likely to be made; and if they succeed, it is over with the Germanic
body, as it stands at present. A great revolution is preparing in
Germany, and a revolution, in my opinion, likely to be more decisive
upon the general fate of nations than that of France itself,--other than
as in France is to be found the first source of all the principles which
are in any way likely to distinguish the troubles and convulsions of our
age. If Europe does not conceive the independence and the equilibrium of
the Empire to be in the very essence of the system of balanced power in
Europe, and if the scheme of public law, or mass of laws, upon which
that independence and equilibrium are founded, be of no leading
consequence as they are preserved or destroyed, all the politics of
Europe for more than two centuries have been miserably erroneous.
[Sidenote: Prussia and Emperor.]
If the two great leading powers of Germany do not regard this danger (as
apparently they do not) in the light in which it presents itself so
naturally, it is because they are powers too great to have a social
interest. That sort of interest belongs only to those whose state of
weakness or mediocrity is such as to give them greater cause of
apprehension from what may destroy them than of hope from anything by
which they may be aggrandized.
As long as those two princes are at variance, so long the liberties of
Germany are safe. But if ever they should so far understand one another
as to be persuaded that they have a more direct and more certainly
defined interest in a proportioned mutual aggrandizement than in a
reciprocal reduction, that is, if they come to think that they are more
likely to be enriched by a division of spoil than to be rendered secure
by keeping to the old policy of preventing others from being spoiled by
either of them, from that moment the liberties of Germany are no more.
That a junction of two in such a scheme is neither impossible nor
improbable is evident from the partition of Poland in 1773, which was
effected by such a junction as made the interposition of other nations
to prevent it not easy. Their circumstances at that time hindered any
other three states, or indeed any two, from taking measures in common to
prevent it, though France was at that time an existing power, and had
not yet learned to act upon a system of politics of her own invention.
The geographical position of Poland was a great obstacle to any
movements of France in opposition to this, at that time, unparalleled
league. To my certain knowledge, if Great Britain had at that time been
willing to concur in preventing the execution of a project so dangerous
in the example, even exhausted as France then was by the preceding war,
and under a lazy and unenterprising prince, she would have at every risk
taken an active part in this business. But a languor with regard to so
remote an interest, and the principles and passions which were then
strongly at work at home, were the causes why Great Britain would not
give France any encouragement in such an enterprise. At that time,
however, and with regard to that object, in my opinion, Great Britain
and France had a common interest.
[Sidenote: Possible project of the Emperor and king of Prussia.]
But the position of Germany is not like that of Poland, with regard to
France, either for good or for evil. If a conjunction between Prussia
and the Emperor should be formed for the purpose of secularizing and
rendering hereditary the Ecclesiastical Electorates and the Bishopric of
Münster, for settling two of them on the children of the Emperor, and
uniting Cologne and Münster to the dominions of the king of Prussia on
the Rhine, or if any other project of mutual aggrandizement should be in
prospect, and that, to facilitate such a scheme, the modern French
should be permitted and encouraged to shake the internal and external
security of these Ecclesiastical Electorates, Great Britain is so
situated that she could not with any effect set herself in opposition to
such a design. Her principal arm, her marine, could here be of no sort
of use.
[Sidenote: To be resisted only by France.]
France, the author of the Treaty of Westphalia, is the natural guardian
of the independence and balance of Germany. Great Britain (to say
nothing of the king's concern as one of that august body) has a serious
interest in preserving it; but, except through the power of France,
_acting upon the common old principles of state policy_, in the case we
have supposed, she has no sort of means of supporting that interest. It
is always the interest of Great Britain that the power of France should
be kept within the bounds of moderation. It is not her interest that
that power should be wholly annihilated in the system of Europe. Though
at one time through France the independence of Europe was endangered, it
is, and ever was, through her alone that the common liberty of Germany
can be secured against the single or the combined ambition of any other
power. In truth, within this century the aggrandizement of other
sovereign houses has been such that there has been a great change in the
whole state of Europe; and other nations as well as France may become
objects of jealousy and apprehension.
[Sidenote: New principles of alliance.]
In this state of things, a new principle of alliances and wars is
opened. The Treaty of Westphalia is, with France, an antiquated fable.
The rights and liberties she was bound to maintain are now a system of
wrong and tyranny which she is bound to destroy. Her good and ill
dispositions are shown by the same means. _To communicate peaceably_ the
rights of men is the true mode of her showing her _friendship_; to force
sovereigns to _submit_ to those rights is her mode of _hostility_. So
that, either as friend or foe, her whole scheme has been, and is, to
throw the Empire into confusion; and those statesmen who follow the old
routine of politics may see in this general confusion, and in the danger
of the _lesser_ princes, an occasion, as protectors or enemies, of
connecting their territories to one or the other of the _two great_
German powers. They do not take into consideration that the means which
they encourage, as leading to the event they desire, will with certainty
not only ravage and destroy the Empire, but, if they should for a moment
seem to aggrandize the two great houses, will also establish principles
and confirm tempers amongst the people which will preclude the two
sovereigns from the possibility of holding what they acquire, or even
the dominions which they have inherited. It is on the side of the
Ecclesiastical Electorates that the dikes raised to support the German
liberty first will give way.
[Sidenote: Geneva.]
[Sidenote: Savoy.]
The French have begun their general operations by seizing upon those
territories of the Pope the situation of which was the most inviting to
the enterprise. Their method of doing it was by exciting sedition and
spreading massacre and desolation through these unfortunate places, and
then, under an idea of kindness and protection, bringing forward an
antiquated title of the crown of France, and annexing Avignon and the
two cities of the Comtat, with their territory, to the French republic.
They have made an attempt on Geneva, in which they very narrowly failed
of success. It is known that they hold out from time to time the idea of
uniting all the other provinces of which Gaul was anciently composed,
including Savoy on the other side, and on this side bounding themselves
by the Rhine.
[Sidenote: Switzerland.]
[Sidenote: Old French maxims the security of its independence.]
As to Switzerland, it is a country whose long union, rather than its
possible division, is the matter of wonder. Here I know they entertain
very sanguine hopes. The aggregation to France of the democratic Swiss
republics appears to them to be a work half done by their very form; and
it might seem to them rather an increase of importance to these little
commonwealths than a derogation from their independency or a change in
the manner of their government. Upon any quarrel amongst the Cantons,
nothing is more likely than such an event. As to the aristocratic
republics, the general clamor and hatred which the French excite against
the very name, (and with more facility and success than against
monarchs,) and the utter impossibility of their government making any
sort of resistance against an insurrection, where they have no troops,
and the people are all armed and trained, render their hopes in that
quarter far indeed from unfounded. It is certain that the republic of
Bern thinks itself obliged to a vigilance next to hostile, and to
imprison or expel all the French whom it finds in its territories. But,
indeed, those aristocracies, which comprehend whatever is considerable,
wealthy, and valuable in Switzerland, do now so wholly depend upon
opinion, and the humor of their multitude, that the lightest puff of
wind is sufficient to blow them down. If France, under its ancient
regimen, and upon the ancient principles of policy, was the support of
the Germanic Constitution, it was much more so of that of Switzerland,
which almost from the very origin of that confederacy rested upon the
closeness of its connection with France, on which the Swiss Cantons
wholly reposed themselves for the preservation of the parts of their
body in their respective rights and permanent forms, as well as for the
maintenance of all in their general independency.
Switzerland and Germany are the first objects of the new French
politicians. When I contemplate what they have done at home, which is,
in effect, little less than an amazing conquest, wrought by a change of
opinion, in a great part (to be sure far from altogether) very sudden, I
cannot help letting my thoughts run along with their designs, and,
without attending to geographical order, to consider the other states of
Europe, so far as they may be any way affected by this astonishing
Revolution. If early steps are not taken in some way or other to prevent
the spreading of this influence, I scarcely think any of them perfectly
secure.
[Sidenote: Italy.]
[Sidenote: Lombardy.]
Italy is divided, as Germany and Switzerland are, into many smaller
states, and with some considerable diversity as to forms of government;
but as these divisions and varieties in Italy are not so considerable,
so neither do I think the danger altogether so imminent there as in
Germany and Switzerland. Savoy I know that the French consider as in a
very hopeful way, and I believe not at all without reason. They view it
as an old member of the kingdom of France, which may be easily reunited
in the manner and on the principles of the reunion of Avignon. This
country communicates with Piedmont; and as the king of Sardinia's
dominions were long the key of Italy, and as such long regarded by
France, whilst France acted on her old maxims, and with views on
Italy,--so, in this new French empire of sedition, if once she gets that
key into her hands, she can easily lay open the barrier which hinders
the entrance of her present politics into that inviting region. Milan, I
am sure, nourishes great disquiets; and if Milan should stir, no part of
Lombardy is secure to the present possessors,--whether the Venetian or
the Austrian. Genoa is closely connected with France.
[Sidenote: Bourbon princes in Italy.]
The first prince of the House of Bourbon has been obliged to give
himself up entirely to the new system, and to pretend even to propagate
it with all zeal: at least, that club of intriguers who assemble at the
Feuillants, and whose cabinet meets at Madame de Staël's, and makes and
directs all the ministers, is the real executive government of France.
The Emperor is perfectly in concert, and they will not long suffer any
prince of the House of Bourbon to keep by force the French emissaries
out of their dominions; nor whilst France has a commerce with them,
especially through Marseilles, (the hottest focus of sedition in
France,) will it be long possible to prevent the intercourse or the
effects.
Naples has an old, inveterate disposition to republicanism, and (however
for some time past quiet) is as liable to explosion as its own Vesuvius.
Sicily, I think, has these dispositions in full as strong a degree. In
neither of these countries exists anything which very well deserves the
name of government or exact police.
[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical State.]
In the States of the Church, notwithstanding their strictness in
banishing the French out of that country, there are not wanting the
seeds of a revolution. The spirit of nepotism prevails there nearly as
strong as ever. Every Pope of course is to give origin or restoration to
a great family by the means of large donations. The foreign revenues
have long been gradually on the decline, and seem now in a manner dried
up. To supply this defect, the resource of vexatious and impolitic
jobbing at home, if anything, is rather increased than lessened. Various
well-intended, but ill-understood practices, some of them existing, in
their spirit at least, from the time of the old Roman Empire, still
prevail; and that government is as blindly attached to old abusive
customs as others are wildly disposed to all sorts of innovations and
experiments. These abuses were less felt whilst the Pontificate drew
riches from abroad, which in some measure counterbalanced the evils of
their remiss and jobbish government at home. But now it can subsist
only on the resources of domestic management; and abuses in that
management of course will be more intimately and more severely felt.
In the midst of the apparently torpid languor of the Ecclesiastical
State, those who have had opportunity of a near observation have seen a
little rippling in that smooth water, which indicates something alive
under it. There is in the Ecclesiastical State a personage who seems
capable of acting (but with more force and steadiness) the part of the
tribune Rienzi. The people, once inflamed, will not be destitute of a
leader. They have such an one already in the Cardinal or Archbishop
Boncompagni. He is, of all men, if I am not ill-informed, the most
turbulent, seditious, intriguing, bold, and desperate. He is not at all
made for a Roman of the present day. I think he lately held the first
office of their state, that of Great Chamberlain, which is equivalent to
High Treasurer. At present he is out of employment, and in disgrace. If
he should be elected Pope, or even come to have any weight with a new
Pope, he will infallibly conjure up a democratic spirit in that country.
He may, indeed, be able to effect it without these advantages. The nest
interregnum will probably show more of him. There may be others of the
same character, who have not come to my knowledge. This much is
certain,--that the Roman people, if once the blind reverence they bear
to the sanctity of the Pope, which is their only bridle, should relax,
are naturally turbulent, ferocious, and headlong, whilst the police is
defective, and the government feeble and resourceless beyond all
imagination.
[Sidenote: Spain]
As to Spain, it is a nerveless country. It does not possess the use, it
only suffers the abuse, of a nobility. For some time, and even before
the settlement of the Bourbon dynasty, that body has been systematically
lowered, and rendered incapable by exclusion, and for incapacity
excluded from affairs. In this circle the body is in a manner
annihilated; and so little means have they of any weighty exertion
either to control or to support the crown, that, if they at all
interfere, it is only by abetting desperate and mobbish insurrections,
like that at Madrid, which drove Squillace from his place. Florida
Blanca is a creature of office, and has little connection and no
sympathy with that body.
As to the clergy, they are the only thing in Spain that looks like an
independent order; and they are kept in some respect by the Inquisition,
the sole, but unhappy resource of public tranquillity and order now
remaining in Spain. As in Venice, it is become mostly an engine of
state,--which, indeed, to a degree, it has always been in Spain. It wars
no longer with Jews and heretics: it has no such war to carry on. Its
great object is, to keep atheistic and republican doctrines from making
their way in that kingdom. No French book upon any subject can enter
there which does not contain such matter. In Spain, the clergy are of
moment from their influence, but at the same time with the envy and
jealousy that attend great riches and power. Though the crown has by
management with the Pope got a very great share of the ecclesiastical
revenues into its own hands, much still remains to them. There will
always be about that court those who look out to a farther division of
the Church property as a resource, and to be obtained by shorter
methods than those of negotiations with the clergy and their chief. But
at present I think it likely that they will stop, lest the business
should be taken out of their hands,--and lest that body, in which
remains the only life that exists in Spain, and is not a fever, may with
their property lose all the influence necessary to preserve the
monarchy, or, being poor and desperate, may employ whatever influence
remains to them as active agents in its destruction.
[Sidenote: Castile different from Catalonia and Aragon.]
The Castilians have still remaining a good deal of their old character,
their _gravedad, lealtad_, and _el temor de Dios_; but that character
neither is, nor ever was, exactly true, except of the Castilians only.
The several kingdoms which compose Spain have, perhaps, some features
which run through the whole; but they are in many particulars as
different as nations who go by different names: the Catalans, for
instance, and the Aragonians too, in a great measure, have the spirit of
the Miquelets, and much more of republicanism than of an attachment to
royalty. They are more in the way of trade and intercourse with France,
and, upon the least internal movement, will disclose and probably let
loose a spirit that may throw the whole Spanish monarchy into
convulsions.
It is a melancholy reflection, that the spirit of melioration which has
been going on in that part of Europe, more or less, during this century,
and the various schemes very lately on foot for further advancement, are
all put a stop to at once. Reformation certainly is nearly connected
with innovation; and where that latter comes in for too large a share,
those who undertake to improve their country may risk their own safety.
In times where the correction, which includes the confession, of an
abuse, is turned to criminate the authority which has long suffered it,
rather than to honor those who would amend it, (which is the spirit of
this malignant French distemper,) every step out of the common course
becomes critical, and renders it a task full of peril for princes of
moderate talents to engage in great undertakings. At present the only
safety of Spain is the old national hatred to the French. How far that
can be depended upon, if any great ferments should be excited, it is
impossible to say.
As to Portugal, she is out of the high-road of these politics. I shall,
therefore, not divert my thoughts that way, but return again to the
North of Europe, which at present seems the part most interested, and
there it appears to me that the French speculation on the Northern
countries may be valued in the following or some such manner.
[Sidenote: Denmark.]
[Sidenote: Sweden.]
Denmark and Norway do not appear to furnish any of the materials of a
democratic revolution, or the dispositions to it. Denmark can only be
_consequentially_ affected by anything done in Prance; but of Sweden I
think quite otherwise. The present power in Sweden is too new a system,
and too green and too sore from its late Revolution, to be considered as
perfectly assured. The king, by his astonishing activity, his boldness,
his decision, his ready versatility, and by rousing and employing the
old military spirit of Sweden, keeps up the top with continual agitation
and lashing. The moment it ceases to spin, the royalty is a dead bit of
box. Whenever Sweden is quiet externally for some time, there is great
danger that all the republican elements she contains will be animated
by the new French spirit, and of this I believe the king is very
sensible.
[Sidenote: Russia.]
The Russian government is of all others the most liable to be subverted
by military seditions, by court conspiracies, and sometimes by headlong
rebellions of the people, such as the turbinating movement of Pugatchef.
It is not quite so probable that in any of these changes the spirit of
system may mingle, in the manner it has done in France. The Muscovites
are no great speculators; but I should not much rely on their
uninquisitive disposition, if any of their ordinary motives to sedition
should arise. The little catechism of the Rights of Men is soon learned;
and the inferences are in the passions.
[Sidenote: Poland.]
[Sidenote: Saxony.]
Poland, from one cause or other, is always unquiet. The new Constitution
only serves to supply that restless people with new means, at least new
modes, of cherishing their turbulent disposition. The bottom of the
character is the same. It is a great question, whether the joining that
crown with the Electorate of Saxony will contribute most to strengthen
the royal authority of Poland or to shake the ducal in Saxony. The
Elector is a Catholic; the people of Saxony are, six sevenths at the
very least, Protestants. He _must_ continue a Catholic, according to the
Polish law, if he accepts that crown. The pride of the Saxons, formerly
flattered by having a crown in the house of their prince, though an
honor which cost them dear,--the German probity, fidelity, and
loyalty,--the weight of the Constitution of the Empire under the Treaty
of Westphalia,--the good temper and good-nature of the princes of the
House of Saxony, had formerly removed from the people all apprehension
with regard to their religion, and kept them perfectly quiet, obedient,
and even affectionate. The Seven Years' War made some change in the
minds of the Saxons. They did not, I believe, regret the loss of what
might be considered almost as the succession to the crown of Poland, the
possession of which, by annexing them to a foreign interest, had often
obliged them to act an arduous part, towards the support of which that
foreign interest afforded no proportionable strength. In this very
delicate situation of their political interests, the speculations of the
French and German _Economists_, and the cabals, and the secret, as well
as public doctrines of the _Illuminatenorden_, and _Freemasons_, have
made a considerable progress in that country; and a turbulent spirit,
under color of religion, but in reality arising from the French rights
of man, has already shown itself, and is ready on every occasion to
blaze out.
The present Elector is a prince of a safe and quiet temper, of great
prudence and goodness. He knows, that, in the actual state of things,
not the power and respect belonging to sovereigns, but their very
existence, depends on a reasonable frugality. It is very certain that
not one sovereign in Europe can either promise for the continuance of
his authority in a state of indigence and insolvency, or dares to
venture on a new imposition to relieve himself. Without abandoning
wholly the ancient magnificence of his court, the Elector has conducted
his affairs with infinitely more economy than any of his predecessors,
so as to restore his finances beyond what was thought possible from the
state in which the Seven Years' War had left Saxony. Saxony, during the
whole of that dreadful period, having been in the hands of an
exasperated enemy, rigorous by resentment, by nature, and by necessity,
was obliged to bear in a manner the whole burden of the war; in the
intervals when their allies prevailed, the inhabitants of that country
were not better treated.