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ground for seizing her navy by force, after having laid in ashes nearly one half of her capital. Against the appeal of the jacobins and the French convention to the people in all despotic governments, may be placed the appeals so often made by Great Britain to all the crowned heads in Europe, and even to the French people themselves, exhorting them to crush the Revolutionary government-and if the rulers of the French nation were actuated by an immoderate and insatiable ambition, which we certainly mean not to deny, we fear a comparison of the map of the world as it stood in 1788, with what it was in 1827, will shew that neither Austria, Great Britain nor Russia ought, in decency, to be the accusers-yet, while indignant justice is made to brandish on high against French rulers and French transgressions, an unsparing scourge, the trespasses of Great Britain are all covered with a mantle of charity, are considered as measures of self defence, justified by the principles of self-preservation, and authorised by a stern and severe necessity.

When, at the close of the year 1813, offers of peace were made to Napoleon, and a manifesto published by the Allied Sovereigns, setting forth, previous to their invasion of France, their claims, their rights, and the principles which must form the basis of any future pacification; the Emperor replied that he “acquiesced in the principle which would rest the proposed pacification on the absolute independence of the States of Europe, so that neither one nor another should, in future, arrogate sovereignty or supremacy in any form whatsoever, either upon land or sea. These conditions will involve great sacrifices on the part of France, but his majesty would make them without regret, if, by like sacrifices, England would give the means of arriving at a general peace, honourable for all concerned."

"The slightest attention to this document, adds Sir Walter, shows that Napoleon, in his pretence of being desirous for peace, on the terms held out in the proposals of the allies, was totally insincere. His answer was artfully calculated to mix up with the diminution of his own exorbitant power, the question of the maritime law on which England and all other nations had acted for many centuries, and which gives to those nations that possess powerful fleets the same advantage which those that have great armies enjoy by the law martial. The rights arising out of this law maritime had been maintained by England at the end of the disastrous American war. It had been defended during the present war against all Europe with France, and Napoleon at her head. It was impossible that Britain should permit any challenge of her maritime rights in the present moment of her prosperity, when not only her ships rode triumphant on every coast, but her own victorious army was quartered on French ground, and the powerful hosts of her allies, brought

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to the field by her means, were arrayed along the whole frontier of the Rhine.

"Neither can it be pretended that there was an indirect policy in introducing this discussion as an apple of discord, which might give cause to disunion among the allies. Far from looking on the maritime law as exercised by Britain, with the eyes of jealousy, with which it might, at other times, have been regarded, the continental nations remembered the far greater grievances which had been entailed on them by Bonaparte's memorable attempt to put down that law by his anti-commercial system which had made Russia herself buckle on her armour, and was a cause, and a principal one, of the general coalition against France. It is very true that England had offered to make sacrifices for obtaining a general peace, but these sacrifices, as was seen by the event, regarded the restoration to France of conquered colonies, not the cession of her own naval rights, which, on no occasion whatsoever, a minister of Britain will, can or dare permit to be brought into challenge." Vol. iii. p. 81.

These paragraphs might open a field for ample discussion. They would seem, at first, to contain rather the boast of power than the apology or justification of its exercise and abuse. It was, indeed, not probable that at the period of these negotiations any concessions of her maritime claims would be made by Great Britain, or be required of her by her allies. But, that her naval power and maritime law were viewed with jealous eyes by the nations of Europe, would need no other proof than the testimony of Sir Walter himself, who, in apologising for the attack on Copenhagen, remarks, that Denmark had co-operated against this very naval power and jurisdiction on two former occasions. The correspondence with Count Bernstorff, to which, in a note we have already alluded, may be considered as another controversy so that four times in twenty-five or six years, Denmark, once perhaps alone, but generally with numerous and powerful allies, had been found engaged in ineffectual efforts to circumscribe those very pretensions which we are now told were as (mildly and liberally) exercised by Great Britain, not viewed with the eyes of jealousy.

In Napoleon it was certainly impolitic, particularly if we judge by results, that safe and incontrovertible criterion, to reject at this late period, and when the chances were so much against him, the offers made by the allies. They would still have left him one of the most powerful sovereigns in Europe, even if he were no longer able to control them all-it was unwise to take the position he assumed, when no other power was morally at liberty to support his claim. All were combined against him—all had felt more sensibly his encroachments and his exactions than the naval usurpations of Great-Britain. At a moment too, when Great-Britain stood, as is justly re

marked by Sir Walter, pre-eminently distinguished by the allied powers, conditions like those proposed by Napoleon, must be considered as an evasion rather than an acceptance of the proffered negotiation.

If we were to examine the justice of his pretensions, a very different conclusion might be drawn. What were the complaints and accusations brought against Napoleon? That he had disregarded the rights of neutral nations, had invaded their territories, had imposed upon them taxes either in money or in contributions of provisions and military stores, and frequently compelled them by force to take up arms in his behalf. What were the charges against Great-Britain? That on the ocean she was constantly violating all neutral rights-declaring extensive coasts and even countries under a fictitious blockadeissuing at her discretion orders in council to modify all international law-making in fact, her own will on maritime questions, the law of nations, and causing her decrees to be executed, not by officers of high rank where some discretion might be supposed to exist, but by and at the caprice of every officer who bore a commission in her naval service, nay, by any and every commander of a privateer, fitted out in any ocean or in any part of her scattered dominions. From the abuses which, under such circumstances, ignorance, or passion, or avarice might commit, there was no appeal but to a tribunal dependent on the very administration which, perhaps, issued such orders, and thereby gave sanction to these outrages, of which the presiding officer may generally be considered as a part of the administration of the day, to a tribunal which cannot be impartial when foreign nations or subjects are the complainants, and of which, an illustrious judge has recently declared, that the orders of the king in council were, and must be to him, the rule to guide and govern his decisions.*

Thus it frequently happened that neutral vessels engaged in what had been declared by the law of nations a legal trade, were captured and condemned for violating some unknown proclamation or decree. Still more frequently were seized on trivial accusations or on mere suspicion, for the crime of having on board a valuable cargo, were turned from their destination, sent into an out-port for adjudication, condemned upon ex-parte evidence, and the owner compelled to seek redress by an appeal to the Court of Admiralty in Great-Britain. Here, even if the sentence of condemnation were reversed, the destruction of the

See the case of Fox and others-Edwards, p. 311; and the Snipe and others,— Ib. p. 380. la "

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voyage, the detention, the enormous fees and expenses, necessary to carry the claims of the owners, or their complaints to a final issue, rendered the loss of property, even under the most favourable circumstances, inevitable, sometimes, almost total; and this loss was doubled or trebled, if judgment finally was given against them. Multitudes abandoned their claims, rather than pursue them under such hazards and disadvantages.

Napoleon had been led to consider these doctrines of the British maritime law, with great attention, because they had been employed to interdict and destroy all neutral commerce with his own dominions, and, because, in endeavouring, violently it is true, and without more regard to neutral rights than had been manifested by his antagonists, to counteract these measures, he had been constantly involved in disputes with neutral powers, and left, at his abdication, a thousand unsettled claims, which years of peace have not been able to adjust.

He may have been unwise to have required as a condition of peace, the sacrifice of such pretensions and practises on the part of Great-Britain. But, surely, in wishing to establish a peace as the allies themselves had proposed, "on the absolute independence of the States of Europe, so that neither one nor the other should arrogate sovereignty over another," it was impossible to view these clains but as pretensions, which only highhanded power could assert, which only high-handed power could maintain.

In a scholar and a patriot relating the events of a war, in which his country bore a part so prominent, so steadfast and undeviating, and, finally, so glorious, we can read not only without censure, but even with sympathetic pleasure, such apostrophes as he occasionally addresses to her perseverance and undismayed courage.

"Of those who shared amongst them the residue of Europe, and still maintained some claim to independence, Britain might make the proud boast, that she was diametrically in opposition to this ruler of the world; that in the long-continued strife, she had dealt him injuries as deep as she had ever received, and had disdained, under any circumstances, to treat with him on less terms than those of equality. Not to that fair land be the praise, though she supported many burdens and endured great losses; but to Providence, who favoured her efforts and strengthened her resolutions; who gave her power to uphold her own good cause, which, in truth, was that of European independence, and courage to trust in the justice of Heaven, when the odds mustered against her, seemed, in earthly calculation, so dreadful, as to deprive the wise of the head to counsel; the brave of the heart to resist." Vol. ii. p. 296.

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But when he speaks so frequently of "our fleets" and "our troops," when he commemorates as "glorious victories" those obtained by Great-Britain and her allies, he manifests too much the feelings of a partisan, and lessens our reliance on his impartiality and when, amidst his strong invectives against the ambition of Napoleon, his anathemas against the schemes and prospects of universal dominion, which the career of this extraordinary man once unfolded to the world; amidst his rejoicings that the sword of the oppressor was broken, the arm of the mighty was powerless, and the day-spring of liberty had arisen on mankind; we find him exulting in the continual triumphs of the British navy, boasting that the exploits of Nelson "so indisputably asserted the right of Britain to the dominion of the ocean" (vol. i. p. 414)-" that England retained the full command of what has been termed her native element" (vol. ii. p. 264)" that she did not relax her precautions on the element she calls her own" (vol. ii. p. 37)—and “that Fate had vested in other hands (than Napoleon's) the empire of the seas” (vol. ii. p. 85)-we begin to suspect that these tirades against ambition and universal dominion are mere declamation, and that Sir Walter could look with as much complacency on the empire of the land as he does on the empire of the seas, provided both the one and the other were in the guardianship of Great-Britain

ART. IX.-The Omnipresence of the Deity. A Poem. By RoBERT MONTGOMERY. Philadelphia. 1828.

THE poetry of this little volume is certainly very pretty and very pious, but we must be permitted to confess that we have been disappointed in the expectations we had been led to form of it. If it were the production of a very young man, we should say it was of excellent promise; considered as the work of a practised writer, in the maturity of his powers, and as the highest achievement of those powers, it may not pass muster so easily. We were puzzled to know before we looked into the volume, what it could be about. "The Omnipresence of the Deity, a Poem." Was it a metrical demonstration, a priori, or a posteriori of that attribute of the Creator? But what

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