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what any former events in history had done, the inability of any coalitions, how formidable soever in extent of territory or military resources, to subdue the enthusiastic valour which springs from the spirit of a free people exerting themselves in defence of their native land. The French people, indeed, during this period, were not free, and never under their former monarchs had they suffered so sanguinary a rule as during the first seven years which succeeded the Revolution. But still the spirit of liberty was gone abroad; and extinguished as it was by the despotism at Paris, it lived in the armies on the frontiers, and breathed in the multitudes who hastened to fill their ranks.

But the contest soon changed its character. That military spirit which the imprudent aggression of the European powers had produced, and which had healed the dissensions and called forth the energies of Revolutionary France, became, in the act of success ful defence, itself the most formidable enemy to the liberty which had given it birth. The French government had tasted the sweets of foreign conquest, and the French armies had revelled in the spoil of foreign states. Ambition became the ruling principle in all ranks; and the whole rising population of the country looked to the profession of arms, as the theatre of individual, as well as national aggrandisement. The opening of this vast career to talent of every description, both augmented, to an unparalleled degree, the ability which was brought to the service of the state, and increased, in a manner unknown in modern times, the ardour for military distinction among all classes of the people. The government yielded a willing obedience to the universal propensity, and sought in foreign war both the means of employing the armies, which otherwise might have been formidable to itself, and of gratifying the military ambition of its chief.

Thenceforward the wars which occurred, though, in appearance, wars of aggression on the part of the Allies, were, in reality, produced by the insatiable ambition of France, since it is always in the power of the stronger power to constrain the weaker to commit the first acts of positive hostility. But the Allies found, to their cost, that the demon which they, and no,

thing but they could have, produced, it was now beyond their power to subdue. The coalitions which were successively formed were destroyed with a rapidity as unexampled as it was alarming; and, in the calamitous events which occurred in 1805, 1806, and 1807, Europe had ample cause to lament both the impolicy of those earlier attacks, which had roused the dreadful power with which they were now engaged, and the utter inade quacy of the system of coalitions to oppose in an effectual manner the energy which these attacks had produced. The effects which had been predicted in 1793, when the war commenced, now began to develope themselves. The revolutionary armies, in place of being weakened and dissipat ed by the failure of the financial resources, and the entire destruction of the commerce of France, were filled, as had been foretold, by the multitudes whom it had deprived of every other means of subsistence. The coalitions which had been formed, in place of subduing and tranquillizing that great country, as the advocates of the war had so fondly anticipated, were themselves overthrown in the contest, and from every successive victory the native military ardour of the French people, and the military skill of the French armies, was receiving new and portentous additions. On the part of the Allies, on the other hand, the radical weakness and jealousies of a coalition destroyed all the effects which their accumulated force might otherwise have produced.Prussia, in 1805, saw the power of Austria destroyed at Ulm and Austerlitz, without stirring in her defence, and Austria, in her turn, beheld with utter indifference the annihilation of the Prussian monarchy at Jena, when the presence of 30,000 of her troops could probably have turned the scale of that eventful day. What was still worse, by continuing her supplies to the French armies during the winter of 1807 she enabled them to recover the defeat of Eylaw, and to lay the strength of Russia prostrate on the field of Friedland.

Nor was it only by the jealousies which subsisted among them that the Allies contributed to the progress of the French armies. The radical evil of a coalition, viz. that each party trusted to its associate for the main

tenance of the common cause, and postponed the full exertion of its own resources, paralyzed all the efforts of their armies. Had either Austria, Russia, or Prussia, developed previous to the battles of Austerlitz, Jena, or Friedland, the resources which they have since displayed, with an inferior territory and a dispirited people, when compelled to rest on their single efforts for their defence, the result of these battles would probably have been just the reverse of what actually occurred. Herein, therefore, lay the extreme impolicy of endeavouring to coerce France by coalitions-not only that, from the jealousy that subsisted among the sovereigns who composed it, the common cause was unceasingly sacrificed, but because each power, trusting to the support of its neighbours, neglected the full exertion of its own powers, and thus, by enabling the enemy to triumph over their united forces, diminished to a most alarming degree the military spirit and ability of each to resist singly when it might be reduced to its own resources.

Equally obvious was it, from the event of these calamitous campaigns, that the effect so clearly predicted at the commencement of the war had taken place, and that, from contact with the French, the allied armies had caught some of the contagion of their principles. It had long been suspected that the surprising advantages gained by the French generals in 1796 and 1800 was owing as much to lukewarmness on the part of the Germans as energy on the side of their opponents; but the events of 1805 and 1806 placed the matter beyond a doubt. The surrender of 30,000 Austrians in the fortress of Ulm, without making any resistance,-the capitulation of the impregnable fortress of Magdeburg, with the flower of the Prussian army, before the parallel even of the besieging army was begun, and the rapid subjugation of all the fortresses through the Prussian territory, which immediately followed,left no room to doubt that the armies on whom the cause of Europe had been rested were corrupted, and that the attempt to crush the French revolution had led only to the universal dissemination of its poison.

Clearly, however, as all these distressing effects had followed from the

VOL. V.

impolitic course which was at first pursued in regard to the French revolution, it was not the time when the evil was created, and the enemy was at our gates, to relinquish the contest in which we had engaged. The power of France, now evidently superior to that of any other state in Europe, and clearly despotic in continental affairs, was directed with inveterate hostility against this country. Peace with such a power could obviously be nothing but an armed truce, and every thing was to be apprehended from any relaxation in the military spirit which the sense of its imminent danger had awakened among the free people of England.

And when was it that this mighty power, which had been born amidst the tumult and fury of a revolution, which had been strengthened by every attack that had been made against it, and had now risen triumphant over the greatest military coalitions that had ever existed? When was it that it met with its first overthrow? Was it from the first coalition on the plain of Fleuerus? Was it from the second coalition on the field of Hohenlinden? Was it from the third coalition on the field of Austerlitz? Was it from the fourth coalition amidst the snows of Friedland? It was from the tumultuary insurrection of SPAIN; from the efforts of a people struggling in their own defence; and trusting for the deliverance of their country, neither to the negociations of their sovereign, nor the assistance of their allies, but to the vigour of their own councils, and the valour of their own arms. That country had joined the confederacy in the commencement of the war. It had tried its fortune in the method which Mr Pitt prescribed for the subjugation of the revolution, and it had utterly failed in the attempt. In 1808, deprived of its sovereign by the treachery of Bonaparte; deserted by its nobles who were cringing to the usurper; bereft of its army which was stationed on the Baltic; bridled by its own fortresses which had been betrayed to the invader; ignorant of war in which, for above a century, it had been inexperienced, and overawed in every province by the armies of France, Spain seemed to be already subjugated by that ambitious power. But it was precisely because it had none of these things, that it rose victo

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rious upon its oppressor: it was from the utter absence of any of the resources on which the coalitions had rested, that the first dawn of hope upon the cause of Europe arose. It was because it had no foreign aid to look to, no allied armies to fight its battles, no standing army to supersede the exertion of the popular strength, no corrupt cabinet to betray the cause in which the people were engaged; that it first showed that the armies of France were capable of being destroyed; and that the troops who were covered with the laurels of Austerlitz and Jena might be constrained to yield to the "might that slumbers in a peasant's arin.' As if it had been intended to put beyond a doubt, by the events of the war, what was the method by which the tide of revolutionary conquest was to be restrained, and what were the causes to which its former disasters had been owing, the Spanish people, without allies, without subsidies, without a regular army, gained a greater triumph over the French arms than all the coalitions of kings, and all the military experience of their armies, and all the treasures of England, had been able to effect.

patriotic resistance was not lost-it opened the eyes of Europe to the means by which success was ultimately to be obtained, and showed, that, by trusting to the popular energy, and elevating the popular mind, even the dreadful military power which had subdued its armies might be over

come.

At length, in the madness of an insatiable ambition, Bonaparte's great attack on Russia was begun. In this attempt, the most gigantic, as well as the most wanton, which he had ever made, he did not depend solely on his own resources. France now led on the coalition. The whole military struggle of Prussia, Austria, Italy, and Poland, was blended with her veteran troops, and subjected to the rule of her experienced commanders. The greatest armament which the power of man had ever prepared against the liberties of mankind was led against one devoted country. Six hundred thousand men, headed by the greatest generals of the age, marshalled in the strictest military discipline, and stimulated by every object of military ambition, were poured into a single empire. All Europe trembled for the event; and the Government of this country, taught by the disasters of former times, earnestly dissuaded the Emperor of Russia from resisting, and, abandoning the system of coalitions, declared, through the voice of Mr Percival, that England washed its hands of the event, and that Russia alone was to be answerable for the consequences that might ensue.

Austria was the first power which followed the bright example, and resolved to adopt a different line of conduct in the attempt to regain her lost possessions. For the first time since the French Revolution, she put arms into the hands of the people; she called forth the Landwehr and the Landsturm, and excited the ancient loyalty of her Hungarian subjects, to whom Maria Theresa had owed the recovery of her throne. Without looking for foreign alliances, without asking for English subsidies, she trusted to her own people for the protection of the monarchy, and called upon their hereditary and tried patriotism to preserve it from impending destruction. Nor was it in vain that the appeal was made. For the first time since the commencement of the Revolution, the balance hung doubtful between Austria and France; and the devoted gallantry of her troops on the field of Aspern almost rescued Europe from the thraldom in which a hundred defeats had thrown her ;And, though the superior power and military resources of France in the end prevailed in that memorable con- Speech of Mr Percival in the House test, yet the glorious example of her of Commons, May 18, 1812.

During the progress of the war, therefore, the parties had insensibly changed sides. The system of coalition was begun on the part of the Allies; but it was ultimately adopted by the other side. At the commencement, France was struggling for its existence, and combined Europe was arrayed under the auspices of Mr Pitt to effect its partition. Now Russia was compelled to draw forth her forces to resist a far greater coalition, and maintain a contest with a more terrible antagonist.

But, while Europe beheld with anxious dread the magnitude of the preparations which France had made;

while she compared with a desponding eye the armies of Russia, with the stupendous armament which was brought against her; while she reflected, with regret, on the iron despotism which now drew forth the resources of the coalition, and gave it the unity of design which belongs to a single empire, she did not anticipate-she could not have conceived the astonishing energies which the CAUSE OF FREEDOM was capable of displaying. With a magnanimity be fitting of the great cause in which he was engaged; with a heroism worthy of the Alexander of the ancient world, the Emperor of Russia disdained all foreign assistance; and calling on his people to surround him, stood forth, in defence of his native land, trusting in God alone, and in the justice of his cause. The tide of invasion rolled on, and after many a well debated field, the Russian army was constrained to yield even the metropolis of the empire to the fury of the enemy. But, like the Athenians of old, they yielded only its ashes; and, by the greatest sacrifice which the world has ever seen, bore from the invaders all in their conquest that was worth preserving. Well and truly might the Russian patriots say with the English martyr: "We have this day lighted a flame, which, I trust in God, will never be extinguished."

Nor were the effects of this glorious example of patriotic devotion lost in the Russian empire. From the ashes of Moscow there burst forth a flame which never could be subdued. The peasantry everywhere flew to arms; the ranks were filled with ardent soldiers; the Cossacks even left their sequestered plains; and the victorious army found itself besieged amidst the ruins of the capital, where it had anticipated triumph and repose. Retreat, dreadful unlooked-for retreat, began the snows of winter desolated the country: and the greatest army which the world had ever seen, perished in the land which its ambition had violated.

But let it not be imagined that it was any accidental or fortuitous circumstance which produced these splendid victories: let us not take from the Russian army the wellearned fame which their matchless constancy has obtained: nor from the cause of liberty the most memorable

triumph which the annals of the world can exhibit. It is with deep regret that we have sometimes heard, even by the friends of civil liberty, the merit of the Russian army disparaged in that memorable campaign, and the destruction of the French army imputed rather to the inclemency of the elements, than the valour and military skill of their opponents. Admitting that the immediate cause of the destruction of the greater part of the French army was the intense cold experienced during the retreat, what was it that drove them into that retreat? What constrained them to leave the half of Moscow which had survived the conflagration, or the populous cites of Twer and Novogorod, containing ample cantonments for the whole army, at the very commencement of the cold season? What, but the superior power of the Russian army, and the increasing valour of the Russian people, which threatened to close them on every side, and starve them, like the army which Julian headed, in the very centre of their conquests? What prevented the French cavalry from foraging during the period they lay at Moscow, and confined the resources of the army to the ground which itself had covered? Nothing obviously but the entire destruction of that army which took place in the battle of Borodino. Was not the ultimate retreat of the French army a part of the plan of the Russian commanders, spoken to in all proclamations from the beginning of the war, and clearly anticipated in the simultaneous movements of Witginstein and Tchickagoff, which threatened, as soon as they reached Moscow, to cut off their retreat? And are not we, in these circumstances, to impute the destruction of the French army to the valour and conduct of the Russians, as much as we impute the victory of La Hogue to the English navy, although the greatest part of the French fleet was driven ashore and stranded by the tempests; or the victory of Belgrade to Prince Eugene, although the Turkish army was driven into the Danube, where they perished by the waters rather than the swords of the Austrians?

In this memorable campaign the most valuable commentary is to be found on the policy of the original at

tack on France, and on the efficacy of the system of coalition by which it was supported. Conscious of the inefficacy of the former system, England had earnestly advised Russia to avoid the war; and, aware of the paralyzing effect of a coalition, upon the developement of national strength, Russia had actually refused the proffered assistance of English subsidies. The very parties who, in the commencement of the war, were most forward in supporting the subsidizing and coalition system, now taught by sad experience, abandoned it. But while Russia abandoned it, France took it up. And what was the result? Precisely what the principles of those who, in 1793, opposed the invasion of France, would have led us to expect. All the military resources of the vast monarchies which Bonaparte led out to the attack, all the tried experience of the innumerable veterans who composed his army; all the warlike enthusiasm which a hundred victories had produced; all the renowned abilities of their leader; all the vigour and unity which his despotic power had infused into his army, could not obviate the latent weakness of a coalition, or subdue the stubborn spirit of national resistance. The first reverse of the French dissipated the vast coalition which their ambition had formed. The Austrians drew off in dubious silence; the Prussians openly deserted her colours. France now experienced the latent weakness of that system against which it had hitherto been her good fortune to contend. But in Russia the vigour of single defence was now for the first time experienced. The same power which had twice yielded to the arms of France, when, supported by the coalition of Austria and Prussia, now singly resist ed an army ten times more formidable than that before which their united struggle had formerly bowed. In the memorable victory which they gained, we perceive the strongest confirmation of the principles which were first stated against the commencement of the war, and in the triumph of the Russian armies at Krasnoi, alike as in the defeat of the allied armies at Fleurus, mark the vigour which the cause of national freedom gives to the arms by which it it is be maintained.

The subsequent splendid and triumphant progress of the Russian ar

my, indicates in a mapner not less unequivocal, the real origin of that terrific power which had arisen out of the horrors of the French Revolution. It was the energy developed by hostile aggression, which made Russia so great and powerful; it was this which carried her armies in an unceasing course of victory from the Niemen to the Rhine, which at last opened the gates of Paris to her arms, and enabled her to revenge the ashes of her own capital, by sparing the cities of her prostrate enemy. Without that aggression; without the unparalleled and glorious spirit which it awakened, her people would still have been slumbering in peaceful life, and her armies, whatever may have been the ambition of their sovereign, would have been obscure in the field of European glory, and formidable to none of the powers which now tremble at their approach. With this striking example before our eyes, can we doubt what was the cause which produced the extraordinary power of revolutionary France, or impute it to any other source but that popular energy which hostile aggression can alone produce; and which, when successfully excited, becomes the most formidable enemy to the power by which it was originally roused.

Nor is the ultimate success of the Grand Alliance less decisive in favour of the truth of these principles. Unlike all preceding coalitions, that was a combination of the people, to support which all now felt to be the people's cause. The Prussians left the French arms before their monarch ventured to declare in the cause of freedom; the Bavarians joined the cause of Germany in spite of the obstinate partiality of their sovereign; the Saxons wheeled in the day of battle, and turned their cannon against the enemy of mankind; even the sovereigns of Europe shared in the general enthusiasm, and, forgetting their former timidity, and the ill-grounded jealousy which they entertained of their subjects, put arms into the hands of the people, and taught by hard necessity, now resisted France by the same weapons with which she had formerly vanquished them. Everywhere the landwehr and the landsturm were called forth;-principles were acted upon and avowed by the sovereigns which no one could have ven

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