reckon then on a bloodless triumph and was not the result all but fatal to her political existence ?

"No elements of strength have grown up since then; no fortifying of popular judgment--no strengthening of executive authority-the United States are, now, as weak as then no better fitted to judge, and more liable to err,-to be carried away by popular passion, and to be acted on by foreign intrigue. The American Union is now more likely to plunge into war, because England ceases to steady its judgment, by imposing respect for justice; and less likely either to muster strength for the struggle, or to exhibit judgment in its conduct. What could America do against England ?-Invade Canada ? Does she conceive that the conquest of Canada can be effected, except with the destruction of the power of Great Britain or that England, recalling her energies, as she has always done in war, will not bring them all to bear on a contest for existence;-strike the Union at all points at once, and by the weapons the most dreadful-legalized by necessity.

"Thus demoralized, their first step was to re-enact on the Indian, the lessons of injustice they had learnt from their parental state. Each district brought into cultivation—each successive extension of territory and dominion, was extorted by violence, or abstracted by fraud, from the lords of the soil; and each successive wave of population, as it spread in a widened circle around, marked its flow with blood. The settlement of the new race upon the virgin soil, was effected by the extirpation of the charities of nature, and the outrage of the rights of man.

"Among the chief sources of American weakness, glaring amidst the proofs of constitutional fallacy and of human injustice, is the state of the Negro, and the condition of the coloured race. But here, too, has not England with humiliation to remember, that that system was her system,—that the crime of which she has ceased to be guilty, had been by her transmitted to her American progeny, as a principle of law, and an hereditary possession.

"A popular opinion arose in the southern portion of the

Union, in favour of invading the neighbouring country; and that measure was announced, adopted, and carried into effect, in the manner of a proposal touching some municipal or parochial regulation. Public opinion justified it; a free press advocated it; and a people proud of their institutions carried it into effect: exhibiting a departure from those ordinary feelings of integrity and honour which had hitherto been admitted in common by all men,-and, at the same time, a disregard for the existing authority of the State, which I believe has never before occurred in the history of man; for even rebellion in the old world has been united by a principle or controlled by a leader. Dr. Channing asks whether they are prepared to take the new position in the world of a 'robber state-but robbers have never yet been known destitute of authority among themselves. What prospect does such an event present to the neighbours of the United States? What prospect for itself? England,-whose interests in the independence of Mexico were not less than her interests in the independence of this Island,-extends no protecting shield before that State; articulates no word to save it from this disaster-the American people from this guilt-the American Government from this degradation. Yet, one word would have sufficed. England-whose most anxious efforts ought to have been directed, and whose whole power, if necessary, ought to have been exerted, to arrest the progress of a spirit of aggression in the United States,-carefully avoids the indication of any interest or of any opinion on that subject; when an expression of her intention and her determination would have effectually overawed and repressed that spirit. She is indeed the first to hail, and first to confirm, the triumph of this injustice.

"The United States, thus mentally constituted, thus morally instructed, next turned the lawlessness of their ambition, directed with the cunning of the Indian, against Great Britain herself. And here again has Great Britain to bear the disgrace of their attempts, and the penalty of their success. Her contemptible submission was the cause of their boldness,

the justification of their injustice, by yielding up every contested right, and sanctioning each advanced pretension.

"Commotions take place in Canada: the people of the North, emulating those of the South, look on Canada as a new Texas, on England as another Mexico. Armed bands proceed to carry war into the provinces of a friendly power; and constituted authorities applaud, support, and co-operate. England, differing in this respect from Mexico, finds excuses for such acts in the constituted difficulties' of the Government of the United States ;-the perpetrators, when discomfited, withdraw in peace to their homes, experiencing, and fearing, no retribution from the power they have offended, or from the state to which they belong: and, instructed by the 'harmony prevailing between the two Governments,' consider such acts as honourable enterprises.-Then follows,-the new assault on the disputed territory.

"It is because England has been false to herself, that the United States have not been true to their own interests. It is because England is allied to her foes, that the United States have been false to her. The interests of both are then identical. England, by the assertion of her own rights and the performance of her own duties, can still preserve both."

[Henceforward, Works bearing on the subjects to which it is devoted will appear in the Portfolio.]

"A GREAT COUNTRY'S LITTLE WARS."

BY HENRY LUSHINGTON, Esq.

WE were acquainted with a portion of this work as it appeared in the Christian Remembrancer some time ago, and if the additional matter correspond in value with the greater part of what we then read, we shall not err in recommending the work to the readers of the Portfolio,now no restricted circle. Few pleasures, indeed, are greater or more pure, than thus meeting in the heedless crowd a countenance in some degree reflecting our own emotions, and, from an unexpected quarter, to hear words which, with all their dilution and smoothing down, sincerely purpose to rebuke and to warn. Judging from ourselves, we anticipate with pleasure Mr. Lushington's expressions of sympathy with the very few other members of the commonwealth who have participated in the shame, indignation, and compunction avowed by himself, who, from the first, denounced and strove to correct in its progress the madness and the crime of which he has become the historian, who years ago analysed the documents to which his eye has been directed, and by the confession of the highest authorities accurately detected the elaborate frauds under which England was made the tool of dark designs. against others and herself. That they push their enquiries. and their conclusions further than himself, does not destroy the identity of their discoveries and denunciations up to a certain point. The foundation is the same-it is that foundation which is wanting all around-which has to be laid afresh in every man in England-an abhorrence of public injustice—a detestation of deception in public affairs -a conscience about such things that compels to utterance,

and permits not to faint amid isolation and contempt. How must one that has a portion of this spirit, that has taken down the sword for such warfare, hail the vision of a band, however scanty, whose familiar watchword echoes his highest thought, and who have already borne the labour and heat of the day?

In glancing over Mr. Lushington's introductory chapter, our attention was caught by the following description of the men among whom he moves :—

"The striking and terrible events which marked the winter of 1841, and led to the termination of our Affghan dominion, excited in a large number of persons a feeling of strong but mere CURIOSITY, respecting the military details and personal adventures connected with our calamity. This curiosity, in its nature transient, was largely fed. *

It was the interest of the crowd in the topic of the day— the anxiety for news-above all, for excitement felt by the fashionable and reading public."

This "large" number of fashionable and reading persons he contrasts with those, how numerous he does not state, of an opposite spirit, for whom he takes up the pen. We think we could count those who really cared to investigate whether the war (so called) had been begun

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wickedly and wrongly," rather than whether it had been pursued "ineffectually and disastrously,"--whether it had been "morally and politically criminal," rather than in how great a "misfortune" it had resulted. Feelings are shewn by acts. A few demanded investigation, when all looked triumphant; a few more stragglers joined the camp, when their nervous system had been well agitated by the news of astounding calamity. It is fortunate for Mr. Lushington (or at least for his publisher) that there is, in his book, as much entertaining narrative to "feed curiosity," as of laboured detection, of righteous anger, or of burning

scorn.