66] ANNUAL REGISTER, ISOO. 



CHAP. V. 



The Return of Buonaparte from Egypt, the leading Event in the Histori/ 

 of 1800. — The vast and unhuundcd Power vested in him hy the new 

 Constitution. — General Expectations and Presages. — Able and 

 prudeni Conduct of Buonaparte. — The Justice and Moderation of 

 his Government. — His Solicitude to pacify and tranquillize France. 

 — Means adopted for this Purpose. — Both of Persuasion and Force. 

 — War in the western. Departments. — Armistice. — The War renewed. 

 —-Overtures from Buonaparte for Peace with England.— Bejecled. 



WHETHER we contemplate 

 the great aiFairs of nations 

 in a political or military point of 

 view, the return of Buonaparte to 

 France, in the beginning of Octo- 

 ber, 1 799j is the grand and leading 

 event in the history of 1800, and 

 that which, more than any other, 

 influenced the state and condition, 

 not only of France, Italy, and Ger- 

 many, but of every other country 

 in Europe. Who could have be- 

 lieved that a simple sub-lieutenant 

 of artillery, a stranger to France, by 

 name and by birth, was destined to 

 govern tliis great empire, and to 

 give the law, in a manner, to all 

 the continent, in defiance of reason, 

 justice, the hereditary rights of the 

 legitimate princes of the realm, and 

 the combined efforts of so great a 

 number of loyalists in the interior 

 of the kingdom, and all the great 

 powers of Europe ? There is not 

 any one in the world who could 

 have imagined the possibility of an 

 event so extraordinary. Almost 

 forgotten by a nation ever in mo- 

 tion, incapable of rest, and always 



taken up with objects present to 

 their senses, and new to their ima- 

 ginations, he was suddenly exalted 

 to an authority, at least as ample 

 and absolute as any of the French 

 kings. He was invested with the 

 power of taxation, the power of 

 the sword, the power of war and 

 peace, the unlimited power of com- 

 manding the resources, and dis- 

 posing of the lives and fortunes of 

 every man in France. He was 

 furnished with the means of creat- 

 ing an army, by converting every 

 man, who was of age to bear arms, 

 into a soldier, whether for the de- 

 fence of his own country, or carry- 

 ing war into the country of an ene- 

 my. He had no rival to thwart his 

 measures, no colleague to divide his 

 powers, no council to control his 

 operations, no liberty of speaking 

 or writing for the expression of pub- 

 lic opinion, to check or influence 

 his conduct : and, to crown the 

 whole, his power, resting appa- 

 rently on the foundations of popu- 

 lar election and democratic sway. 

 From such a man, invested with 



