tiquity those arts of fraud and menace, of violence and seduction, by which the latter were enabled to beguile the weakness, to ensnare the cupidity, to confound the judgment, and to overpower the fortitude of mankind. The archives of the Assyrian and Macedonian, of the Greek and Roman conquests, were, and still are, diligently searched for precedents in the art of combining cunning with force. The inveterate habits of intrigue, the vanity and ductility which have always marked the national character, are all confederated for one grand and successful experiment; that of trying whether the master-springs of human conduct are not at all times the same; whether, with a deep knowledge of the temper of the age, with a congenial spirit and augmented means, the same principles and measures, skilfully adapted to circumstances, will not give the same results.

The world has seen with how strong and steady an impetus they have urged the accomplishment of their views; and with what overwhelming rapidity of execution they have demolished the public law and the liberties of Europe. In the boldness with which they conceived, in the vigor with which they have perpetrated, their criminal enterprises, in the splendor and variety of their military achievements, in the evils which they have inflicted upon the miserable victims of their power, they have far exceeded all the examples furnished by the records of antiquity. Combining the subtlety of the Roman senate and the ferocity of the Goth,-the wildest passions with the most deliberate perfidy,-discarding, both in their domestic administration and their foreign policy, the feelings of nature, the obligations of conscience, the ties of friendship, the sense of honor; they drenched France, as well as the rest of the continent in tears and blood, and have not left even the consolation of hope to those who examine attentively the present condition of Europe. The works of Livy and Sallast, and the commentaries of Machiavel and Montesquieu, discover the closest parallel between the French and Roman conquerors, in the structure of their military system, in the progress of their arms, and in the tenor of their deportment towards allies and enemies. I have been powerfully struck with this similitude. but I should do injustice to the memory of the Roman republic, if I instituted a comparison as to the character of the instruments, by whom their conquests were achieved. The ruffian horde now preying on the carcase of Europe, bears no more analogy to "the solemn and sacred militia" of the Romans, than the convention bore to that body which Cicero has ventured to denominate "the temple of sanctity and the refuge of all nations."

The inferences which I drew from the above general considerations, were early confirmed in my mind, during my residence in Paris, by the most positive testimony. I heard, from every man both in and out of office, who had any intimate connexion with the government, the same language of contempt and menace of the subject of the United States. The peculiar phraseology was," that we were a nation of fraudulent shopkeepers; British in prejudices and predilections, and equally objects of aversion to the Emperor, who had taken a fixed determination to bring us to reason in due time." It was universally understood that our sluggishness in acceding to all his wishes; the bold strictures, in which we sometimes indulge, concerning his character and conduct, and the nature of our institutions;

were inexpiable offences, and to be finally retributed by the full weight of his resentment. The British he hates, and dreads, and respects. The people of this country he detests and despises. He detests us as the progeny of the British, and as the citizens of a free government. He despises us as a body of traders, according to his view, without national fame or national character; without military strength or military virtues.

If we had thrown ourselves into his arms, he might have respected us more for some decision of character; but he would not have hated us less. Our labors to steer a middle course, to moderate his violence by humble remonstrances and benevolent professions, to entice from him the alms of an oppressed and precarious refuse of trade, have only conducted to heighten his disdain and to embolden his insolence. We have squandered, and do squander, unavailingly, our fund of submission. Every act of humiliation is not merely superfluous, but absolutely prejudicial. There is no extravagance of disgrace, which could render him placable. A war with England might soften his tone for some time, but, as we have seen exemplified in the case of Austria and Prussia,-and shall soon see proved in that of Russia,— it would not produce an oblivion of past disgusts,-nor contract his immeasurable ambition,-nor extirpate his deeply-rooted hostility to trade and to popular institutions. When an attempt was to be made to plunge us in the same abyss of ruin, which we had been assisting him to prepare for others, we should, as in the instance of Prussia, be scornfully reproached and relentlessly punished for our original neutrality-for the symptoms of discontent or indignation, which we might have shown under the yoke of his own galling amity-for our very treachery to the cause we had abandoned in his favor, and which, as we should be told, our base fears alone prompted us to betray.

A union with France, if not even ruinous in its immediate consequences, would be an indelible stain on our annals. Our descendants would turn with disgust from the page which might record so monstrous and unnatural an alliance. I know not, indeed, how an American will feel one century hence, when, in investigating the history of the late invasion of Spain, he shall inquire what, on that occasion, was the conduct of his ancestors, the only republican people then on earth, and who claim almost an exclusive privilege to hate and to denounce every act of ruffian violence, and every form of arbitrary power. It certainly will not kindle a glow of emulation in his mind, when he shall be told, that of this unparalleled crime, an oblique notice was once taken by our administration; that the people of this country seemed to rejoice at the triumph of the invader, and frowned on the efforts of his victims.

Mr. Jefferson had it in his power, when all the horrors of this usurpation were first unfolded, to consolidate the public virtue, and perhaps, to fix forever the destinies of this country. He could indeed, have found justifiable causes of war in the insults and injuries which we ourselves had received from France, but he should have availed himself of this event to hallow the contest in which sooner or later we must be engaged, and to call up a force of generous resolution, which, while it armed us with power, would have purified and invig orated our attachment to republican institutions. By entering in the name of a free people, his solemn and indignant protest against this

fatal precedent of outrage, he would at once have buoyed up the people here, to a similar elevation of sentiment, and by throwing himself entirely on their magnanimity, could have wanted no better tenure for his place. Our present rulers, if they act upon a large and prospective view of our true interests, may retrieve the character of this country. They will, I am quite sure, be seconded by an entire correspondence of feeling not only on our part, but in the people of England, whatever may be the narrow policy or the illiberal prejudices of the British ministry. It is from our rulers, however, that we expect, and perhaps only from them that we can receive the proper impulse. "Whenever," says Geutz, "a real interest commands, every national antipathy, though existing from the earliest times, if it only rests upon prejudice, must yield to more urgent motives; and so it doubtless will, when the guidance of nations is entrusted to the wise and great; to men who are above all narrow views, and superior to all little passions. The deliberate and decided measures of a truly enlightened government, intent upon important objects, break through the fetters of popular opinion; are supported by the wise, and carry the weak irresistibly along."

This note on the conscription laws of France, and on the operation of these laws, is made up from authentic sources, especially from Mr. Walsh's writings; and a pamphlet entitled "A Sketch of the Military System of France."

The French Revolution placed the whole people of France under the dominion of a few terrible tyrants, who carried on their work of destruction with such atrocity, as to require new terms in their language to describe their crimes. But all their acts of confiscation, and murder, were done in the name of liberty, and the rights of man. These tyrants, terrified themselves at the physical power which they had raised up, and with it, the thirst for action, directed attention to the liberation of other nations from the tyranny of their own governments. In other words, the French Republic went forth "to plant the tree of liberty," wherever they could conquer, and establish their own dominion.

The whole of the male population, from the age of 20 to 45, was divided into classes, and subjected to the conscription law. When the armies were to be recruited or increased, the inhabitants liable to serve were assembled; their names were deposited in an urn, and the number wanted for the occasion were drawn out. Those to whom the lot fell, were gathered into bodies of one hundred, and marched to whatsoever region they were wanted in, and there distributed one by one, so that none who came from the same canton, or village, could have any communion with each other.

From this liability to serve, there was no exemption; husbands, only sons, individuals whose presence was indispensable to the daily subsistence of a whole family, were equally liable. If a substitute was sometimes permitted, he who furnished the substitute was answerable for his desertion and crimes; and might be liable to go himself at the next call.

Comparisons have been instituted between the military conscription of Rome, and that of France. The Romans and the French had the same object, universal conquest; but the Roman militia, and the

* By Mr. John Howard.

French conscription, were very different in many respects, much to the disadvantage of the Frenchman.

The Roman term of service was limited, that of the French unlimited; the moment the name was drawn from the urn, slavery for life, of the most detestable character, began. The Romans punished desertion in the person of the deserter; the French punished the deserter cruelly, if caught; if not, they held the parents answerable, and punished them. The Romans exempted for personal disability to serve; the French could not make soldiers of those who were physically unable, but made them pay enough to hire another, because they were incapable themselves. The punishments of the French were most inhuman, for all military delinquencies; and family connexions were involved to make the miserable conscript endure his sufferings. The disconsolate wife, innocent offspring, aged and helpless parents, all their means of subsistence, in the dreadful absence of their natural protector, were the sureties for his submission to the will of an unpitying despot. For him the heart-broken soldier, was to engage in scenes of slaughter; and to fix him on a throne cemented with the blood of his countrymen, while every exertion of his own body and mind served only to make himself more certainly a hopeless slave. (See Sketch of the Military System of France.)

Now, it was to such a people and government as the French have been described to be, that the three Presidents who succeeded the Federal administrations, desired to bind our free republic. Nor only so; for be it forever remembered, that James Madison, and James Monroe, concurred in recommending to Congress, a still more odious conscription, of the free citizens of the United States, than that which humbled and distressed Frenchmen, accustomed as they were, from their cradles, to the natural action of despotism. Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe, proposed a virtual annihilation of the state and national constitutions! For, while these were respected, their propositions were as hostile to the rights of the citizens, as would have been the will of Napoleon himself.

And for what was this terrible aggression on the rights of free citizens? To conquer Canada! which we could not hold, if conquered; and the conquest of which would have required such a force as to have made our whole sea coast the territory of a vindictive, exasperated, and unpitying foe!-Such is the tyranny of party, of which Jefferson was at the same time the founder and the patron!And young republican Americans are called on to regard the memory and the deeds of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, as the objects of their patriotic eulogy; and Washington, Adams, Jay, Hamilton, King, Cabot, and Ames, and others, as monarchists and traitors!

The testimony of General Eaton and Commodore Truxton, referred to on page 223, has been omitted, on account of the size of the volume; it having already extended much beyond the original intentions of the author.

The table referred to on page 459, is also omitted.

Country, state of, after peace of 1783, 3. French policy, in first Congress. 39.