Sovereigns of the Continent, but their growing conviction of the necessity of regulated free dom to the peace and prosperity of the wond but their feeling that, in the more enlight ened parts of Europe, men could no longer be governed but by their reason, and that justics and moderation were the only true safeguards of a polished throne. By this high testimory, we think, the cause of Liberty is at length set up above all hazard of calumny or discounte nance ;-and its interests, we make no doubt will be more substantially advanced, by berg thus freely and deliberately recognised, in the face of Europe, by its mightiest and mos absolute princes, than they could otherwise have been by all the reasonings of philosophy and the toils of patriotism, for many succes sive generations." contrast the treaty of Pilnitz with the decla- the other. Nothing, in short, can account for ration of Frankfort-and set on one hand the altered tone and altered policy of the grea the proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick upon entering the French territories in 1792, and that of the Emperor of Russia on the same occasion in 1814;-let him think now La Fayette and Dumourier were treated at the former period, and what honours have been lavished on Moreau and Bernadotte in the latter-or, without dwelling on particulars, let him ask himself, whether it would have been tolerated among the loyal Antigallicans of that day, to have proposed, in a moment of victory, that a representative assembly should share the powers of legislation with the restored sovereign-that the noblesse should renounce all their privileges, except such as were purely honorary-that citizens of all ranks should be equally eligible to all employments-that all the officers and dignitaries of the revolutionary government should retain their rank-that the nation should be taxed only by its representatives-that all sorts of national property should be ratified, and that perfect toleration in religion, liberty of the press, and trial by jury, should be established. Such, however, are the chief bases of that constitution, which was cordially approved by the Allied Sovereigns, after they were in possession of Paris; and, with reference to which, their August Chief made that remarkable declaration, in the face of Europe, "That France stood in need of strong institutions, and such as were suited to the intelligence of the age." While this is the universal feeling among those who have the best opportunity, and the strongest interest to form a just opinion o the subject, it is not a little strange and mo tifying, that there should still be a party c this country, who consider those great trans actions under a different aspect;-who look with jealousy and grudging upon all that has been done for the advancement of freedom; and think the splendour of the late evenis considerably tarnished by those stipulations for national liberty, which form to other eyes their most glorious and happy feature. We do not say this invidiously, nor out of any spirit of faction: But the fact is unquestion Such is the improved creed of modern courts, able;-and it is worth while both to record, as to civil liberty and the rights of individuals. and to try to account for it. An arrangement With regard to national justice and independ- which satisfies all the arbitrary Sovereigns ence again,-is there any one so romantic as of Europe, and is cordially adopted by the to believe, that if the Allied Sovereigns had Monarch who is immediately affected by it dissipated the armies of the republic, and is objected to as too democratical, by a party entered the metropolis as conquerors in 1792, in this free country! The Autocrator of al they would have left to France all her ancient the Russias-the Imperial Chief of the Gerterritories, or religiously abstained from in- manic principalities-the Military Sovereign terfering in the settlement of her government, of Prussia-are all agreed, that France shoul --or treated her baffled warriors and states- have a free government: Nay, the King e men with honourable courtesies, and her France himself is thoroughly persuaded of humbled and guilty Chief with magnanimous the same great truth;-and all the word forbearance and clemency? The conduct we rejoices at its ultimate acknowledgmenthave just witnessed, in all these particulars, except only the Tories of England! They is wise and prudent, no doubt, as well as mag- cannot conceal their mortification at this fire nanimous;—and the splendid successes which triumph of the popular cause; and, while have crowned the arms of the present Deliv- they rejoice at the restoration of the King to erers of Europe, may be ascribed even more the throne of his ancestors, and the recal of to the temper than to the force with which his loyal nobility to their ancient honours, are they have been wielded;-certainly more to evidently not a little hurt at the advantages the plain justice and rationalty of the cause which have been, at the same time, secured in which they were raised, than to either. to the People. They are very glad, certainly. Yet those very successes exclude all supposi- to see Louis XVIII. on the throne of Napoleon. tion of this justice and liberality being assum--but they would have liked him better if he ed out of fear or necessity;-and establish the sincerity of those professions, which it would ro doubt have been the best of all policy at any rate to have made. It is equally decisive, however, of the merit of the agents and of the principles, that the most liberal maxims were held out by the most decided victors; and the greatest honours paid to civil and to national freedom, when it was most in their power to have crushed the one, and invaded had not spoken so graciously to the Marshals of the revolution,-if he had not so freely accepted the constitution which restrained hi prerogative,-nor so cordially held out the hand of conciliation to all descriptions of his subjects;-if he had been less magnanimons in short, less prudent, and less amiable. I would have answered better to their ideas of a glorious restoration, if it could have beer accomplished without any conditions; and if 1 the Prince had thrown himself entirely into the hands of those bigotted emigrants, who affect to be displeased with his acceptance of a limited crown. In their eyes, the thing would have been more complete, if the noblesse had been restored at once to all their feudal privileges, and the church to its ancient endowments. And we cannot help suspecting, that they think the loss of those vain and oppressive trappings, but ill compensated by the increased dignity and worth of the whole population, by the equalisation of essential rights, and the provision made for the free enjoyment of life, property, and conscience, by the great body of the people. their ideas of the old French monarchy. They have read Burke, till their fancies are some. what heated with the picturesque image of tempered royalty and polished aristocracy, which he has held out in his splendid pictures of France as it was before the revolution; and have been so long accustomed to contrast those comparatively happy and prosperous days, with the horrors and vulgar atrocities that ensued, that they forget the many real evils and oppressions of which that brilliant monarchy was productive, and think that the succeeding abominations cannot be completely expiated till it be restored as it originally existed. country, both of the evils of arbitrary government, and of the radical change in the feelings and opinions of the Continent, which has rendered it no longer practicable in its more enlightened quarters. Our insular situation, and the measure of freedom we enjoy, have done us this injury; along with the infinite good of which they have been the occasions. We do not know either the extent of the misery and weakness produced by tyranny, or the force and prevalence of the conviction which has recently arisen, where they are best known, that they are no longer to be tolerated. On the Continent, experience has at last done far more to enlighten public opinion upon these subjects, than reflection and reasoning in this Island. There, nations have been found irresistible, when the popular feeling was consulted; and absolutely impotent and indefensible where it had been outraged and disregarded: And this necessity of consulting the general opinion, has led, on both sides, to a great relaxation of many of the principles on which they originally went to issue. Perhaps we exaggerate a little in our rep- All these, and we believe many other illuresentation of sentiments in which we do not sions of a similar nature, slight and fanciful at all concur:-But, certainly, in conversa- as they may appear, contribute largely, we tion and in common newspapers-those light have no doubt, to that pardonable feeling of straws that best show how the wind sits- dislike to the limitation of the old monarchy, one hears and sees, every day, things that which we conceive to be very discernible in approach at least to the spirit we have at- a certain part of our population. The great tempted to delineate,-and afford no slight source of that feeling, however, and that presumption of the prevalence of such opin- which gives root and nourishment to all the ions as we lament. In lamenting them, how-rest, is the Ignorance which prevails in this ever, we would not indiscriminately blame. -They are not all to be ascribed to a spirit of servility, or a disregard of the happiness of mankind. Here, as in other heresies, there is an intermixture of errors that are to be pardoned, and principles that are to be respected. There are patriotic prejudices, and illusions of the imagination, and misconceptions from ignorance, at the bottom of this innatural antipathy to freedom in the citizens of a free land; as well as more sordid interests, and more wilful perversions. Some sturdy Englishmen are staunch for our moopoly of liberty; and feel as if it was an solent invasion of British privileges, for any oher nation to set up a free constitution! Others apprehend serious dangers to our greatness, if this mainspring and fountain of our prosperity be communicated to other lands.A still greater proportion, we believe, are influenced by considerations yet more fantastical. They have been so long used to consider the old government of France as the perfect model of a feudal monarchy, softened and adorned by the refinements of modern society, Of this change in the terms of the questhat they are quite sorry to part with so fine tion-and especially of the great abatement a specimen of chivalrous manners and institu- which it had been found necessary to make tions; and look upon it, with all its character- in the pretensions of the old governments, we istic and imposing accompaniments, of a bril- were generally but little aware in this country. liant and warlike nobility, -a gallant conrt,- Spectators as we have been of the distant and a gorgeous hierarchy, a gay and familiar protracted contest between ancient institutions vassalage, with the same sort of feelings with and authorities on the one hand, and demowhich they would be apt to regard the sump-cratical innovation on the other, we are apt tuous pageantry and splendid solernnities of the Romish ritual. They are very good Protestants themselves; and know too well the value of religious truth and liberty, to wish for any less simple, or more imposing system at home; but they have no objection that it should exist among their neighbours, that their taste may be gratified by the magnificent spectacles it affords, and their imaginations warmed with the ideas of venerable and pompous antiquity, which it is so well fitted to suggest. The case is nearly the same with still to look upon the parties to that contest, as occupying nearly the same positions, and maintaining the same principles, they did at the beginning; while those who have been nearer to the scene of action, or themselves partakers of the fray, are aware that, in the course of that long conflict, each party has been obliged to recede from some of its pretensions, and to admit, in some degree, the justice of those that are made against it. Here, where we have been but too apt to con sider the mighty game which has been play hands. Compared with acts so unequivocal, all declarations may justly be regarded as insignificant; but there are declarations also to the same purpose ;-made freely and deliber ately on occasions of unparalleled importance, and for no other intelligible purpose bu solemnly to announce to mankind the generous principle on which those mighty actions Lad been performed. But while these authorities and these con siderations may be expected, in due time, to overcome that pardonable dislike to continental liberty which arises from ignorance or stituted like ours, the Court must almest always be more or less jealous, and perhap justly, of the encroachment of popular panciples, and disposed to show favour to those who would diminish the influence and au thority of such principles. Without intending or wishing to render the British crown altogether arbitrary, it still seems to them to be in favour of its constitutional privileges, that arbitrary monarchies should, to a certain extent, be defended; and an artful apology ter tyranny is gratefully received as an argument à fortiori in support of a vigorous preroga tive. The leaders of the party, therefore, lean that way; and their baser followers rush clamorously along it-to the very brink of servile sedition, and treason against the constitution. ing in our sight, and partly at our expense, as an occasion for exercising our own party animosities, or seeking illustrations for our peculiar theories of government, we are still as diametrically opposed, and as keen in our hostilities, as ever. The controversy with us being in a great measure speculative, would jose its interest and attraction, if anything like a compromise were admitted; and we choose, therefore, to shut our eyes to the great and visible approximation into which time, and experience, and necessity have forced the actual combatants. We verily believe, that, except in the imaginations of English politi-natural prejudices, we will confess that we cians, there no longer exist in the world any by no means reckon on the total disappear such aristocrats and democrats as actually ance of this illiberal jealousy. There is, and divided all Europe in the early days of the we fear there will always be, among us, a set French revolution. In this country, however, of persons who conceive it to be for their inwe still speak and feel as if they existed; and terest to decry every thing that is favourable the champions of aristocracy in particular, con- to liberty,-and who are guided only by a retinue, with very few exceptions, both to main-gard to their interest. In a government contain pretensions that their principals have long ago abandoned, and to impute to their adversaries, crimes and absurdities with which they have long ceased to be chargeable. To them, therefore, no other alternative has yet presented itself but the absolute triumph of one or other of two opposite and irreconcileable extremes. Whatever is taken from the sovereign, they consider as being necessarily given to crazy republicans; and very naturally dislike all limitations of the royal power, because they are unable to distinguish them from usurpations by the avowed enemies of all subordination. That the real state of things has long been extremely different, men of reflection might have concluded from the known principles of human nature, and men of information must have learned from sources of undoubted authority: But no small proportion of our zealous politicians belong to neither of those classes; and we ought not, perhaps, to wonder, if they are slow in admitting truths which a predominating party has so long thought it for its interest to misrepresent or disguise. The time, however, seems almost come, when conviction must be forced even upon their reluctant understandings, and by the sort of evidence best suited to their capacity. They would probably be little moved by the best arguments that could be addressed to them, and might distrust the testimony of ordinary observers; but they cannot well refuse to yield to the opinions of the great Sovereigns of the Continent, and must even give faith to their professions, when they find them confirmed at all points by their actions. If the establishment of a limited monarchy in France would be dangerous to sovereign authority in all the adjoining regions, it is not easy to conceive that it should have met with the cordial approbation of the Emperors of Austria and Russia, and the King of Prussia, in the day of their most brilliant success; or that that moment of triumph on the part of the old princes of Europe should have been selected as the period when the thrones of France, and Spain, and Holland, were to be surrounded with permanent limitations,-imposed with their cordial assent, and we might almost say, by their Such men no arguments will silence, and no authorities convert. It is their profession to discredit and oppose all that tends to promote the freedom of mankind; and in that vocation they will infallibly labour, so long as it yields them a profit. At the present moment, too, we have no doubt, that their zeal is quickened by their alarm; since, independent of the general damage which the cause of arbitrary government must sustain from the events of which we have been speaking, their immediate consequences in this country are likely to be eminently favourable to the interests of regulated liberty and temperate re form. Next to the actual cessation of bloodshed and suffering, indeed, we consider this to be the greatest domestic benefit that we are likely to reap from the peace,—and the circumstance, in our new situation, which calls the loudest for our congratulation. We are perfectly aware, that it is a subject of regre! to many patriotic individuals, that the brillian: successes at which we all rejoice, should have occurred ander an administration which has not manife ed any extraordinary dislike to abuses, nor y very cordial attachment to the rights and berties of the people; and we know, tha. it has been an opinion pretty cur rent, both with them and their antagonists, that those successes will fix them so firmly in power, that they will be enabled, if they should be so inclined, to deal more largely in abuses, and to press more closely on our liberties, than any of their predecessors. For our own part, however, we have never been able to see things in this inauspicious light; and having no personal or factious quarrel with our present ministers, are easily comforted for the increased chance of their continuance in office, by a consideration of those circumstances that must infallibly, under any ministry, operate to facilitate reform, to diminish the power of the Crown, and to consolidate the liberties of the nation. If our readers agree with us in our estimate of the importance of these circumstances, we can scarcely doubt that they will concur in our general conclusion. In the first place, then, it is obvious, that the direct patronage and indirect influence or the Crown must be most seriously and effectnally abridged by the reduction of our army and navy, the diminution of our taxes, and, generally speaking, of all our establishments, upon the ratification of peace. We have thought it a great deal gained for the Constitation of late years, when we could strike off a few hundred thousand pounds of offices in the gift of the Crown, that had become useess, or might be consolidated;-and now the peace will, at one blow, strike off probably thirty or forty millions of government expenditure, ordinary or extraordinary. This alone might restore the balance of the Constitution. In the next place, a continuance of peace and prosperity will naturally produce a greater diffusion of wealth, and consequently a greater spirit of independence in the body of the people; which, co-operating with the diminished power of the government to provide for its baser adherents, must speedily thin the ranks of its regular supporters, and expose it far more effectually to the control of a weightier and more impartial public opinion. In the third place, the events to which we have alluded, and the situation in which they will leave us, will take away almost all those pretexts for resisting inquiry into abuses, and proposals for reform, by the help of which, rather than of any serious dispute on the principle, these important discussions have been waived for these last twenty years. We shall no longer be stopped with the plea of its being no fit time to quarrel about the little faults or our Constitution, when we are struggling with a ferocious enemy for its very existence. It will not now do to tell us, that it is both dangerous and disgraceful to show ourselves disunited in a season of such imminent peril-or that all great and patriotic minds should be entirely engrossed with the care of our safety, and can have neither leisure nor energy to bestow upon concerns less urgent or vital. The restoration of peace, on the contrary, will soon leave us little else to do;-and when we have no invasions nor expeditions-nor coalitions nor campaigns-nor even any loans and budgets to fill the minds of our statesmen, and the ears of our idle politicians, we think it almost certain that questions of reform will rise into paramount importance, and the redress of abuses become the most interesting of publi. pursuits. We shall be once more entitled, too, to make a fair and natural appeal to the analogous acts or institutions of other nations, without being met by the cry of revolution and democracy, or the imputation of abetting the proceedings of a sanguinary despot. We shall again see the abuses of old hereditary power, and the evils of maladministration in legitimate hands; and be permitted to argue from them, without the reproach of disaffec tion to the general cause of mankind. Men and things, in short, we trust, will again receive their true names, on a fair consideration of their merits; and our notions of political desert be no longer confounded by indiscrimi nate praise of all who are with us, and intolerant abuse of all who are against us, in a struggle that touches the sources of so many passions. When we plead for the emancipation of the Catholics of Ireland, we shall no longer be told that the Pope is a mere puppet in the hands of an inveterate foe,-nor be deterred from protesting against the conflagration of a friendly capital, by the suggestion, that no other means were left to prevent that same foe from possessing himself of its fleet. Exceptions and extreme cases, in short, will no longer furnish the ordinary rules of our conduct; and it will be impossible, by extraneous arguments, to baffle every attempt at a fair estimate of our public principles and proceedings. These, we think, are among the necessary consequences of a peace concluded in such circumstances as we have now been considering; and they are but a specimen of the kin dred consequences to which it must infallibly lead. If these ensue, however, and are allowed to produce their natural effects, it is a matter of indifference to us whether Lord Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool, or Lord Grey and Lord Grenville are at the head of the government. The former, indeed, may probably be a little uneasy in so new a posture of affairs; but they will either conform to it, or abandon their posts in despair. To control or alter it, will assuredly be beyond their power. With these pleasing anticipations, we would willingly close this long review of the State and Prospects of the European Commonwealth, in its present great crisis, of restoration, or of new revolutions. But, cheering and beautiful as it is, and disposed as we think we have shown ourselves to look hopefully upon it, it is impossible to shut our eyes on two dark stains that appear on the bright horizon, and seem already to tarnish the glories with which they are so sadly contrasted. One is of longer standing, and perhaps of deeper dye.-But both are most painful deformities on the face of so fair a prospect; and may be mentioned with less scruple and greater hope, from the consideration, that those who have now the power of effacing them can scarcely be charged with the guilt of their production, and have given strong indications of dispositions that must lead them to wish for their removal. We need scarcely give the key to these observations by naming the names of Poland and of Norway. Nor do we propose, on the presen: occasion, to do much more than to name them Of the latter, we shall probably contrive to to rouse its vast and warlike population with the vain promise of independence; while it is perfectly manifest that those, by whom alone that promise could be effectually kept, would gain prodigiously, both in security and in substantial influence, by its faithful performance. It is not, however, for the mere name of independence, nor for the lost glories of an ancient and honourable existence, that the people of Poland are thus eager to array themselves in any desperate strife of which this may be proclaimed as the prize. We have shown, in our last number, the substantial and intolerable evils which this extinction of their national dignity-this sore and unmerited wound to their national pride, has necessarily occasioned: And thinking, as we do, that a people without the feelings of national pride and public duty must be a people without energy and without enjoyments, we apprehend it to be at any rate indisputable, in the present instance, that the circumstances which have dissolved their political being. have struck also at the root of their individual happiness and prosperity; and that it is not merely the unjust destruction of an ancient kindom that we lament, but the condemnation of fifteen millions of human beings to unprofitable and unparalleled misery. speak fully on a future occasion. Of the for- But though these are the considerations by which the feelings of private individuals are most naturally affected, it should never be forgotten, that all the principles on which the great fabric of national independence confessedly rests in Europe, are involved in the decision of this question; and that no one nation can be secure in its separate existence, if all the rest do not concur in disavowing the maxims which were acted upon in the partition of Poland. It is not only mournful to see the scattered and bleeding members of that unhappy state still palpitating and agonising on the spot where it lately stood erect in youthful vigour and beauty; but it is unsafe to breathe the noxious vapours which this melancholy spectacle exhales. The whole some neighbourhood is poisoned by their dif fusion; and every independence within their range, sickens and is endangered by the con (February, 1811.) Speech of the Right Hon. William Windham, in the House of Commons, May 26, 1809, on Mr. Curwen's Bill, "for better securing the Independence and Purity of Parliament, by preventing the procuring or obtaining of Seats by corrupt Practices." 8vo. pp. 43. London: 1810.* MR. WINDHAM, the most high-minded and in selling seats in parliament openly to the ncorruptible of living men, can see no harm highest bidder, or for excluding public trusts The passing of the Reform Bill has antiquated ponents of reform principles-which are applicable much of the discussion in this article. as originally to all times, and all conditions of society; and of written; and a considerable portion of it is now, for which recent events and discussions seem to show th's reason, omitted. But it also contains answers that the present generation may still need to be reto the systematic apologists of corruption, and op-minded. |