The National Register.
London, England, 1813-11-14 00:00:00

SUNDA OVE 11 ILE 11_ 14. 18(,'3,

No." !"*(l7.'

POLITICAL DISIUISITION.

SITUATION OF I:UONAPARTE.

The 7teVce!UtianarV EMPEROR of FRANC e, the tyrant and
ticour4e of mankind, ha,: unfortunately broken through th,
toils set round him, and has reached a place of comparatiy,
s:fety. On the 2a instant he arrived. at Mentz, after haying,
with 'he wretks of his army, ran a distance of :3(M) miles ;
arld, as he tells his besotted slaves in Paris, he is still sur-
rounded by 100,000 warriors.

This is-eyiden:!y an exaggerattd_account of the numhei
of Victims escapqd fr,,m the field of slaughter; for his army.
after the hattTe of I,eipsic and the defection of his vassals.
Vas reduced to Sn,€.oo men; the rapidity of his night suffi-
ciently indicates the hotness of pursuit on the part of his
antagonists, who, we know, were catly and fulls' prepared
for it; and, in those circumstances, any One: may calculate
the loss of an army which, to use Tkotst APART Cs own ex
ruessions, had arrived at Erfurt in the condition of a
beaten army."

Let ug, however, • take this account for•granted; are the
French people then to be told, and are they patiently, nay:
exultantly to hi.ar that, after sacrificing six hundred thousand
men in the frozen regions of Russia, one hundred thousand
I:remit:nen only, out of two conscriptions, cohorics, banes,
arriire-lapcs, gardes d'honneur, Sc.,. amounting in the whole,
at least, to six hundred thousand men, have survived the
second desperate attempt of their relentless-tyrant to enslave
Europe? Eleven hund.red thousand men in twe ve months'
I3ut'that waste of human blood, great as it is, and unparal-
leled even in trie history of the most savage times, is not
the only calamity which has sprung from the Pandora-box
of the Revolution,' and has deluged the country which gave it
birth. Reckoning on the suppl-ies of her pretended foreign
empire, France has seen with :4( meless equanimity her com-
merce annitillated, her
.agricultUre limited to the supply of
her home-mar Let, and all her attempts at industry rendered
nugatory by the rigid se stem of conscrittion ; but now the
imaginary greatness, which, like the trappings of the harlot,
was to console her for all the evils of her situation, has va-
nished like the -feverish phantom of a deli, ious mind, and
the dawn of returning reason must render visible the
gloomy darkness which surrounds her prospects Smarting
still under the lash of the oprrey-or, by whose juggling
tricks she has been reduced to that unparalleled state of de-
basement, France sees herself isolated in the midst of.
Europe, a stranger to all the ties which connect civilized so-
ciety, .hated for her former.wanton-ahuse of power, and de-
spi,ed f r her precept vain-boasting impotence, it)Capable of
mai ntaiffi n* the at mks necess4ry for her defence, she sees the
Jay of refaliation fast' approaChing, and the avenging "armies
V./. ,C.(7Cra.

PRreP )4.

I :he allied powers already encamped on her front iets. In
rc unprecedented and unforeseen state of things- the natural
Inestion is, What line of conduct will he adopt ? 'llls former
iud invariable conduct will furnish the solution to that (Ines-
ion.• Should he be left by the naCon. which he oppresses,
;n po,session of his Asurped power, sooner than to ;ield to
•ernis, which, however honourable to the nation, might prove
lerogatory to :he supposed dignity of an. upstart,
.1:e will sa-
crifice the last enchma n, and appropriate to the conti-
;mance of the war the produce of the last acre of ground in
France ; for liv.the code of the consci ipt:onat:d twdastrc, al: the
territory and all the inhabitants of that devo!cd country, like a
vas! farm with its ca:tle are completely at his disrosal. it is
true that the conscription. of 1815, the next to be devonred
anticipition,will not immediately forni,h him w;th an army
ins sta'e to take the held ai:ainst the et/4 n the
assistance of the veterans he has kft, and previous to the
opening of the present auspicious campaign, he has com-
pletely exhaust•:d the country of all other men z:ble to bear •
arms. But 1...-Atiud the iron frontier which surrounds old
France, and her.new acquisitions cn the left-hake of the Rhine,
he will safely defy, for a considerable time, the utmost ef-
forts of the Allies; lie will inure to' war Cie youths snatched
from the' bosom of their families ; unable for a whi'e to re-
sume offensive operations on a large scale, he will, like the
savage Lion at bait, be still formidable oh the de&nsive,
trusting, in the mean time, to the resources of his intrigues
to dissolve the formidable coalition conjurtd up against him,
after years of passive forbearance, by the madness of his own
ambition.

This Jsalurally leads us to the grand question of Pelee,
so ancently .wished for ,by all the nations of Enrope, arui so
n.ccssary to suffering humanity. But, although we have
heal d from the thi one, that even aftercthe glorious tau-ecssea
of the Allies, no terms would onered to France incon-
sistent with !ler honour or her rights, as a nation : 3 et,
until Vrc nehmen can express their opinion, consult it in-
terests, and ascertain their rights as 'a nation, we mu ,t
the possilfility of a Peace, at least of such a secure and durable
Peace as Europe wants. After an arduous stivagle of one
and twenty years, we have in many instances expresed our
,firtb conviction that BuoNAKARTE neither,would nor coufd
consent to a dismemberment of his foiei;:n empire, he-
cause it is. the main, if not. the sole prop of U.; powcr over
the French ; the pride of seuiority -in servittide heing now
the national feelkg of that vain and degraded people.
• ‘.‘ only
.e trusted
tisted that the extretniry •to which NAPOLEo.N is
reduced and the offer; inade on our Part, might remove that
difficulty, by inducing 'the French to insist on his !raking
the sacrifices required. But when we see that their pa,,ive-
tiess continues, and that his obstinacy and audacity temain