the children generally walk stiff-kneed.-Is it usual among the chimney sweepers to teach their boys to learn by means of pads No; they learn them with nearly naked knees.-Is it done in one instance in twenty? No, nor one in fifty.'-Lords' | Minutes, p. 32. According to the humanity of the master, the soot remains upon the bodies of the children, unwashed off, for any time from a week to a year. Are the boys generally washed regularly? No, unless they wash themselves.-Did not your master take care you were washed? No.-Not once in three months? No, not once-but the boy did not answer. Panel's brother told witness to a year.-Did not he find you soap? No; I can take my oath on the Bible that he never found me one piece of soap during the time I was apprentice.'-Lords' Minutes, p. 41. The life of these poor little wretches is so miserable, that they often lie sulking in the flues unwilling to come out. 'Did you ever see severity used to boys that were not obstinate and perverse? Yes.-Very often? Yes, very often. The boys are rather obstinate; some of them are; some of them will get half-way up the chimney, and will not go any further, and then the journeymen will swear at them to come down, or go on; but the boys are too frightened to come down; they halloo out, we cannot get up, and they are afraid to come down; sometimes they will send for another boy, and drag them down; sometimes get up to the top of the chimney, and throw down water, and drive them down; then, when they get them down, they will begin to drag, or beat, or kick them about the house; then, when they get home, the master will beat them all round the kitchen afterwards, and give them no breakfast, perhaps.'-Lords' Minutes, pp. 9, 10. When the chimney boy has done sufficient work for the master he must work for the man; and he thus becomes for several hours after his morning's work a perquisite to the journeyman. It is frequently the perquisite of the journeyman, when the first labour of the day on account of the master is finished, to "call the streets," in search of employment on their own account, with the apprentices, whose labour is thus unreasonably extended, and whose limbs are weakened and distorted by the weights which they have to carry, and by the distance which they have to walk. John Lawless says; "I have known a boy to climb from twenty to thirty chimneys for his master in the morning; he has then been sent out instantly with the journeyman, who has kept him out till three or four o'clock, till he has accumulated from six to eight bushels of soot."-Lords' Report, p. 24. The sight of a little chimney sweeper often excites pity and they have small presents made to them at the houses where they sweep. These benevolent alms are disposed of in the following manner: the vent between eleven and twelve o'clock, not yet come down Witness answered he was; Reid said he Do the boys receive little presents of money from people often in your trade? Yes, it is in general the custom.-Are they allowed to keep that for their own use? Not the whole of it, the journeymen take what they think proper. They journeymen are entitled to half by the master's orders; and whatever a boy may get, if two boys and one journey-answer: he then put in his hands, and threw down deceased's man are sent to a large house to sweep a number of chimneys, and after they have done, there should be a shilling, or eighteen pence given to the boys, the journeyman has his full half, and the two boys in general have the other.Is it usual or customary for the journeymen to play at chuck farthing or other games with the boys? Frequently.-Do they win the money from the boys? Frequently; the children give their money to the journeymen to screen for them. What do you mean by screening? Such a thing as sifting the soot. The child is tired, and he says, "Jem, I will give you two-pence if you will sift my share of the soot; there is sometimes twenty or thirty bushels to sift. Do you think the boys retain one quarter of that given them for their own use? No.-Lords' Minutes, p. 35. To this most horrible list of calamities is to be added the dreadful deaths by which chimney sweep ers are often destroyed. Of these we once thought of giving two examples; one from London, the other from our own town of Edinburgh; but we confine our selves to the latter. James Thomson, chimney sweeper.-One day in the beginning of June, witness and panel (that is, the master, the party accused) had been sweeping vents together. o'clock in the afternoon, the panel proposed to go to Albany About four street, where the panel's brother was cleaning a vent, with the assistance of Fraser, whom he had borrowed from the panel for the occasion. When witness and panel got to the house in Albany street, they found Fraser, who had gone up breeches. He then came down from the ladder. At this time the panel was in a state of perspiration: he sat down on a stool, and the master of the house gave him a dram. Witness did not hear panel make any remarks as to the situa tion of the boy Fraser. Witness thinks that, from panel's appearance, he knew that the boy was dead."-Commons' Report, pp. 136–138. We have been thus particular in stating the case of the chimney sweepers, and in founding it upon the basis of facts, that we may make an answer to those profligate persons who are always ready to fling an air of ridicule upon the labours of humanity, because they are desirous that what they have not virtue to do themselves, should appear to be foolish and romantic when done by others. A still higher degree of depravity than this, is to want every sort of campassion for human misery, when it is accompanied by filth, poverty, and ignorance-to regulate humanity by the income tax, and to deem the bodily wretchedness and the dirty tears of the poor a fit subject for pleasantry and contempt. We should have been loath to believe, that such deep-seated and disgusting immorality existed in these days; but the notice of it is forced upon us. Nor must we pass over a set of marvellously weak gentlemen, who discover democracy and revolution in every effort to improve the condition of the lower or ders, and to take off a little of the load of misery from | the years 1790, 1800, and 1810. In the year 1790, the those points where it presses the hardest. Such are the men into whose heart Mrs. Fry has struck the deepest terror; who abhor Mr. Bentham and his penitentiary; Mr. Bennet and his hulks; Sir James Mackintosh and his bloodless assizes; Mr. Tuke and his sweeping machines; and every human being who is great and good enough to sacrifice his quiet to his love for his fellow creatures. Certainly we admit that humanity is sometimes the veil of ambition or of faction; but we have no doubt that there are a great many excellent persons to whom it is misery to see misery, and pleasure to lessen it; and who, by calling the public attention to the worst cases, and by giving birth to judicious legislative enactments for their improvement, have made, and are making, the world somewhat happier than they found it. Upon these principles we join hands with the friends of the chimney sweepers, and most heartily wish for the diminution of their numbers, and the liinitation of their trade. We are thoroughly convinced, there are many respectable master chimney sweepers; though we sus. pect their numbers have been increased by the aların which their former tyranny excited, and by the severe laws for their coercion: but even with good masters the trade is miserable-with bad ones it is not to be endured; and the evidence already quoted, shows us how many of that character are to be met with in the occupation of sweeping chimneys. population of America was 3,921,326 persons, of whom 697,697 were slaves. In 1800, the numbers were 5,319,762, of which 896,849 were slaves. In 1810, the numbers were 7,239,903, of whom 1,191,364 were slaves; so that at a rate at which free population has proceeded between 1790 and 1810, it doubles itself, in the United States, in a very little more than 22 years. The slave population, according to its rate of proceed ing in the same time, would be doubled in about 26 years. The increase of the slave population in this statement is owing to the importation of negroes between 1800 and 1808, especially in 1806 and 1807, from the expected prohibition against importation. The number of slaves was also increased by the acquisi tions of territory in Louisiana, where they constituted nearly half the population. From 1801 to 1811, the inhabitants of Great Britain acquired an augmenta. tion of 14 per cent; the Americans, within the same period were augmented 36 per cent. Emigration seems to be of very little importance to the United States. In the year 1817, by far the most considerable year of emigration, there arrived in ten of the principal ports of America, from the Old World, 22,000 persons as passengers. The number of emigrants, from 1790 to 1810, is not supposed to have exceeded 6000 per annum. None of the separate States have been retrogade during these three enumerations, though some have been nearly stationary. The most After all, we must own that it was quite right to remarkable increase is that of New York, which has throw out the bill for prohibiting the sweeping of risen from 340,120 in the year 1790, to 959,049 in the chimneys by boys-because humanity is a modern in- year 1810. The emigration from the Eastern to the vention; and there are many chimneys in old houses, Western States is calculated at 60,000 persons per which cannot possibly be swept in any other manner. annum. In all the American enumerations, the males But the construction of chimneys should be attended uniformly predominate in the proportion of about 100 to in some new building act; and the treatment of to 92. We are better off in Great Britain and Ireland, boys be watched over with the most severe jealousy where the women were to the men, by the census of the law. Above all, those who have chimneys accessible to machinery, should encourage the use of machines, and not think it beneath their dignity to take a little trouble, in order to do a great deal of good. We should have been very glad to have seconded the views of the Climbing Society, and to have pleaded for the complete abolition of climbing boys, if we could have done so. But such a measure, we are convinced from the evidence, could not be carried into execution without great injury to property, and great increased risk of fire. The lords have investigated the matter with the greatest patience, humanity, and good sense; and they do not venture, in their report, to recommend to the house the abolition of climbing boys. AMERICA. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1820.) Statistical Annals of the United States of America. By Adam Seybert. 4to. Philadelphia, 1818. THIS is a book of character and authority; but it is a very large book; and therefore we think we shall do an acceptable service to our readers, by presenting them with a short epitome of its contents, observing the same order which has been chosen by the author. The whole, we conceive, will form a pretty complete picture of America, and teach us how to appreciate that country, either as a powerful enemy or a profitable friend. The first subject with which Mr. Seybert begins, is the population of the United States. of 1811, as 110 to 100. The density of population in the United States is less than 4 persons to a square mile; that of Helland, in 1803, was 275 to the square mile; that of England and Wales, 169. So that the fifteen provinces which formed the Union in 1810, would contain, if they were as thickly peopled as Holland, 135 millions souls. The next head is that of Trade and Commerce.-In 1790, the Exports of the United States were above 19 millions of dollars; in 1791, above 20 millions; in 1792, 26 millions; in 1793, 33 millions of dollars. Prior to 1795, there was no discrimination, in the American treasury accounts, between the exportation of domestic, and the re-exportation of foreign articles. In 1795, the aggregate value of the merchandise exported was 67 millions of dollars, of which the foreign produce re-exported was 26 millions. In 1800, the total value of exports was 94 millions; in 1805, 101 millions; and in 1808, when they arrived at their maximum, 108 millions dollars. In the year 1809, from the effects of the French and English Orders in Council, the exports fell to 52 millions of dollars; in 1810 to 66 millions; in 1811, to 61 millions. In the first year of the war with England, to 38 millions; in the second to 27; in the year 1814, when peace was made, to 6 millions. So that the exports of the republic, in six years, had tumbled down from 108 to 6 millions of dollars: after the peace, in the years 1815-16-17, the exports rose to 52, 81, 87 millions dollars. In 1817, the exportation of cotton was 5 millions Population. As representatives and direct taxes pounds. In 1815, the sugar made on the banks of the are apportioned among the different states in propor- Mississippi was 10 millions pounds. In 1792, when tion to their numbers, it is provided for in the Ameri- the wheat trade was at the maximum, a million and a can constitution, that there shall be an actual enumera- half of bushels were exported. The proportions of the tion of the people every ten years. It is the duty of exports to Great Britain, Spain, France, Holland, and the marshals in each state to number the inhabitants Portugal, on an average of ten years ending 1812, are of their respective districts: and a correct copy of as 27, 16, 13, 12, and 7; the actual value of exports to the lists, containing the names of the persons returned, the dominions of Great Britain, in the three years must be set up in a public place within each district, ending 1804, were consecutively, in millions of dollars, before they are transmitted to the secretary of state: 16, 17, 13. -they are then laid before Congress by the President. Under this act three census, or enumerations of the people, have been already laid before Congress-for The price of a machine is fifteen shillings. Imports. In 1791, the imports of the United States were 19 millions; on an average of three consecutive years, ending 1804 inclusive, they were 68 millions; in 1806-7, they were 138 millions; and in 1815, 133 millions of dollars. The annual value of the imports, 94 WORKS OF THE REV. SIDNEY SMITH. The average annual produce of the customs, between on an average of three years ending 1804, was 75,000000, of which the dominions of Great Britain furnished 1801 and 1810, both inclusive, was about twelve milnearly one half. On an average of three years ending lions dollars. In the year 1814, the customs amounted in 1804, America imported from Great Britain to the only to four millions; and in the year 1815, the first amount of about 36 millions, and returned goods to year after the war, rose to thirty-seven millions. the amount of about 23 millions. Certainly these are From 1789 to 1814, the customs have constituted 65 countries that have some better employment for their per cent. of the American revenues; loans 26 per time and energy than cutting each other's throats, cent.; and all other branches 8 to 9 per cent. They nd may meet for more profitable purposes.-The collect their customs at about 4 per cent.; the English The duty upon spirits is extremely trifling to the American imports from the dominions of Great Britain, expense of collection is 67. 2s. 6d. per cent. consumer-not a penny per gallon. The number of before the great American war, amounted to about 3 millions sterling; soon after the war, to the same. From 1805 to 1811, both inclusive, the average annual distilleries is about 15,000. The licences produce a exportation of Great Britain to all parts of the world, very inconsiderable sum. The tax laid upon carriages ing to the value of the machine. In the year 1801 in real value, was about 43 millions sterling, of which in 1814, varied from fifty dollars to one dollar, accordone fifth, or nearly 9 millions, was sent to America. Tonnage and Navigation.-Before the revolutionary there were more than fifteen thousand carriages of difwar, the American tonnage, whether owned by British ferent descriptions paying duty. The furniture-tax It was an ad valorem duty or American subjects, was about 127,000 tons; im- seems to have been a very singular species of tax, laid mediately after that war, 108,000. In 1789, it had on during the last war. amounted to 437,733 tons, of which 279,000 was upon all the furniture in any man's possession, the not be estimated without domiciliary visits, nor domiAmerican property. In 1790, the total was 605,825, value of which exceeded 600 dollars. Furniture canof which 354,000 was American. In 1816, the tonnage, all American, was 1,300,000. On an aver. ciliary visits allowed without tyranny and vexation. age of three years, from 1810 to 1812, both inclu- An information laid against a new arm-chair, or a sive, the registered tonnage of the British empire clandestine sideboard-a search-warrant and a convicwas 2,459,000; or little more than double the American. tion consequent upon it-have much more the appear. Lands. All public lands are surveyed before they ance of English than American liberty. The license are offered for sale; and divided into townships of six for a watch, too, is purely English. A truly free Engmiles square, which are subdivided into thirty-six sec- lishman walks out covered with licences. It is impostions of one mile square, containing each 640 acres. sible to convict him. He has paid a guinea for his The following lands are excepted from the sales. powdered head-a guinea for the coat of arms upon One thirty-sixth part of the lands, or a section of 640 his seals a three guinea license for the gun he caracres in each township, is uniformly reserved for the ries upon his shoulder to shoot game; and is so fortisupport of schools; seven entire townships, contain-fied with permits and official sanctions, that the most ing each 23,000 acres, have been reserved in perpetuity for the support of learning all salt springs and lead mines are also reserved. The Mississippi, the Ohio, and all the navigable rivers and waters leading into either, or into the river St. Lawrence, remain common highways, and for ever free to all the citizens of the United States, without payment of any tax. All the other public lands, not thus excepted, are offered for public sale in quarter sections of 160 acres, at a price not less than two dollars per acre, and as much inore as they will fetch by public auction. It was formerly the duty of the secretary of the treasury to superintend the sale of lands. In 1812, an office, denominated the General Land Office, was instituted. The public lands sold prior to the opening of the landoffices, amounted to one million and a half of acres. The aggregate of the sales since the opening of the land-offices, N. W. of the river Ohio, to the end of September, 1817, amounted to 8,469,644 acres; and the purchase money to 18,000,000 dollars. The lands sold since the opening of the land-offices in the Mississippi territory, amount to 1,600,000 acres. stock of unsold land on hand is calculated at 400,000,000 acres. In the year 1817, there were sold above two millions acres. The Post Office-In 1789, the number of post offices in the United States was seventy-five; the amount of postage 38,000 dollars; the miles of post-road 1800. In 1817, the number of post offices was 3,459; the amount of postage 961,000 dollars; and the extent of post-roads 51,600 miles. Revenue. The revenues of the United States are derived from the customs; from duties on distilled spirits, carriages, snuff, refined sugar, auctions, stamped paper, goods, wares, and merchandise manufactured within the United States, household furniture, gold and silver watches, and postage of letters; from moneys arising from the sale of public lands, and from fees on letters patent. The following are the duties paid at the custom house for some of the principal articles of importation:-7 1-2 per cent. on dyeing drugs, jewellery, and watchwork; 15 per cent. on hempen cloth, and on all articles manufactured from iron, tin, brass, and lead-on buttons, buckles, china, earthenware, and glass, except window glass; 25 per cent, on cotton and woollen goods, and cotton twist; 30 per cent. on carriages, leather, and leather manufactures, &c. eagle-eyed informer cannot obtain the most trifling advantage over him. America has borrowed, betwern 1791 and 1815, one nine millions were borrowed in 1813 and 1814. The hundred and seven millions of dollars, of which forty internal revenue in the year 1815 amounted to eight millions dollars; the gross revenue of the same year, including the loan, to fifty-one millions dollars. Army. During the late war with Great Britain, armies of the United States,-though the actual numCongress authorized the raising of 62,000 men for the ber raised never amounted to half that force. In Feb ruary, 1815, the army of the United States did not sons. The enlist Navy. On the 8th of June, 1781, the Americans thought to be too expensive, it was sold! The athad only one vessel of war, the Alliance; and that was tacks of the Barbary powers first roused them to form a navy; which, in 1797, amounted to three frigates. In 1814, besides a great increase of frigates, four seventy-fours were ordered to be built. In 1816, in consequence of some brilliant actions of their frigates, *Peace with Great Britain was signed in December, 1814, at Ghent. the naval service had become very popular through- where a prostration of understanding is called for; and out the United States. One million of dollars were good subjects are not to reason, but to pay. If, how appropriated annually, for eight years, to the gradual ever, we were ever to indulge in the Saxon practice of increase of the navy; nine seventy-fours, and twelve looking into our own affairs, some important docuforty-four gun ships were ordered to be built. Vacant ments might be derived from these American salaries. and unappropriated lands belonging to the United Jonathan, for instance, sees no reason why the first States, fit to produce oak and cedar, were to be select-clerk of his House of Commons should derive emolu; ed for the use of the navy. The peace establishment ments from his situation to the amount of 60007. or of the marine corps was increased, and six navy yards 70001. per annum; but Jonathan is vulgar and arithwere established. We were surprised to find Dr. Sey- metical. The total expenditure of the United States bert complaining of a want of ship timber in America. varied, between 1799 and 1811, both inclusive, from 11 Many persons (he says) believe that our stock of to 17 million dollars. From 1812 to 1814, both inclu live oak is very considerable; but upon good authority sive, and all these years of war with this country, the we have been told, in 1801, that supplies of live oak expenditure was consecutively 22, 29, and 38 millions from Georgia will be obtained with great difficulty, dollars. The total expenditure of the United States, and that the larger pieces are very scarce.' In treat for 14 years, from 1791 to 1814, was 333 millions doling of naval affairs, Dr. Seybert, with a very different lars; of which, in the three last years of war with this purpose in view, pays the following involuntary trib-country, from 1812 to 1814, there were expended 100 ute to the activity and effect of our late naval warfare millions of dollars, of which only 35 were supplied by against the Americans. revenue, the rest by loans and government paper. The 3d of March, 1789, to the 31st of March, 1816, is 354 sum total received by the American treasury from the millions dollars; of which 107 millions have been raised by loan, and 222 millions by the customs and tonnage: so that, exclusive of the revenue derived from loans, 222 parts out of 247 of the American rev. enue have been derived from foreign commerce. In the mind of any sensible American, this consideration ought to prevail over the few splendid actions of their half dozen frigates, which must, in a continued war, have been, with all their bravery and activity, swept from the face of the ocean by the superior force and equal bravery of the English. It would be the height of madness in America to run into another naval war with this country, if it could be averted by any other means than a sacrifice of proper dignity and charac ter. They have, comparatively, no land revenue; and in spite of the Franklin and Guerrière, though lined with cedar and mounted with brass cannon, they must soon be reduced to the same state which has been described by Dr. Seybert, and from which they were so opportunely extricated by the treaty of Ghent. David Porter and Stephen Decatur are very brave men; but they will prove an unspeakable misfortune to their country, if they inflame Jonathan into a love of naval glory, and inspire him with any other love of war than that which is founded upon a determination not to submit to serious insult and injury. For a long time the majority of the people of the United States was opposed to an extensive and permanent naval establishment; and the force authorised by the legislature, until very lately, was intended for temporary purposes. A navy was considered to be beyond the financial means of our country; and it was supposed the people would not submit to be taxed for its support. Our brilliant success in the late war has changed the public sentiment on this subject; many persons who formerly opposed the navy, now consider it an essential means for our defence. The late transactions on the borders of the Chesapeak bay, cannot be forgotten; the extent of that immense estuary enabled the enemy to sail triumphant into the interior of the United States For hundreds of miles along the shores of that great bay, our people were insulted; our towns ravaged and destroyed; a considerable population was teased and irritated; depredations were hourly committed by an enemy who could penetrate into the bosom of the country, without our being able to molest him whilst he kept on the water. By the time a sufficient force was collected, to check his operations in one situation, his ships had already transported him to another, which was feeble, and offered a booty to him. An army could make no resistance to this mode of warfare; the people were annoyed; and they suffered in the field only to be satisfied of their inability to check those who had the dominion upon our waters. The inhabitants who were in the immediate vicinity, were not alone affected by the enemy; his operations extended their influence to our great towns on the Atlantic coast; domestic intercourse and interwere interrupted, whilst that with foreign nations was, in some instances entirely suspended. The treasury documents for 1814 exhibit the phenomenon of the state of Pennsylvania not being returned in the list of the exporting states. We were not only deprived of revenue, but our expenditures were very much augmented. It is probable the amount of the expenditures incurred on the borders of the Chesapeak, would have been adequate to provide naval means for the defence of those waters: the people might then have remained at home, secure from depredation, in the pursuit of their tranquil occupations. The expenses of the government, as well as of individuals, were very much augmented for every species of transportation. Everything had to be conveyed by land carriage. Our communication with the ocean was cut off. One thousand dollars were paid for the transportation of each of the thirty-two pounder cannon from Washington city to Lake Ontario, for the public service. Our roads became almost impassable from the heavy nal commerce loads which were carried over them. These facts should in duce us, in times of tranquillity, to provide for the national defence, and execute suce internal improvements as cannot be effected during the agitations of war.'-(p. 679.) Expenditure.-The President of the United States receives about 60001. a year; the Vice President about 6007; the deputies to Congress have 8 dollars per day, and 8 dollars for every 20 miles of journey. The first clerk of the House of Representatives receives about 7501. per annum; the Secretary of State, 12001.; the Postmaster-General, 7501.; the Chief Justice of the United States, 10007.; a Minister Plenipotentiary, 22001. per annum. There are, doubtless, reasons why there should be two noblemen appointed in this country as Postmasters-General, with enormous salaries, neither of whom know a twopenny post letter from a general one, and where further retrenchments are stated to be impossible. This is clearly a case to which that impossibility extends. But these are matters * The American seventy-four gun ships are as big as our first-rates, and their frigates nearly as big as ships of the Inie. We can inform Jonathan what are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of glory;-TAXES upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot-taxes upon every thing which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or tastetaxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion-taxes on every thing on earth, and the waters under the earthhome-taxes on the raw material-taxes on every fresh on every thing that comes from abroad, or is grown at value that is added to it by the industry of man-taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health-on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal -on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice-on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribands of the bride -at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay.The schoolboy whips his taxed top-the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road:-and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid 7 per cent., into a spoon that has paid 15 per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid 22 per cent.,-and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble; and he is then gathered to his fathers,-to be taxed no more. In addition to all this, the habit of dealing with large sums will make the government avaricious and profuse; and the system itself will infallibly generate the base termin of spies and informers, and a still more pestilent race of political tools and retainers of the meanest and most odious description ;—while the prodigious patronage 96 which the collecting of this splendid revenue will throw into the hands of government, will invest it with so vast an influence, and hold out such means and temptations to corruption, as all the virtue and public spirit, even of republicans, will be unable to resist. Every wise Jonathan should remember this, when he sees the rabble huzzaing at the heels of the truly respectable Decatur, or inflaming the vanity of that still more popular leader, whose justification has Jowered the character of his government with all the civilized nations of the world. Debt.-America owed 42 millions dollars after the Revolutionary war; in 1790, 79 millions; in 1803, 70 millions; and in the beginning of January, 1812, the public debt was diminished to 45 millions dollars. After the last war with England, it had risen to 123 millions; and so it stood on the 1st of January, 1816. The total amount carried to the credit of the commissioners of the sinking fund, on the 31st of December, 1816, was about 34 millions of dollars. Such is the land of Jonathan-and thus has it been ton. the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American When these questions are fairly and favourably answered, their laudatory epithets may be allowed: but till that can be done, we would seriously advise them to keep clear of superlatives. 2. 3. IRELAND. (Edinburgh REVIEW, 1820.) and Davies. Cadell Observations on the State of Ireland, principally directed to governed. In his honest endeavours to better his situ-1. ation, and in his manly purpose of resisting injury and insult, we most cordially sympathize. We hope he will always continue to watch and suspect his govern ment as he now does-remembering, that it is the constant tendency of those entrusted with power, to conceive that they enjoy it by their own merits, and THESE are all the late publications that treat of for their own use, and not by delegation, and for the benefit of others. Thus far we are the friends and Irish interests in general, and none of them are of adınirers of Jonathan. But he must not grow vain first-rate importance. Mr. Gamble's travels in Ireland and ambitious; or allow himself to be dazzled by that are of a very ordinary description-low scenes and galaxy of epithets by which his orators and news- low humour making up the principal part of the nar paper scribblers endeavour to persuade their sup- rative. There are readers, however, whom it will porters that they are the greatest, the most refined, amuse; and the reading market becomes more and the most enlightened, and most moral people upon more extensive, and embraces a greater variety of earth. The effect of this is unspeakably ludicrous on persons every day. Mr. Whitelaw's History of Dubthis side of the Atlantic-and, even on the other, we lin is a book of great accuracy and research, highly shall imagine, must be rather humiliating to the rea- creditable to the industry, good sense, and benevo sonable part of the population. The Americans are a lence of its author. Of the travels of Mr. Christian brave, industrious, and acute people; but they have Curwen, we hardly know what to say. He is bold and hitherto given no indications of genius, and made no honest in his politics-a great enemy to abuses-vaapproaches to the heroic, either in their morality or pid in his levity and pleasantry, and infinitely too much character. They are but a recent offset indeed from inclined to declaim upon commonplace topics of morEngland; and should make it their chief boast, for ality and benevolence. But, with these draw-backs, many generations to come, that they are sprung from the book is not ill written; and may be advantageousthe same race with Bacon and Shakspeare and New-ly read by those who are desirous of information upon Considering their numbers, indeed, and the the present state of Ireland. favourable circumstances in which they have been placed, they have yet done marvellously little to assert the honour of such a descent, or to show that their English blood has been exalted or refined by their republican training and institutions. Their Franklins and Washingtons, and all the other sages and heroes of their Revolution, were born and bred subjects of the King of England,-and not among the freest or most valued of his subjects. And since the period of their separation, a far greater proportion of their statesmen and artists and political writers have been foreigners, than ever occurred before in the history of any civilized and educated people. During the thirty or forty years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for the Sciences, for the Arts, for The great misfortune of Ireland is, that the mass of Literature, or even for the statesman-like studies Confining our of Politics or Political Economy. selves to our own country, and to the period that has the people have been given up for a century to a handelapsed since they had an independent existence, ful of Protestants, by whom they have been treated as we would ask, Where are their Foxes, their Burkes, Helots, and subjected to every species of persecution their Sheridans, their Windhams, their Horners, and disgrace. The sufferings of the Catholics have their Wilberforces?-where their Arkwrights, their been so loudly chanted in the very streets, that it is Robertsons, Blairs, almost needless to remind our readers that, during the Watts, their Davys?-their Smiths, Stewarts, Paleys, and Malthuses?- their reigns of George I. and George the II., the Irish RoPorsons, Parrs, Burneys, or Bloomfields?-their Scotts, man Catholics were disabled from holding any civil or Rogers's, Campbells, Byrons, Moores, or Crabbes?-military office, from voting at elections, from admis their Siddons's, Kembles, Keans, or O'Neils!-their sion into corporations, from practising law or physic. Wilkes, Lawrences, Chantrys?-or their parallels to A younger brother, by turning Protestant, might de the hundred other names that have spread themselves prive his elder brother of his birth-right: by the same over the world from our little island in the course of process, he might force his father, under the name of the last thirty years, and blest or delighted mankind a liberal provision, to yield up to him a part of his by their works, inventions, or examples? In so far landed property; and, if an eldest son, he might, in as we know, there is no such parallel to be produced the same way, reduce his father's fee-simple to a life from the whole annals of this self-adulating race. Inl estate. A Papist was disabled from purchasing free. So great, and so long has been the misgovernment of that country, that we verily believe the empire would be much stronger, if every thing was open sea between England and the Atlantic, and if skates and codfish swam over the fair land of Ulster. Such jobbing, such profligacy-so much direct tyranny and op pression-such an abuse of God's gifts-such a profanation of God's name for the purposes of bigotry and party spirit, cannot be exceeded in the history of civilized Europe, and will long remain a monument of infamy and shame to England. But it will be more useful to suppress the indignation which the very name of Ireland inspires, and to consider impartially those causes which have marred this fair portion of the creation, and kept it wild and savage in the midst of improving Europe. |