Liberty advocate. [volume] (Liberty, Miss.) 1835-1866, 1846-03-21
From Marston; or, the Memoirs of a Statesman
AN ELOQUENT SKETCH.
NAPOLEON, PITT AND FOX.

! lived through period of the mos
r overwhelming vicissitudes of nations, and
of the great disturber himself, who had
+. caused those vicissitudes. | saw Napo.
leon at the head Of 100000 men on he Me.
men; saw him reduced to $4,000 on the
plains Of Champagne; saw him reduced
to brigade at Fontainebeau; saw him
: burlesque Of empire at Elba; and SRI
: him an exile on board British ship, de.
parting from Europe TO obscurity and his
grave. These things may we'll reconcile
inferior talents to the changes Of fortune.
But they should also teach nations, that
the love of conquest is national ruin; and
that there is power which avenges the
innocent blood. No country on earth re.
quires that high moral more than France;
and no country on earth has so bitterly
suffered for its perversion. Napoleon
was embodied France; the concentrated
spirit OF her wild ambition, of her furious
love Of conquest, Of her reckless scorn of
the sufferings and rights OF mankind.
Nobler principles have followed, under a
wiser rNle. But il France draws the
sword again in the ambition Of Napoleon,
she will exhibit to the world only the fate
Of Napoleon. 1t will be her last war
On my arrival in England, found the
public mind cIouded with almost univer-
sal detection. was visbly dying. He
still held the nominal reins OF government
for some period; but the blow had been
struck, and his sole honor now was to
be, that like the Spartan Of old, he died on
the field, and with his buckler on his
arm. There are secrets in the dis,
tribution Of human destinles, which have
always perpexed mankind; and one Of
those is, why so many OF the powerful
minds have been cut off in the midst Of
their career, extinguished at the moment
when their fine faculties were hourly
more essential to the welfare of science,
of government, and Of the general pro.
gress Of society.
| may we'll comprehend that feeling, for
it was my own. | saw FIT iaGd IN the
grave: looked down into the narrow bed
where slept all that was moral of the man
who welded the whole supremacy Of Eu-
rope.--Yet how little can man estimate
the future? Napoleon was in his glory,
when Pitt was in his shroud Yet how
infinitely more honored, and thus more
happy, was The fate of him by whose Sc
pulchre all that was noble and memorable
in the living generation stood in reverence
and sorrow, than the last hour of the
prisoner Of St. Helena!-Both were EN-.
blems of their nations. The Englishman,
manly, pure, and bold, Of mistaken firm
ness, of proud reliance on the resources
of his own nature, and Of lofty perseyer-
ance through good and through evil for
tune. The foreigner, dazzling and daring,
of singular intellectual vividness, and oil
a thirst Of power which dsdained to be
staked but al sources above the ambition
of the past warriors and statesman Of Eu.
rope, He was the first who dreamed Of
fabrctatng anew the old Roman sceptre,
and establishing an empire Of the world.
This game was for prodigious stake, and
for a while he played 1t with prodigious
fortune. He found the moral atmosphere
filled with the floating elements of revo-
luton: he collected the republican cleo
tricity, and discharged ii on the cusps and
pinnacles of the European thrones with
terrible effect. But, from the mo men,
when he had dissipated that charm, he lost
the secret Of his irresistible strength. AS
the head Of the great republic, making
his opinion his precursor, calling on the
old wrongs Of nations TO level his way,
and marshalling the new Born hopes, the
ancient injuries, and the ardent imagin-
atoms of the continental kingdoms TO
fight his battles: the world lay before him,
with all his barriers ready to fall at the
first tread Of his horses hoof. As on
Emperor, he forged his own chain.
Napoleon, the cheltian Of republican,
ism, might have revolutionized Europe;
Napoleon, the monarch, narrowed his
supremacy to the sweep of his sword
Like a necromancer weary Of his art, he
scattered the whole treasury of'his mag
nificent illusions into thin air. flung
awav his creative wand for sceptre;
and buried the book OF his magic 'ten
thousand fathom Deep to replace it onl y
by the obsolete statutes of courts, and the
weak etiquette Of governments IN decay:
Fortunate for mankind that he committed
this irrecoverabe error, and was content
to be the lord Of France, instead Of be ing
the sovereign oil opinion; for his nature
was despotic, and his power must have IL
naly shaped and massed itself into
stupendous tyranny. Still, ne might have
long influenced the fates, and long excI-
ted The awe and wonder OF Europe. we,
too, might have worshipped his star, and
have forgotten the danger Of the flaming
nhsnomenop, in the rapidly and eccentri'