charges against the late ministers, says the writer, 'have been at length summed up in three counts. They gave no subsidy to Prussia, they refused to facilitate a Russian loan, and they gave no military assistance to the continental allies.' These accusations, if they be true in point of fact, are false in point of inference. The late ministers did not give any subsidy to Prussia, they did not accommodate Russia with a loan on her own terms, and they did not send any army to assist the allies on the Elbe or the Vistula. This we will concede, and we say that this accusation instead of constituting their blame, redounds to their praise; and that these charges of their enemies, which were intended to prove their guilt, establish their innocence : They did not subsidize Prussia.'-After the experience which they had had of the imbecility, versatility and venality of that court, would they not deservedly have incurred the charge of folly and oppression if they had increased the taxes of England in order to swell the coffers of Prussia? Was it likely that Prussia would have fought for money when she would not fight for existence ? Was there any man in England, who, after having observed the wavering conduct of Prussia during the coalition of 1805, could conscientiously advise bis country to subsidize the court of Berlin with a mite of English gold? Did the unprincipled seizure of Hanover merit any boon from George the third or his parliament? Besides, when Prussia in that moment of infatuation, which accelerated her fall, marched out her military parade against the armies of France, was she not at war with this country as well as France? Were we to lay fresh impositions on the already too burthened industry of this country in order to succour a power who had treated us with treachery and contempt, and who had offered the greatest indignity to the sovereign of this country by wrenching from him the patrimony of his ancestors? The impolicy, absurdity, and injustice which there would have been in subsidizing Prussia on her first rupture with France, are so palpable, that we should hardly have thought it possible to be made a matter of dispute. With respect to the policy of subsidies in general, we think that the experience of a century, but more particularly of the last fifteen years, will forcibly teach us that in the great majority of instances it is not only futile and inexpedient but positively mischievous. Can our experience produce a single example, during all the wars of the revolution in which subsidies produced one beneficial effect, in which they animated cowardice, determined indecision, or suspended treachery? Is there a secondary or a prima

ry state in Germany which has not received our subsidies. and subsequently made its own bargain with the enemy? Our subsidies have scarcely ever been received before they have been abused; and the treachery which we have experienced, has usually been proportioned to the sum which we have paid for the fidelity of our continental allies.-But the policy or impolicy of every subsidy must be determined by the peculiar circumstances of the case; and the more the circumstances of that case which we are at present considering, are examined, the more it will be seen, that the late ministers acted with equal wisdom and integrity in not lavishing the gold of England on the cabinet of Berlin.

The late ministers did not promote the Russian loan.' Is it wise in a nation any more than in an individual to lend money without security? Did the example of the Austrian loan, in which we had to pay both the principal and the interest, encourage us to promote a Russian loan? The ministry left the money-market open to the Russian agent; and the money might have been had, if any satisfactory security for the payment could have been produced. But he who solicits a loan without having any security to offer, ei ther for the principal or the interest, is not likely to experience a very favourable reception from those who have money to lend. If, when the emperor of Russia requested a loan, he used the term only as a genteel synonym for a subsidy he should have called the thing by the right name; and not with that sinister duplicity, which is often observed in private lif, asked us to lend that which he intended that we should give. Our ministers would not have refused a subsidy for a specific object, and to be paid in proportion to its accomplishment. This they would have done; and, if they had offered to do more, they would have imitated the thoughtless profusion of their predecessors and betrayed the true interest of their country.-But the late ministers did not send an English army to the continent. Here, as in theformer instance the matter which is involved in the accusation, furnishes the most solid proof that they were both virtuous and wise. The utmost force, which we could in common prudence have sent to the continent, could not have exceeded from twenty to thirty thousand men; and to those, who are at all acquainted with the numbers and discipline of the French armies, it must be self-evident that such a force could not have operated any considerable diversion in favour of the allies. Frauce in addition to her vast superiority of force in Poland, had her frontiers covered with a reserve that would soon have overwhelmed any quota of

troops that we could have transported to the continent. We should thus only have abandoned some thousands of our best troops,to our enemies without affording any reality of succour to our friends.

were the least want

But men,' as this author well remarks, of the allied armies. The king of Prussia surely had soldiers enough in the battle of Jena. Had his numbers been double, the victory of his enemy would only have been more bloody. The bat tle of Jena was a faithful picture of the whole campaign. On one side every thing was chance, random, an alternate excess of self'confidence and unreasonable despair, a tumultuous battle and a confused rout, in a word, a state of things in which victory would have been without fruit, as defeat was without refuge. On the other every thing was the most perfect arrangement. Victory was followed by conquest, and even defeat would not have been without resource. The battle of Jena, and the battle of Friedland, were lost from the same necessity,—that necessity by which wisdom overcomes folly, and by which skill, foresight, and council, must inevitably prevail in the end against ignorance, chance, and temerity.

"According to the system of modern warfare, war is less a game of chance than of skill. The results must depend upon the moves and not the dice. Fortune may, doubtless, give a favourable cast, but the event must bang upon the skill with which it is employed. It is not in the nature of chance, moreover, to persist in such a constancy of favour, such a uniformity of preference, as is suffici ent of itself to decide the event of a contest, and prevail against that permanent superiority, which, in all human affairs, necessarlly belongs to superior prudence. The French and Russians were never so equally matched, the scales were never so nearly even, that the little which fortune could either give or take away, could have produced on either side any possible effect. The superiority of the French was decided; there was nothing of accident in the event. The campaign was not lost for want of men-it was not lost only by a little. Thirty thousand men additional would not have altered those relations from which resulted the victories of the French. The main army might have gained so much in numbers, and so much in diversion, but the superiority of Bonaparte and Bennigsen,and of the French and the Russians, would not have been a whit changed. The Russians would still have rushed on the French cannon, and Bonaparte, calm, collected, and immoveable, have destroyed them like fire among stubble.'

But supposing the military succours of Great Britain of more importance in averting the subjugation of the conti nent than they were ever likely to be, at what period of the war could they have been sent by the late administration They could not have been sent before the battle of Jena; for that was fought on the 14th of October, soon after the

return of lord Lauderdale from Paris, and while we were at war with Prussia as well as France. After that event, the Prussian army never made another stand; the march of Bonaparte from Jena to Berlin, from Berlin to Posen, and from Posen to Warsaw, was rather a triumphant procession than a perilous and impeded march. The military fabric, which the great Frederic had created with so much industry, but, as the event proved, with so little skill, seemed in a moment to have vanished into air. After the single battle of Jena, hardly a trace of this martial colossus was left behind. In the beginning of December, 1806, the French were cantoned on the Vistula. The Russians very inconsiderately hastened, in detachments, to the opposite banks of the river; - which the French crossed with a superior force, and beat the enemy in detail. Thus the Russian force was dispirited by defeat, and reduced in numbers before it could be impelled in a mass against the French. When lord Hutchinson arrived at the Russian head quarters, he found every thing in a desperate coudition--all was confusion and dismay. In this posture of affairs, even had the season permitted the embarkation of troops to the Baltic, no force, which we could have spared, could possibly have repaired the palpable disparity which there was between the Russians and the French, or have turned the scale of victory in favour of the allies. The late ministry therefore acted with true wisdom and patriotism, in preventing the useless effusion of British blood. The battle of Eylau was fought on the 7th and 8th of February 1807, and the intelligence did not reach England till the beginning of March, when the late ministry, which never enjoyed the favour of the court, were on the point of being dismissed from the councils of the sovereign. But it has been said that we might at least have thrown succours into Dantzic. Those who suppose this, do not consider that between Dantzic and the sea, is a projecting land of some miles, which was occupied by the French lines. The desperate valour of the Russians was in vain exerted to force this barrier, and in a momentary attack by water, captain Cheatham lost half his crew and effected nothing. So hopeless was every effort to raise this siege. The fall of Danizic was the total subjugation of Psia; and in fact, it left nothing to expect in the farther prosecution of the campaign, but fresh disasters and dis grace

The Russians retreated; the French followed;-the Russians were driven into a corner, they had not another move. The battle of Friedland was but the necessary catastrophe of the drama.

The previous plot had so well prepared for it, and so naturally led to it, that the dagger and the bowl were seen without surprise,"

No force, which the late ministry could have sent to the continent, could have prevented the disastrous termination of the campaign; and to have sent troops without a probable chance of affording some effectual aid, would only have been an unnecessary waste of the blood and treasure of this country. We fear that there is too much truth in the following assertions of the author,

That we are considered by the nations of the continent, as the most selfish people on the face of the globe; and that there is not one of them, either amongst neutrals, allies, or enemies, but holds us in an aversion bordering on contempt. Every thing that has happened of late years, the total failure of the war, and the long continuance of it to the total ruin of the continent, has been imputed to us. An Englishman travelling on the continent, is every where received as a member of a company of brigands; not a nation subjugated under the triumphant arms of France, but imputes its ruin to us. We tempted it into the unequal contest, &c. &c.'

We subsidized the powerful, we menaced the weak; and we cemented one coalition after another, considering only our own interest, and regardless of the destruction which awaited our allies.

In this manner was Holland involved in the war which with but little difficulty she might have escaped. In the same manner was Austria precipitated into a contest, which terminated in the loss of half her empire. In this manner has Portugal become a province of France. Naples has been dethroned by England and not by Napoleon. And Spain might have been yet neutral and yet safe, had not England forced her into confederacy with France.'

Such is the opinion which is entertained of this country on the continent; and we may thank the mischievous counsels of Mr. Pitt for the unfavourable impression. We are con sidered as a bad-minded nation; and the late attack on Denmark has tended to strengthen that idea, and to make it general throughout Europe. The invidious representa tions, and the bitter aspersions of the French press, and of the emissaries of France, may have had some influ. ence in lowering the English character in the estimation of foreign powers; but the character of nations, like that of individuals, can be ultimately ruined only by themselves. That this general feeling of aversion to this country cannot be ascribed solely to the machinations of France, is