ART. XII-The Situation of Great Britain in the Year 1811, by M. M. de Montgaillard; Author of Remarks on the Restoration of the Kingdom of Italy, by the Emperor Napoleon; of the Right of the Crown of France to the Roman Empire, &c. &c. &c.-Faithfully translated from the French. London, 1812. Sherwood, Richardson, Ridgway. 8vo. Pp. 225. WE think it was Dr. Johnson who observed, that if you took a Frenchman to St. Paul's Church-yard, and told him it was lawful to walk half round the church, but that he would be hanged if he walked entirely round it, he would believe you. Meaning thereby, as we presume, that the habits, manners, prejudices, and general turn of thinking of a Frenchman ran in currents so directly opposite to those, in which our laws and institutions bear along with them the happiness and prosperity of the people, that there is no common medium of mental intercourse, by which he can be made to understand or judge of the real tendency of any part of our political arrangements. If this were true before the French revolution, when the intercourse between the countries was comparatively free, and a general system of courtesy pervaded the European republic, it must be emphatically so at the present moment, when a strict separation has subsisted for near twenty years, during which an inveterate enmity to the national character of England has been diligently inculcated in France, without an attempt to found it upon any results of deliberate inquiry; and when in point of fact, the habits, the morals, the government, and the polity of the two countries have been more and more diverging from a common centre. The prejudices of education have, therefore, assisted the views of the French rulers, in estranging the minds of their people from all dispassionate contemplation of the English system. A curiosity, however, concerning this anathematized nation of shopkeeping Islanders, seems throughout the whole of this latter period to have existed in the minds of the people, if not of the rulers of the continent, and of France. Certain rumours of engagements by sea, of victories or defeats by land, in various and distant quarters of the world, seemed to announce a display of power, that had the effect of casting a shade of doubt over the incessant official predictions concerning the immediate ruin and subjugation of England. At once to satisfy the curiosity and remove the doubt, it has been at various intervals the custom of the creatures of the French government to put forth, by means of hired pamphleteers, exposés of the state of England and of her colonies; interspersed with a great deal of good advice to our domestic parties. During the last war we had many obligations of this sort to Mr. Talleyrand; conferred upon us, no doubt, out of gratitude for the asylum which was afforded him here, as ex-bishop of Autun, in the first periods of the revolution. M. Hauterive and several inferior hands have since taken up their pens with the same laudable view, and have afforded many a wise apophthegm to the politicians of the continent, and many a hearty laugh to those of England. Thus we recollect having read of a French gentleman, who having, during his visit to England, been squeezed into the gallery of the House of Commons, where he heard the usual call of " Places, Places," to produce order in the house when the Speaker makes his appearance, very gravely informed his nation upon his return, that the venality of which the democratic members accused the House of Commons had "effectivement" risen to such a pitch of grossness, that upon the appearance of the minister he was actually assailed with one general outcry "pour des benefices." The last few months have been signally fruitful in these efforts of French genius and patriotism. Not long ago we cast a hasty glance over a large octavo published by a Frenchman, for some time past and now resident in this country; in which absolute power is the theme of great eulogy, and the character of James the Second held up as the pattern of every kingly virtue; the English are very much derided for their folly in supposing, that they have gained any real benefit by the liberties acquired at the revolution; advised to curtail the freedom of speech, and of the press; accused of propensities, which upon accurate data he finds to be just sixteen times more cruel, unnatural, and dishonest, than those of the French; and finally given to understand, qu'ils avoient encore des larmes de sang a verser, de ce que Henri VIII. ait réussi d'annihiler a jamais la portion démocratique du gouvernement, en detruisant, ce que je répête etre le principe vital et unique de la liberté, les etablissemens monastiques." 66 We find however to our surprise, that this gentleman still continues to prefer an asylum in our degraded and dilapidated country, to one where his ideas might have been more completely carried into execution, and their consequences more fully exemplified; and we find also, that the alien office gives him no disturbance. Next comes M. de Montgaillard, who kindly informs us in a very long and logical dissertation, that England must be inevitably ruined by France in thirty years or thereabouts, unless she will consent to ruin herself at the present moment, by laying her maritime superiority at the feet of France, leaving the pos session of the continent and of the world to "the Emperor Napoleon, the invincible child of victory, whose power has begun the real race of the Cæsars; that which will never end; that which will never have an Augustulus nor a Louis le Debonnaire; that which will direct the fate of the world for a long series of ages." (P. 125.) In a word, he cannot help stating for the sake of the continental nations, and if we will allow him, out of pure love and regard to the English people also, that it is " by peace and by the measures of a wise and enlightened administration, one that is alive to the real interests of the nation," (as they are stated by M. de Montgaillard, and corroborated by the jacobinical English pamphlets), that the British people can yet avoid the misfortunes, the revolutions, and the calamities of every kind, which threaten Great Britain with total subversion." (P. 225.) Again he observes, " in the present financial, political and commercial exposé, our only object is to remove, if possible, the film which obscures the sight of the people of England, and thus to prevent the sanguinary catastrophe which threatens them." Thus the exuberant benevolence and humanity of this philanthropic Frenchman extends even to the enemies of his 'country. We shall not toil through the whole tissue of lying absurdities by which M. de Montgaillard arrives at his conclusions. Many of them are so gross, that no British mind could be perverted by them; they are evidently intended only for the benefit of the continental nations, and perhaps to flatter Buonaparte concerning the efficacy of a system of policy, exclusively of his own contrivance, but which he begins to perceive not quite likely to answer his impatient views for the subversion of English power and happiness. To these a French auswer should be written, and if possible circulated on the continent. The nations should be told that England, so far from being the cause of their distress, affords their only remaining chance of escaping from it. But as that is not our task or office, we shall confine our observations to such parts of the argument as (rotten as they are) may yet be used as pillars to the failing sophistry of some particular parties or individuals in the state. We shall hope thus to secure the less informed of our countrymen from any possible bad effects of this Frenchman's fallacies. To begin then, we cannot help considering the pamphlet before us as the first (continental) fruits of the Bullion Report; the whole argument is evidently built upon reasoning and asser tions to be found in that document, or in the several pamphlets written in its support; misunderstood indeed ridiculously enough in some instances, and illustrated (as the Frenchman would pro. bably say) by extracts, equally misapplied, from the reports of the finance committee, and various pamphlets on the same subject. But we are well persuaded, that the principal effect, which this contemptible work may produce either at home or abroad, will be chiefly ascribable to the impression previously made upon the minds of the ignorant by the Bullion Report. A French disquisition on the state of England is perhaps the only disguise, in which the exhausted mind of the public would not now nauseate a further dissertation on the Bullion question; and the present translation may therefore be compared to those placards of the dealers in lottery tickets, which attract the unwary passenger by announcing A CHANGE OF ADMINISTRATION, in large capitals; and repay his neverfailing political curiosity by a notice in small type, that Lady Branscomb has removed her lottery-office to Holborn-bars. The following extracts will give our readers some idea of the propositions which M. de Montgaillard considers as data with respect to the political systems of France and England. "Nature has decreed that the French empire should be the centre of power and protection for all the nations of the continent: this political decree is fixed and immutable. Hence it will be evident that the momentary transfer of the sceptre of the ocean to the hands of England has been occasioned by circumstances radically false, corrupt, and unstable; and by these alone. Such adven titious circumstances on the one part, and the maritime tyranny of Great Britain on the other, have caused all the ravages, and engendered all the plagues, under which both the sovereigns and the people have groaned, down to the present hour. "Every impartial man, of a correct understanding, whatever may be his country, profession, or political opinion, is forced to acknowledge in the conduct and will of the government of France, the fixed and liberal intention of giving freedom to the commerce and industry of the people of Europe; of protecting their sovereignty and their maritime independence, and of ensuring to them the honourable enjoyment of those commercial rights inherent in every crown." This is the faithful picture of France and the continent. Then follows that of England and her allies. "It is necessary to explain the naval power and the commercial riches of England, and to explode in the face of all Europe, this phantom of prosperity which has deluded every government, which oppresses every people, and which might have enchained the universe by the most scandalous and rigid laws, if, amidst all the prodigies and every kind of glory which can do honour to human na VOL. III. NO. V. P ture, Providence, in its eternal justice, had not indicated to all nations the avenger of their rights, and the protector of their liberties --such, in short, might have been the result, if Providence had not granted to the French empire a statesman profound in his councils, a warrior invincible in the field, the wisest administrator, and the greatest as he is the best of monarchs. Far be from us every idea of Auttery." "Commerce is attended with results which are infinitely advan~ tageous; but its spirit of enterprise is frequently injurious, because the love of gain tends to obliterate sentiments of liberality, and always ends by substituting self-interest in the place of honour; so that amongst people essentially or generally commercial, riches obtain too much consideration and influence, to the detriment of ho nour and good faith." "Thus we see why England has not, nor ever can have sincere and constant allies. She has deserted the great social family, and the rights of mankind; while deceit, ambition, and violence constitute the public law of her ministers. The mass of injustice and depredations committed by their orders is scarcely credible; and this (shall we say it,) is the inevitable effect of the prodigious and immoderate extent of the commercial power of Great Britain. This false prosperity, this policy at once capricious and violent, is daily digging for the country an abyss of calamities. The obstinate and ignorant conduct of the present administration tends still farther to accelerate the ruin of the state; for though powerful fleets may give, during a time, possession of the empire of the seas, never will they be able to obtain the empire of commerce! Markets are necessary for the sale of goods, and these markets are on the continent of Europe; the preponderating power on the continent will therefore always be, after the strictest scrutiny, the mistress of commerce." If commerce then is in its nature variable and uncertain, and therefore hostile to an adherence to treaties, we would ask M. de Montgaillard, is ambition less so? Let him inquire of the deposed sovereigns of Europe. Is it by reasoning like that which, we have seen in the preceding extracts, that we are to be satisfied with the restoration by the emperor Napoleon of the kingdom of Italy, that we are to be convinced of the right of the crown of France to the Roman empire; and of its just and equitable claim to the thrones of Spain and Portugal * 1* ? That such a slave as this should wear a sword. That in the natures of their lords rebels; See the title to this article. |