copying, as far as the genius of the people will admit, those of England. The trial by jury, and the representative system, are, at this moment, maturing in France, after an acute examination of the same systems existing with us.

The principle of supporting the weak against the more powerful, which has been the policy of England, will always give, to the public language of the Country, an air of liberality and magnanimity; very flattering to ourselves, but very stimulative to the passions. Thus have some of the public prints supported, by their writings, the cause of the Spaniards invaded; with a degree of virulence, misrepresentation, and confidence which has, in the end, greatly weakened the cause they advocated. For it has sunk that cause, by injudicious bolstering, into insignificance; and, indeed, language not very short of recommending violence towards the life of the King of Spain, has not been spared on the occasion. It may, therefore, be said with truth on the continent, (as it is said) that England is the centre of all continental revolutions; and that having survived her own; by her language, and the display of her institutions, she hastens others to the same catastrophe.

If indeed, the Courts of Europe were to judge of the British nation, by a part of its daily press, peace could not be maintained. The language of defiance, abuse, and irritation, is a matter of course, in order to render the leading article pi

quant. Like the ostrich, which hiding its head under its wings, believes itself to be unobserved; so the public press of England forgets, that in exciting by its language a foreign nation against its sovereign; it does virtually interfere in the internal regulation of that country, and stultifies all its arguments, aimed against France for the invasion of Spain.

Again, another set of politicians argued the case of France as one of self-defence; and had they been in the pay of France, could not have departed more than they did, from a true British feeling.

But the policy of the Country, admitted by all thinking parties, was that of neutrality; not a weak, but a powerful neutrality; not a neutrality which was to be despised and scoffed at, but one which was to be feared, and the violation of which was to be dreaded by either contending party.

A battle indeed, was fought on Spanish ground; but the prize to be obtained was the Commerce of South America. The cabinet was completing a code of navigation and of commerce, to meet the changes of time, circumstances, and revolutions; aiming thereby to soften down the chance of future contests, by the more extended and congenial pursuits of interchange. All this would have been counteracted by an European war; besides, Spain did not invite us to her assistance, and therefore

any interference on the part of England, unasked and uninvited, would have been to commit the same offence which France had done: for support surely implies interference.

If the war against Spain, had on the part of France, assumed the seriousness of an intent to conquer, then the whole complexion of the case would have been altered. But the very idea was too preposterous to be entertained for one moment. For the country to be conquered, could never have been retained; therefore cui bono was the attempt? France too, was a party to the Holy Alliance; the avowed object of which is, to preserve sovereign power in statu quo, as the means of attaching the people to one fixed and invariable principle, round which all minor changes

were to move.

The proof that the neutrality of England proceeds from no weakness, is to be found in this distinct avowal, on the part of the British cabinet to that of France. "If, says our foreign minister (in effect,) you seek for an indemnity from Spain for the services you propose to render her, in the South American Colonies belonging to that power; and interfere there for that purpose, upon the same principle you are now about to act; then England will not remain neuter. So long as your entrance into Spain has a decided and specific object, that of silencing the factious of that dis

turbed country,' you may or may not succeed; and you may or may not confer a benefit upon Spain; but it is a case perse; go not beyond it, or we become parties."

England, therefore, fearless of the power of Russia, and independent of any shackle from the Holy Alliance, is the judge of her own rights, the dictator of her own policy, and holds in her own hand, independently, the balance of war or peace; and during the late invasion by France, ceased not for one moment to press upon Spain, her claims of indemnity for injuries committed to her mercantile flag.

In relation then to Spain and France, England has maintained a strict and impartial neutrality upon a distinct and avowed basis.

Those

In another quarter of the world, we see the same England acting the part of a mediator; and entrusted both by Russia and the Porte with a settlement of their mutual differences. have been nearly brought to a favourable conclusion, though clogged with another most embarrassing point, namely, the deliverance of the Christian Greeks from the followers of Mahomet.

Thus has England, by a strict neutrality in one place, and by a mediatorial power in another, displayed the principle of her foreign policy. "The consolidation of a permanent European Peace."

C

The Holy Alliance has been so much abused by some parties in England, that a suspicion may be entertained, that it really is not that monstrous combination of sovereigns against their people, which some may imagine it to be. It may possibly be a league to prevent the return of a revolutionary deluge of which the effects had hardly disappeared. Suppose we bring the case within a simile, as by the help of a bridge, one passes a rivulet.

We will suppose England partitioned as under her Saxon Kings, as is the Continent, though in larger proportions. Suppose these various small Royalties, overrun by some one powerful enemy, parcelled out, divided, and handed over from one to another, as was the Continent in the time of Buonaparte. Resisting this usurpation of a conqueror, suppose these subjugated states rose again, with little hope of success, but in a spirit of desperation, (as did the Continent) and defeated the power which had tyrannized over them.

Having conquered, and met, after the blood of their citizens had flown in torrents; their property been carried off, and their countries pillaged, would not the first question among them be, "How shall we retain our different possessions, and how prevent the recurrence of the past? If there was one general principle which might be adopted, and yet admit of minor variations aris