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niflaus are applauded; and the interference of the Ruffan emprefs is ftigmatifed as arbitrary and unjust. After the intervention of the affairs of France and other countries, the concerns of Poland are refumed; but the war which arose in 1792 from the ambition of Catharine is too briefly noticed. It was, indeed, quickly clofed; but a longer account of it might have been expected..

The writer introduces the narrative of French affairs with a remark which is not ftrictly juft. He affirms, that the principles of the French revolution were all principles of demolition without any of construction.' But, because the popular party did not conftruct fo easily or fo quickly as it demolished, it does not follow that its principles were confined to fubversion. The new political ftructures, it must be allowed, were not fitted for permanency; but the oppofers of the old régime had a view to conftru&ion as well as to demolition.

The inquiry into the commotion of the 6th of October, 1789, is ftated with fome partiality to the caufe of the court; but the conclufion, that it was the effect of a confpiracy of the popular chiefs, rather than a casual tumult, appears to be well-founded.

The state of the Jacobin club near the close of the year 1790, is thus mentioned.

Amidst all the various factions and cabals which co-operated in their feveral ways to drive forward the revolution, the great mother club of the Jacobins ftood fuperior, and was the centre of all the intrigue in France. Their abuse of the prefs was beyond all imagination. Large editions of no lefs than from fifty to a hundred different pamphlets were diftributed every month at their door. The Lameths too had introduced a committee of correspondence, which now held communication with more than two thousand affiliated focieties in different parts of the kingdom, befides foreign focieties all over Europe,' Part i. r. 79.

• Of this powerful machine, the Lameths, under the lead of Barnave, were left principal directors, by the feceffion of the members who formed the club of 1789. But this made room for a new faction to rife into notice; \Briffot, Robespierre, Pethion, Buzot, Carra, Collot d'Herbois, Salicetti, and more of that stamp, fome of whom made themselves of fo much confequence as to get. their names on the committee of correfpondence. Under these circumftances, Mirabeau, who had attached himself to the club

* Vie de Dumouriez, l. iii. c. 5.-But le veritable Portrait de nos Legiflateurs, p. 28. makes the affiliated focieties only about 600, and the writer does not apparently mean to under-rate their number. Whether more or fewer, it is agreed by all, that they exified in all the principal towns, and most of the confiderable villages throughout France.'

of 1789, for the fake of its weight in the national assembly, but who foon found their infufficiency, and their error in abandoning the Jacobins, returned to the latter, and exerted himself to regain the lead. Yet while he contended with his rival Barnave, and the Lameths, for the afcendency, he did not court the connections of Briffot and Robefpierre, who were then endeavouring to undermine them. He rather pointed his efforts to reprefs the more violent spirits; for he confidered them as the most dangerous, and he had conceived a hope that the fociety which had done fo much to deftroy, might thus in the end be made the inftrument of restoring order. Indeed his object had never been to overturn the state, but by any means to govern it.' Part i. P.

79.

The endeavours of Mirabeau, however, could not fecure to him that fway which was neceffary to allay the violence of the Jacobins. His character is drawn with a spirited rather than an elegant pencil. We will quote fome parts of it.

In his

In all the great relations of life, his character was such as to admit of no defence, no excufe. His enemies, both of the royalift and democratic parties, concur in representing him as the most immoral of men; a bad fon, an execrable husband, a brutal lover, and an imperious mafter. Nor indeed do his very friends conceal, that from his own account he appeared to have poffeffed in his early days few difpofitions to virtue and rectitude, and but little natural goodness of heart; the best they can fay for his memory is, that he was a being who by the force of circumftances operating on a character of lofty energy, was driven beyond the limits of nature and morality. His infancy was untractable and turbulent. youth, by his fcandalous vices, he alienated all who were connected with him by the ties of blood, and he acquired no friend. The beft years of his manhood were spent in prifons, where he was confined at the. request of his family, fometimes to punish, fometimes to prevent his crimes, and fometimes to fcreen him from the vengeance of the law, which had pronounced more than one capital fentence against him. His father believed him a parricide; his wife divorced him; his miftrefs, madame Monnier, he feduced from her husband, his friend and protector; and when he had spent what he had brought away with her, fent her back to gain his own pardon. He accepted the employment of a spy from the court of Versailles at the court of Berlin, and betrayed both courts. Not long before the revolution he was in this metropolis; and he was known to most of our criminal jurisdictions, fometimes as a profecutor, fometimes as the object of profecution, and every way alike to his disgrace.

As a writer, he obtained a reputation by chufing with dexterity the favourite topics of the day. His ftyle was his own, pow erful in expreffion, exciting and arrefting the attention by frequent ⚫ paradoxes.

As a speaker, he had a commanding voice, an impofing manner of authority. His oratory was lefs eloquent than bold, less profound than original.' Part i. P. 122.

• In the pillage and bloodshed of the revolution, Mirabeau does not seem to have felt any pofitive pleasure of wanton malignity, but he deliberately encouraged all the early infurrections, hazarded all their confequences, and defended whatever happened, because he thought all neceffary to the purposes of his ambition.

His fkill in the management of the national affembly was confpicuous. But to his influence there he did not scruple to facrifice his opinions. When he could not induce the majority to go with him, that he might still keep his station at their head, he was ever ready to go with them; and if he was accidentally caught in a minority, commanding the prefs as he did, he had the art the next day to reprefent his defeat as a victory. In the last months of his life, when he became more decided and fixed in the fupport of order, the reception which he sometimes experienced in the affembly as well as in the Jacobin club, made him fenfible, as he said himfelf, that it was but one step from the capitol to the Tarpeian rock : he perceived that not only his popularity, but his existence, was likely to be involved in one common ruin with the monarchy, which he had been one of the foremost to shake. If however, against all probability he had prevailed, and become the minister of a free state, the spirit of his government may be collected from one of his fpeeches which he had prepared, but not ventured to deliver : "The rule of liberty (obferved he) is perhaps more auftere than the caprices of tyrants." Part i. P. 123.

The proceedings of the constituent affembly are cenfured with feverity by our author.

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• Had the chiefs of the affembly, in the first instance, contented themselves with getting effectual and sure poffeffion of that salutary power' [the control of the public purfe] had they then practically examined the ufages of former times; had they changed nothing till they had found it upon trial to be incurably unfound they would have deferved well of their country, and might still more largely have benefited mankind. They took, however, a contrary course. In no one act did they ever turn their eyes towards their ancient conftitution. They feemed, by common confent, to have renounced their forefathers. They affected to fet themselves up as a totally new model of perfection for the imitation of the univerfe; yet differing in their motives, their intentions, their ends, their means, their notions, and their fpeculations; fome burried away by the characteristic vivacity of the nation, some mifled by vanity, part deceived by the falfe light of a dangerous philofophy, part feeking the gratification of their own ambition, others covering the worst defigns under plaufible pretences, they

only united to deftroy. They early entangled themfelves with principles pretended to be drawn from an imaginary state of nature anterior to civil fociety; and for their agents and inftruments, they let loofe from every religious or moral restraint, all the most ungovernable paffions of the human breaft. There was nothing in their demeanour which had the femblance of wisdom: whatever. they faid, was turgid and declamatory; whatever they did, was oftentatious and theatrical.' Part i. P. 192.

Thefe obfervations are too indifcriminately cenforious. Some of the acts of the affembly were prudent and judicious; and, though the new conftitution was not a mafter-piece of civil or political wifdom, it was, in many refpects, entitled to praife.

An account is afterwards given of the rife and progrefs of that diforganifing confpiracy which is supposed to have led to the French revolution, and which the abbé Barruel and profeffor Robifon have diligently explored, though they have not proved the existence of it to the extent which they imagine.

The cruelties perpetrated by the infurgents in the ifland of St. Domingo are related in a ftyle of just indignation; but, though we have no doubt that horrible enormities were com mitted, we cannot give credit to all the particulars here ftated.

With regard to the negotiation at Pilnitz between the emperor and the king of Pruffia, the writer is of opinion, that the fecret treaty faid to have been concluded on that occafion is a mere fiction.

Nothing more' (he fays) appears to have paffed, than a jointdeclaration which the count d'Artois, who had followed the emperor thither from Vienna, obtained by his importunity from the two monarchs. In this inftrument, confidering the fituation of Louis the XVIth as an object of common concern to all the fovereigns of Europe, they called upon the feveral powers, from whom affiftance was requested, fo to employ, in conjunction with themTelves, the most efficacious means according to their forces, as to furnish the king of France with the ability of confolidating in the moft perfect liberty, the bafis of a monarchical government, equally fuitable to the rights of fovereigns, and the welfare of the French nation. In the mean time they propofed to keep their own troops in a state of preparation for actual fervice, whenever neceffary." Part i. P. 246.

If any treaty was then adjufled, we have fufficient reafon to believe that his Britannic majefty had no concern in it, though he afterwards became an ally of the two fovereigns.

The war between France and Auftria is reprefented as having been unprovoked by the conduct of the court of Vienna. CRIT. REV. VOL, XXIV. Oct. 1798.

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The rulers of France were certainly precipitate in their decla ration of war: but the avowed concert of princes furnished grounds of alarm and complaint; and the French, in all probability, would foon have been involved in hostilities, even- -if they had not been the affailants.

The narrative of the war is continued only to July, 1792. The civil affairs of France are brought down to the fucceeding month. Those of Great-Britain terminate with the session, in June.

The war in India, between the English and the fultan of Myfore, is detailed with perfpicuity. Of the refult, it is properly obferved, that

The advantages which have accrued to the company from this treaty,' [the treaty of peace with Tippoo] amply appear to counterbalance the enormous expences of the war. By the acquifitions in the neighbourhood of the Carnatic, and the confequent poffeffion of the feveral paffes from Myfore, a confiderable augmentation of revenue, and a greater protection from hoftile incurfions, have been obtained in a very important quarter; while on the Malabar, coast, where we owned but little before, a portion of rich territory has been allotted to us, which, exclusive of its own commercial confequence, by being attached to the prefidency of Bombay, will at once tend to increase the security of that prefidency, and enhance its value.

• The wife moderation of those councils, which directed only a partial divifion of the conquered countries, cannot be too much praised. For had not a fufficient extent of dominion been left to Tippoo Sultan, to make him refpectable, and ftill in fome degree formidable to his neighbours, the balance of power in India might have been again materially affected, the future adjustment of which would have led to new wars. The treaty was a return, as far as circumftances would allow, to our old and true policy.' Part i. P. 399.

The hints refpecting the schemes of the late king of Sweden against France, and the account of the affaffination of that prince, are followed by these remarks:

After having nobly braved death in all its most hideous forms, both by fea and by land, in a novel fpecies of warfare, peculiarly marked by ferocity and blood, and gloriously sustained against an enemy of infinitely fuperior ftrength, in a courfe of the most obftinate and defperate encounters recorded in history; after having, by the most extraordinary exertions of courage and enterprize, though left alone, and fhamefully deferted by his allies, extorted a fafe and honourable peace, from this dangerous and fuperior enemy; after having retrieved and adorned with new glory the ancient martial character and honour of his country; after all these

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