"Few perhaps know that Paul the Firft drew from the archives this important project, and attempted, in concert with France, the realization; when, fortunately for humanity and his country, death defeated his fchemes of ambition and unnatural enmity.*

66

England, when the undertook the expedition against Egypt, difclaimed the intention of appropriating the conqueft to her poffeffions; but happier would have been that country, and more advantageous might the arrangement have been made for Turkey, if Egypt had been conftituted as an Indian colony.

66

Egypt is necessary to England for fecurity, not as an acquisition of wealth or aggrandizement. The theatre of her wars with France will ever hereafter be extended to those plains, and fuch an extenfion of the field of battle must be highly prejudicial to the interefts of Great Britain.

"The maintenance of Alexandria or Malta was abfolutely necessary, to remove these apprehenfions: perhaps the retention of the former port would have been in the event more beneficial than the poffeffion of the whole territery, fince into this city would have been attracted the merchandizes of Cairo, and the productions of the foil, without the important inconveniences, dominion over the whole muft necellarily connect with the maintenance; white Turkey might have been fecured in her revenue, and the Mameluke power as it was, guaranteed, ftill preferved in integrity.

"Malta, from her commanding attitude over the ports of France and the coaft of Egypt, was the next defirable station, and which would have protected, as long as England remains miftrels of the feas, every point she was anxious to guard to the eastward of Sicily. As both thefe conquests have been abandoned, England thould yet apply all the means within her power to oppofe the future projects of an inveterate enemy on a country which the government of France is attached to by motives of individual pride, as well as of national interest."

It has ever been our decided opinion, which we have frequently declared, that Bounaparte will never fit contented under the lofs of Egypt, the poffeffion of which would open a new field to his infatiate ambition, and offer him a new means of gratifying his no less infatiate enmity to this country. Excluded as we fhall be completely from the Mediterranean, by the furrender of Malta, whatever fuperiority of naval force we may poffefs, we fhall never be able to prevent him from fending a fleet and army to Egypt, whenever he may be fo difpofed; -befides, if, by his intrigues at the Porte, he fhould extort from the Turkish government a voluntary ceffion of Alexandria, under what pretext could Great Britain object to fuch an arrangement, after her acquiefcence in the ceffion of the Ifle of Elba, of Louifiana, the Floridas, and the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza? The principle once admitted the practice follows of course, and all objection is at an end.

The Appendix contains all the official difpatches, articles of capitulation, and other authentic documents, connected with the expedition, and the whole forms a most valuable mafs of important information.

* "One divifion was already on its march, which was to have been followed by another, when a corps of fifty thousand men would have assembled in the autumn of 1801 on the borders of the Cafpian Sea.”

On

On the State of Europe before and after the French Revolution; being an Anfwer to L'Etat de la France à la fin de L'an. viii." By Frederick Gentz, Counfellor at War to his Pruffian Majefty, &c. &c.* Tranflated from the German, by John Charles Herries, Efq. 8vo. PP. 512. 8s. Hatchard. 1802.

THE

HE work of Citizen Hauterive, to which Mr. Gentz has here given a full and complete anfwer, was reviewed by us, on its first appearance, when we took occafion to expofe its principal fallacies, and to reprobate its avowed object. But glaring and palpable as were the falfehoods and mifreprefentations with which it abounded, ftill the influence of France over the preffes of the Continent prevented any regular confutation, and even fufficed to give them currency and credit, in a confiderable part of Europe. To Mr. Gentz, then, Englishmen must feel peculiarly indebted, for ftanding forth in vindica tion of their character and principles, and for removing the film which France had laboured to caft over the eyes of foreigners, in order to inftil into their minds, the most unfounded and unwarrantable prejudices against the government and people of Great Britain.

Important as this volume is in itfelf, it is rendered more fo by a long and able preface, by the tranflator, in which he difcuffes two points, in Hauterive's book, which Mr. Gentz had referved for future notice. This preface, which difplays great ability and knowledge of the fubject, we fhall first confider.

"From the moment," fays Mr. Herries, "when the prefent government had established itself upon the ruins of the last jacobinical authority, the principles and events of the revolution were no longer themes of praile and admiration for the political writers of France. Liberty and equality had retired before the bayonets of Buonaparte's grenadiers; democratic tyranny had yielded to the genius and fortune of an afpiring foldier; and the admirers of the change could not celebrate the event without condemning the conduct of the great nation during the ten years that preceded it."

This is true. Such was the policy of Buonaparte in order to reconcile the people to his violation of that folemn oath which he, in common with all the armies of France, had repeatedly taken, to maintain and defend to the utmost the existing conftitution; and also to that yoke which he had prepared for them. But even then he did not fcruple to employ many of the principals and of the most active agents in all thofe events which he found it expedient fo loudly to condemn (although he had taken an active part in them himself), and now, that he finds fuch condemnation must afford a complete juftification of the conduct of England and her allies in respect of

There is a French tranflation of this work, printed in London and publifhed by Deboffe and Dulau. Rev.

the

the war, he inftructs his hirelings to hold a different language, more fuitable to his prefent profeffions and practices, which, in regard to the independence of foreign ftates, are exactly the fame as those of Briffot, of Roberfpierre, and of Marat. The principal point which Mr. Herries undertakes to difcufs is that which refpects the maritime law of Europe, and the rights of belligerent powers, which fo many profligate attempts have been made, at different times, to violate and to abolish. To this fubject Mr. Hauterive had devoted one of his chapters, on which his opponent thus pointedly animadverts.

"After fome general observations on the fituation of neutral powers in time of war, which are neither very new, nor very perfpicuous, he proceeds thus:

I have mentioned the maritime preponderance of England; the consciousness of her fuperiority has given rise to pretenfions which the relative. weakness of other powers has permitted her to enforce as rights; whence two diftinct maritime codes, the one acknowledged by all Europe, the other infifted on by England alone.'-P. 175.

"To impute confummate ignorance to the writer of fuch a passage, would be to carry lenity too far. He was writing for the French government, and of courfe poffeffed better information. Though it be eafy to guefs the object, it is very difficult to conceive the affurance neceffary for aflerting that the maritime law insisted on by England, is one which she has set up in consequence of her naval superiority.

"He mult have trufted to two things: 1ft, that nobody would read the whole of his book, and 2dly, that all his readers would be utterly ignorant of history; for a knowledge of hiftory, or a perufal of his work, are alike fufficient to refute his affertion. In another place he has taken extraordinary pains to fhew that the Navigation Act is the original caufe of this fatal preponderance of the English marine. Now the Navigation Act took place in 1651. He must therefore renounce all confiftency, or a fert that the maritime law of England was unknown till near the end of the feventeenth century. But the maritime law of England is the maritime law expressed and defined in the Consolato del Mare, a work published in the thirteenth century, and even then stated as ancient and established; explained and commented upon by Grotius (de Jure Belli & Pacis), by Voetius (de Jure militari), and by many other celebrated jurifts who lived before the establishment of that very fuperiority which is laid to have produced their doctrines. The eminent writers of France and Germany, who have treated the fubject in the last century, have uniformly quoted the above-mentioned as the highest authorities. The pretended recent code is almost universally referred to the eleventh century: and its firft pofitive document is dated by none later than the thirteenth; fo that the maritime law of England was the law of Europe, long before any fuch extenfion of her commerce, or fuch naval fuperiority as could have given rife to it in the manner here described.

"So much for this ill-digested attempt to connect the maritime law with the maritime power of England.

"The author then expatiates on the advantages of the code acknow ledged by all Europe; the entire freedom of neutral commerce in time of war; and we might infer from what he fays, that England is guilty of the greatest folly for not adopting it, because the would neceflarily be the greatest

gainer by it. He then proceeds to obferve, France has always given lefs difturbance to the commerce of neutrals than any other maritime power.' This is a round affertion; and I only notice it, to obferve that it is contradicted by very good French authority. Valin declares that the ordinances of the French marine went at one time beyond the practice of every other nation, except Spain, in feverity; for they condemned both hip and cargo, when either was the property of an enemy: England can never be accused of such rigour.

⚫ France has been the first to propose at home and abroad, that neutral commerce fhould be freed from all its flackles; that cruifing thould be abolished; and that the commercial profeffion, its agents, &c. fhould for ever be exempt from violence and hoftility.' France has not deviated from her ordinary politics in this refpect:--he has always diftinguithed between the right and expedient; and has never failed to renounce the former where it could not be combined with the latter. She is perhaps not fingular in this refpect; but why talk of her juftice and generosity.

"It coft her nothing to make the legiflative and diplomatic propofal alluded to in fuch terms of praife by Citizen Hauterive. She proclaimed and preached up the perfect freedom of neutral commerce, at the commencement of the late war, at a time when it was neceflary to herself, and injurious to her rival. But in this fhe was fo little ftudious of confiftency, that as early as the 9th of May, 1793, the palled a decree more fevere than had yet been feen in Europe against the trade of neutrals; and afterwards continued to repeal and renew her maritime ftatutes day after day, as occation ferved for enforcing or relaxing them."

Mr. Herries then enters into a brief, but able and perfpicuous, review, of the rife and progrefs of that confederacy which aimed at the humiliation of England, by a fubverfion of an effential part of the established law of nations, and completely demonftrates the falfehood of every affertion advanced by Mr. Hauterive on the fubject. We lament our inability to lay before our readers the whole of this difcuffion, which fets that important queftion in a clear and fatiffactory point of view. The author's conclufions, however, which are fairly deducible from his premifes, we fhall extract.

"From these observations 1 think we may draw the following conclu-Lions :

"That until the year 1780, France and England afferted the fame principles in the practice of maritime warfare; and that if in their conduct towards neutrals there was any difference, the greatest severity was on the fide of France.

"That at that period, England being engaged in a contest which threatened to exceed her ftrength, the powers of the North proclaimed their determination to refift a practice that debarred them from confiderable fources of gain; and France, eager to feize an opportunity to injure her enemy and rival, and check the growing fuperiority of the British navy, immediately concurred in that enterprise to overturn the law of nations; making a merit of renouncing rights which were no longer fo useful to her, as the re

"

Spain only adopted this feverity in imitation of France."

nunciation ;

nunciation; loudly contrafting her compliance with the tenacity of Great Britain, and even affecting to be the first mover and prime fupporter of this new fyftem, from motives of the ftri&teft juftice and moft extenfive benevolence.

"That during the late war it became ftill more the interest of France to revive the principles of the armed neutrality, because her own navy was reduced to infignificance, and her commercial marine nearly annihilated. Accordingly, the hiftory of her transactions with the neutral powers, is one continued series of varied attempts to excite a maritime coalition under that pretence, against England. The liberty of the feas was the specious cry at home and abroad; while her practice, as far as her reduced means would reach, was a conftant tranfgreffion, not only of fuch profeffions, but even of the ancient law of nations which they were defigned to fupplant.

"That her efforts in and out of Europe proved unfuccefsful, till fome circumstances of a different nature had difpofed a great potentate of the North to fecond her plans of hoftility to England; that her labours redoubled with this dawn of hope; and that the official publication written at this period by Mr. Hauterive, was a part of them.

"That this publication, addreffed not to France but to Europe, was an attempt to inflame the minds of all nations and all princes, and to excite a general coalition against this country. In a chapter (a very principal part of the work) appropriated to the rights and relations of neutral powers, it is endeavoured fo to blend and confound the commercial profperity and maritime practice of this country, as to render both equally odious, wherever jealousy or avarice has created an averfion to either; and thus to procure the cooperation of all Europe in a plan, not merely to deprive us of the right of fearching neutral traders, and capturing enemies property in time of war, but to ruin the very foundation of our happiness, to attack all the fources of our industry, to aim at the annihilation of our commerce, and finally to seek the deftruction of Great Britain, as of a monster devouring the fubftance, and trampling on the independence of Europe.

"That the affertions in this part of the work are generally falfe, and the arguments, for the most part, fallacious; fo that a very flight knowledge of hiftory is fufficient to refute many of its leading points. Thefe affertions

and arguments were, however, intended to fupport the principles, and to difplay the views of the men now at the head of affairs in France; and we must not fuppofe that they have renounced them because of the fudden death of the Emperor Paul, and the good fenfe of his fucceffor, defeated their plans. England will ever be the object of fuch plans, while the continues to be the ftay and bulwark of Europe, against a power whofe ambition knows no bounds, and whofe thirft of aggrandizement muft be affuaged by continual acquifitions, even in the midst of peace.

"Finally, that the tremendous storm which threatened us from the North, having been partly difpelled by the above unexpected circumftance, highly favourable to Great Britain, has been entirely broken and averted by the vigour and promptitude of our arms, and the moderation and wifdom of our councils. That the treaty of the 17th of June does great credit to the miniftry by whom it was concluded; and that we may reft ailured, that, under their guidance, the honour of our country will be effectually afferted, and its interefts vigilantly guarded. We may confidently hope that the plans announced by Hauterive for ruining this country, will prove abortive, from the want of co-operation on the part of thofe powers, without which they

cannot