Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political

From the Virginia Patriot.
Among the mass of dull detail which has
reached this country by the late arrivals
from foreign ports, it is difficult to find any
thing of interest or moment.
This calm is most probably portentous.
Turkey is the object in view, and the storm
is preparing between France and Austria
and Russia, which is meant to overwhelm
her.
Yet it is even possible that Napoleon's
late marriage may be at least a remote cause
of the present apparent inactivity--his indolence
may be in some measure real. That
he is proud of his alliance and of his spouse
appears evident. She is said to be winning
and artful, and if he had not hitherto appeared
the mere brute, almost destitute of
the common feelings of humanity, we should
be somewhat inclined to believe that the
soft caresses of beauty might tempt him to
waste those hours in dalliance which, rightly
employed, would have conquered the
world.
Should this, fortunately for mankind,
prove to be the case, he will not be the first
Hercules who has wielded a distaff, nor the
first Antony who has lost a world for the
sake of a woman.
But we are not disposed to indulge,
much, such day-dreams of happiness, plausible
as they may appear and much as we
should rejoice to see them verified. Napoleon
has never hitherto discovered even
the smallest propensity to indulge his social
passions at the expence of his ambition. If
he has paused therefore in his career, it is
probably only that he may collect his
strength & arrange his plans for some more
desperate and fatal exertion.
Spain must fall. His interest, his honor
and his ambition all require it. He has
sworn it; and to all human calculation he
has power sufficient to effect it.
Turkey will probably come next in succession.
She will fall an easy prey, and in
her fall and in that of other nations who
have preceded her, we may read the impressive
warning, be ye also ready.
The apathy with which Napoleon's progress
has been viewed in this country is
truly astonishing. We seem to have believed
that because he is at a distance of
three thousand miles from us, we are therefore
safe from his intrigues and his power.
Such security will ruin us. For years
he has had swarms of spies and agents in
this country. He takes every opportunity
to increase their number, and late accounts
give us reason to believe that his own brother
and a distinguished general in his armies
are shortly to be added to the number.
It is time we should be willing to see
things as they are, to know and to dread
our real enemies, and to take those precautions
which afford the fairest prospect of
defeating their designs.