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And in a few Days will be published, in one thick Volume, Royal 18mo, closely printed,

Price Half-a-Guinea in boards, or 12s. bound in red,

A BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Containing accurate Particulars relative to the Life, Personal, Parliamentary, and Political History, of every Member of that illustrious Body;, with Lists of Divisions on great Questions during the last Twenty Years; and with a preliminary Account of the History and Privileges of that Branch of the Legislature.

ALSO,

In two elegant Volumes, price 12s. in boards, embellished with Portraits by CAROLINE WATSON,

A COMPLETE AND AUTHENTIC EDITION OF THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS,

In which are introduced, for the first time, various Letters not printed in any other edition, and all the answers which suggested many of those excellent compositions, with copious Notes, historical and biographical; and with an introductory inquiry relative to the author of these papers, in which the pretensions of the various supposed writers are critically examined, and the name of the real author ascertained.

By JOHN ALMON,

Author of the Lives of the Earl of Chatham and John Wilkes, of Anecdotes Historical and Biographical, &c. &c. and many years intimately connected with the most eminent political characters of the period in which Junius wrote.

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CHARACTERS or 1805-6.

THE RIGHT HON. LORD KEITH, K. B.

ADMIRAL OF THE BLUE, AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE NORTH SEA FLEET.

THE present state of Europe, although less inauspicious to England than before, is allowed by all thinking men to be critical in the extreme. France seemed but a few months since to bestride. the continent like a giant; and while subject potentates crouching at her feet supplicated protection, she affected to menace our little island with immediate destruction. Her armies, increased to an alarming size, extended from the shores of the Zuyder Zee to the confines of the Mediterranean; the liberties of the brave Swiss had been rooted up by her bayonets ; and the commerce of the industrious Hollander was paralised by her insidious embrace. Portugal, our ancient ally, intimidated by her threats, reluctantly. withdrew from her former connections; the independence of Spain was swallowed up within the vortex of her power; and Austria, until of late, maintained a cautious neutrality, while Russia, instead of a foe, assumed the character of a mediator.

1805-1806.

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In this untoward position of affairs, luckily for us, we could still confide in our own strength, and depend on our own resources. A nation that has armed half a million of her citizens, and may fit out one hundred sail of the line, however desirous of peace, need not be terrified at the idea of subjugation. For a defensive war, our country too, if not provided like that of the enemy, with a triple barrier of fortifications, is admirably calculated to resist an invader: it abounds in resources of every kind, and presents every variety of defence. Our shores form of themselves, without the aid of man, so many regular polygons, which, when lined with cannon and with freemen, must be in no common degree formidable. Our vallies boasting a high state of cultivation, are divided into rate fields, each possessing its fosse and its abbatis; while our roads are flanked by woods and by villages, so as on every side to present the means of delay, obstruction, and death. Nor ought the ocean, which at once surrounds and secures us, to be omitted in this catalogue of advantages. Our seamen, taught from their early infancy to" buffet the waves," are the best and most intrepid of any in Europe; while in respect to our ships, now built after the finest models of other nations, and rigged in a manner peculiar to ourselves, we may justly boast of a decisive superiority.

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It would be a curious subject to trace the history of their construction, and enumerate their tonnage, swelling by almost imperceptible degrees from the man of war, no bigger than a Gravesend hoy in the time of Alfied, to the size of a collier in the days of Henry

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