an imputation on the loyalty and honour of our army which it cannot possibly have merited. We appeal to facts that are notorious, and to principles of human nature that need no coroboration from particular instances. We think as highly of the valour and the worth of our soldiery as it is possible to think of any soldiery: but alas! it is not in the private ranks of a regular army,- -and least of all, perhaps, in the ranks of war-worn veterans, who have campaigned in foreign lands till all domestic recollections are nearly worn out of them,—that we are to look for refined notions of propriety, or the habits of resisting extraordinary temptations. It is to the extraordinary force of the temptation, and not to the previous corruption of its victims, that we ascribe this disaster. There are desertions from all armies-and large desertions from all armies that begin to be unsuccessful; but, in a country where the deserter can hide and domesticate himself with those who resemble his countrymen, who speak his own language, and display his own manners,-in a country, above all, where wages are high and subsistence cheap, and where a common labourer may, in a short time, raise himself to the rank of a landed proprietor-the temptations to desert are such as the ordinary rate of virtue in that rank of life will rarely be able to resist. We know already, from the documents that have been laid before the public, that the Americans boast of prodigious desertions having taken place from the British forces; and the fact, when averred in Parliament, met with nothing but an evasive answer from His Majesty's ministers. We know also, that a proposition to encourage desertion, by holding out a large bribe at the public expense, was entertained in Congress; and, although it was rejected as inconsistent with the principles of honourable hostility, we have little doubt that it will be renewed, if we should really proceed to enforce our demands of territory by an actual invasion of their soil: nor do we see very well upon what grounds we should then be entitled to complain of it. Against a lawless invader-an invader for the avowed purposes of conquest-all arms are held to be lawful, and all devices by which he can be resisted praiseworthy. But, whether this additional seduction be resorted to, or not, we greatly fear that many will be found to yield to the existing templations; and that, after incurring a prodigious and intolerable expense in transporting men to fight our melancholy battles in America, we shall find their ranks reduced by other agents than the sword or the pestilence, and their officers drooping with resentment and agony over their daily returns of those who are missing where there has been no battle; and who are not only lost to their country, but gained by her exulting adversary.

We must now draw to the close of these observations; and indeed, there is but one other point which we are anxious to bring before our readers. America is destined, at all events, to be a great and a powerful nation. In less than a century she must have a population of at least seventy or eighty millions. War cannot prevent, and, it appears by experience, can scarcely retard this natural multiplication, All these people will speak English; and, according to the most probable conjecture will live under free governments, whether republican or monarchical, and will be industrious, well educated, and civilised. Within no very great distance of time, therefore,-within a period to which those who are now entering life may easily survive, America will be one of the most powerful and important nations of the earth; and her friendship and commerce will be more valued, and of greater consequence, in all probability, than that of any one European state. England

had we even think that she still has great and peculiar advantages for securing to herself this friendship and this commerce. A common origin, a common language, a common law, a common enjoyment of freedom,—all seem to point them out to each other as natural friends and allies. What then shall we say of that short sighted and fatal policy, that, for such an object as we have been endeavouring to expose, should sow the seeds of incurable hostility between two such countries,-put rancour in the vessel of their peace, and fix in the deep foundations and venerable archives of their htstory, to which for centuries their eyes will be reverted, the monuments of English enmity and American valour, on the same conspicuous tablet,binding up together the sentiments of hate to England and love to America, as counterparts of the same patriotic feeling, and mingling in indissoluble association the memory of all that is odious in our history with all that is glorious in theirs? Even for the insignificant present, we lose more by the enmity of America than can be made up to us by the friendship of all the world. We lose the largest and most profitable market for our manufactures; and we train up a nation, destined to so vast an increase, to do without those commodities with which we alone can furnish them, and from the use of which nothing but a course of absolute hostility could have weaned them. But these present disadvantages, we confess, are trifling, compared with those which we forego for futurity: and when we consider that, by a tone of genuine magnanimity, moderation, and cordiality, we might, at this very crisis, have laid the foundation of unspeakable wealth, comfort, and greatness to both countries, we own that it requires the recollection of all our prudent resolutions about coolness and conciliation, to restrain us from speaking of the contrast afforded by our actual conduct in such terms as it might be spoken of-as, if the occasion calls for it, we shall not fear to speak of it hereafter. The Americans are not liked in this country; and we are not now going to recommend them as objects of our love. We must say, however, that they are not fairly judged of by their newspapers; which are written for the most part by expatriated Irishmen or Scotchmen, and other adventurers of a similar description, who take advantage of the unbounded license of the press to indulge their own fiery passions, and aim at exciting that attention by the violence of their abuse which they are conscious they could never command by the force of their reasonings. The greater part of the polished and intelligent Americans appear little on the front of public life, and make no figure in her external history. But there are thousands of true republicans in that country who, till lately, have never felt any thing towards England but the most cordial esteem and admiration; and to whom it has been the bitterest of all mortifications that she has at last disappointed their reliance on the generosity and magnanimity of her councils, belied their predictions of her liberality, and justified the execrations which the factious and malignant formerly levelled at her in vain. This is the party too that is destined ultimately to take the lead in that country, when the increase of the population shall have lessened the demand for labour, and, by restoring the natural influence of wealth and intelligence, converted a nominal democracy into a virtual aristocracy of property, talents, and reputation; and this party, whom we might have so honourably conciliated, we first disgusted, by the humiliating spectacle of a potent British fleet battering down magnificent edifices unconnected with purposes of war, and then packing up some miserable hogsheads of tobacco as the ransom or the plunder, we dis

dain to remember which, of a defenceless village, and afterwards roused to more serious indignation by an unprincipled demand for an integral part of their territory.

We have said enough however, and more perhaps than enough, on this unpopular subject; for there is, or at least has been, till very lately, a disposition in the country to abet the government in its highest tone of defiance and hostility to America. While it was supposed that our maritime rights were at issue, this was natural-and it was laudable; nor shall the time ever come when we shall cease to applaud that spirit which is for hazarding all, rather than yielding one atom of the honour and dignity of England to foreign menace or violence. Since this question of our maritime rights, however, has been understood to be waved by America, we think we can perceive a gradual wakening of the public to a sense of the injustice and the danger of our pretensions. There are persons, no doubt-and unfortunately neither few nor inconsiderable-to whom war is always desirable, and who may be expected to do what they can to make it perpetual. The tax-gatherers and contractors, and those who, in still higher stations, depend for power and influence on the appointment and multiplication of such offices, are naturally downcast at the prospect of a durable pacification ; and hail with joy, as they foment with industry, every symptom of national infatuation by which new contests, however hopeless and however sanguinary, may be brought upon the country. But the sound and disinterested part of the community-those who have to pay the taxes, and the contractor and the minister-ought, one would think, to have a very opposite feeling;and it is to them that these observations are addressed-not to influence their passions, but to rouse their understandings, and to make one calm appeal to their judgment and candour from paltry prejudices aud vulgar antipathies.

Why the Americans are disliked in this country, we have never been able to understand; for most certainly they resemble us far more than any other nation in the world. They are brave, and boastful, and national, and factious like ourselves;-about as polished as 99 in 100 of our own countrymen in the upper ranks-and at least as moral and well educated in the lower. Their virtues are such as we ought to admire, for they are those on which we value ourselves most highly; and their very faults seem to have some claim to our indulgence, since they are those with which we also are reproached by third parties. We see nothing then from which we can suppose this prevailing dislike of them to originate, but a secret grudge at them for having asserted, and manfully vindicated, their independence. This, however, is too unworthy a feeling to be avowed; and the very imputation of it should stimulate us to overcome the prejudices by which it is suggested. The example of the sovereign on this occasion is fit for the imitation of his subjects. Though notoriously reluctant to part with this proud ornament of his crown, it is known that His Majesty, when convinced of the necessity of the measure, made up his mind to it with that prompitude and decision which belong to his character, and which indicated themselves, long after, in the observation which we believe he was in the practice of addressing to every ambassador from the United States at their first audience—“ I was the last man in my kingdom, Sir to acknowledge your independence; and I shall be the last to call it in question!"

It would be extremely gratifying to know that the Prince Regent has inherited this manly sentiment; and that he infuses the spirit of it into the

instructions under which the present negociations are conducted. Never any negociations were of such moment to the interests and the honour of this country-and never any, at the same time, in which her interests and her honour might be so easily secured

THE DOWNFALL AND CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. STATE OF EUROPE AT THAT PERIOD.-PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS.-ORIGIN, EFFECTS, AND MORAL OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. *

It would be strange indeed, we think, if pages dedicated like ours to topics of present interest, and the discussions of the passing hour, should be ushered into the world at such a moment as this, without some stamp of that common joy and overwhelming emotion with which the wonderful events of the last three months are still filling all the regions of the earth. In such a situation, it must be difficult for any one who has the means of being heard to refrain from giving utterance to his sentiments: but to us, whom it has assured, for the first time, of the entire sympathy of all our countrymen, the temptation, we own, is irresistible; and the goodnatured part of our readers, we are persuaded, will rather smile at our simplicity, than fret at our presumption, when we add, that we have sometimes permitted ourselves to fancy that, if any copy of these our lucubrations should go down to another generation, it may be thought curious to trace in them the first effects of events that are probably destined to fix the fortune of succeeding centuries, and to observe the impressions which were made on the minds of contemporaries by those mighty transactions, which will appear of yet greater moment in the eyes of a distant posterity. We are still too near that great image of deliverance and reform which the genius of Europe has just set up before us, to discern with certainty its just lineaments, or construe the true character of the aspect with which it looks onward to futurity. We see enough, however, to fill us with innumerable feelings, and the germs of many high and anxious speculations. The feelings, we are sure, are in unison with all that exists around us; and we reckon therefore on more than usual indulgence for the speculations into which they may expand.

The first and predominant feeling which rises on contemplating the scenes that have just burst on our view, is that of deepfelt gratitude and unbounded delight, for the liberation of so many oppressed nations,-for the cessation of bloodshed, and fear, and misery over the fairest portions of the civilised world, and for the enchanting prospect of long peace and measureless improvement, which seems at last to be opening on the suffering kingdoms of Europe. The very novelty of such a state of things, which could be known only by description to the greater part of the existing generation,— the suddenness of its arrival, and the contrast which it forms with the horrors

A Song of triumph. By W. Sotheby, Esq. 8vo.

L'Acte Constitutionnel, en la Séance du 9 Avril, 1814. 8vo.

Of Bonaparte, the Bourbons, and the Necessity of rallying round our legitimate Princess, for the Happiness of France and of Europe. By F. A. Chateaubriand. 8vo.-Vol. xxiii. page 1. April,

1814.

and alarms to which it has so immediately succeeded, all concur most powerfully to enhance its vast intrinsic advantages. It has come upon the world like the balmy air and flushing verdure of a late spring, after the dreary chills of a long and interminable winter, and the refreshing sweetness with which it has visited the earth, feels like Elysium to those who have just escaped from the driving tempests it has banished.

We have reason to hope, too, that the riches of the harvest will correspond with the splendour of this early promise. All the periods in which human society and human intellect have ever been known to make great and memorable advances, have followed close upon periods of general agitation and disorder. Men's minds, it would appear, must be deeply and roughly stirred, before they become prolific of great conceptions, or vigorous resolves; and a vast and alarming fermentation must pervade and agitate the whole mass of society, to inform it with that kindly warmth, by which alone the seeds of genius and improvement can be expanded. The fact, at all events, is abundantly certain; and may be accounted for, we conceive, without mystery and without metaphors.

A popular revolution in government or religion-or any thing else that gives rise to general and long-continued contention, naturally produces a prevailing disdain of authority, and boldness of thinking in the leaders of the fray,-together with a kindling of the imagination and development of intellect in a great multitude of persons, who, in ordinary times, would have vegetated stupidly on the places where fortune had fixed them. Power and distinction, and all the higher prizes in the lottery of life, are brought within the reach of a far larger proportion of the community; and that vivifying spirit of ambition, which is the true source of all improvement, instead of burning at a few detached points on the summit of society, now pervades every portion of its frame. Much extravagance, and, in all probability, much guilt and much misery, result, in the first instance, from this sudden extrication of talent and enterprise, in places where they can have no legitimate issue, or points of application. But the contending elements at last find their spheres, and their balance. The disorder ceases; but the activity remains. The multitudes that had been raised into intellectual existence by dangerous passions and crazy illusions, do not all relapse into their original torpor when their passions are allayed and their illusions dispelled. There is a great permanent addition to the power and the enterprise of the community; and the talent and the activity which at first envulsed the state by their unmeasured and misdirected exertions, ultimately bless and adorn it, under a more enlightened and less intemperate guidance. If we may estimate the amount of this ultimate good by that of the disorder which preceded it, we cannot be too sanguine in our calculations of the happiness that awaits the rising generation. The fermentation, it will readily be admitted, has been long and violent enough to extract all the virtue of all the ingredients that have been submitted to its action; and enough of scum has boiled over, and enough of pestilent vapour been exhaled, to afford a reasonable assurance that the residuum will be both ample and pure.

If this delight in the spectacle, and the prospect of boundless good, be the first feeling that is excited by the scene before us, the second, we do not hesitate to say, is a stern and vindictive joy at the downfall of the tyrant and the tyranny by whom that good has been so long intercepted. We feel no compassion for that man's reverses of fortune, whose heart, in the days