The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1804-08-02 00:00:00

Tillie TO sows's.

Al hough thi List communications from the Con-
_
*ism ha.. brought no information, from which a

rupture between Russia and France can be posi-
tively inferred ; all the circumstances of their rela.
does, the chatafter and cotiplexion of all the points
in which we have lately seen them in contaa,
evince the growth of an hostile spirit, and make
an open rupture one of the most probable events
in the world of political speculation. Another
great event, if it did not precede or accompany
a dechtratitts of war by Russia against trance,
world be. of course, a defensive Alliance between
Eaglimd and Russia, which should have for its ob.
jes, to crush the mad ambition of the Corsican De-
spot, to deliver Europe from those chains which he
has cast over her, to restore that balance of power
which he has destroyed, to assert those rights which
be has invaded, and, above all, to restore to the
Bourbon, that throne and sceptre which he has
warped and maintained by fraud, by force, by mur-
der, and every other crime. Indeed, such an al
Fiance is considered as already concluded; but, at
A events, its probability is sufficient to reader it a
fair ground for speculation; and it becomes our duty
to consider what advantages England and Russia
have to esprit from their alliance, and the suffi..i-
secy of their means to attain the end proposed, and
Adel the chief of their confederacy. The distance
end localities between Russia and France disable
Bonaparte from attacking the former by lads end
' the inferiMity of his naval force. reodeis her equal-
ly secure from any attack by sea. He can neither
convey an army to Russia by she Baltic. or through
the Continental States that intervene. An union
with England adds. therefore. nothing to the seen-
, sky of Alexander. AU the advantage which he can
impala from his Ally is a subsidy to enable him to
tramp srt a unmet ous army to the frontier of France,
.1
err some of her provinces. The junaion of the Rus-
sian with the British force can be of no importance
to either in respea to their common enemy, as our
i fleets am already suffic.ent to shut up in their bar-
' hours both the military and commercial navy of the
i
French Republic. This alliance then gives no
sew defcnsive advantages to the two coalesced
powers, except such as they do not want. But it would
I be superfluous; it would be a woak of supeterogo.
titan, if it did not afford some means of offensive
I wart Are, some facilities for carrying war into the
• territory of the enemy, of attacking him where he
is vulnerable, and wounding him in those pa: ti in
'lit which alone he is mortal. It is in that view o: the
subjea we wish to examine it, and here the follow-
lowing considerations present themselves. The
Emperor of Russia has numerous armies, brave,
well dibciplined, patient under hardships, of a phy-
IlliCal strength and temper admirably adapted for
war, and possessing every quality and requisite to
dispute the palm with any other aim: ts in the

world. These armies conritute a dispuseable force,
• ready for every purpose of foreign enterpi ise and
aggression. withal: checking the internal growth
of Russia, or sompromi,ing its safety. In teed. it
gray be assumed as a feet, that Alexander pos-
sesses more real and relative mear.s to h,vade
Trance, than Bonaparte has to invade Russia ;
but here the same question arises, as in the case of
an attempt on the part of France to attack Russia.
BM are these armies to be brougl,t into ktion
How ears they be brought to bear open France, and
come in collinear with French armiesl If they are
to proceed by land, they have to encounter long
and arduous marches ; magazines most be formed,
ammunition and artillery mug be transported, the
means of supplying recruits, without which even a
wiaoriou army moulders away, and one def.at is
tail, must be provided. All these, and many other
difficulties, stand in the way of a Russian army at-
tempirg to invade France by marching across the
western side of the Continent, and must cf neces-
sity its force. Permission. bender, must be
cS:ained from the Emperor of Germany, the
ig of Prussia, and other German Princes, to
an army through their respeaive territories
that intervene. Supposing, however, all these ob-
stacles surmounted, it is scarcely possible that more
than 100,000 Russians could arrive ou the beaks of
the Rhine. Supposing, also, these 100,000 Rus-
sians to be joined by SO or +O,OJa British troops,
and we cannot go farther without incurring the
censure of building a most extravagant hypo-
thesis, would they constitute a force sufficient
to penetrate into France, opposni by the ClUakimas
armies of Bonaparle an.:. ii they would
the Usurper pati-artly and quietly awa:t their cora-
jag. or, is it more probable. that he would meet
them half way. that he mar.:b out from his
froatia, and make the unfartunate .and misguided
country that received a Ros.ian army, wx.-ther
'Germany or Prussis, the theatre of war
To annoy France upon h2r F ,-tern and .i,ulthern
points is considered a more ilausiisse scheme, and,

according to report, has been already adopted.
The Reagan forces now colleCting in Corfu, although
oA!nstlili for the:protedion of the Seven Islands, are
suppo;ed'to be ultimately intended for that purpose.
But, in the present situation of Italy, we do not sec
upon what ground the Emperor of Russia could ex-
peft to make a greater impression upon France, in that
country, than he could in Germany. Were even Eng-
land to succeed in an attempt to make a diversion in his
favour, by threatening the southern or western shores
of France, or by a landing in Holland, the enter-
prise we should still consider as desperate. The at.
tempt to convey a Russian army of any great mag-
nitude into the Mediterranean, down the Black Sea,
would he attended with an incalculable expence; but,
supposing that and every other difficulty surmounted,
and a Russian army, after a campaign as brilliant as
that of Field Marshal Sewer row in Italy, upon the
banks of the Var, it is impossible that it should be
able to penetrate into France, or maintain itself upon
the territory of the Republic. Hence it irresistibly
follows, that the joint power of Russia and England,
unsupported by the other great Continental States,
is inadequate to the measure of an offensive war
against Bonaparte. It cannot reduce the monstrous
power of France, nor restore Europe to its long lost
quiet and independence. The present war, if we
trust merely to force cf arms, and do not call
in the assistance of another kind of weapons,
even though Russia shall throw her whole weight
into the English scale, may continue to sap our
strength, and waste our resources, for ten years
longer, without changing the position of the belli-
gerent powers—and. at the end of it, we may find,
that treasures have been expended, and seas of blood
have flowed, but the objeft cf the war as distant
as ever. We will find no greater security than we
are in possession of at the present moment—and
that a peace with Bonaparte is only a hollow truce.
The joint force of Ragland and Russia, therefore,
cannot be brought to bear with effeft upon France
to an extent from which we may Ratter ourselves
with the subversion of foreign or domestic tyranny.
A general confederacy of all the great states upon
theCuntinent alone could atchieve that objet ; but of
that we see no probable chance. In this state of
things, so afflicting to liberty and humanity, we find
but one expedient, upon which we can found a
hop* of success. The edifice of the Corsican's ty-
relay and power has been raised by fraud and
force. Fraud and address alone can decompose it,
and lay the strulture in ruins. In vain would
Frh troops have combated in the dykes of Hol-
land, and on the mountains of Switzerland, if their
arms had not been seconded by (adjoin and in-
trigues. France never invaded a country by her
arms. until she had first subdued it by internal dis-
union :and cabal. France has used men's own
11 passions for their ruin. She makes themwage
war against themselves ; and when the citadel
of the heart and spirit k corrupted and de-
bauched from within, the revolutionary assail-
ant without soon complete: its de-mu:lion.
We must. in like manner, avail ourselves of the pas.
sions of the French, cf thtir various principles and
parties, to undermine and sap the foundation of
that despotism which we cannot b-nnharsi and carry
by siege it assault from without. This is not mere-
ly a justifiable course. It is a course the most ho-
nourable and liberal. France invited freemen in
Switzerland, in Italy, in Germany. and Holland,
to become slaves. She called noon the loyal sub-
jects of foreign states to become traitors. She in-
vited the low, the base. and infamous, to become
great, noble, and prosperous ; its fall, she called
upon every vice to exchange place in human
happiness and estimation, with every virtue.—
In soliciting Frenchmen to rise against their op-
pressor, we, upon the contrary, plead the cause of
virtue.We call upon traitors to return to loyalty ; up.
on slaves to break their chains and be free ; upon
atheists to turn to their God, and rebels tq acknow-
ledge their 1 iwful Sovereign ; upon wicked men to
becomeigood; and upon the good to assert those rights,
of which they have been deprived by the wicked.
It was the opinion of a competent judge, the late
great and gond General l'ichegru, that it the com-
bined powers in 1793 had proclaimed Louis the
XVII. King of France and Navarre, acknowled7e:
his Uncle Regent, and concluded with him in that
quality, subsidiary, offensive, and defensive tie sties ;
if they h.td, in an address to the French nation, re-
nounced .111 conquests, all internal persecutions, and
measures ofrevenge, neither famine nor the guillotine
could then have prevented the restoration of mo-
narchy in France,and with it order and repose in all
the rest of Europe. It may be objected that the oppor.
tanity to which Irschegru alluded. has gone by. The
times certainly have changed; but all the changes
are in favour of the sentiment of Pichegra. The
people of France were then in the crisis of their re-
volutionary fever. They bare now come to their
sober senses, and see that all their boasted liberty
and equality have ended in the personal aggrandi.e-
ment of a Corsican Adventurer. and eair own hu-
miliation. This change in the public sentiment

ought to be encouraged and cueivated. The dis-
appointed Republican, and die redue_el Loyalist,
should be taught to look forwaid to justice
and retribution. That such elements exist in
France, the late Manifesto of the French Govern-
ment clearly evinces. It speaks of reports of plots,
and mutinies, and discontent, but it affeas to treat
them as idle rumours. Be it so. These idle ru-
mours prove the existence of disaffe&ed persons in
France, of spirits, ;salve and hostile to the usurpa-
, Lion and disgusting Vanity of Bonaparte. But it
is, perhaps, conceding more than we ought to rate
these reports as idle rumours. Who are the per soas
charged with propagating them ? the representatives
of foreign powers : the only men in France who
dare to speak truth, are the men whom Bonaparte
charges with misrepresenting the public feeling and
spirit in France. But why charge to the account
of Foreign Ministers and Neutrals as idle rumour, a
representation which his own condua proves to be
true. The recal of Fouche to the place of Minister
of Police, and every other measure of internal econo.
my, give a distill& view of a trembling tyrant, sur-
rounded with insulted, disappointed, and ilisaffeaed
sl:tves, waiting only all opportunity to break their
fetters, and to re-assert the sight of injured !erne-
' nity. llis Majesty's Speech on Wednesday in the
House of Peers upon the close of the hessian almost
hints at an alliance upon the tapis, if not already
concluded, between England and It llCsia, and a con-
fident hope that the arrangements now making may
circa the deliverance of Europe. NVe cannot pre-
tend to say what these arrangments are, but we
hope, that in them Louis the XVIIIth is no longer
treated as a private person, or the dependent of a
generous foreigner. Louis the XVlllth is confess.
edly the only rallying point that remains for all
loyal Frenchmen ; and the history of the world, even
our own history, chews that the distance be-
tween a King de jure, and a King de
.odo, ap-
pears great only to vulgar eyes. We hope then
Cut Louis the XVIIIth will be brought forward
upon the political stage, and to see him a party in
all new alliances, having,for their objea, destruc-
tion, not of France, hot of Bonaparte, its tyrant,
usurper, and oppressor. Let it not be said, that
he is disqualified by the want of money and men.
See to what a length Bonaparte went, to deprive
of life His Majesty's kinsman, the Duke of Enghien,
and judge from this one wicked aft, the immense
importance of a league, combating with the lawful
Sovereign of France, and under his banners, against
a Corsican Adventurer, who, reserving to himself
the rank of Emperor of the French, has appoi
for his satraps, Italians, Egyptians, and renege.
does, of all the nations of the earth. Were Louis
the XV Illth to be thus taken from the back-
ground, where his cl tines, his rights, and his un-
merited sufferings, remain unsupported and =re-
venged, because unseen; it must have a great effe&
upon public opinion in France; And, however nume-
rous the spies and Assassins of Bonaparte may be,
nothing can stand long against public opinion.
Let us not be charged with too great a partiality
for the cause of the Bourbons. Supposing no-
thing but disaster and defeat to follow the advice
which we offer in their favour, the abandon-
ment of their cause would be the means
of obtaining greater sacrifices from Bonaparte,
than we could otherwise ask, or he would grant.—
Hitherto we have been fighting the Usurper by
force alone. We see no chance of success, unless
we do something more. We would, therefore,
press every species of force, physical or moral, real
or imaginary, into our service. We know, be-
cause we have sources of information which our
Contemporaries do not possess, that the French
people in general are indifferent with resped to their
form of Government, and the person of their Chief.
But this apathy, and this imEfference, we also know
to be the effeets of repeated disappointment and de-
spair ; the result of the fruitless, foolish, and Made.
q tiAte ettern pts to produce a change. But, with every al-
lowance for the liveliness of the French cb :traveler, after
:he mummery which the Frencfi daily witness in the
conde& of the tsurper ; after the insults that have
been offered, and the wrongs flies endure, give,
Frenchmen a fair chance of restoring their antient
Government, and human nature assures they will
cease to be tracers, beggars, and slaves, because
there can be no ottitation in chasing between to
substance and the shadow, between a real King an.l
a Sancho Panza. We do not pretend to infalli si-
lky; we only offer an humble advice; and if we
feel confident in that advice, it is because it
ema-
nates front one of the greatest generals of his time,
and accords with the sentiments of some of the first
statesmen in Eurcpe. It is because experience, and
the evidence of fans, are upon our side, and no
good argument can be adduced against the system
which we recommend. it is because the history of
the French revolution proves, in every page, that,
like a fire. it blazes more fiercely by compression ;
and, that it can be best subdued by dividing and
sub:reeling those elements which constitute its
nutriment.