Hereupon a clamor-first of many-arose in the country. The people broke into insurrection against the money power. There was a wrestle between them and their oppressors. For the time being their representatives in Congress, less swayed than afterwards by the tremendous influences around them, stood fast for truth and right. A battle was fought in the second session of the Forty-fifth Congress, and on the 21st of February, 1878, the act was triumphantly passed for the restoration of the silver dollar and for the compulsory coinage of that unit at the minimum rate of two millions of dollars a month.

We need not here recount how the Act of Remonetization' was sent to the president of the United States to meet at his hands the puny rebuff of a veto. Nor need we refer to the other fact that the veto itself was buried, without a word of debate, under a majority of 46 to 19 in the Senate, and of 196 to 73 in the House of Representatives. So perish all similar documents evermore!

It was by means of the Act of 1878 that the government of the United States was enabled to make good its declaration of specie payments at the appointed time. Within eleven months the ordeal came and was passed. The premium on gold was obliterated. Both money metals stood side by side in the accomplishment of this work. The first metallic money that reappeared in the channels of ordinary trade was the old silver dollar, restored, not indeed to its unlimited and equal rank, but to a measure of efficiency.

The Act of Remonetization was in force for twelve years and five months. In this period at the mints of the United States were coined more than three hundred million silver dollars. These were added to the volume of the currency, in spite of the grimaces and gripings of Shylock.

The law of 1878 was very far short of perfection. It left silver exposed to the intrigues of the enemy, and placed gold in such a situation that the price of it might be gradually advanced at the option of the holders. It made silver to be merchandise, coinable into dollars that were to be buoyed up by coinage from the bullion value which the Goldites might measure in terms of gold, and depress as much as they pleased. This actually occurred. Gold began steadily to appreciate. Its purchasing power, as measured by the average of all other commodities, rose higher and higher. The supposition that the average of all other commodities declined in value is absurd. They only declined in price-price as measured by gold. Gold as measured by silver advanced in price and purchasing

power. The price of silver bullion declined, or was forced down, by the standard of gold; but the value of silver-raw silver-did NOT decline more rapidly than the average of the great products of America and Europe; that is, it did not decline at all.

The whole situation was so contrived as to produce a divergency, a disparity, in the bullion values of silver and gold; but gold was able to conceal its fallacy, just as any other metal, from iron to iridium, would conceal its fallacy if it were the sole standard of values. So much gold, namely, 23.22 grains, was stamped as the standard dollar, and if the treacherous metal had risen until its purchasing power was five hundred per cent of what it had been previously, until one unit of it would purchase a thousand bushels of wheat or fifty acres of farming land, it would not have revealed the lie that was in it! It would still have been "the honest dollar"! As matter of fact, gold bullion rose higher and higher, and all things else, including silver bullion, were correspondingly depressed in price.

The advantages which this condition-carefully contrived by the money power with machinations and intrigues extending back to the close of the war-would give, and did give, to the owners of gold and those to whom gold had been promised in payment cannot well be described. It was incalculable. The spectral nightmare of debt built him a throne on the ruins of a million homesjust as Sherman had said he would-and plumed himself all summer. The Goldites became by the possession of augmented power the autocrats of the world. Strange indeed to see the prices of all the products and industries of men sinking, sinking, under the pressure of so small and diabolical an instrument as a gold dollar! The thing has seemed to be possessed of a veritable devil. Its action has been like that of a manikin three miles out at sea, submerged to his chin, but by some infernal self-pressure able to lift himself out of the water to the horizon of his waist. Looking around over the vast deep, he cries in glee, "Great heavens, how the ocean has sunk away!"

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

A SKETCH WRITTEN FOR A PURPOSE.

BY JOHN DAVIS.

CHAPTER VI.

Mistakes of Napoleon.

Napoleon was a man of expedients. In devising and choosing temporary measures for the most desperate emergencies, history scarcely affords his equal. But in doing this he looked only to the present, and seemed utterly oblivious as to ultimate results. Hence, while his measures contributed to present success, they very often, at a later date, contributed to his overthrow. When calculating the perturbations of the planets of the solar system one must take into account every fact and circumstance of the problem, and the influence of each body upon the others; so, in like manner, unless writers on Napoleon take this comprehensive view of the subject in its various details, they must greatly differ in estimating his character and its numerous and complicated phases. The man in question, overestimating his importance, likened himself to a "star," while in reality he was more like a fickle, inconstant planet, or the satellite of a planet, which, fullorbed and brilliant at Dresden, in 1812, was as dead three years later as an exploded meteor. So sudden and complete a collapse from mid-heaven glory to the darkness and littleness of St. Helena, could not have happened without sufficient reason. I will now recount some of the causes or "mistakes" which made Napoleon's downfall inevitable.

The first Napoleonic mistake was duplicity. The expedient of misstating his age let him into the military school of Brienne and opened up to him a career as a citizen of France. Further on he proclaimed himself a republican, when at heart he was not. This claim, often and loudly repeated by himself and his emissaries in the countries which he had chosen for invasion and spoliation,

divided the people and gave him cheap and brilliant victories. Then, when victorious, his treachery to liberty appeared, and the unfortunate victims were subjected to the most crushing pecuniary exactions and merciless despotism. Italy, Poland, Germany, and other countries conquered by Napoleon were examples of what I state. It was his habit also to levy at first as heavy a contribution as in his judgment it was possible for the conquered country to pay; then in due time he goaded the people into revolt while he still held the country, so that further exactions and confiscations could be enforced. He complained continually to Joseph of his lack of vigor when king of Naples. Writing to him on the subject, he said:

I should very much like to hear of a revolt of the Neapolitan populace. You will never be their master till you have made an example of them. Every conquered country must have its revolt. I should see Naples in a revolt as a father sees his children in the smallpox; the crisis is salutary, provided it does not weaken the constitution.

The reason why he enjoyed a revolt in a conquered country is explained in another letter to Joseph:

As Calabria has revolted, why should you not seize half the estates in the province? . . The measure would be a great help, and an example for the future.

Examples of the spoliation of exhausted countries were seen in Poland and Prussia, already mentioned. Napoleon got his foothold and mastery in all those countries through duplicity and treachery more than by military heroism. But his successful expedients ultimately proved to be mistakes, and when his reverses came, the oppressed people promptly joined his enemies and could seldom be reconquered. This fact was abundantly proved by the action of Prussia prior to the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen, and by that of Austria prior to the battle of Leipsic. If Napoleon had treated those countries as sister republics, standing by the people against their despotic rulers, there would have been no revolts, and they would have remained his friends and allies when his disasters came. His characteristic duplicity and treachery were practiced in all his dealings, both with individuals and with nations. He advocated the policy, taught it to his officers, and practiced it himself as a just and wise course. It often wreathed his brow with a halo of unmerited glory, but at the same time it planted his path with dragons' teeth, which ultimately became armed men in the ranks of his enemies. Closely allied to duplicity and treachery was the expedient of corruption. It was sometimes easier to enter the

fortress of an enemy with a golden key than by a regular siege, and to win a battle with golden bullets rather than with lead and iron. One object of the expedition to Egypt was the acquisition of the island of Malta.

It was fortified by an impregnable fortress, well armed, manned, and victualled. Napoleon had no time for a regular siege, so he sent his emissaries some months ahead of the expedition. On his arrival the gates and doors swung open after the merest show of resistance. Alison (vol. iv, p. 567) says:

Before leaving France the capitulation of the place had been secured by secret intelligence with the Grand Master and the principal officers, who had, as the reward of their treachery, been struck off the list of French emigrants. Dessaix, Marmont, and Savary landed, and advanced, after some opposition, to the foot of the ramparts. Terms of accommodation were speedily agreed on. The town was surrendered on condition that the Grand Master should obtain 600,000 francs, a principality in Germany, or a pension for life of 300,000 francs; the French Chevaliers were promised a pension of seven hundred francs per year each; and the tricolored flag speedily waved on the bulwark of the Christian world.

When passing through the fortifications after the surrender, Caffarelli remarked: "It was lucky that there was somebody within to open the gates for us, or we should never have got in." It was not uncommon for the French generals to bribe the governor of a place to surrender it by promising to leave in his possession the military chest of the garrison, and permitting the populace to plunder their own nobles, as an inducement for them to favor, or, at least, not to oppose the invasion of their country. Speaking of the passive surrenders of the German fortresses in 1806, after the battle of Jena, Sir Walter Scott (p. 385)

says:

It is believed that, on several of these occasions, the French constructed a golden key to open these iron fortresses, without being at the expense of the precious metal that composed it. Every large garrison has, of course, a military chest, with treasure for the regular pay of the soldiery; and it is said that more than one commandant was unable to resist the proffer, that, in case of an immediate surrender, this deposit should not be inquired into by the captors, but left at the disposal of the governor, whose accommodating disposition had saved them the time and trouble of a siege.

An important and most successful Napoleonic expedient was his favorite plan of supporting his armies by pillage, by foraging on the country through which he passed, whether hostile or friendly. If hostile, he claimed the right to live at the expense of the enemy; if friendly, the people should be only too glad to contribute to the support of their deliverers. This policy saved expense, reduced