The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1803-02-12 00:00:00

compenceallthosewhohad paved the wayto it bytheir
foresight, firmness and writings, and who had left no
other care to him who was to finish the business,thanto
keep up a good appearance, and repeat without em-
barrassment the speeches which they had prepared
for him. It would have been imprudent to possess
himself singly of a success, to which he had so little
contributed. It was necessary, therefore, to create
places to satisfy every pretension, and recompence
important services. Among the number of hands
which were presented to receive a salary, several
were observed still crimsoned with the blood of the
French : those carried away the richest part ; they
were the hands of accomplices. They had, more-
over, a consciousness of what they might under-
take for revenge, if they were repulsed ; or to serve
the new order of things, if they were called in to a
division of the spoils of France: therefore they were
acknowledged—they werewelcomed, and to disguise
the hideous stamp which crime had left there, they
were covered with gold. This new phalanx of se-
nators, tribunes, and legislators, presents, at first
blush, with their rich liveries, only a series of trivial
and disgusting caricatures, whose fully and crimes,
the contempt and hatred of the nation soon discover
under the shirring outside with which they are cover-
ed. It was necessary to supply by attributes; by an
exterior splendor, that consideration which obscure
individuals could not obtain ; it was necessary to
give them a share in the exercise of power. Those,
who have been tradable, have enjoyed all the fa-
vours, all the sunshine of the CoNsurs. Those who
have pretended to the enjoyment Of prerogatives,
which were only granted to them, either through
necessity or policy, have been disgraced, or even ex-
cluded ; but this exclusion has not prevailed to bias
the Senate, in which the foresight of Sirvts, has
established places for life ; it is then in this body
that debates have been more bold, pretensions more
steady, because, it risked less by insisting on the
use oldie's*. The party which was driven from the
Tribunate, and which is about to lose gradually its
support in the Legislative body, had, in the Senate,
its real force,. and the sentiment which gave it mo-
tion. Since the first check which it received from
this exclusion, it has little disguised its discontent,
and its intention of laying hold of the first oppor-
tunity which should present itself; if not to destroy
the authority which persecutes it, at least to oppose
to it constitutional obstacles ; this is the party which
has declaimed the loudest against despotism, which
has made those blush who are the slaves and instru-
ments of it, which has cultivated the prepossessions
of die nation against a stranger, who is not con-
tent with reigning like a master over it, but wishes
to transmit to his family those rights which he
now holds. There has mingled with its dis-
courses more bitterness and boldness, than the pro-
fessed Jacobins, because it was aware that the Go-
vernment, still not sufficiently removed from the
epoch in which it owed its elevation to it, in which
it even shared its power, dared not strike at it, for
fear of betraying the divisions which agitate the
conquerors of Brumaire, and of losing entirely their
support, before it had found another to supply its
place. It is now known, that the first blow which
Boe Aea ATE attempted to level at it, in the Senate,
was to reverse the constitutional order, which esta-
blishes, that a Senator cannot fill any place, in
case he resigns that which he holds. This point
being gained, the CONSUL would have seduced, by
the prospect of great influence, or of great fortune,
those whom he should dread to leave in the Senate ;
and when he should have them thus in his power,
fie would have easily found pretences to reduce
them to nothing. This intention was foreseen, and
consequently opposed ; but those who guessed at
it, could not hinder the insertion in the Senatus
Consultum, that the Como L might give the Sena-
tors temporary comrasissions, and, by that means,
exclude, from important deliberations, those whose
resistance he dreaded.

It is aho known, that among the questions agi-
tated in the Senate, several have pointedly aimed at
:epressing the CONSUL's ambition; and that some,
among others, that of throwing wmie sort of re-
sponsibility on the two subaltern Consuls, were pre-
sented with so much art, that they would have
brought on some decisions opposite to the views of
BONAPARTE, if M. C.SMBACERF.S, arriving unex-
pedtedly, had not made use of the right which he
had of presiding over the Senate, and warded off
the blow which threatened his master. It is to
this discussion, that we must attribute the new form,
which has just been adopted, for the arretes which
required the concurrence of the three Consuls, and
which are now taken only in the name of the Go-