sures of the d'Ivernois, Duroverays, and Dumonts; he might have annihilated the insurrections of the mob of the suburbs, planned, executed, and paid by Clavières; he could have rendered null all the attempts and violence of Marat. The intentions of England, in receiving these revolutionists, were far from being unsullied; nor did she send them to France, when in a state of revolution, without meaning. According to the system of Mr. Pitt, it was the interest of England to reduce your country to a state that it should no longer dare to accuse the English of regicide. Mr. Pitt was desirous that his country should have no occasion hereafter to hang down their heads, when out of their own island, in consequence of the manifestoes of your ministers, and the writings of your authors; and it is because the English still blush at the execution of Charles I. that a few adventurers, nurtured in the conspiracies of Geneva, and who had departed with an ill regulated mind from the centre of our revolutions, that Dumont, d'Ivernois, Clavières, Marat, and others, were employed in the various scenes and proscriptions of the 14th of July, the 20th of June, the 10th of August, and the 21st of January. Englishmen, I will venture to say, were scarcely capable of conducting these revolutions themselves, because they were not exasperated against your government to the same degree as our exiles

were.

"Thus Mr. Pitt, in the house of commons, treated with contempt the generous motion of Mr. Fox, who certainly expressed the wish of all Europe, of France, and, I may say, of the majority of the national convention, who were held during these circumstances in a state of terror, both by the commune of Paris and its own minority.

"In the upper house, lord Grenville stood ready to reject a similar motion, should such a one be made by any noble lord. The marquis of Lansdown brought it forward: the minister's reply was, But with whom in France can we treat? Would not the negotiating with such men be to acknowledge the republic? Would not the character and dignity of Great-Britain be dishonoured by treating with so desperate a rabble? We have nothing to fear from the new government, nothing to negotiate with its agents, and nothing to communicate to them without derogating from the national dignity." Hence it appears that Mr. Pitt and lord Grenville-who did not think Great-Britain degraded by granting fifty thousand pounds, by stipulation, to a few Genevese, banished in 1782 by four united nations; to men excepted from every amnesty, and so excepted in consequence of a horrible plot they had formed to blow up their native city-could in the English parliament declare it to be derogatory to Great-Britain to negotiate in favour of an imprisoned monarch, though all Europe haye since applauded the gentle and conciliatory negotiation of the Spaniards. Lord Grenville had not thought himself disgraced by accepting the office of distributor of the subsidy, and becoming the collegue of a d'Ivernois and a Clavières: yet he could assert the dignity of the kingdom to be endangered by treating with Lebrun for the king's safety; or with Clavières, one of his own collegues.

"As there were but three votes wanting in the convention for the minority to have become the majority, and prolonged the days of

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the monarch, whose death has cost France so much blood, and raised against it such a storm of revenge; it follows, that Lewis XVI. was beheaded by the predominating faction of Marat the Genevese, who had just succeeded to the faction of the Genevese Clavières. From these two factions united, originated the 14th of July, the 21st of June, and the 10th of August. The Marat faction, by the 21st of January; completed the plan for the destruction of the French govern

ment.

"There is something in the proceedings of the French republic, as well as in our own, of which I will give you the secret clew. I give it not to the French resident, but to a Frenchman attentive to the history of his country, from whom we expect a stop to be put to those ox-like blows, those tortures, which, before his coming, were dealt among us, to set in motion the revolution; and of whom we only ask, that, not from partiality, but justice, he will refuse his influence and support to the violent revolutionary party by which we are governed. The clew I mean, the clew at once to your revolu tion and ours, is this, that all the materials of which these revolutions are formed were first prepared by England, in the same manner as the trading watchmakers of this city direct the making of a watch: the parts were distributed to each, as in Geneva every part of a watch is given to its appropriate artist; one makes the case, another the dial-plate, another the springs, and another the wheels:-the result of the whole is a watch.

"In all our revolutions, there is the same preconcerted mechanism, the same combined and perfect effect. Our government meanwhile becomes inert, and slumbers, and our disturbers hold their secret committees. Our clubs are then their executive power: when they are opened, there is no longer any government; when they are closed, it resumes its functions. With you, as at Geneva, there exist revolutionary classes, whose savage hierarchy perfectly imitates the constitutional one. Our expatriated Genevese, who direct your revolution, have preserved this hierarchy, and the revolution accordingly exhibits a continual succession of destructive passions, so well arranged, that the ruin of Mr. Necker made way for the rise of Clavières; the ruin of Clavières for the faction of Marat, &c. There was a general union and friendship between them in 1789. In 1792, they were scattered different ways, London being the common trunk from which the revolutionary ramifications diverge.-Would you learn by some characteristic sign the nature of the other subaltern factions, either of France or Geneva, who have managed the sums scattered by England in your revolution? I will describe them to you, by one general observation: They are men who have never been, are not now, and never will be, content with any form of govern- . ment in France, but will be traitors to them all.'” Vol. v. P. 281.

The most malicious adversary of the late ministry in this country has never ventured to attribute to them such an absurd uniformity of hostility to the interests of France. But the motive of our author is obvious: he wrote during the existence of the war; and it was his object to stimulate his countrymen by all possible means, fas atque nefas, against their principal an CRIT. REV. Vol. 35. May, 1802. D

tagonist. Experience has abundantly testified that there was more truth in the prophecy contained in the following passage concerning the latter of the two William Pitts.

After an administration thus brilliant, audacious and successful, lord Chatham dismissed from public employ, but still esteemed and loved by his countrymen, distinguished in the party of opposition by his unremitted animosity against the French nation, brought up his celebrated son in his own principles; and it is well known, that being thoroughly informed of the secret intelligence which France kept up with the American insurgents, he instilled into his son the project of avenging his country, by similar operations against France. It was in vain that lord Chatham employed, in 1760, the English ships and Prussian armies for the destruction of Carthage. In 1780, France retaliated to some purpose, and, by spiriting the American colonies against England, parcelled out the British empire as she pleased. Chatham taught his son to unite address, which he had not used, to that audacious spirit in which he had always found his advantage; and profoundly to bear in mind, that what had caused the disgrace and dismission of his father, was his patriotic zeal, his love for his country, his success and resentment against France. The impressions we receive in the tenderness of infancy are difficult to efface; for this reason the son of the great Chatham is the rooted and unalterable enemy of France: he was taught his lesson by that man, who replied to the duke of Nivernois, when the duke reproached him, in a sportive way, for some piratical acts of the British government: "If Great-Britain consulted her justice, instead of her clemency, towards France, France would not last half a century from this hour." These sentiments respecting us made the fall of the father a necessary preliminary of peace: and the fall of the son must in like manner take place, before the present war can be terminated.' Vol. iii. P. · 374.

It would be easy, however, to prove, that the political motives of the father and son were as opposite and irreconcilable as light and darkness. The former opposed the monarchy of France, as the most dangerous establishment to the cause of liberty and his country. The latter supported the monarchy with all his powers; and opposed the cause of liberty, which was the basis of his own aggrandisement, as well as of his country's prosperity. The father would have encouraged the cause of the French people, but he would not have deserted the king the son abandoned the king whose interest he pretended to espouse, and opposed with all his might the French people, to whose victorious career he has at length fallen a sacrifice. Lord Chatham would have repudiated the war-Mr. Pitt greedily plunged us into it: the first would have taken advantage of the internal distresses of France to have extricated us, by the augmentation of our trade, from the greater part of our taxes: the second has become a principal in those distresses, and has tripled the amount of the public debt of his country.

Our author appears to more advantage in every part of the history of Europe in which England is not immediately con cerned. We select the following sketch of the republic and manners of Geneva, as confirming the truth of our assertion.

The republic of Geneva, situated between France, Switzerland, and Savoy, is one of the first modern states that, in the 11th century, expelled from its bosom its nobility, clergy, and prince. While legal equality was established by this revolution, the ancient hierarchy was succeeded in reality by a true inequality, and Geneva exhibited the appearance of a people, who, in search of liberty, fell periodically from one revolution to another. The real inequality being constantly opposed to the legal equality, the relative situation between republican and aristocratical manners was the perpetual cause of the most violent struggles between the two factions.

This small nation, so admirable for its genius, its qualities, and its industry, presents two distinct characters to the view, equally famous in history for their respective excesses. On one hand, we observe a description of manners bearing a striking resemblance to those of the ancient Athenians. Among a part of the inhabitants of Geneva, the graces, taste, levity, and easy character of the country of the fine arts in ancient Greece are to be found: while, on the other hand, we perceive a Lacedæmonian severity, a revolutionary spirit, and all the inflexibility and distrustfulness of the popular system.

Yet, notwithstanding this opposition of interests in the two parties, their hereditary hatred to each other, and the uninterrupted chain of sanguinary revolutions which have been the consequence, they have this feature in common, that their industry in trade and the fine arts, their national spirit, their love of independence, a respect for republican manners, an opposition to the religious and political opinions of all the governments established near them, and an attachment to all distant governments, have made of this small number of men, settled on the borders of the Leman lake, one of the people most celebrated in history. The spirit of their democracy, badly tempered by a false aristocracy, their philosophic and intestine disputes, their disposition and character so destructive of established society, have kept on the watch, and given a vigilance to the greatest nations; while in religion, by opposing the catholic worship, the English episcopacy, the rituals of Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, they have become the primitive model of all the protestant churches, and, if we may be allowed the expression, the Rome of Calvinism.

The general opposition of the Genevese institutions to all other governments and modes of worship is apparent even in the works of its writers and philosophers. The Genevese authors affect, în general, a universal dissent from all the doctrines of Europe. While I am writing, Geneva still possesses illustrious men, though within a few years it has lost several. That stamp of opposition, which characterises their works, against the most celebrated contemporary writers of other countries, has principally contributed to their fame, parti cularly in the sciences.

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Jean Jacques Rousseau owes much of his fame to the strange opposition of his genius to the politics which were professed in the middle of the eighteenth century. Rousseau, disliking all existing social institutions, approved of none but the ideal government he had himself conceived and created in his Social Contract, a work which began to operate a revolution in the public mind.

The inflexibility of Necker's genius, and the contradictoriness of his ideas of government to all those received in France, prevented him from yielding to circumstances, places, and persons. When he accepted the ministry, it was an imaginary France which he meant to govern, instead of the existing one; as it is another doctrine he holds out in his writings, and another order of finances which he is desirous of regulating in his works on government. He executed, as far as was in his power, the theories of his countryman Rousseau; and he organised in France all the revolutions attempted by England at Geneva.

In natural philosophy, several of the greatest geniuses seem to have employed themselves on the study of nature, with no view but to deprive the French Pliny of his fame. Contradiction in this instance led to truth; and the Genevese naturalists gained a brilliant reputation by the art of confuting. M. de Saussure, by analysing the mineralogic system of Buffon, reduced it to nothing by a long series of demonstrations. Bonnet acquired glory by his opposition to Buffon on animals; and Dutremblay, by his work on polypi.

• Tronchin carried the same spirit of contradiction into the art of healing; and it is remembered, that, on his arrival in France, both the rules he explained, and the practice he pursued, were different to [from] all that had been before taught or practised in medicine: he was happy when he found any defective method to oppose.

Thus religious worship, opinions, politics, morals, and literature, were, in general, at Geneva in direct opposition to every thing then established in Europe. A mode of proceeding so new gave to this handful of industrious republicans, at the same time ingenious, enlightened, and laborious, a renown which many states of the second and third rank have failed to obtain, and a situation the most flourishing, which commerce and the arts daily embellished.

The solidity of all natural sciences depending on the truth of the bases on which they are raised, and the political edifice of old institutions having no foundation but on the fictions adopted by the people in past ages, it became evident, that the policy of Geneva, founded in nature, when introduced into the ancient European societies, must shake their foundations; while the Genevese method, from a contrary reason, when applied to the sciences which have nature for their basis, must produce the most remarkable effects in practice. The following is an example of this, worthy a place in the history of the eighteenth century.

"Behold," said an old and illustrious magistrate of Geneva to me, "the admirable effect which the natural principles of our republic of letters have produced even on the amelioration of the human species. This fact, which constitutes our glory, is apparent in our popula tion. Observe the declining generation, and you will find in it all