The death of William Pitt [23d Jan.] was accelerated by the campaign of Ulm and Austerlitz, as his health had been previously injured by the defeat of Marengo. Great as he was as a statesman, ardent in patriotism, and comprehensive in his political views, it had been too much the habit of that great minister, to trust, for some re-establishment of the balance of power on the continent, to the exertions of the ancient European governments, whose efforts had gradually become fainter and fainter, and their spirits more and more depressed, when opposed to the power of Buonaparte, whose blows, like the thunderbolt, seemed to inflict inevitable ruin wherever they burst. But, while resting too much hope on coalitions, placing too much confidence in foreign armies, and too little considering, perhaps, what might have been achieved by our own, had sufficient numbers been employed on adequate objects, Pitt maintained with unabated zeal the great principle of resistance to France, unless France should be disposed to show, that, satisfied with the immense power which she possessed, her Emperor was willing to leave to the rest of Europe such precarious independence as his victorious arms had not yet bereft them of.

The British prime minister was succeeded, upon his death, by the statesman to whom, in life, he had waged the most uniform opposition. Charles Fox, now at the head of the British Government, had uniformly professed to believe it possible to effect a solid and lasting peace with France, and, in the ardour of debate, had repeatedly thrown on his great adversary the blame that such had not been accomplished. When he himself became possessed of the supreme power of administration, he was naturally disposed to realize his predictions, if Napoleon should be found disposed to admit a treaty upon any thing like equal terms. In a visit to Paris during the peace of Amiens, Mr. Fox had been received with great distinction by Napoleon. The private relations betwixt them were, therefore, of an amicable nature, and gave an opening for friendly intercourse.

The time, too, appeared favourable for negotiation; for whatever advantages had been derived by France from her late triumphant campaign on the continent, were, so far as Britain was concerned, neutralized and outbalanced by the destruction of the combined fleets. All possibility of invasion—which appears before this event to have warmly engrossed the imagination of Napoleon—seemed at an end and for ever. The delusion which represented a united navy of fifty sail of the line triumphantly occupying the British Channel, and escorting an overpowering force to the shores of England, was dispelled by the cannon of 21st October. The gay dreams, which painted a victorious army marching to London, reforming the state of England by the destruction of her aristocracy, and reducing her to her natural condition, as Napoleon termed it, of such a dependency on France as the island of Oleron or of Corsica, were gone. After the battle of Trafalgar, all hopes were extinguished, that the fair provinces of England could, in any possible event, have been cut up into new fiefs of the French empire. It was no longer to be dreamed, that Dotations, as they were termed, might be formed upon the Royal Exchange for the payment of annuities by hundreds of thousands, and by millions, for rewarding the soldiers of the Great Nation. To work purses for the French officers, that they might be filled with British gold, had of late been a favourite amusement among the fair ladies of France; but it was now evident that they had laboured in vain. All these hopes and projects were swallowed up in the billows which entombed the wrecks of Trafalgar.

In a word, if Austria had fallen in the contest of 1805, Britain stood more pre-eminent than ever; and it might have been rationally expected, that the desire of war, on the part of Napoleon, should have ended, when every prospect of bringing that war to the conclusive and triumphant termination which he meditated, had totally disappeared. The views of the British Cabinet, also, we have said, were now amicable, and an incident occurred for opening a negotiation, under circumstances which seemed to warrant the good faith of the English ministers.

A person pretending to be an adherent of the Bourbons, but afterwards pretty well understood to be an agent of the French Government, acting upon the paltry system of espionage which had infected both their internal and exterior relations, obtained an audience of Mr. Fox, for the purpose, as he pretended, of communicating to the British minister a proposal for the assassination of Buonaparte. It had happened, that Mr. Fox, in conversation with Napoleon, while at Paris, had indignantly repelled a charge of this kind, which the latter brought against some of the English Ministry. "Clear your head of that nonsense," was said to be his answer, with more of English bluntness than of French politeness. Perhaps Buonaparte was desirous of knowing whether his practice would keep pace with his principles, and on this principle had encouraged the spy. Fox, as was to be expected, not only repelled with abhorrence the idea suggested by this French agent, but caused it to be communicated to the French Emperor;[223] and this gave rise to some friendly communication, and finally to a negotiation for peace. Lord Yarmouth, and afterwards Lord Lauderdale, acted for the British Government; Champagny and General Clarke for the Emperor of France. Napoleon, who, like most foreigners, had but an inaccurate idea of the internal structure of the British constitution, had expected to find a French party in the bosom of England, and was surprised to find that a few miscreants of the lowest rank, whom he had been able to bribe, were the only English who were accessible to foreign influence; and that the party which had opposed the war with France in all its stages, were nevertheless incapable of desiring to see it cease on such terms as were dishonourable to the country.

The French commissioners made several concessions, and even intimated, in verbal conference with Lord Yarmouth, that they would be content to treat upon the principle of uti possidetis; that is, of allowing each party to retain such advantages as she had been able to gain by her arms during the war. But when the treaty was farther advanced, the French negotiators resisted this rule, and showed themselves disposed to deny that they had ever assented to it.

They were, indeed, willing to resign a long contested point, and consented that the island of Malta, with the Cape of Good Hope, and other possessions in the East and West Indies, should remain under the dominion of Great Britain. But then they exacted the surrender of Sicily and Naples, proposing that Frederick IV. should be indemnified at the expense of Spain by the cession of the Balearic isles. Britain could not implicitly consent to this last proposition, either in policy, or in justice to her unfortunate ally. Naples was indeed occupied by the French, and had received Joseph Buonaparte as her King; but the insular situation of Sicily rendered it easy for Britain to protect that rich island, which was still in the possession of its legitimate monarch. The principle of uti possidetis was, therefore, in favour of the English, so far as Sicily was concerned, as it was in that of the French in the case of Naples. The English envoy, for this reason, refused an ultimatum, in which the cession of Sicily was made an indispensable article. Lord Lauderdale, at the same time, demanded his passports, which, however, he did not receive for several days, as if there had been some hopes of renewing the treaty.[224]

Buonaparte was put to considerable inconvenience by the shrewdness and tenacity of the noble negotiator, and had not forgotten them when, in 1815, he found himself on board the Bellerophon, commanded by a relation of the noble earl.[225] It is indeed probable, that, had Mr. Fox lived, the negotiation might have been renewed. That eminent statesman, then in his last illness, was desirous to accomplish two great objects—peace with France, and the abolition of the slave trade. But although Buonaparte's deference for Fox might have induced him to concede some of the points in dispute, and although the British statesman's desire of peace might have made him relinquish others on the part of England, still, while the two nations retained their relative power and positions, the deep jealousy and mutual animosity which subsisted between them would probably have rendered any peace which could have been made a mere suspension of arms—a hollow and insincere truce, which was almost certain to give way on the slightest occasion. Britain could never have seen with indifference Buonaparte making one stride after another towards universal dominion; and Buonaparte could not long have borne with patience the neighbourhood of our free institutions and our free press; the former of which must have perpetually reminded the French of the liberty they had lost, while the latter was sure to make the Emperor, his government, and his policy, the daily subject of the most severe and unsparing criticism. Even the war with Prussia and Russia, in which Napoleon was soon afterwards engaged, would, in all probability, have renewed the hostilities between France and England, supposing them to have been terminated for a season by a temporary peace. Yet Napoleon always spoke of the death of Fox as one of the fatalities on which his great designs were shipwrecked;[226] which makes it the more surprising that he did not resume intercourse with the administration formed under his auspices, and who might have been supposed to be animated by his principles even after his decease. That he did not do so may be fairly received in evidence to show, that peace, unless on terms which he could dictate, was not desired by him.

As the conduct of Prussia had been fickle and versatile during the campaign of Austerlitz, the displeasure of Napoleon was excited in proportion against her. She had, it is true, wrenched from him an unwilling acquiescence in her views upon Hanover. By the treaty which Haugwitz had signed at Vienna, after the battle of Austerlitz, it was agreed that Prussia should receive the electoral dominions of the King of England, his ally, instead of Anspach, Bareuth, and Neufchatel, which she was to cede to France. The far superior value of Hanover was to be considered as a boon to Prussia, in guerdon of her neutrality. But Napoleon did not forgive the hostile disposition which Prussia had manifested, and it is probable he waited with anxiety for the opportunity of inflicting upon her condign chastisement. He continued to maintain a large army in Swabia and Franconia, and, by introducing troops into Westphalia, intimated, not obscurely, an approaching rupture with his ally. Meantime, under the influence of conflicting councils, Prussia proceeded in a course of politics which rendered her odious for her rapacity, and contemptible for the shortsighted views under which she indulged it.

It was no matter of difficulty for the Prussian forces to take possession of Hanover, which, when evacuated by Bernadotte and his army, lay a prey to the first invader, with the exception of the fortress of Hamelen, still occupied by a French garrison. The electorate, the hereditary dominions of the King of Great Britain, with whom Prussia was at profound peace, was accordingly seized upon, and her Cabinet pretended to justify that usurpation by alleging, that Hanover, having been transferred to France by the rights of war, had been ceded to the Prussian Government in exchange for other districts. At the same time, an order of the Prussian monarch shut his ports in the Baltic against the admission of British vessels. These measures, taken together, were looked upon by England as intimating determined and avowed hostility; and Fox described, in the House of Commons, the conduct of Prussia, as a compound of the most hateful rapacity with the most contemptible servility.[227] War was accordingly declared against her by Great Britain; and her flag being banished from the ocean by the English cruizers, the mouth of the Elbe and the Prussian seaports were declared in a state of blockade, and her trade was subjected to a corresponding degree of distress.

Meantime, it was the fate of Prussia to find, that she held by a very insecure tenure that very electorate, the price of her neutrality at Austerlitz, and which was farther purchased at the expense of war with England. Her ministers, while pressing France to confirm the cession of Hanover, had the mortification to discover that Napoleon, far from regarding the Prussian right in it as indefeasible, was in fact negotiating for a general peace upon the condition, amongst others, that the electorate should be restored to the King of England, its hereditary sovereign. While the disclosure of this double game showed Frederick William upon what insecure footing he held the premium assigned to Prussia by the treaty of Vienna, farther discovery of the projects of France seemed to impel him to change the pacific line of his policy.

Hitherto the victories of Napoleon had had for their chief consequences the depression of Austria, and the diminution of that power which was the natural and ancient rival of the House of Brandenburg. But now, when Austria was thrust back to the eastward, and deprived of her influence in the south-west of Germany, Prussia saw with just alarm that France was assuming that influence herself, and that, unless opposed, she was likely to become as powerful in the north of Germany, as she had rendered herself in the south-western circles. Above all, Prussia was alarmed at the Confederacy of the Rhine, an association which placed under the direct influence of France, so large a proportion of what had been lately component parts of the Germanic empire. The dissolution of the Germanic empire itself was an event no less surprising and embarrassing; for, besides all the other important points, in which the position of Prussia was altered by the annihilation of that ancient confederacy, she lost thereby the prospect of her own monarch being, upon the decline of Austria, chosen to wear the imperial crown, as the most powerful member of the federation.

One way remained, to balance the new species of power which France had acquired by these innovations on the state of Europe. It was possible, by forming the northern princes of the German empire into a league of the same character with the Confederacy of the Rhine, having Prussia instead of France for its protector, to create such an equilibrium as might render it difficult or dangerous for Buonaparte to use his means, however greatly enlarged, to disturb the peace of the north of Europe. It was, therefore, determined in the Prussian Cabinet to form a league on this principle.

This proposed Northern Confederacy, however, could not well be established without communication with France; and Buonaparte, though offering no direct opposition to the formation of a league, sanctioned by the example of that of the Rhine, started such obstacles to the project in detail, as were likely to render its establishment on an effectual footing impossible. It was said by his ministers, that Napoleon was to take the Hanseatic towns under his own immediate protection; that the wise prince who governed Saxony showed no desire to become a member of the proposed Confederacy; and that France would permit no power to be forced into such a measure. Finally, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, who was naturally reckoned upon as an important member of the proposed Northern League, was tampered with to prevail upon him to join the Confederacy of the Rhine, instead of that which was proposed to be formed under the protectorate of Prussia. This prince, afraid to decide which of these powerful nations he should adhere to, remained in a state of neutrality, notwithstanding the offers of France; and, by doing so, incurred the displeasure of Napoleon, from which in the sequel he suffered severely.

By this partial interruption and opposition, Napoleon rendered it impossible for Prussia to make any effectual efforts for combining together those remaining fragments of the German empire, over which her military power and geographical position gave her natural influence. This disappointment, with the sense of having been outwitted by the French Government, excited feelings of chagrin and resentment in the Prussian Cabinet, which corresponded with the sentiments expressed by the nation at large. In the former, the predominant feeling was, despite for disappointed hopes, and a desire of revenge on the sovereign and state by whom they had been over-reached; in the latter, there prevailed a keen and honourable sense that Prussia had lost her character through the truckling policy of her Administration.

Whatever reluctance the Cabinet of Berlin had shown to enter into hostilities with France, the court and country never appear to have shared that sensation. The former was under the influence of the young, beautiful, and high-spirited Queen, and of Louis of Prussia, a prince who felt with impatience the decaying importance of that kingdom, which the victories of the Great Frederick had raised to such a pitch of glory. These were surrounded by a numerous band of noble youths, impatient for war, as the means of emulating the fame of their fathers; but ignorant how little likely were even the powerful and well-disciplined forces of Frederick, unless directed by his genius, to succeed in opposition to troops not inferior to themselves, and conducted by a leader who had long appeared to chain victory to his chariot wheels. The sentiments of the young Prussian noblesse were sufficiently indicated, by their going to sharpen their sabres on the threshold of La Foret, the ambassador of Napoleon, and the wilder frolic of breaking the windows of the ministers supposed to be in the French interest. The Queen appeared frequently in the uniform of the regiment which bore her name, and sometimes rode at their head, to give enthusiasm to the soldiery. This was soon excited to the highest pitch; and had the military talents of the Prussian generals borne any correspondence to the gallantry of the officers and soldiers, an issue to the campaign might have been expected far different from that which took place. The manner in which the characters of the Queen, the King, and Prince Louis, were treated in the Moniteur, tended still more to exasperate the quarrel; for Napoleon's studious and cautious exclusion from the government paper of such political articles as had not his own previous approbation, rendered him in reason accountable for all which appeared there.

The people of Prussia at large were clamorous for war. They, too, were sensible that the late versatile conduct of their Cabinet had exposed them to the censure, and even the scorn of Europe; and that Buonaparte, seeing the crisis ended in which the firmness of Prussia might have preserved the balance of Europe, retained no longer any respect for those whom he had made his dupes, but treated with total disregard the remonstrances, which, before the advantages obtained at Ulm and Austerlitz, he must have listened to with respect and deference.

Another circumstance of a very exasperating character took place at this time. One Palm, a bookseller at Nuremberg, had exposed to sale a pamphlet,[228] containing remarks on the conduct of Napoleon, in which the Emperor and his policy were treated with considerable severity. The bookseller was seized upon for this offence by the French gendarmes, and transferred to Braunau, where he was brought before a military commission, tried for a libel on the Emperor of France, found guilty, and shot to death [Aug. 26] in terms of his sentence. The murder of this poor man, for such it literally was, whether immediately flowing from Buonaparte's mandate,[229] or the effects of the furious zeal of some of his officers, excited deep and general indignation.[230]

The constitution of many of the states in Germany is despotic; but, nevertheless, the number of independent principalities, and the privileges of the free towns, have always ensured to the nation at large the blessings of a free press, which, much addicted as they are to literature, the Germans value as it deserves. The cruel effort now made to fetter this unshackled expression of opinion, was, of course, most unfavourable to his authority by whom it had been commanded. The thousand presses of Germany continued on every possible opportunity to dwell on the fate of Palm; and, at the distance of six or seven years from his death, it might be reckoned among the leading causes which ultimately determined the popular opinion against Napoleon. It had not less effect at the time when the crime was committed; and the eyes of all Germany were turned upon Prussia, as the only member of the late Holy Roman League, by whom the progress of the public enemy of the liberties of Europe could be arrested in its course.

Amidst the general ferment of the public mind, Alexander once more appeared in person at the court of Berlin, and, more successful than on the former occasion, prevailed on the King of Prussia at length to unsheath the sword. The support of the powerful hosts of Russia was promised; and, defeated on the fatal field of Austerlitz in his attempt to preserve the south-east of Germany from French influence, Alexander now stood forth to assist Prussia as the Champion of the North. An attempt had indeed been made through means of D'Oubril, a Russian envoy at Paris, to obtain a general peace for Europe, in concurrence with that which Lord Lauderdale was endeavouring to negotiate on the part of Britain; but the treaty entirely miscarried.

While Prussia thus declared herself the enemy of France, it seemed to follow, as a matter of course, that she should become once more the friend of Britain; and, indeed, that power lost no time in manifesting an amicable disposition on her part, by recalling the order which blockaded the Prussian ports, and annihilated her commerce. But the Cabinet of Berlin evinced, in the moment when about to commence hostilities, the same selfish insincerity which had dictated all their previous conduct. While sufficiently desirous of obtaining British money to maintain the approaching war, they showed great reluctance to part with Hanover, an acquisition made in a manner so unworthy; and the Prussian minister, Lucchesini, did not hesitate to tell the British ambassador, Lord Morpeth, that the fate of the electorate would depend upon the event of arms.

Little good could be augured from the interposition of a power, who, pretending to arm in behalf of the rights of nations, refused to part with an acquisition which she herself had made, contrary to all the rules of justice and good faith. Still less was a favourable event to be hoped for, when the management of the war was intrusted to the same incapable or faithless ministers, who had allowed every opportunity to escape of asserting the rights of Prussia, when, perhaps, her assuming a firm attitude might have prevented the necessity of war altogether. But the resolution which had been delayed, when so many favourable occasions were suffered to escape unemployed, was at length adopted with an imprudent precipitation, which left Prussia neither time to adopt the wisest warlike measures, nor to look out for those statesmen and generals by whom such measures could have been most effectually executed.

About the middle of August, Prussia began to arm. Perhaps there are few examples of a war declared with the almost unanimous consent of a great and warlike people, which was brought to an earlier and more unhappy termination. On the 1st of October, Knobelsdorff, the Prussian envoy, was called upon by Talleyrand to explain the cause of the martial attitude assumed by his state. In reply, a paper was delivered, containing three propositions, or rather demands. First, That the French troops which had entered the German territory, should instantly recross the Rhine. Secondly, That France should desist from presenting obstacles to the formation of a league in the northern part of Germany, to comprehend all the states, without exception, which had not been included in the Confederation of the Rhine. Thirdly, That negotiations should be immediately commenced, for the purpose of detaching the fortress of Wesel from the French empire, and for the restitution of three abbeys,[231] which Murat had chosen to seize upon as a part of his Duchy of Berg. With this manifesto[232] was delivered a long explanatory letter, containing severe remarks on the system of encroachment which France had acted upon. Such a text and commentary, considering their peremptory tone, and the pride and power of him to whom they were addressed in such unqualified terms, must have been understood to amount to a declaration of war. And yet, although Prussia, in common with all Europe, had just reason to complain of the encroachments of France, and her rapid strides to universal empire, it would appear that the two first articles in the King's declaration, were subjects rather of negotiation than grounds of an absolute declaration of war; and that the fortress of Wesel, and the three abbeys, were scarce of importance enough to plunge the whole empire into blood for the sake of them.

Prussia, indeed, was less actually aggrieved than she was mortified and offended. She saw she had been outwitted by Buonaparte in the negotiation of Vienna; that he was juggling with her in the matter of Hanover; that she was in danger of beholding Saxony and Hesse withdrawn from her protection, to be placed under that of France; and under a general sense of these injuries, though rather apprehended than really sustained, she hurried to the field. If negotiations could have been protracted till the advance of the Russian armies, it might have given a different face to the war; but in the warlike ardour which possessed the Prussians, they were desirous to secure the advantages which, in military affairs, belong to the assailants, without weighing the circumstances which, in their situation, rendered such precipitation fatal.

Besides, such advantages were not easily to be obtained over Buonaparte, who was not a man to be amused by words when the moment of action arrived. Four days before the delivery of the Prussian note to his minister, Buonaparte had left Paris, and was personally in the field collecting his own immense forces, and urging the contribution of those contingents which the Confederate Princes of the Rhine were bound to supply. His answer to the hostile note of the King of Prussia was addressed, not to that monarch, but to his own soldiers. "They have dared to demand," he said, "that we should retreat at the first sight of their army. Fools! could they not reflect how impossible they found it to destroy Paris, a task incomparably more easy than to tarnish the honour of the Great Nation! Let the Prussian army expect the same fate which they encountered fourteen years ago, since experience has not taught them, that while it is easy to acquire additional dominions and increase of power, by the friendship of France, her enmity, on the contrary, which will only be provoked by those who are totally destitute of sense and reason, is more terrible than the tempests of the ocean."

The King of Prussia had again placed at the head of his armies the Duke of Brunswick. In his youth, this general had gained renown under his uncle Prince Ferdinand. But it had been lost in the retreat from Champagne in 1792, where he had suffered himself to be out-manoeuvred by Dumouriez and his army of conscripts. He was seventy-two years old, and is said to have added the obstinacy of age to others of the infirmities which naturally attend it. He was not communicative, nor accessible to any of the other generals, excepting Mollendorf; and this generated a disunion of councils in the Prussian camp, and the personal dislike of the army to him by whom it was commanded.

The plan of the campaign, formed by this ill-fated prince, seems to have been singularly injudicious, and the more so, as it is censurable on exactly the same grounds as that of Austria in the late war. Prussia could not expect to have the advantage of numbers in the contest. It was, therefore, her obvious policy to procrastinate and lengthen out negotiation, until she could have the advantage of the Russian forces. Instead of this, it was determined to rush forward towards Franconia, and oppose the Prussian army alone to the whole force of France, commanded by their renowned Emperor.

The motive, too, was similar to that which had determined Austria to advance as far as the banks of the Iller. Saxony was in the present campaign, as Bavaria in the former, desirous of remaining neuter; and the hasty advance of the Prussian armies was designed to compel the Elector Augustus to embrace their cause. It succeeded accordingly; and the sovereign of Saxony united his forces, though reluctantly, with the left wing of the Prussians, under Prince Hohenloe. The conduct of the Prussians towards the Saxons bore the same ominous resemblance to that of the Austrians to the Bavarians. Their troops behaved in the country of Saxony more as if they were in the land of a tributary than an ally, and while the assistance of the good and peaceable prince was sternly exacted, no efforts were made to conciliate his good-will, or soothe the pride of his subjects. In their behaviour to the Saxons in general, the Prussians showed too much of the haughty spirit that goes before a fall.

The united force of the Prussian army, with its auxiliaries, amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand men,[233] confident in their own courage, in the rigid discipline which continued to distinguish their service, and in the animating recollections of the victorious career of the Great Frederick. There were many generals and soldiers in their ranks who had served under him; but, amongst that troop of veterans, Blucher alone was destined to do distinguished honour to the school.

Notwithstanding these practical errors, the address of the Prussian King to his army was in better taste than the vaunting proclamation of Buonaparte, and concluded with a passage, which, though its accomplishment was long delayed, nevertheless proved at last prophetic:—"We go," said Frederick William, "to encounter an enemy, who has vanquished numerous armies, humiliated monarchs, destroyed constitutions, and deprived more than one state of its independence, and even of its very name. He has threatened a similar fate to Prussia, and proposes to reduce us to the dominion of a strange people, who would suppress the very name of Germans. The fate of armies, and of nations, is in the hands of the Almighty; but constant victory, and durable prosperity, are never granted, save to the cause of justice."

While Buonaparte assembled in Franconia an army considerably superior in number to that of the Prussians, the latter occupied the country in the vicinity of the river Saale, and seemed, in doing so, to renounce all the advantage of making the attack on the enemy ere he had collected his forces. Yet, to make such an attack was, and must have been, the principal motive of their hasty and precipitate advance; especially after they had secured its primary object, the accession of Saxony to the campaign. The position which the Duke of Brunswick occupied was indeed very strong as a defensive one, but the means of supporting so large an army were not easily to be obtained in such a barren country as that about Weimar; and their magazines and depÔts of provisions were injudiciously placed, not close in the rear of the army, but at Naumburg, and other places, upon their extreme left, and where they were exposed to the risk of being separated from them. It might be partly owing to the difficulty of obtaining forage and subsistence, that the Prussian army was extended upon a line by far too much prolonged to admit of mutual support. Indeed, they may be considered rather as disposed in cantonments than as occupying a military position; and as they remained strictly on the defensive, an opportunity was gratuitously afforded to Buonaparte to attack their divisions in detail, of which he did not fail to avail himself with his usual talent. The headquarters of the Prussians, where were the King and Duke of Brunswick, were at Weimar; their left, under Prince Hohenloe, were at Schleitz; and their right extended as far as Muhlhausen, leaving thus a space of ninety miles betwixt the extreme flanks of their line.

Buonaparte, in the meantime, commenced the campaign, according to his custom, by a series of partial actions fought on different points, in which his usual combinations obtained his usual success; the whole tending to straiten the Prussians in their position, to interrupt their communications, separate them from their supplies, and compel them to fight a decisive battle from necessity, not choice, in which dispirited troops, under baffled and outwitted generals, were to encounter with soldiers who had already obtained a foretaste of victory, and who fought under the most renowned commanders, the combined efforts of the whole being directed by the master spirit of the age.

Upon the 8th October, Buonaparte gave vent to his resentment in a bulletin, in which he complained of having received a letter of twenty pages, signed by the King of Prussia, being, as he alleged, a sort of wretched pamphlet, such as England engaged hireling authors to compose at the rate of five hundred pounds sterling a-year. "I am sorry," he said, "for my brother, who does not understand the French language, and has certainly never read that rhapsody." The same publication contained much in ridicule of the Queen and Prince Louis.[234] It bears evident marks of Napoleon's own composition, which was as singular, though not so felicitous, as his mode of fighting; but it was of little use to censure either the style or the reasoning of the lord of so many legions. His arms soon made the impression which he desired upon the position of the enemy.

The French advanced, in three divisions, upon the dislocated and extended disposition of the large but ill-arranged Prussian army. It was a primary and irretrievable fault of the Duke of Brunswick, that his magazines, and reserves of artillery and ammunition were placed at Naumburg, instead of being close in the rear of his army, and under the protection of his main body. This ill-timed separation rendered it easy for the French to interpose betwixt the Prussians and their supplies, providing they were able to clear the course of the Saale.

With this view the French right wing, commanded by Soult and Ney, marched upon Hof. The centre was under Bernadotte and Davoust, with the guard commanded by Murat. They moved on Saalburg and Schleitz. The left wing was led by Augereau against Coburg and Saalfield. It was the object of this grand combined movement to overwhelm the Prussian right wing, which was extended farther than prudence permitted; and, having beaten this part of the army, to turn their whole position, and possess themselves of their magazines. After some previous skirmishes, a serious action took place at Saalfield, where Prince Louis of Prussia commanded the advanced guard of the Prussian left wing.

In the ardour and inexperience of youth, the brave prince, instead of being contented with defending the bridge on the Saale, quitted that advantageous position, to advance with unequal forces against Lannes, who was marching upon him from Graffenthal. If bravery could have atoned for imprudence, the battle of Saalfield would not have been lost. Prince Louis showed the utmost gallantry in leading his men when they advanced, and in rallying them when they fled. He was killed fighting hand to hand with a French subaltern, who required him to surrender, and, receiving a sabre-wound for reply, plunged his sword into the prince's body. Several of his staff fell around him.[235]

The victory of Saalfield opened the course of the Saale to the French, who instantly advanced on Naumburg. Buonaparte was at Gera, within half a day's journey from the latter city, whence he sent a letter to the King of Prussia, couched in the language of a victor, (for victorious he already felt himself by his numbers and position,) and seasoned with the irony of a successful foe. He regretted his good brother had been made to sign the wretched pamphlet which had borne his name, but which he protested he did not impute to him as his composition. Had Prussia asked any practicable favour of him, he said he would have granted it; but she had asked his dishonour, and ought to have known there could be but one answer. In consideration of their former friendship, Napoleon stated himself to be ready to restore peace to Prussia and her monarch; and, advising his good brother to dismiss such counsellors as recommended the present war and that of 1792, he bade him heartily farewell.[236]

Buonaparte neither expected nor received any answer to this missive, which was written under the exulting sensations experienced by the angler, when he feels the fish is hooked, and about to become his secure prey. Naumburg and its magazines were consigned to the flames, which first announced to the Prussians that the French army had gotten completely into their rear, had destroyed their magazines, and, being now interposed betwixt them and Saxony, left them no alternative save that of battle, which was to be waged at the greatest disadvantage with an alert enemy, to whom their supineness had already given the choice of time and place for it. There was also this ominous consideration, that, in case of disaster, the Prussians had neither principle, nor order, nor line of retreat. The enemy were betwixt them and Magdeburg, which ought to have been their rallying point; and the army of the Great Frederick was, it must be owned, brought to combat with as little reflection or military science, as a herd of school-boys might have displayed in a mutiny.

Too late determined to make some exertion to clear their communications to the rear, the Duke of Brunswick, with the King of Prussia in person, marched with great part of their army to the recovery of Naumburg. Here Davoust, who had taken the place, remained at the head of a division of six-and-thirty thousand men, with whom he was to oppose nearly double the number. The march of the Duke of Brunswick was so slow, as to lose the advantage of this superiority. He paused on the evening of the thirteenth on the heights of Auerstadt, and gave Davoust time to reinforce the troops with which he occupied the strong defile of Koesen. The next morning, Davoust, with strong reinforcements, but still unequal in numbers to the Prussians, marched towards the enemy, whose columns were already in motion. The vanguard of both armies met, without previously knowing that they were so closely approaching each other, so thick lay the mist upon the ground.

The village of Hassen-Hausen, near which the opposite armies were first made aware of each other's proximity, became instantly the scene of a severe conflict, and was taken and retaken repeatedly. The Prussian cavalry, being superior in numbers to that of the French, and long famous for its appointments and discipline, attacked repeatedly, and was as often resisted by the French squares of infantry, whom they found it impossible to throw into disorder, or break upon any point. The French, having thus repelled the Prussian horse, carried, at the point of the bayonet, some woods and the village of Spilberg, and remained in undisturbed possession of that of Hassen-Hausen. The Prussians had by this time maintained the battle from eight in the morning till eleven, and being now engaged on all points, with the exception of two divisions of the reserve, had suffered great loss. The Generalissimo, Duke of Brunswick, wounded in the face by a grape-shot, was carried off; so was General Schmettau, and other officers of distinction. The want of an experienced chief began to be felt; when, to increase the difficulties of their situation, the King of Prussia received intelligence, that General Mollendorf, who commanded his right wing, stationed near Jena, was in the act of being defeated by Buonaparte in person. The King took the generous but perhaps desperate resolution, of trying, whether in one general charge he could not redeem the fortune of the day, by defeating that part of the French with which he was personally engaged. He ordered the attack to be made along all the line, and with all the forces which he had in the field; and his commands were obeyed with gallantry enough to vindicate the honour of the troops, but not to lead to success. They were beaten off, and the French resumed the offensive in their turn.

Still the Prussian monarch, who seems now to have taken the command upon himself, endeavouring to supply the want of professional experience by courage, brought up his last reserves, and encouraged his broken troops rather to make a final stand for victory, than to retreat in face of a conquering army. This effort also proved in vain. The Prussian line was attacked every where at once; centre and wings were broken through by the French at the bayonet's point; and the retreat, after so many fruitless efforts, in which no division had been left unengaged, was of the most disorderly character. But the confusion was increased tenfold, when, as the defeated troops reached Weimar, they fell in with the right wing of their own army, fugitives like themselves, and who were attempting to retreat in the same direction. The disorder of two routed armies meeting in opposing currents, soon became inextricable. The roads were choked up with artillery and baggage waggons; the retreat became a hurried flight; and the King himself, who had shown the utmost courage during the battle of Auerstadt, was at length, for personal safety, compelled to leave the high-roads, and escape across the fields, escorted by a small body of cavalry.

While the left of the Prussian army were in the act of combating Davoust at Auerstadt, their right, as we have hinted, were with equally bad fortune engaged at Jena. This second action, though the least important of the two, has always given the name to the double battle; because it was at Jena that Napoleon was engaged in person.

The French Emperor had arrived at this town, which is situated upon the Saale, on the 13th of October, and had lost no time in issuing those orders to his mareschals, which produced the demonstrations of Davoust, and the victory of Auerstadt. His attention was not less turned to the position he himself occupied, and in which he had the prospect of fighting Mollendorf, and the right of the Prussians, on the next morning. With his usual activity, he formed or enlarged, in the course of the night, the roads by which he proposed to bring up his artillery on the succeeding day, and by hewing the solid rock, made a path practicable for guns to the plateau, or elevated plain in the front of Jena, where his centre was established.[237] The Prussian army lay before them, extended on a line of six leagues, while that of Napoleon, extremely concentrated, showed a very narrow front, but was well secured both in the flanks and in the rear. Buonaparte, according to his custom, slept in the bivouac, surrounded by his guards.[238] In the morning he harangued his soldiers, and recommended to them to stand firm against the charges of the Prussian cavalry, which had been represented as very redoubtable. As before Ulm, he had promised his soldiers a repetition of the battle of Marengo, so now he pointed out to his men that the Prussians, separated from their magazines, and cut off from their country, were in the situation of Mack at Ulm. He told them, that the enemy no longer fought for honour and victory, but for the chance of opening a way to retreat; and he added, that the corps which should permit them to escape would lose their honour. The French replied with loud shouts, and demanded instantly to advance to the combat. The Emperor ordered the columns destined for the attack to descend into the plain. His centre consisted of the Imperial Guard, and two divisions of Lannes. Augereau commanded the right, which rested on a village and a forest; and Soult's division, with a part of Ney's, were upon the left.

General Mollendorf advanced on his side, and both armies, as at Auerstadt, were hid from each other by the mist, until suddenly the atmosphere cleared, and showed them to each other within the distance of half-cannon shot. The conflict instantly commenced. It began on the French right, where the Prussians attacked with the purpose of driving Augereau from the village on which he rested his extreme flank. Lannes was sent to support him, by whose succour he was enabled to stand his ground. The battle then became general; and the Prussians showed themselves such masters of discipline, that it was long impossible to gain any advantage over men, who advanced, retired, or moved to either flank, with the regularity of machines. Soult at length, by the most desperate efforts, dispossessed the Prussians opposed to him of the woods from which they had annoyed the French left; and at the same conjuncture the division of Ney, and a large reserve of cavalry, appeared upon the field of battle. Napoleon, thus strengthened, advanced the centre, consisting in a great measure of the Imperial Guard, who, being fresh and in the highest spirits, compelled the Prussian army to give way. Their retreat was at first orderly; but it was a part of Buonaparte's tactics to pour attack after attack upon a worsted enemy, as the billows of a tempestuous ocean follow each other in succession, till the last waves totally disperse the fragments of the bulwark which the first have breached. Murat, at the head of the dragoons and the cavalry of reserve, charged, as one who would merit, as far as bravery could merit, the splendid destinies which seemed now opening to him. The Prussian infantry were unable to support the shock, nor could their cavalry protect them. The rout became general.[239] Great part of the artillery was taken, and the broken troops retreated in disorder upon Weimar, where, as we have already stated, their confusion became inextricable, by their encountering the other tide of fugitives from their own left, which was directed upon Weimar also. All leading and following seemed now lost in this army, so lately confiding in its numbers and discipline. There was scarcely a general left to issue orders, scarcely a soldier disposed to obey them; and it seems to have been more by a sort of instinct, than any resolved purpose, that several broken regiments were directed, or directed themselves, upon Magdeburg, where Prince Hohenloe endeavoured to rally them.

The French accounts state that 20,000 Prussians were killed and taken in the course of this fatal day; that three hundred guns fell into their power, with twenty generals, or lieutenant-generals, and standards and colours to the number of sixty.[240]

The mismanagement of the Prussian generals in these calamitous battles, and in all the manoeuvres which preceded them, amounted to infatuation. The troops also, according to Buonaparte's evidence, scarcely maintained their high character, oppressed probably by a sense of the disadvantages under which they combated. But it is unnecessary to dwell on the various causes of a defeat, when the vanquished seem neither to have formed one combined and general plan of attack in the action, nor maintained communication with each other while it endured, nor agreed upon any scheme of retreat when the day was lost. The Duke of Brunswick, too, and General Schmettau, being mortally wounded early in the battle, the several divisions of the Prussian army fought individually, without receiving any general orders, and consequently without regular plan or combined manoeuvres. The consequences of the defeat were more universally calamitous than could have been anticipated, even when we consider, that no mode of retreat having been fixed on, or general rallying place appointed, the broken army resembled a covey of heathfowl, which the sportsman marks down and destroys in detail and at his leisure.

Next day after the action, a large body of the Prussians, who, under the command of Mollendorf had retired to Erfurt, were compelled to surrender to the victors, and the marshal, with the Prince of Orange Fulda, became prisoners. Other relics of this most unhappy defeat met with the same fate. General Kalkreuth, at the head of a considerable division of troops, was overtaken and routed in an attempt to cross the Hartz mountains. Prince Eugene of Wirtemberg commanded an untouched body of sixteen thousand men, whom the Prussian general-in-chief had suffered to remain at Memmingen, without an attempt to bring them into the field. Instead of retiring when he heard all was lost, the prince was rash enough to advance towards Halle, as if to put the only unbroken division of the Prussian army in the way of the far superior and victorious hosts of France. He was accordingly attacked and defeated by Bernadotte.

The chief point of rallying, however, was Magdeburg, under the walls of which strong city Prince Hohenloe, though wounded, contrived to assemble an army amounting to fifty thousand men, but wanting every thing, and in the last degree of confusion. But Magdeburg was no place of rest for them. The same improvidence, which had marked every step of the campaign, had exhausted that city of the immense magazines which it contained, and taken them for the supply of the Duke of Brunswick's army. The wrecks of the field of Jena were exposed to famine as well as the sword. It only remained for Prince Hohenloe to make the best escape he could to the Oder, and, considering the disastrous circumstances in which he was placed, he seems to have displayed both courage and skill in his proceedings. After various partial actions, however, in all of which he lost men, he finally found himself, with the advanced guard and centre of his army, on the heights of Prenzlow, without provisions, forage, or ammunition. Surrender became unavoidable; and at Prenzlow and Passewalk, nearly twenty thousand Prussians laid down their arms.

The rear of Prince Hohenloe's army did not immediately share this calamity. They were at Boitzenburg when the surrender took place, and amounted to about ten thousand men, the relics of the battle in which Prince Eugene of Wirtemberg had engaged near Weimar, and were under the command of a general whose name hereafter was destined to sound like a war trumpet—the celebrated Blucher.

In the extremity of his country's distresses, this distinguished soldier showed the same indomitable spirit, the same activity in execution and daringness of resolve, which afterwards led to such glorious results. He was about to leave Boitzenburg on the 29th, in consequence of his orders from Prince Hohenloe, when he learned that general's disaster at Prenzlow. He instantly changed the direction of his retreat, and, by a rapid march towards Strelitz, contrived to unite his forces with about ten thousand men, gleanings of Jena and Auerstadt, which, under the Dukes of Weimar and of Brunswick Oels, had taken their route in that direction. Thus reinforced, Blucher adopted the plan of passing the Elbe at Lauenburg, and reinforcing the Prussian garrisons in Lower Saxony. With this view he fought several sharp actions, and made many rapid marches. But the odds were too great to be balanced by courage and activity. The division of Soult which had crossed the Elbe, cut him off from Lauenburg, that of Murat interposed between him and Stralsund, while Bernadotte pressed upon his rear. Blucher had no resource but to throw himself and his diminished and dispirited army into Lubeck. The pursuers came soon up, and found him like a stag at bay. A battle was fought on the 6th of November, in the streets of Lubeck, with extreme fury on both sides, in which the Prussians were overpowered by numbers, and lost many slain, besides four thousand prisoners. Blucher fought his way out of the town, and reached Schwerta. But he had now retreated as far as he could, without violating the neutrality of the Danish territory, which would only have raised up new enemies to his unfortunate master.

On the 7th November, therefore, he gave up his good sword, to be resumed under happier auspices, and surrendered with the few thousand men which remained under his command.[241] But the courage which he had manifested, like the lights of St. Elmo amid the gloom of the tempest, showed that there was at least one pupil of the Great Frederick worthy of his master, and afforded hopes, on which Prussia long dwelt in silence, till the moment of action arrived.

The total destruction, for such it might almost be termed, of the Prussian army, was scarcely so wonderful, as the facility with which the fortresses which defend that country, some of them ranking among the foremost in Europe, were surrendered by their commandants, without shame, and without resistance, to the victorious enemy. Strong towns, and fortified places, on which the engineer had exhausted his science, provided too with large garrisons, and ample supplies, opened their gates at the sound of a French trumpet, or the explosion of a few bombs. Spandau, Stettin, Custrin, Hamelen, were each qualified to have arrested the march of invaders for months, yet were all surrendered on little more than a summons. In Magdeburg was a garrison of twenty-two thousand men, two thousand of them being artillerymen; and nevertheless this celebrated city capitulated with Mareschal Ney at the first flight of shells. Hamelen was garrisoned by six thousand troops, amply supplied with provisions, and every means of maintaining a siege. The place was surrendered to a force scarcely one-third in proportion to that of the garrison. These incidents were too gross to be imputed to folly and cowardice alone. The French themselves wondered at their conquests, yet had a shrewd guess at the manner in which they were rendered so easy. When the recreant governor of Magdeburg was insulted by the students of Halle for treachery as well as cowardice, the French garrison of the place sympathized, as soldiers, with the youthful enthusiasm of the scholars, and afforded the sordid old coward but little protection against their indignation. From a similar generous impulse, Schoels, the commandant of Hamelen, was nearly destroyed by the troops under his orders. In surrendering the place, he had endeavoured to stipulate, that, in case the Prussian provinces should pass by the fortune of war to some other power, the officers should retain their pay and rank. The soldiers were so much incensed at this stipulation, which carried desertion in its front, and a proposal to shape a private fortune to himself amid the ruin of his country, that Schoels only saved himself by delivering up the place to the French before the time stipulated in the articles of capitulation.

It is believed that, on several of these occasions, the French constructed a golden key to open these iron fortresses, without being themselves at the expense of the precious metal which composed it. Every large garrison has of course a military chest, with treasure for the regular payment of the soldiery; and it is said, that more than one commandant was unable to resist the proffer, that, in case of an immediate surrender, this deposit should not be inquired into by the captors, but left at the disposal of the governor, whose accommodating disposition had saved them the time and trouble of a siege.[242]

While the French army made this uninterrupted progress, the new King of Holland, Louis Buonaparte, with an army partly composed of Dutch and partly of Frenchmen, possessed himself with equal ease of Westphalia, great part of Hanover, Emden, and East Friesland.[243]

To complete the picture of general disorder which Prussia now exhibited, it is only necessary to add, that the unfortunate King, whose personal qualities deserved a better fate, had been obliged, after the battle, to fly into East Prussia, where he finally sought refuge in the city of KÖnigsberg. L'Estocq, a faithful and able general, was still able to assemble out of the wreck of the Prussian army a few thousand men, for the protection of his sovereign. Buonaparte took possession of Berlin on the 25th October, eleven days after the battle of Jena. The mode in which he improved his good fortune, we reserve for future consideration.

The fall of Prussia was so sudden and so total, as to excite the general astonishment of Europe. Its prince was compared to the rash and inexperienced gambler, who risks his whole fortune on one desperate cast, and rises from the table totally ruined. That power had, for three quarters of a century, ranked among the most important of Europe; but never had she exhibited such a formidable position as almost immediately before her disaster, when, holding in her own hand the balance of Europe, she might, before the day of Austerlitz, have inclined the scale to which side she would. And now she lay at the feet of the antagonist whom she had rashly and in ill time defied, not fallen merely, but totally prostrate, without the means of making a single effort to arise. It was remembered that Austria, when her armies were defeated, and her capital taken, had still found resources in the courage of her subjects, and that the insurrections of Hungary and Bohemia had assumed, even after Buonaparte's most eminent successes, a character so formidable, as to aid in procuring peace for the defeated Emperor on moderate terms. Austria, therefore, was like a fortress repeatedly besieged, and as often breached and damaged, but which continued to be tenable, though diminished in strength, and deprived of important outworks. But Prussia seemed like the same fortress swallowed up by an earthquake, which leaves nothing either to inhabit or defend, and where the fearful agency of the destroyer reduces the strongest bastions and bulwarks to crumbled masses of ruins and rubbish.

The cause of this great distinction between two countries which have so often contended against each other for political power, and for influence in Germany, may be easily traced.

The empire of Austria combines in itself several large kingdoms, the undisturbed and undisputed dominions of a common sovereign, to whose sway they have been long accustomed, and towards whom they nourish the same sentiments of loyalty which their fathers entertained to the ancient princes of the same house. Austria's natural authority therefore rested, and now rests, on this broad and solid base, the general and rooted attachment of the people to their prince, and their identification of his interests with their own.

Prussia had also her native provinces, in which her authority was hereditary, and where the affection, loyalty, and patriotism of the inhabitants were natural qualities, which fathers transmitted to their sons. But a large part of her dominions consist of late acquisitions, obtained at different times by the arms or policy of the great Frederick; and thus her territories, made up of a number of small and distant states, want geographical breadth, while their disproportioned length stretches, according to Voltaire's well-known simile, like a pair of garters across the map of Europe. It follows as a natural consequence, that a long time must intervene betwixt the formation of such a kingdom, and the amalgamation of its component parts, differing in laws, manners, and usages, into one compact and solid monarchy, having respect and affection to their king, as the common head, and regard to each other as members of the same community. It will require generations to pass away, ere a kingdom, so artificially composed, can be cemented into unity and strength; and the tendency to remain disunited, is greatly increased by the disadvantages of its geographical situation.

These considerations alone might explain, why, after the fatal battle of Jena, the inhabitants of the various provinces of Prussia contributed no important personal assistance to repel the invader; and why, although almost all trained to arms, and accustomed to serve a certain time in the line, they did not display any readiness to exert themselves against the common enemy. They felt that they belonged to Prussia only by the right of the strongest, and therefore were indifferent when the same right seemed about to transfer their allegiance elsewhere. They saw the approaching ruin of the Prussian power, not as children view the danger of a father, which they are bound to prevent at the hazard of their lives, but as servants view that of a master, which concerns them no otherwise than as leading to a change of their employers.

There were other reasons, tending to paralyse any effort at popular resistance, which affected the hereditary states of Prussia, as well as her new acquisitions. The power of Prussia had appeared to depend almost entirely upon her standing army, established by Frederick, and modelled according to his rules. When, therefore, this army was at once annihilated, no hope of safety was entertained by those who had so long regarded it as invincible. The Prussian peasant, who would gladly have joined the ranks of his country while they continued to keep the field, knew, or thought he knew, too much of the art of war, to have any hope in the efforts which might be made in a desultory guerilla warfare; which, however, the courage, devotion, and pertinacity of an invaded people have rendered the most formidable means of opposition even to a victorious army.

The ruin of Prussia, to whatever causes it was to be attributed, seemed, in the eyes of astonished Europe, not only universal, but irremediable. The King, driven to the extremity of his dominions, could only be considered as a fugitive, whose precarious chance of restoration to the crown depended on the doubtful success of his ally of Russia, who now, as after the capture of Vienna, had upon his hands, strong as those hands were, not the task of aiding an ally, who was in the act of resistance to the common enemy, but the far more difficult one of raising from the ground a prince who was totally powerless and prostrate. The French crossed the Oder—Glogau and Breslau were invested. Their defence was respectable; but it seemed not the less certain that their fall involved almost the last hopes of Prussia, and that a name raised so high by the reign of one wise monarch, was like to be blotted from the map of Europe by the events of a single day.

Men looked upon this astonishing calamity with various sentiments, according as they considered it with relation to the Prussian administration alone, or as connected with the character of the King and kingdom, and the general interests of Europe. In the former point of view, the mind could not avoid acknowledging, with a feeling of embittered satisfaction, that the crooked and selfish policy of Prussia's recent conduct,—as shortsighted as it was grasping and unconscientious,—had met in this present hour of disaster with no more than merited chastisement. The indifference with which the Prussian Cabinet had viewed the distresses of the House of Austria, which their firm interposition might probably have prevented—the total want of conscience and decency with which they accepted Hanover from France, at the moment when they meditated war with the power at whose hand they received it—the shameless rapacity with which they proposed to detain the Electorate from its legal owner, at the very time when they were negotiating an alliance with Britain—intimated that contempt of the ordinary principles of justice, which, while it renders a nation undeserving of success, is frequently a direct obstacle to their attaining it. Their whole procedure was founded on the principles of a felon, who is willing to betray his accomplice, providing he is allowed to retain his own share of the common booty. It was no wonder, men said, that a government setting such an example to its subjects, of greediness and breach of faith in its public transactions, should find among them, in the hour of need, many who were capable of preferring their own private interests to that of their country. And if the conduct of this wretched administration was regarded in a political instead of a moral point of view, the disasters of the kingdom might be considered as the consequence of their incapacity, as well as the just remuneration of their profligacy. The hurried and presumptuous declaration of war, after every favourable opportunity had been suffered to escape, and indeed the whole conduct of the campaign, showed a degree of folly not far short of actual imbecility, and which must have arisen either from gross treachery, or something like infatuation. So far, therefore, as the ministers of Prussia were concerned, they reaped only the reward due to their political want of morality, and their practical want of judgment.

Very different, indeed, were the feelings with which the battle of Jena and its consequences were regarded, when men considered that great calamity in reference not to the evil counsellors by whom it was prepared, but to the prince and nation who were to pay the penalty. "We are human," and, according to the sentiment of the poet, on the extinction of the state of Venice,[244] "must mourn, even when the shadow of that which has once been great passes away." But the apparent destruction of Prussia was not like the departure of the aged man, whose life is come to the natural close, or the fall of a ruined tower, whose mouldering arches can no longer support the incumbent weight. These are viewed with awe indeed, and with sympathy, but they do not excite astonishment or horror. The seeming fate of the Prussian monarchy resembled the agonizing death of him who expires in the flower of manhood. The fall of the House of Brandenburgh was as if a castle, with all its trophied turrets strong and entire, should be at once hurled to the earth by a superhuman power. Men, alike stunned with the extent and suddenness of the catastrophe, were moved with sympathy for those instantly involved in the ruin, and struck with terror at the demolition of a bulwark, by the destruction of which all found their own safety endangered. The excellent and patriotic character of Frederick William, on whose rectitude and honour even the misconduct of his ministers had not brought any stain; the distress of his interesting, high-spirited, and beautiful consort; the general sufferings of a brave and proud people, accustomed to assume and deserve the name of Protectors of the Protestant Faith and of the Liberties of Germany, and whose energies, corresponding with the talents of their leader, had enabled them in former times to withstand the combined force of France, Austria, and Russia—excited deep and general sympathy.

Still wider did that sympathy extend, and more thrilling became its impulse, when it was remembered that in Prussia fell the last state of Germany, who could treat with Napoleon in the style of an equal; and that to the exorbitant power which France already possessed in the south of Europe, was now to be added an authority in the north almost equally arbitrary and equally extensive. The prospect was a gloomy one; and they who felt neither for the fallen authority of a prince, nor the destroyed independence of a kingdom, trembled at the prospect likely to be entailed on their own country by a ruin, which seemed as remediless as it was extensive and astounding.

Providence, which disappoints presumptuous hopes by the event, is often mercifully pleased to give aid when human aid seems hopeless. Whatever may be thought of the doctrine of an intermediate state of sufferance and purification in an after stage of existence, it is evident from history, that in this world, kingdoms, as well as individuals, are often subjected to misfortunes arising from their own errors, and which prove in the event conducive to future regeneration. Prussia was exposed to a long and painful discipline in the severe school of adversity, by which she profited in such a degree as enabled her to regain her high rank in the republic of Europe, with more honour perhaps to her prince and people, than if she had never been thrust from her lofty station. Her government, it may be hoped, have learned to respect the rights of other nations, from the sufferings which followed the destruction of their own—her people have been taught to understand the difference between the dominion of strangers and the value of independence. Indeed, the Prussians showed in the event, by every species of sacrifice, how fully they had become aware, that the blessing of freedom from foreign control is not to be secured by the efforts of a regular army only, but must be attained and rendered permanent by the general resolution of the nation, from highest to lowest, to dedicate their united exertions to the achievement of the public liberty at every risk, and by every act of self-devotion. Their improvement under the stern lessons which calamity taught them, we shall record in a brighter page. For the time, the cloud of misfortune sunk hopelessly dark over Prussia, of which not merely the renown, but the very national existence seemed in danger of being extinguished for ever.