a moment put an end to the strife: If the people were drawn up by their demagogues on the Mons sacer, their citadel of sedition, they descended without delay to the Campus Martius, and crowded to be enrolled for the military service of their country. We admire this spirit; we perceive in it one great cause of the` long conservation of Roman freedom, and an essential basis of Roman greatness.-Yet what have Romans, Grecians, or any other people ancient or modern, had to attach them to their country, compared with the social blessings of these much favoured islands? The sun, in six thousand years, has beheld no human beings so happy in their civil condition as ourselves; has enlightened no land which its inhabitants had so vast an interest in defending as Great Britain. Whence then that indifference, that strange defect at least of patriotic zeal and exertion, which marks this arduous crisis? It cannot be the effect of a rational confidence in our security, for who is there now that does not admit the country to be in danger? The absurd opinion that England cannot be invaded while we have an invincible fleet, is now rejected by every intelligent man, as it always was by men of nautical knowledge; and the government itself has long since practically admitted, by various costly preparations for our interior defence, that a powerful descent on our shores is no impossible event. Those who formerly thought such an enterprize impracticable, must have rested their opinion on the extreme depression of the French marine. But from this state it has already begun to recover, and there can be no doubt that unless the enemy should be rash enough to expose himself to new Trafalgars, his navy will rapidly encrease. When we consider the large acquisitions of ships of all kinds, of naval magazines, of forests ripe for the axe, of excellent docks, and harbours, and even of able seamen, which France has unhappily made by conquest during the two last campaigns; and when we regard her as mistress of all the coasts of continental Europe, from the bottom of the Adriatic gulf to the straits of Gibraltar, and from Cape Finisterre to the Baltic, it would be idle indeed to suppose that the disparity of her naval power to that of the British islands, will long continue to be great. But even a very inferior fleet to our own, might as I shall here after shew, give her ample means of invasion. That an invading army would infallibly be repelled by the force we at present possess on shore, is a persuasion that may still be too general, yet can hardly now maintain its ground in well informed and considerate minds. It must at least be greatly weakened, if not removed, by the late tremendous events on the continent. Are we proudly confident in our military prowess? So were the renowned battalions of Frederick the Great. The Prussians marched from Berlin as to a certain triumph. Intelligent English gentlemen who were there at the moment, declare that the general confidence was extreme; that it was impossible to make the most rational Prussians with whom they conversed, admit a doubt of the victorious armies of France being defeated by the Prussian tactics; and that to suggest any uneasiness on the subject, was regarded as preposterous at least, if not insulting. Yet where is now that mighty army that was drawn up by the veteran generals of Prussia in the plain of Auerstadt? Dispersed, as with the impetuous breath of a whirlwind, or rather the blast of an explosion, its scattered fragments were soon to be found only on the shores of the Baltic; and even there were gathered up by its enemies. The mendacious vanity of the victors here found no place for exaggeration. It was strict truth to say that a late mighty monarch, flying from the throne of his ancestors across the Oder and the Vistula, carried with him only a handful of guards from the great army which he lately commanded, and that with this exception, not a man of that vast host, escaped. Neither the defeat of Darius at Arbela, |