PREFACE. v 
people under its sceptre ; but the’ means by which its 
restoration was effected, and the severe humiliation to 
which the French nation was reduced by a complete 
subjection to foreign powers, have infused such a spirit 
of disaffection, that the continued occupation of its 
frontier towns by the allied troops has been judged in- 
dispensable for the security of the Bourbon throne. This 
necessity has not only imposed a heavy burthen upon 
France, and aggravated the ‘public discontents, but 
has obliged the Allied Powers to keep up their mili- 
tary establishments to a point inconsistent with that 
pacific character which it might have been hoped that 
all Europe would have hastened to assume after its 
long and destructive wars. Great Britain, which has 
so often been looked to for the supply of those pecu- 
hiary resources, in which the other members of the 
confederacies into which she has entered were de- 
ficient, after having borne a disproportionate ‘share of 
the vast expenses incurred by the operations of war, 
has found it expedient to retain a standing army of a 
magnitude wholly unparalleled in any former period of 
nominal peace. This measure, the necessity for which 
is ascribed partly to the unsettled state of France, and 
partly by the additions made by conquest to the British 
Empire, has effectually prevented any alleviation of 
the public burthens during the present year, or the 
immediate prospect of it for futurity. The martial 
glory to which the nation has been raised by the exer- 
tions of its brave progeny at Waterloo, will render 
this year a memorable era in its military history ; 
