quest of a country did not draw after it its ruin. | wars and gigantic enterprises, and while the reIf a few districts, or some towns carried by as- sources of other nations were rapidly declining, her's sault, were abandoned to the fury of the soldiers, wonderfully increased. the inexorable pen of history loaded with reproaches "During the war the British navy increased a the captains who permitted, or the sovereigns who half, while the French declined to a half. The did not punish such outrages. But Moreau's army British army was more than doubled, and the levied, in a few months, above twenty millions in French increased in nearly the same proportion. requisitions; enormous contributions were unceas- The French revenue, notwithstanding all its terriingly exacted; the people were overwhelmed; the torial acquisitions, was diminished, while the pergovernments of the oppressed states entirely ex-manent income of England was more than doubled; hausted. It was reserved for our age to witness, the French debt, by the destruction of a large porin the midst of the rapid progress of civilization, tion of its proprietors, was diminished, while that and after so many eloquent declamations in favor of England was doubled; the French exports and of humanity, the scourge of war immeasurably imports were almost annihilated, while the British extended; the art of government become in the exports were doubled, and the imports had increashands of the conqueror an instrument of extortion, ed more than fifty per cent.; the French commerand systematic robbery be styled, by the leaders of cial shipping was almost destroyed, while that of regeneration, the right of conquest. England had increased nearly a third. "Even in this gloomy state of the political hori- "Nothing but this continual and rapid increase zon, however, the streaks of light were becoming in the resources of the British Empire, during the visible which were destined to expand into all the course of the struggle, could have accounted for lustre of day. The invasion of the French troops, the astonishing exertions which she made towards their continued residence in other states, had al- its close, and the facility with which, during its ready gone far to dispel those illusions in their whole continuance, the vast supplies required for favor, to which, even more than the terror of their carrying it on were raised without any sensible inarms, their astonishing successes had been owing. convenience to the country. When we reflect that, Their standards were no longer hailed with enthu- during a war of nine years' duration, the yearly exsiasm by the people who had experienced their penditure of the nation varied from forty to sixty presence; the declaration of war to the palace and millions; that loans to the amount of twenty or peace to the cottage had ceased to deceive man- thirty millions were annually contracted; and that kind. The consequences of their conquests had the British fleets covered the seas in every quarter been felt; requisitions and taxes-merciless requi- of the globe, we are lost in astonishment at the sitions, grievous taxes-had been found to follow magnitude of the efforts made by a state so inconrapidly in the footsteps of these alluring expres-siderable in extent, and with a population, even at sions: penury, want, and starvation were seen to the close of the period, and including Ireland, not stalk in the rear of the tricolor flag. Already the exceeding fifteen millions. But the phenomenon symptoms of POPULAR RESISTANCE were to be seen; becomes still more extraordinary when the efforts the peasantry even of the unwarlike Italian penin-made at the termination of the struggle are consula had repeatedly and spontaneously flown to sidered, and the British Empire, instead of being arms; the patriotic efforts of Austria had recalled exhausted by eight years' warfare, is seen stretchthe glorious days of Maria Theresa, and the heroicing forth its giant arms at once into every quarter sacrifices of the forest cantons had emulated the of the globe, striking down the throne of Tippoo virtues, if not the triumphs, of Sempach and Mor-Saib by as great a force as combated under the garten. Unmarked as it was amid the blaze of standards of Napoleon at Marengo; while it held military glory, the sacred flame was beginning to every hostile harbor in Europe blockaded by its spread which was destined to set free mankind; fleets, and sending forth Nelson to crush the conbanished from the court and the castle, the stern federacy of the Northern powers at the very moresolution to resist was gathering strength among ment that it accumulated its forces, in Europe and the cottages of the poor. It is in such reflections Asia, against the Republican legions on the sands that the philosophic mind best derives consolation of Egypt. It had been frequently asserted that for the many evils arising from the ambition of the the naval forces of England were equal to those rulers and the wickedness of the agitators of man- of the whole world put together; but the matter was kind; and by observing how uniformly, when op- put to the test in the spring of 1801, when, without pression becomes intolerable, an under current be- raising the blockade of a single harbor from the gins to flow, destined ultimately to correct it, that Texel to Calabria, she sent eighteen ships of the the surest foundation is laid for confidence in the line with Abercromby to the mouth of the Nile, final arrangements of Supreme Wisdom, amid the while nineteen, under Nelson, dissolved by the caninisfortunes or the vices of the world." non of Copenhagen the Northern confederation. England was now hard pressed by enemies from The annals of Rome contain no example of a simiwithout. She was engaged in the most bloody lar display of strength, and few of equal resolu- dinary increase was undoubtedly a real and subtion in exerting it. stantial addition to the industry and resources of "The contemplation of this astonishing display the Empire, arising from the vast extension of its of strength at the close of the struggle, compared colonial possessions, and the monopoly of almost with the feeble and detached exertions made at its all the trade of the world in its hands, yet part commencement, is calculated to awaken the most was to be ascribed to other causes, attended in the poignant regret at the niggardly use of the national outset with deceptive and temporary advantages, resources so long made by government, and the and in the end with real and permanent evils. Like inexplicable insensibility to the magnitude of the an extravagant individual, who squanders in the forces at their command, which so long paralyzed profusion of a few years the savings of past centuthe might of England during the earlier years of ries and the provision of unborn generations, the the war. From a return laid before the House of government of England threw a fleeting lustre Commons, it appears that the number of men that over its warlike administration, by trenching deep had been raised for the service of the army from on the capital of the nation, and creating burdens the commencement of hostilities down to the close little thought of at the time when the vast expenof 1800, was 208,808, being at the rate of 26,000 diture was going forward, but grievously felt in a year on an average during its continuance. subsequent years, when the excitation of the moFrance, with a population hardly double that of ment had passed away, and the bitter consequences Great Britain, raised 1,500,000 men in 1793 alone. of the debt which had been contracted remained. It is in the astonishing disproportion of the land- But this was not all. England, during those eventforces of this country either to her naval arma- ful years, drank deep at the fountains of paper ments, her national strength, or the levies of her currency, and derived a feverish and unnatural antagonist, that the true secret of the long dura- strength from that perilous but intoxicating draught. tion, enormous expenditure, and numerous disas- From the accounts laid before Parliament, it apters of the war is to be found. Secure in her in- pears that the notes of the Bank of England in sular situation, protected from invasion by invinci- circulation had increased upward of a half from ble fleets, and relieved from the most disastrous 1793 to 1801, and that the commercial paper under consequences which resulted from defeat to the discount at the same establishment, during the same Continental powers, England was at liberty to em- period, had more than tripled. The effect of this ploy her whole disposable force against the enemy, great increase speedily appeared in the prices of yet she never brought 25,000 native troops into the grain, and every other article of life. Wheat, field at any one point. Had she boldly levied which, on an average of five years prior to 1792, 100,000 men in 1793, and sent them to Flanders had sold at 5s. 4d. a bushel, had risen, on an averafter the route in the camp of Cæsar, when the age of five years ending with 1802, to 10s. 8d., and French troops were shut up in their intrenched on an average of five years ending 1813, to 14s. camps, and could not be brought by any exertions 4d. a bushel. Thus, during the progress of the to face the allies in the field, she would, beyond all war, the prices of the necessaries of life were at question, have encamped under the walls of Paris one time nearly tripled, and even at the peace of in two months, and the Royalists of the south and Amiens had permanently more than doubled. The west would have obtained a decisive superiority effect of this, of course, was, that the money-price over the anarchical faction in the capital. During of all the other articles of life rapidly rose in the the nine years of the war, upward of £100,000,000 same proportion; rents advanced; all persons who was paid in the army, and a still larger sum in na- lived by buying and selling found their commodival expenses; while in 1793 the military charges ties constantly rising in value; credit, both public v ere not £4,000,000, and in the latter and more and private, immensely improved; industry was expensive years of the war, only amounted annu- vivified by the progressive rise in the value of its ally to £12,000,000. If a fifth part of this total sum produce; and difficulties were overcome by the had been expended in any one of the early years rapid diminution in the weight of money-debts. in raising the military force of England to an amount It is to the influence of this cause, combined with worthy of her national strength and ancient re- the vast expenditure of government, and the connown, triple the British force which overthrew Na-centration of almost all the colonial trade of the poleon at Waterloo might have been assembled on world in Great Britain, in consequence of her mathe plains of Flanders, and the war terminated in a single campaign. ritime superiority, that the extraordinary prosperity of the Empire during the latter years of the "If the rapid growth of wealth, power, and pros- war is to be ascribed. But it was not unmixed perity in the British Islands during this memorable good which accrued to the nation, even for a time, contest had been all grounded on a safe and per- from these violent changes; the whole class of manent foundation, it would have presented a phe-annuitants, and all dependant on a fixed money innomenon unparalleled in such circumstances in any come, suffered as much as the holders of commodiage or country. But, though part of this extraor- ties gained by their effects; creditors were defraud ed as much as debtors were relieved, and almost as great a transference of property was ultimately ef. fected by the silent operation of the alternation of prices which followed this great experiment, as was produced in other countries by the direct convulsions of a revolution." France, by this time, had grown weary of their Goddess of Reason, and it was determined again to introduce the form, if not the substance of the one pure and true religion. The reëstablishment of public worship on the 11th April, 1802, in Nôtre Dame. raged by so many symptoms of returning favor, the clergy made the utmost efforts to induce the First Consul to join publicly in the more solemn duties which the Church prescribed; but to this he never could be brought to consent. We are very well as we are,' said he; 'do not ask me to go further; you will never obtain what you wish; I will not become a hypocrite; be content with what you have already gained.' Mass, however, was regularly performed at the Thuileries in the morning. The first Consul went to it on Sunday, and remained during the service, which seldom exceeded ten "All the great bodies in the state, all the con- minutes, in an adjoining apartment, with the door stituted authorities attended, and proceeded in great open, looking over papers, or engaged in his usual pomp to the Cathedral. On this occasion, for the occupations. He had considerable difficulty in first time, the servants of the First Consul appear-preserving the balance so imperiously required in ed in livery; the foreign ambassadors were invited the head of the state, during the first return to reto appear, with all their attendants arrayed in the ligious observances after the Revolutionary fever, same manner, and a similar recommendation was yet by great firmness he succeeded, during his addressed to such of the public functionaries as whole reign, in maintaining a just equilibrium behad carriages of their own; but so few of them tween the impassioned characters on both sides. were possessed of that luxury, that the equipages "But although the opposition which the restoramade a very indifferent appearance. The military, tion of religion met with in the corrupted populahowever, were obliged to attend in great numbers, tion and revolutionary circles of Paris was very and the brilliancy of their uniforms more than com- powerful, it was viewed in a very different light in pensated the want of civil decoration. Such, how- the rural districts of France. The peasants beever, was the repugnance of many of the generals held with undisguised delight the reëstablishment to the ceremony, that it required all the authority of the priests, from whose labors and beneficence of the First Consul to make Lannes and Augereau they had gained so much in former times; and the remain in the carriage when they perceived they sound of the village bells again calling the faithful were going to hear mass. It proceeded, neverthe- to the house of God, was hailed by millions as the less, with great éclat in the Cathedral of Nôtre dove with the olive-branch which first announced Dame, which only eight years before had been pol- peace to the 'green undeluged earth.' The restoluted by the orgies of the Goddess of Reason. ration of Sunday as a day of periodical rest was 'What thought you of the ceremony?' said Napo- felt as an unspeakable relief by the laboring populeon to General Delmas, who stood near him, when lation, who had never been able to establish the it was concluded. 'It was a fine piece of mum- exemption from work on the tenth day, which the mery,' replied he. Nothing was wanting but the Convention had prescribed, and were broken down million of men who have perished in order to by years of continued and unbroken toil. But the destroy what you have now reestablished.' It pernicious effect of the total cessation of all reliwas at first intended to have had the standards blessed by the archbishop, but the government were obliged to abandon the design, from being given to understand that, if this was done, the soldiers would trample them under their feet. So difficult is it to eradicate the passions which have been nursed up during the phrenzy and convulsions of a revolution, and so obstinately do mankind, under the influence of prejudice, sometimes resist the establishment of those very institutions from which they are themselves destined to receive the most unalloyed advantages. gious instruction and observances for nine years could not so easily be eradicated. A generation had been educated who were ignorant of the very elements of the Christian faith; the phrenzy of the Revolution had snapped asunder a chain which had descended unbroken from the apostolic ages. The consequences of this chasm have been to the last degree pernicious to the existing generation, and are, it is much to be feared, now irreparable. It is to this cause that we are to ascribe the spirit of irreligion which has since been so peculiarly the characteristic of the higher and urban classes of "Immediately after this great change, the ob- French society, and which has worked out its servance of Sunday was to a certain degree re-natural consequences throughout all the subsequent sumed. It was provided in the concordat that the periods of the Empire and the Restoration. A government offices should be closed on Sunday, nation which, in its influential classes at least, has and this was immediately done. Shortly after a lost all respect for religion, is incapable of freedecree of the consuls directed that all marriages dom, and can be governed only by force. Natura, should be proclaimed on that day, and the daily tamen,' says Tacitus, 'infirmitatis humanæ, tarservice of mass began in the Thuileries. Encou- diora sunt remedia quam mala, et ut corpora, lente augescunt, cito extinguuntur, sic ingenia studiaque a few faithful domestics, who, without betraying oppresseris facilius quam revocaveris.' their comrades, warned their masters of their dan The explosion was sudden and terrible. In a moment, the beautiful plains in the north of the island were covered with fires-the labor of a century was devoured in a night; while the negroes, their masters, seized their arms, massacred them without pity, or threw them into the flames. From all quarters the terrified planters fled to Cape Town, already menaced by ten thousand discontented slaves in its own bosom, while fifteen thousand insurgents surrounded the city, threatening instant destruction to the trembling fugitives within its walls. "To foreign nations, however, who could not ger. foresee the deplorable internal effects of this long interruption in religious instruction, the spectacle of France again voluntarily returning to the Christian faith was in the highest degree acceptable. like unchained tigers, precipitated themselves on Contrasting it with the monstrous profanations and wild extravagances of the irreligious fanaticism which had prevailed during the revolution, they deemed it the harbinger of tranquillity to its distracted people, and peace to Europe. It contributed, more than any circumstance, to weaken the horror with which the revolutionary government had so long been regarded, and opened the way to the establishment of more kindly relations, not only "The cruelties exercised on the unhappy capwith the governments, but the people of foreign tives on both sides, in this disastrous contest, exstates. The Emperor of Russia and the King of ceeded anything recorded in history. The negroes Prussia publicly expressed their satisfaction at the marched with spiked infants on their spears instead auspicious event, forgetting, in their joy at the res- of colors; they sawed asunder the male prisoners,, toration of so important a member to the Christian and violated the females on the dead bodies of their family, the jealousy with which a change so likely husbands. Nor were the whites slow in taking to consolidate the power of the First Consul might vengeance for these atrocities. In several sallies possibly have been regarded. The Emperor of from Cape Town, the discipline and courage of the Austria styled it, with great felicity of expression, Europeans prevailed. Numerous prisoners were 'a service truly rendered to all Europe;' and the made, who were instantly put to death, and the inthoughtful and religious everywhere justly con- discriminate rage of the victors extended to the sidered the voluntary return of a great nation to old men, women and children of the insurgent race, the creed of its fathers, from the experienced im- who had taken no part in the revolt. possibility of living without its precepts, as the most signal triumph to the Christian faith which had occurred since it ascended the imperial throne under the banners of Constantine." We conclude our notice of this interesting publication with an extract relating to the insurrection of St. Domingo. The revolt broke out on the night of August 22nd, 1791. "While these disasters were overwhelming the northern part of the island, the southern was a prey to the fierce and increasing discord of the planters and people of color. At length the opposite parties came into open collision. The mulattoes, aided by a body of negroes, blockaded Port au Prince; while the whites of that town and its vicinity, supported by the National Guard and troops of the "Jean Francois, a slave of vast penetration, firm line, assembled their forces to raise the siege. character, and violent passions, not unmingled with The black army was commanded by a chief named generosity, was the leader of the conspiracy; his Hyacinthe, who displayed in the action an uncomlieutenants were Biasson and TOUSSAINT. The mon degree of skill and intrepidity. The shock former, of gigantic stature, Herculean strength, was terrible; but at length the planters were overand indomitable ferocity, was well fitted to assert thrown, and their broken remains forced back to that superiority which such qualities seldom fail to the town. In other quarters similar actions took command in savage times; the latter, gifted with place, with various success, but the same result; rare intelligence, profound dissimulation, boundless the whites were finally forced into the cities, and ambition, and heroic firmness, was fitted to become the plains irrevocably overrun by the insurgent at once the Numa and the Romulus of the sable forces." Republic in the southern hemisphere. French Delegates were sent over with very ple"This vast conspiracy, productive in the end of nary powers, but matters only grew worse. The incalamities unparalleled even in the long catalogue surrectionists were emboldened and only waited for of European atrocity, had for its objects the total an opportunity to commence one dreadful massacre. extirpation of the whites, and the establishment of This occurred in 1793. "On the 20th of June, a an independent black government over the whole quarrel accidentally arose between a French naval island. So inviolable was the secrecy, so general captain and a mulatto officer in the service of the colothe dissimulation of the slaves, that this awful nial government; the commissioners ordered them catastrophe was noways apprehended by the Eu- both into their presence, without regard to the disropean proprietors; and a conspiracy, which em- tinction of color, and this excited the highest indigbraced nearly the whole negro population of the nation in the officers of the marine, who landed with island, was revealed only by the obscure hints of their crews to take vengeance for the indignity done to one of their members. The colonists loudly ap-geance, they fled in despair. Polverel proclaimed plauded their conduct, and invoked their aid as the the liberty of the blacks in the West, and Montsaviours of St. Domingo: the exiles brought from Port au Prince fomented the discord as the only means of effecting their liberation: a civil war speedily ensued in the blockaded capital, and for two days blood flowed in torrents in these insane contests between the sailors of the fleet and the mulatto population. brun gave free vent to his hatred of the colonists, by compelling them to leave Port au Prince, which had not yet fallen into the hands of the negroes. Everywhere the triumph of the slaves was complete, and the authority of the planters forever destroyed." Bonaparte made haste to acknowledge the new government, to confirm the negro Chieftain Toussaint in his command of general-in-chief, and to enjoin "the brave blacks"-by general proclamation" to remember that France alone had recognized their freedom." Soon after, Toussaint addressed him a letter commencing with the sententious greeting: "The first of blacks to the first of MY COUSIN-A BOYHOOD-MEMORY. "Tis ever thus, 'tis ever thus with all that's best below, The noblest, dearest, loveliest, are always first to go; The bird that sings the sweetest, the vine that crowns the rock, The glory of the garden, the flower of the flock." "The negro chiefs, secretly informed of all these disorders, resolved to profit by the opportunity of finally destroying the whites thus afforded to them. Three thousand insurgents penetrated through the works, stripped of their defenders during the general tumult, and, making straight for the prisons, delivered a large body of slaves who were there in chains. Instantly the liberated captives spread whites." themselves over the town, set it on fire in every quarter, and massacred the unhappy whites when seeking to escape from the conflagration. A scene of matchless horror ensued: twenty thousand negroes broke into the city, and, with the torch in one hand and the sword in the other, spread slaughter" and devastation around. Hardly had the strife of the Europeans with each other subsided, when they found themselves overwhelmed by the vengeance which had been accumulating for centuries in the African breast. Neither age nor sex were spared; the young were cut down in striving to defend their houses, the aged in the churches where they had fled to implore protection; virgins were immolated on the altar; weeping infants hurled into the fires. Amid the shrieks of the sufferers and the shouts of the victors, the finest city in the West Indies was reduced to ashes: its splendid churches, its stately palaces, were wrapped in flames; thirty thousand human beings perished in the massacre, and the wretched fugitives who had escaped from this scene of horror on board the ships were guided in their passage over the deep by the prodigious light which arose from their burning habitations. They almost all took refuge in the United States, where they were received with the most generous hospitality; but the frigate La Fine foundered on the passage, and five hundred of the survivers from the flames perished in the waves. "Thus fell the queen of the Antilles: the most stately monument of European opulence that had yet arisen in the New World. Nothing deterred, however, by this unparalleled calamity, the commissioners of the Republic pursued their frantic career, and amid the smoking ruins of the capital, published a decree which proclaimed the freedom of all the blacks who should enroll themselves under the standards of the Republic; a measure which was equivalent to the instant abolition of slavery over the whole island. Farther resistance was now hopeless; the Republican authorities became the most ardent persecutors of the planters; pursued alike by Jacobin phrensy and African ven Ay, 'tis too true :-the beautiful will die, I sat to watch its dimpling eddies curl, |