indeed, the first consul made some new encroachment or advanced
some new claim; while on the other hand he pretended to bind England to
the strict observance of every article in the treaty of Amiens which was
against her, and insisted on the immediate evacuation of Malta, the Cape
of Good Hope, and of every place she had agreed to restore. It was, in
truth, fully manifested, before the close of the year, that the treaty
of Amiens was an experiment that had signally failed, and that recourse,
at no distant day, would be again had to the sword to decide the contest
for superiority between the two countries of France and England.

Nor was the conduct of Napoleon in Paris less indicative of war;
ambition being conspicuous in every movement. Some of his measures were
prudent and salutary, but many of them were unprincipled, unjust, and
even criminal. His aim was to be the despot and sole ruler of France;
not to be the venerated head of a great and free people. His first act
exhibited the despot in lively characters. This was to put the press in
chains: Fouche, with an army of "Arguses and police servants, mastered
the domain of thought itself;" and when conspiracies arose from this
arbitrary measure, then the executioner was called in to do his fearful
work. At the same time Napoleon established special tribunals throughout
the kingdom, composed of judges of his own appointment. His despotism
extended itself to the civil code, and even to religion and the church.
By his fiat, there was to be but one liturgy and one catechism in all
France! During this year, indeed, Napoleon was approaching his object
at a rapid pace. He already ventured to attack the idol of the
revolutionary French, the fundamental principle of the revolution,
that of equality, by proposing and carrying a law for the creation of a
legion of honour--that is, for establishing a new nobility in the place
of that which the revolutionists had destroyed, from the one end
of France to the other. Public opinion declared loudly against this
institution, but Napoleon was sufficiently strong to defy public
opinion. Nay, about the same time, soon after the peace of Amiens,
Chabot proposed that a signal national acknowledgment should be made
to him, and he was created consul for life. The throne was, therefore,
visibly rising over the grave of the republic--one step more, and
Napoleon would be sitting thereon in all the pride and pomp of Imperial
majesty. That step, as