forward to the formation of a navy, and the restoration of his commerce, as the only fure means of fubduing us, then we would grant him fuch a peace, and take his word for it in a treaty; becaufe we are decidedly of opinion, that we fhould profit more by the refpite than he could do; and because the very time which would be requifite to mature his machinations, would render their execution impoffible.

We certainly incline decidedly to the latter of these opinions; though we have no longer room to state our reasons at length. They are founded chiefly upon the great difficulty the French government would find in engaging its people to enter upon a new and desperate contest, after so welcome a pacification; upon the unwillingness and hesitation of that government to grant us a peace at all; and upon the admitted fact, that no such use as is here supposed, was made of the peace of Amiens, though it subsisted much longer than was necessary to have indicated the purposes for which it was concluded. Believing, therefore, most cordially and sincerely, that France will make peace with an intention to renew the war whenever she has us at an advantage, we see no reason to think that she has in view such local and limited advantages as she could gain by a speedy renewal of hostilities, or that she will ultimately gain any advantage at all by a longer interval of repose.

The reasons of this opinion will be best explained by a short enumeration of the advantages and disadvantages of a peace to this country; or rather of the losses and dangers which we shall incur and avoid, by accepting, at this moment, of terms of pacification.

The dangers and disadvantages of peace in our peculiar situation are obvious, and have been often enumerated; but, for the most part, with so much exaggeration and vehemence, that a plain and candid statement of them may still have the merit of novelty. In the first place, we must lay our account with giving up the greater part of the conquests we have made, without receiving, ourselves, any thing in return. France has nothing to return to England in compensation for what England may restore to her or her allies. We may stipulate something indeed for our allies in return for what we give up; but though this may be very much for our honour, it will not be much for our immediate interest or emolument. We have already said, however, that the possession of these places is really of very little benefit to this country; and that the chief use of taking them, is rather to hamper and annoy the enemy, than to enrich ourselves. The chief disadvantage, therefore, which we shall fuffer by their restoration, will be, in the second place, that we shall thus enable the enemy to occupy a variety of positions from which he may annoy us, on the re

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newal of hostilities, with infinitely more effect than he can do at present, and from which he will take care that we shall not be able to dislodge him, without great cost and preparation. If we give him back his West Indian colonies, he will have it in his power to send a large force there, under the pretext of reducing the negroes, &c. with which he may overrun all our islands, on the sudden breaking out of hostilities. He may endanger our Indian dominions in the same manner, by sending troops to the Isle of France, or to Ceylon, or Pondicherry; and, at all events, he will garrison those settlements so strongly, that it will occupy a great part of our force, for a year or two, to reconquer them, and to replace ourselves in the situation in which we now stand, and in which, by the continuance of the war, we may now maintain ourselves with perfect security.

In the third place, the restoration of peace will enable the enemy to bring home the treasure and the stores which are now locked up in their settlements by our triumphant navy, and to export that great accumulation of commodities which is in a great measure withheld from the market by the same pressure of hostility.

These consequences would follow immediately from a peace, and are disadvantages to which we should be subjected by the cessation of the war for ever so short a period. There are others from which we should have nothing to apprehend, unless the peace was of some continuance; they require but to be named. France might restore her commerce, and, moving without the load of our enormous taxes, might eclipse and supplant us in the great market of the world. She would also revive her navy, and, after she had got trade, could scarcely fail to rival, and even to outmatch us in this most essential particular, with her enormous extent of coast, and tributary maritime states. Lastly, that we may leave out nothing in the enumeration, we may mention. the opportunities which a long peace would afford to the enemy to sow disaffection among our people, especially in Ireland, and in our tributary kingdoms in the East.

To meet those dangers and disadvantages of peace, it would, perhaps, be enough to state the deliverance which it would bring from the danger of immediate subjugation, and the opportunity it would afford for completing those preparations by which that fate may be ultimately averted. There is no man, we believe, who deliberately considers the statements we have already copied from the work before us, who will be of opinion, that our present preparations are adequate to the danger with which we are threatened, or even that they can be made so within the period during which the attempt may be expected, if the war is to continue.

If we are satisfied that peace must be insecure, and that our enemy will busily employ it in improving his navy, with a view to the renewal of war, it cannot be imagined that we should neglect to improve our army during the same interval. We cannot, perhaps, create a military force sufficient for our defence during war, before an invasion is attempted; but we can certainly create such a force, with ordinary exertion, before the enemy can have created a navy sufficient for our destruction. To make a navy, it is necessary, first of all, to establish an extensive foreign commerce; to make an army, nothing more is requisite, than to train the population already at our disposal. In this point of view alone, therefore, we think peace would be infinitely more valuable to England than to France; and that, if properly and judiciously improved, it might place us in a situation to defy the menaces of our enemy on a renewal of hostility, and to deliver us for ever from the hazards to which it cannot well be denied that we are now liable.

When we mention the name of Ireland, however, we use an argument for peace, which admits, we conceive, of no reply. How vulnerable that country is, and how essential its preservation is to the very existence of our empire, all men who are capable of judging, are now, we believe, agreed. The measures by which alone it can be secured (now, alas once more thwarted and delayed), must necessarily be gradual in their operation. No system of management, perhaps, would render Ireland secure, if it were to be invaded by a strong force, within a year or two after this time. A very few years, however, of wise administration, would render it even more invulnerable than the rest of the British territory. Such an interval of peace, therefore, is beyond all value with regard to that yital portion of our land, and would give us an incalculable advantage, even if the contest were then to be renewed in every other respect upon a more unfavourable footing, It would be like a truce obtained, while Orlando was recovering from his insanity; or a parley prolonged, till Jupiter could be aroused from his amorous slumbers.

It is needless to suggest, that, by the restoration of peace, we should be relieved from an oppressive and almost intolerable load of taxation that our industry, disburdened of this grievous pressure, would be quickened into new forms of prosperous enterprize; and that our trade would then rush like a golden deluge over all those regions into which it is now forced to insinuate itself by circuitous and diminished channels. A few years of peace would so recruit and restore our resources, as to render us equal to any exertion in case of a renewal of war. The commercial rivalry of our enemies, we think, is but little to be dreaded. If

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we undersell all the world at this moment, when our taxes are so enormous, and our access to the market so variously impeded, we should have little to fear from the free competition of France, although all its cannon were melted down into steam-engines, and all its swords beaten out into axles.

By making peace, too, even with the intention of renewing the war at a convenient opportunity, France will eventually be feduced into pacific habits, and lofe many of thofe advantages which the now enjoys as a belligerent. To improve her commerce, as the rival of ours, and the basis of her future navy, must be the firft great object of her ruler; but a commercial people, and, above all, a people juft beginning the tempting career of commercial profperity, muft naturally be averfe to war; and, most of all, to war with the greatest maritime power in the world. The war and the confcription, we are credibly informed, are very far from being popular in France at this moment; but if the war were once terminated by an honourable peace, and the people begun to be occupied in peaceful pursuits, it would not be easy to make them fubmit to this returning plague, nor very fafe, perhaps, for their ruler to compel them.

It is likewife deferving of confideration, that the longer we can protract the period of peace, the more we get over, in fafety, of the life of that extraordinary individual, with whom, it is extremely probable, that much of the rançour, and much of the power by which we are endangered, will die. But it is of ftill more confequence to obferve, that the longer we can postpone the crifis of our conteft, the weaker and the lefs provided we fhall find our adversary for the encounter; and this not merely from the difufe and diftafte for war which the experience of peace will produce, but from the rapid decay of thofe advantages which the now poffeffes as a new government. Already the throne of Bonaparte begins to be furrounded by court-favourites, and princes and dignitaries of all defcriptions; and the accefs of merit to his imperial patronage, will probably foon be as difficult as it is to other thrones. The eminent perfons who forced themselves into notice in the tumultuary times of the revolution, muft disappear in no long period; and the genius and form of the exifting government, is by no means calculated to fupply their place, except, perhaps, during the opportunities and cafualties of an actual campaign. If a more liberal and patriotic fyftem, therefore, be adopted in England, while a more jealous and exclusive policy is daily gaining ground in France, it is not difficult to conjecture what the refult will be, nor in how fhort a time the fituation of the combatants may be in this refpect entirely reversed.

There are many other confequences of peace which might be anticipated

anticipated with nearly equal probability. Those in particular that relate to the revival and recruiting of the other Continental powers; the probable difunion of the tributary fovereigns by which France has now furrounded herfelf; and the difmemberment of many parts of her overgrown and difcordant dominions. All thefe events at least, it is easy to fee, are rendered much more improbable by the continued preffure of war; and though most likely, and indeed almoft certain in themfelves, can fcarcely be expected to occur till peace have reftored to the fyftem, its natural fprings of development. We have no longer room, however, to enlarge upon thefe, or any other confiderations; and fhall conclude with one general remark.

Peace is in itfelf fo great a good, and war fo great an evil, that whenever we are not able to foresee exactly all the confequences of either, we may fafely prefume, that all that are unknown of the one will be good, and all that are unknown of the other will be evil. In most human affairs, however, the confequences which are not forefeen are more important than those that can be predicted. Hiftory and experience illustrate this fufficiently as to the prefent parallel, and how that the most fuccefsful war is ufually productive of lofs and disaster, even to the victorious party, while peace fcarcely ever fails to supply a thoufand advantages that had not been calculated upon, and to repair, with incredible celerity, the wounds which hoftility had inflicted. Among the chief bleffings of peace, we think, is its tendency to generate a fpirit of peace; a fpirit which cannot be generated, we believe, in any other way, and which, in an advanced state of fociety, and after a long experience of the miferies of contention, may perhaps prolong into habitual amity those hoftile truces and breathing-times to which nations have lately limited their intervals of war.

Without indulging in fuch anticipations, however, we may be permitted to fay, that Europe now ftands in need of refreshment and repofe; that the experiment of war has been carried quite far enough to fhow that its further profecution would be ruinous; and that with regard to this country in particular, whofe only remaining object of war must be fecurity, that object will be rendered. infinitely more attainable by a peace, even of temporary endurance, than by an obftinate perfeverance in meafures of hoftility. We exprefs thefe opinions with the lefs hefitation, becaufe it rather appears that they concur with thofe which our enemy has formed on the fubject. If peace were to do fo much good to him, and fuch injury to us, as is alleged by the advocates for war, it is fingular that he should have appeared fo much more reluctant than any adminiftration of ours has yet been to enter into

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