Under the Bourbons France uniformly endeavored, whenever an opportunity occurred, to spread destruc tion around her, and to execute her plans of plunder and dominion. What was the "Grand Alliance" of Henry the Fourth of France, but a scheme concerted by which the whole of Europe might be eventually brought under the yoke of French dominion? The restless ambition, the perfidy, and the insatiable spirit of rapine in the French, who never have been and who never can be induced long to follow the arts of peace and of civilized industry, blazed out to their extreme height under Louis the Fourteenth, who over-ran and ravaged all the neighboring countries; ruined and dethroned his brother sovereigns; fraternized and deceived the people of foreign countries; and measured his steps rapidly onward to the subjugation of Europe, until he was first checked in his progress by William the Third of England; and afterwards beaten into becoming weakness and submission by the Great Duke of Marlborough.

It should be remembered that wherever Louis went he revolutionized the countries that he conquered. Whenever he came into a new territory he established his Chamber of Claims, by which he inquired if the conquered country or province had any dormant or disputed claims; any cause of complaint; any unsettled demand upon any other state or province; upon which he might wage war with such state, and thus discover again new ground for devastation, and gratify his ambition by new conquests. He actually went to war with Holland, because, as he said, she had not treated him with sufficient respect." His power was unsuccessfully resisted by the allies during the war that terminated so favorably for France at the peace of Nimeguen; after which treaty her insolence knew no bounds; and not a single day was suffered to elapse without some new aggressions on continental Europe.

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This principle of universal domination has never been extinct; it has never slept in France for some centuries past, except perhaps for a few years during the pacific administration of Cardinal Fleury. At the breaking out of the French Revolution, indeed, this object was pursued with greater ardor than it ever had been theretofore, and her regicide chiefs then entertained the same designs of ambition in the subjugation of the European continent, which Buonaparte has carried into execution. The scheme of humbling the Northern powers, and of partitioning Germany, so lately effected by Napoleon, was planned and laid out so early as the year 1793, when Publicola Chaussard, then commissioner of the executive power, said, "It is the interest of France to raise herself to the rank of a first-rate power in Europe; thus covering with her shield the second-rate powers, and protecting them against the boundless ambition of the Northern powers. A war ad internecionem, to extermination, is declared between the republic and all monarchies. Austria being once subdued, the Germanic body may become a colossus of Federative Republics, and change the system of the North." For federative republics read the " Confederation of the Rhine;" and we see that Buonaparte has only executed the measure of mischief pointed out by M. Publicola Chaussard.

In a word, the French have always been a vain, ambitious, fraudulent, cruel people; and have always, under every form of government, abused success with the most wanton insolence. While they consider themselves as conquerors no nation on earth is free from their aggressions. The only possible means by which any country can obtain tranquillity and safety in peace, is to impress France with a thorough and fixed conviction of the hopelessness of continuing in a state of warfare with any benefit to herself; and this can only be done by incessant hard fighting, and ha

rassing her on all occasions, by sea and land, in every direction. The history of Europe during the last century amply proves the truth of this assertion. The peace of Ryswick was in her favor, and she renewed the war in four years. Well beaten and humbled at the peace of Utrecht she was fain to be at rest for more than a quarter of a century. Triumphant at the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, she again plunged Europe in hostilities in less than seven years. Disappointed and vanquished in Lord Chatham's celebrated war, she tardily crept forward, after fifteen years of peace, to aid in severing the British American colonies from their mother country. The peace of Amiens was shamefully in her favor, and accordingly she only appeared to breathe a few months in hollow repose, before she again lighted up the flames of war all over the world. Let Britain most solemnly pause, and beware, as she values her own vast and ever increasing national blessings, of again making peace with France until she has crippled her present over-grown power; and diminished her present unnatural bulk of empire.

see

For a full confirmation of the position, that the views of France have been for some centuries past, directed towards the military subjugation of Europe; "Recherches sur la force de l'Armée Française," &c. or, Researches on the strength of the French army, and the basis on which it ought to be established according to circumstances, &c. from Henry the Fourth to the year 1805, published at Paris in 1806-"The Works of Louis the Fourteenth,” in six vols. 8vo. published at Paris in 1804—particularly the " Memoirs or Instructions for the Dauphin," and, "Tableau des Revolutions du systéme politique de l'Europe depuis la fin du quinzième siècle;" par M. F. Ancillon, 3 vols. 12mo. Paris, 1806.

But the most important question now to be investigated is, are there no drawbacks, no counter-checks, to the power of France? Is there no canker-worm

gnawing at the heart's core of this despotism, and threatening to destroy ere long its vitality? We apprehend this to be the case. We apprehend the existence of certain sources of weakness and decay, both internal and external, which, if properly managed, and aided by steady, perpetual resistance, on the part of Britain, in protecting herself and all the other nations of the globe which decline to receive, or wish to revolt against Gallic oppression, may yet shatter down this colossal empire into its original component parts, and once again restore the balance of Europe, and the peace of the entire world.

1. As to the internal sources of decay and ruin to France, the conscription-system itself appears to ensure the destruction of every nation that has recourse to so unjust and so desperate a measure. For a time, indeed, it cannot fail to render the country which adopts it terrible to all its neighbors, on account of the vast superiority of numbers which it every day drags into the field. But what are the ultimate results of such a system? The strength of every country consists in its effective population; that is to say, the portion of its people which can bear arms, or perform any other service or labor requiring the strength of natural manhood. But nearly the whole of this effective population has been cut away in France by the system of conscription, which has taken away almost all the males in regular annual succession, ever since the year 1791; the first conscription being levied in 1792. The yearly average of conscripts taken from the years 1792 to 1811, both inclusive, amounts to one hundred and fifty thousand; making a total of three millions of men, used up in warfare alone, independently of the civil massacres of the revolution, in the course of twenty years. I say, all used-up, because Buonaparte is now calling for the levy of the conscripts for the year 1813.

The almost incredible mortality of the French sol

diers may be known by consulting a very valuable and interesting little work, intituled "Caractere des Armées Européennes dans la guerre actuelle, avec une parallelle de la politique, de la puissance, et des moyens des Romains et des Français," Londres, T. Egerton, 1802. The proofs that the conscription system has very materially drained France of her effective population, are manifold and conclusive.

The very circumstance of being continually obliged to anticipate the conscription by at least two years, and thus dragging boys of only sixteen years of age into the field, shows that France does not pos sess, nor can supply full-grown men in sufficient numbers to replenish the waste made in her soldiery by the perpetual havoc of Buonaparte's career. In the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, Paris alone by voluntary levies used to furnish annually to the French army six thousand men; but now the conscription which sweeps away all the males from sixteen to twenty-five years of age raises only fourteen hundred soldiers yearly in Paris. Whence can this enormous deficit arise, unless the conscription system has most fearfully diminished the effective population of France?

Buonaparte, in all the pride of his power, when he marched into Spain towards the close of the year 1808, had actually levied his conscripts for the year 1810; and yet so exhausted and drained of its effective population was his empire, that he was obliged to draw his French troops from the frontiers, and send them over the Pyrenees into the Peninsula; to garrison his vassal German towns with Russian troops; and to bring a hundred thousand mercenary Germans from the Rhenish Confederation into the heart of France, in order to keep down his own subjects. Would this sagacious conqueror have recourse to such a forlorn expedient if he had any great numbers of disposable Frenchmen at his command?