brink of manufacturing in a good meafure for herfelf; I fay fhe will do fo to any extent, if you drive her to it; and 1 here again warn you how you rafhly do that againft your own commerce, which no power on earth but yours can ever effect. Nor let any one think that the rivalship, which I am anticipating, would terminate with the emergency that gave rife to it. Even after that peace fhould be reftored, which fome perfons fondly dream of as a poffible event, it is in vain that you will look for the re eftablishment of thofe peaceful and profperous employments which former treaties have brought back to the country. The whole Continent may be fubdued by the arms of your allies, and its commerce deftroyed by your fleets; you may ceafe to have a rival in power, or in wealth, from one extremity to the other of Europe. After dictating a peace to the world, you will feek in vain for the restoration of the trade which your vigour fhall have fufpended ;—it is deftroyed, if it is fufpended. You will find raised up, by your jealoufy and violence, a rival to your profperity, on the other fide of the Atlantic-a great nation, filled full of capital by your meafures, and forced by them to be the first manufacturers in the world. You will then, no doubt, be immediately repaid thofe eight millions Sterling which the Americans now owe you; for it is a common and a juft remark, that fuccefsful traffic produces. honeft dealings. But what will be the confequence of having allowed that capital to accumulate, at compound intereft, by its employment in fuch channels? Let us think of this, Sir, and look to all thefe things, when we are confiding in our own folly, and blindly hoping that, in wilfully cutting ourfelves out of every one line of industry, which has made us a rich and powerful nation, we shall ftill, God knows how, preferve our influence and wealth!' p. 65-70.

The learned author then refers, in a very impreffive manner, to the testimony formerly delivered by the celebrated Dr Franklin, when examined before the Houfe of Commons, as to the poffibility of the Americans doing without the trade of England, when he answered the problem by saying, that if that trade was interdicted, they would manufacture more, and plough lefs;' and that they were daily laying afide the pride they used to take in indulging in the fashions and manufactures of the mother country.

It is the opinion, we believe, even of the framers of our Orders, that they cannot be carried into execution for any great length of time; and the country at large has been induced to fubmit to them, by affurances that they muft fpeedily produce the most important and beneficial effects; that the diftrefs which they will occafion on the Continent, will compel our enemy to relax his commercial reftrictions; or even force him to fue for peace; or put the government in danger from the infurrections of the fuffering people. Of all the prepofterous delufions which have been employed to ftimulate the exertions, or footh the patience of this fanguine and credulous nation, we do think this the moft dreamy and ridiculous. It is perfectly evident, that our enemy muft fuffer

much

much less from this annihilation of foreign trade, than we our felves must do. With the inland navigation of all the Continent at her command, fhe is lefs dependent on foreign fupplies. Scarcely any of her revenue depends upon commerce; and her people, kept completely in check by an army which will be allowed to feel no want, would not dare to murmur at far greater hardships, than the dearnefs of fugar and tobacco. We must make room for the following eloquent and powerful paffage from the conclufion of Mr Brougham's fpeech on this fubject.

In anfwer to all our arguments, and in order to quiet the fears that are manifeftly fpreading over the country, we are told that the operation of the Orders in Council will put an end to the unnatural ftate of things which the enemy has eftablifhed upon the Continent, and will force open the channels of trade now ftopped up by him. If any thing in the poffible confequences of these measures could give your petitioners a fhadow of expectation that the ports of the Continent would be opened, and that the direct trade with it would again be established; moit unquestionably, as they would have been the laft to trouble you had any fuch hopes remained to them, fo they would even now leave your Bar contented and cheerful, if you could, by any proof or argument, give a colour of truth to fuch pleafing profpects. But when they look to the hiftory of the conqueft of Europe, and to its prefent ftate, or view, what is indeed the fame thing, the events of the French revolution, they can indulge in no fuch views. After refifting fo many violent fhocks from without, and fo many convulfions within-after paffing through every fort of revolution-all the varieties of fituation-uniform in nothing, except the conftant increafe of calamity, public and domef tic;-after having fuffered all this without attempting a complaint, or even breathing a murmur against the tyrant of the hour-when faction was raging in the Weft, and the enemy, not always beaten, in the Eaft -after fuch scenes as thefe, and fuch incitements to rebellion utterly' failed to create, during eighteen years of revolution, a whifper that could be heard from the people ;-I fay, after all this, you defire us to expect that the scarcity of fugar, or a rife in the price of tobacco, or the difficulty of procuring cotton, fhould throw all France into a flame' -bring out the feeds of lurking rebellion-draw forth the population of our enemies in array againft their ruler-make them with one loud voice demand the revocation of the Berlin decree-and force the governor of France himself to fue for peace. That fuch mighty things fhould arife from fuch little caufes, I am far from pronouncing to be impoffible; but I lament that I have been quite unable to make my clients agree with me, or, by any fuch efforts, to comfort them under the ruin of their affairs, which they never ceafe proving to me by the dry details of their legers and day-books, as often as I unfold to them the pleafing views to which I have been alluding; nor indeed can I find any one to back me, in urging fuch confolation to them. The peti. tioners have further been told, by fome perfous of airy fancy and loud

talk,

talk, that by this great act of felf-denial, (a magnanimity confiderably. cheaper to those who preach it up, than to the poor petitioners who are defired to practise it), we fhall affuredly make known in the most remote corners of the earth (even in places where the form of a fhip has never yet been seen) the power and the glories of the British Navy. It feems that, in proportion as fugars become higher in price, or as the people on the Continent find their coffee becoming rougher, the gallant form of a veffel fhall begin to dawn on their untutored minds. Growing by degrees more diftinct, what ideas must it raife, as the fweets vanifh! When at laft the coffee too disappears, and the peafant wholly changes his breakfaft of foreign luxuries into one of milk or wine,-then indeed will he defcry our whole fleets and navies, and tremble at the name of England -and thus fhall the enflaved people of the Continent fpeedily revolt against the yoke of France. This topic of confolation, Sir, I have alfo tried with my clients. But I have been again met with their plaguy account-books and dry details of profit and lofs. They tell me bluntly enough, "All thefe fine fancies are nothing to us, if they do not give us back our American market, which has by the grand measures of government been taken away. We afk back our traffic-our buying and felling-our livelihood. We are plain men-merchants, manufacturers, and workmen—and we care not if one half of Europe never heard of the British Navy, nor knew there was fuch a thing as a fhipnay, nor knew there was fuch a country as England-provided that half were confuming our produce and wearing our manufactures. Let the British Navy and name be as unknown in the heart of Poland as it is in the deferts of Kamptfchatka-but, for pity's fake, give us back that trade, the fole means of our fubfiftence-the fole object of our defires-the only thing our literal imaginations ever dream about."

Sir, I greatly fear, that, dull as it may be, you must give these men fome other anfwer to their complaints, than the lively and elegant ones which I have been alluding to. I ftrongly fufpect you must, in order to fatisfy the people, make out fome cafe for the new measures which fhall be adapted to the grovelling capacities of the nine hundred and ninety-nine plain matter-of-fact men who inhabit the country, whatever flighty things you may hear from the thoufandth wit. For unhappily our cuftomers on the Continent have fallen under the dominion of a matter-of-fact man, who works with ftubborn tools, and won't fuffer his vaffals to rebel for the fake of a point. He does not rule' thern by the love of fugar and coffee, and indeed cares little whether the interefting peafants ever fee fuch things or no. He does not leave them to form ideas of a French foldier, by raifing the prices of goods, "in places where a foldier was never feen." He chains them with chains, and drives them on with bayonets-and fends half a million of rong men to execute his orders; and, having done fo, he troubles himfelf but little what his vaffals fay about colonial produce-or what orders you iffue from your Council, even if you should make them as intelligible as his own. p. 78-82.

Such,

Such; we conceive, is the true view of the effects of our Or ners in Council, even upon the supposition that America shall remove her embargo, and conform herself to them with the most cheerful alacrity. It is needless to say, however, how little chance there is of such a result; and the total estrangement, if not the open hostility of that country, may fairly be stated among the inevitable consequences of adhering to our present system. Of the ruin to which our West India islands would be exposed by such an event, of the hazard of our continental settlements,of the destruction of our fisheries, of our incalculable sufferings from the want of naval stores and of corn, in case of a scarcity during our wars in Europe,-it is needless, and, we are afraid, it would be in vain to speak. Neither the government nor the populace of this country have forgiven America for having made herself independent; and the lowest calumnies and grossest absurdities are daily employed by a court faction to keep alive the most vulgar prejudices. Mr Baring speaks upon this subject with so much liberality, moderation and good sense, that we will venture to quote one passage from his pamphlet in support of the unpopular doctrine of American pacification.

The events, fays he, of a civil war left naturally deeper impreffions on the unfuccessful than the fuccefsful party; and while every little \ ftate of Europe was courted, that afforded limited markets for our manufactures, we seemed to regret that we owed any thing to our former fubjects; and an increafing commercial intercourfe has been carried on under feelings of unfubdued enmity, of which the Government has fet the fashion, inftead of checking fentiments as void of common fenfe as of magnanimity. To this error, in my opinion, the prefent ftate of the public mind towards America is in a great measure owing. Her fuccefs and profperity, though we dare not fairly avow it, have difpleafed us; and fentiments have been imperceptibly encouraged towards her, as ungenerous as they are impolitic. If this important fubject liad been confidered difpaffionately, we fhould have difcovered not only that we had loft nothing except the barren honour of fovereignty, by America being under an independent government, but that, upon the whole, her increafed utility to us in that fituation had, to a greater degree that could have been expected from any other, been the means of increafing our resources, in the arduous conteft in which we are engaged. She ceases to contribute directly to our naval force; this is the only article in the opposite scale: But then the relieves a confiderable portion of it from the neceffity of protecting her. In every other refpect the contributes, in the highest degree poffible, all the benefits which one nation can derive from the existence of another, or that one mother country can receive from that of the best regulated colony.

If the choice could have been offered us of having the United States as a dependent or an independent colony during the prefent war,

we could not, on any principles of found policy, have hesitated to prefer the latter. If neutrals of fome fort have hitherto always been confidered as necessary to countries at war, and particularly to those whofe refources are derived from commerce, how much muft it be our interest to have in that character a people politically independent, but commercially as dependent on us as habits and intereft can make them? Inftead of foftering the naval power of the nations of the Baltic, which at every period of our diftrefs is turned against us, this increase of trade, which we cannot difpenfe with, is transferred to a country whofe policy is neceffarily that of peace, and whose form of government, and political inftitutions, render a steady adherence to that policy infeparable from their existence. P. 19-21.

The following observations, suggested by a pretty long residence in the United States, are entitled to the utmost attention.

There are undoubtedly in America many people who entertain a decided partiality for this country, and for a clofe political connexion with it. There are others, on the contrary, with equally decided antipathies against us. Both thefe claffes are principally compofed of natu ralized Europeans, who are very numerous, and are the great political agitators of the country. The emigrations from England are principally owing to neceffity or difcontent, infeparable from an overflowing population; and thofe much more numerous from Ireland, where we have unfortunately not yet discovered the fecret of making the great mafs of the people love the Government under which they live, carry with them their hatred, which bursts out into increased violence from the abfence of reftraints.

But although the oppofite opinions of thefe two claffes fill the public newspapers with every fpecies of extravagance, the real Americans, who have never been out of their own country, take little part in them; and their views of policy are generally governed by their opinions of its true intereft, without caring otherwife much about what is paffing in Europe. If there be any bias, it is probably in our favour; the fympathy naturally arifing from language, manners, and a common extraction, is fhown in a decided preference to us as individuals: "Dans toute la partie de l'Amérique que j'ai parcourue," fays Mons. Talleyrand, je n'ai pas trouvé un feul Anglais qui ne fe trouvât Américain, pas un feul Français qui ne fe trouvât étranger. The ftudy of the fame authors, the existence of the fame laws, infures a general respect and regard for this country, infeparable from fimilar feelings towards themfelves; and perhaps thefe circumstances might have been improved for political purpofes, if we had not, fince the exiftence of the independent government of America, treated it with a studied and repulfive hauteur.

We have, upon the whole, every reafon to expect that the political conduct of America on this occafion will be purely American; and it is to be feared, perhaps, that in refenting the injuries which fhe has fuftained, her refpect for the power of this country will rather lead her to undervalue our dangers in the conteft in which we are engaged. It is

not