Would he, if he could possibly avoid it, thus trumpet to the whole world the incompetency of his own immense empire to enable him to carry into full effect his plans of individual aggrandizement and family ambition? We may be well assured, that now at the close of 1810, nearly three years of bloody warfare in the yet unsubdued Spanish and Portuguese peninsula, together with the campaign against Austria in the year 1809, have not lessened his difficulty of raising men in France.

It cannot be doubted that Buonaparte and his statesmen and generals were to the full as able in all political expedients and all military manœuvres in the year 1809, as they were after the battles of Austerlitz and of Friedland; and quite as desirous of universal dominion. Yet after the battles of Austerlitz and of Friedland the French ruler covered all the circles of Germany with his conscripts, and speedily dictated to the humbled Houses of Austria and of Russia the treaties of Presburgh and of Tilsit; whereas in 1809, after the still severer and still more bloody battles of Elsinghen and of Wagram, the negotiations for peace went tardily onward, and the Austrian armies continued to maintain an imposing front and a menacing attitude. It is true that Buonaparte asserts in his thirtieth bulletin, dated at Vienna, 30th July, 1809, that "the House of Austria took the field this campaign with sixty-two regiments of the line, twelve regiments of cavalry, twelve regiments of grenadiers, four free corps or legions, making in the whole three hundred and ten thousand men; one hundred and fifty battalions of militia, (landswhrs,) commanded by ancient officers, exercised ten months; forty thousand men of the Hungarian insurrection, and fifty thousand horse-artillery and miners, composing in the whole from five to six hundred thousand men. With this force the House of Austria supposed herself to be sure of victory.

She entertained a hope of shaking the power of France if ever her whole force were united. But her armies are notwithstanding reduced to one fourth of their original strength; while the French army has been increased to double the number it consisted of at Ratisbon."

But it is no unusual affair for the French government to embroider facts. If it were true, as Buonaparte asserts in his bulletin, that Austria lost nearly four hundred thousand men during the campaign, and that France doubled the number of her armies in the same period, the question irresistibly occurs,-why then did not Buonaparte immediately dictate the terms of peace, and prescribe a treaty to the prostrate House of Austria, as he did after the battles of Marengo and of Austerlitz; when the treaties of Luneville and of Presburgh proclaimed at once to the world the complete triumph of the victor, and the unconditional submission of the vanquished? Whence could it possibly happen that after the battles of Elsinghen and of Wagram, the negotiations for peace between the two contending powers crept 80 slowly forward; unless it was because Napoleon could not raise conscripts from the diminished population of France in sufficient numbers to terrify and compel Austria into a surrender at discretion of all her national strength and independence; wherefore instead of dethroning the Austrian emperor and parcelling out his dominions among vassal-kings and tributary princes, as he had so often threatened to do, in the Moniteur, was Napoleon fain to re-acknowledge the imperial title of his brother Francis; to solicit the hand of the arch-duchess Louisa in marriage; and by the treaty of Vienna to leave Austria still a first-rate power, rich in all the resources of territory and of population, that, under the guidance of a wise and energetic government, can make an enemy to be respected and feared?

And if the conscription system have not materially exhausted the effective population of France, why has not Buonaparte sent a sufficient number of troops into Spain and Portugal to overwhelm the people of those countries? Why has he suffered the peninsula to wage successful war against the whole military force of his empire for nearly three years; and now to be farther off from submission than they were in the month of May, 1808, at the moment when they first raised the standard of resistance to his usurpation?

2. After the world has witnessed for so many years the brilliant achievements and unparalleled victories of the French arms, it might appear absurd to hint that the people of France are deficient in natural courage; are wanting in that steady, cool, determined intrepidity, which finally triumphs over all opposition; and is terrible to its enemies even in the midst of disaster and defeat. Nevertheless, it seems to be a material drawback on the strength of France, that her population does not possess this steady, desperate, Roman valor and fortitude..

A very justly celebrated French general laid down and maintained lately in conversation this broad and sweeping proposition; namely, that fear of death and the desire of self-preservation are instinctive in all animals, and in man are the foundation of individual cowardice; so that no men of any nation can ever be brought to face death coolly, particularly in large masses, except by the force of a discipline which is more terrible than this instinctive fear; or in other words, by counteracting one by another and a stronger species of fear; and subduing the fear of death in battle by the certainty of death for declining to fight. Whence he concluded that, with the exception of some very few individuals who might be inflamed with ambition or vanity, or stimulated by the dread of shame, or fortified by deep reflection, all nations of men are naturally cowards. This position was denied

to be correct in all its unqualified latitude; and several nations were instanced as naturally possessing, both individually and collectively, the characteristics of determined courage; namely, the Americans, particularly the people of the New-England States, who are most remarkably cool, self-collected, and intrepid in the hour of danger; the British, the ancestors of these New-England men, who are instinctively brave and undaunted; and the distinction of old Sir Eyre Coote, the celebrated Irish general, who signalized himself in the East-Indies, was cited: Sir Eyre Coote used to say, "my countrymen, the Irish, as well as the Scottish and the Welsh, are too hot and eager for action; they rush rapidly to the charge, but can never be brought off from the field, never can be made to hear the signal for retreat, however necessary or prudent it might be to fall back; give me the English as the best soldiers, for they will always go steadily and coolly forward into the hottest action at the tap of a drum, and retreat in the most perfect order and regularity, under the heaviest and most destructive fire at the tap of a drum." The Russians, the Germans, the Prussians, the Poles, the Swiss, the Swedes, the Danes, the Turks, the Spaniards, and the Portugueze, were also instanced as being nations of brave men; the Dutch, the Italians, the Chinese, and the Asiatics generally were given up as being for the most part very sufficient cowards; but above all, the French themselves were adduced as the most conclusive proof of the unsoundness of the general's position in its full extent; the French were quoted as a nation of brave and invincible warriors, before whose prowess the whole world must inevitably and speedily yield in submission and in bondage.

No, replied the general, whatever becomes of my proposition, and whatever may be the case with other nations, the French are not a brave people. I have

had very numerous proofs of that; one of which I will now give you: it was one day necessary to break the Austrian line, I therefore ordered my general of division to lead his men to the charge with the bayonet in the first instance, and on no account to suffer them to fire; to my great astonishment, instead of obeying my orders, the whole of the division fired before they charged with the bayonet; the Austrians however were thrown into disorder and finally routed. After the battle was over I inquired of the general why he had disobeyed my orders? He answered, as I led my men up to the charge with the bayonet, I perceived that they looked pale, changed color frequently, staggered in their gait, and shewed every disposition to run away, while the Austrian line presented a firm, unmoved front, bristling with bayonets; I therefore immediately ordered my men to fire, in hopes that it might disorder the Austrians and inspire the French troops with courage; it did both; the Austrian line was broken by the fire, and my men then rushed on with their accustomed impetuosity to the charge.

If this be so, how then, it was asked, has it come to pass that the French, not being naturally a brave people, have every where vanquished their enemies? It was answered, they have vanquished their enemies not by superior courage, but by the superior genius and more adroit military tactics of their generals; the greater skill of their negotiators; the weakness and corruption of the governments of Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, &c. whose ministers, and place-holders, and generals, were for the most part bought up by French money, and whose populace were almost universally debauched by the principles of jacobinism; and therefore never opposed any hearty, determined resistance to the force or the policy of France. Over Britain, whose statesmen she cannot bribe, and whose sea