folly may swell to the pitch which her emissaries and her dupes have in view. Men of weak understandings and warm tempers may be heated and blinded by arguments plausibly urged, and the person who is now the ostensible head of the prevailing party may either suffer the moderation of his temper to be overborne by the violence of his associates, or consent to espouse their passions. We are filled with dismay at this prospect, because we are firmly of opinion that any close connexion with France will seal the ruin of the United States. We know certainly and circumstantially that this country has a mortal and indefatigable foe in Bonaparte, and that our destruction is already systematically planned and industriously prosecuted. We know also the character of this foe, and that his resources of artifice are not less abundant and destructive than his instruments of coercion. We will not hesitate to pronounce that our fate is indivisibly united with that of England,-and if she falls or should be provoked to consign us over to the irresistible force, or to the still more "hostile amity" of France, we may bid adieu not only to the blessings of freedom but to the common comforts of existence. In the gradation of servitude we shall be the least favoured class, and may expect to be oppressed and bruised to the utmost limits of human endurance. It is irksome to utter these verba malé ominata— these ill omened presages; and it may not be unattended with danger. But there is no consideration of false delicacy or of peril which should deter an honest politician, either at this moment, or in any similar conjuncture when the best interests of the country are at stake, from proclaiming the truth and showing the whole compass of the evil. It is therefore, that we now propose to submit to our readers an examination of the late letter to general Armstrong; together with some observations on questions in which we hold the safety of this country to be vitally concerned. We shall commence by a review of the deportment of France towards the United States anterior to that date, in order that we may be better enabled to seize the spirit and to fathom the motives of the new decree. To ascertain the previous state of the mind of a party on a particular subject is to advance very far in the discovery of the true character and object of his declarations and proceedings at any time on the same subject, provided no adequate cause have existed in the interval to produce a revolution in his opinion or feelings. If our country has been for the last three years habitually insulted, menaced and abused by the French government, and is now, without any conciliatory submissions on our part, suddenly applauded and caressed-common prudence suggests that we should construe this unaccountable change as a new form of hostility until we have the most convincing proof to the contrary. Sudden, unsolicited overtures of friendship from a power which for a series of years has practised against you every form of wanton and opprobrious enmity, should, so far from being greedily accepted, operate to keep you at a more cautious and jealous distance, and to fortify you in your distrust of his intentions. Since the commencement of her revolution, France may be said to have existed by rapine and injustice, and by the very condition of her existence to have been at war with all mankind. The present government partakes in the nature of the revolutionary usurpations, and is essentially hostile to the whole human race. It can only continue to flourish while it continues to devote the finest countries on earth to ravage and to desolation: while it proscribes all the moral virtues and all the charities of the heart:-while it pursues at home, under the guise of legal justice and upon the plea of state necessity, a system of administration the most shamelessly immoral and the most cruelly oppressive, with which it has ever pleased the Almighty Providence to scourge any people. Blood and plunder constitute the nourishment of this rapacious and homicide despotism. Both from necessity and appetite, it must be constantly engaged in odious usurpations, and in acts of the most atrocious violence. There is something as stupendous in its profligacy as in its power. To gratify the ambition and the cupidity of the ruler of France, the whole habitable globe must be ransacked and enslaved. In order that mankind may be habituated to one scheme of polity alone, and that the spirit of liberty may be utterly quenched, every free government must be extirpated. All the state-papers and the public acts of France which have any relation to foreign countries, correspond to the spirit and the views with which we represent her to be animated. In pretensions as well as in fact she transgresses all bounds of moderation and of equality. Her public documents of every description insult and degrade all independent governments. They uniformly challenge obedience from the rest of the world, and arrogate a supremacy of power and of dignity.* They assert, without qualification or Among the most ignominious badges, as well as the most inextricable fetters, of the servitude to which the tributary powers of the North of Europe are subjected, is the compulsory establishment of the new French reserve, the grossest falsehoods, and when they do not menace or calumniate, they either wound by sarcasms or,—as in the case of the paper which we shall analyze,-indulge in professions of goodwill, the hypocrisy of which is not less vile, than the intention is malignant. In the person of every foreign minister at Paris, let his private character be what it may, the majesty of an independent government is habitually insulted and degraded. At this court of" upstart pride and plebeian, insolence" he receives no attentions or courtesies but in the shape of alms, and must learn to submit throughout all the forms of diplomatic intercourse, to a tone of haughty superiority and to an air of overweening arrogance. Neither in Rome during her most intoxicating successes,-nor at the levee of the barbarian Attila,— nor under the dominion of the still more savage directory of France, did foreign ambassadors ever appear more like "plenipotentiaries of impotence," or undergo more humiliating indignities than at the imperial audience of the Tuileries. The impetuous sallies of passion,-the ferocious menaces,and the petulant reproaches to which they are alternately exposed, are not more incompatible with the temperate and natural majesty which belongs to regular and civilized monarchies, than utterly irreconcilable to the dignity and to the independence of the governments whose representatives are thus brutally assailed. There is not one of the diplomatic corps to whose unfortunate lot it has fallen to solicit the restoration of property violently ravished from his countrymen, who has not daily experienced the most mortifying neglect or the most insulting repulses. Scarcely one dares expostulate on the violation of private rights-which are, however, public wrongs in almost all instances. This system of degradation is now invested with the authority of prescription, and is submitted to universally as to an established order of things;—as to a body of peculiar customs;-just in the manner that we view the tribute paid to Algiers; or that the ambassadors of Europe consent to prostrate themselves at jurisprudence in their dominions. An elaborate work has recently been、 published in Paris, the purpose of which is to refute the objections which had been occasionally made, and which might arise, against the admission of the Napoleon code into the tribunals of Germany. This code has been already made the municipal law of Westphalia and will soon become that of Sweden and Denmark, and perhaps of the whole continent of Europe. It is an instrument of dominion scarcely less powerful than the sword. We shall soon be able to apply to France what Claudian said of Rome, Armorum legumque parens, qui fundit in omnes the footstool of an oriental monarch; or that the Dutch, in the prosecution of their trade with Japan, were said to trample on the cross. Before we commence the particular discussion of Bonaparte's deportment towards us, we will make, with regard to his government, another general observation-which was originally applied by Mr. Burke to the revolutionary banditti, and which is equally just in the present case. It is this;that no arrangement can now be made with France in the pacific spirit of the conventions of former times. There are no elements of good-faith remaining in her cabinet:-there are no ties of interest,-according to her system, which can prompt or bind her to a durable pacification. She has no common modes of action or habits of policy,-no conformities or sympathies, with the rest of mankind. Her plan of universal conquest insulates her, and makes all compacts or treaties which she may form, either weapons of annoyance, or a preparation for more destructive hostility. The passions,-the habits, the necessities of her rulers confine them to one invariable system of war on the human race. If we were to form a solemn treaty or to arm in cooperation, with them, what is it that would serve as our guarantee? Surely not any resemblances, or sympathies, or feelings of attachment between the individuals of the two nations? Surely no mutual dread or respect between the two governments? Surely no sentiments of charity or gratitude on the part of France in favour of a weak but devoted ally? There is no man in his senses who can rely upon any of these considerations for the national safety. Since then there are "no obligations written in the heart,' no principles of fear,-which could restrain France hereafter from violating her engagements with the United States, we must depend upon her sense of interest alone, the sole spring, as it is sometimes contended, of the actions of all governments. But who is it that will affirm that six months or a year hence France will deem it her interest to be at peace with the United States? Are we quite certain that her government, notwithstanding its present declarations, does not mean to wage a systematic war on commerce in every quarter of the globe? Is it probable that Bonaparte will consider it as his. interest to foster the political institutions of the United States? Or rather does not every argument which analogy or facts can furnish lead to an opposite conclusion? There are we think the most irresistible proofs to be deduced from both, which show that it never will fall within "the views of his policy," to promote the trade, to increase the power, or even to tolerate the constitution of this country. If we were to admit that it would remain the obvious interest of France to cultivate and preserve our friendship, there are circumstances in the relative position of the two nations, which would render the continuance of a good understanding between us at all times extremely doubtful." We trust too "much," says Mr. Burke, " to the interests of men as guar"antees of their engagements. The interests frequently tear "to pieces the engagements, and the passions trample upon "both." The passions of the French government are dominion,-hostile intrigue,-military glory,-contempt of trade and traders,-hatred to whatever is English;-and these passions will inevitably smother its true interests, " and trample upon" its most solemn engagements. It is universally admitted that our national dignity has been grossly outraged, and our rights repeatedly invaded by the government of France. The robberies and the insults to which we have been subjected during the last three years would seem quite sufficient to have exasperated, roused, and determined any highminded people. Until the promulgation of the late lullaby from our imperial lover, his proceedings had almost conquered that obstinacy of unbelief with regard to his real dispositions, and that code of absurd and pernicious opinions, by which the understandings of our majority were fettered, and of which the tendency is no less fatal than the foundation is weak. Even our administration,-as timorous as women in their relations with France, as froward as children towards Great Britain-were compelled to acknowledge the futility of their humble efforts to propitiate their rapacious ally, and announced to the public the possibility of some further intelligence from Paris still more distressing than the confiscation of all the American property within his grasp. They did not, it is true, disclose this ominous catastrophe in that strain of lofty indignation and of manly resentment which became the guides and guardians of a powerful and magnanimous nation,-but in puling regrets and piteous lamentations, which, however unsuitable to the dignity and obligations of their trust, were still calculated to startle the mere dupes of party, and to testify the hopelessness of our long and eager pursuit after the ruinous fraternity of French despotism. On reading the wailings of the National Intelligencer, we began to hope well for the good cause, and were even grateful to the French emperor for having, by his intemperate rapacity, forced upon all parties the conviction that his cannibal |