under its present ruler, or while it retains its present power, or is actuated by its present principles, peace is impossible; and, as far as human foresight can discern, England must never talk of peace till she is in a condition to dictate it.

Mauritius is valued by France, not as a commercial colony, but as a military and naval station, from whence she may threaten and endanger our Indian empire. What may be the hopes and fears which a wise man must feel concerning that extraordinary empire, this is not the place to say; but it is our obvious business to deprive the enemy, as far as possible, of the means of annoying us there, and it is our duty to make Mauritius and Mascarenhas British colonies, for the sake of all the adjacent countries, as well as of India. For nearly two centuries the French have been the curse of Madagascar. The first thing they did, when they attempted to make a settlement there, was to exterminate the descendants of some shipwrecked Portugueze, who retain ed enough of their fathers' arts and knowledge, to have acquired a beneficial ascendancy among the natives. The settlements which at different times they formed there were so many nests of slave-dealers, and in these times not less than forty of their agents were dispersed round the coast to encourage war among the different tribes, as the readiest way of procuring a supply of slaves. Even this great island, kept in barbarism as it was by these nefarious means, was not sufficient to satisfy their demands; and for many years past, the natives of the north-west coast of Madagascar have been in the practice of sending out expeditions, consisting sometimes of 300 large boats, and from ten to twelve thousand men, against the Co

moro islands, for the purpose of car rying off the peaceable inhabitants and selling them to the French. In this manner they have nearly depopulated the beautiful island of Hinzuen, where Sir William Jones found a hospitable and happy people, who were well enough informed to be solicitous for information of the political state of the maritime powers, and Russia, and Turkey, and America; who were desirous of increasing their comforts by extending their commerce; and who had written in their mosque a lesson of Arabian wisdom, which may be read with profit in Europe: "The world," it said, "is given us for our edification, not for the purpose of raising sumptuous buildings: life, for the discharge of moral and religious duties, not for pleasurable indulgencies: wealth, to be liberally bestowed, not avariciously hoarded and learning, to produce good actions, not empty disputes."

At the close of the 15th century East Africa was rapidly advancing in civilization: settlements were formed by the Arabs on its islands and along its shores, whose merchant kings re mind us of Phoacia ; but their growing prosperity was destroyed by the Portugueze, who, at the expence of more immediate evil than has yet been repaired, accomplished the great object of effectually stopping the progress of Mahommedry. However erroneous in their opinions, however cruel in their means, their views were great and generous; while the French slave-dealers in this age have inflicted similar evils upon the Comoro islands, in pursuit of a traffic which other countries have pronounced infamous. Our conquest of Mauritius has delivered the East African islands from the curses of this abominable trade: were it only for this reason, that con

quest ought never to be relinquished. It secures us also the trade of the Red Sea, and that ascendancy in the Persian Gulph, which was threatened by the intrigues of their agents at Muscate and Bussora. They had fixed their eyes on Ormuz, and they had endeavoured to establish themselves upon the island of Camaram, thinking, by the possession of that island and its excellent harbour, to exclude us from the Red Sea; the very policy which the Turks, when they were a politic and a powerful people, attempted against the Portugueze. In the piratical Arabs, in the Wahabees, and in the Imaun of Sana, with all of whom they had established an intercourse, they would have found effective and formidable allies, and they would have obtained a still more powerful one in Persia, if Great Britain had not happened for once to send out as able an embassador as France. One vigorous measure has frustrated their projects, and our possession of Mauritius may be as beneficial to East Africa, as the British conquests in Asia have been to the people of Hindostan.

But to make the possession of these important islands secure, they must be made English by something more than mere possession, and receive the laws and language of England. Their size, and the small number of their white inhabitants, render it easy to effect this; and if we have not learnt from the Romans the wisdom of this policy, we have gone to school to little purpose. In Mascarenhas, Colo

nel Keating seems to have depended upon the friendly disposition of the people, for no sooner had he conquer. ed the island than he ventured to raise a corps there, putting arms into the hands of the very men who had so recently been in arms against him. General Abercrombie, it is said, did not fully approve of this confidence; the inhabitants of that island are no doubt better disposed to us than those of the Mauritius, because they have every thing to gain by the change of government, and perhaps also the remembrance of their English descent has not been without its influence in a considerable portion of them; for many Englishmen, the companions of Avery, Condor, England, Pattison, and other pirates of those days, settled there, having enriched themselves in the Red Sea and the Gulph, and their descendants are said to be very numerous. No such disposition can be supposed to exist in the other island, but it will not be difficult to produce it. The first step must be to declare our determination of retaining perma nent possession; the next to establish schools, and provide that all the children be taught the English language. Build churches there, instruct the negroes in the English faith, make laws for the gradual abolition of slavery as well as of the slave trade, and the next generation will see these islands more flourishing, more happy, and more secure, than any of our own colonies are at this moment, or seem likely to become.

Ar the commencement of the year the people of France were informed, that a reduction of 200,000 men would be made in their military esta blishment; thus limiting it to 700,000, half of which force was to be employed in the defence of the coast, and in what were called maritime expeditions, the other half destined to carry on the operations in Spain :-Spain, where Buonaparte had promised that not a village should be in arms by the Christmas of 1808,-Spain, which, after the retreat of Sir John Moore, Lord Grenville and Lord Auckland, had declared to be actually sub, dufed, Spain still required, by the confession of the French minister of finance, a French force of 350,000 men, to support the poor puppet who had suffered himself to be made equally infamous and miserable, by being placed upon its throne. The Corsican, by whose folly and frantic wickedness this contest had been wholly and solely occasioned, knew how necessary it was to persuade the French people, that a war, which they felt to be so destructive, was not altogether as inglorious as it was unjust; and for the purpose of this deceit, the flags taken from the raw recruits and

volunteers at Espinosa, Burgos, Tudela, and Somosierra, and those which had been betrayed by Morla at Madrid, were pre- Jan. 22. sented to the legislative body; a detachment of the grenadiers of the Imperial Guard were introduced, and seated on both sides of Buonaparte's statue, that the stage might be full; a few rhetorical speeches were let off, and the session then concluded, like a stage-spectacle, with a flourish of trumpets, and shouts of Long live the Emperor!-Buonaparte understands the people whom he governs a few days before the representation of this scene, in replying to a deputation from one of the departments, and professing his anxiety to promote their happiness and their glory, "I say their glory," said he,

for without it, I conceive there can be no happiness for a Frenchman." So well was he aware of this, that even just after the conclusion of the most splendid campaign in which he had ever been engaged, he found it necessary to go back fourteen months for such trophies as these.

The produce of the customs in 1809 fell short of the receipts of the preceding year, by more than a third

part; but the minister of finance, when he announced this in his report, spoke of it as a fact which proved the success of the anti-commercial system; for the English exports, he affirmed, had decreased within the same time to the enormous amount of 19 millions sterlin; so that the measure which diminished the proceeds of the French customs in a degree which could not occasion any embarrassment to the revenue, must prove fatal to England. Every artifice was employed to make the people believe that England was on the brink of ruin. The king's speech, as usual, was falsified and sent abroad. There it was said, that whatever temporary and partial inconveniences may have resulted from the measures which were directed by France against our trade and revenue, the great source of our prosperity and strength, those measures had wholly failed of producing any general effect. The official French paper substituted for these words a sentence, in which the king was made to tell his parliament, that they must be aware that the measures adopted by France to dry up the great sources of our prosperity had been to a certain degree efficient, It was said, that we were not merely on the verge of national bankruptcy, but actually suffering under all the horrors of famine; that our crops of every kind had failed; we were obliged to feed our cattle with sugar and molasses, and had nothing but sugar, cocoa, and coffee, and the skin and bones of these cattle for ourselves. To a certain degree, Buonaparte and his journalists may have perhaps believed the falsehoods which they circulated; they read in our own factious newspapers of decaying trade, diminished

resources, and starving manufacturers; and the opposition told them, that France was certain of success in whatever she attempted on the continent; that the cause of Spain was hopeless; that it was impossible for us to carry on the war; that if we did not emancipate the catholics, Ireland would be lost, and the loss of Ireland would draw after it the downfall of the British empire. Speeches of this tenour and tendency were carefully transla ted for the use of the emperor's subjects, and sent from one end of France to the other: But when the French saw it asserted, upon the authority of English members of parliament, that the Spaniards and Portugueze had nothing worth fighting for; that they were inimical in their hearts to England; that Buonaparte was reforming the abuses of their old government, and redressing their grievances; when they saw it affirmed in the English House of Commons, that the people of Spain must know Marquis Wellesley would, if the opportunity should offer, take both Spain and Portugal as Buonaparte had done; when they saw the same persons who represented Sir John Moore as a consummate general, a hero, and a martyr, vilify the talents of Lord Wellington, deny his merits, oppose the rewards which were so justly conferred on him, and maintain, in the face of their insulted country, that the British army had gain ed no victory at Talavera; it appeared to them impossible that language, at once so false, so absurd, and so cooperative with the designs of France, could have been uttered by an Eng. lish tongue; Mr Whitbread's speeches were supposed to have been invent. ed in France, and they attributed to the artifices of their own government

what was in reality the genuine effusions of weak minds, irritable tempers, and disappointed faction.

"Messieurs," said Buonaparte to one of the deputations which congratulated him upon his victories, "myself and the Emperor of Russia, my ally, have made every effort to give peace to the world, but without success. The King of England, grown old in his hatred against France, wish es for war. His situation prevents him from feeling the calamities which it brings upon the world at large, or from calculating its results with regard to his own family. Nevertheless the war must come to an end, and we shall then be greater and more powerful than we have ever been. The French empire is in the vigour of youth; it cannot but grow and consolidate itself: that of my ene. mies is in the last stage of life; every thing presages its decay. Every year that they retard the peace of the world, will only augment my power." That power appeared to superficial politicians to be established and secured by his alliance with the house of Austria. The negociations for this marriage were carried on with the utmost secrecy, though his divorce made it certain that he was about to take another wife. Vienna was almost the only court in Europe in which it was not conjectured that he would seek one. At length the Vienna journals officially announced "the high destiny to which the Archduchess Maria Louisa had been called by Providence," and the continental journalists, who were debarred from other topics, continued for many weeks to fill their pages with accounts of the ceremonials, anecdotes of the imperial courtship, and descriptions of the beauty of the bride; her graceful form, the delicate whiteness

of her complexion, the brilliancy of her blue eyes, the profusion of her bright flaxen hair, the fine shape of her hands and feet, and the beauty of her teeth, when the Austrian lips were opened by a smile, and discovered their perfect symmetry and exquisite colour. Nothing it seemed could equal her beauty, except it was her affection for the hero who had chosen her, or rather whom she had chosen ; for the world was widely mistaken in supposing that the young archduchess was about to be led like a lamb to the altar; she was herself the prime mover of Napoleon's marvellous attachment: the whole ambition of her soul had been directed to enslave by her charms the conqueror of the universe. And this passion was not more ardent in itself, than it was extraordinary in its effects. To the astonishment of every one, she read the rapid and difficult writing of Buonaparte with a readiness which seemed like inspiration; and one day when she hastened eagerly to her father, and he asked the cause of the joy which was apparent in her countenance, she replied, "It is because we have obtained great advantages in Spain." The house of Austria is base enough for this part of the story to be true; for at the very time while preparations were making for the marriage festivals at Vienna, and for illumina ting the city, at that very time Hofer was put to death by Buonaparte, and not one effort was made to save him by the unfeeling and worthless family which he had served so well!

Berthier was sent to Vienna as embassador on this occasion. At the first public entertainment given in honour of him, a transparency was exhibited, representing Fame supporting two imperial crowns, on which were the initial letters of Napoleon