The National Register. — London, England, 1813-08-29 00:00:00

STEM. • • • . - • ' • 777,917:'. . THE NATIoNA . L .REGI as Our lung, Constitution, Ann tato*. PUBLISHED AT NO. 11, NEWCASTL Po•STREET, STRAND. N.). 2P6. The die is cast and hostilitiOs have been resumed in the North of the Continent. On the oese hand French, Italians, Dutch, Swiss, Saxons, Poles, Danes, and Bavarians, united, or lather assembled under one leader, threaten Europe with universal slavery ; on the other, ' the Sovereigns of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Sweden, awake at last to a sense of common danger, and supported by the patriotic zeal of their subjects, collect all the resources of their vast empires to re sist the insulting claims of inordinate ambition. England, secure herself from danger, encourages her Allies in the glorious struggle; for them she lavishes her treasures ; for them her gallant sons shed their blood; she points out to the nations of the North one victim already liberated from the grasp of tyranny by her persevering efforts, and her WELLIRGTON proudly overlooking from the Pyrennees the fertile valley s of France. Such is the awful, the unparal!eled situation of Europe. divided from one extremity to the other in • two parties pretty equally balanced, and twelve" hundred Ihouttni men are in arms on hoth.sides to decide,the great question of in dependence, or unlimited submission to the will of one man. In the ordinary calculations of events, it might have been supposed, that an obscure adventurer suddenly placed on one of the first thrones of Europe, secure against any attack from exterior enemies, would have enjoyed in peace his unex pected good fortune, and attempted to consolidate his newly acquired power. Even'allowing that, as in the present in• stance, the fiercest passions should lacerate his hardened bo som, still, motives of self-preservation might have assuaged their fury, the instinct of ferocity itself gives way to pruden tial considerations, and the tyger having seized a prey, does not seek a doubtful engagement with the distant hunter. Unfortunately for Europe, such was the opinion which most of her Statesmen had formed of the Revolutionary Em peror of Fiance. Disappointed in their expectations of crushing the French Revolution in its cradle, because they had themselves adopted the system of spoliation on which it is founded, they hailed the concentration of its tremendous power into the hands of one man as the dawn of a new era, and the heir of jacobinism was announced as the founder or a new dynasty. 'The scene, in fact, was now changed, but it was only another part of the sanguinary drama, and the murderous ruffians had .only exchanged their bonnets rouges for crowns and coronets. On the principles, or rather total want of principles, which gave birth to the French revolution, we shall not dwell at present, the snhject hass already occupied far more eloquent pens, and without entering into it we hardly know bow to compress the various considerations which crowd Vol. VI. No. ccxcr-r. POLITIC,4I. DIS2UISITION. PRESENT S FATE OF EU POPE. SUNDAY, AUGUST V9 l 181 g. PRICE )d. on our mind. But vie can trust to the recollection of .all Europe, while we assert that there is not a single instance in which BUONAP MITE deviated from the line traced out to him by his predecessors in the !peat work of the regene ration of mankind. 1n the early sines of the . French revolution, confiscations formed a fund Which the rapacity of the buyers of national property rendered available fOrthe support of the immense armies. Those resources were shortly exhausted, and even then it was generally 'acknow ledged that France, deprived of commerce and harried by internal commotions, could not support . the armies necessary to maintain and to spread the. new doctrines.— The weak States bordering on France . were in consequence invaded, erected into Republics, and tite riChes . fhey Ita‘dac comulated during a long interval of peace, fed for sometime the Republican armies by which they were 'oppressed. When BUONAPARTE assumed the imperial purple in France, ra pacity had also drained that source of revenue: on the other hand, larger armies were necessary To sift - Tort his new power and give his lofty title a dignity it could not have received from his person. It became therefore necessary to give a new direction to the revolutionary spirit, and to widen the circle of its baneful influence; in short, it became necessary to acct throughout Europe' the same scenes which bad been exhibited in France and in a few of the neighbouring States. The first leailers of the Revolution had sold the es'fates of the nobles and clergy, BUO,I4*P ARTA sold provinces and ' kingdoms, and the Princes of the Continent sought those spoils of their neighbours with the same avidity which had disgraced part of the French nation. The some effect too was produced, for it sowed among them the seeds of ani i strust and of malignity, and they were overpowered one after the other. Republican France had been surrounded by kindred Republics, the Empire was encircled by Kings, tributary vassals to the EMPEKOO. The Republic bad. declared war to all Kings as essentially enemies to her institutions, sllr 0- NA,P A Try E declared war to all legitimate Sovereigns, because the very legitimacy of their tiVe is, in his mind. and in the eyes of his pretended subjects, a standing reproof of his usurpation and of his abject origin. •• Prom what we have stated, as far as our limits toOld it becomes evident that the Revolutionary power of France, no matter by whom exercised, can be maintained only by the same' means by which . it has been subversive of all received opinions, of all former iiihtitutions, and the work is incomplete so long as there remains theleagftraces to remind the French people of the state into . which they are fallen. To these considerations -drawn from the - rinture' of the power itself, .wetave to arid. those which sprin s gf om the peculiar situation of the .man and' from his. kttvrwn • character. .hut this part of the subject won'tl fir•exteed our usual limiti, notwithstanding all our efforts' to comeress it, and we are therefore reluctantly compelled to postpone • until our. next ,umber.—(To be eo,ntioued it A