"Under a cruel butcher's yoke, "By stealth defenceless lambs you choke, "But when a brave and equal foe "My sons a bold and hardy race, "But thine will swell with honest rage, Reader, the moral, in plain prose, is this: -No chief can attempt the conquest of other nations, without first enslaving the country which he governs therefore, the glory of a conqueror is a disgrace to his own, as well as to every conquered state. To contribute to such a man's success, is to glory in slavery; and, for a momentary intoxication, damn one's self to everlasting infamy! The French have defeated and trampled upon all the surrounding nations of Europe, except that of sea-girt Britain. Whence has arisen this vast success? The cause is evident. We read, in Jones's Life of Bishop Horne, that certain insects (the African ants) set forwards sometimes in such multitudes, that the whole earth seems to be in motion. A corps of them attacked and covered an elephant quietly feeding in a pasture. In eight hours, nothing was to be seen on the spot but the skeleton of that enormous animal, neatly and completely picked. The business was done, and the enemy had marched on after fresh prey. Such powers have the smallest creatures acting in concert! This case is exactly in point: the ant had one instinctive impulse-a struggle for food to preserve existence; the French nation rose en masse to assert their natural liberty, without which life itself is no value: the immense bulk of the elephant could avail nothing against the spirit, fire, and incessant attacks of its individually contemptible, collectively irresistible, enemy; the heavy continental nations, torpified into slavery by ecclesiastical and regal tyranny, fell prostrate at the feet of the enthusiastic French legions. But where the French were opposed by men of similar mould, fighting for the same cause, for that cause for which they had for ages contended, their efforts were vain, and oftener recoiled on their own heads than otherwise. The French armies have now totally lost sight of that glorious cause in which the present war originated; they are now fighting from the basest of motives-like slaves, sacrificing their lives to gratify the ambition of a foreign tyrant, and, like robbers and assassins, cutting throats for rapine and plunder. Their numbers are, however, so thinned by these incessant exertions, and the popu lation of France so drained, that the scale seems to hang, if not preponderate against her, if she do not soon abandon her maniacal policy. Woe then be to her! Conquest, natural levity, and vanity, may blind Frenchmen to their true glory and interest, and reconcile them to that state to which a Briton would prefer death: “ Disguise thyself as thou wilt," says Sterne, “still, SLAVERY! still thou art a bitter draught!" Frenchmen have been slaves during so many ages, that they did not know what true. liberty was when it was in their power; they preferred licentiousness, of which, with their natural fickleness, they soon grew sick, and fell again into its opposite extreme—abject slavery. They would now degrade all mankind to their own level; but there are nations (the British in particular, whose birth-right is freedom, whose inheritance is liberty) who cannot suffer palpable impositions on their judgment, persons, and property, without resistance, nor wear the galling chains of slavery without seeking to do themselves justice. They will perish before they will submit, and against such resolution, and such resources as they possess, France will waste her strength in vain. For what end then? For the glory or interest of France? Let us see how it can be for either:-1st. Can a continuance of warfare be for the glory of France?-No, not with all the blunders, ignorance, and stupidity of British ministers, generals, and convention-mongers on her side. France threw down the gauntlet by a silly gasconade that Britain dared not to engage with her single-handed. Britain has engaged France, with almost all Europe and America to back her, for several years, and with advantage: There's French glory for you!France boasts to all her satellites, that Britain, the sovereign of the sea, is under blockade, and that she will not make peace without having ships, colonies, and freedom of commerce restored to her: Britain actually blockades the whole coasts of France and her allies; so that scarcely a ship dares skulk out into the open ocean, and manifests to the world, that France shall neither have ships, colonies, nor commerce, unless she make peace with the world, or, in plain English, without her permission: There's French glory for you! At the late meeting at Erfurth, the Emperors of France and Russia styled themselves the two greatest monarchs in the world; like the two swordsmen in Bessus, who gave it under one another's hands that |