pleased. When a party went
out on such an excursion, they were sure to be met by some of the gens
d'armerie, who already knew their names and destination, and who fixed
the time of their return. From the decisions of the police there was no
appeal; and those who were imprisoned by them, (as so many of the
inhabitants of Amsterdam were, that it ceased to be any reproach,) had
no method of bringing on a trial, or even of ascertaining the crimes of
which they were accused. Frequently individuals were transported from
one part of the country to another, without any reason being assigned,
and set down among strangers, to make their bread as they best could,
under the inspection of the police, who instantly arrested them on their
attempting to escape. This system was probably more strictly enforced in
Holland than over the greater part of France, but its most essential
parts were every where the same, and the information, with respect to
the private characters and sentiments of individuals, was certainly
more easily obtained in France than in Holland.

Such, according to the information of the most intelligent and best
informed persons with whom we had an opportunity of conversing, were the
principal means by which the power of Napoleon was maintained, and his
authority enforced. But it must be owned that he did more than
this,--that during the greater part of his reign, he not only commanded
the obedience, but obtained the admiration and esteem of the majority of
his subjects.

In looking for the causes of this, we shall in vain attempt to discover
them in real benefits conferred on France by Napoleon. It is true, that
agriculture made some progress during his reign, but this was decidedly
owing to the transference of the landed property from nobles and
churchmen, to persons really interested in the cultivation of the soil,
which had taken place before his time, and not to the empty and
ostentatious patronage which he bestowed on it; the best proof of which
is, that the main improvement that has taken place has not been, as
already observed, in the principles or practice of agriculture, but in
the quantity of land under tillage. It is true also, that certain
manufactures have been encouraged by the exclusion of the English
goods; but this partial increase of wealth was certainly not worth the
expense of a year's war, and was heavily counterbalanced by the distress
occasioned by his tyrannical decrees in the commercial town