and as they are connected with the affairs of other nations. In themselves, though intended to promote the welfare with the liberty of the nation, they were strongly contrasted by the different means through which the same ends were expected to be accomplished. The French legislators considered mankind under general views, and lost sight not only of individuals, but of particular classes in society. Their general maxims were not without plausibility: but as they related more to a kind of abstract and ideal beings than to mankind as they really are in all their circumstances, and with all their habits, prejudices, and passions, the application of them in practice produced manifold acts of injustice and inhumanity, not only to particular families, but whole orders of men. The Poles did not want talents for abstraction, nor the faculty of perceiving the symmetry and beauty of ideal systems; but they were too generous and good to suffer any general principles to break in upon the happiness of the different ranks of society. Liberty was dear to them, but humanity dearer.

The Polish constitution would have stood on its own basis, if it had not been assailed by foreign violence :the French constitution, or rather constitutions, con

tained in themselves the seeds of dissolution; and have been held together, during the short periods of their existence, chiefly by external compression.

She

The Polish and the French constitutions called the attention of Kings in some measure, from separate pursuits of aggrandizement, to the general interests and safety of sovereign princes. The Empress of Russia made peace with the Turks, that she might be at leisure to interfere and control the affairs of Poland. urged the heroic King of Sweden, who needed but little incitement, to undertake a crusade against the French republic: and openly countenanced and promised succours to the emigrant French loyalists. The court of Madrid was easily drawn on this occasion, into a concert with that of St. Petersburg. The sage Leopold, formed a confederation of sovereign princes at Pilnitz,-not for the purpose of dividing, or dismembering France (however ideas of this kind may have been entertained by other princes, or by his own successors afterwards) but for that of establishing a limited monarchy in France, by a gradual amalgamation of the ancient monarchy, with what was reasonable in the principles and claims of the friends of reformation; and also and principally for securing the future tranquillity of

Eu

rope. Though the court of London did not at first accede to the confederation set on foot by the Emperor, we find that the revolution to which it referred, attracted, during the whole of 1791, the profound attention of the British legislature.

In a word, nations as well as men were now set at variance with each other, by a new principle of division and discord. A war was commenced on new ground, to which the great potentates of Europe, after various windings and tergiversations, have been obliged, or probably will be obliged to return: a war, not of ambition and conquest, not for this or that family, nor yet for this or that creed in religion, but a war of the rights of men against the established authority and prerogatives of sovereign princes.

An object so new, singular, and important, naturally calls upon the annalist to exert his whole powers of attention and judgment to the different resources of the opposite parties in this unprecedented warfare: the arguments by which they maintained their theories, and operated on the minds of men; and the means and various success with which they endeavoured to support them respectively, by arms.

Among

Among other fruits of diligent inquiry, we have been favoured with an authentic copy of the plan or groundwork on which the Emperor Leopold wrote a circular letter, relative to the objects above-mentioned, to the principal courts; and which we have inserted in the History of Europe, under the conviction that a general attention to the wise and temperate principles and plans of Leopold may become subservient to the general peace and prosperity of all nations.

THE