HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



183 



liily, loan, or tribute, Spain, Por- 

 tugal, the Haiise Towns, &c. &c. kc- 

 have all been obliged to contribute 

 their quota to the wants of France, 

 so in like manner Italy, Switzerland, 

 the north of Germany, have been ob- 

 liged to maintain her armies in their 

 respective countries, and at their own 

 expence. As long as this novel 

 mode of collecting his resources 

 shall exist, Bonaparte will certainly 

 feel equal to his expenditure, but to 

 enable him so to do, he must ever 

 remain upon the watch, either 

 to commit acts of aggression him- 

 self on other countries, or seek 

 occasion to quarrel with them upon 

 some pretence or other, that fresh 

 encroachment may lead to fresh 

 Tictory, and victory to plunder. 

 Such is the course he seems at pre- 

 sent disposed to continue systema- 

 tically. He will ever j^te anxious 

 that the war-tide he has poured upon 

 the rest of Europe shall not be re- 

 fluent, and he has just reason to 

 dread the hour, if it ever shall ar- 

 rive, when even the most glorious 

 peace to him, shall subject three or 

 four hundred thousand disbanded 

 soldiers to return upon Franco, the 

 creatures of military views and ha- 

 bits, destitute of employment, and 

 whom it will be equally dangerous 

 to keep on foot or to disband. If 

 these premises be just, if such be 

 the present constitution of France, 

 and such the policy of her ruler, 

 we must yet look, notwithstanding 

 the apparent c.ilui in which we 

 witness the close of the present 

 year, to other wars and other coa- 

 litions. France must conquer or be 

 conquered ; the rest is in the hands of 

 Providence. 



We revert, with a peculiar degree 

 of pain, to the present condition of 

 that pjwer upon the coutinentj 



whose natural rivalry with France, 

 as a territory, and whose relations, 

 wiih respect to the unfortunate fa- 

 mily of the Bourbons, had constant- 

 ly and actively, although with a 

 success always dubious, but recent- 

 ly decidedly favourable to its oppo- 

 nent, kept it in the field for so many 

 years in the arduous contests in 

 which France has been engaged 

 since the year 1790. We mean 

 Austria, whose gallantry and fideli- 

 ty to the common cause of Europe 

 has cost her so dear. At the com- 

 mencement of the year, notwith- 

 standing what might well be called 

 the two disastrous wars she had re- 

 cently waged with France, notwith- 

 standing her waste of blood and 

 treasure, her being despoiled of the 

 Netherlands, and of her dominions 

 in Lombardy, still she presented a, 

 formidable barrier to the further en- 

 croachments of France. The mild- 

 est government in Europe, her ranks 

 are recruited with more celerity 

 than those of any other nation. _Ia 

 any combined plan of future ope- 

 rations, the purse of England was 

 open to her, and her acquisition of 

 Venice and its territory, in a great 

 measure, compensated her for hei: 

 territorial loss in other parts of Eu- 

 rope. The actual dissolution of the 

 Germanic body, by the machina- 

 tions of Bonaparte, had, in the 

 course of the last year, induced 

 Francis to assume the hereditary 

 dignify of emperor ; and he secmtd, 

 at (he commciiccment of the present, 

 to be ill the fairest way to uphold 

 all that remained, if not quite re- 

 trieve, tJie political consequence of 

 his illustrious house. 



The event of the last campaign, 

 terminating in the plains of Mora- 

 via, has too plainly evinced that his 

 councils uud bis uic^suros have been 



N 4 alik* 



