No general ever more anxiously desired to be placed at the head of an army than Lord Wellington did now to be relieved from the command; but of this he had no prospect, except from such a peace as would in its certain consequences have given Buonaparte all that he was seeking vainly to obtain by war. There was great apparent danger of this at this time. In case of the death of the king, or the acknowledged unlikelihood of his recovery (which now daily became more unlikely), the French speculated upon a change of administration in England, and the accession of the Whigs to power. The French officers eagerly looked for this, expecting to make such a peace as would enable them to withdraw from the Peninsula without loss of credit, and to re-enter it as soon as their perfidious policy should have prepared a favourable opportunity. In our own army also there were many who regarded the probability of peace with as much complacency as if the end for which the war had been waged would have been secured by it. These were persons who neither by their acquirements, nor pitch of mind, were qualified for the rank which they had attained in their profession; who had not the slightest feeling or perception of the great interests which were at stake, but knowing little, understanding nothing, and criticising every thing, infected all about them with despondency and discontent. ♦DISPOSITION OF THE CONTINENTAL POWERS TO RESIST BUONAPARTE.♦ On the other hand, there was at this time, in many parts of Europe, hopeful symptoms, of which Lord Wellington was well informed. Even when Austria had concluded the most unfortunate of its struggles, with loss of honour as well as loss of territory, one of the wisest heads in Germany assured the British Government, that although the German courts swarmed with men who were great calculators of all possible disasters, and who knew nothing more of the human heart than its weaknesses and its selfishness, ... the Germans themselves, though subjugated, were not yet debased by their subjugation; they would one day revenge their wrongs; a warlike spirit would be developed among them, which had been neglected or suppressed by their feeble and corrupt governments; and it would then be seen that there are times when enthusiasm judges more wisely than experience, and when elevation of mind creates resources for the talents which it calls forth. Russia, which had so long been duped by Buonaparte, became sensible of his perfidy, when, in violation of the treaty of Tilsit, he incorporated the Hanse towns and the duchy of Oldenburgh with the French empire. An opposition to the tyrant’s schemes was manifested in Sweden, where it was less to have been expected: for when the French government demanded permission to march troops through Sweden into Norway, and embark them there for the purpose of invading England, the Swedish government refused, and communicated its refusal to the British cabinet. Prussia, meantime,