HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



135 



only against her colonies and^com- 

 merce, but also leave her naval su- 

 periority a contested and doubtful 

 point. With this view, the squa- 

 drons of the French fleet, which had 

 hitherto, since the commencement of 

 the war, remained inactive in their 

 ports, were, at the beginning of the 

 year, put into a state of the greatest 

 activity, and several armaments were 

 actually put on foot, which, evading 

 the British blockading squadrons, 

 spread, for the moment, terror and 

 dismay throughoutboth hemispheres. 



The fate and fortune of the 

 French naval expeditions of this 

 year, it will be a pleasing part of 

 our duty to detail, in a subsequent 

 portion of our work, where the ma- 

 ritime warfare of both countries 

 %vill be particularly considered and 

 detailed. For the present, the pro- 

 ceedings of the French emperor, on 

 the continent, arc too important in 

 themselves, and too vast in their 

 objects, not to engross our primary 

 and whole attention. 



It will be recollected, by our rea- 

 ders, that, in the course of the last 

 year, Bonaparte had assumed the 

 imperial purple, and had, in his own 

 person, commenced a new dynasty, 

 destined to usurp the throne of the 

 Bourbons, and reign over the vast 

 dominions of France and licr depen- 

 dencies. 



But although this personage, (cer- 

 tainly one of the most fortunate if 

 not the greatest character on which 

 the page of history has ever dwelt,) 

 had taken upon himself the style 

 and title of emperor of the Cauls, 

 respect for the form of govern- 

 ment he had so recently estab- 

 lished in the northern and middle 

 provinces of Italy, induced him to 

 forogo.atthe moment of his advance- 

 ment to the imperial diadem, the 



personal sovereignty of that coun- 

 try, and which still therefore re- 

 tained the name of " republic," of 

 which Bonaparte was the nominal 

 head. 



The entire success however of the 

 experiment which the emperor had 

 tried upon the feelings of the French 

 nation, and the acquiescence of the 

 greater part of the European courts 

 to the assumption of his nc"." dignity, 

 emboldened him, in tlie course of the 

 present year, to extend his views of 

 family aggrandizement, aid the iron 

 crown of Charlemagne Avas d stined 

 to circle the brows of Bonaparte. 

 It is also more than probable, that 

 policy and the lust of conquest had 

 an equal share with ambition in in- 

 ducing him to take the name of king 

 of Italy. The limits and preten- 

 sions of tJie "Italian republic" 

 were necessarily defined by the 

 name and nature of the government 

 it had chosen, and which could only 

 extend to those provinces of which 

 it already consisted. But the king- 

 dom of Italy must necessarily com- 

 prise, unless the title were allowed 

 to be a palpable absurdity, the whole 

 of the natural and artificial divisions 

 of that delightful country. When 

 Bonaparte, therefore, desired to be 

 its crowned and acknowledged 

 monarch and was hailed " king 

 of Italy," his views upon the 

 southern provinces, and the rich 

 and fertile island of Sicily, M'hen 

 the character of the man is coa- 

 siilcrcd, could be no longer pro- 

 blematical. This conjecture too 

 was not diminished in force, when it 

 was remembered, that, under prc- 

 teuces equally insolent and unjust., 

 the French were actually in con- 

 siderable force in Naples, occuiiy- 

 ing the strong and important posi/iori 

 of Otranto, and that a large body 



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