THE QUESTION, WHY 
Without the aid of Prussia, Holland 
cannot be snatched from French supre- 
macy. What is the road to Prussian 
favour? Certainly not antijacobin prin- 
ciples, or an antijacobin embassy. The 
king may be very moral, frugal, and 
domestic; may read Antoninus’s medi- 
tations, and pension the novellist La- 
fontaine; but he has not the passion of 
personal meddling. An official body 
corporate, formed in the school of Fre- 
deric and prince Henry, attached to no 
superstition, and not satisfied with the 
recént French precedent of enthroning 
a general and establishing popery, is the 
‘ruling power. It can never sympathize 
with aristocratic opinions, which threaten 
the revival of the states (Landstinde) 
in its half-mastered provinces. In short, 
as far as opinion (but all is not gold 
that tinkles) can effectually predispose 
a literary metropolis and a philosophic 
ministry to co-operation with the rulers 
of this country, the low principles, as 
we call them here, are best adapted. 
“In Russia, the nobility are said to 
incline to the high principles, and the 
monarch, a pupil of Laharpe’s, to the 
low. His sensibility to praise is his love- 
liest foible: he pursues the applause of 
the enthusiasts of reform. 
thing to be done in the tyrannizing line 
in Russia; no habeas corpus acts to sus- 
pend; no martial laws to contrive; such 
things would not excitea stare. A czar, 
to be original, must be the improver of 
agriculture, the liberator of the pea- 
santry ; he must correspond with Mack- 
intosh on the laws of nations; and watch 
_ the speeches of Fox for a compliment: 
and this is the elegant taste of Alexan- 
der. He values, and justly values, 
higher the praise of London than the 
raise of Paris: it is less rash, but more 
Bcee. it is not immense, but it mostly 
fits. A forwarder co-operation of the 
Russian court would clearly have re- 
sulted from earlier, and less equivocal, 
approaches, on the part of our govern- 
ment, to the advocates and friends of 
liberty. 
We are threatened by, or are threat- 
ening, a war with Spain. Without the 
alliance of the American states, there is 
Art. XXXVI. The 
There is no- . 
337 
DO WE GO TO WAR? 
little chance of approaching Mexico, of 
obtaining the isthmus to cut a canal 
into the Pacific, or of securipg indepen- 
dence to Peru and Chili. And what is 
the road to American co-operation ?— 
Again the principles of liberty, in their 
rashest nakedness, and loudest shouting 
enthusiasm. What has hitherto pre- 
vented a strict alliance from setting in 
between us? Merely, that while the one 
country promotes its whigs, the other 
promotes its tories. A Jefferson has 
to negotiate with a Grenville. Were 
our ministers in the principles of the 
American ministers, (we cazx change, 
they must abide by the incoercible result 
of. popular suffrage), our treaties of 
commerce would be settled without chi- 
canery, and would lead to treaties des 
fensive and offensive. 
In short, whatever purposes are to be 
answered of foreign alliance, or conti- 
nental co-operation, the federative or 
diplomatic interests of the country im- 
periously require from our statesmen 
the profession of eleuthetism. ireland 
would at once be converted to affection, 
and allegiance here warm into enthu- 
siasm. 
As to the truth or utility to mankind 
of the liberal school of principles, we 
have no hope, in this age of meanness, 
tnat for such reasons it should be pa- 
tronized ; but we conjure statesmen by 
their policy, and government by its na- 
tionality, to employ their parliamentary 
and literary sophists in teaching anew 
the principles of freedom, and in direct- 
ing the public expenditure and the public 
force to reversing the mischiefs occasi- 
oned by the various tendencies of the late 
unfortunate and ruinous war. Against 
the principles of antijacobinism and Bc-~ 
naparte let sovereigns arm, and they 
will deserve to triumph. 
There is much about Switzerland in 
this pamphlet: it is the best part cf it. 
Yet, were the doctrines of liberty ther 
to be acted upon, without the certainty 
of extensive assistance both in Provence 
and Italy, they could only rivet more 
closely the yoke of France. The Swiss 
should await the hour of French ad. 
versity. 
> in Why do we goto War? temperately discussed according 
to the Official Correspondence. 8vo. pp. 30. 
‘THIS is one of the ablest controver- 
sial pamphlets in the language: it exa- 
mines the motives for the late mischiev- 
Awn. Rev. Vor. II. 
ous declaration of war, which ministers 
have brought out in the official ecrre- 
muenapees and proneunces them all, 
