without its object, namely, to prevent any curious person from discovering that the very next sentence is as follows:—‘If, however, this work can be performed, either by the peasantry or by the troops, without any great inconvenience, _the line of the Zezere may, hereafter, become of very great importance_.’ All this is very pitiful, and looks like extreme soreness in the reviewer; but the effrontery with which he perverts my statements about the Austrian war surpasses all his other efforts in that line, and deserves a more elaborate exposure. In my history it is stated, that some obscure intrigues of the princess of Tour and Taxis, and the secret societies on the continent, emanating from patrician sources, excited the sympathy, and nourished certain _distempered feelings_ in the English ministers, _which feeling_ made them see only weakness and disaffection in France. This I stated, because I knew that those intrigues were, in fact, a conspiracy concocted, with Talleyrand’s connivance, for the dethronement of Napoleon; and the English ministers neglected Spain and every other part of their foreign affairs for the moment, so intent were they upon this foolish scheme and so sanguine of success. These facts are not known to many, but they are true. In the same paragraph of my history it is said, the _warlike preparations of Austria_, and the reputation of the archduke Charles, whose talents were foolishly said to exceed Napoleon’s, _had awakened the dormant spirit of coalitions_; meaning, as would be evident to any persons not wilfully blind, had awakened that dormant spirit in the English ministers. Now reader, mark the candour and simplicity of the reviewer. He says that I condemned these ministers, ‘for nourishing their distempered feelings _by combining the efforts of a German monarch in favour of national independence_.’ As if it were the _Austrian war_, and not the _obscure intrigues for dethroning Napoleon_ that the expression of _distempered feelings_ applied to. As if the awakening the _dormant spirit of coalitions_, instead of being a reference to the sentiments of the English ministers, meant the exciting the Austrians and other nations to war, and the forming of a vast plan of action by those ministers! And for fear any mistake on that head should arise, it is so asserted in another part of the review in the following terms:— ‘_To have “awakened the dormant spirit”_ of _coalitions_, is another of the crimes which the British ministers are charged with, as if it would have been a proof of wisdom to have abstained from _forming a combination of those states of Europe which still retained some degree of independence and magnanimity to resist a conqueror_,’ &c. &c.—_Review._