France. "I would not," said he, "have attempted to subject England to France: I could not have united two nations so dissimilar. If I had succeeded in my project, I would have abolished the monarchy, and established a republic instead of the oligarchy by which you are governed. I would have separated Ireland from England, and left them to themselves, after having sown the seeds of republicanism in their morale. would have allowed the House of Commons to remain, but would have introduced a great reform.”*

mighty engine would have yielded its | fiscation of the property of the church, powers in a corresponding degree to a vast reduction of taxation, an equitboth sides, and their relative situations able adjustment of the national debt, would have remained the same as be- and all the other objects which the fore. If steamers would have enabled revolutionary party in this country the flotilla, under all winds, to issue have ever had at heart, and the profrom Boulogne harbour, and attempt spect of obtaining only one of which, the passage of the Channel, they would five-and-twenty years afterwards, prohave enabled the English blockading duced so extraordinary a change in squadrons at all seasons to maintain the dominant multitude of the English their station, and put it in their power people. It was Napoleon's constant to have sent in fire-ships, which would affirmation, that the majority in numhave carried conflagration and ruin into ber of the English nation was opposed the crowded harbour. Propelled by to the war, which was maintained solely this powerful force, one armed steam- by the influence and for the purposes ship, at dead of night, would have burst of the oligarchy; and that, if he could open the chains at the entrance of the once have roused the multitude against basin, while succeeding ones, in rapid their rule, Great Britain would speedily succession, carried flames and explo- have become so divided as to be no sion into its forest of shipping. Gun-onger capable of resisting the power of powder did not diminish the superio rity of the English at sea. The victory of Nelson at Trafalgar was not less decisive than that of Edward III. at Sluys. In the altered species of warfare to which steam navigation would unquestionably have given rise, success in the end would have remained with the people of the greater resources and resolution. The land of coal and of iron had no reason to dread a contest carried on by the powers of fire. The last gun, the last guinea, the last steam engine, would carry the day. The countrymen of Collingwood, who ventured unsupported into the midst of "I would have hurried over my flotilla," the combined fleet, need never fear said Napoleon, "with two hundred thousand men," [it was only one hundred and thirtythe mechanical force which augments eight thousand,] landed as near Chatham the facility of getting into close action, as possible, and proceeded direct to London, and increases the rapidity with which where I calculated upon arriving in four days the different vessels of the squadron claimed a republic, the abolition of the nobility from the time of my landing. Iwould have procan be brought together to the decisive and House of Peers, the distribution among point. my partisans of the property of such of the lat125. But it is impossible to form an sovereignty of the people. I would have alter as opposed me; liberty, equality, and the equally clear opinion as to the conse-lowed the House of Commons to remain, but quences which would have followed if Napoleon, with a hundred and thirty thousand men, had succeeded in effecting a landing on the coast of Kent. He has told us that he would have advanced direct to London, of which he calculated upon getting possession in four days; and there he would instantly have proclaimed parliamentary reform, a low suffrage for the new voters, the downfall of the oligarchy, the con

I

would have introduced a great reform. I would have published a proclamation, declaring that we came as friends to the English, and to free the nation from a corrupt and flagitious aristocracy, and restore a popular form of government, a democracy; all which would have been confirmed by the conduct of my army, as I would not have allowed the slightest outrage to be committed by my troops. I think that, between my promises and what I would actually have effected, I should have had the London, where there are so many canaille support of a great many. In a large city like and so many disaffected, I should have been

126. That the French Emperor would | stimulants since 1830, and the strong have been worsted in his attempt, if partiality to French alliance which England had remained true to herself, grew up when popular passion was can be doubtful to no one who recol-powerfully excited by that change, has lects that the British troops defeated now suggested the painful doubt the French in every encounter, with- whether Napoleon did not know us out exception, from Vimeira to Water- better than we knew ourselves, and loo, and that Napoleon himself said to whether we could have resisted those Lord Whitworth there were a hundred methods of seduction which had proved chances to one against his success. But fatal to the patriotism of so many other would she have remained true to her- people. The spirit of the nation, inself under the temptation to swerve deed, then ran high against Gallic inproduced by such means? This is a vasion; unanimity unprecedented expoint upon which there is no Briton isted among the British people: but who would have entertained a doubt strong as that feeling was, it is now till within these few years. But the doubtful whether it would not have manner in which the public mind has been supplanted, in a large portion of reeled from the application of inferior the nation at least, by a still stronger, and whether the sudden offer of all the glittering objects of democratic ambition would not have shaken the patriotism of a considerable portion of the British, as it unquestionably would of the great bulk of the Irish people.

joined by a formidable body; and I would at the same time have excited an insurrection in Ireland. You would never have burned your capital; you are too rich and fond of money. How often have the Parisians sworn to bury themselves under the ruins of their capital rather than suffer it to fall into the hands of the enemies of France, and yet it has twice been taken! The hope of a change

for the better, and a division of property, would have operated wonderfully amongst the canaille, especially that of London. The canaille of all nations are nearly alike. I would have made such promises as would have had a great effect. I would have abolished flogging in the army, and promised your seamen everything, which would have made a great impression on their minds. The proclamation that we came as friends to relieve the English from an obnoxious and despotic aristocracy, whose object was to keep the nation eternally at war, in order to enrich themselves and their families through the blood of the people; together with the proclaiming of a republic, the abolition of the monarchical form of government and the nobility, the declaration of the forfeiture of such of the latter as should resist, and the division of their possessions amongst the partisans of the revolution, with a general equalisation of property, would have gained me the support of the canaille, and of all the idle, profligate, and disaffected, in the kingdom." Thus far the Emperor Napoleon; to which it may be added, that amidst the divisions and democratic transports consequent on these prodigious innovations, he would quietly have laid his grasp on Woolwich, Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, and smiled at his revolutionary allies on this side of the Channel when they called on him to redeem his pledges, further than spoliating some of the higher orders; and if they proved refractory, have marched a file of grenadiers into the chapel of St Stephen.-O'MEARA, i. 349,

352.

127. No man can say how he would keep his senses under the application of some extraordinary and hitherto unknown stimulant, as if he were at once elevated to a throne, or saw the mountains fall around him, or the earth suddenly open beneath his feet. Even the warmest friend to his country will probably hesitate before he pronounces upon the stability of the English mind, under the influence of the prodigious excitement likely to have arisen from the promulgation of the political innovations which Napoleon had prepared for her seduction. If he is wise, he will rejoice that, in the providence of God, his country was saved the trial, and acknowledge with gratitude the inestimable obligations which she owes to the illustrious men whose valour averted a danger under which her courage indeed would never have sunk, but to which her wisdom might possibly have proved unequal. The true crisis of the war occurred at this period. It was the arm of Nelson which delivered his country from her real danger. Thenceforth the citadel of her strength was beyond the reach of attack. At Waterloo she fought for victory; at Trafalgar for existence.

CHAPTER XL.

CAMPAIGN OF AUSTERLITZ.

No one dominant race has in its provinces acquired a decided preponderance over the others, or communicated to the whole the impress of its charac ter and the lustre of its name. Though the appellation of Austria has, from Vienna being the residence of its sovereigns, been generally applied to the whole empire, yet the inhabitants of the inconsiderable provinces which properly bear that name have neither con

sove

1. THE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE, which had long taken an active part in the European confederacy, and was now destined to stand in the front rank of the fight of nations, is a power which has slowly risen to greatness, without the aid of any extraordinary ability either in its sovereigns or its cabinet, by a succession of fortunate alliances on the part of its princes, and a constant adherence to prudent counsels on that of its government. The dukes of the house of Haps-quered by force of arms, like the Roburg, in former times, possessed merely mans, nor swayed by intellectual supethe inconsiderable provinces of Upper riority, like the Greeks, the more distant, and Lower Austria; they were sur- but larger and more powerful provinces rounded by the more powerful kingdoms of the empire. The state has grown of Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia; and up to greatness, as the monarchy has so far from it being probable that they added provinces to its crown, by the would ever rise to the rank of a first- voluntary marriage of their rate power, nothing presaged that they reigns,* not the forced submission or would be able to maintain their inde- gradual amalgamation of their inhabipendence amidst those formidable po- tants. Styria was acquired by legacy tentates by whom they were environed. from Othokar VI. to Leopold I., hereAustria has seldom been distinguished ditary archduke of Austria in 1192; by extraordinary talent, either in her Carniola by purchase, by Leopold II. statesmen or generals, until the glorious in 1199. The crown of Bohemia was eras of Maria Theresa and the French Re- won for the dukes of Austria by marvolution. She was remarkable chiefly riage in 1527; that of Hungary, which for the prudence of her counsels and became the brightest jewel in their the good fortune of her enterprises; diadem, by the same means at the same and her institutions were not such as period; the duchy of the Tyrol, which to call forth talent in the middle or was the inheritance of the heiress of lower classes of the state. Neverthe-the Tyrol, who married an archduke less she has steadily advanced in po- of the same fortunate house; the Flempulation, wealth, and political impor-ish provinces, with Lorraine and Alsace, tance, and now stood forth as a first- which became united to the Austrian rate power, alike formidable to the in- crown by the marriage of Mary of Burdependence of the adjoining states, and gundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, valuable as a bulwark against the en- to Maximilian, archduke of Austria, croachments of French usurpation or grandfather of Charles V.-formed Russian ambition. fully three-fourths of the magnificent Austrian dominions at this time. Gallicia, acquired by the iniquitous parti

2. Unlike France or England, the Austrian monarchy has owed nothing to the homogeneous descent of its inhabitants.

VOL. VI.

"Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube."

E

4. This circumstance will appear still more extraordinary when the striking vicissitudes of fortune which the Imperial dominions have undergone at various times are considered, and the numerous opportunities which successful external hostility or internal revolt have afforded to dismember and overturn the empire. No state in modern times has sustained such terrible reverses: none has been so frequently pierced to the heart by wounds appa

tion of Poland in 1772 and 1794, and| Lombardy and Venice, which fell to their lot in the division of the spoils of conquest in 1797 and 1815, are the only considerable provinces of the monarchy which have been won by force of arms. They do not constitute a fourth part of its extent or population; and contribute a still less proportion to its warlike or financial resources. The strength of the monarchy has been the result of marriage, and of marriage alone. 3. When the extraordinary embar-rently mortal: none has been so frerassment is considered which has been quently driven to rest, as a last reexperienced by Great Britain in all source, on the patriotic spirit of its periods of its history, from the alien distant provinces. The dreadful insurblood and hostile passions of Ireland-rection of the Hungarian peasants in one only foreign portion of an otherwise compact and homogeneous empire-it becomes an interesting subject of inquiry, how the Austrian government has succeeded, through so many ages, in holding together the various provinces and multifarious races which compose its widespread empire. The fact of its being a military monarchy, maintained by the sword, and the Emperor's ruling, ostensibly at least, by his own will, will not explain the difficulty for the sword itself is held by men of many races, provinces, and former separate dominions; many of whom were animated, at one period at least, by the fiercest religious passions; who have more than once revolted against the central government; and all of whom retain to this hour the strongest attachment to their national traditions. In reality, also, the government of Austria is not a despotism but an aristocracy, in which the practical direction of affairs is vested in a body of nobles, hardly three hundred in number, drawn from all the provinces of its vast dominions. How, then, has it happened, that while England, with its free government and representative institutions, has experienced such difficulty in restraining the national and religious passions of a single neighbouring island, Austria, with none of these advantages, has succeeded in stilling the rivalry of so many independent states, and attaching such ancient, powerful, and various nations in willing subjection to a foreign central government?

the sixteenth century, combined the horrors of the Jacquerie in France with the brutal atrocities of the insurrection of the boors in Germany. In the very infancy of its fortunes, the revolt of the Hussites in Bohemia brought into the vitals of the state the terrible scourge of religious warfare; nor was it soon appeased, for so strong was the party of the Protestants shortly after the Reformation, that nearly a half of the inhabitants of the Hereditary States were at one period numbered among the followers of Luther. In the close of the seventeenth century, Vienna was besieged by three hundred thousand Turks, and owed its salvation only to the heroism of John Sobieski and the lances of the Poles. Fifty years afterwards, the same capital fell into the hands of the victorious French and Bavarians, and the unconquerable Maria Theresa sought refuge and found support only in the fidelity of the Hungarian nobility. In 1757, the steeples of Vienna were descried by the outposts of the Great Frederick from the plain of the Marchfield; in 1797, they were seen by the videttes of Napoleon from the heights of the Simmering. Twice during the revolutionary war the Austrian capital was taken by the French forces; the defeats the Imperial arms sustained during that terrible contest were so frequent as almost to defy enumeration. Yet from all these reverses the state in the end has emerged, not only unscathed, but victorious; and in the fidelity of her subjects, and

the persevering character of her gov-| shut our eyes to these considerations: ernment, Austria, during four centuries, has found the means of rising superior to all the storms of fortune, and steadily advancing, until she has attained the very first rank among the powers of Europe.

they are founded on facts of such long continuance, and so momentous in their consequences, as to point' evidently to some general law of nature, which will ere long force itself upon the observation of mankind. If they are at variance with our preconceived ideas, the candid inquirer after truth will rather suspect that these ideas are in part erroneous, than that results so opposite to the inferences from them should so long have taken place on so great a scale.

5. What is, in an especial manner, worthy of notice - the secret of this strong principle of vitality and unbroken progress is to be found in the patriotic spirit of the Austrian people, and the strength of the bonds which unite the inhabitants of so many difAnd the conclusion ferent, and once independent, pro- which posterity will probably devinces and kingdoms, to the Imperial duce from them is, that the inherent government. It was in the attach- corruption of human nature is felt ment of the Hungarians that Maria even more severely in popular than in Theresa found the means of defeating aristocratic communities; that the gov the formidable inroad of the French ernment of the many by the many is and Bavarians; the steadiness of the often more selfish than that of the Bohemians enabled Marshal Daun to many by the few; that the tenacity repel the invasion of the Prussians, to interest when one people rules anwhen the standards of the Great Fre- other, is generally greater than when derick were seen from the steeples of one sovereign governs both; and that Vienna. But for the gallant spirit of the effect of free institutions is rather the Hungarians, Austria would have to communicate a mighty impulse to sunk in 1805 under the shock of Aus- human exertion, than to eradicate the terlitz; the devoted loyalty of the Ty-seeds of evil in the multitude who conrolese partly rescued it from destruc- stitute the ruling power. tion after the disaster of Wagram in 1809. No country contains so great a variety of races, nations, and religions; none has found in them all such steady support in such terrible

reverses.

6. This observation affords ample subject for serious reflection to the inhabitants of the British empire. Though vexed with incomparably less diversity of race or national rivalry, and enjoying a constitution which boasts, in a peculiar manner, the advantage of communicating to government the wishes of distant dependencies, and the impress of public opinion, England could hardly hope, if London and Portsmouth were taken by the victorious arms of the French or Russians, to find the means of reinstating its affairs, and regaining the empire of the waves, in the loyalty of the Irish Catholics, the fidelity of the Canadian habitans, the attachment of the West Indian planters, or the steadiness of the East Indian rajahs. It is in vain to

7. Austria contains a surface of 33,802 square marine leagues, or above 300,000 square miles, being twice and a half the superficies of the British islands, which embrace 122,000. It is thinly peopled as a whole, as appears from the census of 1834, by 35,047,533 inhabitants; and at the period of the French invasion in 1805, it could only boast of 27,500,000. Its revenue now amounts to 150,000,000 florins, or 315,000,000 francs, (£12,600,000), a sum, however, at least equivalent, if the difference in the value of money and in habit of living is considered, to eighteen million sterling of British money. Before the commencement of the Revolutionary war, the revenues of Austria, which in 1770 amounted to 90,000,000 florins, (£7,500,000), had risen, by the acquisitions made in Poland and elsewhere, to 106,000,000, or £8,830,000. During the war its revenue was increased by the imposition of several new taxes; and it sustained no diminution by the peace of