"Agriculture, agreeably to the direction given it, had been improved, and with a population increased; industry supported by the progress of the mechanical arts, had also been considerably extended. But each separate state had its own little jealous feelings of aggrandisement, its own petty internal policy, viewing its neighbour with a jealous eye; and the whole of Germany never reaped any beneficial result from a system, which, had it been general, would have conduced highly to the wealth and power of the confederated states, of which it was composed. All these various institutions, at the same time that they conflicted with each other, were reared on loose foundations, and it was evident must fall together, on the first external shock,—circumstances like these were incapable of producing an universal national character. There, where no reciprocal tie binds the individuals of a state together, who, living under the equal laws of one community, ought to form one solid whole, the spirit of the nation loses itself in different directions; the attainment of individual welfare is possible in such a state of things, but never will a sense of what is universally good and great, be promoted.
"If in Germany," proceeds the author, "where the imperial crown represented a mere shadow, deprived of power and consequence, the mighty vassals were all; in France the crown was every thing, after it had subdued the powerful barons of the country. The people represented, indeed, one body, but were deprived, like the several German states, of all political weight, and were arbitrarily subjected to every impulse of the government. The same was the case with Spain and Portugal, where religious intolerance more powerfully suppressed every utterance of contrary opinions, and every doctrine which might lead to a deviation from the maxims of the state, so intimately connected with those of the priesthood. The latter, chained since Methuen's celebrated treaty, to the monopoly of England from which it had vainly attempted to free itself under Pombal's administration, was nearly sunk to the condition of a British colony working its gold mines in the Brazils for the benefit of the proud islanders.
"Italy, parcelled out amongst different powers, presented upon the whole, the same political aspect as Germany, only with this difference, that it was totally divested of the shadow of unity, which the latter at least appeared to present. Upper, and a great part of middle Italy, being dismembered, were entirely subservient to foreign impulse. The lower part, with the fertile island on the other side of the Pharos, presented, to be sure, since 1735, the outward appearance of one national whole, but was too weak to withstand the fate of the more powerful Bourbon families, from which, according to treaties, it had derived its sovereigns. There reigned in the papal state alone, which could not derive its weight from its worldly sovereignty, but from the spiritual supremacy of its ruler, the ancient maxims of the Romish pontificate, with the economical state faults of a clerical government. But the consideration and the power of the former were visibly sunk; the journeys of the pope of that period to Vienna, were like the contemporary ones of the Hierarch of Thibet to China, rather prejudicial, than favourable to spiritual dignity; and the faulty internal administration of the state seemed to invite every attempt at innovation. The republics on the east and the west of the Adriatic Gulf, were, since the rise of the other great naval states, only the ruins of past glory, sinking daily into insignificance. But notwithstanding this, neither was the image of former greatness blotted from their memories, nor a proper feeling for it extinguished in the minds of the inhabitants of the luxuriant peninsula. The pride of the more noble, fed itself on the sublime remains of lionian antiquity; and the monuments of the golden age of the family of Medicis indemnified a people given to the arts, and full of imagination for the loss of present grandeur, and kept up a lively anticipation of a better futurity, founded on the merits of its ancestors.
"Helvetia, hemmed in between Italy, Germany, and France, by its mountains, continued in the peaceable enjoyment of its liberties through the respect its venerable age had universally diffused. Nevertheless, the disturbances at Geneva, and the increased spirit of emigration, were sufficient to indicate that a people who become indifferent to the present order of things, would willingly have recourse to a system of innovation, and that the ancient ties which had held the Swiss nation so many centuries together, were gradually relaxing.
"The dissolution of the existing form of government, in the north-western Netherlands, which ought never to have been separated from the German corporation, was more visibly approaching. The unwieldiness of their disorganized union had no remedy to administer to the decline of their commerce, and naval power, which became more and more felt, being a natural consequence of the daily concentration of the larger states; and it was evident that the fate of the republic would be decided by a blow from abroad.
"The British islands, at that time the only country in Europe which united under a monarchical head, moderate, but on that account more solid principles of freedom, with an equal balance of the different powers of the state, were at the commencement of the American disturbances in a progressive state of the most flourishing prosperity. For this happy condition they were indebted to their freedom and eligible commercial situation, together with the inexhaustible treasures nature had deposited in their mines of coal and iron, on the existence of which the industry of their diligent inhabitants is principally founded. Political ebullition existed in no higher degree than was necessary to give proper life, and less, perhaps, than was necessary to preserve it in all its purity, a constitution which, long since acquired after the most bloody struggles, was more deeply rooted in the modes of thinking, and in the manners and customs of the nation, than it was imprinted on them by the letter of the law. The government had sufficient leisure to direct its attention abroad, and by means of hostile enterprises, and political treaties, which must sooner or later give a naval power a decided ascendency, held out a helping hand to the commercial spirit of the people who aimed at making (and with increasing hopes of success) the remainder of the world tributary to it, for the productions of its fabrics and manufactures.
"The plan of supporting commerce upon territorial acquisitions, and of forming an empire out of the conquered provinces of India, whose treasures should flow back to the queen of cities on the Thames, was already fully developed, and the exasperation against the western colonies was to be attributed as much to a mistaken commercial interest as to a spirit for dominion. The ingredients of the British national character, ever more coldly repulsive than amiable or attractive in its nature, had produced an almost universal antipathy not alone of the public mind, but also of the individual affections, against a people in so many points of view so highly respectable, and being unceasingly fed by that envy which every species of superiority involuntarily creates, produced the most conspicuous influence in the development of subsequent events."
The author then proceeds to notice the proceedings of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in relation to Poland, until its final dismemberment in 1795:—
"It is unnecessary," he says in conclusion, "to give a further exposition of the leading principles of the three courts which began this work of annihilation, and still persevered in it, contrary to the solemn stipulations of treaties lately entered into, just at the moment when a new constitution, enthusiastically received, had offered every guaranty of security, the want of which had served to give an air of legitimacy to the first spoliations. External aggrandisement in the acquisition of territory and population, and internal considerations, so far as they afforded means of attaining the object in view, are, in short, the features of these unnatural principles. This economical digestion of an administration merely of things, not persons, may be termed excellent in its kind. Taken in this point of view, the Prussian government gave the most splendid proofs of the beneficial results which may be attained by military organization. Austria and Russia had followed this example; and it required later events to prove, that the calculation is not always correct, that a standing army, forming a state within the state, is the only support and rallying point of a government, and that no system is safe, but that which is founded on the internal strength and unanimity of the people."
Having sketched the political situation of Europe, at the commencement of the American revolution, the author proceeds to notice the interference of France and Spain;—the situation in which the colonies of North America were left after the acknowledgment of their independence;—the adoption of the new constitution;—the extraordinary prosperity which followed;—the immense acquisitions of territory, and the accession of wealth and numbers. He then traces the effects produced in Europe, and most especially in France, by a participation in the struggle between England and her colonies, and the contemplation of their subsequent prosperity and happiness. The spirit of emancipation was caught from the new, and was fast spreading itself over the old world. This spirit first produced its practical effects in France, whence it reached England, and almost all the states on the continent of Europe, begetting a revolution of ideas at least, if not leading to the revolution of governments, as it did in France.