war would be just; that we should have a right to impose such conditions ; and that our safety demanded that we should. If I am told, that these are the sayings of a set of foolish writers in newspapers, my answer is, that I have seldom seen any of these people promulgate any political opinion without its being, in the sequel, very clear to me, that it was not in their own foolish heads that the sentiment had been hatched. These men are, in fact, nothing of themselves; they have no principles, no opinions; they care nothing about the matter. They are the mere tools of those who speak through them, whom they not unfrequently despise, but from whom, and through the means of whom, they live comfortably and sometimes get rich.

has expressed her anxious desire to live at peace with you and yet, you have gone to war against France: if, therefore, it be base on my part to make war upon you, after you have begun war upon France, where is your justification for having begun that war? Besides, have you no ally? You boast of having all Europe on your side. And shall France have no ally? Shail you have twenty allies against the old ally of America, and shall it be deemed base in America to become the only ally of France? You say, that yours is a war of precaution: so is mine. You fear that Napoteon may, one day or other, get to London; and you have been at Washington, at Frenchtown and at Alexandria.

It is a favourite saying, or it used to be, in America, that it was her true policy to keep aloof from European politics and

Upon the whole, therefore, my Lord, it is not to be apprehended, that, if we make war upon France for the avowed pur-wars. General Washington several times pose of deposing Napoleon, the people of expressed this sentiment. But can she do America will feel a strong disposition to it? If General Washington had seen the take part with France in that war? And, Congress House in flames, the other day, if they were so to do, have we not great and had seen our people so busy in packCause to fear, that the war would be ex-ing up goods at Alexandria, he would, I tremely injurious to us by sea as well as by land? The American privateers, though without a port to take shelter in on this side of the Atlantic, did great mischief to our commerce even in the Channel. What, then, would they do if all the ports of France were open to them and shut against us? If, in short, America were in alliance with France, what English ship unarmed could hope to escape capture? And, is it to be hoped, that, in such a case, the skill, the discipline, and undaunted bravery of the American navy would not be communicated to that of France? Emulation might do a great deal towards sending forth fleets able, in a short time, to cope with those of England. Really, if we wish to keep these two nations asunder, it appears to me, that we have no way of accomplishing the wish but that of keeping at peace.

If America were to join France in the war, we should, doubtless, tell her, that she was acting a very base part; that she had received from us no provocation; that we had not meddled with her; that we had expressed our anxious desire to live at peace with her. But, my Lord, might she not answer?—very true; and you have received no provocation from France; France has not meddled with you; France

imagine, have begun to think, that it was not so easy a matter to keep aloof from European wars; and, if he had lived to be made acquainted with the famous Captain HENRY's exploits, I think he would have had his doubts as to the possibility of keeping aloof from European politics. Even we, in England, say, that America should keep at peace, though we ourselves are always at war in some part or other of the world; though there is no war, in which we have not a hand. The truth is, that America must take a part in the wars and politics of Europe. Here are powers in Europe who can reach her, who have colonies in her neighbourhood, who have an interest, or think they have au interest, in injuring her. They combine and cooperate with one another; and she must form alliances too; or, she cannot be many years an independent nation.

It was impudently asserted, not long ago, that America had acted a foul part towards us, in the war; and she was called an assassin, who had attacked us in the dark. I was pleased to hear, from such a quarter, a sentiment of abhorrence against assassins; but, I was displeased to hear such an act attributed to America ; because no charge was ever more false. It is notorious, that America used every

effort, and made every sacrifice short of a [ She was to stop till our war with him was surrender of her independence, to main- at an end, before she sought to defend hertain peace with England; and, that, so self. It was baseness in her to assert her far from attacking us in the dark, she own rights, at the end of many years of gave us notice, for years before-hand, that complaints, because we were at war with she would repel by force our seizure of her Napoleon. seamen, unless we ceased that practice. What, then, could be meant by this charge of assassin-like conduct? Really, we seem to have taken into our heads, like the cock on the dunghill, that all the world was made for us; that no nation is to form an alliance, nor even to think of defending itself by its own arms, if we disapprove of it. When our interest, real or imaginary, is in question, the interest of no other nation is to be thought of. The question with America, according to this presumptuous whim, was to be, not whether she suffered injury; but merely whether it was conducive to our interest to impress her sailors. If it was useful to us to do this, she was to deserve annihilation if she did not quietly submit to it, and to all its cruel and degrading consequences.

This insolent language, my Lord, is little calculated to heal the wounds of America. She will, in spite of all we can say, reflect on her past danger, and she must have lost her usual wisdom in profiting from experience, if she does not now seek the means of security betimes, That, with all her natural reluctance to war, she will be disposed to do this I am cer tain; and, it will, I imagine, require but a slight provocation to induce her to act npon that disposition. It has been announced to us, that Switzerland has been informed, that there are to be no neutrals in this war against Napoleon. Hamburgh, Tuscany, Genoa, and several other states felt the effects of such a principle during the first war against Republican France. Denmark felt those effects during the last war. America will consider of, and judge from the past; and, your Lordship may be assured, that she will not want the means of doing what her permanent safety shall manifestly demand."

We proceed upon the same notion with regard to alliances amongst foreign powers. What! America make alliances with any power but us! Dreadful presumption! Presumption which merits all the weight I have thus, my Lord, stated to you what of our vengeance! What! America seek I think will be the view that the people of safety, when we think it best to keep her America will take of the present scene; in continual danger! America make an what I think will be their feelings; and I alliance for the purpose of defending her- have pointed out the consequences, which self against us, whose public writers, at I apprehend from those feelings, if we enter least, devoted her chief magistrate to the upon the war against France on the ground gibbet, and herself to a return under the which is at present set forth. The Ame mild protection of" the PARENT state!"ricans, I repeat, are prone to peace, as Nor are there wanting writers in America to hold the same language; but they are met by men, who are able to contend against them. There the press is free, really free; and, there truth will prevail. A good specimen of this insolent way of talking was given by Sir John Cox Hippesley, who at a late county-meeting in Somersetshire, said, that the Americans, or at least, their President and the majority of the Congress, were the slaves of the late tyrant of France, a proof of which they had given in their late war against us. Botley, May 6, 1815. So, because America, in defence of herself, went to war with us, while we were at war against Napoleon, she was to be deemed the slave of Napoleon, who had To power to hurt her, and who had never called on her to go to war in his behalf.

every uncorrupted nation is; but as it was
said, the other evening, that it was better
to go to war now with a strong alliance on
our side, than be compelled to go to war
at the end of an exhausting armed peace
without allies; as this was deemed
triumphant reasoning, in England, in be-
half of offensive war, you must not be sur
prised if it be imitated, in America, in be
half of a war of defence.
I am, &c., &c.,

WM. COBBETT.

LEGITIMATE SOVEREIGNTY.

MR. COBBETT.-Is not the present preparations for war against France, for the purpose of ousting from the throne of a

people's confidence and affection, a man who, of all potentates that ever lived, has perhaps the best title to that distinguished situation, truly abominable? The nineteenth century will be for ever disgraced in the page of history for affording an example of a race of men that could have been so criminally abject as to recommend so iniquitous, so servile a piece of treason against the social rights of man. The monstrous injustice of such execrable | practice sickens every sense of virtue, and renders life itself almost insufferable. The natural feelings of the human mind, uninfluenced by the immorality, public and private, that has been engendered by the profligacy of the age, must revolt at the spoliating proceedings of modern times. Individual robbery is visited by the penal infliction of the law; but an authority setting itself above all law, will despoil whole nations, will dissolve all ties and obligations on which the moral and social character of man essentially depends, and is not held amenable to any tribunal; nay, is even applauded by the corrupt tools of licentious power as having conducted itself magnanimously! It would be easy to prove that no individual living can assume to himself, in his own right, as all despots ayowedly do, the sovereign power. This authority is inherent in the people that may be incorporated into a nation, and equally emanates from every individual in that social assemblage. For the benefit of the whole, the aggregate of this indi-present government too much to the previdual power may be conferred on any person that may be the object of preference, to carry the high authority thus confided into effect for the advantage of the nation. The person exercising this sovereign power is a sovereign legitimately delegated, and may act as such with all the consideration that may be due to the people whose suffrages he represents. Where, but in France, and America are to be found heads of governments of this rightful stamp and authority? The French people in the ardor and gratitude of their love and attachment to Bonaparte have conferred on him an imperial throne: a throne the first in intrinsic worth on the face of the globe, and one, which a generous and high minded nation of thirty" the blessed comforts of religion," and millions of people, it may be fairly hoped, will cause to be duly respected. A throne, that may be truly regarded as the edifice of the people's own creation, must be

the darling object of their care and protee tion: a throne like that which exalts and adorns the person of Napoleon, is indeed truly enviable; it stands alone in sterling value; it is a precious unique in these enslaving and enslaved times; it is the throne of a free nation emanating from the sovereignty of the people, and intrusted to the revered and beloved Napoleon as the faithful guardian of civic rights, as the tried and approved repository of the inestimable charge. What will the French profit by this Imperial Constitution of National liberty? Why, instead of being governed by schemes of ancient but execrated vassalage, it will be ruled by the indefeasible axioms of the rights of man; the legislative authority will originate from the majority of the nation, where alone it legitimately exists. No unequal privileges can be claimed; the rights of the individual are those of the multitude; no distinction can arise in the administration of the laws; the Emperor is the first servant or magistrate of the people, and holds that high office no longer than he shall faithfully fulfil its inseparable duties. This is a scheme novel it must be owned, in these degenerate times. America only furnishes its counter-part. England has some pretension to its general principle in the provisions of Magna Charta, but the machinations, abuses, and sophistications incident to all social institutions have, through lapse of time, approximated its

vailing systems of Europe, (in which the sovereignty of the people is ridiculed rather than acknowledged and revered) to admit of being any longer likened to the sage and enlightened views of legislation, recognised and adopted in the French and American schemes of government. Napoleon, the author of this enviable amelioration in the French government, and Madison, his American co-partner in political wisdom, have been objects of un ceasing aspersions and vilifications. They have been severally denounced and menaced with utter destruction. After the one was overthrown, by the influence of plots and treasons, the other was held to stand in the way of "social order, and

even the British government was called on to wield her power against the pestiferous evils of American liberty. The warlike preparations that are at present making,

list for decayed literary hacks. They tell the world, that they do not publish the names of the parties who receive charity. They are very wise in this, for the public would soon see what the real object of the Fund was, if they could see the names of the persons relieved. In short, this, like almost every other "Charity," as they are called, is neither more nor less than an adjunct of the government, or, rather of the System. What Jacobin, or Jacobin's wife (unless she first betrayed her

have most evidently for their object the destruction of French liberty, overwhelming as that liberty must be, under the able direction of Bonaparte, to countries pining and sinking under the pitiless scourge of what is considered as hereditary and legitimate slavery. French liberty has a quality in it, with reference to surrounding nations eminently contiguous; its influence must spread. Like the electric fluid, it .will diffuse itself. Some nations, indeed, to continue the electric simile, may be more ready conductors of it than others, accord-husband) was ever relieved by any of these ing to natural and acquired capabilities; but none can permanently continue in a state of non-conductors of the sacred principle.

JUSTITIA.

LITERARY FUND AND WASHING1. TON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY.

societies? They are kept up for the purpose of keeping the needy in good humour, or of rewarding faithful decayed slaves. Here the man who has paid a fortune in taxes often comes, cap in hand, and receives back the means of getting a dinner. It is curious to observe, that the Aristocratic faction in America have resorted to a trick of this sort. They set up, some I have observed, that, year after year, few years ago, a society, which they this institution becomes more like a com- called the "Washington Benevolent Somon charity concern. A parcel of Lords, ciety," which, it appears, has branched and other men of purse, take the chair, out all over the country. The object of and take the lead. This last meeting was, this trick was to collect little groupes of I see, presided over by the Duke of Kent, the most needy and mean-spirited part of in the same way as the Lancaster school the people, and, by the means of dona meetings, and other meetings for the as- tions in money, clothes, books, or medi. sistance of the poor and miserable. The cal aid, to attach them to the aspiring consequence of this must be, that the poor rich, and thus to found a sort of affiliation devil's politics will serve as the measure of against the Republican government. The the bounty he is to receive. The original name of Washington was taken for the design of this fund must be totally over- purpose of deception, and as a party-word, looked. That design, I believe, was to opposed to the name of Jefferson or Maprevent authors from selling their pens; dison, who were thus to be held up as having whereas now, I should suppose, the prin- deviated from the principles of the man, to cipal design to be to purchase the pens of whom American gratitude has given what, authors, or to keep alive poor slaves perhaps, American wisdom and justice whose works are well-meant towards would have given largely, but certainly their patrons, but destitute of the talent with a less prodigal hand. Availing them.necessary to make them sell.-I observe, selves of this amiable weakness, these that the Founder's" health was drunk, crafty enemies of their country's freedom but, that the "Founder," Mr. DAVID have been working up the people here and WILLIAMS, was not named.-Mr. David there, by the means of these societies, to Williams wrote some excellent political an opposition to the government. They tracts in support of the principles of free-hold their stated meetings, as our dom; he also trauslated some of the works rities" do. They make speeches, compli of Voltaire on the subject of religion. ment one another, extol the virtues of Never did he expect that his institution Washington, who, though one of the first would tumble into such hands as have of patriots, never was fool enough to be now got hold of it. The truth is, that the stow his money in the making of paupers. scheme was a very good one. Its object, Shut out of the Legislative Assemblies by and its tendency, was to encourage lite- the people's voice, they harrangue at these rary merit, and to make authors honest meetings, and thus continue to keep them and independent; but it has now maui-selves in wind. Silly as the thing is, how festly been converted into a sort of poor- ever, in itself, I would have the Ameri

"cha

cans be upon their guard against it. It is speaking of Napoleon. They call him a aspiring Aristocracy in its most alluring perfidious traitor, an audacious rebel, a guise; it is imposture of the most danger- vile miscreant, a run-away coward, a ous kind. It tends to the creating of monster, whom every body hates, an enepauperism; to the forming of a class in my to tranquillity, happiness, and order, the community, who have no interest in a hater of mankind, with whom no peace supporting the rights and liberties of the or truce can, or ought to, be made; and, nation, and who are to be bought and to complete the climax, he is said to be a sold like cattle. These societies ought to devil incarnate, but by which of the fallen be resolutely attacked and exposed. A angels he was begotten we are not yet inJittle matter would break them up amongst formed. Doubtless they will next tell us a sensible people. I wish I could shew he is Belzabub, the prince of the devils. the people of America the effects of pau- These calumniators have a great facility perism in England; I wish I could make in the use of these epithets. They apply them see the degradation which it has them to all who think different from thembrought upon the land of their fore-selves. You, Sir, have very pointedly fathers there would need nothing more. animadverted on their modest declamations

against Mr. Madison, the American President. It was certainly a very pious avowal of theirs, that "the world should

the world. Truth stands in no need of abusive language to support it. Such mean and contemptible expressions militate against the cause they are intended to serve. The Moniteur some time ago informed us that the loyalty of the Freuch to the Bourbons was universal. Why then did not the Duke de Orleans, and the French Marshal who went with him to Lyons, excite the people of that great

WAR AGAINST FRANCE. MR. COBBETT-There are some persons" be delivered of such a democratic traiwith whom it is in vain to reason, and "tor," "and that no peace can or ought whom it is impossible to convince. As a "to be made with so rebellious a goproof of this, the effects of prejudice and "vernment." Much the same language blind incredulity were never more palpa- was used in speaking of the immortal bly evinced than in the declarations, so Washington, when that admired charepeatedly made, by most of the public racter directed the affairs of the most injournals, that the army, and not the peo-dependent representative government in ple of France, are favourable to the return of Napoleon; that the nation at large has a perfect dislike to his name, character, and government; and that no proof of attachment by the people has yet been given, from the moment of his landing at Frejus to the time of his entering the city of Paris; no not even up to the present period. When such declarations as these are made, in the face of so many opposite facts, it is almost impossible for any evidence, how-city to resistance? Opportunities have ever strong, to remove such deep rooted been afforded the people in various parts prejudice. What kind of evidence, short of France to prove their attachment to of a miracle, would be deemed sufficient Louis, had they been so disposed. The to convince such wilful perverseness? exertions of the Duke of Angouleme, as It is not a little curious to see how they well as his heroic Duchess, were incapable attempt to account for Napoleon's unin- of rousing them to support their cause, terrupted march to Paris. His landing, notwithstanding they had royal blood in they tell us, was so sudden and unexpect- their veins, and tongues pouring forth reed; his movements so rapid and direct, wards on all who heard them. It is nothat every loyal citizen was seized with a toriously true, that Napoleon landed with momentary astonishment. A paralytic af- a little band of 600 men. While moving fection deprived the nation of all motion, forward to the capital, why was he not and all sense of feeling, except that a small arrested in his progress at Digne, at Gap, disaffected rabble, the dregs of the mili- at Grenoble, or at Lyons, before his military, basely attached themselves to the tary strength became formidable? At "vile tyrant," and conducted him to neither of these places, nor at any other Paris! For a moment let us glance at in the whole of his march, did a single inthe moderation and modesty, the impar-dividual oppose him. Can it be imagined, if tiality and candour of these men, when such a force was to land in any part of Eng