try, and fet a price on the heads of thole who were against him. The (pirit of infurrection in those quarters was not broken, until the pacification between France and England recognised and confirmed an established order of affairs in Italy.

It is aftonishing, and might well appear incredible, if it were not placed beyond ali doubt by experience, that priefts, women, and other domeftics, in palaces, called courtiers, fhould have been able fo often, through their influence with kings, to thwart the measures, and diminish the respect due to the higheft degree of honour and military courage, skill, and fuccefs. The fupreme rulers of states do not give way to the influence and infinuations of thofe around their perfons, under the idea, that, in doing this, they hazard either the fecurity or the honour of their crowns: but they are artfully led to believe, that both thefe are equally fafe in the hands of certain favourites; and the ufual jealousy that disposes fovereign princes, rather to check and pull down, than to honour and exalt fuch transcendent merit, as feems,

in fome meafure, to eclipfe the fplendour of the throne, opens a way to the intrigues of the courtiers. Certain it is, that neither the virtue, nor military fuccefs and glory of prince Charles, the Hector,* as the baron Thugnt was the Pitt, of Auftria, and whofe plan it was to call back the French from Germany and Italy, by penetrating into the heart of France, were able to fcreen him from a milignant and too fucceffful influence and oppofition at court.

The great object of the empress was, to fave Naples through an amicable compromife: many of the beft officers were neglected, and, in fome inftances, even difmiffed from the army, because they were attached to the archduke Charles. The council of war, at the feat of government, whofe measures had uniformly, and with very little exception, been followed by defeat and difafter, was generally detested and ridiculed by the army. On the whole, the nerves of the Auftrian army were relaxed; the fentiments and wishes of the officers were dif cordant;, and almost the only point on which there was a general una

nimity in all ranks, was a defire that the war might be brought to afpeedy conclufion. Such being the ftate of the Auftrian army, and the Auftrian people, the audacity of Moreau in advancing into the very heart of the Auftrian dominions, inflead of being charged with folly, may be thought to have been a conduct as well judged as it was daring.

By the treaty of Luneville, the feelings of the houfe of Auftria were, no doubt, feverely wounded. Deprived of the rich and noble inheritance of their Burgundian anceftors, and almost excluded from their long-loved Italy, they were ifolated, in a great measure, from thofe points of contact, where they had fo long and fo often measured their firength with other powers, and on which they afferted their power, influence, and right to interfere, and be regarded with the highest degree of confideration in the great affairs of the finest part of Europe. Yet the wifeft politicians were of opinion, that, in the compactnefs of empire, acquired by the acceffion of fo much territory on the fide of the Adriatic, in exchange for wider domains, but thefe disjointed, the Auftrian faily had gained, in ftability and real ftrength, an ample compenfation for what they had loft in extent of dominion. This opinion coincides with that of a great politician and profound fcholar, who flourished in the end of the 17th, and beginning of the laft century: the celebrated Fletcher of Saltoun. If his reafoning be juft, it ought to be a confolation, not only to the friends of the houfe of Aufiria, but to all Europe, whofe intereft it is, that a government fhould be established in the vicinity of France, fitted to make a ftand again its capricious fallies, and thereby to

contribute, to the general quiet and fecurity of nations. The paflage from Fletcher, to which we allude, may be. quoted without much impropriety in this ftage of the hiftory of the Netherlands and the Auftrian dominions and authority in Italy." The violation of the ancient privileges of the Netherlands, by attempting to introduce an abfolute form of government, and the inquifition, was an extremely foolish meafure, which, together with the cruelty of the duke of Alva, rendered the inhabitants of them most obftinate enemies; but the troops of Spain were at that time fo excellent, that they would have eatily furmounted this difficulty, notwithstanding the very ftrong fituation of fome of these provinces, and though the king had done nothing to redrefs their grie vances, had it not been that Flanders lay at fuch a diftance from Spain, that, as armies could not be tranfported thither without the greateft difficulty and expenfe, fo that not only they, but frequently the advices by which they were to act, came not in time to anfwer the fudden emergencies that are always falling out in the courfe of a war, which the English and French, as being in the neighbourhood of these people, were able to foment with the utmoft eafe and expedition; and fo blinded was this prince, that, as if Flanders had become the feat of his empire, he would needs from thence, and that, too, before the Flemings were reduced, make war upon France and England, as his fucceflors have fince done againtt the Palatinate. So grofs an error not only occafioned a lofs of feven of thefe provinces, and ruined his great defigns in France and England, but reduced him to the greatest

firaits in all his other affairs: which the French, in these latter times, being aware of, have never failed to direct the chief weight of their wars against thefe provinces, which lie fo near their capital, and to employ the balk of their forces, on that fide, to their own great advantage, and the perpetual lofs of the Spaniards: or at this day have they any other view in leaving a remnant of thele provinces to the crown of Spain, but to keep their arms weak and unable to operate elsewhere, and fo to increase the glory of the arms of France. Thus the French having been defeated by the Germans, in the battles of Treves and Altenheim, we faw their monarch, early in the fucceeding spring, march in to Flanders, there to regain his loft reputation. And, at prefent, to render this province more expenfive and pernicious to Spain, after having ftript her of the more vasable part of the country, they leave her in poffeffion of a number of large fortified towns, that require great garrifons to keep them. But though the French fhould conquer all the rest of Flanders, they will have the like advantages in the ftate of Milan, where France can make war with much more eafe than Spain; the pailage for fuc cours, both by land and fea, being nearer from Provence and Dauphimy than from that kingdom. And fo France, finding her account fo greatly in it, will never fail to

carry on her wars in thefe disjointed states, till Spain herfelf, when utterly exhaufted by, their ruin, and incapable of making a defence, be attacked in the laft place. It was a most fagacious faying of a happy genius, that, by the addition of Flanders, and the Spanish ftates of Italy, the weight of Spain and the Indies became lighter. In our age, thefe ftates have almoft totally deftroyed this weight. And it had been for the intereft of Spain, that Charles V. had alienated the provinces of Flanders, by either annexing them to the empire, or making a prefent of them to any power who had been able to defend them against the French; that Philip, inftead of retaining, by a moft confuming war, the dominion of a part of thefe provinces, had granted them all their liberty; or that the prefent king had yielded the remnant of them to France, rather than ftill have retained them, to the greater advantage of the latter. So little do men fee in their own affairs; and fo great and innumerable miferies do nations fuffer, merely from the want of folid reflection."* It would feem that the ambitious policy of the French monarchs, refpecting the provinces of Flanders and Milan, was very different from that of Buonaparte. Which of the oppofite fyftems was the most judicious and folid, it remains for time to determine.

CHAP.

TH

HE chief conful of France, having made peace with Auftria, was now at liberty to bend his undivided attention to England. The leading features of his policy, with refpect to this country, appear to have been thefe: to excite a confederacy, againft this country, among all the maritime powers; to exclude her from all the ports of Europe; to attack, and, if neceffary, to fubdue her only remaining ally, Portugal; and exhauft her finances, and weary out the patience of the British nation, by the continued threats and alarms of invafion.

France, now in the ninth year of the war, affumed the character which England had taken at its commencement. The word, or according to the new phrafeology, the order of the day, in France, was, "The liberty of the feas, and the pacification of Europe."

The chief conful was congratulated, of course, by all the conftituted

bodies, on the peace which he had fo happily accomplished with Auftria. In his anfwer to the legiflative body, he faid, "France will not reap all the bleffings of peace, until fle fhall have a peace with England: but a fort of delirium has feized on that government, which now holds nothing facred. Its conduct is unjuft, not only towards the French people, but also towards all the powers of the continent; and when governments are not juft, their authority is but fhortlived. All the powers of the continent muft force England to fall back into the track of moderation, of equity, and reafon."

Buonaparte, ever fince the failure of his attempt, after his elevation to the confulate, to negotiate a peace with England, continued, with increafed earneftnefs, to reprefent to all maritime nations the overbearing haughtinefs and infolence of this country. By his minifters and

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