integrity and upright intentions of the reprefentatives and rulers being conftantly fupported by a general fimplicity of manners, and a facred regard to the principles of morality and religion. In the newly conftituted government of France both thefe kinds of steadiness were wanting. It was lefs democratical indeed than that of 1793; but ftill the executive power was configned into five hands inftead of one only. It was not stayed as all other republics of any extent and durability have hitherto been, by fome individual power, whether under the name of archon, duke, doge, king, ftadtholder, or the prefident of a congrefs. It was impoffible that five directors, and thefe Frenchmen too, fhould, for any length of time, act with harmony. They fplit into parties hostile and violent, in proportion to the power with which they were invested in order to retain which the preponderating party treated their rivals in the directory, and their opponents in the councils with the moft mercilefs feverity, and repeatedly violated the conftitution, under the pretence of preferving it. Like their predeceffors in the revoFution, in default of fimplicity of manners, and the other requifites to a genuine republic, they had recourte to intrigue and violence. Had their own manners been more pure than they were, without thofe adventitious fupports in fo great and corrupt a commonwealth, and where all are fo prone to direct, but none to be directed, they could not, for even a fhort time, have held together any femblance of a regular fabric of government.

There was one point, however, n which the directory on their elevation to power unanimoufly agreed.

1

The jacobinical party that had se long domineered in the public councils, confident as above related, from victory over the fections of Paris, and treading in the very footsteps of Robespierre, had appointed a commiffion of five, for the safety of the country; and but for the bold and animated efforts of a few men would certainly have effected the flavery of France in the permanency of the convention. The directors, confcious of the general odium they, in common, with the other leaders of the convention, had incurred on this attempt, and alfo of their malverfation in precipitating the confideration of the new conftitution. and garbling the reports that had been made concerning its acceptance, determined to divert the minds of the nation from their own conduct, and to exhaust the public difcontents by a profecution of the war. If this fhould prove fuccessful, of which they entertained not any doubt, the merit would, in a very great degree, be reflected on themfelves, and the enemies of the directory would be regarded, by the nation at large, as enemies to the victories and glory of France. They were undoubtedly fortunate in the choice of their commanders. The fucceffes of their generals occupied and dazzled the public mind for a time; but wifdom, conftancy, and purity of defign, without which no profperity can be lafting, were wanting in the fupreme councils. The armies were neglected; the tide of fuccefs was turned; and finally, to fhew how little that temporary fuccefs was owing to any principles inherent in the conftitution, the vaft and ftupendous genius of one man, to which chiefly the directory were indebted for a

temporary

temporary fplendour, ultimately wrought their ruin, and introduced a new order of affairs into the diftracted and fluctuating commonwealth.

The clofe of the year 1795 was not fo favourable to the French as that of the preceding; they had projected at its commencement to follow up their fucceffes in Holland, by carrying their victorious arms into the heart of Germany; but a variety of obftructions had either prevented or fruftrated their defigns. At home the violence of the many factions, open or concealed, flood perpetually in the way of government, and impaired its propofed energies. Abroad the remaining parts of the coalition against France, though foiled in their repeated attempts, ftill referved their fpirit, and determination to perfift at all hazards in carrying on the war.

The principal fcene of action had been on the banks of the Rhine. Here it had been generally expected, that after the fubjugation of the feven United Provinces, the French would have met with no confiderable oppofition; but though difpirited, as well as weakened, by the fevering of fo material a limb from the great body of the confederacy, it still found fufficient refources to make head against the French, in a country where the generality of the inhabitants, though diffatisfied at their rulers, were not fo imprudent as to prefer a foreign to a domeftic yoke, and would not fail to co-operate in oppofing a French invafion. To this difpofition of an incomparable majority of the inhabitants of Germany was, in a great measure, due the little progrefs of the French in thofe provinces of the empire on the right

fide of the Rhine, into which they had, with much difficulty, found means to penetrate, and from which they had been, after much fruitless toil and unfuccefsful efforts, compelled to retire with very confiderable loffes.

The failure of the French in their expedition into Germany; their expulfion from every poft they had occupied on the eaftern banks of the Rhine; their retreat across that river; the purfuit of their difcomfited army into the borders of France; and the feveral defeats they experienced, were circumstances fo little hoped for at the commencement of this year's military operations in thofe parts that they proportionably revived the fpirit of their enemies, and infufed a degree of confidence into them, to which they had been ftrangers, fince the difafters of the preceding campaign.

But, notwithstanding their ill fuccefs on the Rhine, the French maintained a decided fuperiority in every other quarter. Europe feemed to ftand at bay, and to wait with anxiety the termination of a quarrel that had produced fo many ftupendous events. The diflolution of the confederacy, by the feceffion of Prutha and Spain, was far from being confidered as complete: the principal members, Great Britain and Auftria were held fully competent, though not to the purpose of fubduing, yet still to that of repreffing the French; and this was viewed as the only object, at which they ought, in prudence, in the prefent fituation of their affairs, to aim.

now

During the courfe of the campaign, the government in France had entertained fome ideas tending to a general pacification; but the [B2]

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