eat
man. No considerations of regard for the peace and security of our own
country, no dread of the power of so able and indefatigable a warrior,
and so inveterate an enemy, should have induced us, they thought, to
subject this formidable personage to a confinement, which was far
less severe than that to which he was said to have subjected such
numbers of our countrymen, the harmless _non-belligerent_ travellers,
whom (according to the story) he kidnapped in France, with no object
but to gratify the basest and most unmanly spite.

But that there is no truth in that story, and that it was not believed
by those who manifested so much sympathy and indignation on this great
man's account, is sufficiently proved by that very sympathy and
indignation.

There are again other striking improbabilities connected with the
Polish nation in the history before us. Buonaparte is represented as
having always expressed the strongest sympathy with that ill-used
people; and they, as being devotedly attached to him, and fighting
with the utmost fidelity and bravery in his armies, in which some of
them attained high commands. Now he had it manifestly in his power at
one period (according to the received accounts), with a stroke of his
pen, to re-establish Poland as an independent state. For, in his last
Russian war, he had complete occupation of the country (of which the
population was perfectly friendly); the Russian portion of it was his
by right of conquest; and Austria and Prussia, then his allies, and
almost his subjects, would gladly have resigned their portions in
exchange for some of the provinces they had ceded to France, and
which were, to him, of little value, but, to them, important. And,
indeed, Prussia was (as we are told) so thoroughly humbled and
weakened that he might easily have enforced the cession of
Prussian-Poland, even without any compensation. And the
re-establishment of the Polish kingdom would have been as evidently
politic as it was reasonable. The independence of a faithful and
devoted ally, at enmity with the surrounding nations--the very nations
that were the most likely to combine (as they often had done) against
him,--this would have given him, at no cost, a kind of strong garrison
to maintain his power, and keep his enemies in check.

Yet this most obvious step, the history tells us, he did not take; but
made flattering speeches to the Poles, used their services, and did
nothing for them!

This is, alo