of the French nation, the British ministers thought it adviseable to unite all the force they could collect, and had consequently come to a determination immediately to conclude a treaty of alliance with the King of Naples."
Bravo, my Lord Castlereagh! you may one day find, after all, that honesty is the best policy; and we hope the Editor of The Times, in the next number of The Correspondent, will relieve his praises of the allies and his compliments to the Duke of Levis, by a criticism to prove that Jonathan Wild and Count Fathom were "gentlemen and men of honour!"
But the tale of blushing British honour is not ended. At the time when Murat was at the height of his success against the Austrians, "Colonel Dalrymple arrived at Bologna, King Joachim's head-quarters, commissioned by Lord William Bentinck, to request that the territory of his Britannic majesty's ally, the King of Sardinia, might not he violated by the Neapolitan army."—In consequence of Murat's polite attention to this delicate request, he lost his campaign, his crown, and his life; for no sooner was he defeated in his attempts to force the passage of the Po, which he might easily have effected, by infringing upon a small corner of the Piedmontese territory, than "he was surprized at receiving a notification from Lord William Bentinck, that his instructions were to join the Austrians against him."—We know the consequences of this exquisite simplicity of proceeding on both sides. Poor Murat! he well deserved his fate, but not at the hands from which he received it. Foolish fellow! He did not know that legitimacy keeps no faith with illegitimacy. At present, we suppose that point is pretty well settled.
Murat was senseless enough to believe that he, who had been made a king by Bonaparte, would be cordially received in the list of kings by those who were so by divine right; and he was base enough to turn against his benefactor, his country, and the human race but in himself he appears to have been a gallant, generous, and heroic-minded man. The account of his escape from the Austrians, and of his landing in France, is interesting:—
