PREFACE.

ALTHOUGH a short interval only has elapsed since the following performance was laid before the public, this period has been distinguished by a rapid succession of events of the highest political importance. These most memorable and most interesting events are, in truth, the natural and necessary consequences of the general and comprehensive plan of hostility, which the allied powers have so wisely and so steadily pursued. The practicability of this general system of cordial and unanimous co-operation was long denied: corruption, jealousy, imbecility, financial derangement, national supineness, in short every element of disunion existed, it was believed, in such force, as to render a zealous combination of the continental powers against France almost equally hopeless and visionary. The eventful history of the campaign, since the rupture of the armistice, furnishes a perfect refutation of this error.

The spirit of the times, and the new and characteristic features of the war, were too much overlooked by those

who entertained these desponding views. They considered the war with reference only to the governments of the respective nations engaged in hostilities: and making no allowance for the animating incitements of patriotism, regarded the conflicting armies merely as the military instruments by which these governments opposed each other's designs. Their calculations were founded upon ordinary data, and they looked forward to ordinary results. The numbers, the discipline, the brilliant remains of the high military reputation of the French armies, were contrasted with the numerical strength, the efficiency, and the military character of those of the Allies; and the result of the computation was given in favor of the former. It was not perceived, or not remembered, that since the reverses experienced by the French arms in Russia, there was no longer a marked inferiority in the efficiency of the troops of the Allies; and that, in addition to the advantages of an expanding military reputation, they had also the inestimable benefit of an enthusiastic impulse communicated to their valor by sentiments of patriotic devotion, and feelings of abhorrence for foreign oppression. It was not perceived, too, that an inversion in the order of things had, to a certain extent, taken place among the continental states, and that the people, instead of acting in blind subservience to the public authorities, began to exercise a beneficial reaction, by which a larger portion of energy was commu nicated to both, and by which the interests of both were more effectually secured. The impulse I allude to, was free from all wild revolutionary enthusiasm. Governed by a rational sense of the blessings of national independence, but excited to a lofty pitch of generous ardor by the remembrance of past oppressions, and by the apprehension of similar evils, this impulse successfully guided towards their legitimate end the military and political energies of the

Allies. In short, the true and genuine cause of the decline of French power, and of the advancement of the ascendancy of the Allies, is to be discovered in the liberal measure of national and patriotic spirit, by which the voluntary exertions of the people, the decisions of their respective rulers, and the efforts of the champions of independence in the field, have been animated and directed.

This great and important change has too little engaged the attention of a very numerous, perhaps the most numerous, class of speculative political reasoners. They forget that even oppression has its limits. It did not occur to them that though ignorance and slavery may subsist together, abject bondage and diffused intelligence form too discordant an alliance to remain long in a state of union. To impose the galling chains of universal subjection upon enlightened Europe, was an enterprize which folly and madness alone could suggest. The scheme could only succeed under every possible modification of well-organized tyranny, while it extended to a certain point; beyond these limits the machinery becomes too complex: the engine no longer works with effect, but becomes gradually clogged, until the main and original spring, which should give life and vigor to the whole, is first impeded, and subsequently arrested in its action. Against the resources and efforts of ordinary governments, the military energies of a state, so naturally, artificially, and extraordinarily powerful as France, might prevail even to an alarming extent; but when a course of successful tyranny is felt to be universally subversive of all human happiness, the spirit of resistance is awakened; the nation and the government have no longer a distinct and separate interest; the ordinances of the latter are anticipated by the voluntary oblations of the former, and from their united skill and labor, the pillar

of state is erected upon foundations that may safely resist the most impetuous assaults.

Such, then, has been the erroneous scheme of universal conquest which France has vainly attempted to pursue. While acted upon to such an extent only as to provoke and contend against the ordinary forces, at the disposal of most of the continental states, she was, from the superior military organization of her armies, from the martial genius of her troops, from the more splendid rewards she conferred on military merit, and from many other obvious causes, to a certain degree successful. But, from the moment the necessity of resistance was nationally felt-from the moment war was conducted by her enemies upon principles of national hostility-from the moment the interests and efforts of the government and of the people were identified against her-from that moment her career of conquest was checked. Against the armies of a sovereign prince, France might contend with many chances of success ;against the national resistance of an energetic and powerful state she must inevitably fail.

It is stated in the following little work, that, in order to prosecute hostilities with success, the principle of the war should be so far simplified, as to embrace all the distinct interests of the several belligerents in one grand comprehensive scheme, which, in realizing the legitimate end for which the patriotic armies of the Allies had taken the field, should, at the same time, effectually accomplish as parts of the same whole, the different objects for which each state felt itself compelled to engage in hostilities. Upon this very principle the Allies have acted. The minor being involved in the greater interest, a multiplicity of causes of mutual distraction and division have been kept entirely out of view, and removed to such a distance, that the sphere

of their influence could not extend to the main point, to which all the efforts of the Allies were directed. What have been the beneficial consequences of this enlarged, sound, and truly politic plan of hostility? These: the different objects for which each state felt itself compelled to engage in hostilities, have been effectually accomplished as parts of the same whole; and, if wisdom continue to guide the future efforts of the Allies, they will also, with unerring certainty, effectually provide for the undisturbed enjoyment of their future independence.

When is Russia likely to be again invaded? Within the annals of the Buonapartian dynasty? No! The menace that, if Russia would not yield to the dictation of France, she might perhaps be taught a lesson of submission by the destruction of a second capital, is now to be remembered and mentioned only to cover with shame the insolent, vaunting, vain-glorious, enemy, from whom it proceeded: an enemy baffled, defeated, driven, and chased, from one extremity of Europe to the other, by a foe whom he presumed to despise-by a foe to whom he has since been compelled to yield-and to whom he may yet be constrained to crouch for mercy.

Prussia has recovered her regal patrimony. Magnanimous as the Russian Emperor has been, he has still scope left for the exercise, towards this unhappy monarch, of imperial generosity. The acquisitions on the side of Prussia obtained at the peace of Tilsit, should be restored; the value of the cession would be a hundred fold repaid by the political advantages that would arise from founding an alliance between Russia and Prussia upon the basis of liberality and justice, and by the lustre such a sacrifice, or rather such a restoration, would shed on the elevated character of the monarch, capable of exercising such disinter ested virtue. It would augment the indirect ascendancy