ART. XI. Modern Geography. A Defcription of the Empires, &c. &c. in all Parts of the World, including the moft recent Discoveries and Political Alterations, THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, APRIL 1807. No. XIX. 7. Jeffrey. ART. I. The Dangers of the Country. By the Author of War in Disguise, &c. 8vo. pp. 227. Hatchard, London, 1807. WE agree with the greater part of this boding volume; and we think the author has discharged a great public duty, in endeavouring to impress the country with a sense of its dangers, and to train us to that sort of fortitude which consists, not in shutting our eyes to the hazard, but in providing steadily against it. After passing rather too slightly over the extent of our danger from the military power of France, and the risk of an actual subjugation, he proceeds to detail, under ten several heads, the consequences which would follow from such a calamitous occurrence. To the few who have allowed themselves to reflect on the subject, such an enumeration must be useless; but it may startle the thoughtless, and rouse the multitude from their dream of apathy, thus to see these menaced evils embodied and spread out before them, which they have hitherto apprehended only as a remote and indistinct possibility. If great sacrifices, too, and great exertion should become necessary, as we greatly fear they may, in the prosecution of the contest, it is of use to keep before us the amount of the miseries from which we are purchasing redemption. The author does not dwell at all upon the horrors of the conquest itself, nor on the proscriptions and confiscations with which it would infallibly be attended. He supposes this great work to be finally consummated; and merely sets himself to estimate the changes which would be produced in the condition of the surviving population. The first would be, the transference of our sceptre to the hands of some creature of the conqueror, or the total suppresVOL. X. NO. 19. A sion sion of our independence, by our conversion into a province or department of his empire. The author thinks the last most probable; as our insular situation, maritime habits and untractable character, might otherwise give us a chance for recovering our freedom, and converting a nominal into a real independence. In either event, he rightly concludes, that our free constitution would be annihilated. It is this freedom, more than our commercial prosperity or our national influence, which excites the alarm and jealousy of our enemy: it exhales a vapour unhealthful to the constitution of despotism; and while England is free, the master of France must be uneasy. We might still have Parliaments, however, and mock elections; but we may guess at the measure of power which would be left to those assemblies, from that which we have seen entrusted to the senates of France or of Holland. The consequences of conquest, however, would first come home to individuals, in the destruction of our laws and personal privileges. No one can be extravagant enough to imagine that a French government would allow a habeas corpus, a jury, or a gaol-delivery to its English subjects. We cannot hope for more than it indulges to its own people. The liberty of the press in France, too, may safely be taken as the measure of what it would be in England; and in comparison with the tyranny now exercised there, in this respect, the policy of the Inquisition, the Sorbonne, and the Bourbons, was perfect freedom. Their interference was restrictive or prohibitory merely; but the present governor of France compels its journalists to publish, as well as to suppress, whatever he pleases. He has personal quarrels, too, with the English press; which we are afraid could not be settled by mere prospective regulations. There are more than Peltier who might meet with the fate of Palm. The next thing we should lose, would be the security of personal liberty. This consequence of conquest we shall give in the words of our author. It is a favourable specimen of his most popular manner. We muft lay afide alfo that proud fenfe of perfonal inviolability, which we now cherish fo fondly; and, what is justly prized ftill more, the civil fanctity of our homes. The Englishman's house must be his castle no more. Inftead of our humble watchmen to wish us refpectfully good night, when returning to our abodes in the evening, we fhall be challenged at every turning by military patroles, and fhall be fortunate, if we meet no pert boy in commiffion, or ill-natured trooper, to rebuke us with the back of his fword, or with a lodging in the guard-house, for a heedlefs or tardy reply. Perhaps, after all, when we arrive at our homes, inftead of that quiet fire-fide at which we expected to fit in domeftic domeftic privacy with our wives and children, and relieve our burthened hearts by fighing with them over the forrows of our country, we shall find fome ruffian familiars of the police on a domiciliary vifit; or fome infolent young officers, who have ftepped in unafked to relieve their tedium while on guard, by the converfation of our wives and daugh*ters. It would be dangerous, however, to offend fuch unwelcome guefts, or even not to treat them with all the respect due to brave warriors who have ferved under Napoleon the Great. But, fhould we escape such intruders for the eving, still we must lye down, uncertain whether our dwellings will be left unviolated till the morning. A tremendous noife will often at midnight roufe the father of a family from his fleep, and he will hear a harsh voice commanding to open the gate, through which its hapless mafter will foon pafs to return no more. p. 20, 21. The most disastrous consequence of conquest, would be the annihilation of national and individual opulence. The mere destruction of the funds would beggar an incredible multitude; but the trade and the riches of England would infallibly perish with its security for property-its equal laws-its colonies and commanding navy. It is only necessary indeed to consider, how much greater and more powerful we are at this moment than our population or extent of territory should naturally have made us, to see how much more we should lose, in losing our independence, than any other people. We should fall like Tyre or Carthage, if the foundations of our commercial greatness were once withdrawn. The quantity of domestic misery which would be produced, in such a population as ours, by this vast and general impoverishment, surpasses all calculation. The author is very long upon it; and gives a number of pictures and details, which we recommend to the consideration of all those who think that industry is secure of its reward in every civilized society, and that it is mere romance for people in the middling conditions of life to fight for political privileges, or for the choice of their rulers. The rigours of a suspicious provincial military government, would be displayed in full force over the politicians of conquered England. Our mobs and our clubs, and even our coffee-house conversations, would be effectually broken up by the sabre and the bayonet. Sanguinary punishments would repress the new invented crimes of suspected disaffection and sedition; and the happy invention of military conscription, would take off the turbulent part of our youth, to recruit the legions of their master, and to extend his conquests in another quarter of the globe. The author next foresees the destruction of our religious liberty, and the compulsory restitution of Popery, among the immediate consequences of our subjugation. We hesitate more A 2 about about this, than any of his preceding anticipations; though it is no doubt true, that the universality of that faith would be very convenient for an Emperor who keeps the Pope at his disposal, and that there is something in the constitution and doctrine of many of the Protestant churches which would be likely enough to give offence to an absolute sovereign. The last evil to which the author directs the attention of his countrymen, is the general dissoluteness of manners which would result, partly from the debasement uniformly produced by loss of liberty, but chiefly from the contagion of that profligate and licentious soldiery which would be quartered over all the land, and would naturally take the lead in every thing in which their example could be seducing or pernicious. Such are the obvious and tremendous evils which this author very fairly and clearly deduces from the supposition of our yielding to the fate which has already fallen on the greater part of Europe, and being subjugated by the arms of France. There is no fancy, unfortunately, and no exaggeration in the statement; every article of it is supported by precedents; every tint is coloured from the life. It is even a softened delineation; for no allowance is made for the peculiar rancour and hostility with which the enemy has always avowed himself to be actuated towards us, more than any other of his opponents. In the second part of his work, the author proposes to point out a remedy for these evils. But, in this more comfortable and pleasing task, we are concerned to say that he is by no means equally successful. His prescription for averting the present crisis, consists of three ingredients. 1. We are not to make peace till matters look better on the Continent; 2. We are to improve our military system, chiefly by filling our ranks with very young men; 3. and finally, We are to deserve the favour of Heaven. by reforming our lives, and by forthwith abolishing the slavetrade. Upwards of seventy pages are devoted to pious declamations against this abominable traffic, and reasonings and citations from the Revelations, to show that the successes of Bonaparte have been permitted as a chastisement and admonition to its supporters. All this may be very well meant; but the reasoning, we suspect, would scarcely go down in a sermon. The subject, however, requires a more deliberate consideration. We cannot bring ourselves to enlarge upon the actual hazard in which we stand, of invasion and possible defeat, though it is here that the prejudices which tie up our hands from exertion are most fatally prevalent. After all we have seen of the unalterable hostility, the daringness and perseverance of our enemy, it is not a little alarming to think how general the persuasion still is, |