try. They will, I am quite sure, be seconded by an entire correspondence of feeling, not only on our part, but in the people of England, whatever may be the narrow policy or the illiberal prejudices of the British ministry. It is from our rulers, however, that we expect, and, perhaps, only from them that we can receive the proper impulse. "Whenever," says Geutz, "a real interest commands, every national antipathy, though existing from the earliest times, if it only rests upon prejudice, must yield to more urgent motives; and so it doubtless will, when the guidance of nations is intrusted to the wise and great; to men who are above all narrow views, and superior to all little passions. The deliberate and decided measures of a truly enlightened government, intent upon important objects, break through the fetters of popular opinion, are supported by the wise, and carry the weak irresistibly along."

This note on the conscription laws of France, and on the operation of these laws, is made up from authentic sources, especially from Mr. Walsh's writings; and a pamphlet entitled "A Sketch of the Military System of France."*

The French Revolution placed the whole people of France under the dominion of a few terrible tyrants, who carried on their work of destruction with such atrocity, as to require new terms in their language to describe their crimes. But all their acts of confiscation and murder, were done in the name of liberty and the rights of man. These tyrants, terrified themselves at the physical power which they had raised up, and with it the thirst for action, directed attention to the liberation of other nations from the tyranny of their own governments. In other words, the French Republic went forth "to plant the tree of liberty," wherever they could conquer and establish their own dominion.

The whole of the male population from the age of 20 to 45, was divided into classes, and subjected to the conscription law. When the armies were to be recruited or increased, the inhabitants liable to serve were assembled; their names were deposited in an urn, and the number wanted for the occasion were drawn out. Those to whom the lot fell, were gathered into bodies of one hundred, and marched to whatsoever region they were wanted in, and there distributed one by one, so that none who came from the same canton or village, could have any communion with each other.

From this liability to serve there was no exemption; husbands, only sons, individuals whose presence was indispensable to the daily subsistence of a whole family, were equally liable. If a substitute

By Mr. John Howard.

was sometimes permitted, he who furnished the substitute was answerable for his desertion and crimes; and might be liable to go himself at the next call.

Comparisons have been instituted between the military conscription of Rome and that of France. The Romans and the French had the same object, universal conquest; but the Roman militia, and the French conscription, were very different in many respects, much to the disadvantage of the Frenchman.

The Roman term of service was limited, that of the French unlimited; the moment the name was drawn from the urn, slavery for life, of the most detestable character, began. The Romans punished desertion in the person of the deserter; the French punished the deserter cruelly, if caught; if not, they held the parents answerable and punished them. The Romans exempted for personal disability to serve ; the French could not make soldiers of those who were physically unable, but made them pay enough to hire another, because they were incapable themselves. The punishments of the French were most inhuman for all military delinquencies; and family connections were involved to make the miserable conscript endure his sufferings. The disconsolate wife, innocent offspring, aged and helpless parents, all their means of subsistence in the dreadful absence of their natural protector, were the sureties for his submission to the will of an unpitying despot. For him the heart-broken soldier was to engage in scenes of slaughter; and to fix him on a throne cemented with the blood of his countrymen, while every exertion of his own body and mind, served only to make himself more certainly a hopeless slave. (See Sketch of the Military System of France.)

Now, it was to such a people and government as the French have been described to be, that the three Presidents who succeeded the Federal administration, desired to bind our free republic. Nor only so; for be it forever remembered, that James Madison and James Monroe concurred in recommending to Congress, a still more odious conscription of the free citizens of the United States, than that which humbled and distressed Frenchmen, accustomed as they were from their cradles, to the natural action of despotism. Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe, proposed a virtual annihilation of the state and national constitutions! For, while these were respected, their propositions were as hostile to the rights of the citizens, as would have been the will of Napoleon himself.

And for what was this terrible aggression on the rights of free citizens? To conquer Canada! which we could not hold, if conquered; and the conquest of which would have required such a force as to

have made our whole sea-coast the territory of a vindictive, exasperated and unpitying foe!-Such is the tyranny of party, of which Jefferson was at the same time the founder and the patron!—And young republican Americans are called on to regard the memory and the deeds of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, as the objects of their patriotic eulogy; and Washington, Adams, Jay, Hamilton, King, Cabot and Ames, and others, as monarchists and traitors!