and despotic power could never stand the test of cool and free discussion, in times of peace. Bonaparté was well aware of this, and therefore, in every constitution he ever made for any country, he laid it down as the first principle, that the legislative, or mock representative body, must never originate any thing, must never discuss any point but what the government should send to them for discussion, or rather for their acceptance. Besides this precaution, he showed them, in the present instance, that he had reserved to himself power at any time to check the ebullitions of public spirit in any of those assemblies. Whoever ventured to displease him might be certain of being displaced at the end of the year, and of never again resuming his seat.

This was a stretch of absolute dominion, more absolute, perhaps, than had ever been assumed by any executive power over its senate. The senators of Rome, and the members of the parliament of Paris, had their seats for life, and therefore could and often did display some spirit of independence; but by the French constitution, as it now stands, the political existence of a senator ceases, from the time he has displeased the government. After those expulsions, the first consul had an easy and complying senate, who were ready to accept his civil code, or any other code he should present them, his legion of honour, or any project that came into his head, however absurd or unjust. The public bodies dared no longer express a sentiment of freedom, and if any individual ventured either to converse or write with freedom, the examples of La

harpe, and of the author of "Edward in Scotland," held out sufficient terrors. An imprudent word might send the father of a family to Guiana, and it could not reasonably be expected that mademoiselle Beauharnois would always undertake to solicit pardon for those who offended the first consul.

Bonaparte having thus triumphantly terminated the bloodless conquest of the fairest portion of Italy; having, without the slightest idea that it would give the British ministry any uneasiness, announced to the world the secret treaty of March 1801, concluded with Spain, by which Louisiana, the dominions of the duke of Parma, and the important station in the Mediterranean, the island of Elba, were irrevocably united as component parts of his empire; the clandestine treaties with Portugal and with the Porte; having sent the largest armament which ever sailed for the new world, to secure the old dominion of France, and to take possession of its new acquisitions, even before he had concluded peace with Great Britain; it might be supposed that such uncontrolled, unquestioned, and complete display of power and policy would have checked the restless activity of his mind, and that he now would relax in inactivity and pleasures, after the unceasing toils of so many years: but those who so calculated, soon saw, to their surprise, that the lust of empire was in him an appetite not to be satiated; fresh encroachments upon what remained independent in Europe, and fresh attempts still more to aggrandize the country who had adopted him, marked, unceasingly, his subsequent measures.

On the 6th of February, letters of of a most menacing nature were sent, by orders of the first consul, to the canton of Berne, in which the immediate interference of France was threatened, under the pretence of the dissensions prevailing among the Swiss themselves; but in the Valais more immediate and unequivocal proceedings on the part of France transpired.

In February general Thureau, celebrated for his atrocious, massacres in La Vendee, arrived early in that month in the Valais; set aside all the constituted authorities throughout that little state and its dependencies, possessed himself of the public treasury, the archives of the government, and the post office, and publicly announced it as the intention of France to incorporate that republic with her dominions. The Pays de Vaud, which lies between France and the Valais, was already formally annexed to her dominions; and Switzerland began to tremble at what she apprehended must be the consequence of these encroachments: either the directly becoming a French province, or the imposition of a constitution which would virtually cause her to become one.

Nor were the efforts of the first consul less active with regard to internal arrangements; chambers of commerce and agriculture were established throughout his empire; societies for the encouragement of the arts and manufactures universally established; rewards for eminency in every branch of the fine arts lavishly promised, whilst the arranging the plunder of Italy in the utmost splendour at Paris, promised to secure to that capital the resort and influx of strangers,

which once crowded to Rome and

the other ravaged cities of Italy. Were such alone the efforts made by France to restore her trade and her finances, the means would have been as laudable and legitimate as the ends: but the first consul did not limit thus his exertions he manifested, both directly and through his influence with Spain, with Holland, with Genoa, and the other subjugated powers, the most marked hostilities against the commerce of the British empire. Our intercourse with Piedmont was completely cut off, which always had been so bencficial a source of advantage to many branches of our manufacture. Our trade with Genoa, with Tuscany, with Spain, was expressly interdicted under the severest prohibitions. In the north of Europe our situation was nearly as alarming; British goods were excluded all transit through the states of Holland under the severest penalties, and it was much to be apprehended that our future connection with Germany would in a great measure depend upon the will and pleasure of a rival, who in such a moment as the present, so far from conciliating, did not even think it necessary to conceal his rooted enmity.

About this period also was dispatched, under the admiral Gantheaume, a strong squadron of French men of war from the Meditefranean, to reinforce the armament which sailed for St. Domingo, in the month of December 1801, under admiral Villaret Joyeuse and general Le Clerc, and from whence news was now eagerly expected.

On the first of March citizen Bacher laid before the dict at Ratisbon Ratisbon a declaration

from the minister of foreign affairs of France (Talleyrand), communicating the result of the consulta at Lyons. This instrument declared the appointment of the first consul to the presidency of the Italian republic; that he conceded to the voluntary wish of its most enlightened citizens; that the measure was indispensable to its freedom, and solely undertaken by him to prevent rivalry of pretensions, and the perpetual feuds which might be expected, but which must, under his government (which he assures the diet shall be energetic, paramount, and ascendant,) be harmonized and tranquil.

On the 12th, the long expected intelligence arrived at Brest from St. Domingo, and was considered upon the whole as highly favourable to the parent country; not that there was no resistance on the part of Toussaint and the blacks to the repossession of the island by the French, but that such resistance was impotent and ineffectual. The general Le Clerc debarked in force on the 4th of February, and got possession of several forts and the whole of the country between the Cape and Fort Dauphine. The negroes, by the orders of general Christophe, had set fire to the Cape Town, but the French arrived in time to save a part of that devoted city. The letters of the commanders of the army and fleet were couched in the most triumphant terms: complete success, and the reestablishment of the French power in the settlement, in a very short time, was by them confidently pro

Whether the opposition which was experienced by general Le Clerc at St. Domingo was of as triffing a nature as his letters announced, or whether it was considered by Bonaparte as likely to throw serious obstacles in the way of his great object, certain it is that about this period some degree of activity began to prevail at the congress of Amiens.

Hitherto the situation of the marquis of Cornwallis had been extremely irksome and disagreeable: the definitive treaty had been lingering now more than three months, during which time Bonaparté had realized every project his wildest ambition could form, without check or interruption; and while thus occupied, it became notorious to all Europe that the ultimate pacification with Great Britain was designedly protracted: means were not wanting for such an object; the delay of the Dutch and Spanish ministers, and the absence of the first consul in the south, presented plausible excuses for dilatoriness in the early part of the negotiation; but when those causes no longer existed, vexatious and frivolous impediments were suggested on the part of Spain and Holland, evidently for the purposes of delay. With the British minister it was far otherwise: the alarming increase of power, since the signing the preliminaries, to France was no obstacle, although, as we have shown, some of the articles of the preliminaries could not now be executed either in the letter or in the spirit. The British minister hurried on the negotiation to the utmost of his power, but ineffectually.

At

At length some faint remains of British spirit began to appear: the disarming system, which had proceeded to a considerable extent, was suspended; we had already sent out a strong fleet of observation to the West Indies, to watch the motions of the Brest fleet; a squadron had also sailed from the Mediterranean*, in consequence of the sailing of Gantheaume with a reinforcement for St. Domingo. Those movements, however, arose from the original source of so much disquietude and expense; the impolitic and unprecedented permission of the vast fleet and army of Brest to sail from France, before peace had been concluded: but the armaments which the ministry now thought it necessary to equip, were calculated to coerce France to the concluding the definitive treaty at all events, and upon whatever terms she might dictate; accordingly, orders were issued, about the beginning of March, for the fitting out and victualling the whole of the men of war at Portsmouth capable of being sent to sea, frigates and sloops included, in all about thirty sail.

And in consequence of similar orders, admiral Cornwallis, who still commanded the channel fleet, dispatched from Torbay six sail of the line † on a cruize, and victualled for five months: all the different offices connected with the naval department, the dock-yards, &c. were put in motion; and at the crisis when the country at large was cherishing the hopes of a happy and permanent peace, every symptom appeared of fresh warfare and contention.

Whether this manifestation of displeasure on the part of Great Britain, and the consequences it threatened; or whether the opposition experienced at St. Domingo, or from the cooperation of both causes on the mind of Bonaparte, he now, without further shift or subterfuge, seemed to wish to expedite the negotiation at Amiens to a conclusion.

There remained now apparently but two points to occupy the attention of the French government; the definitive treaty of peace with Great Britain, and the German indemnities. The latter arrangement was permitted to slumber, and the pressure now caused by the angry measures of Great Britain, and the partial failure of the Brest armament, disposed measures of an active nature to supersede the supineness that had hitherto prevailed at Amiens.

Yet at the close of this long protracted negotiation, so far from receding from the advantages which France clearly had in the preliminary treaty, her minister absolutely insisted on higher terms than even that had given her. Nor did the aggrandizement of that power in the intervening period, in violation of all subsisting treaties, and of the spirit of the basis of that which they were about to conclude, produce in the slightest degree (although the British minister offered to throw into the same scale Egypt, Malta, the Cape of Good Hope, and all the conquests we had made during the war,) the disposition to recede from her exorbitant demands. Proceeding on this principle, the French government interposed so

many unexpected points of debate, during the negotiation, which protracted it to such a length, that the inhabitants of both countries, who were equally anxious and sincere for the amicable termination of the treaty, were in constant apprehension of its being broken off abruptly. At length, either from the causes we have already alluded to, or because nothing more was to be gained by procrastination, it became the will and pleasure of the first consul that the long expected treaty should be signed; accordingly that ceremony took place on the 27th of March.

The inhabitants of Amiens were apprized of the moment of the signature's taking place, and were invited to witness the solemnity. The welcome event was announced the next day at Paris by the minister for foreign affairs, and proclaimed under the firing of cannon, and every demonstration of joy usual on the receipt of the most flattering and welcome intelligence.

On the 29th of March, Mr. Moore, assistant secretary to the mission, arrived in London at nine o'clock in the morning of that day, with the news of the definitive treaty of peace having been signed at Amiens, at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 27th instant, by the plenipotentiaries of the different powers, parties thereto. Thus, after a feverish interval of five months, during which period the most important revolutions had taken place in the states of Europe, whilst the scale of French power was daily preponderating, and that of England visibly kicking the beam;" the great object of the

British ministers and the general wish of the people of England was accomplished.

The domestic events which preceded this celebrated treaty, from the commencement of the year, were few and unimportant. The trial and punishment of the infatuated and misguided mutincers at Bantry Bay, which took place early in the month of January, we have already noticed; and the account of the crime and execution of governor Joseph Wall, in command at Goree, 1782, which engrossed an uncommon share of the public interest, we have gone into at some length in another part of this work*. Those severe but salutary acts of justice, which regarding only the crime, equally awarded death to disobedience to the officer, and to the extreme severity of those in command, were satisfactory proofs of the equitable and sound principles of the English law.

On the 18th of March there was a numerous meeting of the livery of London, assembled in common hall, in order to take into consideration the propriety of petitioning for the repeal of the income tax. The measure met with universal approbation, and it was carried unanimously. In the resolutions on this subject were enumerated the serious evils attending this tax; its destructive operation upon the trading world, and its injustice in making no discrimination between fluctuating and certain income. They stated, that it was hostile to the liberties and morals of the people, and that no modification could render it equitable, just, or efficient,.

and