power, between the crown and the people. It was a balance, which prevented the Venetian nobility from usurping undue authority, and kept the people in subjection to the laws of the

state.

With regard to liberty of speech, no people on earth enjoyed a larger portion of it than the Venetians. Every coffee-house was a public place of debate. Even St. Mark's Square was often the resort, where the utterance given to political opinions would make the Procuratia resound with the arguments in favour of this state, and against the other state, during the wars that took place, and especially on the breaking out of the fatal French revolution.

I am not a Venetian; but a twenty years' intercourse with all ranks and classes of that interesting and much injured people, thus authorizes me to detail facts which have come within my own knowledge, and to assert boldly the honest truth, to the best of my recollection and ability.

CHAPTER XI.

VENICE.

Reflections on the Conduct pursued by Buonaparte towards the Italian States......And on the Imitation of that Conduct by those who have succeeded him in the Usurpation of the Country.

I SHALL now offer a few observations and reflections on the conduct which has been pursued towards the Italian States, not only by Buonaparte, but by those who have succeeded him in the conquest and government of that ill-fated portion of Europe.

Attached as I passionately am to a country, so celebrated for its natural beauties and its clime, and so distinguished for centuries as the seat of arts and the sciences; and having, for a space of more than twenty mortal years, witnessed her misfortunes, and been, from a matrimonial alliance, a sharer therein, I cannot help entertaining the pleasing hope, that the day will arrive, when Italy, fair Italy, shall be liberated from her present enthralled condition. Possessing a thorough acquaintance with the

language of the country, and having lived on terms of the closest intimacy with many individuals who were both civilly and politically employed in its government, I have drawn my facts from authentic sources, and particularly that portion of them which relates to the conduct of Buonaparte towards the people of Italy.

I arrived in that beautiful kingdom at a period of life when the faculties of the mind were expanding themselves with the milk and honey of blooming youth-untainted by false impressions, unfettered by rank prejudices. The best days of my existence were passed under that happy sky. There were my limited talents cultivated; there were they flattered and admired; and the hospitality I so generously met with at the hands of the natives-by whom I was looked upon as their country woman-induced me to adopt the once happy soil as my second patria.

Circumstances connected with the troubles of the times afterwards compelled me to withdraw myself from the continent, and return to my native land. Experience has taught me, neither to court the smiles of the great, nor to fear their unmerited frowns. It has been my endeavour, throughout the following observations and reflections, to steer as clear from party prejucices, as it is possible for one to do, whose heart is

still bleeding from the effects of the envenomed shafts which family misfortunes have there implanted. I have ever loved my country, and revered the principles of her inimitable system of government; which, like her own sturdy oak, after enduring for centuries the "peltings of the pitiless storm," has grown up to maturity. I have ever mistrusted the mania of modern philosophers for violent changes, and their idle notions of human perfectibility; well convinced, that the tendency of their cold and selfish principles was to deluge Europe with blood, and to undermine the palladium of religion;--a general toleration of which is, in my mind, the first principle that unites civilized society, and the brightest ornament of the English Constitution.

From the influence of his revolutionary system upon all classes of mankind, Buonaparte has inflicted on Europe the deadly curse of an unsettled generation. In consequence of that fatal influence, I was necessitated to spend several years of my life away from my family, in different countries; where the sight of the misery to which the people were reduced, by that pernicious system, afforded me ample means of examining into those old grievances, which they had been induced to exchange for new

and uncertain advantages;-advantages never to be realized, and not for a moment to be put in competition with the blessings they had lost; namely, moral principle, integrity, tranquillity, confidence between man and man!

Such were the effects of Buonaparte's systéme égoïste! Let me intreat some of the upper classes in this country steadily to bear in mind, that the French Revolution set out with a reform levelled at the property of individuals, and not against the above principles. Let them recollect that, in order to get possession of that property, hatred, malice, and every degree of wickedness, were lurking under the foul disguise, until the nefarious object had been accomplished. Who were the victims of private assassinations? who were massacred in the prisons? who were daily butchered at the public scaffolds ?-the misguided nobility, persons of rank and fortune, rich and peaceable merchants, fathers of families, honest and quiet housekeepers!

The executions against the rebel mob only took place when Buonaparte had no further occasion for their services; and then, when they became clamorous for the blood-money, the promised reward of their services, they were put to death, from a fear that they might discover their employers. These are facts which