the popular mind with the defenders of cæsarism, and thus be opposed even by the sincere and earnest friends of rational liberty. We warn our brethren of this danger, and we earnestly entreat them not to let our words pass unheeded. Many things indicate to us that the emperor of the French is losing, rather than gaining popularity. He was thought to have come out of the eastern war with a manifest advantage over England, and as the arbiter of Europe. But however much British interests may have been disregarded by the peace of Paris, it is clear that the English government has since contrived to recover the ground it had lost, and to make its policy for the East triumph over that of France. In diplomacy, Lord Palmerston has carried it over the emperor. He has defeated the French in regard to a canal across the Isthmus of Suez, gained a footing in the Persian Gulf, defeated the Russian policy in the Persian court, induced Napoleon to aid his views of conquest in China, and obtained a grant from the porte of a railroad along the valley of the Euphrates, with the guaranty from the Turkish government of a minimum of six per cent, while the emperor of the French has to content himself with the present of St. Anne's church at Jerusalem. This in this age of materialism will not render the emperor popular with the active spirits of his empire. English supremacy seemed never so near being permanently established as at this moment. The interests of France seem to us to have been more compromised by the developments of the English policy in the East during the last year than those of England were by the peace. Lord Palmerston seems likely, so far as regards France, to prove in effect a second Chatham. Let this defeat of French interests be exploited as it will be by French republicans, and the effect upon the imperial régime will prove all but fatal. Let not our Catholic friends repose in too much security. The throne on which they lean may fail them, and the only way in our judgment to sustain it, and ward off the revolution, is to anticipate it, and develop the imperial constitution into a liberal government, satisfactory to the friends of rational and well-ordered liberty.

BRITISH PREPONDERANCE.

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for October, 1857.]

THE succession of events is so rapid, and the changes in the aspect of things are so frequent, that a review published only once in three months cannot keep pace with them. When our July Review went to press, Lord Palmerston appeared everywhere in the ascendant, and France everywhere as overreached and compelled to second the policy of Great Britain, British preponderance everywhere established, and not likely soon to be disturbed. But hardly were our speculations on the subject published before news from British India rendered our speculations, for the moment at least, doubtful, if not false."

An English periodical has pleasantly remarked of us, that our strongest passion after love for our religion is hatred of England. But this proves that even English periodicals are not infallible. We do not hate England, indeed hatred is not with us a very strong passion, and we are not aware of hating any nation or any individual. We like England as the land of our ancestors. We like the English people, and perhaps have more points of sympathy with them than with any other European people. But both as a Catholic and as a patriot, we do dislike English preponderance, and we would rather, for the best interests of mankind, see any other European nation supreme than Great Britain. This is because we are, rightly or wrongly, opposed, heart and soul, to the British industrial and mercantile system. We have been opposed to that system ever since we had a thought on the subject, and our opposition becomes stronger and more intense in proportion as we see more of its workings, especially in our own country. Wherever the influence of Great Britain is felt, the virtue and simplicity, the peace and happiness of the people depart, and a fierce, bitter, all-absorbing struggle for the goods of this world alone ensues. English influence has ruined Portugal, has prostrated Spain, embroiled Sardinia, demoralized, to a fearful extent, the greater part of Italy, and weakened France. It corrupts morals, weakens the hold of religion on the heart, and diffuses a degrading heathenism. Her literature, her

philosophy, her religion, as well as her industry and commerce, tend to materialize the nations, and to produce the conviction that man lives for this world alone. She is of the earth earthy, and the grand apostle of carnal Judaism. We cannot, then, but dread her preponderance, and though we may admire her intense energy, we cannot but deplore its direction.

We regretted that the opposition to the British system had, in the late eastern war, no better representative than Russia, but we believed that the interests of religion and humanity required the defeat of what we regarded then and regard now as an unprincipled combination against her. We regretted the Anglo-French alliance, and in the war we own we wished the defeat of the allies, not because we had any hostile feeling to France, but because we believed their success would tend to confirm British supremacy, which in our view is worse for the world than would be that of Russia, as bad as that no doubt would be. We believed that Great Britain was the enemy from whom France had the most to dread, and that Russia or Austria was the ally the emperor should have courted. The true interest of France is to labor to isolate Great Britain from the continent, above all to prevent her from finding, as in times past, an ally in Austria and central Europe. France now, no doubt, has a good understanding with Russia, which we are glad to see, but it has been purchased at the expense of an equally good understanding between those old allies, Austria and England. What is desirable is that France and Russia should so accommodate their respective interests to the legitimate interests of Austria as to detach her from her English alliance, and enable her to act in harmony with them; for we regard English policy as alike hostile to every continental state.

England depends for her rank as a first-class power on her Indian empire, threatened by the Transcaucasian expansion of Russia and the African expansion of France. Her policy is, very properly, to guard against these two expansions; Russia dominant in the Turkish and Persian courts, and France dominant in Egypt and Syria, with a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez, the Indian empire is not worth a life's purchase and British preponderance has ceased to exist. Finding the new emperor of the French ready to engage in a war to consolidate his throne and to force his recognition as legitimate sovereign of France by the mon

archs of Europe, England enlisted him in a war against Russia, hoping through his aid to cripple the power of Russia, and check her further advance towards India, nothing doubting that she would be able to keep him faithful to her policy, through her hold on the revolutionists, and her power, if he became restive, to stir up a formidable redrepublican movement against him. The war was declared, and grew to more gigantic dimensions than were counted on; Russia proved a more formidable enemy than had been anticipated, and though in fair fight, man to man, the allies beat the Russians, they were able to do it only at a terrible loss to themselves. The emperor of the French having gained his objects in going into the war, and having secured the point of honor in the fall of southern Sebastopol, succeeded in making peace, and in coming to a good understanding with Russia, before England had secured any of her own objects in the war. Russia had suffered, but she had neither been humbled nor effectually crippled, and as between France and England, the peace of Paris, March, 1856, was a French triumph. But the triumph was but for a moment. The settlement of the Danubian principalities was left to be effected by commissioners. France leaned to the Russian mode of settlement, which was opposed to the Austrian mode. This gave to England a chance to side with Austria, and in concert with her to check France and Russia at the court of Constantinople, and to reëstablish the preponderance of British diplomacy in the councils of the sublime porte. She used her preponderance to defeat the projected canalization of the Isthmus of Suez, and to obtain from the porte, with the guaranty of a six per cent minimum on the cost, the concession of a railway along the valley of the Euphrates from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, both measures directly in the teeth of the policy of France as well as of Russia. Her Indian government declared war against Persia, sent an army to invade the Persian dominions, and took possession of Bushire, on the gulf, which she yet holds, and will hold as long as she can. With the command of Aden, of the Persian Gulf, and through a friendly power of Herat, she seemed, when our last Review went to press, to have command of all the gates of India, and with a redrepublican revolution held in terrorem over the emperor of the French, and through a good understanding with Austria, the predominance at Constantinople, to have checkmated both France and Russia, while through the interests

of trade and the power of credit, she held the United States as her vassal. She seemed to have completely triumphed, and to hold the world at her feet.

But at this moment, when the only trouble she had on her hands was a trifling brush with four hundred millions of Chinese, in which she counted on the coöperation of France and the United States, the revolt in India came like a sudden clap of thunder to startle her from her dream of universal supremacy,-to threaten her with the loss of that very empire she had directed all her policy to defend, and to which she owed her rank as a first-class European power. It is impossible to judge, at this distance and with our imperfect information, of the magnitude or probable consequences of what is called the "Indian mutiny." Its first effect has been a partial relaxation of her Constantinopolitan policy, and the partial ascendency of French and Russian diplomacy over the English and Austrian, which will be a complete ascendency, if the troubles in India continue for any great length of time.

The British authority in India before the revolt, extended, directly or indirectly, over one hundred and fifty millions of souls. The British Indian army, of regular and irregular troops, distributed through the several presidencies and provinces, from the best information we can get, was not far from three hundred thousand, of which less than thirty thousand were Europeans. Of the native troops about onethird have mutinied, or been disbanded, and the greater part of the remainder, though reported loyal, we suppose cannot be relied on with entire confidence. The revolt, we take it, must be suppressed mainly by European troops. Of these, counting the forces intended to operate against China, but countermanded to India, about fifty thousand, all the available forces England has to spare, have been despatched, and may reach their destination in the early part of November. Our own impression is, that these, with the European troops already in India, will be sufficient to defeat the revolt wherever it makes a stand, but not to render the future possession of India secure and peaceful. We think that the Indian empire, though retained, will hereafter be a source of weakness rather than of strength to England, and that she will find it henceforth difficult to maintain that supremacy at which she has aimed. Obliged at the moment to abandon Austria, and no longer able to play off Russia against France or France against Russia, she will find her