to be likely to produce, any very sensible effect upon his domestic revenue, for many years to come. We are persuaded also that this revenue, aided by what he must be always able to collect, from his nominal allies, and from the enemies whom it may suit his views of rapine to make, will invariably yield wherewithal to maintain a force of 6 or 800,000 men; a force which commanded by the generals whom he has now in his service, or by those whom he is forming about him, must be sufficient, if any force can be, to uphold his present power, and even to accomplish his ulterior projects of aggrandizement on the continent.

The French are undoubtedly groaning under the heaviest load of taxation, and could perhaps, by no possibility, be made to yield in a regular way, and under legal financial forms, more than is now wrung from them. But who can doubt that Bonaparte or any military successor he may have, rather than suffer his plans to be baffled, or the militarý preponderance of the French nation to be lost, from the want of a few hundred millions of francs, would resort to means analogous to those employed by the convention to relieve their necessities? Nothing more is required than an exertion of his will, to transfer into the public coffers, almost every particle of surplus private wealth, diffused over his own dominions, or yet remaining in the countries subject to his influence.-The inhabitants of the empire would be found still more passive under any enormity of exaction, than they were in the time of the Directory.-If Bonaparte now fleeces to the skin, his submissive and well-tutored flock, he might and would excoriate them in a season of emergency.*

It cannot be said that France herself although much impaired in her resources,-that Italy, Switzerland, the countries on the Rhine, the north of Germany, the Illyrian provinces,are so completely exhausted, as not to be capable of still yielding rich gleanings, whenever it shall choose their dauntless and ironhearted tyrant, to lay them under the requisition of the sword. If these should not be adequate for his purpose, the Austrian monarchy, the Turkish empire, and even the Russian yet remain to be plundered, and would, while they replenished his treasury, afford himself and his troops that occupation, which is natural and essential to both. "Material resources," says Mr. Burke, "never have supplied,

• We adopt here the figure which Tiberius is said to have used at the commencement of his reign, when he affected tenderness for his subjects, as Bonaparte uniformly does, in his financial projects. Boni pastoris est tondere pecus, non deglubere. (Sueton.)

nor ever can supply, the want of unity in design and constancy in pursuit. But unity in design, and perseverance, and boldness in pursuit have never wanted resources, and never will."

The idea that "the population of the French empire is insufficient to recruit its present military establishment," seems to us still more visionary, than that which our author has advanced, on the topic we have just discussed.-The military strength of France in this respect is undoubtedly impaired, as are her pecuniary resources, but not in any degree to the extent supposed in the present pamphlet.-The diminution, such as it is, might perhaps be sensibly felt under the old system of voluntary levies, but should be prodigious indeed to interfere with the designs of the government, while the conscription law remains in force.-The population now subject to that lawand we have seen how it is applied-is little less than sixty millions. In 1805, when the population of France was estimated at thirty-four millions, there were, according to the computation of Peuchet in his Statistique Elementaire,* no less than 7,612,690 individuals, males between twenty-one and forty-one, liable to the military service.

Malthus taking the population of France at thirty millions, and having the other data of the French statistical writers before him, computes, that six hundred thousand persons would annually arrive at the age of eighteen. We may certainly allow a much larger number at this time. It must be recollected, too, that youths of this age, are selected in preference, and have composed the levies of the last five or six years.At the lowest calculation, three or four hundred thousand may be annually within the reach of the government, and certainly the mortality in the French armies, is not likely to exceed this amount in the same interval. There are now, in all likelihood, not fewer than eight or ten millions of indi viduals inscribed on the militia lists of the empire, under the denomination of the national guard, entirely, as indeed is the whole male population, at the disposal of the sovereign. Should it then require a million of chosen troops to keep Europe in awe, they will not, unhappily, be wanting, such is the plenitude of the resources of France in this respect, and such the portentous character of both her military and politi cal organization.-This organization is expressly adapted to

Page 247.

† B. 2, c. 6, Essay on Population.-His chapters on the checks to population among the Romans, and in France, fully elucidate this subject, and are in themselves exceedingly curious.

extreme cases, to gigantic efforts, to the acquisition and preservation of dominion at every hazard, and any cost. So far it sets at defiance all calculation with respect to its sufficiency, and leaves no scope for encouraging conjecture, but as regards the personal qualities of those, by whom it may be administered.

We are ready to admit that the fields in France are now principally cultivated by women, but this fact only serves to show, that the conscription falls heavily on one particular class of the community, the agricultural, the best and chosen materials of the armies. We may infer, moreover, that the military population of France is impaired, but there is a wide difference between this legitimate presumption, and the extravagant supposition, that it has dwindled to such an extent, as no longer to be sufficient for the purposes of the government. The organization and employment of foreign troops for the French service, may be easily and satisfactorily ac counted for, upon other principles than the difficulty of procuring men at home.-The number of these troops drawn from countries not actually included within the limits of the empire, is in fact exceedingly small, when compared with the whole imperial force. The entire number of troops not strictly French, although considerable, bears still, a proportion to the rest, too small to warrant any apprehensions of danger from their disaffection, if we could suppose them liable to be strongly influenced by this sentiment. It is, however, not likely to obtain, and still less likely to be efficacious, with soldiery of any description, headed by French officers, and either divided into comparatively small bodies, or distributed almost individually, as may be easily done, throughout the mass of the

armies.

The policy of drawing supplies from the new departments, and of employing foreign troops with proper limitations, is, in truth, eminently sagacious, and to us an additional and abundant source of apprehension, for the fate of the continent. It tends to husband the resources of France proper, the great seat of the strength, both moral and physical, of the empire; to reconcile her more and more to the evils of her own condition, and to heighten her alacrity in seconding the ambitious scheme of a further enlargement of the imperial dominion. It serves also,-and this effect is particularly contemplated by the profound adepts in history, and in human nature, who are "weaving the winding sheet" of the continent,to assimilate the vanquished to their conquerors, by bringing them to fight under the same banners; by engaging them in a common and equally advantageous pursuit; by subjecting them

to the principle of military association, the esprit de corps,with masses of men, the most efficaciously and actively operative of all moral affinities. The plan of the French government in this respect, is no other than that of the Romans, with regard to the states of Italy, by whose aid thus acquired, as Montesquieu justly remarks,* they enslaved the universe, even before they had completely mastered, or had even ceased to struggle with their auxiliaries.-There is obviously no analogy, whatever between the case under consideration, and the conduct of Rome in the last stages of her degeneracy and decline, when either from imbecility, or treachery, or stupidity, she sought to uphold the crazy, disjointed, superannuated fabric of her power, by committing it to the protection of her worst enemies, the fierce and already warlike barbarians on her frontier.

The last ground of our author's reliance-the fancied improvement in the dispositions and means of the continent-is, in our eyes, even still less solid than any of the rest.-At the commencement of the French revolution, the continental nations were full of resource, elate with hope, fresh and entire in their strength. They are now in comparison a mere wreck, shattered and mutilated, in a state of dismay, abjection and impotence, the more hopeless, as it is a consequence of the sad experience, after reiterated efforts, of their inability to cope with their enemy. In the same proportion that they are enfeebled, overawed, and inert, is France fortified and emboldened. The disparity of force and temper, as regards their respective situations twenty years ago, is equal on both sides. -Upon any common principles of reasoning, how is it that we can indulge the expectation, under such circumstances, of seeing the balance of power speedily restored?

If the prostrate nations of the continent have not been roused to exertion, by what they have suffered from the despotism of their common tyrant, during the four years past, it is difficult to imagine the sort of calamity, or the "train of recollections," by which their sensibility is to be, or can be, so. far affected. If the horrors perpetrated in Spain in 1809, if the first efforts of the Spaniards to avenge their wrongs, if the diversion made in favour of the Northern powers by the war of

* Grandeur et Decadence, c. 9.-" As the Romans," says this writer, in the fourth chapter of the same work, "had never considered the vanquished, but as instruments for future triumphs, they made soldiers of all the nations whom they subdued.-Some time before the second punic war, they drew from the Samnites, whom they had conquered, and from their allies, seven hundred thousand infantry," &c. to oppose the Gauls

the Peninsula, have not stimulated the latter to one movement of exalted or generous despair, it is not given to us to conceive the kind of example, or of moral influence, which will be effec- tual to force into action their inexplicable and sluggish energy. -The fancy of our author, fired by the present delusive struggle in Spain, presents to his enraptured view, the whole continent of Europe bursting its fetters by one universal and simultaneous effort, spurning away the considerations of selfishness and fear, buoyed up to the highest point of desperate energy, and bearing down the legions of its oppressor, by an overwhelming superiority of numbers, and an irresistible impetuosity of attack. We are loath to disturb him in the enjoyment of this splendid vision, but we must confess that we cannot discern at this moment, in the sphere of sad reality, a single symptom of so miraculous a change.

From what quarter is the impulse now to come, since the example of Spain has been fruitless? If Russia and Austria were not completely subdued in spirit, and helplessly conscious of their weakness, would they quietly look on while their enemy hunts his victims in the Peninsula, fully alive as these powers undoubtedly are, to his intentions and dispositions in their own regard?* If they saw the possibility of safety

The following passages from the official speech of Count Sémonville to the French senate, concerning the annexation of Holland to France, are of a nature not to be easily misunderstood:

"The empire of habit and of self-love, is as powerful over nations as over individuals. In vain do the changes which occur about them, advertise them of their own decline. A blind self-attachment renders them insensible to the lessons of experience, and they render their end more disastrous, by the efforts which they make to avoid it."

"The times have gone by, in which the conceptions of some statesmen had given credit, and importance, in the eyes of mankind, to the system of balances, of guarantees, of counterpoises, and of political equilibrium.Pompous illusions, these of cabinets of the second order! Vain hopes of weakness which vanish before domineering necessity!"

"Holland, as well as the Hanseatic towns, would remain exposed to incertitudes, dangers, and revolutions of every kind, if the genius which sways the destinies of the continent, did not cover her with his invincible agis; the Emperor has resolved in his wisdom, to incorporate them with the immense family of which he is the head."

"In adopting this high determination perhaps he yields himself, more than might be imagined, to the law of necessity. If he commands the glory of the present times, the events which preceded his coming, determine those of his reign; an uninterrupted succession of causes and effects which compose the history of nations, and the destiny of their chiefs.-That of Napoleon is to reign and to conquer; victory is his; war is the fate of his age."

"The whole of Europe was summoned, to co-operate in the work of destruction planned against France by England.-On all sides repulsed, on all sides threatened, and trembling for herself, she stops short at the sight of the conflagration kindled by the brands of England. In fine, after ten years

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