conflict. If he perish ❝ere a sword be drawn," God's will be done! Europe will then have peace: from that hour nations can repose in security. But his life may be spared, and yet be innoxious: for, unbending as he is, a few of those reverses, which it is evident he now dreads, may dispose him to accept of an asylum-in none of the milder latitudes.

He does not now assemble his obsequious functionaries and tell them, as in days of yore, "I leave you only for a moment, that I may go and insure the glory of the great nation." He is not seen, as we remember to have seen him,-humbling a mighty monarchy in the dust almost before his approach can be ascertained. On the contrary, he loiters in his capital, making a delusive parade about his preparations and means, while the spirit of the soldiery is evaporating, and the unarmed population reasoning coolly on their perilous situation. It is thus they now talk: "How was it with us under the King, and what would have been our condition this summer had he remained among us? I shall be proud to consider this (my own question) when the atmosphere becomes more settled: one cannot write well in hot weather. We do not fight, and yet we have none of the benefits of peace-little either to comfort or to tranquillise us. We must fight however by and by; because the Emperor's honor forbids him to yield. But what if the Emperor be beaten? Why we shall have to rebuild many of our towns with fewer hands than we have at present; and to buy mourning at an advanced price. But then the King will come back, bringing with him, as usual, humanity, justice, repose, and the good-will of all our neighbours. This, without doubt, is very good; but it would also have been very good had his Majesty not seen it requisite to leave us."

The production from which these reflections are taken, will be given to the public as soon as it can be translated. It takes up the vague question of the comparative popularity of the King and Napoleon-assigning to the former as friends—at least three-fourths of the population; and it states several reasons, as good perhaps as can be found, for the apparent sang froid of the people on the occasion of the recent usurpation. Our

opinion is, that Louis is moderately liked by a great majority of the French, and seriously disliked by hardly any; while Napoleon is admired by a few, detested by some, and viewed with distrust by all the rest. That his troops are attached to him, no one doubts. They have been degraded in the estimation of foreign nations, and in their own; and they flatter themselves that he can retrieve their character. Nay, the whole population of France acknowledge, not without regret, that their military glory has been tarnished. Many appreciate justly enough the peace of last year. But still it occurs to every body, that the great nation was conquered: and it is this feeling that reconciles them to innovation and bloodshed-and not by any means the love of Napoleon, or an aversion to Louis.

They do not know the French, who expect them to feel and express strong emotions on beholding only a revolution in the state. Experience has shown that they can submit to any form of government, and bend before any ruler, with an unconceru about both the past and the future, which, thank God, no moral, no political apathy has imparted to other nations. The King will speedily re-ascend the throne of his ancestors: the allied powers have said it, and none but Heaven can prevent it. But Heaven will not interpose to prevent that which, to a large portion of the human race, will be a signal benefit of a two-fold nature-the removal of an enormous evil, and the substitution of a superlative good.

All statesmen almost all mankind, are convinced, not merely that there could be no security for the ancient thrones of Europe were Napoleon again placed only a step from the continent; but, that the peace of the world would be in continual danger of being disturbed, were he tolerated as an independent power of any magnitude, in any quarter of the globe. The whole of the presumptuous claims of the Corsican family must be rejected by the allies without suffering any sort of discussion: they must be instantly and authoritatively disclaimed, and the act made part of the law of nations. It will form the most valuable article in the whole public code. It will eventually compensate for the

niseries of the war, let them be as great as they can well be imagined. Very great, comparatively speaking, they cannot be. For we do not now, as when public spirit existed no where but among ourselves, meet the enemy single handed: we are not about to contend on unknown ground, seconded by armies whose zeal, prowess, and fidelity, are questionable. Our allies are numerous, powerful, and ardent in the cause, as being emphatically their own. And Bonaparte has no ally, the world having for twelve months back been too virtuous to vouchsafe him more than one, and he, as the tyrant once very coolly pronounced of King Ferdinand, "has ceased to reign." But that those evils may not be great, the war which is to effect the annulment of Napoleon's claims must be short and successful, which we predict it will be-It will probably close with one campaign: and if it do, we shall consider it to have been preferable even to the peace which we were enjoying a few months ago. Peace is not always desirable. Nothing called a blessing ought to be accounted such, if its existence imply that of a preponderating evil. The late peace (for we really are at war) was unsatisfactory, because one bad man, whom no tie human or divine could bind, had it in his power to interrupt it; but the peace which we promise ourselves after a short appeal to arms, will be one, on the prospective blessings of which we can securely reckon, be cause the general disturber will have been put out of the sphere of action, and because the fulfilment of its conditions will lie with powers whose prosperity and glory depend on its uniform operation.

On the abstract question of Peace or War, we have a paper for the perusal of our readers, with which a distinguished character has favored us, and which he calls upon us to publish on the ground of the impartiality expressed in the Preface to our first number. It will follow this, and form a separate article. In the mean time it is highly satisfactory to be able to lay before the public the masterly communication of the Earl of Clancarty to Lord Castlereagh, illustrative of the temper and views of the Congress at Vienna a temper the mildest, and views in every

respect the wisest, that can be conceived. This letter,' and the knowledge of Lord Castlereagh's having taken the same dignified, yet moderate course with Caulincourt's proposals here, which the ministers of the allies afterwards adopted at Vienna, ought, one should think, to allay a little of that fretfulness, and mur

THE EARL OF CLANCARTY TO VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH. Vienna, May 6, 1815.

MY LORD-Adverting to your Lordship's Dispatch, No. 3, and to its several inclosures, conveying a proposal made by the existing Government in France, and your Lordship's answer thereto, I have the honor to acquaint you, for the information of his Majesty's Government, that at a conference held on the 3d instant, his Highness Prince Metternich acquainted us, that a M. de Strassant, who had been stopped, on his way hither, at Lintz, from not having been furnished with proper passports, had addressed a letter to his Imperial Majesty, and therewith forwarded sonie unopened letters which the Emperor had directed him to unseal in the presence of the Plenipotentiaries of the Allied Powers.

These proved to be a letter from Bonaparte, addressed to his Majesty, professing a desire to continue at peace, to observe the stipulations of the Treaty of Paris, &c. and a letter from M. de Caulaiucourt to Prince Metternich, containing similar professions.

After reading these Papers, it was considered whether any, and what answer should be made thereto, when the general opinion appeared to be, that none should be returned, and no notice whatever taken of the proposal.

Upon this, as indeed upon all other occasions subsequent to the resumption of authority by Bonaparte, wherein the present state of the Continental Powers, with regard to France, has come under discussion, but one opinion has appeared to direct the Councils of the several Sovereigns. They adhere, and from the commencement have never ceased to adhere, to their Declaration of the 13th of March, with respect to the actual Ruler of France. They are in a state of hostility with him and his adherents, not from choice, but from necessity, because past experience has shewn, that no faith has been kept by him, and that no reliance can be placed on the professions of one who has hitherto no longer regarded the most solemn compacts, than as it may have suited his own convenience to

muring, and clamoring, about the principle and object of the war, which we occasionally hear in both public and private assemblies. Lord Grenville has done himself great honor by his manly reprobation of the advice offered to the House of Lords,

observe them, whose word, the only assurance he can afford for his peaceable disposition, is not less in direct opposition to the tenor of his former life, than it is to the military position in which he is actually placed. They feel that they should neither perform their duty to themselves, or to the people committed by Providence to their charge, if they were now to listen to those professions of a desire for peace which have been made, and suffer themselves thus to be lulled into the supposition that they might now relieve their people from the burthen of supporting immense military masses, by diminishing their forces to a peace establishment, convinced as the several Sovereigns are from past experience, that no sooner should they have been disarmed, than advantage would be taken of their want of preparation, to renew those scenes of aggression and bloodshed, from which they had hoped that the peace so gloriously won at Paris, would long have secured them.

They are at war, then, for the purpose of obtaining some security for their own independence, and for the re-conquest of that peace and permanent tranquillity, for which the world has so long panted. They are not even at war for the greater or less proportion of security which France can afford them of future tranquillity, but because France, under its present Chief, is unable to afford them any security whatever.

In this war, they do not desire to interfere with any legitimate right of the French people; they have no design to oppose the claim of that nation to choose their own form of Government, or intention to trench, in any respect, upon their independence as a great and free people but they do think they have a right, and that of the highest nature, to contend against the re-establishment of an individual as the head of the French Government, whose past conduct has invariably demonstrated, that in such a situation he will not suffer other nations to be at peace-whose restless ambition, whose thirst for foreign conquest, and whose disregard for the rights and independence of other States, must expose the whole of Europe to renewed scenes of plunder and devastation.