scheme. Such a theory has an aspect of more than mortal wisdom; but let it be considered how much it imports. It imports, that even in the full meridian of the tyrant's power there was discovered in him a peculiar faculty adapted to a peculiar crisis; a crisis then not likely to arise, but nevertheless, present to the sage contemplation of him, who discovered the faculty so measured to the exigence. It imports a double gift of intuition reaching beyond first improbabilities to ulterior events still more improba ble, and discerning the future developement of the faculties thus ascertained to exist under every change of circumstances. And all this without any assistance from the art of the German craniologist. It may deserve observation, however, as some slight de duction from the merit of this discovery, that the prediction was wholly retrospective.

But, however the Noble Marquis came by his knowledge, whe ther by introspection or retrospection, to which latter mode of soothsaying we incline to refer it, still we are afraid that his apology for not disclosing it before, namely, because circum stances had never called upon him for such a disclosure, will hardly avail. For was he not imperiously called upon for such a disclosure some twelve months before, when the discovery might have saved Europe the reproduction of all that mischief which this faculty, it seems, has occasioned?

But the question itself was no longer in what way, or by whose fault, whether by unexampled treachery on the one hand, or, a has been contended, by unexampled negligence on the other, things came into that state in which they then were; but being in that state, the question was how they were to be retrieved, and what steps were to be taken thenceforward. Crimination is some thing worse than useless, where correction is out of view, There are cases, no doubt, in which manifest neglect requires to be openly reprobated; but in all doubtful cases, on all problematical questions of delinquency, it is but an idle waste of time to be accusing while we ought to be deliberating, and of time and thought both to spend them in investigating the causes of a confirmed disease, unless the research will assist us in discovering the

cure,

Upon the question of retrieval, then, we confess that we have been all along among the vulgar advocates of war, of war as just in principle, as it was expedient in policy at the time. The grounds of this our persuasion we shall take upon us now to explain.

And first, as to the justice of the war: We presume, that there is a community of nations as well as of individuals (a principle, indeed, on which the whole law of nations proceeds); and further, that laws relating to individuals in politic society, may,

So far as they are founded in moral reason, and are capable of the extension, be applied to states. This is, in truth, a maxim of the greatest civilians. They have been fond of argu ing from personal privileges and obligations to the reciprocal rights and duties of independent nations. If this be allowed, we will concede in return, that every nation, as well as every individual, has an abstracted antecedent right of ownership to act as it may please with its own. But, conceding this, we contend, that there is a law of neighbourhood also which so far restrains this right of absolute ownership, as to forbid the doing of any thing, even within our own boundaries, which may operate as an injury to those that border upon our territory. It is the first condition of neighbourhood, indeed a fundamental law of society, so to use our own, that we do not prejudice another's.

Upon this law of vicinage follows, as a corollary, the right of interference to protect it. Otherwise, however salutary in its provisions, it would be nugatory in effect. But it ought to be carefully observed, that this right of interference abridges only for the most part the right of ownership in the abuse of our own; nor always even in that, for it confers no right to disturb an inveterate abuse on the plea of vicinity, however inconvenient or mischievous, since it is presumed that we took our situation originally with a full information of its subsisting objections. On The other hand it is to be noted, that the act which confers a right of interference need not be an act of positive aggression. For there are numberless acts which are strictly and properly internal in their organization, and perhaps too in their first movements, and yet are not the less decidedly external in their con sequential operation and effects. That property or dominion which we abuse to the injury of neighbouring states is erected into a nuisance, and generates the right of interference; for states hold the right to the means of living quietly and enjoying the blessings of social order by a title paramount to all others. It is the primary acquisition which lays the foundation of every other, and without which the liberties and laws of internal regulation have no pledge of permanence. It is the palpable necessity of this reciprocal forbearance and respect that has forced nations into fraternity, and silently moulded a system of public law and commutative obligation, which convenience and expe rience have established and consecrated; and when this general law of good neighbourhood is broken or plainly threatened, and only then, the exercise of a preventive interference is a right of necessity. This liberty of interference, indeed, by the Roman law of innovations and the English law of nuisances, extends to individuals, in cases in which our comfort or convenience only is

threatened; but what is convenience to individuals is security to

states.

In order therefore to constitute a just ground of remedial war, there must in the first place be clear indications of mischief. It must neither be imaginary, remote, nor undefined. Secondly, the mischief must be in the nature of an innovation. It should be such as challenges no prescription or length of acquiescence. And, thirdly, the danger must be a proximate danger, it must be brought home to ourselves, it must have a reference to us, and positive bearing upon us, to bring it under the operation and within the provisions of this law. The bare circumstance of contiguity, indeed, is sufficient, as producing an unavoidable collision of interests, out of which arises the principle of dijudication between the rights of ownership and the right of interference. As it would not be competent in us residing in London to indict a nuisance in Cornwall, so neither would it be just in us as a nation to commence a war on account of a revolution in Otaheite. We must show either damage or danger. Where there is no possibility of injury, there can be no claim of redress.

In establishing this rule of a just interference, we have purposely waved the plea of a naked necessity, because we know it is an obnoxious plea, and have endeavoured to build that right on the mixed considerations of innovation, proximity, and danger. Innovation indeed, not less than proximity, might be considered as an aggravation only of the danger, and both might be considered as enhancing only the value of the original plea, and making out a clearer case of necessity, a more indisputable right of interference, on the ground of self-preservation from imminent hazard. But we choose rather to appeal to the law itself, which is a recognised law, than to the principle on which it is founded, as that principle is of much wider, and consequently more dangerous application than the law which it supports.

It can scarcely be a question, how far these conditions of a legitimate interference were to be found in the recent situation of France, local and moral. Vicinity is a permanent circumstance, and it is also a palpable one, a circumstance, on the existence of which no question whatever can arise. But in the vicinity of France there is still something peculiar. First of all, it is a central vicinity, in physical or political contact with all Europe. It is, moreover, a very moral and influencing vicinity: it has been the great forge and manufactory of European politics for these twenty years past. By their unwarranted interferences, their schemes of universal domination, the French have made themselves virtual neighbours to those from whom they are

locally distant. They have given to all Europe the rights of vicinage, by making it experience its wrongs.

Were France, indeed, an insulated country, instead of being planted in the very centre of Europe; were it wholly detached from that great body-politic, instead of being the very heart of its influence, giving life, determination, and direction to all its general movements; were it, in short, some remote section of any other quarter of the globe instead of a grand central division of our own, there would be some ground to dispute the right of interference. But still it might not be amiss to consider, who it' was that complained; whether a peaccable sovereign in the peaceable exercise of the lawful functions of his office, or a fierce and unquiet usurper, who had not hesitated with or without plea to trespass on every neighbouring nation, who had long entertained and avowed a flagitious project of general conquest and unjustifiable interference with other communities?

It is rather singular, indeed, that in all this outcry against interference, we have heard so little in reprobation of the interferences of the usurper himself. It looks as if there were persons' in this country more willing to palliate his wrongs, than even to to tolerate our rights. But the truth is, that Buonaparte never delayed for one moment to debate any question of right, and for that very reason the rectitude of his conduct has the seldomer been brought into question. Sometimes a scrupulous justice will excite more opposition than unhesitating violence. It is a remark, as old as Thucydides, that oppression is more easily endured than just inflictions; for, in the one case, we treat the victims of our power as wretched inferiors without a right even to complain; but in the other, we consider the subjects of our chastisement as our equals, in whom we acknowledge a right to

rémonstrate.

Buonaparte is an undoubted usurper; for let it be granted that we did partially sanction his original usurpation, yet that sanction, such as it was, he had certainly waved by the treaty of Paris, and his resumption of power was in the nature of a new act. Was he chosen by the people? When and where did the people elect; and who are the people? Surely not the army alone; surely not the persons assembled at Paris for the acceptance of the additional act. We can only hear the voice of the people in the voice of its constituted organs. It is not in the army, it is not in the majority, but in an acknowledged preponderance of wisdom, that we discern the people. Whatever right a people may have to bestow their allegiance, they can have no right without cause to transfer it: the French people had pledged their allegiance to Louis; it was already betrothed. Besides, how far an act of positive usurpation can ever be purged by

any declaration of a subsequent choice, is a very problematical question. But the right of election, exercised as it was, was itself a mischievous innovation; it constituted a just ground of interference. We presume all along, that no one will pretend a right in Buonaparte to the French crown by conquest, for it cannot but occur, that Louis was conquered by means of his own troops. He came there in the unequivocal character of an usurper; he appealed to his partisans as to his fellow-countrymen; he descended from his legitimate title as a first step to that which he unlawfully aimed at acquiring.

The breach of the treaty alone was a just cause of war; but we are persuaded that it was not the true one, and, thinking the real cause defensible, we were unwilling to leave it by implica tion defenceless, under cover even of a legitimate pretext. It was not the breach of the treaty that engendered the war, but the physical and moral evils which the breach of the treaty again let loose upon the world.

But the question of actual danger still remains; the nature and extent of which were to be gathered; first, from the dispositions of the party himself; and, secondly, from his means of aggression. In so far as past conduct was a just criterion of present dispositions, we could be at no loss to interpret the dispositions of the usurper. The evidence of his actions was unequivocal. His avowed pursuit was universal conquest; and had his success been commensurate with his views, the rest of Europe would have been a mere annexation to France

an imperial province. He had afterwards professed himself desirous of peace, a profession which it was not in his power to fulfil. He was no longer master of his own actions. He was the feodal tenant of the French soldiery, and the aggrandisement of the power and glory of France was the knightservice by which he held of them his crown. Foreign peace was to him domestic war.

But he might have been bound by a treaty. What! he who had just violated the treaty of Paris, and who in his confidential correspondence has now told us, a fact of which his actions informed us long before, that convenience was with him the only rule of his actions, and that men are to be amused with treaties as children with toys. There has been, however, a sort of whimsical inconsistency in the arguments upon this head, as urged by the same persons, which for the pleasantry of it we are unwilling to omit. The substance of them is as follows: Buonaparte in the island of Elba ought to have been most strictly watched, Why? Because he was not to be trusted, Buonaparte on the French throne ought to have been treated with; and it is in vain to remind them, that he was not a fit person to be