The National Register.
London, England, 1809-06-11 00:00:00

atiiE N-IAtIONAL.REGISTER.

!'.iNooni. if the French Chief loses this battle, there is
end of his glory and of his empire. France will no
lo:ger cherish him than whilst his personal glory ad►uini-
stcrs to their national greatness and vanity : he has no
other hold on the French allegiance. BONAPARTE, as a
Conqueror, is dear to them : BONAPARTE, conquered and
subdued, will be regarded only as an usurper. Such,
therefore, would be the necessary result of any very serious
defeat of the French Chief: if he be compelled to re-
treat, there is an end of him for ever ; his allies will fall
off; and his army, in losing their res•creuce, wilt lose their
discipline and their attach►uent. The power of fortune is
never so strongly visible as under a reverse.

Strt

TO MR. 11'ILLIAM COBBETT.

LETTER 11.

In iny last Letters I objected to the prayer of your pro-
posed petition to the King, as illegal and unconstitutional ;
and 1 contended that any interference or animadversion
by the Crown upon the Legislature, was a violation of
the principle of the constitution. You, Sir, cannot be
norant, that principles are never more fatatiy violated than
when the pretext for it is plausible. To a little and a little,
it is ver v easy to add a little more ; and a rollateral object
is easily carried on under cover of a pr:ncipal one. It is ur-
necessary to inform you, that political violence is never so
likely to be carried to excess, as when perpetraled under the
mask of reformation ; because the merit of the motive
forms an excuse for the villainy of the means. You want no
interpreter for this observation. You desire. this discussion
may be carried on without with minds unheated by any
thing that has recently transpired; and in the plenitude of
your new humanity, recommend us particularly to subdue
any thing like a spirit if revenge. is it possible whilst
you were writing these paragraphs, that you, William Cob-
bett, could preserve the gravky of your countenance ?
The very reading of them would take away all power
over our muscles, if we could for a moment subdue the
sentiment of indignation and contempt, which your un-
blushing hypocrisy excites. Do these expressions come
from the most notorious pander to the passions and pre-
judices of the people ? Are they writlea by the same
pen, and almost in the same moment, that O'Mara, John
Bowles, and Beazley, are by name held up as the authors
of infamous calumnies, as the alarmists, and from the man-
ner in which the passage is written, we are to understand.
the only alarmists?

Are these paragraphs written by William Cobbett, the
man who left his lodgings on the 21st of March 1792, and
absconded to France two days only after giving in the
names of the witnesses he pretended to be necessary, in
order to substantiate the false and malicious charges which
he had malignantly and revengefully preferred against 124
officers, Powell, Seton, and Hall.

Gracious Heaven ! is it possible they can be wril ten by
the same being who only ten days previous to that fixed
for the trial of these officers, wrote to the Judge-Ad.
vocate, that "if his accusation was without foundation.
the author of cruelty had not deviscd the tortures which ks