recently, it has been the scene of more ruthless violence, and of deeper
personal wrongs, perhaps, than any other portion of the globe. With
different races, more widely separated by destinies than even by origin,
habits, and religion, occupying its northern and southern shores, the
outwork, as it might be, of Christianity and Mohammedanism, and of an
antiquity that defies history, the bosom of this blue expanse has
mirrored more violence, has witnessed more scenes of slaughter, and
heard more shouts of victory, between the days of Agamemnon and Nelson,
than all the rest of the dominions of Neptune together. Nature and the
passions have united to render it like the human countenance, which
conceals by its smiles and godlike expression the furnace that so often
glows within the heart, and the volcano that consumes our happiness. For
centuries, the Turk and the Moor rendered it unsafe for the European to
navigate these smiling coasts; and when the barbarian's power
temporarily ceased, it was merely to give place to the struggles of
those who drove him from the arena.

The circumstances which rendered the period that occurred between the
years 1790 and 1815 the most eventful of modern times are familiar to
all; though the incidents which chequered that memorable quarter of a
century have already passed into history. All the elements of strife
that then agitated the world appear now to have subsided as completely
as if they owed their existence to a remote age; and living men recall
the events of their youth as they regard the recorded incidents of other
centuries. Then, each month brought its defeat or its victory; its
account of a government overturned, or of a province conquered. The
world was agitated like men in a tumult. On that epoch the timid look
back with wonder; the young with doubt; and the restless with envy.

The years 1798 and 1799 were two of the most memorable of this