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turns excelled, France, like a prize-fighter, acquired the hardiness, the dexterity, and the force, that have made her the victor. The revolution has suddenly opened her eyes to contemplate her situation, and all her ardour is awakened by perceiving, that, already, more than half her ambitious work is done. Less fighting, less hazard, than her rivalships with the house of Austria have cost the Bourbons, will make her mistress of Europe from the Baltick to the Hellespont. With sixty millions of people in France and its dependencies, half the population of the Roman empire under Trajan, she has twice the force. The Russians, like the ancient Parthians, are her only enemies on land, and they are too distant to be formidable.

THE other states of Europe, England excepted, are more than half subdued by their divisions and their fears.

It is absurd to suppose, that this power, so tremendous to every lover of his country, will be inert for want of pecuniary resources. The Dutch and Italians sow, and the French reap. Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves. Old Rome, after the conquest of Macedonia, subsisted for more than a hundred years by tributes without taxes. Mahomet, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane did not stop to ask their collectors of taxes, whether they should conquer Asia.

NOR will the people of France grow weary or ashamed of their yoke, and rise to throw it off: they are nothing, the army is every thing. Besides, they are really proud of the glory of their master, and from their very souls rejoice in the distinction of their chains.

CAN it be, some will say, that the man, who basely fled from his brave comrades in Egypt, the man red with assassination at Joppa, the obscure Corsican, an emperour only by his crimes, will be preferred to the Bourbons? Yes; the army prefers him. The revolution, like a whirlwind has swept all the ncient hierarchy, nobility, and land proprietors away, and the new race have an interest to maintain the new establishments of the usurpation. Did the populace of Rome ever shift their government, because an usurper had obtained

the people by money or by blood? No; as soon as men perceive, that there is a force superiour to their own, they desist from making any efforts against it: the proud Romans were as passive in the yoke, as the Dutch are now.

THE destinies of the civilized world, then, obviously depend on their ability to resist this new Roman domination. Russia has no fears of being subjugated, and, for that very reason, will act with less zeal and less faithfulness in what ought to be the common cause against France. She will pursue the projects of her ambition, which seek aggrandizement in the South of Europe, and as a naval power. Hence, it is to be feared, her coalition with England will not be cordial enough to be successful: and the only sort of success that is of any moment in this discussion, is the reduction of the power of France. Russia aspires to an influence in the German empire, which cannot fail to alarm and disgust both Prussia and Austria; and hence it was, that she lately interfered in the affair of the German indemnities. She also seeks a footing in the Mediterranean, preparatory to her designs against the Turks. It was on this account she wished to occupy Malta, and that she now fills Corfu with her troops. These are selfish and dangerous schemes, which England cannot second or approve.

IF, nevertheless, Russia should obtain of Prussia and Austria, that the one should be neutral, and the other an associate against France, a continental war is to be expected. In case English money and an English army should aid the allies, Buonaparte would find his supremacy again in hazard.

BUT England, the great adversary of France, cannot become a military nation, in the sense that the French are, nor, it is to be feared, in the degree that the crisis absolutely requires she should. Her commerce binds her in golden fetters. An artisan or a farmer is worth, probably, one hundred pounds sterling to the nation. To make such men soldiers, great bounties must be paid, and great sacrifices suffered. To feed and provide an English army, is also very expensive; want, and military fanaticism crowd the ranks

of Buonaparte, and their enemies or their allies provide their subsistence. Unfortunately too, Mr. Pitt yielded to the pressure of the moment, and accepted the delusive services of his half million of volunteers. It is impossible he should think these men of buckram fit to withstand the men of steel, if they should invade the island.

In times of great danger, popular notions are often worse than frivolous. The volunteer force is factious, expensive, and useless, as every soldier knows. But it is worse. It has made the nation unmanageable, puffed them up with a vain dependence on the shew of force, a shew as empty as that of the army of Croesus, and has made their rulers afraid to impose, and the people unwilling to bear, the necessary burdens of real soldiership. The strength of a modern state at war consists in its soldiers, not in the trappings of the peaceable apprentices, who are arrayed in scarlet to act the comedy of an army. England consumes its men and means to act this comedy, and is thus chained down to the expense and the despair of a defensive system.

HAD she an efficient disposeable army of one hundred thousand men, one third of whom could be employed in expeditions, or. in co-operation with continental allies, the cause of Europe and of the civilized world would not be quite desperate. If the enslaved nations would exert half as much force to recover their liberty, as the French will make them employ to subjugate the yet unconquered states, the contest against France might be renewed with hopes of advantage.

LET not the men in power in America deceive themselves. If Buonaparte prevails, they will be his vassals, even more signally than they are at present. The trade of this country has already twice been made the spoil of France. The insolent aggressor is obstructed by the British navy, and not by his friendship for us, or respect for our rights, from repeating and extending his rapacity and violence. Least of all is he restrained by any opinion of the force of our nation, or the spirit of our government.

CHARACTER OF BRUTUS.

First published in the Repertory, August, 1805.

BRUTUS killed his benefactor and friend, Cesar, because

Cesar had usurped the sovereign power. Therefore, Brutus was a patriot, whose character is to be admired, and whose example should be imitated, as long as republican liberty shall have a friend or an enemy in the world.

THIS short argument seems to have, hitherto, vindicated the fame of Brutus from reproach and even from scrutiny; yet, perhaps, no character has been more over-rated, and no example worse applied. He was, no doubt, an excellent scholar and a complete master, as well as faithful votary of philosophy; but, in action, the impetuous Cassius greatly excelled him. Cassius alone of all the conspirators acted with promptness and energy in providing for the war, which, he foresaw, the death of Cesar would kindle; Brutus spent his time in indolence and repining, the dupe of Anthony's arts, or of his own false estimate of Roman spirit and virtue. The people had lost a kind master, and they lamented him. Brutus summoned them to make efforts and sacrifices, and they viewed his cause with apathy, his crime with abhorrence.

BEFORE the decisive battle of Philippi, Brutus seems, after the death of Cassius, to have sunk under the weight of the sole command. He still had many able officers left, and among them Messala, one of the first men of that age, so fruitful of great men; but Brutus no longer maintained that ascendant over his army, which talents of the first order maintain every where, and most signally in the camp and field of battle. It is fairly, then, to be presumed, that his troops had discovered, that Brutus, whom they loved and esteemed, was destitute of those talents; for he was soon obliged by their clamours, much against his judgment, and against all prudence and good sense, to give battle. Thus ended the life of Brutus and the existence of the republiek.

WHATEVER doubt there may be of the political and military capacity of Brutus, there is none concerning his virtue: his principles of action were the noblest that ancient philosophy had taught, and his actions were conformed to his principles, Nevertheless, our admiration of the man ought not to blind our judgment of the deed, which, though it was the blemish of his virtue, has shed an unfading splendour on his name.

FOR, though the multitude to the end of time will be open to flattery, and will joyfully assist their flatterers to become their tyrants, yet they will never cease to hate tyrants and tyranny with equal sincerity and vehemence. Hence it is, that the memory of Brutus, who slew a tyrant, is consecrated as the champion and martyr of liberty, and will flourish and look green in declamation, as long as the people are prone to believe, that those are their best friends, who have proved themselves the greatest enemies of their enemies.

Ask any one man of morals, whether he approves of assassination; he will answer, no. Would you kill your friend and benefactor? No. The question is a horrible insult. Would you practise hypocrisy and smile in his face, while your conspiracy is ripening, to gain his confidence and to lull him into security, in order to take away his life? Every honest man, on the bare suggestion, feels his blood thicken and stagnate at his heart. Yet in this picture we see Brutus. It would, perhaps, be scarcely just to hold him up to abhorrence; it is, certainly, monstrous and absurd to exhibit his conduct to admiration.

He did not strike the tyrant from hatred or ambition: his motives are admitted to be good; but was not the action, nevertheless, bad?.

To kill a tyrant, is as much murder, as to kill any other man. Besides, Brutus, to extenuate the crime, could have had no rational hope of putting an end to the tyranny: he had foreseen and provided nothing to realize it. The conspirators relied, foolishly enough, on the love of the multitude for liberty-they loved their safety, their ease, their sports, and their demagogue favourites a great deal better. They quietly looked on, as spectators, and left it to the legions of Anthony, and

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