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argument to shake the military system of the ENGLISH CONSTITUTION, as it is there unfolded, I am the more confirmed in my ideas of its excellence; and shall hope, when I may have health and leisure for publishing a second part to that work, to remove prejudices; to expose the mischiefs of evasion, which cause the present evil, and which may be fraught in future with consequences the most dreadful; and to satisfy our statesmen that,as honesty is the best policy, so a close adherence to the constitution is by far the easiest, the cheapest, and most infallible method of obtaining and upholding a regular army, not one soldier of which, after the system shall be completed, need be detained at home for our defence.

As it is far more probable that it suited the policy of Napolean, that the emperor Francis, should be more forward than himself to take the field, than that the forming and advancing of large armies should have escaped his vigilance; and as the fate of the Tyrol and the Venetian State, will depend less on early marching, than on able generalship and good fighting; let us not be surprized if those territories should shortly be in possession of France.

Might not Napolean, then, by offers of a separate peace, compel Austria, and induce Russia, to be quiet again? Might not the jealousy of Russia, concerning Genoa, be appeased by something in the Mediterranean of more value for herself? And might not prospects still more alluring reconcile her to the ambitious projects of France? Having no fears of each other for their own safety, what are the obstacles to a cordial co-operation, between an emperor of Russia, and an emperor of France, in objects mutually gratifying?

As for Austria, having no naval means of rivalling the other great powers, she is destined to sink into a subordinate rank; and we must not be surprized if Russia and France, should soon discover the means of advancing, at her expence, their own aggrandizement.

In case of such a separate peace as I have imagined possible, with Venice and the Tyrol, and perhaps Naples also annexed to the dominions of Napolean, what are we next to look for? A separate war with

England, for more than two years past, having furnished him with a pretext of keeping on foot, and gradually augmenting armies for a continental war, while such a war, will now again increase those armies to a much greater magnitude, he will perhaps ere long be enabled to renew his plan of invasion, with additional strength in land forces, and his naval means also increased by the Venetian marine.

Short as might be the confederate war, our expence in furnishing a large army very distant from home, and in subsidizing our allies, would have weakened our own pecuniary resources; and in this condition we might be called upon to contend on our own shores, single handed, with the numerous and immense armies of France. With these prospects before us, our unfortunate and betrayed country, is still sacrificed to the traiterous policy of the faction behind the throne, to which we have seen Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas (now Lord Melville,) then Mr. Addington, and now Mr. Pitt again, all criminally subservient. At the demonstrable hazard of the most ruinous calamities by desolation, and leaving even the subjugation of our island to depend on the chance of war, these ministers, notwithstanding our new and unexampled danger, and a danger every year increasing, have persisted in notrestoring the military branch of our constitution; when every wise and virtuous statesman must see it to be an imperious duty to give a well regulated, permanent, military energy, to every particle of our physical strength, which can on no other principle be effected.

But let us look a little farther. If Mr. Pitt and a borough parliament shall continue to govern this country, and its system of military defence shall not be radically changed, it must be the evident policy of France, first, to sever from us our allies, and then to continue the war. By these means she would hope to accelerate the ruin of our finances, and to attack us with a force so gigantic, and at so many points at once, as effectually to bring the war into our island. Whatever

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1 "Had it been the first care of Mr. Addington's administration, to have seen 1,200,000 men armed, as proposed in these pages, "(where the work is only a second edition, of what was published

might be the result of this plan, she knows she could at any moment totally withdraw herself from that species of war, whenever a continental object should make it either necessary or convenient.

Such an English war would not for a moment interrupt Napoleon in organizing and consolidating, by political and military arrangements, his newly acquired territory of the Tyrol and Venice. Should the present struggle leave him so aggrandized, and likewise end in the establishing of a good understanding between him and Russia, would he not soon discover that the repose of the civilized world was not yet so well provided for as he could wish? Having annexed to France, Helvetia and the Grisons, the Tyrol and Venice, might he not think it a necessary guarantee of that peace and repose which are the objects of all his labours, that he, should occupy all the south west part of Germany, Austria, and Hungary, taking the Danube for his newboundary from Basle and Ulm to Belgrade? And if, under the circumstances we have supposed, he should judge such a measure expedient, who could then oppose him with effect, if Russia were to connive at the aggression,

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His compacted empire, bounded by the Rhine and the Danube, would then come in contact with that of the grand Signior; which no doubt would be extremely gratifying to him; for it is for ever present to the mind of this modern son of Jupiter Ammon, that between Belgrade and India there are but two powers, those of Turkey and Persia. Provided this emperor of the west, and his brother emperor of the north should continue on good terms, they would then have before them an open field for an amicable race of ambition. They might make as easy a partition of European Turkey, with the Danube as their line of separation, as we re

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"early in 1799,) he would not have needed to have made an humiliating peace, nor would he have been driven at all into a new war, "and, in such a case for a French consul to have imposed upon his "subjects the burthen of building gun-boats, and to have threatened "us with invasion, would have been to have made himself the "laughing stock of Europe." England's Egis, 58.

member to have been made of Poland; and if on such an occasion the eastern part of Hungary should be paired off, I see not how the hemmed-in emperor of Austria could help himself.

What might be the farther joint projects of France and Russia it is not possible to foretel; but perhaps it might not by any means be impracticable, having left the grand signior in quiet possession of his Asiatic dominions, to convert him and the Sophi of Persia into auxiliaries on an expedition to Indostan; on which occasion the invading armies, as they approached the Indus, gathering like a rolling snow ball, by an accession of new auxiliaries, furnished by the king of Cabul and the Mahrattas, would doubtless pour over India a resistless torrent, blotting out for ever all traces of English dominion.

Every view, then, we can take of the state of the nation, and every prospect which opens to the eye of foresight, speak with one and the same voice, imperatively bidding us, whether we would prepare for the struggles that approach, or for averting the calamities which threaten, TO CHANGE THE MINISTRY, TO REFORM THE PARLIAMENT, AND TO RESTORE TO FULL VIGOUR AND ENERGY THE MILITARY BRANCH OF THE CONSTITUTION.

THE END

APPENDIX.

A LIST of Statesmen and Philosophers, of distinguished Patriots and Men of Literature, conversant with public affairs, who, according to authorities in possession of the Author, and of a literary friend, have expressed themselves in favour, either of a fair representation of the people, or of short parliaments.

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