The Sun.
London, England, 1806-02-27 00:00:00

PRESENT STATE CF EUROPE.

TWE DANGERS AND ADVANTAGES OF THE PRESENT
STATE• OF EUROPE, IMPARTIALLY CONSIDERED
BY FRED. GENT?., KNIGHT OF THE ORDER- OF THE
POLAR STAR, , &C..&C.

a -While our heart is whole, it willfind means, or make them.
The Public must never be regarded as incural?le."--d3oR.Kt.
EUROPE
,resounds 'with lamentations from one
end to the othere—upOn the melancholy results of a
War, from the condu& and issue of which she anxi-
otrily expected her emancipation and her Safety.---
These lamentations have their excuse. -The misfor-
tunes . that haee .called them forth are misfortunes
Of no CorriniOn cast—they have struck us with the
rapidity; and- overwhelmed us with the irresistible
force of thunder. The War is at'an end—the Ar-
mies disbanded—a disastrous Peace concluded, when
the news of that great common undertaking against
the common Oppressor of Nations had scarcely
time to reach the different extremities of Europe..
Most unquestionably, in order to a successful
struggle against, great public calamities, we should'
begin by thoroughly knowing and. thoroughly feeling
them: But in fillies such -as those in which welive,
every moment is so precious, that we,are not allowed
the pause of an instant for the'centemplation of our
misfortunes. We must forthwithsexamine what re-.
sources they have,left-us ; we must bind over the ,
present moment and its sad train of gloomy re-
flexions, that. we: may dive into futurity, and
_grasp
with the vigour of a courageouS hope the last cOirr!,
binatiens that still present themselves to the mind,
'for upholding and avenging the sacred cause of -the
expiring liberty of Europe. It is my intention in'
this place to prove, upon a fair .comparison and just
balance of the real losses which that cause has sus-
tained from the result of a disastrous campaign, with
the advantages it has just acquired by the changes
wrought in the general, system of politics, and the
greater part of which advantages may be secured, to
it, that our present situation is, without question,
• preferable to that in which we were placed from the
Peace of Luueville till the month of September,
1805.
. But let us first examine the extent and nature of
our losses. We shall not at present dwell upon
those ordinary and momentary losses in theivand
money, the recolle6tion of which is so transient,
which time soon repairs, and which are scarce taken
inso, account in the progress of a strife upon which
the rate of the human race dire&ly and immediately
depends. The losses we have now to consider, are
those that powerfully bear upon the great problem
of the day, which diminish our means of resistance,
while they increase those of the common enemy. In
considering things in- this point of view, we first
behold Russia, that vast basis, that body of 'reserve
of all our combined operations, and we find ,that she
stands now exaetly in the same posture of strength'
as she stood before the War; that her frornierS, that
her power, that her resources remain the same, and
that the reverses she may have experienced, far from
having tended to enfeeble her, will rather contribute,
by giving her a- truer insight into her real ‘intel-ests,
and by leading her to a correction of • whatever
may be defeelive in her military sytem, to enable
her to Come down again
_into the ay ena witll_ ranch
greater energy, with tar more preponderating etfeCt. •
We find that the real position of Prussia has suf-
fered nothing from the late events ; that she 'has
sustained no sort of loss ; and that if she succeeds,
through the Medium of negotiation, in rescuing th'e
North of Germany from the scourge of a French
Army, by which it has hitherto been oppressed and
devoured; Prussia will even have absolutely gained
by a war, in which no doubt she might, and ought,
to have taken an infinitely more active part.
We see, in fine; that England in no respe& what-
ever is less competent for the struggle, nor is she
now more perilously situated than she was previ-
ous'to this Continental Campaign should even her
implacable foe resume that menacing attitude by
Which, without being able seriously to affe(t, he
had perhaps, for two -,years, fretted and fatigued
her, 'the interval of repose she has enjoyed must
in some measure have proved of advantage ; we
find, that called upon again to watch. the Airnaments
of -France, such has been 'her good fortune,- -that
without even taking into account the fruiti of a most
splendid viaory, gained amidst, the -disasters -of the
Continent, she has not to regret the loss of a single
Ship of the Isine, of a single Battalion of Troops,
no, not any one instrument of defence—while her
chief means, her incomparable public spirit, will
only kindle and glow more- keenly; from, the very
necessity of standing forth alone, to stem the tor-
rent of the Tyrant's fury.
It ,is then only, Austria that has suffered any ma-
terial losses. She is' indeed deprived of those ad-
vanced posts which she before possessed towards the
Rhine and Switzerland : she is deprived of two of
her best provinces,, one of which stood like a great
Citadel, covering all the western part of her territory;'
she has been compelled to bend to the conqueror;
and to consent to the aggrandizement of those very
neighbours whom she has more .than. ever reason
to consider as blind -instruments determined on her.
destruaion. These' certainly are very real calamities,
both for Austria and for the common cause. But,
that their extent may not be exaggerated, that they
may be estimated at their just amount, it is proper
we should compare thent with the condition in which
that Power was left after the Truce, called the
Peace of Presbtirgh, with that 'in which she was
01m:el since 1801.
The Treaty of Luneville had dug a grave for the
Austrian Monarchy, which continually threatened
to devour her. This Treaty, by placing - Italy,
Switzerland, and the whole of the. Southern part
of Oermany at the, disposal of BoNArARTE, drew
round the Austrian Possessions a formidable circle;
which began at Verona, and ended at Egra :• be-
yond that circle all was France. The.events which
follo'wed the Treaty of Luneville 'only served .to ex-
tricate the mortal poison which constituted its es-
sence—the same causes which led to that execrable
Treaty; viz. 'a general. want of decision and of union
among the Great Powers, and the extinction of all
public spirit in Europe, prevented the Court of
Vienna troin resisting the new usurpations to which
it continually gave birth. She was, therefore, con-
demned to beheld the German .Empire parcelled
cut, as suited •the caprice of France ; Switzerland
ravaged by the Troops, and finally subjugated by
the decrees of the successors of REWBLLL i
Pied-
mont incorporated with France ; Parma and Pia
cencia invaded ; the Kingdom Of Naples ?gala oc-

cupied by the French Soldiery ; the German Ter-.
:ritory -was most daringly violated, but violated with
impunity ; and as the oily answer to the, murmurs
excited by these atrocities throughout Europe, the
man, that committed their was. decorated With- the
title of Emperor : in fine, Lombardy, without the
'consent ()fatly one Power, was ereded into a Kingdom
of Italy ; and the State of Genda declared French
Territory. She was condemned to behold theie
unexampled, unprincipled enterprizes succeed each
other with' a - frightful rapidity, without being able,
even for a moment, to arrest their course.—Such a
state of things must necessarily lead to a speedy fait;
and if Austria did not find either within herself, of
in some
,great political combination,' the -courage
and the means of upsetting it altOgether,., from
that, moment her sentence of death was irrevo-'
cably passed.
Such- was the situation of the 'Austrian Mo-
narchy,when it took' up 'antis against •Fratice.;.•and
such, with scarcely any difference, is its situation
at • present. '
The fact is, that Austria, reduced to the state in
-which she was left by the. -Treaty of Luneville,
could. no more exist liclbrethatiafter the result of her
late reverses. These reverses have, it is true, added
somewhat to the dangers by which she was before
beset ; but 'what matters a-degree more .or less of
danger to him, who already, whithersoever he turned
'his eyes,could only discover the approaches of death ?
.7=4:ler defensive system is materially impaired by
4,10' loss-of the Tyrol; and if she could relapse into
the error of entrusting her safety to, a defensive
War, the heart of her Possessions would be broken
in • upon eight days sooner through the effeds
of:that loss; but it has long since been acknow-
ledged, that Austria could no longer be saved
by a defensive War, and that her salvation rested,
wholly upon the success of some grand aggres-
sive operations, by which she could be enabled
to break her chains, and affed direetly the
strength of her Enemy.- The Main point, there-
fore, to be decided' is, whether such an operation be
much more difficult at present than it was six months
ago. By considering that question under its three
principal aspeds,- we shall easily be convinced,, that
the chief resources of the Monarchy remain nearly
the same, since the main spring of these nisources.
did not exist in the Tyrol, or in the Venetian States;
that her military position considered as an obstacle
to an aggressive enterprise acTainst?ranee, is not es=
Sentially altered.; and that her political or federative
position is so much' improved, that it we compare
what she has gained in
,this resped, with what she
has lost in regard to her military* position, what she
has gained WTild: preponderate-. • •
We are hence:naturally led to speak,.of the adVan=
tages which the cause of general independence at
present enjoys; notwithstanding the calamitous Ca-
tastrophe of the War.
Europe (we always allude to that part of Europe
which remained unsubdued by the French)--Europe
Was, during :the four years that succeeded the Peace
of Luneville, what She had been during the painful
period which prepared and produced that Peace : an
incoherent mass of .scattered and.jarring elements,
rather than a duly organ4ed body, united and moved
by the laws of a common interest. England was
completely insulated from ate _Continent, who
seemed as regardless of the War, of the awful War
which she waged with France, as of the quarrel she
was at the same time engaged in with Scindia or
Holkar. Austria, bent beneath the yoke, did not
even dare to fix, her eyes on the prosped of a mutual-
ly proteating 'alliance, and trembled at the idea of
raising any apprehension in the Tyrant's mind, that,
she seriously cherished any hope of arising from her
fall.

Russia, carried away by the desire of co-operating
in the newsarrangements of Germany, still more
powerfully carried away by the unremitting anxiety
of her Sovereign to lay the foundation of a.solid and
durable Peace, and by the illusions with which Bo-
NAPARTE contrived to beguile his pure and noble
soul, seemed to forget ,for a time, that there can be
nd Peace with the ever renascent necessities of a
Government unjust in its nature, and with. the
phrenzy of a delirious ambition ; and thus second-,
ed.-in some degree the projects of that Govern-
ment, while resistingthem, only and at best by their
silence.

Prussia in fine, wedded -by a long overweening
-habit of insulation and political egotism, clinging
with
.a blind pertinaCity-to old inveterate antipathies,
of which the-total change the iflairs oftEurcpe had
undergone ilionld have extinjuished even, the re-
collection fearing perhaps those very Powers whose
cause had beeome her own, on .the very account. of
the injury she had done them by her long inactivity,
and Considering moreover her connexion with France'
as 'the only or the surest, means of acquiring, from
time to time, some transient. advantages, consoli-
dated and extended those connexions, even at the
sacrifice of all her dignity, by allowing a French
Army to sit down at her Frontier, and give the law
to those to whom Prussia had so repeatedly pro-
mised, and held out her powerful protection. .
Such is the situation in which we stood, when
the unchecked strides of BONAPARTE, and, his con-.
tinually increasing insolence, .awakened at once all
the Cabinets, and impressed upon their minds the
indispensible necessity of a change of- system .and
of principles. This Political Revolution took its rise
at the close of the year 1804; but its &eats because
manifest only about the month of August, 1805,
The disdainful and offensive manner in which the
Passports granted to 11.1. Nov-ositazori, were re-
turned, and the audaciousness with which they were
annulled by the invasiqn of Genoa, were the signals
Which announced to Europe that she must soon
arouze from her long slumbers./

(To be continued )

•
* We should not, however, in this estimation, overlook
the acquisition of Saltzburgh, an acgoisi,iou which,even in
a daellive point of view, ought cover Of the advantage be
taken of it) a great portion of what alas been lost by the ces.
sion of the Tyrol.

The boXing match between Dan Mendoza and
Harry Lee is fixed on to take place in threa.weeks.
Mendoza, who is the only first-rate'bruisa of the
old school in existence, bad retired for Imlay years,
and never. would again have entered the lists, had
not the, present challenge been given him. Harry
.I,ee is also one of the tribe of Israel, known more
as a trainer and good setter-to-than a bruiser. The
whole of the stakes for which they are to contend
are deposited; very great odds. are betted GA Men•
doza.