engage in her quarrel any of the continental | powers. No one of them, in fact, appeared disposed to accept either her propositions or her recommendations.At ease respecting the dispositions of the Continent, the Emperor turned all his thoughts to the maritime war, for which every thing was to be created. Fleets were built; ports were excavated; camps were formed on the shores of the ocean the Emperor had assembled there all the forces of his empire; and his troops forming themselves under his inspection for operations altogether new, were preparing for new triumphs. England perceived the dangers with which she was menaced. She wished to obviate them by crimes. Assassins were thrown upon the coast of France. The English ministers to neutral powers became the agents of a warfare, infamous as atrocious, of a warfare of conspiracies and assassinations.-The Emperor saw into these pitiful conspiracies; he treated them with contempt, and was not thereby prevented from offering peace on the same terms which he had before proposed.So much generosity could not assuage, nay, seemed even to augment the frenzy of the Cabinet of St. James's. Its answer shewed clearly that it would not think of peace, till the hope should be extinguished of deluging the Continent with blood and carnage. But it was sensible, that to accomplish such a design, the association in its views of a power, by its position, almost as unconnected with the Continental system as England, would not be sufficient; that not having any thing to expect from Prussia, whose sentiments were too well known, its expectation would be vain, as long as Austria should remain faithful to her neutrality.Austria, which had twice experienced, at the end of two disastrous wars, at the time of the treaties of Campo-Formio and of Luneville, the generosity that France was disposed to shew towards a vanquished enemy, did not by any means pay the same religious observance to treaties, as France. Notwithstanding the formal stipulations of these treaties, the debt of Venice was not discharged; it was even declared extinguished. The Emperor was aware, that his subjects of Milan and Mantua, experienced a denial of justice, and that the Court of Vienna had liquidated none of their demands, in contempt of the solemn engagements which it had entered into. He was aware that the commercial relations of his kingdom of Italy with the hereditary states, were subject to obstructions, and that his subjects of France and Italy found in Austria a very different reception, from that which a state of peace gave them a right to

expect.

-In the distribution of the indemnities in Germany, Austria had been treated with a partiality that ought to crown all her wishes, and surpass even her expectations. Yet her conduct shewed, that she was far from being satisfied. She alternately employed arts and menaces to procure from the petty princes the cession of such possessions. as suited her. Thus it was that she had acquired Lindau on the Lake of Constance, and the Isle of Menau in the same Lake, which placed in her hands one of the keys of Switzerland. She obtained the cession of Altkousen from the Teutonic Order, which made her mistress of an important post, the port of Rhinau. She had enlarged her territory by a number of other acquisitions, and was meditating fresh ones. As a means of aggrandizement, she was not afraid to employ evident usurpations, which she sought to conceal under legal forms.Thus it was, that, under colour of a right paramount, (a right which she had renounced by a treaty) and the exercise of which was incompatible with the execution of the recess of the Germanic empire, she appropriated to herself some possessions, which she affected to consider in a state of disherison and without legal proprietors, 'though the recess had formally disposed of them towards the division of the indemnities. By these means she disappointed many princes of those possessions which it had been thought just to assign them, under pretence of this same right paramount, which, so far as regarded the Swiss, she called the right (d'Incamération), she carried off considerable sums from Switzerland. She sequestered the fiefs of a neighbouring prince in Bohemia, under pretence of compensations due to the Elector of Saltzburg, of which, contrary to every right, she claimed to be sole arbitress. She persisted, with menaces, to keep recruiting parties in the Bavarian provinces, in Franconia and Suabia, and interrupted, by every means in her power, the conscription for the electoral army there, abusing the prerogatives formerly granted to the head of the German empire for the common benefit of the states composing it, and now fallen into disuse. She revived them in order to interrupt the exercise of their sovereignty by the neighbouring princes, in those possessions which fell to their lot in the division, and to deprive them of the increase of influence in the Diets, which ought to result from these possessions.The recess of the empire, a consequence and fulfilment of the treaty of Luneville, had for its object, exclusive of the division of the indemnities, to establish, by means of this

distribution itself, in the South of Germany, an equilibrium, which might ensure its independence, and to prevent those eventual causes of misunderstanding and war, which an immediate contact between the territories of France and Austria might frequently give rise to. Such was the view of the mediators and of the German empire; such was the view of justice, of reason, and of an humane policy, and conformable to the true interests of Austria herself. Thus Austria reversed what the recess had so wisely established, when, by her acquisitions in Suabia, she weakened the barrier between France and the principal states of the South of Germany, and when, by a combined system of sequestrations, pretensions, caresses, and menaces, she was incessantly aiming to secure to herself an exclusive, universal, and arbitrary influence, over that part of the German empire. She, therefore, evidently violated the existing treaties, and every one of her acts may be considered as an infraction of the peace. Since the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, Austria had, on more than one occasion, shewn a partiality to England. She had recognised by her acts the pretended right of blockade, which the Cabinet of St. James's has dared to arrogate, and according to which, a simple declaration of the English Admiralty is sufficient to put under interdict all the coasts of a vast empire; she had suffered, without remonstrance or complaint, the neutrality of her flag to be continually violated to the detriment of France, against whom all the violences offered to neutral flags were evidently directed. All these facts were known to the Emperor: many of them excited his solicitude. These were real grievances: they would have been just motives for war; but for the love of peace, the Emperor even abstained from all complaint, and the Court of Vienna received from him only new testimonies of deference. He made a law for himself to avoid every thing that could give offence to Aus

tria.

When called by the wishes of his people of Italy, he repaired to Milan, troops were assembled, camps were formed, with the single view of mixing military pomp with religious and political solemnities, and of presenting the Sovereign Majesty in the midst of that splendor that pleases the eyes of the people. The Emperor will allow that he had also some pleasure in seeing his companions in arms re-assembled in the places, and on the very spots which were consecrated by their victories; but wishing to prevent the uneasiness of the Court of Vienna, if it were possible that court could feel any on the occasion, he caused that

court to be assured of his pacific intentions, by declaring that the camps which had been formed would be raised after some days, and this promise was exactly fulfilled. -Austria answered by protestations equally friendly and pacific, and the Emperor quitted Italy with the pleasing hope that the peace of the Continent would be preserved. But how great was his astonishment, when, scarcely arrived in France, while at Boulogne hastening the preparations for an expedition which he was at length on the point of carrying into effect, he received from all parts the intelligence, that a general motion pervaded all the forces of the Austrian monarchy; that they were advancing by forced marches on the Adige, in the Tyrol, and ou the banks of the Inn, that those absent on furlough were recalled, that magazines were forming, that arms were manufacturing; that levies of horses were raising, that they were erecting fortifications in the defiles of the Tyrol and about Venice, and that every thing was doing which announces and is characteristic of an impending war. The Emperor could not at first believe that Anstria seriously wished for war; that she wished to commit to new hazards, and to condemn to new calamities her people, fatigued by so many reverses, and exhausted by so many sacrifices. Having had it twice in his power to deprive the House of Austria of half its hereditary states, far from diminishing its power, he had increased it. If he could not count on its gratitude, he thought he could rely on its faith. He had given it the highest mark of confidence it was possi ble for him to give, in leaving his continental frontiers ungarrisoned and disarmed. He believed it incapable of abusing this confidence, because he would have been so himself. There are suspicions which cannot enter into generous hearts, nor find place in reflecting minds. The Emperor took pleasure in confirming himself in his favourable presumptions, and he did not fear to shew to what point he desired to see them established. The Court of Vienna omitted nothing to prolong the illusion. It multiplied pacific declarations; it protested on its religious attachment to treaties; it authorised its ambassador to make the most assuring declarations; it sought, in fine, as well by plausible explanations as formal denials, to dissipate the suspicions its measures may have given rise to: still, the hostile preparations redoubling every day in extent and activity, became more difficult to be justified. The Emperor ordered that Count Philip de Cobentzel, Ambassador of the Court of Vienna, should be invited to fresh conferences, and

and commercial agents of his Majesty, should be communicated to him. For four successive days M. de Cobentzel waited on the Minister of Foreign Relations, who placed before his eyes the dispatches previously received, and those which arrived successively from all parts of Germany and Italy. The cabinets of Europe will find in their archives few examples of similar communications made in circumstances in which suspicion was so natural. The Emperor could not give a more convincing proof of his good faith; he could not carry sincerity or delicacy farther. The ambassador from Vienna took a view of the most positive, the most incontestable documents, which, from all parts announced the speedy breaking out of a war, always preparing though so studionsly concealed. What answer could he make? Up to that moment peace had been loudly professed by his court at Paris and at Vienna; but on all its frontiers war was at length openly organized. The Emperor, however, was unwilling to reject all hope of accommodation. He persuaded himself that Austria may have been led away by foreign suggestions, he resolved to do every thing to bring her back to a sense of her true interests. He represented to her, that if she did not wish for war, all her preparations were without an object, inasmuch as all her neighbours were at peace; that therefore she was unconsciously, and contrary to her intention, serving the cause of England, by making in her favour a diversion not less powerful, nor less injurious to France, than a declared war would be.- -If she wished for war, he made her see its probable consequences. Superior to all the considerations, which are bars only to weakness, he did not dissemble that he dreaded war: not that after so many battles fought in the three parts of the old world he could fear dangers, so often braved, and so often surmounted; but he feared war on account of the blood it causes to be spilled, on account of the sacrifices without number it must cost to Europe; and in consequence of a love perhaps excessive for peace, he conjured Austria to desist from preparations, which, in the present state of Europe, and in the particular situation of France, could be considered only as a declaration of war, and as the result of an agreement made with England. Still further, he desired that similar representations should be addressed to the Court of Vienna by all his neighbours, w, though strangers to the cause of the war, whatever that cause may be, had to fear being the victims of it. The conduct of the Court of Vienna weakened

from its pretensions, it increased them. It terrified by its armaments the people of Bavaria and Suabia. It gave the people of Helvetia reason to dread seeing ravished from them the repose which the act of mediation had restored to them. All invoked France as their support, as the guarantee of their rights. However, it dissembled still, and as and as a pledge of its pacific intentions, it offered a sort of intervention which it is difficult to characterise, but which, considering only its apparent object, could be regarded only as idle and puerile. The Emperor of Russia had caused passports to be demanded for one of his chamberlains, whom he had an intention of sending to Paris. The Emperor knew not what were the views of the Cabinet of Petersburgh, they had never been communicated to him; but always ready to seize on every thing that could contribute to an approximation, he had granted the passports without delay and without explanation. All Europe knows what was the reward of his deference. The Emperor learned afterwards, by indirect ways, and also by the reports that were circulated through Europe on the subject, that the design of the Court of Russia had been, to try by means of parleys to introduce at Paris a very strange system of negotiation, by means of which she would at the same time have stipulated for England, from whom, as she said, she had full powers, which proves how much England was sure of her, and have negotiated on her own account. So that while nominally a mediator, she would have been in fact a party, and that by two different titles.Such was the end of the intervention Russia had projected, and which she herself renounced, without doubt, because reflection made her feel the inconvenience of it. But it was precisely this same intervention which the good offices of Austria had for their object to re-produce. It was not likely that France should have suffered herself to be placed in a situation in which her real encmies, under the plausible name of mediators, dared to flatter themselves with imposing on her a hard and insulting law; but the Cabinet of Vienna, perhaps without hoping that its good offices would be accepted, found a great advantage in offering them, that of abusing France for a longer time, making France lose time, and gaining time itself. At length throwing off the mask Austria has, in a tardy answer, manifested by her language what she had announced by her preparations. To the representations of France she has answered by accusations. She has made herself the apologist of England, and

announcing that she was opening her states to two Russian armies; she avowed openly the concert that exists between her and Russia in favour of England. This answer of the Court of Vienna, full at once of injurious allegations, of menaces, and of craft, tended naturally to excite the indignation of the Emperor; but thinking that through those insults and threats he had a glance of some ideas which permitted him to hope, that an arrangement would be still possible, the Emperor made his natural pride to yield to considerations all powerful over his heart. The interest of his people, that of his allies, and of Germany, which was going to become the theatre of war; the desire, too, of doing a thing agreeable to a prince, who, repelling with an honourable constancy the insinuations, the instances, the offers so often repeated of England, and those she had seduced, had shewn himself always ready to contribute by his good offices, either to the re-establishment or the maintenance of peace; all these motives led the Emperor to make his just reflections. He determined to demand of the Court of Vienna explanations, which should make known the basis upon which negotiations could be carried

on.

He ordered the Minister of Foreign Relations to prepare a note to this effect. The courier who was to be the bearer of it was on the point of setting out, when the Emperor was informed of the invasion of Bavaria. The Elector had been summoned to join his army to that of Austria, and, as if his anticipated refusal to make common cause with Austria, from which he never received but evil, against France, from which he never received but good, could have been to the Court of Vienna a just motive for war, the Austrian army, without any previous declaration, in contempt of the duties which his situation of Emperor of Germany imposes on the Emperor of Austria, in contempt of the Ger.nanic constitution, of the Germanic empire itself; in contempt, in fine, of all the most sacred rights, passed the Inn, d overrun Bavaria in profound peace. -After such an act of the Court of Vienna, the Emperor could have no longer any thing to demand of it. It became evident, that even this congress proposed, with a tone so imperious, and with views so visibly hostile to France, was but a new snare for its good faith that Austria irrevocably determined on war, would not return to its pacific ideas, and that she was not even free to return to them. The course of exchange at all places proved evidently, that a part of the sums granted to the English minister to answer his purposes on the Continent, had

reached its destination; and the power which had so bartered its alliance, could no longer spare the blood of its people, the price of which it had received. All farther explanation with the Court of Vienna having thus become impossible, the appeal to arms is the only resource compatible with honour. Let England applaud herself for having at length found allies; let her rejoice that blood is about to flow over the Continent; let her flatter herself that her blood will be spared; let her hope to find safety in the discord of other states; her joy will be of short duration; her hope will be vain, and the day is not far distant when the rights of nations will at length be avenged. The Emperor obliged to repel an unjust aggression, which he had in vain exerted himself to prevent, has been obliged to suspend the execution of his first designs. He has withdrawn from the borders of the ocean those veteran bands, so often victorious, and he marches at their head. He will not lay down his arms till he has obtained full and entire satisfaction, and complete security, as well for his own dominions as those of his allies.

Speech of the Emperor Napoleon, to the French Senate. September 23, 1805.

Under the existing circumstances of Europe, I feel it an urgent duty to appear among you, and to make you fully acquainted with my sentiments.I am just leaving my capital, in order to place myself at the head of the army, to carry speedy succours to my allies, and to protect the dearest interests of my people.- -The wishes of the eternal enemies of the Continent are accomplished: war has commenced in the midst of Germany; Austria and Russia have united with England; and our generation is again involved in all the calamities of war. But a very few days ago I still cherished a hope that peace would not be disturbed. Threats and outrages only shewed that they could make no impression upon me; but the Austrians have passed the Inn; Munich is invaded; the Elector of Bavaria is driven from his capital; all my hopes are, therefore, vanished.- -Such is the moment that has unveiled the mischievous machinations of the enemies of the Continent. They are still alarmed at the manifestations I have made of my deep and determined desire for peace. They are apprehensive that Austria, at the aspect of the gulph they had prepared to swallow her, might listen anew to the dictates of justice and moderation; they have burried her into a war. I tremble at the idea of the blood that must be spilt in Europs; but the French name will emerge