BOOK withstood the whole power of the Athenians. XVII. The same happened in the contest between the 1776. house of Austria and the cantons of Switzerland. There is an infinite difference between fighting to destroy and fighting to preserve liberty. Were we therefore capable of employing a force against America equal to its own, there would be little probability of success; but to think of conquering that whole continent with thirty or forty thousand men, to be transported across the Atlantic, and fed from hence, and incapable of being recruited after any defeat,-this is indeed a folly so great, that language does not afford a name for it. Perhaps I am not in the present instance free from the weakness of superstition, but I fancy I see in these measures something that cannot be accounted for merely by human ignorance. I am inclined to think that the hand of Providence is in them, working to bring about some great ends. But suppose the attempt to subjugate America successful, would it not be a fatal preparative for subduing yourselves? Would not the disposal of American places, and the distribution of an American revenue, render that influence of the crown irresistible which has already stabbed your liberties? Turn your eyes to INDIA there, more has been done than is now attempted in America: there, Englishmen, actuated by the love of plunder and the spirit of XVII. 1776. conquest, have depopulated whole kingdoms, and BOOK ruined millions of innocent people by the most infamous oppression and rapacity. The justice of the nation has slept over these enormities. Will the JUSTICE of HEAVEN sleep? ARE WE NOT NOW EXECRATED ON BOTH SIDES OF THE GLOBE?"-For this publication the writer was deservedly honored with the thanks of the city of London, and the freedom of that metropolis was presented to him in a gold box, by an unanimous vote of the corporate body. During the pause of anxious suspense preceding the commencement of the memorable campaign of 1776 in America, it will not be improper to take a general review of the state of Europe for some years past, and of its actual situation; his majesty having in his late speech asserted, that the disposition of the several powers. of the continent promised a continuance of the general tranquillity. FRANCE, in an historic sketch of this kind, must necessarily occupy the fore-ground of the picture. The death of Louis XV. who, for the long term of nine-and-fifty years, reigned with absolute and arbitrary sway over that vast monarchy, had taken place nearly at the commencement of the present troubles (May 10th, 1774). He was succeeded by his grandson Louis the Dauphin, who had scarcely as yet attained the XVII. BOOK twentieth year of his age. This young prince had in the year 1770 married the arch-duchess 1775. Marie Antoinette, daughter of the empress queen-a princess endowed with all the fascinating graces of her sex; by which apparently auspicious alliance, according to the short-sighted views of human policy, the peace of Europe, so often disturbed by the contentions of the rival houses of Bourbon and Austria, seemed to be firmly cemented and secured. A great acquisition of revenue and territory had recently accrued to France by the death of Stanislaus, king of Poland (February 1766), in a far advanced age; in consequence of which event, the duchies of Lorraine and Bar, possessed by that monarch in full property during his life, reverted to France, agreeable to the treaty, concluded A. D. 1736, with the court of Vienna, under the fortunate auspices of cardinal Fleury. The latter years of the life of the late king of France were passed in a series of political conflicts with the several parliaments of that kingdom, particularly the parliament of Paris; which high and august tribunal still retained (by means of its constitutional privilege of enregistering the royal edicts, without which they had no legal validity,) some degree of control over the actions of the monarch. And this relic of their antient independency, by which alone the sacred fire of li XVII. berty could be discerned to exist in France, the BOOK parliament appeared with reason to guard with the most vigilant jealousy. An edict having been 1775. issued in the royal name, by which new and extraordinary powers were transferred to the great council, incompatible with the established rights of the parliaments of the kingdom, remonstrances were presented to the king from most of those bodies; and in that offered by the parliament of. Paris (May 19, 1768,) is the following remarkable passage:"Your parliament, sire, is not afraid on this head to remind your majesty of the ever memorable words which the first president Harley addressed to Henry III. in 1586: 'Sire,' said the magistrate, we have two sorts of laws:-one sort are the ordonnances of our kings, and these may be altered according to the differences of times and circumstances; the other sort are the ordonnances of the kingdom, which are inviolable, and by which you ascend to the throne and to the crown, which your predecessors preserved. Among these public laws, that is of the most sacred kind, and has been most religiously kept by your predecessors, which orders that no law or ordonnance shall be published but what is verified in this assembly-They thought a violation of this law was a violation of that by which they were made kings.'" It was afterwards proposed, at an extraordi XVII. 1776. BOOK nary session, to state to the king that the existence of the grand council itself was a grievance. This however was negatived, the duc de Choiseul and the princes of the blood attending in person to oppose the motion, by a majority of two voices; and the parliament contented itself with presenting another memorial to the king, shewing the necessity of ascertaining the limits of its jurisdiction, and securing the parliament against its encroachments by a clear and positive law. But the parliament of Toulouse, less moderate, Issued an arret by which all persons were forbidden, under severe penalties, to conform to or execute any judgment of the grand council within the province of Languedoc. Scarcely had the ferments excited by this obnoxious procedure of the court in any degree subsided, when a new and far more serious contest arose in consequence of the memorable prosecution commenced in the parliament of Paris against the duc d'Aiguillon, governor of the province of Bretagne, for high crimes and misdemeanors in the administration of his government. While the nation was waiting in anxious suspense the result of this trial, which had already disclosed a scene of cruelty and injustice scarcely to be paralleled, the king thought proper to hold a bed of justice, in which he commanded an edict to be enregistered, suppressing the charges |