pretensions; those who degrade Scott to the level of such writers not only libel him, but they injure the cause which they profess to have at heart; for some novels will be read, and if they tell their children that such works are all alike, their children will be as likely to choose the worse as the better, believing that equal injustice is done to all by such sweeping condemnation. Such remarks as these may seem out of date in the nineteenth century; but less than half a dozen years ago, a divine of respectable character and great influence lifted up his voice in warning against novels at large, while he allowed other poems to retain the place of which it seemed hopeless to deprive them. It is hard to say which were the most marvellous, his prohibitions or exemptions; to us it seems better to discriminate; this legal process castigat auditque seems better calculated for the region to which Virgil confines it, than for ours. It is like the French revolutionary practice of taking off the prisoner, and investigating the merits of his sentence at the next convenient time.

One thing we would suggest to all concerned in publishing future editions of these novels. Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the prints which they afford us. When we see a sketch of a scene, which has impressed itself on our minds like those of Shakspeare and Scott, we are sure to be disappointed; for, however good in itself, it is not what we expected and wished to see. Let any one look at the prints of Nicol Jarvie with his red-hot coulter, or Duncan of Knockdunder at the table, and he will feel that such attempts are provoking; these poor efforts to represent the scene, only serve to disturb our vivid imaginations. Any one who wishes to illustrate these novels, should give representations of the scenes described in them; the sketch of the Grass-market in this edition, is worth all the rest of the prints put together; it is not every one who can visit Rob Roy's cave, and millions would be grateful to any artist who should furnish such views, to give compactness and unity in their minds to the author's local descriptions.

ART. VI. British and American Shipping.

1. The Merchant, Ship-Owner, and Ship-Master's Import and Export Guide. By CHARLES POPE. London. 1828, Svo. pp. 815. Fourteenth edition.

2. Speech of Right Honorable William Huskisson in the House of Commons. May, 1827.

We propose to devote a few pages to the consideration of the shipping and commerce of Great Britain and the United States. The importance of a flourishing commercial marine to the United States, with regard to national prosperity and individual wealth and comfort, is too clear to need explanation. It is likewise essential to our security against foreign aggression, the paramount interest of every nation; for it is necessary to the existence of a naval power, which can alone afford adequate protection to our commerce and our sea-coast. The first President Adams, one of the most early and zealous friends of the American Navy, remarks in one of his communications to Congress, that it was a commercial marine which had drawn to Europe the superfluous wealth of the other three quarters of the globe, and the superfluous wealth of Europe itself to two or three natious. His maxim was, that a commercial and a military marine must grow up together, and that one could not long exist without the other. This doctrine we believe to be true; notwithstanding the opposite opinion lately advanced in the Edinburgh Review, that commercial shipping is not at all essential to the existence and support of a powerful navy, and that England might be as formidable by sea as at present, or even much more so, without possessing a single merchant ship. We do not suppose that this theory is likely to gain many proselytes on either side of the Atlantic. England will never gratify her enemies or endanger her own security by an experiment to solve the question, whether the empire of the seas can be maintained without a commercial marine. In our own country, we trust, that whoever may be called to administer our public affairs, our commercial shipping will be cherished, not only as a most important branch of national industry and source of wealth, but as indispensably necessary to the existence and support of a navy, the right arm of our national defence, without which we can neither be secure at home nor assert our rights on the

ocean.

Great Britain has realized in part at least, the splendid vision described by Bolingbroke in his idea of a Patriot King; 'of a people busy to improve their private property and the public stock, whose fleets cover the ocean, bringing wealth by the returns of industry, carrying assistance or terror abroad by the direction of wisdom, and asserting triumphantly the rights and the honor of Great Britain, as far as waters roll and as winds can waft them.' The state of her shipping and commerce is a subject of peculiar interest to us, as American citizens, not only on account of Great Britain having been, ever since the decline of Holland, the first maritime power in the world, but because she is the nation with which our commercial intercourse is far more extensive than with any other, comprising about one third of our foreign trade and employing one third of our shipping. She is the only nation whose commercial marine is superior to ours, our only rival on the ocean, and the only power with which we can probably have any serious controversy. And though we may ardently wish that the two nations. should, and have strong hopes that they will, pursue a friendly policy towards each other, and that their only rivalry will be in the arts of peace, it would be unwise to shut our eyes to the danger of a different state of things.

We propose to examine the condition of the shipping of England in the sixteenth century, and to trace its subsequent progress from that time to the present day.

In 1572, the merchant shipping of England was said to be one hundred and thirty-five vessels, some of them of five hundred tons.

The navy of Queen Elizabeth consisted of thirteen public ships of war; the rest were borrowed from her subjects.

In 1588, the number of merchant ships was one hundred and fifty; on an average, of one hundred and fifty tons each. The navy of the Queen, which encountered the Spanish armada, contained about forty public ships, and the rest were borrowed for the occasion from her subjects, in all the maritime towns which possessed any shipping.

Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1603, presented to King James an essay in manuscript, entitled, "Observations concerning the Trade and Commerce of England with the Dutch and other Foreign Nations.' Its object was to show how England suffered the Dutch to carry away the trade of the world. Among other things he says, that the Dutch, by the structure

or roominess of their shipping, holding much merchandise, though sailing with fewer hands than our ships, thereby carry their goods much cheaper to and from foreign ports than we can, whereby they gain all the foreign freights, while our ships lie still and decay, or go to Newcastle for coals.'

He speaks of the prodigious fishery of the Dutch, from which they get such vast returns yearly.

He says, that the Dutch and other petty States engross the transportation of the merchandise of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, and the East and West Indies; all which they carry to Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and other northern ports, and bring back the products of those northern regions into the southern countries.'

That the Dutch have a continual trade to this kingdom, with five or six hundred ships yearly, with merchandise of other countries, storing them up here till the price rise to their minds, and we trade not with fifty ships into their country in a year.'

He next mentions the great fishery of the Low Countries and other petty States, wherewith they serve themselves and all Christendom.' He estimates the value of the exports of this article, at £1,759,000 sterling, besides what were sent to the Straits.

He supposes that the Hollanders alone had about three thousand ships and fifty thousand men employed in the fisheries. That the Dutch had five or six hundred ships in the timber trade, chiefly in the Baltic, and supplied themselves, England, and other parts of Europe, with this commodity.

That while England sends to the East countries of Europe but one hundred ships annually, the Low Countries send three thousand, and about two thousand ships yearly to France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy.

That the Low countries have as many ships and vessels, as cleven kingdoms of Christendom have, let England be one, and that they build every year one thousand ships.'

This effort of the brave and unfortunate Raleigh, the first man of his age both as a statesman and warrior, to turn the eyes of James to the true interest of England, seems to have had no influence on the conduct of that weak and capricious monarch.

In 1651, Parliament passed the celebrated Navigation Act, for the advancement of the shipping, navigation, colonies and

plantations of England. They had observed with much concern, that the English merchants had usually freighted Dutch shipping for bringing home their own merchandise, because Dutch freights were lower than English. Dutch shipping was used for importing American products to England, while English ships were rotting in their harbors, and English mariners, for want of employment, went into the service of the Dutch.

Had the Parliament been governed by such maxims as are now taught by some of the political economists of England, they would have said, that it is better for the government to let things alone; that trade will regulate itself; that if English merchants in transporting their merchandise, gave preference to Dutch shipping, and English mariners there sought employment, it was plainly because it was the interest of the merchant and mariner to do so; that what is for the benefit of the individual, is for the good of the nation; and, therefore, that it was better for England that her merchants should transport their commodities, and her mariners seek employment in Dutch ships. No proposition in Euclid can be more clearly demonstrated than this, if the doctrines of some eminent political economists in Great Britain be admitted as correct.

By this act, no goods of any kind of the growth, production, or manufacture of Asia, Africa, or America, could be imported into England, Ireland, or any of the plantations, except in British ships.

No goods of the growth, production, or manufacture of any country in Europe, could be imported into England or Ireland, except in English ships, or ships of the country where the goods were produced, or from which they could only be, or were most usually imported.

Goods of the growth of Russia, and also bulky articles, such as masts, timber or boards, foreign salt, hemp, flax, and a large number of articles called enumerated commodities, could be imported only in English ships, or in ships of the country of which they were the growth or produce, and these enumerated commodities could not be imported from Holland, the Netherlands, or Germany, in any ships, English or foreign, under any circumstances. Thus the Dutch, the great carriers for all Europe, were not only cut off from the carrying trade between England and the rest of Europe, but from almost all trade. with England whatsoever.

Foreigners were excluded from the coasting trade of England