that could poffibly be colletted and fent down front Suez and
all the other ports of the Red Sea. Little, therefore, is to be
apprehended from the defigns of the French on India by the
way of the Red Sea, fo long as we can command the ftrait and
vi&ual the force neceflary to be flattened there ; advantages
which the poffeffion of the Cape and of Ceylon would always
enable us to make ufe of.
But if through the Cape the French can contrive to aflemble
and vi£tual a large armament in the Indian Seas, we mult have
an immenfe force to prevent fuch an armament from co-operating
with a body of troops- that may previoufly have been
thrown into Egypt and Syria, a plan- which they probably intended
to have carried into effeft, had not the ambitious views
of the Conful put us on our guard, and rendered the prefent war
both juft and neceffary. Such a plan, at any future period of
peace, may eafily be realized, long before any intelligence of it
could reach India, or any force be fent out from England to
counteract it, if Malta and the Cape of Good Hope were accef-
fible to the French, but could not be carried into execution provided
the Cape be left in our hands, and converted into a naval
and military ftation, for which it is fo peculiarly adapted.
What the eonfequence might be of an attempt entirely by
land, from Greece or Syria to India, is not quite fo certain; and
nndw the prefent circumftanees of the French, it is not improbable
that the experiment will be made by land and not by
fea. If, indeed, the emperor Paul had lived to earry into execution
his wild but dangerous fcheme, of aflembling a large
body of troops on the eaftern borders of the Gafpian Sea, to aCt
in concert with the French, it is difficult to fay where the mif-
chief of their quixotifm might have ended. The minds of men,
intoxicated with power and maddened by ambition, are not to
be meafu'red by the fame motives which ufually guide the aCtions
of mankind. It is certain that neither Paul nor Buonaparte
regarded the great wafte o f men that fuch a project would have
occafioned. They muft have known that by no precaution nor
exertion could they have made fure of a conftant fupply of pro-
vifions for fo vaft a combined army ; but fuch knowledge, would
not have prevented them from making the experiment, the lives
of their people being obje£ts of little confideration with them.
If, like the hoft of Xerxes, they ffiould be compelled to feed on
grafs and the Ihrubs of the thicket, or, like the army of Cam-
byfes, in their march againft the Ethiopians, be reduced to the
ftiU more dreadful neceffity of killing every tenth man to feed
the reft, what remorfe would fnch calamities occafion in the
breaft of that man, who could deliberately put to death by poi-
fon the companions o f his viftories, for no other fault than the
misfortune of being difabled by ficknefs ?
Yet, although vaft numbers would aeceflarily perifh in fbch
an enterprize, the refult might, neverthekfs, be the means of
ffiaking our fecurity in India ; and this would be confidered as
a moft ample compenfation for any ktfs the enemy might fuftain
in the expedition. The obftaclts that have been urged againft
it were, perhaps, equally great and numerous what the Macedonian
hero undertook to march his army acrofs the fame countries
; yet he overcame them all And if Alexander could facc
c 2 ceed