ART. IX. Letters from England. By Don Manual Alvarez Efpriella. Tranflated from the Spanish. In three valumes, 12mo. 18s. Longman, Hurft, Rees, and Orme. 1807. HARDLY any thing which iffues from the modern prefs is calculated to convey fo much amufement, blended with inftruction, as defcriptions of the manners and customs of our own country, by a candid foreigner of learning and genius. Degenerated as the Spaniards unqueftionably are, from the high fenfe of honour which characterized their anceftors, they can furely ftill boaft of fome writers unconta. minated with French principles, on whom the fhades of thofe who flourished under their Auftrian fovereigns might look down with complacency. Half hoping to find the author of the letters before us one of thofe refpectable men, we opened the firft volume with fanguine expectations of an intellectual feaft; but, alas! we had not got half through it when we difcovered internal evidence incontrovertible, that the pretended Don Manuel is no Spaniard, but fome Englishman difcontented with the inftitutions of his native country. Of that evidence we had collected à part, to be laid before our readers, when we found it not very fecretly whifpered that the Letters from England were written by two Englishmen! The accuracy with which London is defcribed, and the refpectful terms in which Quakers, and other fanatics, are mentioned, no longer furprifed us; for the obvious tendency of the whole work, whatever may have been the intention of its authors, is to inflame vulgar prejudices against the principles on which Mr. Pitt conducted the adminiftration of the empire; to excite among the lower orders of fociety difcontent with their lot, and malignant envy of the comforts enjoyed by their fuperiors; to reprefent the church of England and the two univerfities as eftablishments worfe than ufelefs; and to exhibit diffenters, of alinoft every denomination, as men highly meritorious. The firft occafion which the pretended Don Manuel finds to inflame what prejudices may yet exift against the principles of Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville's adminiftration, is in Mr. Southey and Mr. Duppa. This we do not undertake to affert. But that they are the work of one or more Englishmen, is paft all kind of doubt. palling palling through Dorchefter, in his way from Falmouth to London! Though this Spaniard had then been only three days in England, he becomes all at once thoroughly acquainted with the character and principles of Gilbert Wakefield, whom he discovers (vol. I. p. 39) to have been a man of integrity and learning, unjustly and cruelly profecuted by the government! True, indeed, he profeffes to have derived his information from an English friend, whom he reprefents as having been for fome time in Spain; but how came this friend to find his way fo eafily to Spain during the late war? and why did not he give to a foreigner a full and fair account, not only of the fingle pamphlet for which Mr. Wakefield was tried by a jury of his countrymen, and fentenced to two years imprisonment, but alfo of that author's unremitting hoftility, for many years, to the laws, the religion, and the conftitution of his country? 66 was con Our Spanish author next reprefents the great body of the English nation as overjoyed when Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, Lord Melville, (then Mr. Dundas), and the reft of the minifters, who had fo long guided the helm of state, retired from office. "That change," he fays, (p. 127), fidered as a national bleffing. The fyftem of terror, of alarm, and of efpionage, was laid afide; the moft burthenfome of the taxes were repealed, and a fincere defire was manifefted on the part of the new minifter to meet the wishes of the nation." By the dates of his letters, it appears that Don Manuel had not, when he wrote this, been a fortnight in England; and in that short space of time he had become acquainted with the wifhes of the nation! But he had become acquainted with more than this: he had discovered that the former adminiftration employed their power unfortunately for their country, and all Europe; juft as Gilbert Wakefield had discovered the fame thing before him! In making difcoveries of this kind, however, our pretended Spaniard had, in the space of a fortnight, far furpaffed Mr. Wakefield during the whole courfe of his faftious career; for he affures us, (p. 128), that Mr. Pitt and his colleagues" had held out the promife of emancipation to the Irish Catholics, as a means of reconciling them to the union," and that they had even " pledged themfelves to grant that emancipation after the union fhould have been effected!" In the House of Commons, indeed, Mr. Pitt had folemnly affirmed that no fuch pledge was given by him, nor, with his knowledge, by any of the illuftrious ftatefmen with whom he had acted fo long; but the affirmations of Mr. Pitt are entitled to no credit, for this candid Spaniard quickly found out, (vol. 2, p. 311)," that pride and obftinacy were the predominant parts of his character, and that, right or wrong, he never yielded!!" To fuch abfurd calumnies as thefe, we fhould infult the understanding of our readers, were we to make a single reply. None but democrats and jacobins perceived any thing like a fyftem of terror in Mr. Pitt's adminiftration; none but democrats and jacobins rejoiced at his retiring from office; and the man muft now be blind indeed, who does not perceive that all the vigour of his adininiftration was not more than fufficient to preferve the British empire from fraternizing with France. As the author or authors have taken Wakefield for their guide, when animadverting on Mr. Pitt, fo have they adopted his methods of exciting a fpirit of difcontent among the lower orders of the people. Wakefield, in one of his feditious pamphlets, tells us that, "It is not yet decided what the rights of men are: whether three-fourths of the human race fhould not think themfelves favoured, to have the honour of ftarving, to feed of sinking to the ground to carry, like affes, the other fourth, on those fhoulders which the difficulty of procuring a fubfiftence for themselves and families, has bent to the foil on which they ftand." He likewife afks, What advantage have the oppreffed mafs of mankind gained by civilization, and chufing one common parent-government, for protection against the abufe of favage liberty and power? Does the fuperior protection which their lives are faid to receive, for their property cannot have lefs in any ftate,-prove that they have bettered their condition by entering into the civi lized ftate?"! In perfect harmony with this, our pretended Spaniard, after grofsly mifreprefenting the nature and operation of our poor laws, fays, "We talk of the liberty of the English, and they talk of their own liberty; but there is no liberty in England for the poor! They are no longer fold with the foil, it is true; but they cannot quit the foil, if there be any probability, or fufpicion, that age or infirmity may difable them. If in fuch a cafe they endeavour to remove to fome fituation where they hope more easily to maintain themselves, where work is more plentiful, or provifions cheaper, the overfeers are alarmed, the intruder is apprehended as * See Brit. Crit. vol. xvii. p. 439. if he were a criminal, and fent back to his parish. caufes have contributed to the rapid increase of this evil. The ruinous wars of the present reign, and the oppreffive fyftem of taxation pursued by the late premier, (Mr. Pitt), are among the prin cipal. But the manufacturing fyftem is the main caufe; it is the inevitable tendency of that fyftem to multiply the number of the poor, and to make them vicious, difeafed and miferable. "To answer the question concerning the comparative advantages of the favage and focial ftates, as Rouffeau has done, is to commit high treafon against human nature, and blafphemy against omnifcient goodnefs; but they who fay that fociety ought to ftop where it is, and that it has no further amelioration to expect (who has ever faid this?) do not lefs blafpheme the one, and betray the other. The improvements of fociety never reach the poor: they have been ftationary, while the higher claffes were progreffive. The gentry of the land are better lodged, better accommodated, better educated than their ancestors; the poor man lives in as pior a dwelling as his forefathers when they were flaves of the foil, works as hard, is worfe fed, and not better taught. His fituation is therefore relatively werfe." P. 298-306. There is not an Englishman fifty years of age, who has paid any tolerable attention to what has paff around him, who can be ignorant that all this is falfe;-that the comforts of the induftrious poor have, notwithftanding the wars of the prefent reign, and the fyftem of taxation purfued by Mr. Pitt, been at lealt as progreffive as thofe of the rich; that fuch poor are much better lodged and better fed than they were even in his childhood; and that in England the law protects alike the life, liberty, and property of every order in fociety. The idle and vicious poor are indeed miferable, and have always been fo, not only in England, but every where elfe; and as com merce and manufactures have increafed the number of the people, they must have increafed the number of the poor as well as of the rich; but the account which this pretended Spaniard gives of the number and miferies of the manufacturing poor in Birmingham and Manchester is ex tremely exaggerated. He obferves, when fpeaking of Manchefler, (vol. 2, p. 145), that "to talk of English happiness is like talking of Spartan freedom; the Helots are overlooked. In no other country can fuch riches be acquired by commerce, but it is the one who grows rich by the labour of the hundred. The hundred human beings like himself, as wonderfully fashioned by nature, gifted with the like capacities, and equally made for immortality, are facrificed bady and foul!" He had, a few pages before, given a fimilar account of the manufacturers in Birmingham; but they, he fays, feel not their N 4 own " own miferies, nor appear in the fmalleft degree difcontented with their lot; and therefore, to quicken their feelings, he is pleased to inform them, (vol. 2, p. 116), that the fyftem with which they are fo perfectly well fatisfied, poifons them, foul and body!" that they are, in fact, two legged beafts" of labour;" that, (p. 122), "there is more excufe to be made for difbonefty in Birmingham, than could be pleaded any where elfe!" and that it is not indeed to be expected (p. 123), that fuch ingenious men as they are" will patiently be ftarved, if, by any ingenuity of their own, they can fave themfelves from ftarving!" That they may profit by this precious hint, he takes care to inform them of what, we dare say, they never knew before, that during the late war they were encouraged by Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, and the rest of thofe wife politicians, to forge affignats, as the means of ruining France;" from which the only inference which they can draw is, that forgery is no great crime! This indeed is a doctrine which the Spaniard is himself at fome pains to teach; for he affirms, (vol. 1. p. 253), that, "of all crimes there is none which involves in itself fo little moral depravity, nor which is fo eafily committed, as forgery!" By what criterion he judges of moral depravity we know not; but there are furely very few crimes more pernicious in their confequences than forgery, and hardly one against which it is fo difficult to be effectually on our guard. From the thief and houfebreaker a man may in fome degree fecure his property by locks, and bars and bolts; and when he has occafion to travel where highway robbers prowl for their prey, he may travel armed, and, if a rich man, attended; but what fecurity can rich or poor have against the circulation of bank bills dexterously forged, or bafe money ingeniously coined? The man too, who is capable of forging fuccefsfully, must be supposed to have received an educatión better calculated to make him acquainted with his duty, than the education which falls to the fhare of the generality of thieves and houfe-breakers; and therefore, if it be true, which no Catholic furely will deny, that " unto whomsoever much is given, of him will much be required," it follows that forgery involves in itfelf greater moral depravity, than fometimes accompanies theft or houfe-breaking. But it is not by the degrees of moral guilt which crimes involve, that their punishments in this world can be regulated, but by the degrees of mifchief which they produce in fociety. Of the degree of moral guilt, which an individual has, in any cafe, incurred, no human tribunal can form an exact judgment; and to cftablifh a fyllem of penal law, on the |