The career in which I am engaged at prefent, is a most humiating one, and we are conftantly fquabbling with the generals. The Commander in Chief is the only one who pays us any attention; but he is obliged, at the fame time, to wink at every thing in the officers. He treats them with great delicacy, and evidently fears that the army, which already begins to murmur, will at no great diftance of time proceed to fomething more alarming. In a word, take into your con fideration too, that Sucy has loft much of his influence; that fince he left Alexandria, he has executed no part of his office, on account of his having had the imprudence to go on board the flotilla (to infure, as he pretended, the fubfiftence of the troops) and that he found himfelf, as he ought to have forefeen, without the poffibility of rejoining them. Finally, take notice, that in confequence of the climate, we are become, in fpite of ourselves, liftlefs and inactive; and that we have the greateft difficulty in determining ourfelves to put one leg before the other." P. 40.

From Adjutant General Lacuée, we learn how much this miferable army underwent, in pursuit of obje&s so worthy!

"The campaign which we have juft finished, is indifputably the fevereft in which the French have ever been engaged. Our forced marches in the Defert, under a burning fky, and over ftill more burning fands, our want of water during five days, of bread during fifteen, and of wine during three months; our being continually under arms, expofed to a treacherous dew, which blinded all thofe who were not aware of it,-all this is infinitely more terrible than battles and fieges. A little enthufiafm will do for thefe,-true courage alone for the other; courage not only of the heart, but of the head and the foul." P. 130.

An officer of the name of Piftre gives the following picture.

"Modern Alexandria is nothing more than a mafs of mud barracks, forming a number of little narrow lanes, of which the filthinefs is beyond imagination, and which, together with the exceffive heat of the climate, engenders a kind of ftagnant and putrifying air, annually productive of the plague.

"It had not intirely ceafed its ravages when we arrived many of the ships in the harbour were still infected, and I myself faw feveral poor wretches, who were ill of it, carried on fhore! I will freely confefs to you, that this fpectacle, joined to the ftupid and ferocious air of the inhabitants, cut me to the heart; and I faid to myself, could the Government of France make fuch extraordinary efforts, and expofe an army of forty thousand men to deftruction, for the fake of subduing a fet of fierce and brutified favages.

a

" How

"Such, my dear friend, was the queftion I put to myself on first fetting foot on this burning foil; which prefents nothing to the eye but immense deserts, utterly deftitute of water; and one of which, extending more than forty miles in breadth, we croffed in our first march from Alexandria." P. 148.

N n

BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XIII, MAY, 1799.)

After

Afterwards, in the fame letter, he says,

"From the flight sketch which I have given you of Egypt, you may eafily conceive that the army is by no means pleased with this expedition, to a country of which the ufages, diet, and exceffive heat, are totally repugnant to our manner of living in Europe. The major part of the army is labouring under a diarrhea; and although vifiorious, will terminate its career by perishing miserably, if our Government perfifts in its ambitious projects. Many officers are throwing up their commiffions; and I freely confefs to you, that I would alfo throw up mine, if I had the leaft profpect of obtaining any thing in France; but, deprived as I am of every refource, I must perfevere, and pa tiently wait to fee what change events may bring about in our prefent critical fituation.” P. 151.

One Rofis writes thus:

"We inhabit a country with which we are all diffatisfied, to a degree not to be conceived. If the troops had but known what it was, before they quitted France, they would have preferred death a thousand times to the mifery to which they now find themselves reduced." P. 217.

He adds foon after a circumstance not a little horrible as well as striking.

"We are exceedingly reduced in our numbers. Befides all this, there exifts a general difcontent in the army. Defpondency was never at fuch a height before: we have had feveral foldiers who blew out their brains in the prefence of the Commander in Chief, exclaiming to him, "Voilà ton ouvrage ;" "this is your work!” P. 220.

No particular remark can be required to illuftrate thefe ge nuine and extraordinary paffages. The laft article in this volume is an excellent addrefs from the Patriarch of Conftantinople, written in modern Greek, much more nearly ap proaching to the ancient than we have ufually feen.

ART. VIII. The Root of the Evil. 8vo. 73 PP. S. Debrett. 1797.

HOW this pamphlet, which promises fo material a difcovery, has fo long escaped our notice, we cannot undertake to fay; it is not however too late, even now, to examine the author's reafons for fuppofing that he has difcovered the latent fource of mischief; which if it exifted, as he states it, in 1797, certainly has not yet been cleared away.

"The Root of the Evil," according to this writer, is "the want of public virtue in the nation;" or, as he more

fairly explains it, "the confidence repofed in the Minister." To prove this, he enters into a comparison of our fituation as it ftood in 1797, with the ftate of the kingdom at the acceffion of his prefent Majefty. In this statement there are, in our opinion, fome exaggerations, and fome very material omifGions. The increafe of our national debt is pointedly fet forth; while neither the great increase of our commerce and revenue, nor the fund established for the reduction of that debt, and conftantly increafing, are fo much as noticed. The contraction of the British Empire, by the lofs of America, is alfo ftated as a motive for diftrufting the meafures of government. Who would not fuppofe this lofs to have happened under the prefent adminiftration, and not by the measures of those whom the friends of this writer cherish, but whom the prefent Minifter oppofed? The writer alfo tells us, that "the approved ftate laws of former times are declared inadequate to the exigencies of the prefent," but is prudently filent on the peculiar fituation and events by which thofe exigencies have been produced.

Neither is the fituation of Great Britain with regard to foreign powers, in our opinion, fairly ftated or argued. The advantages obtained by France (as applied to Great Britain) are not merely exaggerated, but they are afcribed, in part, to "the gigantic energies of a Republic," as the writer terms them, and in part to her fuperior policy. But are thefe energies the energies of a true Republic? Or, rather, are they not the energies of a defpotic oligarchy governing under republican names and forms? Or are their advantages derived from true political wifdom, or from the means and refources of Jacobinifm? The antiquated clamour against fecret influence is next revived, on the authority of an affertion afcribed to the late Earl of Chatham (made at leaft thirty years ago) and, although the writer does not attempt to prove its existence since Mr. Pitt came into office, he gravely calls upon that Minister either to admit its continuance to the prefent moment, or to point out the precife period when it ceased.

The objection brought against the prefent war (namely, that the cause and object of it were not defined) has been an hundred times made, and an hundred times anfwered. With the man who does not conceive that the honour of the nation was infulted, and its fecurity endangered, by the conduct of the French Convention, or who thinks the Convention offered to us any just reparation and adequate fecurity, it is needlefs for us to argue. But the party-writer" ftill more strongly appears, where the author complains of "the Machiavelian policy," as he calls it, of dividing the Opposition; as if the di

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vifion

vifion of that party was not fully accounted for by the events which occurred! To unite all fupporters of the conflitution, and not to divide any one from his friends, was, in our opinion, both the true policy of the time, and the real object of the administration.

The affociations in 1792, for preferving liberty and property, are next moft grofsly vilified. We have always noft decidedly thought, not only that the object of thofe affociations was laudable, but that their conduct was altogether meritorious, and its effects highly beneficial. That their defign was to influence the people against France, and to produce a war with that nation, we abfolutely deny; and we could not without indignation perufe the following paffage :

"Affociations were formed, not mer ly to reprefs what the law had defined to be fedition, but to perfecute that as fedition which our ancestors had approved and enjoined as duty. A fyftem of espionage the most malignant in its principle, and in its effects the most deftructive of focial happiness, was deliberately established, under the pretext of preferving focial order; and the moft grofs libels on the conftitu tion were publifhed by thefe affoeiations, under the pretext of refcuing it from the calumnies of Paine, and of giving it additional worth in the estimation of an intelligent people." P. 33.

All this we know has been often afferted by thofe who found the affociations an obftacle to their fchemes, but we do not recollect any attempt to prove it by fubftantial facts; and we are convinced that the gentlemen by whom those affociations were inftituted, are incapable of forming any fyftem of "efpionage," or plan of "perfecution." Of the perfons who fet the example in London, we can fay, from perfonal knowledge, that more valuable or honourable men cannot exist.

As to the pretended "libels on the conftitution," of which the author has given only a fingle extract by way of example, it is palpably unjust to expect that, in a variety of publications on fuch a fubject, admitting of fuch various opinions, every fentence and expreffion fhould be fuch as to bid defiance to hoftile criticifm. It is furely fufficient if the publications thus recommended had, upon the whole, a beneficial tendency. But the writer afks,

"What addition of ftrength has the country derived from those who fo liberally pledged their lives and fortunes? Our danger has increased, or is diminished. If it has increased, where are our affociations? If it has diminished, whence the neceffity of new and unprecedented restraints on our national liberties? They, who justify fuch restraints, muft maintain that danger from the influence of French principles ftill exilts; but if the affociations which were to defend us against fuch danger are no more, when the increase of the danger de

manded

manded more active vigilance, are we not warranted in confidering either their institution as useless, or the members of them as deferters of the caufe which they had pledged themfelves to fupport?" P. 35.

To unravel all the fophiftry in the foregoing paffage, would take more time and space than it deferves; but, we would afk, does it neceffarily follow, that because our danger has fince increafed (admiting, for a moment, that alternative) the exertions of the affociators have not prevented its fill more rapid and extenfive progrefs? Is it of no advantage in warfare to impede the march of an enemy, and confine the range of his devaftations, though you cannot at once defeat and expel him? But although, on the other hand, the danger may be in fome refpects diminished, may it not fill be expedient to watch the defigns of an enemy fo indefatigable and perfevering, and to trengthen, by additional defences. the fortref he attempts to destroy? When the writer afferts, that "the affociations are no more," does he mean to infer, that because they no longer act under the fame name and forms, the fpirit which they created ceafes to exift? Do we not feel their falutary effects in the fupport given fo generally to public credit and public defence? In the mutual confidence fubfifting among the friends of order and good government? In the patriotic measures of our gentry, our yeomanry, our merchants? In the voluntary fubfcriptions? In the armed affociations? These are the legi timate offspring of the affociations formed in 1792; or rather, thefe are the affociations themselves, fubfifting under new modes and forms, and varying according to the exigence of times and circumftances, but uniform in their object and tendency.

Sufficient has, we truft, been already ftated, to show this tract, however ingenious, to be a very partial publication; and to evince, that the chief grounds on which it refts are weak, and its principal arguments delufive. It is not, upon the whole, a Jacobinical work; but we mult object to fuch expreffions as France willed to be free." Belides that this is the very cant of the Jacobins, the notorious fact is, that France, under the name of freedom, has only provided herself with a fucceffion of more intolerable tyrants. We alfo object to the infinuation, that Great Britain ever had "a finifter purpofe" in her conduct towards France; that there can be any occafion, or that it would answer any end, to difavow it; or that the ever denied the right of independent flates to provide for their own happiness," whilft they do not difturb the happiness of others. We proteft against the doctrine, that becaufe fome of the original caufes of the war had, by a change of circumstances, ceafed to operate, Great Britain would not

be