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resources to expeditions fit only for freebooters.A few words more on the Brazils. I will not waste any time in combatting the project of revolutionizing that country, or of wresting it from our oldest and most constant ally, seeing that such an act of atrocity would be repugnant to the character of Britons; but I maintain, that to occnpy certain ports with the view of anticipating the enemy, and to connive, as it were, at the loss of Portugal in Europe, that the Portuguese monarchy might be transferred either with her own consent or by force into the Brazils, would be not less contrary to our acknowledged interests, commercial as well as political. In the very outset, the dissimulation that would envellop the execution of such a project, has something in it so odious, that it would for ever disgrace the British name. Such a step on our part would instantly determine France to invade Portugal, not in the character of an enemy, but as her liberator; and the state of uncertainty in which the court of Lisbon would be kept as to our real intentions, would serve only to facilitate the invasion, by taking from her all hope of resistance. The soreness which Portugal must feel at seeing her distant possessions invaded by those to whom she looked up for assistance, together with the hope of recovering the Brazils, would probably throw the Portuguese nation and govern ment into the arms of France; and, in that case, it must be confessed that we should have the appearance of driving them to such an extremity. At a moment when the French are blocked up in all their ports, to entertain a fear lest they should reach the Brazils with an armament before us, would, to say the least of it, be ridiculous; but, to doubt whether or no France, allied to Portugal, would 'not, from time to time, be able to elude our cruizers and reach the Brazils in small bodies, or at least by their emissaries, is certainly not so. At a time,

Sir, when we were so deeply interested in excluding France from all access to the coast of Egypt, and when our squadrons formed as it were one chain from Plymouth to Egypt, by Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Mahon, and Malta, did not Buonaparté, and others, escape from Egypt and land safe in France? and, what is still more difficult to effect, have not whole squadrons sailed and returned from Brest to Toulon and from TouJon to Brest? The Portuguese troops in the Brazils are, as it were, rendered useless, by the weakness of the counsels of Lisbon; but, the inhabitants once set in motion and under the direction of French officers and

French emissaries, supplied, too, with occasional succours from that country, and above all, goaded on by their rage against those, who, under the mask of protection, had basely endeavoured to establish themselves by open force in their country, would prepare for us the same fate which the Dutch experienced formerly in the same regions. We should, probably, be strong in one spot of those immense territories, but weak in every other; we should be now at secret and now at open warfare with the inhabitants; we should be blocked up in Rio Janeirio, as the Dutch were in Fernambouc, and finish with being repulsed, after an ir reparable loss of men, and an expense of which we can form no calculation.-Whatever degree of fear or hope we may have entertained, that certain restless characters would be found in the Brazils, ready to profit by the opportunity of making their country independent, we ought not to conceal from ourselves, that (excepting the negroes and a few tribes of civilised Indians) it is a' country, the population of which is remarkably compact, and composed intirely of Portuguese descendants; that all the inhabitants possess. the same language, the same laws, the same manuers and customs as the Portuguese of Europe; and, that the law of Portugal makes no distinction between a man born in the Brazils and one born in Europe. We ought also to remember, that if the Brazilians are not now the property of the Dutch, it is not from the assistance afforded them by the mother-country, but' from their own efforts, and against the formal demand of their Sovereign, John the IVth., who, finding himself by the revolution which seated him on the throne, not only at peace, but in alliance with the Dutch, enjoined them to submit implicitly to the States General. The Brazilians, however, constantly refused to obey; they entered into a bloody warfare with that nation, and, in spite of the injunction of their monarch, again became his subjects.-Let us now examine whether Great Britain would receive from the independence of the Brazils, and the removal of the Portuguese monarchy into those territories, such commercial advantages as would indemnify her for the union of Portugal with France, and the accession to our enemy of the important port of Lisbon, the best calculated, in point of situation, to harass our commerce, and without free access to which, the whole line of coasts from the Baltic to the extremity of the Gulph of Venice, would belong to that enemy. Let us consider, that the moment the destruction of

the Portuguese monarchy is accomplished, that moment the whole of the Spanish Peninsula, containing from fourteen to fifteen millions of men naturally warlike, all her riches both natural and acquired, in a word, immense resources of every description, now paralyzed by her divisions and the weakness of her counsels, will fall into the hands of our implacable enemy, who will not fail to restore them to life and motion in order to turn them to our destruction.What, then, is this mighty advantage which we are to purchase at so great a hazard? Is it the exclusive possession of the trade and navigation of the Brazils?-The trade! that we possess already, either directly or by contraband. Portugal, almost without manufactures, and the Brazils still more so, use scarcely any materials but the produce of our industry. The navigation! No; for can the paltry advantage arising from the hire of a few vessels, be put in competition with those higher considerations which I have endeavoured to develop? Besides, will not the Brazillians, become independent, be able to create manufactories and a navy of their own? For a considerable part of the year their slaves are entirely idle; their climate is peculiarly adapted to the merchandize of India; their riches as well as disposition incline them to the enjoyment of those objects of luxury and elegance which France produces; their geographical situation is particularly favourable to a traffic with Africa, India, and China; the passage is familiar to them, and their language is the language of commerce. The Brazils, become independent, would become also, in a very short time, the centre of a contraband traffic highly alarming to our East India Company. The Brazils are equally well situated for a commerce with the South Sea. Let us not hasten, then, at our own expense, the developement of these germs of commerce and industry, which a crisis, brought on by our rashness, can so easily ripen into activity. Let us maturely consider the prospect before us, and, profiting by the past, proceed with the utmost circumspection. Let us call to our recollection the outcry that was raised by our merchants against the Marquis de Pombal, because he endeavoured to restore the industry of Portugal. The ministers of that day wisely despised the unjust clamours of frightened avarice, and experience has taught us, that the efforts of the Portuguese government produced little or no effect in favour of Portuguese industry, but much for the prosperity of the Brazils; whose population and culture have more than doubled since that period, and whose consequent prosperity has

been highly beneficial to Great Britain.-I trust, Sir, that what I have said will be sufficient to convince your readers, that as the honour of the nation forbids us to abandon Portugal, our oldest ally, so our interest, in unison with that honour, dictates the same line of conduct towards her.- -I am, Sir, &c.- B. L. Nov. 28, 1804.

SUMMARY OF POLITICS.

HIGH PRICES.-This is a subject not new to the readers of the Register; but it is now, and must ever be, worthy of their at tention. They will do this work the justice to acknowledge, that, with respect to its observations upon the causes and effects of a dearth of provisions, it did not wait till the dearth came, and then set up a cry against the persons who deal in provisions. During the latter part of last year, and still more frequently during the former part of the present while provisions of every sort, particu larly bread, fell below what might be regard. ed as a reasonable price, and when the ministers seemed to have left the contingency of dearth entirely out of all their calculations; nay, before, while the dear good man Mr. Addington, was, with eyes half-shut, swimming along in the milk and honey of the peace of Amiens, and while " the pilot that

year,

weathered the storm" was, with feelings apparently not less complacent, listening to the melodious sounds of Mr. Canning; even then I endeavoured to prepare the public. mind for the circumstances that would at tend a return of dearth. When, in July last, the Corn Bill was going through the almost empty Houses of Parliament, I thought it necessary to repeat the warnings I had before given, and to endeavour to prevent the consummation of that measure *. Since that time, perceiving that a very great ad vance in prices was about to take place, I took an early opportunity to endeavour to place in a true light the question relative to the effect which the different states of war and peace have upon the price of bread; and, I think, it was then satisfactorily proved, that a state of war, considered merely in opposi tion to a state of peace, does not tend, and never has tended, to increase the price of that most necessary article of human subsistence +. In a subsequent Register, the subject was revived; and, an article tending to create popular prejudice and fury against the farmers having been published in a Portsmouth newspaper, some remarks were made with a design to counteract the effects † lbid

* See present Volume, p. 82. + Ibid p. 309.

P. 235.

of such publications, and to prevent a repetition of the publications themselves.--If it be the desire of the minister to prevent the dearth of provisions from being accompanied with popular discontent and tumult, one would think that his writers would heartily second efforts of this sort, particularly those which tend to remove the prejudices existing against the growers, the dealers, and all other persons concerned in producing and vending provisions; but, it will appear evident from the following extracts, that those writers have uniformly pursued a directly cohtrary course. --The rise in the price of barley, which has, of course, kept a pretty even pace with the rise in the price of wheat; necessarily produced a rise in that of malt, which, in its turn, must as necessarily cause either a rise in the price or a falling off in the quality of porter. Notwithstanding this evident necessity, however, the philosophers, to whom the clerks of the Treasury have, in their wis dom, thought proper to commit the defence of the minister and his measures, and who had, without a single audible murmur, seen the quartern-loaf rise, in the space of four months, from eight pence farthing to fourteen pence; these philosophers, the moment a notice was given for augmenting the price of porter in the amount of one fifth of its former price, burst forth all at once, like the winds from the cavern of Eolus.--THE TIMES, ever the first in servility, folly, and mischief, took the lead. "The price of "porter," said that paper of the 15th of November," will this day be raised to sixpence "the pot, the brewers having determined to "advance that necessary article eleven shil❝lings in the barrel to the retail dealer. In

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consequence of this exorbitant increase, the owners of all public houses within the "bills of mortality have apprized their cusstomers that, from this day, they would be under the necessity of adding one penny per quart to the former price of that beverage. The public have a right to be satis"fied on this point; and the few great com

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panies to whom the brewing of porter is "almost exclusively confined, are bound to "shew that an additional impost, which "bears so hard upon the laborious classes of "the community, has not arisen from any

sordid or interested speculations. The "price of barley, we find, experienced a rise "of fall twelve shillings per quarter at Mon"day's market; still we do not consider the price of that material as warranting the "sudden imposition of so exorbitant a tax upon the consumer of porter, as the ad66 vance of a penny upon the former price. "It is well known, that the two last years

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"have been very productive to the brewers. "Beer is so decidedly an article of the ne"cessaries of life, that any unexpected ad

vance of it will certainly produce a spirit "of dissatisfaction, which, though it might "not occasion any extraordinary or dange

rous commotion, must still be considered as liable to produce those ebullitions of "discontent which happen at no time withou inconvenience, but at the present mo

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ment must be particularly injurious, when unanimity is so essentially necessary to "the great cause in which we are engaged, "and without which that cause cannot be "crowned with success." So; the cause of the country is here made to depend, in some degree at least, upon the price of porter! What! after all the boastings about our 480,000 volunteers; after all the talk about a people in arms for the defence of their country; after vauntings before unparalleled in the world, are we seriously to be told, that some half score of brewers can endanger the safety of the state! The inference to be drawn from this person's argument, is, that the brewers must not raise the price of their porter; and, of course, he means that they must not lower its quality, for that is the same thing; and this ruin they must bring upon themselves, for what? Lest there should arise commotions from a contrary conduct on their part; lest the peace of the country should be disturbed; lest the patriotism of the people should be turned into discontent lest the country should not be defended; lest Napoleon should "swallow us up quick," just as a coal-beaver swallows a pot of porter! Observe the phrases that this Treasury writer deals in. But, of that more particularly, when we have heard his fellow-labourers. THE ORACLE, of the same date as above mentioned, contained the following passage." Porter rises this day to the pub

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lic, so as to be sold at sixpence per quart, "and that of such a quality as has for so "long a time been obtruded on the public, "to the great injury of their constitutions, "and at so high as the then price of 5d. per " quart. Even when malt was under fifty

shillings per quarter we heard of no re"duction being intended, nor if it were less "would that have been the case; but im"mediately on the rise, dash comes the "brewer, with much more than an equiva"lent, supposing the former was an equal "price. The distillers, good men, are de"termined not to be behind hand with the

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insist upon the absolute necessity of spirits; but he seems to carry his notions respecting porter to an uncommon length, though his censure upon the brewers has in it a great mixture of absurdity. He comes forward as a natural as well as a political philosopher. But, if the brewers really had obtraded" their porter upon the public; and, if it be true, that such obtrusion had greatly "in"jured the constitutions of the said public, ought he not to have rejoiced rather than complained at the adoption of a measure, which, if it produced any effect at all, must have lessened the quantity of porter consumed?

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-That pink of patriotism and phiJosophy, the Editor of the MORNING POST, comes next. "It is," says he in his paper of the same date, "it is said that the porter " brewers have given notice to the public cans, that from this time they will be un"der the necessity of raising the price of "porter a penny in the quart. A more ex"traordinary proceeding has rarely been heard "of. We know not upon what ground so extraordinary an advance can possibly be justified. Government it is said, bave a plan in contemplation, which it is expected "will completely counteract the schemes of the "monopolizers of grain-wretches, who, "while fattening on the vitals of the poor, cr are deaf to their calamities, and care not "who starve, if their coffers are filled." Ob. serve well what is said here of the intentions of government; and, recollect that this philosopher is a Treasury writer; a perfect tool; a man without a single idea to commit to paper till he receives the word of command. "Government have a plan in con"templation to counteract the schemes of

the monopolizers of grain, wretches who "fatten on the vitals of the poor!" I beseech the reader to remember these words.Besides the threats thus thrown out against the brewers, a society, or pretended society, or combination, was brought forward and exhibited, in terrorem. The article (it was a circular one, and appeared in all the newspapers) is worth preserving. It will hereafter be cited as a mark of the brutal stupi dity of the age of bank notes. "Yesterday" (the 20th of November) " a meeting was

held at the London Tavern of the sub<scribers to the new establishment for brewing genuine malt-liquor, Mr. W. Hall in the chair. The chairman opened the business in a neat speech, and the assembly consisted of upwards of three hundred subscribers. The resolutions being "read, several verbal alterations were pro"posed, after which the resolutions were unanimously agreed to. The opinions of

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man, and every person present retured, "thoroughly convinced, that an institution, "which has prospered so much in the course "of about five weeks, must be eminently "successful in the result. Indeed, the bar"mony that prevailed among the parties, augurs, to a certainty, that the plan cannot fail of answering the most sanguine "expectations of the subscribers, and the public, who are also materially interested "in the undertaking." What delicious nonsense! A perfect repetition of the "Lon"don Flour-Company" project. There was a special act of parliament passed for the establishment of that company; the accounts of the treasurers, brokers, jobbers, millers, bakers, drivers,. porters, watchmen, and sweepers, were regularly laid before parlia ment, and thus the legislators of a great kingdom became check clerks, of a mercantile concern! That company was intended to counteract the operations of the millers and bakers of the metroplis. It was to in troduce, into general consumption," cheap "and wholesome bread." The bread it made and sold produced illness wherever it was used, especially amongst children. After a short trial the project was abandoned, I believe, for I have not heard of it since the spring of 1801. And, my readers may be assured, that this porter-company project will prove equally abortive. "Lawful!" Oh dear, yes! it is lawful enough: there needed no learned man to tell the meeting that but, though quite lawful, it was very foolish indeed: no one can indict the ringleaders, but any one may laugh at them.The effect of the aforementioned efforts of the press was a relinquishment, on the part of the brewers, of the intended advance in

the price of their porter. The advance had actually taken place: porter was, for two days, sold at sixpence a quart. As soon, therefore, as it was known that the brewers had retracted, the ministerial papers began to shout victory, not unaccompanied with threats of vengeance upon the defeated enemy, to whom they seemed, as is always the case with such victors, disposed to grant neither quarter nor mercy. They called aloud for the names of the particular brewers who had begun to advance the price of porter, in order that the public might be made acquainted with them. The philosopher of the Morning Post, in that print of the 20th of November, made the following remarks. "The public indignation against the extraor"dinary and unjust rise of porter, has been 66 so strongly manifested, that the quart has "already returned to its former price of five 66. pence: We have been informed, that it " was by no means the unanimous act of the "trade; that but few persons attended at the "meeting, when it was agreed to raise the "price; that the gentlemen concerned in "two respectable firms allow, there was no

necessity whatever for such an extravagant increase, and have, much to their honour, "and, we trust, ultimate advantage, refused "to concur in that combination, which "would have raised the price of that neces" sary article to sixpence a quart." The sage who conducts the SUN, struck upon the same key, in the evening of the 20th of November. "Though," says he, "the brewers have thought it necessary to retract a measure that excited general indignation, and that did not appear to be warranted, it is "to be hoped that the public will be inform"ed of the names of those who adopted this

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measure, and of those whose manly and "disinterested spirit occasioned its revoca❝tion." Now, let it be well remembered, that this article is taken from a paper, which was established by the Treasury, and which, as one might naturally expect, has always been under the absolute control of the clerks in that department.This threat of publishing the names, which was, in other words, to threaten the brewers with the vengeance of the populace, appears to have terrified an old man, named MEUX, so as to induce him to implore these dispensers of protection to inform the public that he was not one of those who had proposed to raise the price of porter; and, accordingly, the following paragraph was published in all the ministerial prints. It is quoted now from the COURIER, the patriotic Courier! of the 22d of November: "We are authorized to say, that Mr. Meux, sen. who built that extensive brew

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"ery, and raised the trade in Liquor-Pond"Street, is totally averse to the present talk"ed-of rise of porter, till absolutely necessary, or till a new duty is imposed upon "that article; he being (at present) out of "trade, declares, that he knew nothing of "the brewers' intention; nor was he consult"ed on such an extraordinary measure, which "considering all things, he thinks highly "impolitic and injudicious. The public have "to thank that gentleman for his discernment a few years ago, when the whole "trade wanted to advance the price of that necessary beverage, and which he stoutly "resisted for four years, till a new duty took "place." Whether Mr. MEUX did autho rize them to say this, it would be troublesome to find out; and, as to the number of guineas, or of pounds in bank notes, that he might pay to each individual philosopher upon the occasion, that is a matter with which neither I nor the public have any thing 10 do. But, the principle remains the same. We see a brewer exhibited before the public in a way which throws censure on his brother brewers, and in which he appears to think it necessary to show that he was not guilty of an attempt to raise the price of his goods; and, it is evident, that he has been induced so to exhibit himself from an appre hension of being confounded with those brewers who had attempted to raise the price of porter, and to whose persons and property danger might be expected. Whether the philosophers were in hopes of bringing forward many other persons in the same way as Mr. MEUX I know not: if they were, however, their hopes were baffled; and, at the end of about four days, they appeared to be willing to drop their pursuit of the brewers, sending them off with a sort of menace, as in the following article from the ORACLE of the 24th of November. "Every day since. "the triumph of the public over the avarice "of the brewers, we have seen paragraphs in "the different papers, stating, on authority, "who among them were hostile to the pro

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posed imposition, by which it is made dif"ficult to find out who were for it. From "this it appears (some sign of grace) that "all are ashamed of the business."--Having gained a victory over the brewers; or, at least, an imaginary victory, the philosophers seem to have begun to direct their at tention towards the coal-merchants; and with reason; for what is porter without a good fire to drink it by? I shall cite but one instance of the efforts of the philosophers in this way. "Coals! not"withstanding the arrival of upwards of 200 "colliers in the port- the certainty of as

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