happiness for a whole generation-our strength wasted-our resources scattered

"Tax'd till the brow of labour sweats in vain,"

in order to guard the liberty we enjoy, the small part of the fruits of our labours which have been left us, from protecting our wives from dishonour, our daughters from violation; in short, from guarding against the dark designs, the mad ambition, the treachery, and the baseness of France. Must we be compelled to do all this, and when Europe has beat these to the ground, shall she then be told that she must pursue such measures as will not wound the feelings of the former; or, in other words, that will enable her to pursue, in a short period, her former course. Away with such idle reasoning-to hear it advanced

“Fear, justice, passion, indignation start,

Tear off reserve, and bare the swelling heart."

And we are ready to accuse even Blucher of weakness, when irritated at their unjust accusations, he tells them, that "they may thank Providence for the allies not having followed their base example." In truth they may do so. The allies have, in this instance, only taken what was their own; demanded the one third of the expense the campaign has cost them, and, let us hope, guarantees not less than is sufficient for their own security. How much they require the latter, the unprecedented events of the year which we have related, but too fully establish. How much they have to dread French ambition, and above all, French principles, the situation of every nation in Europe proclaims in sorrow and in anguish. I might fill volumes on this lamentable subject, but I shall content myself with the following short account, which I believe is but too accurate a description of the situation of all the nations of the Continent, where either French liberty or French tyranny extended. The former indeed was even more destructive to the principles of nations than the latter. In an address of the Evangelical Prelates of Wirtemburgh to their Sovereign, they proceed: "Pressed down to the dust of the earth by poverty, distress, and despair, thousands can scarcely any longer rise above wisible things, and are become deaf to the voice of religion

Struggling with present burdens, and anxious cares respecting a still more gloomy future, the fruits which the preaching of the Gospel should produce on their minds are choaked in their first germs. The hope of a better period, and the trust in a Divine Providence regulating every thing for the best, which for several years communicated spirit and strength for endurance under the severe pressure of the concussions of the world, disappear, and sink into comfortless unbelief; and the hardships under which the people sigh, by their long continuance, surpass the power of human endurance. The decay of morality amongst all ranks cannot be misunderstood. Luxury and dissipation increase, not because property increases, but because it is sunk; because want and despair diminish inclination for the domestic virtues, and men seek to drown in the noisy enjoyments of sensuality, the bitter feelings which their hardships inspire. Instead of the old German uprightness, honesty, and truth; falsehood, dishonesty, and fraud, besome daily more general, and poison the lives of men; while exhausting taxes, and continually increasing burthens, appear to deprive the suffering and the poor of all means of existence, and of improving their station. The efficacy and respectabili ty of the servants of religion, are things despised. Such, gracious Sovereign, is a lamentable, but true picture of the situation of things, which the recent periods, so destructive to the old establishments of our country, have introduced, with regard to things the most sacred to man, morality and religion."* Such, no doubt, is a true picture of Europe, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the banks of the Nieman; but more particularly in Germany. And to whom are they indebted for all this? To revolutionary France; to her ambition, in every stage; to her principles; to her practice, and to her constant pursuits; to Brissot, Danton, Robespiere, Fouche, and Carnot, and to Bonaparte!

To them-to him we owe it all.

Let France look across the Rhine, and see the deplorable consequences of her own wickedness. Let her fear to prowoke those passions she has raised; those principles which she

* October, 1815.

has corrupted. Can she suppose that such a population will be averse to war, and that they will not conceive that they could live as well in the rich plains of France, as in the ruined fields of Germany. Why, they will leap at the prospect with as great alacrity, as a giddy Parisian jumps at a "Matt de Cocagne" on a Sunday; and in doing so, they will most assuredly not fall short of their prize.

As the King's government gained strength, many of the revolutionary characters began to disappear; either by leaving the country, or sinking into insignificance. Some went to America, and others to Germany. Amongst those who remained in France, and who soon made their appearance again, justifying their conduct before the world, was Carnot. This man published a book containing a defence of his conduct. He asserted that he had no hand in, nor knowledge of Bonaparte's return; though he was the first to visit him, and to be employed and exalted by him. These assertions, however, few will credit, and fewer will pay any attention to. Carnot's name is inscribed in registers where the characters are wrote in letters with the blood of innocence, which only the tears of the recording angel can blot out; and which all the logic of Carnot and his friends, will never be able to erase or conceal. It might have been supposed that this hoary headed traitor, and even from the authority of his admirers, a wholesale murderer, would have been suffered to remain hid from the world, unless where he forced himself into notice. But not so. He has friends; he has defenders; and these too in Britain, against which he organized and directed “fourteen armies” to destroy. Annexed there is a defence of this man's conduct, the most extraordinary and audacious that ever was promulgated, since Robespiere thundered murder from the Mountain, and Barrere insulted humanity from the Tribune. Against the learned clamour of persons, who thus outrage truth and insult humanity, the world has a right

• Bringing forward the abandonment of the accusation made against Carnot, immediately after Robespiere's fall, as a proof of the innocence of the former; the reviewer thus proceeds: "It ought to go a great way, and, at this time, it would be rash, not to say unjust, in the extreme, to pronounce a contrary sentence. But let us look a little into the merits of the case. The only matters alleged against • Carnot, are reduced to a very small number of signatures, officially given by him

66

to protest and condemn. But in reality, Carnot's iniquity is drawn by his defenders in glowing colours, into a short compass, and making bad worse, consists in the following " details:" namely, that from economy or secrecy, in saving the expense and prying eyes of a secretary, Carnot signed, without examining into the subject, the death warrant of thousands. I am bent upon the conquest of Belgium; I am determined to make the Rhine the boundary of France; I am resolved to blot royalty from the face of Europe: therefore, my dear colleagues, though I know you are great blockheads in warlike affairs, and no better than you should be in some of your other deeds, still if you will lend me your assistance to procure the means necessary to accomplish these objects, I will allow you, without enquiry or comment, to murder whom you please; and, "in rotation,” I will “nominally and officially," lend you my signature, out of my office," to sanction" your worst deeds." Precisely similar is this defence of Carnot, when collated with facts. But what was the Committee of Public Safety, that terrible body over which Carnot presided in rotation, and which it is alleged he aided? It was the Executive Government of Revolutionary France, in its worst and bloodiest shape. It was composed of nine members, chosen monthly from the worst men in the Convention, and of which Robespiere was long the to the decrees of the Committee of PUBLIC SAFETY. Upon this it is to be observed, that he confined himself wholly to the affairs of his own department, the conduct of the war; and that, though he PRESided in rotation over the terrible body to which he belonged, and as President nominally issued, that is, signed its orders, he did so in virtue of the arrangement, that each should affix his authority to the acts of his colleagues, and that no one should interfere in another's department. Had he re* fused his concurrence to them, they would have refused their ratification of his military proceedings; and in order to shew how little he could, by possibility, have known of the orders signed out of his own department, he informs us of the extraordinary fact; that he was, at the time, carrying on the whole correspondence with fourteen armies, without a secretary. After all, situated as he then was, he had but - one alternative; either to continue in this dreadful situation, co-operating with men he abhorred, and lending his name to their worst deeds, whilst he was fain to close his eyes upon their details; or to leave the tremendous war which France was then waging for her existence, into the hands of men so totally unfit to conduct the machine an instant, that immediate conquest, in its worst shape, must have been the consequence of his desertion." Further," we protest against the ignorant clamour of persons, who, upon ordinary grounds, object to Carnot's conduct, unacquainted with the facts, and quite unaware that his country exalted him in a transport of gratitude, at the very moment of Robespiere's fall."--Edin. Rev. No. 50. p. 448.

head, for the enormity and wickedness of whose conduct and actions, as a body, and as individuals, the English language does not supply an epithet strong enough to express. They were allowed to carry on their proceedings in secret, and to act divided into sections. Their business was to decree the arrest and imprisonment of all suspected persons. To order before the Revolutionary Tribunal, so notorious in the annals of blood, and which was so much their mouth-piece, that it was the same as to try, condemn, and order for execution, persons of every age, sex, class, or degree, guilty or innocent, but chiefly the latter. It was this "terrible body" which appointed, sanctioned, and directed similar "terrible bodies," with similar terrible tribunals, in every town and in every village throughout France, and even ambulating ones, to traverse the country; the labour of all of which terrible bodies imprisoned, shot, drowned and guillotined, thousands upon thousands of innocent victims. In Paris alone, in the course of a few months, 2500 persons were guillotined; and in eight months, 8000 were imprisoned, and ten times as many over the rest of France; the proportionate number of which, every ninth day, Carnot, when chosen, (and it was during the periods when he was so, that its conduct was most atrocious,)" in rotation nominally and officially," sent to the block without inquiring into the details; and in doing which, though he might "close his eyes," the orders for it became his orders, not "its orders." The only rational reason his fellow monsters gave for their conduct was, that they punished only such as were traitors, after a patient investigation; not so Carnot: he shut his eyes, signed, and inquired nothing about the matter. Besides all this, Carnot, with his eyes open, " confined himself wholly to the affairs of his own department;" that is, directing all the military operations when half a million of men were immolated in the in

• It was first instituted on Sunday, April 7th, 1793. The members for the first month were, Barrere, Delmas, Breard, Cambon, Jean de Brie, Danton, Guitson, Morveau, Trielhard, Cacroix of Eure and Loire. For the third month, Bar rere, Couthon, Gasparin, Heraut, Sechelles, Thomas Lindet, Prieur of Marne, St. André, St. Just, and Thutiot. On the 30th July, Prieur, the President, complained that this terrible body" was too much overburdened with prosecutions;" and consequently its members were doubled. They frequently attended in secret apartments near the Revolutionary Tribunal, to hear its proceedings, and to compel it to condemn. From October 1795, when Robespiere's influence became predominant, its members were not changed; but their powers renewed from month to month.