useful results for the improvement and true happiness of the army. To introduce, into a discussion of this nature, the paltry consideration of pounds, shillings, and pence, and that in a country, too, where the revenue constitutes a real surplus over the present expenditure, displays an absence of zeal for improvement which we did not expect to see manifested in America. Nevertheless that portion of the government, of which the war department is formed, appear to be guided by a proper spirit in contemplating this great subject, and we think there are few reasonable men, on this side of the Atlantic, who will not readily sympathize in the feelings which dictated the following passage. We extract from the document, whose title stands at the head of the present article:

'Independently of any obligation, which may be supposed to exist on the part of the government, to provide for the moral as well as the physical wants of a class of men, who, in devoting themselves to the service of the country, become unable to provide for their own wants, it is certain that, as a question of expediency, this measure is recommended by powerful considerations. Where moral and religious principles are practically acknowledged, their sanctions will add validity to the obligations voluntarily assumed by the soldier, and his duties will be performed with more fidelity and alacrity. As he becomes a better man, he will become a better soldier. Discipline and subordination will be promoted, punishments diminished, and all the details of the service will feel the spirit of improvement.'-p. 8.

If the American government regarded its own relation to the vast tribes of uncultivated human beings who reside on the same soil as themselves, they would see the necessity of applying all their energies to the moral improvement of their soldiers. A very considerable portion of the troops of the United States are permanently stationed at or even beyond the frontiers which separate America from the Indian territory; they must, of necessity, come in contact with the inhabitants of the latter country, and what must be the notions of white men and their superiority, entertained by these savages from the specimens which the American regiments present to their eyes! Nor is this all-history shows the force of sympathy, as resulting from the intercourse of different societies of men: is it not possible, then, that the soldiers might degenerate into barbarians, particularly as there would be no physical restraint, under their circumstances, to restrain the scope of the worst passions?

In imitation of the British system, there is a military academy in the United States for cadets, and from these the vacancies in the commissions of officers are supplied. The average number of these vacancies, for five recent years, has not been more than twenty-three. The total number of officers is 512, whilst the number of companies is 106. This proportion is contrary to the existing laws, which ordain that there shall be three officers to each company of infantry, and five to each company of artillery.

Upon the general subject of a standing army, we do not know a more rational justification of one than is to be found in the statement which we extract from another part of the Report. It manifests sound sense, practically applied to the real business of life:

The science of war is an advancing one. In Europe, where peace is seldom long maintained, a large portion of the talent and intelligence of the community is devoted to this study, and to the consideration and suggestion of changes and improvements in all the branches of their military establishments, whether they relate to the operations in the field, to the various supplies, or to the necessary course of administration. We must look to those nations for the benefit of their experience. And our progress in the elements of military knowledge will depend, in a great measure, upon the careful preparation and education of the young men who are annually appointed in our service. Our local positions, as well as our free institutions, may delay, but we have no right to expect they will prevent, the occurrence of war. As this event may happen, it is the part of true wisdom to be prepared for it, as far as preparation can be made without too great a sacrifice. Our army is barely sufficient to furnish small garrisons for the fortifications upon the seaboard, and to hold in check the numerous and restless Indian tribes upon our inland frontier. Under these circumstances, the practical duties of the profession are acquired; and as long as the officers enter the service with a well-grounded knowledge of its principles, we may look to the army as the depository of a fund of information upon this important subject, which will enable the government to diffuse it among the community upon the approach of danger. By assigning a portion of the officers, previously in service, to new regiments and corps, these will soon acquire a competent knowledge of their duties, both in subordination and discipline. The great objects of present economy and future security can in no other mode be so certainly attained. When we advert to the comparative effects of training young men for the course of life before them, or of selecting them indiscriminately for the army, without reference to previous pursuits, it will be manifest that the present system can alone ensure the attainment of the important objects connected with our military establishment.'-p. 11.

Thus we see that the happy age of gold, in which wars shall cease, and the lions shall lie down to repose with the lambs, is not set down in the list of Jonathan's probabilities. He is, at all events, safe in the course he has taken, whatever be the foundation on which good men expect a permanent cessation of war. The taste for discord, which Hobbes called our peculiar instinct, will scarcely leave the world for some time to come. We may be assured, in the meantime, that the most certain guarantee for peace, to a given country, is to be well prepared for war. As matters stand at present this is by far the most prudent course. When the era of the reign of true philosophy arrives, then, we presume, it will announce itself with such genuine marks of its authenticity, as that those who run may be perfectly satisfied that they should turn their swords into ploughshares for the remainder of their days.

ART. VII.-The Year of Liberation;—A Journal of the Defence of Hamburgh against the French Army under Marshall Davoust in 1813; with Sketches of of the Battles of Lutzen, Bautzen, &c. &c. In 2 vols. London: Duncan. 1832.

THE history of that memorable European contest, which was first provoked, and afterwards sustained by the leader of the French imperial interregnum, is pregnant with incidents and collateral episodes, which abound with deep and enduring interest. In the volumes before us will be found one of those romantic scenes, which at the era when they were enacted, were merged in the overwhelming tumult of the general war, but which, now that the noise of battle has subsided, may well attract our attention.

The introductory portion of the work, containing, as it does, a review of the campaigns which preceded the insurrection of Hamburgh, need not occupy us for a moment, as the principal events embodied in that history are familiar to most of our readers. It is sufficient for us merely to state, that from the era of the fall of Germany, the sequel of which was the battle of Jena, in 1806, to that of its regeneration, which was simultaneous with the issue of the Russian campaign, Hamburgh groaned under the fierce domination of a series of tyrannical satraps of France. When in 1812 the expedition under Napoleon set out for Russia, the condition of the north of Europe was almost hopeless. The German states were in a state of destitution, little short of general pauperism; the higher orders being the victims of French extortion and insult were driven to absolute despair, whilst the great mass of the people, depraved by the unsettled state of their country, subsisted alone by rapine. Smuggling occupied that immense class who would naturally have devoted their time to legal commerce, and the consequence was a general infection of the moral feelings of almost every class in the state. A striking proof of the prevalence of a fraudulent spirit in the country is given in the fact, that the invoices of goods which were to pay the duty of customs were described in fictitious names; thus coffee passed for horse beans, sugar as starch, and pepper became a sort of protean material, being at one time turned into peas, at another into rape seed, &c. The short distance between Altona, which belonged to the Danes, and which was well stored with West India provisions, and the gates of Hamburgh, was so trifling as to allow a pretty extensive latitude to smuggling transactions, which were carried on in all manner of ingenious ways. Thus a fellow used to come to the Altona gate of Hamburgh offering a barrow full of sand for sale. The French sentinel laughs at the proposal, seeing that there is plenty of the same commodity to be had gratis in the city. The applicant said, Never mind, let me try my fortune

in the streets: he was allowed to pass in, set up his cry of sand to sell-but as soon as he was out of hearing of the sentinels, threw away the layer of sand which concealed a fine cargo of sugar beneath it. Another day, an old fiddler, fantastically dressed, and bearing on his head a monstrous pile of horse hair most prodigally curled, drew around him a large concourse before the gates by his entertaining antics. In one of his pirouettes the buffoon trod upon the toe of a bystander: a quarrel arose the Frenchmen ran for their muskets to the barracks, the fiddler ran after them in great terror for protection. A guard of soldiers soon appeared on the spot, but no fiddler could be found, and in a few days afterwards it turned out that the fellow was in masquerade, that he was a living contraband article from head to foot; his rags were completely saturated with small packets of pepper, sugar, and tobacco; every curl of his huge wig was the depository of a nutmeg, or a piece of cinnamon, or a pod of cayenne, articles, which for some reason unknown, were peculiar objects of the extreme vigilance of the French; in short, the whole scene was a stratagem invented by an ingenious smuggler, who was rewarded for his address by success in a transaction which appeared to have been extremely valuable in its consequences. The French retaliated; they instituted a system of inquisition on passengers, high and low, which was at first merely inconvenient, but latterly became indecent, tyrannical, and even brutal; they did not stop here, but brought the passport imposition to such a height, that when a family left Hamburgh for a week's visit to their villa in the suburbs, a passport for every individual article brought by them, was declared indispensable by the French. If a single chair, table, or blanket, was removed without the security of a passport for each respectively, it became the property of the government forthwith:

A paper must actually be sent to the douane, stating the number of pounds of feathers in the beds, the number of changes of linen, &c. down to a pocket handkerchief. All must go to the douane, there to be weighed, registered, and all this registering and official impertinence to be duly paid for. Further security, too, must be found by the proprietor, for the return of his chairs and tables within eight months; or he must pay the same duty as for newly imported goods. If a family carried as much tea or coffee out of the town as would make their breakfast, the penalty was almost as heavy as if they had smuggled it in; and the first insolent gensd'arme whom they met had a right to overhaul the whole party, a right which he generally exercised with the loyal activity of the sword.

As for the popular luxuries of wine, brandy, and tobacco, which by long habit had become necessaries, the difficulties attendant on their use were nearly equivalent to a direct prohibition. More than three bottles of wine, which once was as much in common use as beer, could not be sent to the next door without a regular passport; and half a dozen would have drawn down the whole vigour and rigour of the offended douane. A present of a cask of ale often involved as much delicate negociation with the

police, as if it had been an affair of life and death; and the steps were so intricate in the transfer of the merest trifles from house to house, that the matter often ended in confiscation, if not in fine. But troublesome as it was, to be thus compelled to apply to the public officers on every occasion, the annoyance was still increased by that well understood official vexation, delay. The clerks of the custom-house, chiefly imported in the train of the army, all assumed the air of masters. The citizens were the conquered, the serfs of those barons of the inkstand. For, one of the misfortunes of a Frenchman is the national habit of looking down upon the people of all other countries: the honour of being né François settling the question of superiority, and he being generally content to take no further trouble in the establishment of his claim. It would, of course, be unfair to take those fellows as specimens of the French character; they were the off-scouring of France, the rabble who naturally follow in the train of an army, at all times a wretched school; and in this instance rendered worse by its being a requisition army, a hungry multitude, who had been sent to fill themselves up with plunder from a country which it was the policy of their master to impoverish. They had been flung out of French life to scramble for a subsistence among the beggaries of Germany; they now felt that their time was short, and they were only the more active in their rapacity. The passports gave those people a perpetual means of insult and exaction. A man hurrying into the country to see a dying relative, to seize a flying swindler, or to save a friend or a fortune from instant ruin, must first undergo the official caprices of those gentlemen, who might withhold his passport for days or weeks together; and all who know the vexation and offence of waiting the pleasure of the minor masters of office even under the best régime, may imagine how the misery was envenomed where the parties were the beaten, the plundered, and almost the prisoners, on the one side; and a whole host of petits maîtres, half military, half garçon de boutique, all coxcomb, and all swelled to the skies with personal and national vanity, on the other.'-pp. 293-6.

The oppressions of the French at Hamburgh after the arrival of the news from Moscow were aggravated as far as it was possible for ingenious malice to multiply its instruments of mischief. They saw with deep resentment the joy of the people at the intelligence which now began to pour in of the reverses which befel the hitherto triumphant arms of France; they calculated too hastily on the perpetuation of the victorious career which Napoleon had hitherto pursued, and revenged themselves on the Hamburghers, thinking that their own dominion would be permanent. But the French were grossly mistaken. The terrible succession of truths from the field of warfare poured in in due season on Hamburgh: the Russian troops were advancing the Russian troops passed the frontier of Germany-nay they entered Berlin-Saxony is ridden over by hussars the Cossacks are in Hanover-Russians and Germans raise the lance and the sabre in the same cause, so near Hamburgh as to be only a day's journey from it-at last the dreadful words fly from hence' are uttered to the Hamburgh garrison by a messenger from Maddeling, galloping into the city, and all bloody with spurring, hot with fiery speed.' This was the signal for the