316 
her sons may very safely be entrusted 
with the defence of it. Italians, Mame- 
Jukes and Spaniards, the First Consul 
can drive before him, 
In vain has Nature form’d 
Mountains and oceans to oppose his passage ; 
He bounds o’er all, victorious in his march: 
‘The Alps and Pyreneans sink before him, 
but let him venture on these shores, and 
he will find a nation ‘ witha soul in it,’ 
he will find us as one man rising to op- 
pose his progress, and roll back his le- 
gions, 
RUSSIA. 
Such are already the extent and situa- 
tion of the territories of this mighty em- 
pire, the nature and abundance of its 
produce, and the number of its popula- 
tion ;* that another Peter, says our au- 
thor, a Catharine, or an Alexander, may 
extend its dominions to the extremities 
of Europe and Asia; and its politics, 
guided by the interests of the state, have 
as little connexion with those of other 
nations ‘ as the etiquette of the court of 
Peking has with the ceremonies of the 
eonclave of Rome.’ This empire, one 
half surrounded with an unnavigable 
ocean, and six-sevenths of the other half 
covered with Asiatic nations and wander- 
ing tribes ; mistress of the Baltic, Livo- 
nia, and Poland, of the Black and Cas- 
pian Seas, Georgia and the Caucasus ; 
though its own frontiers are inaccessible, 
can pour her resistless legions over every 
part of continental Europe and Asia. 
«Commanding, as she doth, the Sound 
and the Belts, if she do not lose the Bos- 
phorus, no check whatever can be set upon 
her future operations.” And is it indeed 
true, that a prince of ambition and talent 
at the head of a Russian empire might 
place himself at the head of our eastern 
continent ? 
«The insurmountable difficulties that it is 
said would attend the march or passage of a 
Russian army through Parthia and Bucharia 
to Cashmire and Cabnl, or by the Euphrates 
to Bassora, reminds us of Mr. Canning’s 
crocodiles that eat up Bonaparte’s army on 
the banks of the Nile! And the estimacions 
drawn up to shew the force which the Persian 
cavalry and the Arabian strollers would op- 
pose to such an expedition, seems to be made 
trom the same scale, by which we lately saw 
calculated the resistance the valiant Swiss 
were to make to the legions of France. How 
ae ae 
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND STATISTICS. 
is it possible to presume that Persia, in its 
present state, could make any opposition to 
the demands or operations of Russia? From 
Astrabad to Ispahan, is not further than 
from York to London. From the port of 
Zaue or the Tendzen river, and from the 
Aral-lake to Cabul, is only about as far as 
from QOczakow to Teflis. A million of 
camels are to be found on the roads, and 
shoulda Russian army be pleased to purchase 
them, they cost only about the value of forty 
shillings a-head ; a hundred pound weight 
of wheat costs fifteen-pence, as much salt 
two-pence, an ox of six to eight cwt. about 
oy shillings, and a sheep of two handred 
pounds four shillings sterling. _ We can 
scarcely believe that an army of Cosacs and 
Kalmucs would find such a country impassa- 
ble; especially when they are told that Tah- 
mas Kouli-Khan, on an excursion of plea- 
sure rather than an expedition of war, brought 
a booty worth sixty millions sterling out of 
Indostan. And would the Grand Signor 
refuse a passage through his territories to 
Bassora, when only to demur upon the 
demand might cost him Constantinople ? 
If the safety of Delhi, Agra, and other 
places in India, depend upon their distance 
from the frontiers of Russia, and upon the 
difficulties and dangers of the route, we 
would recommend to the Mogul and those 
concerned with him, to make terms, or hide 
their treasures as soon as they can. 
«« We are told in England, and-it is said, 
that writers have been paid to prove it, that 
the trade of Indostan cannot be carried on 
through Persia and 'Tartary by Russia; nor 
through the Persian gulph and Red Sea by 
France. ‘That may be, but should these 
powers conjointly, or either of them, ac 
quire the dominion of India, doth that imply 
that the trade of Asia with Europe must 
change its usual channel? We believe not. 
The French republic will, we know, very 
soon possess herself of Brasil, and she wi 
bring the produce of that country across the 
Atlantic as formerly. That the British and 
Portuguese navies could interrupt the pas- 
sage is possible, atleast fora time ; but what 
benefit could that produce to either? Beside 
to keep those ‘navies equipt, Indostan an 
Brasil are perhaps as necessary as water is to 
keep them afloat.” 
Our author reprobates with great 
severity, our quarrel with the northern 
states. He asserts that the object of the 
war was not worth to Great-Britain the 
Litleyinger of a British sailor; that it 
evinced an obstinate adherence to the 
most despicable principle in politics that 
ever was countenanced by a great na- 
tion, that of avenging upon weaker 
* Exclusive of Georgia, amounting to forty-two millions ; whereof thereare upwards of 
twenty millions of male peasants, 700,C00 enrolled soletier’, and 50,000 servarits for the 
7, ~ « a via = 
staff; and 1,2V0,090 free men of all descriptions. 
