deavours to stifle them. The tem poral and spiritual power of the clergy have both received such a blow, that neither, in all likelihood, will ever recover its former import ance. The minds of a large proportion of the people are in fact so completely re volutionized, that although they may be necessitated, for their own safety, to submit for a while to the coercive law of the sword, they will en.brace every opportunity of shaking off the yoke of foreign rulers, and will reiterate those attempts so frequently, that it is probable they will succeed at last, especially if the French republic should remain unshaken: as in that case they will always depend on its intervention in their favour; they will, from that motive, be ready to act with the more spirit and energy against those whom they will hence forth consider much more as their ty ants than their sovereigns.

These appear to be the current ideas of the majority of politicians. In France, and in those countries that are not averse to the interests and principles of the republican party, no doubt is entertained that if it stands its ground, Italy will soon or late assume those forms of government which Buonaparte was so anxious to establish.

All these considerations operated strongly at the period of the ne gociations, to which the court of Vienna was compelled to accede. The Imperial ministry, discouraged by the repeated inefficacy of the extraordinary exertions that had been made to resist the victorious armies of France, yielded to necessity, and subscribed to the conditions dic tated by the conqueror, in hopes, however, that fortune might, at a more auspicious crisis, atone for the calamities now become unavoidable.

CHAP.'

T

HE armistice, granted by Buonaparte, left the Austrian ministers no longer time, than was absolutely necessary, to make a speedy option, whether to embrace his of fers, or to renew hostilities. He was so completely prepared for these, that a renewal of them was too much dreaded by the court of Vienna, to decline any longer, to accede to his proposals.

The preliminary articles of a peace, between France and Austria, were accordingly agreed to, and signed, by both parties, on the eighteenth of April. By these preliminaries the French remained sovereign possessors of the Austrian low countries, and the establishment of the republic of Lombardy was confirmed. These were the ostensible articles, but it was universally conjectured, that the court of Vienna would not so readily have assented to concessions so advantageons to France, and detrimental to itself, without previously obtaining the promise of some indemnifications.

During these transactions, on the borders of Austria, and while Buonaparte was preparing to march into that province, the French armies on the Rhine had been put into motion, and obtained some signal successes. The necessity of procuring a new army, to enable the archduke to oppose Buonaparte, had obliged the court of Vienna, to recall a large proportion of its forces from the defence of that river. Little less than thirty thousand of its best veterans being thus withdrawn, the French resolved to attempt a passage. On the nineteenth of April, general Moreau effected it, after an obstinate dis pute, and proceeded immediately to Kehl, of which he took posݏssion, notwithstanding the resolute defence of the Austrian troops that occupied this advantageous post. The loss, on both sides, was very great; five French generls were wounded, and numbers of their soldiers fel; but the slan and wounded among the Austrians were much more numerous. Between [D 3] three

three and four thousand were made prisorers, and all their camp equipage was taken, with the military chest, and more than twenty fieldpieces.

General Hoche, who commanded on the Lower Rhine, crossed that river on the eighteenth of April, at Neuwiad. General Kray, an officer of great reputation, was at the head of the Imperialists, and had made skilful dispositions to receive him. Conjecturing, however, that a suspension of arms either had, or would, shortly take place between the republic and the emperor, he proposed an armistice to the French general, but this was refused, unless such concessions were made as the Austrian general deemed unreasonable.! They both, in consequence, prepared for an engagement. It began by an impetuous attack from the French. who advanced, in great force, against the Imperialists: these, who were strongly entrenched, made a vigorous resistance, and destroyed numbers with their cannon: but, after a long and bloody conflict, the French, by dint of perseverance, seconded by a formidable artillery, succeeded in their attack, and the Austrians were thrown into disorder they rallied, however, and disputed their ground with much obstinacy; but, being charged by large bodies of cavalry, and having but few to oppose them, they, at length, gave way, leaving all their cannon, and most of their baggage, together with four thousand prisoners, besides the slain.

This action proved decisive. The Imperial army was pursued and dislodged from every post where it attempted to make a stand, and suffered extremely in the whole

course of its retreat. A French division crossed the Lahn, and pushed towards Francfort, and another followed the retiring enemy to the defiles of the Dilla, on their way to Watzlaer, killing and taking great numbers. A third division assailed their camp, near Mentz, and forced them to take shelter under its cannon. Nothing could withstand their impetuosity, and they were within a few hours march to Francfort, when intelligence arrived of the preliminaries of peace being signed. This, of course, stopped their progress, and put an end to all farther hostilities.

The opening of the campaign, upon the Rhine, in this brilliant. manner, on the part of France, was an additional motive for Austria to acquiesce, the more willingly, in the suspension of arms, that freed it from the apprehensions justly entertained from Buonaparte. The councils of Vienna were now taken up in the devising of means to render the issue of the negociations, for the definitive settlement of affairs, less hurtful to the interests of Austria than appearances seemed to threaten they must finally prove.

The French had now compassed that object, which they long had in view, to treat with Austria separately from England. Those who conducted the negociations, on the part of Austria, were conscious how solicitous they were to conclude a peace, without the accession of England to such a treaty. On this ground they well knew that France would relax in many points, in order to bring matters to a speedy decision, lest, by throwing some unseasonable difficulty in the way, the negocia tions might be retarded, and an opportunity

opportunity given to England, to interfere therein, as a party concerned. It was by observing this policy that France had broken the coalition, and induced its respective members to negociate apart. The fact was, that England, being the power at which its resentment was chiefly pointed, and of which it sought most eagerly the depression, it would readily concede much to those of whom it pincipally desired to dissolve the connection with England. Actuated by this motive, the French government, though determined to keep possession of Belgium, was far from averse to make an adequate compensation to Austria for the loss of so valueble a part of its dominions, provided the country, to be given as an indemnity, should not become the means of renewing this connection. The low countries, by their proximity to Great Britain, were a natural and powerful cause of an union of interests between that power and the house of Austria, through the commercial advantages, resulting from them to the former, and the facility with which the latter could derive the most essential assistance against France, from its most formidable rival The hope and prospect of terminating a connection, so dangerous to them, were now in the contemplation of the French. To secure so desirable an end was a point of too much consequence, to refase the grant of such conditions as might enable them, at once, to obtain it without further difficulty, or contest, and possibly as much to the satisfaction of those to whom they granted them as to their own, especially as the power they were now treating with was notoriously disposed to make any sacrifice that

might conduce to indemnify him for his losses, at whatsoever cost the indemnification was to be purchased, whether an enemy, or a friend.

It was on this disposition the French seemed to place their expectation of framing a treaty which would satisfy both parties: nor did they shew any backwardness to make the like sacrifices on their own part. The political structure of Europe was now founded on a system of compensations and equivalent reciprocities. Modern statesmen and politicians, have deviated from the principles of morality and religion, the solid and dignified basis on which the law of nations was originally founded, and introduced a superseding principle, called the law of political necessity, by which rapine is made to justify rapine, and a system of progressive injustice established, on a grand scale, among the rulers of nations. It is this that has divided Poland; this that threatens the division, not only of the Turkish empire, but of many Christian countries in Europe; and this, it may be added, that forms the best apology for all attempts to form popular governments.

The republic of Venice had long viewed with dissatisfaction the victorious progress of the French, in Italy. Like the other natives of that country, the Venetians harboured a dislike of the French. Difference of character and manners rendered these two nations remarkably averse to each other. But the political antipathy of the Venetians was still greater than their national dislike. The conquests of the French had rendered them the arbiters of the fate of all Italy. The former importance of the sove reignty and states of that country [D4]

had

had totally disappeared, and they alone gave the law. This was a situation peculiarly mortifying to a state that stood upon a footing of equality, at least, with any other in Italy; and of superiority to most. The house of Austria, though at all times formidable, had never been an object of much terror to Venice, not even when it united Spain and Germany in the same family interests, and was, at the same time, in possession of the major part of Italy. But the turbulent and restless disposition of the, French, and their propensity to introduce innovations every where, alarmed the senate of Venice to such a degree, that, knowing how much the form of their government was repugnant to the principles of the French, they doubted not the readiness of these to seize the first opportunity of overturning it. Full of this conviction, they waited with anxiety for a change of fortune in favour of the Austrians, whose neighbourhood they had long experienced to be much less dangerous than that of the French. In the mean time, they rendered many good offices to the former, and clearly manifested a partiality to them, which did not escape the notice of Buonaparte, who gave sufficient indications that he would remember it in due time. Hoping, however, that the extraordinary success, which had hitherto attended him, would not last, they still continued to befriend them, by every clandestine service in their power. The resentment of the French was at last kindled, and their seizure of Bergamo, in which province an insurrection, already broken out against the French, was the first signal of their intentions towards Venice. Its complaints of

their violation of its territory were answered with reproaches of the partial conduct of the Venetian senate towards the Imperialists. Every day produced fresh occasions of discontent on each side; and it was easy to foresee that their reciprocal enmity would finally terminate in acts of violence.

Thus matters stood when the fifth army of Austria was forced to leave the territories of Venice, and take refuge in the hereditary states. As soon as the French had penetrated into these, in pursuit of the Austrians, and were engaged in the defiles and difficuit passages in those mountainous countries, the Venetians began to look upon them as intangled in straits, from which they would not easily extricate themselves, and where, from their local advantages, the Imperialists would probably oppose them with success. The French were now at a considerable distance from Italy, and the small number of their troops remaining there, many of them, sick and wounded in hospitals, were incapable of resistance, and might with facility be overpowered. News, at the same time, had arrived of general Laudohn's progress in the Tyrol, which had been attended with some slight advantages over the French, and also of general Alvinzi's march into Italy, by Carniola, in the rear of Buonaparte's army. A report was universally circulated, that the French were on the point of laying down their arms, and that nothing was wanting, to render victory over them complete, but a general movement and co-operation on the part of the loyal subjects of the Venetian government. An opportunity now offered to intercept the communication between

Buu