310 
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND STATISTICS. 
Art. XXII, Sketches of the intrinsic Strength, Military and Naval’ Force of Franee 
and Russia ; with Remarks on their present Connexion, Political Influence, and future 
Proe&s. In Two Parts. Part I, Quarto, pp. 220. ; 
' A WISE general will rather give his 
enemy credit for greater strength and 
ampler resources ss he actually pos- 
sesses, than despise the one and under- 
rate the other; many a battle has been 
lost by the perviousness of an imaginary 
panoply. It would have been no more 
than prudent, perhaps, to have employed 
the short interval of peace which was 
allowed us, in examining carefully and 
minutely the situation of our ancient 
foe: it would have been well to have 
estimated the injury he had received 
from blows in the contest, but at the same 
time to have ascertained, whether his 
{imbs had not grown stronger by long 
athletic exercise. Goaded by the silly 
and insulting threat that we dare not 
engage bim singje-handed, in the confi- 
dence of our prowess we accepted his 
challenge, and the issue of the conflict is 
now in the hands of him “ who is the 
only giver of ail victory.” 
It was the ruinous system of the Pitt 
administration to gain popularity for the 
war by oy ae hopes which were never 
likely to be realized, and which therefore 
ended in the bitterest disappointment ; 
the French government was at one time 
stated to be on the brink, nay in the 
very gulph of bankruptcy, her desperate 
struggles were the convulsive agonies of 
death, and the name even of the country 
was sogn to be blotted out from the map 
of Europe. How contemptible, to say 
the least of them, are such illusory pre- 
dictions! But it is to be hoped that we 
are now profiting by our past folly, and 
we are not a little indebted to the author 
of these Sketches for a more just, and 
therefore a more useful appreciation of 
the intrinsic strength, the ‘military and 
the naval force of France. They are 
only sketches, but they come from the 
hand of a master—the line which a 
stranger drew on the canvas of Proto- 
enes was immediately detected by the 
hodian painter to come from the hand 
of Apelles. 
This work is printed at the Hague, 
but the author dates from Paris; and 
when he controverts the assertions, ei- 
ther ignorant or treacherous, of those 
British writers, who would lull us into 
fatal security by setting forth the misery 
and oppression which they pretend in- 
vade the interior of France, his state- 
ments are entitled to. confidence, from 
the pledged assurance that he speaks, 
“from ocular evidénce, having within, 
these twenty moaths visited every des 
partment of that vast republic.” 
«As matters now stand, the political 
powers and military force of continental Eu- 
rape are to le eonsidered, as concentrated ins 
the governments of Hrance and Russia. ‘These 
two states have, cach in its sphere, fought 
themselves over the frontiers of resistance + 
in understanding with one. another, no 
power, or combination of powers can check,, 
or interrupt the operations of either of them. 
South of the Danube and the Elbe Europe. 
is directly and indirectly subject to France + 
and the coasts of Barbary and Morocco will, 
forthwith be colonized under her authority. 
North of the Elbe and Danube to, the Frozen. 
ocean is under the dominion and immediate 
control of Russia; Asiatic Turkey and Persia 
may also soon fall under her yoke. If Aus- 
tria and Prugsia assume a, sort of indepen- 
dency of one another, that very assumpjion, 
secures the dependency of both, upon the. 
Czar and the Consul : no doubt it will there- 
fore be allowed, and encouraged, until both 
these governments can be dispensed with. 
How long the chiefs of those, two mighty em= 
pires way agree, and continue to pursue theix 
present system, cannot perhaps at this mo- 
ment be determined; we. shall therefore, in 
as far as relates to, their neighbourhood, poli- 
tical ties and commercial intercourse with 
Great Britain, corsider both France and 
Russia in their present state, and as they now 
stand relatively to the British empire. ~~ 
«© FRANCE. 
«No matter who commands there, nor. 
what denomination the government may as- 
sume; itis a nation possessing immense na-. 
tural sources of wealth, power, and political 
influence. ; 
“« Situated as France is, under,an excellent 
climate, and with an arable, easily worked 
soil, agriculture must always be the. stap! 
branch of her national industry, and the 
prineipel source from which she must draw 
ner political influence and military power. 
«© Prior to the revolution, agriculture in 
France was nearly in the same state im which, 
we find it still in every country in continen- 
tal Europe: about taints of the, land gus-, 
ceptible of cultivation, were, ¢n whatis term- 
ed culture and pasturage; and produced, 
upon an ayerage, about one-third of what or~ 
dinary culture, upon the like quantity of the 
same soil, would have produced. Notwith- 
standing that wretched economy, the govern- 
ment drew, from the produce of agriculture 
alone, 8,000,0001. stefling. The clergy, with 
religious and charitable institutions, drew 
