tion. What should we have thought in England, in 1688, if the great states of Europe had combined, and required us to show cause why we could live no longer under the dominion of our legitimate sovereign, and enjoined us to make out such a case of necessity as they should find complete and satisfactory, before they would tolerate a measure so irregular, and of such dangerous example? Could any nation that pretended to independence submit to such an interference? Could any government, or any combination of governments, that pretended to justice or liberality, presume to attempt it? The question, however, comes exactly to this issue,-whether the reasons which entitle a nation to make changes in its internal government, must be reasons that are satisfactory to itself,-or to other countries? That there may be reasons to justify such a change, probably will not be disputed; and all that is contended for is, that the nation which is to act upon them should be allowed to judge of their validity. No other tribunal can possibly be aware of their force, or attempt to make their practical application without manifest usurpation.

But even if an independent state could be subjected, in a matter like this, to the jurisdiction of the surrounding governments, and obliged to make out a colourable case before it was allowed to make any such alteration, we conceive that France could have no difficulty in making out such a case, as must, upon every principle of reciprocity, be conclusive and satisfactory, in so far at least as this country is to judge of it. We could not well refuse the authority of the great and glorious precedent afforded by our own history; indeed there is no other conceivable standard by which any man among us could ever pretend to estimate the reasonableness of any similar attempt. But it would not be difficult, we think, to show, that if there be any truth at all in the view which we have already given of the interests and sentiments of the French nation, and the conduct and dispositions of its present rulers, there are, relatively to French feelings, as strong inducements to change the person of the sovereign in the one case as in the other. The ultimate motive for all such changes is the conscientious conviction of the people, that their lives, properties, or liberties will be in hazard if it be not adopted. But there can be no sort of doubt, we suppose, that there are many more individuals now in France who sincerely entertain such apprehensions from the continuance of the present system, than there were in England in the time of James II. To quiet such general or extensive apprehensions, and to prevent them from breaking out into perpetual and incurable disturbances, the principle of hereditary succession, which is itself only to be valued as generally preventing such disturbances, may be lawfully sacrificed; and the sacrifice will be cheap, if the end can be accomplished, without absolutely departing from the principle altogether, but only deviating a little way from the lineal order of inheritance.

This is truly the bottom of the case; and the basis upon which our Revolution, as well as that of the Dutch provinces and the Swiss Cantons, and indeed every other, must ultimately be rested. But the parallel between our case in 1688, and that of France at the present moment, may perhaps be pushed a little farther. The true cause of the expulsion of James, was the difference of religion. He adhered to the old faith of the country, while its habits and institutions had been permanently moulded to one of later origin; and instead of yielding a part, at least, of his own notions and prejudices to those of his people, and being guided by the counsels of those who knew them and their temper, he gave himself up to the guidance of priests and

Jesuits, and other zealots, who would admit of no compromise, and were substantially strangers to the character of the nation he was to govern. If we read Emigrants for Jesuits, this is nearly the picture of the present government of France. Twenty years of Revolution have made the Court and the emigrants as much aliens to the habits and feelings of France as it now is, as the lapse of a century had estranged Popery and its accompaniments from the habits of our people in 1688; and we believe it will scarcely be doubted, that the political reformation of the former period is at least as much valued by its disciples, as the religious reformation of the latter was by its immediate supporters.

From what we have here said, it may perhaps be inferred, that we wish at all events for the dethronement of the present King, and think that an insurrection for that object would be a laudable and proper measure. This, however, is by no means our opinion. If the crown, indeed, could be brought to the Duke of Orleans, without a struggle or an insurrection, we have no hesitation in saying, that we think France would have a better chance, both for freedom and for tranquillity, than under the present Monarch and his apparent heirs; and we should consider it as a very fortunate and happy event, for her and for the world, if, either by the natural course of mortality, or by any voluntary arrangement in the family, that prince should now be enabled to ascend the throne, without competition or resistance from any quarter. Beyond this, however, cur revolutionary spirit proceeds not; and if all Frenchmen thought as we do, they would rather apply themselves to conciliate each other, and gradually and patiently to ameliorate their constitution under their present King, than commit their country to the dreadful hazard of a new civil war, for an object which may be desirable, but which they cannot be sure of attaining.

Ignorant as the opponents of the Court are of the exact measure of their own strength, or of that which may be arrayed against it, it is quite impossible that they can have any assurance of a speedy or casy victory:and with a people so combustible,-already so mischievously trained to military habits and principles,-so ill provided with leaders in civil wisdom, -and so apt to be made the prey of atrocious factionaries, or ambitious generals, we confess that we see much more danger, both to liberty and peace, from the issue of a long internal contention, than from any abuse of which the present government is likely to be guilty, if properly watched, admonished, and resisted. The foundations of a representative government are now laid, we think, indestructibly in the French constitution; and we have no idea that the present King has any design to abrogate or defeat the objects of this great institution. However much it may be absurd or perverted, therefore, at this moment, it seems certain, that if every thing is not again cast down by the shock of another popular revolution, the monarchy will be substantially limited, and a certain considerable and growing portion of power vested in the people. We are not even sure whether the nation be fit at this moment for more complete liberty; and whether they would not, on the whole, have a better chance of ultimately obtaining a free and happy constitution, by this progressive and gradual extension of the legislative power, than by starting at once into the function of patriots and citizens. At all events, we should prefer this chance to the perilous experiment of an appeal to arms, and the hazards of an exasperated civil war. We should endeavour to enlighten and conciliate the nation, and, if necessary, to control and even intimidate the Court, if it persisted in a narrow

or illiberal policy; but we should not risk an actual insurrection,-on slighter ground than that of actual and intolerable oppression,-and certainly not for the uncertain chance of obtaining a Sovereign who would no doubt be more suitable in many respects to the present condition of the country.

Such are our sentiments of the course that France ought to pursue in the present agitating crisis of her affairs; but we greatly fear that they are not the sentiments of any considerable part of the people of that country: and it is with a view to their acting upon their own opposite impressions, and actually plunging into domestic dissensions, that we have endeavoured to show that we will have neither right nor interest to interfere in that quarrel; and are bound, upon every consideration of generosity and prudence, to let them settle their government in any way they please, or are able, provided they do not endanger our peace or independence in the operation.

As to the consequences of our yelding to our lamentable passion for war and interference, on our finances and internal prosperity, we shall say nothing in this place, as we expect to be able to annex a short separate article upon these important subjects; and, indeed, we have left ourselves room to add but a word or two on the effects of such a mischievous system of policy on our honour and influence, and the fortunes of Europe in general.

In the first place, if it really require the whole united force of Europe to prevent the French from dethroning their present King, it must be pretty plain that he has no considerable number of supporters in his own country, and that the great mass of it is decidedly against him. If it be not so, there can scarcely be any necessity for our interference'; and if it be so, then that interference must of necessity appear to the mass of the nation to be a monstrous outrage, injustice, and oppression, the existence of which must exasperate them still more against the prince on whose account they are subjected to it. The natural effects of persecution are now pretty well known and admitted to exalt and rivet the attachment of its victim to the objects for which it is inflicted-to turn mere reluctance or difference of opinion into furious hatred or ungovernable enthusiasm-to raise common men to the devotedness of martyrs, or the frenzy of assassins-and to put all the strong feelings of revenge and honour in the way of easy reconciliation. There is bitterness enough in the ordinary case of a civil war; but if the allies, who are already generally hated in France for their humiliation of the national power and vanity, are to take part in that war, this will not only throw the whole weight of national feeling into the opposite scale, but will infallibly give a character of acrimony and deadly hatred to the contest, of which the world has yet seen no example. But a war waged with such feelings, and against such a nation as France, can have no issue on which reason or humanity can bear to look without horror. Even supposing the allied arms to be as completely successful as possible, it is plain that France can never be permanently subdued, without the absolute extermination of most of its inhabitants. Paris and other great towns may, and probably would be, abandoned to pillage and conflagration; large provinces may be occupied and severed, by decrees of Congress, from the rest of the country; but a warlike and exasperated population of forty millions cannot be absolutely destroyed, or permanently kept under, by mere force;-and these violent and deplorable measures, which can only become possible in the end of the most savage and murderous hostilities, will merely sow the seeds of after revolts, insurrections, and massacres,-till some view of policy or private ambition disunite the victorious

Allies, and afford the vanquished an opportunity of again asserting their independence, and wreaking their revenge.

In short, it appears to us, that if we are to mingle again in the internal dissensions of France, and to take part in the hostilities to which they will but too probably give rise, we shall not only render the prince whom we mean to support more universally odious in that country, but in all likelihood involve the whole of Europe in the most rancorous and desolating hostilities for thirty years to come. In this point of view, it is of the utmost importance to recollect, that the great hazard to which civil liberty, national morality, and general prosperity are now exposed all over the civilised world, arises from the prevalence of military habits and the conversion of an undue proportion of the people into a professional soldiery. It is to this that we owe the last return of Bonaparte, and all the disgusting scenes of perfidy and atrocity by which it was attended; and it is to this also that we must ascribe that neglect of literature and political philosophy-that contempt in short of civil arts and civil virtues, the beginnings of which, we conceive, have lately been but too visible in other nations. Nothing indeed can be more certain, than that no country can be free, or rich, or moral, or refined, whose leading occupation is that of war, and among whom the military order takes precedency over and gives the tone to every other. Even if every other reason, therefore, did not concur to deter us from engaging in wars which do not concern us, and in which we must be equally ruined by failure as by success, this consideration, we conceive, ought to inspire us with redoubled caution, and determine us to abstain from a scene not more painful than precarious, and in which our very efforts must strike so deep at the heart of our prosperity.

AGGRESSIONS

OF FRANCE AGAINST SPAIN.-ENGLAND BOUND TO RESIST THEM BY FORCE.*

It is our purpose, on the present occasion, to lay before our readers a short statement of such facts and arguments as may enable them to estimate the justice of the war now threatened by the Ultra Royalists of France against Spain; the consistency of the principles of that faction with the general rules of the law of nations, or even with any exception from those rules which has been acted on without universal reprobation in civilised times; the influence of the success of such a war on the independence of states, and the circumstances which would render that success more formidable to the security of Great Britain than to that of any other European state.

By the abdications extorted at Bayonne in May, 1808, from Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII., the Spaniards who took up arms for the independence of their country, were left without legitimate authority, and indeed without acknowledged leaders. Local and general juntas very irregularly appointed, and often not very well composed, were neither able to give the appearance of legality, nor the advantage of union, to the heroic efforts of the Spanish people. This defect was the subject of triumph to their enemies. and of deep regret to their friends. In the midst of their enemies, and at The Holy Alliance versus Spain; or Notes and Declarations of the Allied Powers.-Vol,

xxxviii. p. 241.

the season of their utmost distress, the Emperor of Russia refused to acknowledge their title to be parties to any negociation, and would call them by no other name than "The Insurgents of Spain.' But their disunion and

want of chiefs were viewed with other eyes by Lord Wellesley; who, though he had wielded with a vigorous hand the force of an absolute monarchy, had too much wisdom not to discover that liberty alone was the source of union and obedience, as well as of energy and valour, to a people struggling for independence. By him, during his embassy to Spain, the calling together of the Cortes appears to have been first proposed, for the purpose of redressing grievances and reforming abuses, as well as that of providing for the public defence. That assembly convoked by the Regency, met, after several delays, in September, 1810, at Cadiz, then almost the only spot in the Spanish territory which was not occupied by foreign force. Its composition was very popular; as was natural, in a body whose chief function was to excite popular spirit, and in a country where the only examples of timidity or treachery were to be found among the higher orders. In the eye of every true Spaniard, the Cortes became the only lawful power of the monarchy. As such, their commands were obeyed, and their authority acknowledged. The Regency, whom they superseded, gave up their power without a murmur. The two successive regencies whom they nominated, were obeyed as the executive government of the monarchy by all but the partisans of France. The constitution was promulgated by their authority in March, 1812, and was received as the fundamental law wherever the French arms did not silence the public voice. That it contained some language capable of mischievous misconception, and that it did not provide sufficient means of conciliating those classes who derived a powerful influence from property and opinion; that it did not enough maintain the authority of the deliberate judgment of the people over their hasty and transient passions, may be admitted, without involving censure on the leaders of the Cortes, and certainly without affording any inference that these, or that any constitutional defects, should be remedied under the terror of foreign bayonets. If every error in legislation were to be punished by a perpetual forfeiture of a nation's title to liberty, no free government could be established among men. The most excusable of all errors, is a disposition in the founders of freedom to fly to the greatest distance from the institutions which had formerly been the instruments of oppressions. In the peculiar situation of Spain, the strongest declarations of the rights of the nation were politica ly necessary to invalidate the acts into which the imprisoned King might have been betrayed. The sovereignty of the people became the only safeguard of the independence of the monarchy.

But whatever may be thought of the wisdom of the constitution, it is impossible to conceive any authority more legitimate than that of those who framed it. They were not a revolutionary assembly. After conquest had destroyed all lawful power in Spain, the Cortes were called together to give their country a regular government. To restore internal order, and to secure national independence, were the objects of their convocation. preserving a national government for the people, they also preserved a crown for the King. An authority thus originating, and thus sanctioned by the obedience of all true Spaniards, was recognised also by all those foreign

1809.

By

Note of Count Romanzoff to Mr. Secretary Canning. Paris, 28th November, 1808. Despatch from Marquis Wellesley to Mr. Secretary Canning. Seville, 15th September,