The National Register. — London, England, 1814-01-23 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER. • N . _ Cur Iting, Constitution, ann tabu. PUBLISHED AT NO. 11, NEWCASTLE•STREET, STRAND. No. 315. SUNDAY, JANUARY 23.1814, Poyrr POLITICAL InSWISInoN. POLICY AND SITUA 1 lON OF BUONAPARTE, Foiled in the field, and left at the close of the last cam pain, without any force which deserved the appeilation c. an arms . , how comes it that Napoleon still maitvaina him self on the throne of France, and, notwithstanding the is.- va-ion of that country. and the approach of four hundred i thousand enemies within 200 miles of his capital, stilt le ma:ns the Lord of millions, obeyed by his sunjects. and al most feared by his opponents ?—Because his political skill has survived' his military fortune. The character of un bending firmness which he had assumed, when early suc cesses taught him to form unbounded hopes, and which he supported with unyielding constancy through his hours of, prosperity had deceived mankind. it was the child of art, and was &Tined the Unchangeable production of nature. Hence calculations were made on its supposed immutability s..hich proved erroneous, as their fousolioiou was false. The Pow. cis who saw him, after tile destruction of his whole army in Russia, untaoled in his ambition and resolutely I bent on !be conquest of the woold, which he nu longer possessed the means of affecting, thought that no 4evets, es, however great, could reduce his spirit. W hen tl!es afterwards be! him at Dresden, surrosndcd on t!i sides, with a dispirited army and I/a:Mating allies, and yet rejecting every overture to heat en other terms but his own, they were confirmed in their belief, aod conceived that his obstinacy might be razde the chief instrument of his ruin. lf, aPer haying lost the second army which the passiveness of his people had enabled him to assemble, he should still continue his refusal to negotiate on lower con ditions, the publication of those, and of his rejection of them would be sufficient to rouse his subjects to a sense of! his insatiable ambition, and of their own danger, should their senseless forbearance allow him to waste their lives and substance in wars, protracted merely to gratify tail ru pa,sion. He bad lately proclaimed to the world Hs re., y.,!ution, whatever might happen, of never sitting on a de graded throne. This was perhaiis a snare laid purposely to entrap the Allies, or at least had the effect of one. It even deceived the CROWN PRINcE, who, from his intimate ac gaintance. with his former Master, was considered an un erring judge, and who seemed to have suggested to the Coalesced Powers the line of conduct which they adopted. After the battle of Ham', and when no hope remained of tiking BUONAPRRTE prisoner, we understand from good authority, that his Royal Highness told an English gentleman then at his bead-qtrarters " liberariermswil; be offered to N A ., of.EUN at tt,e Rhine, wAich not accept, tiltr, be repeatcd at Paris." We ‘v-re . 4eroaintett with t' 1 . 1!, Gt.'l...V. fore the celebrated hankfoot OecAration made it: !.;:ar ance, and. therefore felt no surprise at its contents ; hat stated our opinion at the time that Vie abuse lavished on the Allies by the daily journals for the more than lihe: al nature of their proposals to France was unfounde'l, as they really bad no in;ention of aggrandizing her IheY)l l 4 her ancient limits - , and only made the offer in the firm per suasion, that it would he rejected, and that its rejection would open the eyes of the Piench people, and deprive nt.-.,NA,pAR T tt of their support, We also added, that the gre.‘test disappointment which the Allies could experience, would be to find that their terns should be accepted, which we fueled would Le the case, as our opinion of NA PO- LkON 9 S immutability of si irit was not so strong. as to lead us to believe he could, as a man and a politician, re ject such offers. As a man, we had no doubt but all hit assumed fortitude and impa , sitpity to fear would vanish at the presence of real danger to him and ail his eivivistv, a.:id that he would gladly close with proposals wirris would raise him from his desperate situation to a lof tier state than any French Monarch had ever enjoyed. As a politician, we thought he would be keep enough to see the drift of the Allies, and too raw ing not to counteract it ar:d eint:arrp.si the whole future course of tlie,r proceedings, by accepting the terms which they had proposed, couf.d.eut, that if !hey shrunk from fulfili:n;, thee), they would give him 0;3 which he chiefly wanted, the uranileous good•will of thel;r:lich in support of the war, the blame of,e,Nebwett l .4 no longer be laid to his ills con itc le t y a sect, as ee anticipated, and if, in the very seat and place of revolutions, his authority has snryived the 10. , ot . fame, of armies, and of whole provinces, he owes it to the imprudence of Coalesced Powers . in venturing on sm.-h course mid issuing such a der!,oation without even consult ing England, and to his skill in ay,iling hitnseli of their blunder, by adapting character to gircamitanees in a manner totally unexpected by the bulk of maukiod. Pub !lc oriuion is, he knows, the prop and shield of t4tate,t. It mai; be commuted by military force or silenced successesa but ;he Government. which lepe..ted defeats have robbed of its armies, must fall at once if tile p.opular assent, the " rue Dee' also fails. That this was NAPO roN's neatest fear, is visible front the eagerness with which he ha< scrod the or, portanitv, unskilfully offered him, of disculoa'ing himself itr the eves of his subjec , s of any wish of protracting ti'e war, It pierces through 411 his actions and displays DKR* in all the appeals to the people with which the French papers obo•:nd. The lofty IsIaPOLEQN. he, who clothed in scneryl power, proclaimed himself commissioe,:d to fulfil • a tinies of the earth, who moved over her surface as ble in all his terrors; whose vtrillutes were nd immutability, now defeated, Lumbled Y slut!' next I jr acie vis i ti i• k\l:l o l.o? .l 4 , i(Tqc" . i 'LY 2 f,t2'it'4l' r • . a .tek - ~ ,le 3 Fel? t ilptliq quti