seemed concentrated for the defence | ral excitement, and when danger was of the heart of the empire? It was obvious to the senses, democratic sothe boast of the Romans that their cieties have often been capable of the republican constitution, by training most extraordinary exertion; it is in all the citizens to civil or military previous preparation, sagacious foreduties, either as leaders or followers, sight, and the power of present selfprovided an inexhaustible fund of vir- denial for future good, that they have tue and ability for the service of the invariably, in the long run, proved decommonwealth; and that the loss even ficient. That England, in its Euroof the largest army or the most skilful pean administration, has experienced, commanders could without difficulty throughout the contest with revolube supplied by the multitudes in every tionary France, its full share both of rank whom the avocations of freedom the strength and weakness incident to had trained to every pacific or warlike democratic societies, is evident from duty. Yet even the ancient Romans the consideration, that if the unforemade it a fundamental rule of their seeing economy of the Commons had policy never to engage in two serious not, during the preceding peace, when wars at the same time; whereas the danger was remote, reduced the naBritish empire in India has shone forth tional strength to a pitiable degree of with most splendour when the parent weakness, Paris could with ease have state was engaged in vast foreign con- been taken in the first campaign; and tests, which embraced the whole world that if the inherent energy of demoin their operations. It first rose to cratic vigour, when danger was present, greatness under the guidance of Clive, had not supported the country during in the midst of the Seven Years' War its later stages, the independence of in Europe; it was preserved by Hast- Britain and the last remnant of Euings during the darkest season of the ropean freedom, notwithstanding all American conflict; it was elevated to the efforts of the aristocracy, must the highest point by Wellesley, in the have sunk beneath the arms of Napoheat of the struggle for life and death leon. No one can doubt, that if a with Napoleon. In British India, popular House of Commons or unequally as in ancient Rome, the influ- bridled press had existed at Calcutta ence of the undying energy and wide- and Madras, to coerce or restrain the spread capacity springing from free Indian government in its political eninstitutions may be descried. The ergy or military establishment, as was natives say that the Company has al- the case in the British Isles, the Britways conquered because it was "al-ish empire in the East must have been ways young," and such in truth has ever been its character. In no other state of society but that in which a large mixture of the democratic element has spread vigour and the spirit of exertion through every rank, is to be found, for so considerable a period, so large a share of the undecaying youth of the human race.

speedily prostrated. And it is equally clear that, if its able councils and gallant armies had not been supported by popular vigour at home, even the energy of Lord Wellesley and the daring of Lord Lake must alike have sunk before the strength of the Asiatic dynasties.

108. The Eastern empire of Eng107. But this element has usually land, however, has exhibited no such been found in human affairs to be in-vicissitudes. It has never felt the consistent with durable greatness. It has either burned with such fierceness as to consume in a few years the vitals of the state, or dwindled into a selfish or short-sighted passion for economy, to gratify the jealousy of the middle classes of society, fatal in the end to its independence. In moments of gene

want either of aristocratic foresight in preparation, or of democratic vigour in execution; it has ever been distinguished alike by the resolution in council and tenacity of purpose which characterise patrician, and the energy in action and inexhaustible resources which are produced in plebeian governments.

the East, could not remain permanent:
aristocratic constancy and democratic
vigour can coexist only for a brief
space, even in the most favoured na-
tion. Already the great organic change
of 1832, and the extension of the di-
rect influence of British popular power
upon Eastern administration, have

This extraordinary combination, pecu-
liar, in the whole history of the species,
to the British empire in Asia and the
Roman in Europe, is evidently owing
to the causes which in both, during a
brief period, rendered aristocratic di-
rection of affairs coexistent with de-
mocratic execution of its purposes; a
state of things so unusual, and threat-gone far to shake the splendid fabric.
ened by so many dangers-an equili-
brium so unstable, that its continuance,
even for the brief time it endured in
both, is perhaps to be ascribed only to
special divine interposition. And it is
evident, that if the same combination
had existed, in uncontrolled operation,
in the government at home; if the
unconquerable popular energy of Eng-
land had been permanently directed
by foresight and resolution equal to
that which was displayed in the East;
if no popular jealousy or impatience
had existed, to extinguish, on the ter-
mination of war, the force which had
gained its triumphs-if the fleets and
armies of Blake and Marlborough, Nel-
son and Wellington, had been suffered
to remain at the disposal of a vigilant
executive, to perpetuate the ascendancy
they had acquired; if the two hundred
ships of the line, and three hundred
thousand warriors, once belonging to
England, had been permanently di-
rected by the energetic foresight of a
Chatham, a Burke, or a Wellesley, to
external purposes, the British Euro-
pean empire, in modern, must have
proved as irresistible as the Roman
did in ancient times, and the emula-
tion of independent states been ex-
tinguished in the slumber of universal
dominion.

When the time arrives, as arrive it
will, that adverse interests, ignorant
philanthropy, or prejudiced feeling, in
the dominant island, shall interfere
with vested rights, violate existing
engagements, or force on premature
changes, in the East, as they have al-
ready done in the West Indies, the dis-
content of the inhabitants will break ·
out into inextinguishablerevolt. When,
to gratify the jealousy of popular as-
cendancy, the military and naval
strength of the state is prostrated in
the Asiatic, as it has already been in
the European world, the last hour of
our Indian empire has struck. Dis-
tant provinces may be long ruled by a
wise, vigorous, and paternal central
government; but they cannot remain
for any considerable time under the
sway of a remote and self-interested
democratic society. The interests of
the masses are, in such a case, directly
brought into collision: the prejudices,
the passions of the ruling multitude,
soon prove insupportable to the inha-
bitants of the subject realm; the very
spirit which the central empire has
generated, becomes the expansive force
which tears its colonial dependencies
asunder. Whether the existing con-
test between the different classes of
society in the British Islands termi-
nates in the lasting ascendant of the
multitude, or the establishment, by
democratic support, of a centralised
despotism, the result will be equally
fatal to our supremacy in the East-
in the first case, by terminating the
steady rule of aristocratic foresight;
in the last, by drying up the fountains
of popular energy.

109. But no such gigantic empire was intended by Providence to lull the ardent spirit of Europe, till it had performed its destined work of spreading the seeds of civilisation and religion through the globe. To Great Britain, a durable colonial ascendancy is given; but it will be found, not among the sable inhabitants of Hindostan, but among the free descendants of the Anglo-Saxon race in the American and Australian wilds. The extraordinary combination of circumstances which gave us the empire of

110. But whatever may be the ultimate fate of the British empire in India, it will not fall without having left an imperishable name, and bequeathed enduring benefits to the hu

ལ་

man race. First of all the Christian since the descendants of Shem first
family, England has set its foot in the came to sojourn on the banks of the
Fast, not to enslave but to bless; alone Ganges. Already the fame of its
of all the conquering nations in the equitable sway, and its thorough pro-
world, she has erected, amidst Asiatic tection of all classes, has spread far
bondage, the glorious fabric of Euro- and sunk deep into the mind of the
pean justice. To assert that her do- East.
|
minion has tended only to social hap-
piness, that equity has regulated all her
measures, and integrity pervaded every
part of her administration, would be
to assert more than ever has been, or
ever will be produced by human na-
ture. Doubtless many of her deeds
have been cruel and ruthless-many of
her designs selfish and oppressive. But
when interest has ceased to blind, or
panegyric to mislead, the sober voice of
truth will confess, that her sway in
Hindostan has contributed in an ex-
traordinary degree to correct the dis-
orders of society; to extricate from
hopeless oppression the labouring, to
restrain by just administration the
tyranny of the higher orders; and
that public happiness was never so
equally diffused, general prosperity
never so thoroughly established among
all ranks, as under the British rule the sun.

Mahommedan prejudice has been shaken by the exhibition, amidst its severities, of Christian benificence; and even the ancient fabric of Hindoo superstition has begun to yield to the ascendant of European enterprise. Whether the appointed season has yet arrived for the conversion of the worshippers of Brahma to the precepts of a purer faith, and for the vast plains of Hindostan to be peopled by the followers of the Cross, as yet lies buried in the womb of time. But, whatever may be the destiny of Asia, the British standard has not appeared on its plains in vain; the remembrance of the blessed days of its rule will never be forgotten; and more glorious even than the triumph of her arms, have been the seeds of future freedom which the justice and integrity of English government have sown in the regions of

CHAPTER L.

CONTINENTAL SYSTEM, AND IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT OF NAPOLEON.
GOVE
AUGUST 1812.

1. WHEN the battle of Trafalgar annihilated the prospect of invading England, and extinguished all his hopes of soon bringing the maritime war to a successful issue, Napoleon did not abandon the contest in despair. Quick in perception, he saw at once that the vast preparations in the Channel must go for nothing; that the flotilla at Boulogne would be rotten before a fleet capable of protecting its passage could be assembled; and that every successive year would enable England more exclusively to engross the com

JULY 1807

merce of the world, and banish his flag more completely from the oceán. But he was not on that account discouraged. Fertile in resources, indomitable in resolution, implacable in hatred, he resolved to change the method, not the object, of his hostility. He indulged the hope that he would succeed, through the extent and terror of his Continental victories, in achieving the destruction of England, by a process more slow indeed, but in the end, perhaps, still more certain. His design toward this object consisted of two

parts, both essential to the success of fare, afterwards so cruelly defeated by
the general project, and to the prose-the battle of Trafalgar. The astonish-
cution of which his efforts, during the ing results of the battle of Jena, how-
whole remainder of his reign, were di- ever, again revived his projects of ex-
rected.
cluding British commerce from the
Continent; and thence the BERLIN
DECREE, to be immediately considered,
and the anxiety which he evinced at
Tilsit to procure, by any sacrifices,
the accession of Alexander to the
confederacy.

2. The first part of his plan was to
combine all the Continental states into
one great alliance against England,
and compel them to exclude, in the
most rigid manner, the British flag
and British merchandise from their
harbours. This system had long ob- 3. The second part of the plan was
tained possession of his mind; he had to obtain possession, by negotiation,
made it the condition of every treaty force, or fraud, of all the fleets of Eu-
between a maritime state and France, rope, and gradually bring them to the
even before he ascended the consular great central point near the English
throne. The adroit flattery which he coast, from whence they might ulti-
applied to the mind of the Emperor mately be directed, with decisive effect,
Paul, and the skill with which he com- against the British shores.
By the
bined the northern powers into the Continental System he hoped to
maritime confederacy in 1800, were weaken the resources of England, to
all directed to the same end; and ac- hamper its revenue, and, by the spread
cordingly the exclusion of the English of commercial distress, break up the
flag from their harbours was the fun- unanimity which then prevailed among
damental condition of that alliance.* its inhabitants. But he knew too
The proclamation of the principles of well the spirit of the ruling part of
the armed neutrality by the northern the nation to expect that, by the
powers at that crisis, filled him with spread of commercial distress alone, he
confident expectations that the period would succeed in the contest. He was
had then arrived when this great desirous of reducing its strength by a
object was to be attained. But the long previous blockade, but it was by
victory of Nelson at Copenhagen dis an assault at last that he hoped to
solved all these hopes and threw him carry the day. In order to prepare
back to the system of ordinary war- for that grand event, he was at the
* The Directory had previously adopted utmost pains to increase his naval
the system of compelling the exclusion of force. Amidst all the expenditure oc-
English goods from all the European har-casioned by his military campaigns, he
bours; but the multiplied disasters of their
administration prevented them from carry- proposed to construct, and to a certain
ing it into any general execution. By a de- extent actually did construct, from ten
crce, issued on 18th January 1798, it was to twenty sail of the line every year;
declared, "That all ships having for their
cargoes, in whole or in part, any English while vast sums were annually applied
merchandise, shall be held good prize, who-to the great naval harbours at Ant-
ever is the proprietor of such merchandise,
which should be held contraband from the
single circumstance of its coming from Eng-
land or any of its foreign settlements; that
the harbours of France should be shut
against all ships having touched at England,
except in cases of distress-and that neutral
sailors found on board English vessels should
be put to death." Napoleon, soon after his
accession to the consular throne, issued a
decree, revoking this and all other decrees
passed during the Revolution, and reverting
to the old and humane laws of the monarchy
in this particular; but in the exultation
consequent on the battle of Jena, he very
nearly returned to the violence and barbarity
of the decree of the Directory.-Ann. Reg.
1800, 54, 55; and 1807, 226, 227.

werp, Flushing, Cherbourg, and Brest.
The first, from its admirable situation
and close proximity to the British
shores, he considered as the great out-
work of the Continent against Eng-
land; he regarded it, as he himself has
told us, as itself worth a kingdom;"
and but for the invincible tenacity with
which he held to this great acquisition,
he might with ease have obtained
peace in 1814, and have left his family
at this moment seated on the throne
of France. But it was not with the
fleets of France alone that he intended

to engage in this mighty enterprise; | against fifteen millions of English. I
those of all Europe were to be com- would have terminated by a battle of
bined in the attempt. The navies of Actium.” *
Denmark and Portugal, in virtue of
the secret article in the treaty of
Tilsit, were to be demanded from their
respective sovereigns, and seized by
force, if not voluntarily surrendered;
that of Russia was to come round from
the Black Sea and the Baltic to Brest
and Antwerp, and join in the general
crusade; until at length a hundred
ships of the line and two hundred
thousand men were prepared, on the
coasts of the Channel, to carry to the
shores of England the terrors of Gallic
invasion. "When in this manner,"
said Napoleon, "I had established my
ground, so as to bring the two nations
to wrestle, as it were, body to body,
the issue could not be doubtful, for
we had forty millions of French

* Napoleon's projects, in regard to the maritime war against England, have been already explained; but this is a point of such vital importance to the future security of the British empire, that it will well bear a second note from an additional authority. "He said," says Las Cases, "that he had done much for Antwerp, but nothing to what he proposed to have done. By sea, he proposed to have made it a mortal point of attack against the enemy; by land, he wished to render it a sure resource in case of great disasters-a true point of refuge for the national safety; he wished to render it capable of containing an entire army after defeat, and of resisting a year of open trenches, during which the nation might have risen in a mass for its relief. The world admired much the works already executed at Antwerp-its numerous dockyards, arsenals, and wet-docks; but all that, said the Emperor, was nothing-it was but the commercial town; the military town was to have been on the other bank, where the land was already purchased; three-deckers were to have been there constructed, and covered sheds established to keep the ships of the line dry in time of peace. Everything there was planned on the most colossal scale. Antwerp was itself a province. That place, said the Emperor, was the chief cause of my being here; for, if I could have made up my mind to give up Antwerp, I might have concluded peace at Chatillon in 1814."-LAS CASES, vii. 43, 44.

Gigantic as these designs for Antwerp were, they were but a part of what Napoleon meditated or had constructed for his grand enterprise against England. "Magnificent works," says Las Cases, "had been set agoing at Cherbourg, where they had excavated out of the solid rock a basin capable of holding fifteen ships of the line and as many

4. It was therefore no momentary burst of anger or sudden fit of exultation, occasioned by his unparalleled triumphs, which induced Napoleon, by his celebrated decree from Berlin, to declare the British Islands in a state of blockade. It was the result of much thought and anxious deliberation, of a calm survey of the resources at his disposal, and the means of resistance which yet remained to his antagonists. The treaty of Tilsit gave the English government ample room for serious reflection on the dangers which now beset them. The accession of Russia to the Continental league was thereby rendered certain; the secret articles of the treaty, of which, by great exertions, they soon obtained possession,† frigates, with the most splendid fortifications for their protection: the Emperor intended to have prepared that harbour to receive thirty more line-of-battle ships of the largest size. Innumerable works had been prepared to receive and protect the flotilla which was to be immediately concerned in the invasion of England; Boulogne was adapted to hold 2000 gun-boats; Vimereux, Etaples, and Ambleteuse, 1000 more. The harbour of Flushing was to have been rendered impregnable, and enlarged so as to hold twenty of the largest ships of the line; while dockyards for the construction of twenty line-of-battle ships were to be formed at Antwerp, and constantly kept in full activity. So immense were the preparations on the French coast for the invasion of England! The Emperor frequently said that Antwerp was to him an entire province; a little kingdom in itself. He attached the greatest importance to it, often visited it in person, and regarded it as one of the most important of all his creations."-LAS Cases, vii. 51, 57. It is not a little curious that, within twenty years after his fall, the English government should have united its forces to those of France to restore this great outwork against British independence to the dominion of Belgium, and the rule of the son-in-law of France.

They were obtained by the agency of the Count d'Antraigues. -HARD. ix. 431, note. In the King's speech, on the 21st January 1808, it was said-"We are commanded by his majesty to inform you, that no sooner had the result of the negotiations at Tilsit confirmed the influence and control of France over the powers of the Continent, than his majesty was apprised of the intention of the enemy to combine those powers in one general confederacy, to be directed either to the entire subjugation of this kingdom, or to the imposing upon his majesty an