Such are the charitable grounds on which our author wishes to secure Bonaparte on the throne of France, and thinks that peace may at present be made with him, on terms consistent with our safety. He is not, like others, ‘ready to shake hands with the Usurper over the tomb of the murdered D’Enghien, provided he will _return to the paths of religion and virtue_;’ but he will shake hands with him over the ruins of the liberty and happiness of France, on the express condition that ‘he never returns to the paths of religion and morality.’ Vetus is willing to forget the injuries which Bonaparte may have done to England, for the sake of the greater mischiefs he may do to France. These are the ‘obligations’ which Vetus owes to him—this the source of his gratitude, the sacred pledge that reconciles him to ‘that monster whom England detests.’ He is for making peace with the ‘tyrant,’ to give him an opportunity to rivet on the chains of France, and fix her final doom. But is Vetus sincere in all this? His reasoning comes in a very questionable shape; and we the more doubt it, because he has no sooner (under the auspices of Bonaparte) hurled France down the gulf of irretrievable destruction, than he immediately resumes the old topic of eternal war or perpetual bondage, as the only alternative which this country can look to. Why, if he is in earnest, insist with Lord Castlereagh on the caution with which we must grant terms to ‘such an enemy,’ to this disabled and paralyzed foe? Why assert, as Vetus did in his very last letter, that ‘nothing short of unconditional submission will ever satisfy that revolutionist, and that any concession made to him will be instantly converted into a weapon for our destruction?’ Why not grant to him such terms as might be granted to the Bourbons, since they would be granted to a much less dangerous and powerful rival? Why not subsist, as we have hitherto done, without the fear of perpetual war or perpetual bondage before our eyes, now that the crown of France has lost its original brightness, and is shorn of those beams which would again sparkle round it, if fixed on the head of a Bourbon? We suspect that our author is not quite in earnest in his professions, because he is not consistent with himself. Is it possible that his anxiety to keep out the Bourbons arises from his fear that peace might creep in with them, at least as a sort of compliment of the season? Is our veteran politician aware, in his own mind, that the single epithets, Corsican, republican, revolutionary, will have more effect in stirring up the embers of war, than all the arguments which he might use to demonstrate the accumulating dangers to be apprehended from the mild paternal sway of the ancient dynasty?