or any other victory by which empires have been overthrown, was in this respect half so disastrous.

Where has since been found the proper reserve of regulars, or of citizens in arms to repair this misfortune? Like the masses of Bohemia and Hungary, after the defeats at Ulm and Austerlitz, such forces have not been ready to take the field in time, either to stem the tide of conquest, or make a new stand for their country? Prussia, like Austria, neglected, alas! to call forth the spirit, and prepare the defensive energies of the people till the important opportunity was lost.

If examples like these cannot open the eyes and excite the ap prehensions of England; if she can still repose on an army, hardly recruited so fast as it is exhausted by colonial service, and upon volunteers, which from existing defects in their constitution are de→ clining in numbers and discipline every hour, it must be from an infatuation against which it would be idle to reason.

But the truth is, that the national slumber proceeds less from a rash confidence, than from inattention to the terrible nature of the events with which we are visibly threatened.

There are objects of apprehension so dreadful in their general aspect, that we rarely give ourselves the pain to examine them stea- . dily enough to contemplate their particular features. Much less do we anticipate with a distinct foresight, the consequences which they are known to involve.

Of this kind, is the approaching death of a beloved wife or husband. The heart recoils at the idea of such an event in the abstract, and we shut our eyes to all its concomitant horrors. The sight of long protracted agonies, in a frame endeared to us by a thousand tender recollections, the plaintive eye imploring from us unavailing pity, the tears of children surrounding the bed of pain and death, the last fond and sad adieu to them and to ourselves, the ghastly lineaments of death on a face which had long used to beam upon us with intelligence, sensibility, and love; these, and many other sad accompaniments of the loss, are unimagined till they are felt; nor are the cheerless hours of widowhood that succeed, the gloom that long broods over the once cheerful family table, and winter fireside, the gall that now mingles with all the wonted sweets of parental affection, the black cloud with which recollection suddenly and cruelly darkens the brief occasional sunshine of the mind, subjects of anticipated pain.

The same, I conceive, is the case in the public mind at this juncture, in respect of those possible and dreadful events, our being in

vaded and conquered by France. Strangers to the yoke of a foreign master, strangers even to the ordinary miseries which belong to a state of war in countries which are the theatres of its horrors, we have indeed some dread of those events, but it is a vague and indefinite apprehension. We do not distinguish the many specific evils which would make up the aggregate disaster of such a conquest; much less do we look forward to the miseries that would unquestionably follow.

I would endeavour therefore to supply in some measure the defects of these loose conceptions, to analyze the tremendous mischief which is possibly impending over us, to exhibit some of its calamitous elements, and point out the exquisite wretchedness which it would entail upon my country. We must unavoidably be soon called upon for very great and very painful sacrifices, in order to avert the national ruin with which we are menaced by the power of France. Let us fairly examine then the impending evil, that we may be reconciled to the unpleasant means by which alone it can be averted.

Sect. 2. The effects of such a conquest.-Usurpation or destruction of the throne.

It is needless to insist much on that ordinary, and most prominent feature, in the revolutions of kingdoms by conquest, the transfer of the royal power, from a native to a foreign monarch. It is an evil which the loyalty of my countrymen, and their affection to the best of sovereigns, will sufficiently appreciate.

If the ruthless Napoleon has ever spared for a while, a prince whom he had power to depose, it has been from motives of policy which would find no place in England. He may safely trust a legitimate monarch to wield for a while a feeble and tarnished sceptre on the continent, while his dominions, reduced in extent, stripped of their best interior resources, and deprived of every outwork that can guard them from invasion, are in no condition to oppose his ulterior projects. It may even serve his purposes, to make these degraded sovereigns instruments of his rapacity, in exacting for his use contributions from their wretched subjects; as well as involuntary ministers to his ambition, in the further extension of his conquests. When rendered by such means, hateful to their subjects, and to their neighbours, they may be more safely commanded to descend from their thrones, and make room for some upstart successor. He seems even to have a cruel pleasure in this course of proceeding; as the

tiger plays with its wounded victim, and apparently enjoys its dreadful suspense, prior to its final destruction.

There are

But should this subverter of empires ever become master of England, the illustrious house of Hanover will have no such protracted torments, nor any equivocal fate. Our island is not capable of a secure or convenient partition among his satellites. no conquests beyond us, to which England, like Holland or Saxony, may furnish, under a nominal independency, a safe and convenient scaffold. And, what is more decisive, the natural bulwarks of England cannot be removed. The straits of Dover cannot, like the fortresses on the Rhine, or the passes of the Tyrol, be annexed to a hostile state, and the popularity of our beloved sovereign, would still more effectually secure his fall; for he has a throne in the hearts of his subjects that a conqueror could not subvert.

Perhaps in consideration of our maritime fame, we might be honoured with the gift of the imperial admiral Jerome Bonaparte, as our new sovereign lord; and he might even deign to accept the hand of some female descendant of the princess Sophia, in order to plant a new dynasty, on something like hereditary right. Nor is it impossible that the male branches of that illustrious house, might soon be so disposed of, as to leave none who could dispute the legality of the marriage, or of any title founded upon it. England has no Salic law; the usurper is not scrupulous in his means, and he has shewn that he knows the value of that hereditary right upon which he has so violently trampled.

I must admit, however, that it is more probable we should not be trusted with any shew of national independence; but be either reduced avowedly into the form of a province, or honoured with the name of a department. If the choice of the French people had any weight, such would of course be our destiny; since our insular situątion and maritime character, might soon convert a nominal, into a real independence.-Rome did not think herself safe, while Carthage had walls or foundations.

I leave these prospects without remark to a spirited and loyal people. True loyalty, like love, is too delicate to admit of excitement or expostulation, unless from the object of its attachment.

Sect. 3. Qverthrow of the Constitution.

What shall I say of the subversion of that glorious fabric the British constitution! We have been lately exercising the elective franchise, and if the spirit of our contests for representatives in par

liament, at this arduous crisis, has in some instances deserved reproof, at least we must admire that perfect freedom of choice, which so many have been able to exercise. Whether more of that freedom is safely attainable than the present scheme of representation affords, is a question which it would be impertinent to discuss in these sheets, nor is this a proper season for such discussions. It is not when the ship labours in the tempest, and when breakers are under her lee, that you would set about an alteration in her cabin, or even think of repairing her helm. It is easy to find faults in every thing human; but when in danger of losing what we love, we think not of its faults, but of its value. He that really loves British liberty, therefore will now be disposed to forgot for a while what he may deem imperfect in it, and reflect with fond anxiety on its inestimable worth.

What nobler civil exhibition did earth ever afford than the election of a British House of Commons! A whole people, not in á rude state, or while few in number, but when forming a mighty nation, great in arms, great in civilization, commerce, and wealth, freely assemble in their various districts to choose their own legislators, the organs of their will, the delegates of their authority, the guardians of their rights. If influence be used by the existing administration, what is the administration but a power, which the attachment of former representatives of the people, as much perhaps as the choice of the sovereign, has created or upheld? Influence too is used in an opposite direction, not perhaps with less zeal or effect. Man is not made universally to act in society from purely spontaneous matives. But force, brute force, that engine of usurped authority, that instrument of almost every other human government, however legitimate, in matters that concern the state, is driven from the hallowed precincts of our elective freedom, like a demon from consecrated ground. The ordinary instruments of monarchical power, the military, though here never employed but in subservience to, and at the requisition of the laws, are forbidden to approach the place where these high franchises are exercised, lest even the shadow of constraint should seem to diminish their lustre.

Would French conquest leave us such liberties to boast? Let us look to Switzerland, to Holland, to France herself, for an answer to that question.

The freedom of our constitution, mortifying and opprobrious in its example to Frenchmen, is the last of our blessings that the usurper would consent to spare. To subvert this freedom, by the inviting image of which his throne is perpetually endangered, is

more than ambition, more than revenge, or the thirst of glory, the true object of his arms. He would rather by far, leave us our political independency, and our commerce, than our civil institutions.

I dare not venture however to affirm, that we should have no more parliaments. It is his policy to retain the name of every sacred establishment, the spirit and use of which he takes away and we should probably therefore, in losing the substance of parliamentary representation, be insulted with its empty form.

I am not sure even that we should not have mock contested elections: the mummery of Garret Green might be transferred to Covent Garden or Guildhall. But woe to those electors, or to that populace which should be simple enough to suppose that the return of members was indeed submitted to their choice. A vote against the nominee of the court, or a hiss at the Frenchified hireling, would fatally mark the disaffection of its author, and ere long he would have leisure in a dungeon to bewail his temerity and folly.

Sect. 4. Subversion of our Liberty and Laws.

Our freedom of choice, however, and our elective franchises in general, are rather buttresses of civil liberty, than the happy edifice itself. That inestimable blessing, chiefly consists, in the supremacy of known and equal laws, in their upright administration, and in the security of the individual, against the oppression of the civil magistrate, or the state.

And here, what people ever had so much to lose, as the inha bitants of this favoured land!

When I enter that venerable hall which for many centuries has been the seat of our superior tribunals, and contemplate the character of the courts which are busily exercising their several jurisdictions around it, I am almost tempted to forget the frailty of man, and the imperfection of his noblest works. There, justice supported by liberty and honour, sits enthroned as in her temple, elevated far above the region of all ignoble passions. There, judicial character is so strongly guarded by ages of fair example, by public confidence, by conscious independence, and dignity of station, that it is scarcely a virtue to be just. There, the human intellect nourished by the morning dew of industry, and warmed by manly emulation, puts forth its most vigorous shoots, and consecrates them to the noblest of all sublunary ends.

If the rude emblems of heavenly intelligence with which our pious ancestors have adorned that majestic roof, were really what

C