366 Revieivs of Books vette, with fourteen hundred troops and ample supplies, reached Java in safety. A similar one of equal or greater strength destined for the He de France was destroyed by the British about the same time. Six months later the British seized Java ; but this fact does not disprove Napoleon's care or concern. The central truth then is clear : that Napoleon did have a colonial policy comparable to the other great plans which he formed, that he put forth every exertion to carry it out, studying his problems, sparing neither time nor expense in solving them, and generally being deeply concerned to his latest hour with the inter-relations of world politics. It would indeed have been strange if a mind suckled on Raynal's Two Indies had belied its earliest manifestations of character and 'had been false to its whole training. What then were the causes of Napoleon's colonial failure? The incapacity of Decres, the minister of naval affairs, and of the naval ad- ministration generally, as the supporters of the Napoleonic legend de- clare ? Certainly not; mediocre as those men may have been the im- perial spirit permeated naval administration as it permeated every other department of government. Dr. Roloff, we think, finds the true causes : first, in the necessary weakness of French sea-power due to intervals of peace so .short that a navy could not be organized and built ; secondly, in the fact that European interests were more vital than colonial interests after all and that they must have Napoleon's main attention even though at times he jeopardized them for the sake of colonial empire. We have already noted one grave fault in the discussion of a very im- portant question : it seems ungracious to complain where so much is ex- cellent. But we remark in closing that the authorities given, not as foot- notes, for the taste of readers in Germany as well as here is in revolt against them, but in the appendix, leave something to be desired. Doubtless the author's note-book would confirm every bald reference of "X to Y," date so and so, but in the use of imprinted sources where specific references are made at all the reader may fairly claim a few words of the original. These Dr. Roloff does not give; yet he finds space for eleven pages of text, printing in extenso the instructions of the First Consul to Leclerc, a paper the contents of which at least were well known, even though the context was not. This we are glad he has done, but the other he might not have left undone. The writer's style is somewhat je- june but he avoids in the main those labyrinthine involutions which repel foreigners from the reading of German books. The idea of the essay is commendable ; so, too, on the whole, is the execution. Preliminary Stages of the Peace of Amiens. By H. M. Bowman. [University of Toronto Studies, History, Second Series, Vol. I., PP- 77~' 55-] (Toronto. The University Library. 1899. Pp. 79-) Mr. Bowman's dissertation is a good piece of work. It has endured the criticism of two famous universities, Leipsic and Toronto, and has
