continental warfare is carried on, the more able is the conqueror to carry it on every new conquest that he makes furnishes him with the means of making more, and secures to him what he has already gained by striking at the heart of power, by disarming resistance, and by very liberally rewarding the expence and trouble of keeping itWhereas the advantages that are gained at sea are, like that element itself, infinitely treacherous and uncertain. We may take their ships; but this will not hinder them from building others. We cannot build forts or erect passes on the seas, or dig them into trenches to keep out the enemy. We cannot enter their country and cut down their forests; we cannot enter their ports and destroy their magazines ;— all their means and sources of power remain untouched. We cannot prevent their exertions, though we may constantly render them abortive. Thus, while at an enormous expence we maintain our actual superiority, we make no advances to our object-which is security; but are rather further from it. If we ever make peace, which I suppose will happen sooner or later, we shall find that we have not in any one respect lessened the means or palsied the energies of our rivals; and while we remain at war we are teaching them two very dangerous things, resolution and skill. I conceive no power can be long superior to the attacks of another, unless where it has the means of crushing its resistance in embryo. Naval dominion is in this respect what a government would be that should give to insurgents a free communication with each other, full liberty of forming plans and of organizing themselves into regular bodies of troops, and the privilege of never being attacked till they themselves gave the signal for the onset. Military conquests are therefore in their nature to a certain degree secure; because in maintaining them we have to contend with those whom we have bound hand and foot, from whom we have taken all effectual power of resistance; while in maintaining our naval superiority, we strengthen our adversary by struggling with him, since he has the full use of every limb and muscle, has every inducement as well as opportunity to exert himself to the utmost, and is in no danger of receiving any material hurt; at least this must be the consequence where our natural strength and advantages are at all equal. I know nothing but some such reasoning as this on the inefficiency of naval advantages, as a means of reducing the enemy to terms of submission, that could form the least excuse for the late ministers in their desperate attempt to turn the course of the war from a channel in which it was sure to be successful, into one in which it was sure to be disastrous; to throw the game knowingly and wilfully into the enemy's hands, and ruin us in our allies. They seemed to anticipate with fatal apprehension the most splendid success

that ever adorned the annals of the British navy, and to be determined by an inverted ambition to match it with a pattern, in their own style, of equal horror, discomfiture, and dismay. They seemed to conspire maliciously with fortune, in depriving Englishmen of the pure, unalloyed triumph of that day. For the present, the errors of the cabinet have entirely defeated whatever advantages we might have derived from our naval success; and the effect of our mistaken policy has been, that while we remain undisputed masters of the seas, and are grasping at the commerce of the world, we see the ports of Europe about to be shut against us. War on the continent is therefore hopeless; war at sea useless, or worse than useless: for methinks there is neither policy nor wisdom nor humanity in resolving to set no limits to your hostility but with your existence,' when you have to contend with a great and formidable foe; when you only know that he is safe from your attacks; when you can only distress him, when you gain no advantage yourself in the mean time, and cannot possibly gain any that can be put in competition with such an alternative; when we consider that such a resolution (however heroically it may be formed) cannot be always persisted in (for the desire of peace is natural, and war revolting to the human mind); that the longer it is adhered to, the more mischievous it will become, and the more dangerous in its consequences afterwards, and will render the diminution of that maritime preponderance, which we have held with such a convulsive grasp, more and more an object both of policy and revenge to other powers.

I have promised to say something of the justice of the war in its principle, not as a war of defence but as a war of interference; though I think the less is said on this subject the better; it can only open ⚫ another Iliad of woes." It must lead to a train of recollections that can be of no use to us at present; or revive sentiments and a spirit that should be recalled only (if it were possible) to be disclaimed. The less we retain of a spirit of offence, and the sooner we forget ourselves in the character of aggressors, in however just a cause, the better shall we be qualified for our present posture of defence: for there is no ground of resistance so sure as a determined belief, for the time at least, that all aggression must be wrong. I am far from thinking that the arbitrary conduct of a government, even where it does not affect ourselves, is not a just ground of war, or that the conduct of the French government was not marked by a spirit of violent and unjust ambition. Of course if that spirit can be resisted with effect, there is no injustice, and there is a great deal of policy in doing it. But before we can plead generous indignation and an uncontrolable love of justice in excuse for our rashness and impru

dence, it must be clear that pride, revenge, and the lust of dominion have had no share in producing this ardent concern for the rights and liberties of mankind. It is not the nature or justice of the occasion, but the use intended to be made of it; the principles and views on which we act, and the character of those with whom we are associated in a common cause, that gives us a right to arrogate to ourselves the title of assertors of the liberties of mankind. If, however, our motives are not such as to be above all suspicion, it is not enough that we are able to hide them from ourselves, unless we can at the same time impose upon those who have not the same interest in being deceived by the thin disguise that covers them. Instead then of enquiring into the abstract justice of the war (a sort of enquiry now very nearly exploded, and which would be of little use in guiding our practical conclusions), let us examine in what manner our remonstrances would be likely to be received by the government to whom they were addressed, and how far the common feelings of humanity would compel them to bow their crested pride' at the feet of their accusers. Would they forget then that the undue and dangerous influence in the affairs of Europe, which was so loudly complained of, had been the consequence of the combined efforts of all Europe to accomplish their destruction, and was so far from being the cause of the hostility of other states, that it was their only security against. it? That their unjust and tyrannical encroachments on the independence of the neighbouring states had been made in defending their own independence from the aggressions of which they were made the instruments? They would say, that to think of restoring the independence of those countries would be putting into the hands of a mortal enemy, whom you have just disarmed, the weapons with which he may most surely effect your destruction; that whatever advantages they had gained had been bought with their blood, shed for their country; that if there had been any instance of unjust aggression, or inordinate ambition, it might at least be accounted for from that natural jealousy of others, and that fierce impatience of control, that must become habitual to those who had had every kind of difficulty to encounter, and who had triumphed over all opposition. The gigantic strength and towering greatness of France had arisen from her convulsive struggles for existence, and in the cause of that liberty which was denied her. They, who had insulted her weakness and blasted her hopes, had no right to complain of her strength or her despair. Those who had not been able to make their country free and happy, would be instigated by a just revenge to make her great and formidable to her enemies. They might say, 'You left us no choice between the highest point of glory, and the most abject

submission; we must either be conquerors or slaves. If you gained an advantage, you pursued it; if you were defeated, you returned to the charge; neither success nor misfortune inclined you to listen to terms of accommodation: we saw that we could never hope for peace, but either by giving to France such an ascendancy as would overawe the rest of Europe, or by throwing ourselves at last on the mercy of our unrelenting foe. We had not forgotten the partition of Poland, the massacres of Ismael and Warsaw; and we could not satisfy ourselves but that those who had had the chief concern in these events, or had witnessed them without dismay, might have other objects in view in entering France, besides the tranquillity of the people, the restoration of order, or a disinterested regard for the safety of thrones, and the independence of Europe. We could not conceive that an implacable enmity to France was a full atonement for all other crimes, or a security for every virtue. Pursued, hunted down, driven to madness, we turned upon our pursuers, and trampled them under our feet; and in the career of our fury, and the plenitude of our triumph, you charge us with excesses, from which we ourselves were the greatest sufferers; and with not having observed those rules of justice and moderation, which reason required of us. We were to have no indemnity, no security: we were to give back every conquest, as soon as made; to fight every battle over again; to rely solely on the faith or generosity of our adversaries, as a pledge that no advantage would be taken of our confidence; or, if it were ten times betrayed, we were not to complain, as we had no right to advantages obtained by unjust violence, in a cause that exposed us to the enmity and detestation of the human race: we were to plead guilty to our own condemnation; to set the seal on our own infamy, and to receive as a mark of favour and lenity, whatever implied our admission into the common rank and privileges of mankind; and, after endless sacrifices and exertions, we were only to prepare for new struggles and insults, without ever hoping to end them. But from whom were we to learn this extreme moderation, or that respect for the rights of justice or the ties of humanity, which could be no defence to us? Why were we not to pursue the objects of our ambition, with the same obstinacy as those with whom we had to contend pursued the objects of their revenge? It could hardly be expected that all the concessions were to be made by those who were intoxicated with the pride of victory, in favour of those who had reaped nothing but disappointment, and who were only urged on by a sullen despair. In this manner was the war protracted, year after year, by open hostility, by civil dissentions, and pretended treaties; lingered out under various pretexts, which

were artfully substituted for each other as occasion required, so as to make it impossible ever to arrive at any decisive issue to the contest. When defeated, the continuance of the war was necessary to their own defence and safety; when flushed with victory for a time, then nothing less than full indemnity for the past, as well as security for the future would satisfy them; and then their favourite object, the subjugation of France, and destruction of the republic, was resumed with fresh ardour, and tempted them on till their hopes again ended in defeat and ruin: thus adapting every aspect of affairs to their own purposes, they constantly returned in the same circle to the point from which they set out, and war was always necessary, peace always unattainable. Or if at any time the fainting resolution and exhausted strength of our adversaries seemed to promise us that repose which was so necessary to us, we saw the dying embers of war again eagerly rekindled by a country that, standing aloof from the contagion, shouted from her rocky shores to see the flames that consumed the vitals of Europe. The bitterest enmity that our early struggles in the cause of liberty had drawn down upon us was to be shewn by a people "that had long insulted the slavery of Europe, by the loudness of its boasts of freedom." English solicitation and English gold were always ready to defeat that object, which was to be the reward of so many triumphs, and of so many years of suffering, of havoc, uncertainty, and dismay. A reluctant peace was at length extorted from her but her jealousy, avarice, and pride made her choose to risk every thing rather than remain in a state so unnatural to her. Delicate in her moral sentiments, disinterested in all her proceedings, she was shocked at some violences of ours, which permitted her no longer to remain an indifferent spectator of the calamities of other nations, and she sought the first opportunity of evading the treaty that had been concluded, by alarming the fears of her merchants for the safety of their Eastern possessions. She lost no time in rousing to her aid her former confederates in wrong. By her incantations, the hydra-headed monster, which we thought we had finally subdued, again feels new life and vigour restored to it, unites its severed folds, and with its triple crown moves onward to its prey, and France must submit or perish, that England may preserve her commerce.' In some such manner as this would a Frenchman repel the charges brought against his countrymen; and, if we allow for the strength of national prejudices, there appears to be some appearance of reason in what he says. If the present quarrel had been so managed as to

1 As to the real grounds and views on which the former coalitions were begun and carried on, see Burke's Regicide Peace, Second Part.