objects, went more to aggrandisement than defence, those of France more to defence than aggrandise

ment.

WOULD we have continued the war for these remote boundaries, this sweeping circuit, within whose flowing line scarcely a trace was sketched of that beautiful picture which is to fill it, if we have sufficient skill? We would.

Is France then criminal, in contending for the Rhine as a boundary, a river that washes a long tract of her domain, is of immediate and the utmost consequence to her, and is so placed by nature as conveniently to serve, among other uses, for "dividing to nations their inheritance ?"

WELL may our allies say to their imperial, royal, and high enemies-" We have not been engaged in childrens' play, at the end of which each takes what was his own before it began. Our contest may, indeed, have been play to you, issuing mandates for slaughter amidst the safe though soft indulgencies of your courts, and diverted with

* There the soldiers are, at this moment, setting fire to the villages, laying waste the corn-fields, demolishing the churches, and butchering the unoffending people; and in the mean time, THE PRINCE is perfectly at his ease, gam

expectations of lucky hits: but, to multitudes of French citizens it has been-death."

If it was on your part, as some of you have said, an unhappy disorder that seized you in an extra.

ing, dancing, amusing himself with buffoons, hunting, indulging his amours, or carousing." ERASMUS.

In the account of the destruction of the Palatinate in 1764, it is said—“ Its flourishing cities and villages were destroyed--Nothing could equal the inexpressible misery ――men, women, and children were driven in the depth of winter, out of their habitations-to wander naked-and starved with cold and hunger-round the fields-while they saw their houses stript, and set on 'fire--the country was universally reduced to a heap of ashes."

-a

The late king of Prussia, describing the calamities caused in the territories he governed, by the war of seven years, that ended in 1763, says--There was a diminution of five hundred thousand inhabitants, since the year 1756very considerable number in a population of only four millions and an half. As to those who remained, the noble and the husbandman had been pillaged, ransomed, and foraged, by so many different armies, that nothing was left them, except life, and the miserable rags by which their nakedness was concealed. They had not sufficient to satisfy the daily wants of nature. The traces of former habitations were scarcely visible-towns were almost crazed from the earth-and of thirteen thousand houses, no vestige was to be seen, &c.

SO

"Such was the fatal spectacle which so many provinces that had lately been flourishing, presented at the conclusion of the war. There is no description bowever pathetic, that can possibly approach the deep, the affecting, the mournful im pression, which the sight of them produced." History, ancient and modern, abounds with narratives of the like calamities.

e

e Posthumous Works, 2. 57.

VOL. II.

ordinary manner, we ought to observe, that persons in your elevated stations are very apt to grow giddy, and to be much vexed by these fits of insanity; and therefore prudence requires, that we should keep you at a convenient distance, lest in another frolic or fury, you should destroy as many men, women, and children, as you have within these last four years." (1)

LETTER IV.

WE come to the second part of the objection.

Ir hereafter a wild spirit of ambition, should prompt France to imitate Rome, it will not be her . acquisitions of the Netherlands and countries on the left bank of the Rhine, that will cause her to succeed. What are they, when contrasted with all Europe? The event of such a nefarious project, would not depend on that point. If it could not be executed without that accession, it could not be executed with it.

THERE are other circumstances that would be much more likely to give it success: and these are the follies and vices of princes.

CAST your eyes around, and behold the condition of the human race-a condition, that while it evidences their wretchedness, and extorts your cominiseration, yet amidst the ruins of man, bears testimony to the original glories of his na- ! ture, "whose builder is GOD."

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How have men, " made in the image of their Creator," become thus depressed? Because their disposition is gentle, social, grateful, well-meaning, and therefore confiding.

THESE qualities they rashly indulged, not duly attending to another divine gift--REASON. the guide and guardian of the microcosm.

No gift of our Maker can be abused or neglected with impunity. His laws are not made, to be broken or slighted.

THE Cunning, the hard-hearted, laden with lusts, availed themselves of the means afforded to them by the innocent and the imprudent. They affected to be benefactors, that they might be masters. They were too successful. They fastened chains upon the very hands that were held up to heaven in supplication for blessings upon their heads. The interests of the many, pleasing hecatombs in the religion of governors, have been sacrificed to the passions of the few. Tyranny and slavery, intemperance and misery, have raged, and are now raging, over the globe.

To nations thus steeped in woes, when liberty advances towards them," the trumpet may give an uncertain sound"-but, when they "understand