tempted to be the chief of his country, and by generosity and clemency atone, if possible, for the loss of liberty. Upon the line of baseness, the deserter is placed next to the traitor.

Dumonceau, another Batavian general of some publicity, is not by birth a citizen of the United States, but was born at Brussels in 1758, and was by profession a stone-mason, when, in 1789, he joined, as a volunteer, the Belgian insurgents. After their dispersion, in 1790, he took refuge and served in France, and was made an officer in the corps of Belgians, formed after the declaration of war against Austria, in 1792. Here he frequently distinguished himself, and was therefore advanced to the rank of a general; but the Dutch general officers being better paid than those of the French Republic, he was, with the permission of our Directory, received, in 1795, as a lieutenant-general of the Batavian Republic. He has often evinced bravery, but seldom great capacity. His natural talents are considered as but indifferent, and his education is worse.

These are the only three military characters who might, with any prospect of success, have tried to play the part of a Napo leone Buonaparte in Holland.

LETTER XXXII.

Paris, August, 1805.

MY LORD,

NOT to give umbrage to the cabinet of Berlin, Buonaparte communicated to it the necessity he was under of altering the form of government in Holland, and, if report be true, even condescended to ask advice concerning a chief magistrate for that country. The young prince of Orange, brother-in-law of his Prussian Majesty, naturally presented himself; but, after some time, Talleyrand's agents discovered that great pecuniary sacrifices could not be expected from that quarter, and perhaps less submission to France experienced than from the former governors. An eye was then cast on the Elector of Bavaria, whose past patriotism, as well as that of his ministers, were full guarantees of future obedience. Had he consented to such an arrange

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ment, Austria might have aggrandized herself on the Inn; Prussia in Franconia, and France in Italy; and the present bone of contest been chiefly removed.

. This intrigue, for it was nothing else, was carried on by the cabinet of St. Cloud, in March 1804, about the time that Germany was invaded, and the duke d'Enghien seized. This explains to you the reason why the Russian note delivered to the Diet of Ratisbon on the 8th of May following, was left without any support, except the ineffectual one from the king of Sweden. How any cabinet could be dupe enough to think Buonaparte serious, or the Elector of Bavaria so weak as to enter into his schemes, is difficult to be conceived, had not Europe witnessed still greater credulity on one side, and still greater effrontery on the other.

In the mean time Buonaparte grew every day more discon tented with the Batavian Directory, and more irritated against the members who composed it. Against his regulations for excluding the commerce and productions of your country, they represented with spirit, instead of obeying without murmur, as was required. He is said to have discovered, after his own soldiers had forced the custom-house officers to obey his orders, that, while in their proclamations the directors publicly prohibited the introduction of British goods, some of them were secret insurers of this forbidden merchandise, introduced by fraud and by smuggling; and that while they officially wished for the success of the French arms and destruction of England, they withdrew by stealth what property they had in the French funds, to place it in the English. This refractory, and, as Buonaparte called it, mercantile spirit, so enraged him, that he had already signed an order for arresting and transferring en masse his high allies, the Batavian directors, to his Temple, when the représentations of Talleyrand moderated his fury, and caused the order to be recalled, which Fouche was ready to execute.

Had Jerome Buonaparte not offended his brother by his transatlantic marriage, he would long ago have been the Prince Stadtholder of Holland; but his disobedience was so far useful to the cabinet of St. Cloud, as it gave it an opportunity of intriguing with or deluding other cabinets, that might have any pretensions to interfere in the regulations of the Batavian government. By the choice finally made, you may judge how difficult it was to

find a suitable subject to represent it, and that this representation is intended only to be temporary.

Schimmelpenninck, the present grand pensionary of the Batavian Republic, was destined by education for the bar, but by his natural parts, to await in quiet obscurity the end of a dull existence. With some property, little information, and a tolerably good share of common sense, he might have lived and died respected, and even regretted, without any pretension, or perhaps even ambition to sine. The anti-orange faction, to which his parents and family appertained, pushed him forward, and elected him, in 1795, a member of the first Batavian National Convention, where, according to the spirit of the times, his speeches were rather those of a demagogue than those of a republican Liberty, equality and fraternity were the constant themes of his political declamations; infidelity his religious professions ; and the examples of immorality his social lessons. So rapid and dangerous are the strides with which seduction frequently advances on weak minds.

In 1800, he was appointed an ambassador to Napoleone Buonaparte and Charles Maurice Talleyrand. The latter used him as a stock-broker, and the former for any thing he thought proper; and he was the humble and submissive valet of both. More ignorant than malicious, and a greater fool than rogue, he was more laughed at and despised than trusted or abused. His patience being equal to his phlegm, nothing either moved or confounded him; and he was, as Talleyrand remarked, a model of an ambassador, according to which he and Buonaparte wished that all other independent princes and states would choose their representatives to the French government."

When our minister and his sovereign were discussing the difficulty of properly filling up the vacancy of the Dutch government, judged necessary by both, the former mentioned Schimmelpenninck with a smile, and, serious as Buonaparte commonly is, he could not help laughing. "I should have been less astonished," said he," had you proposed my Mameluke Rostan." This rebuke did not deter Talleyrand (who had settled his terms with Schimmelpenninck) from continuing to point out the advantage which France would derive from this nomination," because ao man could casier be directed when in office, and no man easier

turned out of office when disagreeable and unnecessary. Both as Batavian Plenipotentiary at Amiens, and as Batavian Ambassador in England, he had proved himself as obedient and submissive to France as when in the same capacity at Paris.

By returning often to the charge, with these and other remarks, Talleyrand at last accustomed Buonaparte to the idea, which had once appeared so humiliating, of writing to a man so much inferior in every thing," Great and Dear Friend !” and therefore said to the minister, "Well! let us then make him a grand pensionary, and a locum tenens for five years; or until Jerome, when he repents, returns to his duty, and is pardoned."-" Is he then not to be a grand pensionary for life?" asked Talleyrand; "whether for one month or for life, he would be equally obedient to resign when commanded; but the latter would be more popular in Holland, where they were tired of so many changes.”—“ Let them complain, if they dare," replied Buonaparte. Schimmelpenninck is their chief magistrate only for five years, if so long; but you may add that they may re-elect him."

It was not before Talleyrand had compared the pecuniary proposal, made to his agents by foreign princes, with those of Schimmelpenninck to himself, that the latter obtained the preference. The exact amount of their purchase-money for the supreme magistracy in Holland is not well known to any but the contracting parties. Some pretended that the whole was paid down before-hand, being advanced by a society of merchants at Amsterdam, the friends or relatives of the grand pensionary; others, that it is to be paid by annual instalments of two millions of livres, (84,0001.) for a certain number of years. Certain it is, that this high office was sold and bought; and that had it been given for life, its value would have been proportionably enhanced; which was the reason that Talleyrand endeavoured to have it thus established.

Talleyrand well knew the precarious state of Schimmelpenninck's grandeur; that it not only depended upon the whim of Napoleone, but had long been intended as a hereditary sovereignty for Jerome. Another Dutchman asked him not to ruin his friend and his family, for what he was well aware could never be called a sinecure place, and was so precarious in its tenure. "Foolish vanity," answered the minister, "can never pay enough for the gra

tification of its desires. All the Schimmelpennincks in the world do not possess property enough to recompense me for the sovereign honours which I have procured for one of their name and family, were he even deposed in twenty-four hours. What treasures can indemnify me for connecting such a name and such a personage with the great name of the emperor of the French ?"

I have only twice in my life, been in Schimmelpenninck's company, and I thought him both timid and reserved; but, from what little he said, I could not possibly judge of his character and capacity. His portrait and its accompaniments have been presented to me, such as delivered to you by one of his countrymen, a Mr. M▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬, (formerly an ambassador also) who was both his school-fellow, and his class-mate at the university. I shall add the following traits, in his own words as nearly as possible. More vain than ambitious, Schimmelpenninck, from his youth, and particularly from his entrance into public life, tried every means to make a noise, but found none to gain a reputation. He caressed, in succession, all the systems of the French revolution, without adopting one for himself. All the kings of faction, received in their turns, his homage and his felicitations. It was impossible to mention to hima man of any notoriety, of whom he did not become immediately a partisan. The virtues or the vices, the merit or defects, of the individual were of no consideration; according to his judgment, it was sufficient to be famous. Yet, with all the extravagances of a head filled with paradoxes, and of a heart spoiled by modern philosophy, added to a habit of licentiousness, he had no idea of becoming an instrument for the destruction of liberty in his own country, much less of becoming its tyrant, in submitting to be the slave of France. It was but lately, that he took the fancy, after so long admiring all other great men of our age, to be at any rate one of their number, and of being admired as a great man in his turn. On this account, many accuse him of hypocrisy, but no one deserves that appellation less ; "his vanity and exaltation never permitting him to dissimulate, and no presumption, therefore, was less disguised than his, to those who studied the man. Without acquired ability; without natural genius or political capacity; destitute of discretion and

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