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after they have left town for their country-houses; and that it is their wish to have it ́ as soon as they go upon the exchange: for this complaint I am certainly responsible. Having always been anxious to render the "HISTORICAL DIGEST" as complete and as recent as possible, on account of the great interest which foreign events must excite, I have always given to that portion of my labours a decided preference, and have expended greater care and attention upon it.---Indeed, I do not blush to acknowledge, that it is the favourite part of my literary exertions. From this circumstance it has frequently occurred, that when there was ample matter to fill the week's Review, [ have detained the press for the purpose of inserting the Digest, at the end of the week, leaving what has been prepared for the public, upon other subjects, to another week. This has been a very frequent cause for the lateness of the publication; and I will not conceal also, that I have not been constantly in a humour for writing politics. If my readers were once to see my Review printed with the type, and in the form of modern pamphlets, they would have some little compassion for a man's brains, which are not allowed even the rest of a windmill, but must be kept in continual action, for ever going, fair weather or foul; and if they were to know how often my wits are put to the torture, when devils upon devils come flying from London to my house with the doleful tidings," the printers are at a stand---they want matter;" they would see in me a real Sisyphus upon earth.

There is very rarely a single number of the Review that does not contain original writing which, in the form of a pamphlet, would make above eighty pages. Of this we have already had sufficient proofs, within our own observation, four pamphlets having appeared, containing articles which were originally published in this Review.* I am warranted, therefore, in saying, that a literary pursuit of this kind, from the beginning of the year until the end, without the interval of a single week's relaxation, must sometimes display the powers of the mind, under very different modifications. It is on this account, that I have paid so much attention to the historical part of this work; for though it has been admitted, that this part constitutes a favourite portion of my weekly papers, it should be known, at the same time, that it is by far the most difficult. But, however difficult any duty may be, if a person have a taste for it, he will not be intimidated at any obstacle; whereas a much less arduous occupation, to which the mind is not equally inclined, often fatigues and exhausts it. That my readers may not impute to me an undue predeliction for the historical department of this Review, I shall here submit to their consideration, a. few circumstances respecting the mode of conducting it, which may have escaped their attention. In the first place, it is not a mere dry narrative of events, translated from the fabrications and glosses contained in the columns of the French journals; but the greatest possible care is employed not only in the selection, but in collating one representation of an event with another. For every one in the habit of reading the French papers, must have observed, that they frequently contradict themselves, and give a different account today of what happened yesterday. This corruption of historical truth, I have often had occasion to detect in the course of this work; but to do this accurately, it is not only necessary to retain a perfect recollection of the events recorded, but also of the manner in which it suited the views of the different writers, at the time, to exhibit them. It often happens, that the Moniteur will pronounce a sort of dark, mysterious, sybilJine prediction, six months before it is realized; so that though, like the ancient oracles, it abounds with falsehoods, and is supported by them, it does, nevertheless, let fall an occasional truth, which often eludes observation, on account of its established repu tation for lying. Look at the present condition of Turkey: few, perhaps, of my readers remember the prophecy concerning the downfall of that empire, which appeared in the shape of an apostrophe, in one of the bulletins of Buonaparte, after the battle of Austerlitz,-" And thou, pale crescent! art on thy wane: thou art sinking into the eastern wave; thy course is nearly run; thou shalt be eclipsed for ever, ere many moons have passed away!" It has been my invariable practice, to bring these circumstances together, whenever the opportunity has shewn itself. I have likewise

*The series of articles on the " Theory of Money," which were inserted in this Review, were republished, this week, by Messrs. Cadell and Davies, in a volunte of 231 pages, under the title of an "Essay on the Theory of Money and Exchange;" and the author, Mr. Smith, has affixed his name to it.

endeavoured to call in the aid of the analogies of history, and to apply their causes, coincidences, and effects, to the events of our times, whenever a resemblance has been found between them; and when any unparalleled political shock has confounded the habitual reasoning of the public, I have striven to meet it with fortitude, to examine it in all its relations, and to point out its probable influence upon our interests, so as to guide our own conduct for the future. From this it is evident, that the digest requires the exertion of more thought, in reality, and certainly of more invention, than the polemical disputes in which we sometimes engage; besides exacting a greater degree of industry and discrimination. Six months hence, every reader, referring to this part of the Review, will perceive the care with which every transaction has been recorded, and set in its proper light; and he will find, that there is scarely a fact of any importance, which has not been accompanied by political reflections, that have uniformly proved just. Hence, the Historical Digest of this Review will be found to contain not only a faithful narrative of the great events which are taking place, but, likewise, a great variety of military, civil, geographical, and political reflections, which, if placed under distinct heads, would appear as so many separate and unconnected essays; and would, perhaps, to a certain class of readers, give greater satisfaction than in their present form. Of this I had, some time ago, a striking instance. At the very time that the Historical Digest was filled with political observations, respecting the necessity of improving our military establishments, and of displaying greater vigour in our counsels, a gentleman, in the north of England, declined to continue the paper, because it contained nothing but digests of foreign news, when every attention ought to have been paid to our military and volunteer establishments, &c.!! Lastly, let my reader only revert to numbers 30 and 33, of the first volume, and he will there find, that I foresaw, in the most distinct manner, and stated, in the fullest language, the great probability, that the day was not far off, when we should be altogether excluded from the Baltic, and be compelled to seek elsewhere for those impor tant supplies which are indispensable to the existence of our maritime power. I stated my reasons for this opinion, and remonstrated with the late mischievous administra tion, for the shameful negligence with which the provinces of Canada were treated by our government. After having enumerated their natural capacities, their growth and productions, I conjured them to begin in good time,-to bestow some attention to these colonies which would eventually prove the last resource of the British navy.-All this has come to pass. Necessity has exalted Canada into a province of the first magnitude; and now we are about to begin, when we ought to have had every engine at work there years ago.

I have thus explained the value which is generally attached to the Historical department of this Review, by a great majority of my readers; and the reasons of my predilection for it. However, it shall not, henceforward, stand in the way of the early accommodation of my city readers; and, therefore, it has been purposely postponed until the ensuing week, that we may make a good beginning.

This day, therefore, and every ensuing Saturday, the Review will be delivered at Mr. Bell's, Sweeting's-alley, Cornhill, and to other newsmen, about the Exchange, precisely at one o'clock. The hour of publication, at the Office, will continue the same.

AGAINST A PEACE.

SIR, The rumours which have been so industriously circulated, that the present ministry, notwithstanding the proofs they have given of consistency and honour, had consented to a negociation, direct, or indirect, with the enemy, are of so alarming a nature, if we consider the malevolence of those who had the temerity to circulate them, or the baneful tendency they might have in relaxing the exertions of a highminded people, that it would prove an excess of indifference, if no attempt were made to save the present cabinet from so base an imputation. What motives the persons must have, who, in a crisis like the present, could forge so daring a calumny, I will leave to the honest feelings of the people, and to the hearts of those men, unless the mildew of party has blasted in them every remains of patriotism and humanity.

One might have supposed, after the disasters which the ill-fated credulity, and temporising spirit of the European cabinets have brought on the Continent, there

would be no cause to apprehend, that a set of misguided, clamorous, unreflecting men, here at home, would attempt to bully government into the degrading conces sion of abandoning eighty millions of our fellow-creatures, who at present look up to us as their last resource; and every Briton feels, with a glow of honest pride, that they do not look up to us in vain, and of imploring mercy and forgiveness for ourselves, from that man, who is deafening the Continent with his shrieks of vengeance.

Is it then astonishing, that Buonaparte has the audacity to suppose, his anathemas will scare sixteen millions of freemen into concessions, which would place us on a level of degradation, insignificance, and misery, with the most fostered of his allies? or would that man, with the extent of abilities which an all-wise Providence has conferred on him, perhaps, to lash mankind from their lethargy; I repeat, would that man otherwise imagine that this country, with the resources it possesses, and whose extent is the more conspicuous from a contrast with those states he has cursed with his friendship, would have the pusillanimity to be terrified into a dereliction of its own independence, and that of the universe, in consequence of his blustering menaces?

A momentary reflection would have convinced me, that the subject of this letter deserves to be refuted with the lash of ridicule, rather than with the solemnity of censure; if the experience of a few days did not force me to acknowledge, that there exists another class of men in this country, who, in consequence of a momentary stagnation in their individual concerns, affect, in opposition to their conscience and judgment, to assert that a peace is practicable. It is of little importance if those persons belie their feeling as Britons and freemen, from the petulance arising from their trifling disappointments; or from that whining, intruding, barbarous humanity, which reminds us of the bear in the fable, who, to save his friend from the inconvenience of the fly, knocked his brains out. Those indiscreet, aukward meddlers, if successful, would have the same destructive influence on their country; and would leave those, who had the infamy to survive, to lament over the ruins of our freedom and privileges.

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The object which nations at war, when on a footing of equality, propose in a negociation, is a peace which ensures mutual safety and mutual advantages. compacts between nations there is not, and never has been, any other guarantee, but a well-established reputation for loyalty and honour. They are restrained by no code of laws, which inflict punishment on the infringers, but are solely confined to their own discretion and notions of justice, for the observance of the treaty. Let us now examine, what degree of confidence we are justified to repose in the enemy in any future treaty, from the conduct he observed towards other states;—we have absolutely no other rule to guide us, unless we reject experience for speculation, and facts for the wildest conjecture.

Shall we confine ourselves to his observance of the treaties of Campo Formio, Luneville, and Presburg? or shall I refer to his conduct towards the king of Sardinia, the republic of Venice, and the other states of Italy? or will his treatment of the Swiss encourage us to a greater degree of confidence?-I too sincerely commiserate the distresses of the king of Prussia, to examine how his obsequiousness has been requited. This honest, but ill-advised monarch was so loyal to Buonaparte, that he was a traitor to his country, and to the rest of Europe. When we reflect on the ingratitude and duplicity with which that deluded sovereign has been treated, we shrink back with horror at the idea, that the human heart can be guilty of such atrocity

and baseness.

After such flagrant proofs of disloyalty, as those treaties offer, were any person Quixotic enough to grant him more ample credit for integrity and honour, in any future peace he might condescend to conclude with us, I would answer this perso ì, that he shews more unsuspecting generosity with regard to the affairs of his country, than he would to his own; and that, had he been only once duped by the Corsican, in any private transaction, he would never confide in him a second time. I will, therefore, take the liberty of asking him, where he adopted this strange magnanimity with regard to his country; and should be so suspicious and scrupulous in the management of his private concerns and why this dastardly generosity towards an inveterate enemy,-a monster, sullied with every crime, and with every atrocity?

I have now before me that detestable article which lately appeared in the Moniteur; and which, from the style, the invectives, and the confusion of the ideas, may be safely attributed to Buonaparte himself. Nature has kindly furnished an antidote for every poison;-she has given that impostor a frantic irritability of character, which compels him to disclose the schemes he forms, for the disorganization of society. Our success at Copenhagen threw him into one of those frantic fits; to which wo owe our knowledge of his humane sentiments with regard to our cabinet, and his cordial wishes for our adopting his pure monarchy, with all the blessings of his police, his guillotine, his special tribunals, and that swarm of virtuous men, he has so happily selected, in order to lash his subjects into a sense of his pure monarchical virtues.

Away with moderation!—It would be treason in a conjuncture like our's. After that incendiary article, which reminds us so strongly of the revolutionary addresses of St. Just, and his associates, (the fellow, though covered with his pilfered diadem, is still a jacobin in his heart;) were any minister to negociate, he would deserve to be considered as an enemy to his country. For it is not the enmity of this man, but his friendship, we have to fear. His friendship is like aqua Tofana ;--it produces the same incurable symptoms on the victims he has honoured with his fraternah

embrace.

Let us then, with one common accord, raise our hands and hearts to that directing power, which has conducted us through so many difficulties and storms, and pledge ourselves to HIM and to the universe, never, in any crisis of our fortunes, to abandon the sacred cause we are engaged in; but to protect our country, our constitution, our rights, and our king, as long as we have an arm, or a guiuea left; and were the enemy in possession of the metropolis and sea-ports, still to fight in the last field that remains, rather than become the goaded vassals of a savage, unprincipled, irreligious hypocrite.

PUBLICOLA.

REFORM OF ABUSES.

SIR, His majesty's present ministers, while they have substituted vigour and decision, for inactivity and supineness, in the national councils,-while they have revived that pride which every Briton once felt in his country, but which the tame and timid system of the late administration had nearly extinguished; and while they have restored the terror of the British name abroad, have not neglected the less brilliant, but equally necessary, occupation of effecting salutary reforms at home. One arrangement of this description has lately been made, which promises to be attended with the most beneficial effects in a very important branch of the public service; and which, as I have not seen it explained, or even noticed in any of the daily or periodical papers, I shall make the subject of this letter.

The abuses practised in the commissariat department, in the West Indies, have long been notorious; but every attempt to eradicate them had hitherto, proved fruitless. The troops in that station were supplied with provisions, agreeably to contracts made there by the commissary general with different individuals. It has been discovered, that, in many instances, exorbitant prices have been charged for articles, and that the contractors and commissaries have shared the profits between them; that government was not only imposed upon in the prices paid, but also in the rate of exchange allowed for the bills drawn by the commissaries upon the treasury for their purchases; and that enormous fortunes have been amassed by individuals, from such impositions upon the public.

In order to strike at the root of these abuses, it was suggested to his majesty's present ministers, to adopt an entire new system; by making the contracts, in future, in London, instead of making them in the West Indies, and making the payments to the contractors also in London, on their producing vouchers for the delivery of the various articles agreeably to the terms of the contract. It was urged, that, by conducting the business on this plan, the possibility of any fraudulent practices between the commissaries general, and the contractors would be done away; that no undue advantage could be taken of government in the price of any commodity, if none were purchased; nor in the rate of exchange on their bills, if none were drawn;

and that this appeared the only radical cure that could be devised for evils, become inveterate by long habit, as even giving the present agents of government every credit for the purity of their intentions, the old traders in the West Indies would always prove an over match for the new men sent out by his majesty's ministers, as was shewn by a very recent and very glaring example. It was farther urged, as an objection to the old system, that there were but two merchants in the West Indies, who possessed sufficient capital to undertake engagements of this nature; and that a very good understanding, cemented by common interest, might naturally be supposed to exist among those few, in their transactions with government. In favour of the new system it was represented, that these contracts, instead of being confined to a few individuals who surround the commissary general, would be thrown open to the whole mercantile interest, both of Great Britain and the West Indies; and thus a system of competition be substituted for a system of combination that government might either retain an assistant commissary at each island to receive and inspect the provisions, or confine those officers altogether to the commanding officer, and the quarter-master of each garrison, and save a great proportion of the immense expence that now attends the establishment of the commissary's department: that government would be freed from the risk of damaged provisions, with the loss arising from the leakage of rum; and thus the expence of supplying the troops in the West Indies, which now can never be ascertained, would be reduced to an absolute certainty: and that, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, no more commissioners would be wanted to examine into the accounts and abuses of the commissariat, for every thing being bought and paid for at home, there would be no accounts, and consequently could be no abuses abroad.

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His majesty's present ministers having duly weighed this plan, approved and adopted it, as may be seen by the tenders advertised by the victualling board. But, sir, would you believe it, the same plan had long before been recommended to his ma jesty's late ministers, by whom also it was approved, but never adopted.

This fact may serve to explain, what has excited much surprize, as well as disappointment, that the conduct of the late ministry fell so far short of the public expectation. Many of them, individually, were certainly men of talents; but col lectively, as an administration, they did nothing worthy of their characters. If they really possessed all the talents of the nation, as they either arrogated to themselves, or as their friends arrogated for them; like the unprofitable servant, they wrapped them up in a napkin." It seldom happens, that very brilliant and very useful quali ties, are united in the same persons; and this observation may with peculiar propriety be applied to them, for they were omnipotent in theory, but impotent in practice; great talkers, but little doers. We frequently observe, that men of shin ing parts are the worst managers of their own affaifs; this seems to have been their case in managing the affairs of the nation. The great inaptitude of the late ministry, for their public situations, independent of that want of mutual confidence and cooperation, which necessarily resulted from the discordant parts of which they were composed, appears to me to have been that they were not what is termed men of business;-a character which requires application and method, as well as understanding. Notwithstanding all the cry of reform which they set up while in opposition, among all the ways and means brought forward by their chancellor of the exchequer, not a single shilling was taken credit for, derived from any saving in the public expenditure; but, on the contrary, they created and distributed among their friends, more new appointments than ever were given away by any administration before them. They suffered the corn and the tares to grow up together, by permitting abuses to continue, and appointing their partizans to investigate them, instead of eradicating the abuses, and rendering those appointments unnecessary.

These remarks, illustrated by the difference of their conduct under the same cir cumstances, will stamp the character of the two administrations; to whom we may justly apply the observation made upon the two great rival states of Greece: Athenians understand what is right, but the Lacedemonians practise it."

Nov. 25, 1807:

CIVIS.

The

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