HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
temporary splendour, ultimately 
wrought their ruin, and introduced 
a new order of affairs into the dis- 
tracted and fluctuating commopn- 
wealth, 
The close of the year 1795 was 
notso favourable to the French as 
that of the preceding ; they had 
projected at its commencement to 
follow up their successes in Holland, 
by carrying their victorious arms in- 
to the heart of Germany ; but a va- 
riety of obstructions had either pre- 
vented or frustrated their designs. 
At home the violence of the many 
factions, open or cencealed, stood 
perpetually in the way of govern. 
ment, and impaired its proposed 
energies. Abroad the remaining 
parts of the coalition against France, 
though foiled in their repeated at- 
tempts, still preserved their spirit, 
and determination to persist at all 
hazards in carrying on the war. 
The principal scene of action had 
been on the banks of the Rhine. 
Here it had been generally ex- 
pected, that, after the subjugation of 
the seven United Provinces, the 
French would bave met with no con- 
siderable opposition; but though 
dispirited, as well as weakened, by 
the severing of so material a Hiab 
from the great body of the confe- 
~ deracy, it still found sufficient re- 
sources to make head against the 
French, in a country where the ge- 
nerality of the inhabitants, though 
- dissatisfied at their rulers, were not 
so imprudent as to prefer a foreign 
to a domestic yoke, and would not 
fail to Bpeapenate in opposing a 
French invasion. To this disposition 
ofan incomparable majority of the 
inhabitants of Germany was, in a 
great measure, due the little pro- 
gress of the French in those pro- 
* vinces of the empire on the right 
[3 
side of the Rhine, into which they 
had, with much difficulty, found 
means to penetrate, and from which 
they had been, after much fruitless 
toil and unsuccessful efforts, come 
pelled to retire with very censider- 
able losses. 
The failure of the French in their 
expedition into Germany ; their ex- 
pulsion from every post they had oc 
cupied on the eastern banks of the 
Rhine; their retreat across that 
river ; the pursuit of their discomfit- 
ed army into the borders of France; 
and the several defeats they expe- 
rienced, were circumstances so little 
hoped for at the commencement of 
this year’s military operations in 
those parts, that they proportionably 
revived the spirit of their enemies, 
and infused a degree of confidence 
into them, to which they had been 
strangers, since the disasters of the 
preceding campaign. 
But, notwithstanding their ill 
success on the Rhine; the French 
maintained a decided superiority in 
every other quarter. Europe seemed 
to stand at bay; and to wait with 
anxiety the termination of a quarrel 
that had produced so many stupen= 
dousevents. ‘The dissolution of the 
confederacy, by the secession of 
Prussia and Spain, was far from being 
considered as complete: the princi= 
pal members, Sit Britain and 
Austria, were held fully competent, 
though not to the purpose of sub- 
duing, yet still to that of repressing 
the “French ; and this was now 
viewed as the only object, at 
which they ought, in prudence, in 
the present situation of their affairs, 
to alm. 
During the course of the cam- 
paign, the government in France 
had entertained some ideas tending 
to a general pacification; but the 
{B2] lofti- 
