he who pays dearest for it, thinks he has well employed the day. We ourselves were permitted to be of the number of purchafers.'

The natural, religious, and political advantages of the Ruffians, as a warlike people, are thus related:

Certain it is, that there does not feem to be any nation fitter for war than the Ruffians. Defertion is abfolutely unknown among them; a circumftance owing to their attachment to their religion, of which they know they would not find even a veftige in other countries. Their patience under anverfity, and untoward events, will bear any trial, as will also their docility. Accuftomed, in their excurfions at home, to change inceffantly their climate; they are ftrangers to the feveral diftempers which new countries and long marches occafion elsewhere; and they can moreover fay with the antient Latins,

Durum à firpe genus, gnatos ad flumina primum

Deferimus, favoque gelu duramus undis.

For comment on thefe lines, you must know, my lord, that it is the custom of this country to throw their children, from an oven in which they are kept a certain time, into cold water or among ice. By this means they become inured to heat and cold, and are rendered more invulnerable to the effects of the weather, than Achilles was to thofe of fpears and arrows. Yet every foot foldier, befides his arms, carries always a cloak, a veftment almost continually neceffary in thefe frozen regions. They twift it up, and pafs it from the fhoulder to the oppofite hip, in the manner that the fword-belt was formerly worn. In Cafe of need they unfurl it, and wrapping themfelves up in it, they fleep upon the fnow as comfortably as in the best bed.

Neither is there need of much cookery here to feed the foldiers. A certain quantity of meal is diftributed among them, and as foon as they are encamped, they dig ovens in the ground, where they bake their bread, which they make themselves. When it is intended to treat them, they have a fort of very hard bifcuit, which they break into little bits, and boil with falt, and a few herbs which they find every-where. The greatest part of the time they are ftri&ly abftemious, because, though difpenfed from the lents and fafts, which engiofs more than half of the year with the Greeks, they nevertheless choose to faft. Such foldiers would have been fit for Cromwell; who, it is faid, ordered a faft to be proclaimed throughout his army, when he was in want of provifions. Allow too, my lord, that Machiavel, who obferved in Switzerland many remains of the manners of the antients, would have found at least as many among the Ruffians, who befides remind one, in fome manner, of the grandeur of the Roman empire. 6

• As

As a farther confirmation of this thought, I might likewise inftance here their firm belief, that they fly to eternal glory in dying for the Emprefs; which answers to the Roman citizen's love for his country: and their dexterity at ufing the hatchet, with which alone they perform things which our workmen would not be able to execute without a great number of tools, in the laft war against Sweden, the Ruffian foldiers built gallies, as Labienus's legionaries did fhips, for Cæfar's expedition to England. Very lately, peafants, to whom it was only faid, "Go to the foreft, cut down trees, and make a thing like this," built a fcore of them. The carvers whom we faw at Cronftadt, cutting out all forts of Arabic figures, in the Anne Iwanowna, were likewife only peasants, provided with no other tools than a hatchet.

In a word, every Ruffian foldier is a carpenter in cafe of need. You fee, my Lord, what great utility refults from thence, from mending of waggons, repairing the carriages of the artillery, making of bridges and fuch like works, which are wanted every moment in military expeditions. It is the whole of this taken together that conftitutes the bafis of a good infantry; and that of the Ruffians, difciplined and commanded as it now is, deferves to be looked upon as the best in the known world. Not fo their cavalry. This vaft empire does not produce horses fit to mount the Cuiraffiers; they must be fetched from Holstein: those of the country are not ftrong enough even for dragoons. In all this part of the North, to which may be added Sweden and Poland, the horfes are fmall, and proper only for huffars.

With regard to light horfe, the Calmucks and Coffacks fill them as abundantly. The government can raise fixty thousand of them; and, though it gives them no other pay than leave to plunder the enemy's country, one may be perfectly easy about their fubfiftence. They are of great ufe to go upon a difcovery, to steal a march upon the enemy, or a change of pofition, and to moleft and harrafs them inceffantly. With all this, however, they often do almoft as much hurt to the army on which they depend, by the ravages they commit. Like locufts, they spread deftruction around them wherever they go, and even their chiefs cannot reftrain them; it being impoffible to fubject them to that exact difcipline, the firft foundation of which is the regular pay of the foldier. The Ruffians think, and with reafon, that the infantry is the finew of an army: accordingly, in the day of battle, their custom is to make the greateft part of their cavalry difmount and fight on foot.'

It is certain that the Turks go to war with the Ruffians at a great difadvantage. The empire of the former may fall, but that of the latter is invincible. It would be impoffible for all the powers of Europe to penetrate into Peterburgh through the

gulph

gulph of Finland: and as Count Algarotti obferves, Ruffia is equally fecure on the part of the Turks. They cannot attack her on the fide of the Ukraine, which is the most fouthern, the fineft, and the most fertile province in Europe; they are fepasated from it by an immenfe defart, where one often goes feveral days journey without being able to find any water. It is true, indeed, that the Borysthenes descends from Kiovia, the capital of the Ukraine, to Oczakow, which is a Turkish frontier; but the cataracts of that river render it next to impoffible for even a boat to go up it.'

The fecond volume contains feveral fpeculative and defcriptive letters, together with an agreeable but fomewhat fanciful account of the empire of the Peruvian Incas: to which our Readers must be referred.

MONTHLY

L.

CATALOGUE,

For DECEMBER, 1769.

POLITICAL and COMMERCIAL.

Art. 9. A Fair Trial of the important Queftion, or the Rights of Election afferted; against the Doctrine of Incapacity by EXPULSION, or by RESOLUTION; upon true conftitutional Principles, the real law of Parliament, the common Right of the Subject, and the Determinations of the House of Commons. In which, two Pamphlets, entitled, The Cafe of the late Middlefex Election, confidered; and, Serious Confiderations upon a late important Determination, are fully examined and answered. 8vo. 2 s. 6 d. Almon. 179.

HE greatest part of this very important trial, contains a strict examination of the principal arguments advanced on the court-fide of the question, by the writers of the two pamphlets mentioned in the title; to which the Author of the prefent elaborate investigation has added fuch general reflections as naturally arofe from his very critical refearches into the grounds of this deep and difficult controversy. His performance is certainly a capital one, and will at least be confidered as one of the principal productions on what is called the popular fide of the debate.

The learned Author admits the right of expulfion, though he fpeaks of it with a freedom which indicates no very great respect for it, in many parts of his long and ample differtation, of near 250 pages, clofely printed. Perhaps he thought the time not yet arrived for laying the axe to the root of the matter; or, poffibly, his view might be confined to the narrower purpose of merely determining the prefent grand queftion, viz. "Whether expulfion, ipfo jure, does create an incapacity of being re-elected into the fame parliament?" A queftion which he has determined in the negative, in a very mafterly manner, on the principles of law, the nature of the conftitution, and tire determinations of parliament. It would, however, be a bold thing to fay, that his arguments are irrefragable. It is not for us to pronounce decifively on a fubject of fo much confequence to the liberty and happiness of this country. But we rejoice

ta

to fee thefe great conftitutional points brought before the judgmentfeat of the public; for, as this able Writer justly remarks, contests like the prefent help to fettle the conftitution, and to fix the bounds of parliamentary jurifdiction: which mot undoubtedly hath its limits, although they do not feem to have ever been plainly delineated in our great political map. But, as the prefent Writer farther obferves, the difputes now fubfifting may tend to brighten the landmarks; and we hope, with him, they will have no worse effect.'

As thefe debates have been greatly puzzled and perplexed by the ftrange work which the writers on both fides have made with precedents, we cannot quit the valuable piece before us, without laying before our Readers, the fenfible and spirited Writer's idea of fuch authorities in general. Precedents I can fubmit to,' fays he, that explain, not that deftroy the LAW. I do not object to fuch as by force of time have made or added to the law in matters arbitrary or indifferent, or where there is no law. But precedents that ftrive with the fundamentals of the conftitution, the only pillar that can fuftain the law itself, be the times or the number of fuch precedents what they may-Thefe, I trust, shall never shake the ftately fabric of this auguft conftitution or loofen the leaft pin of the facred building. And in that light do I fee every precedent that invades the COMMON RIGHT of the fubject; in which all Englishmen have a natural inheritance, the defcent of which, I hope, no time, nor any power, will ever be able to cut off from potterity, for whom, as well as for us, our ancestors redeemed it with their blood.'

Speaking of the famous precedent of Sir Robert Walpole's expulfion, he has the following animated reflection upon it:

It was this cafe,' fays our Author, that first produced this law of expulfion-incapacity, and like the daughter of Jupiter's brain, it was born at full ftature and in compleat armour, fit for immediate execution, more a goddefs of war than of wifdom. But refembling the falfe Deity in her celibacy too, not having been married to the conftitution, it could have no legitimate offspring, thougn fuch another occafion was very fit to bring forth a fecond brat of the fame fpurious breed.

The thing then is reduced to this, that in fpite of all the old precedents now fo much infifted upon, it was the refolution againit Sir Robert Walpole, which both made and promulged this law; and upon that cafe alone, did it ftand before the late determination.

'I must therefore beg pardon to treat that precedent as I think it deferves. It is a fingle precedent, and, i believe, in point of law, a fingle precedent is of no great authority. It is the precedent of times I am not much in fancy with; of a Houfe of Commons led by a Tory miniftry, the enemies of the house of lianover, to whofe malice and wicked defigns against the liberties of this country, Sir Robert Walpole was, on account of his oppofite attachments, facrificed; that the revolution-fettlement of the crown which thofe traiterous enemies of their country were meditating to overthrow, might not have the fupport he, as an able Whig member of Parliament, was capable of giving it. Such a precedent, it is a fhame even to mention in the days of a prince of the house of Brunswick. It were hardly more prepofterous to produce a decision of the Star chamber, as an authority in

a question

a queftion of liberty. The votes of the Houfe of Commons, by which, in the days of the perverfion of the queen's reign, the best friends of the Proteftant fucceffion were profcribed as enemies to their country, might with equal reafon be held up to George the Third as an object of admiration, or a fit prttern to imitate.

But this cafe of Sir Robert Walpole's has been fo much under difcuffion, I will not enlarge farther upon it. If the grounds of the cafe do not fatisfy, the precedent will go for little. It is not one or two precedents, even in good times, without principles, far less precedents contrary to principles, that will make law, notwithstanding what the Author of the Cafe afferts. But one determination in a very bad time, as the end of the queen's reign, and the decline of her glory was; and moft efpecially, an adjudication of a corrupted, difaffected majority of a House of Commons, devoted to a Jacobite adminiftration, and poifoned with notions of arbitrary power; an adjudication opposed to first principles, and deftructive of our prime rights, which are to be read and learned by the most illiterate fubject, in the great, though unwritten code of the conftitution ;-one fuch determination, I fay, will not be fufficient to make a law in defeazance of the firmest establishments, and to rob the fubject of his most valuable privileges.'

Art. 10. The Sentiments of an English Freeholder, on the late decifion of the Middlefex Election. 4to. 2 s. 6d. Dodfley.

This tract, also, is written on the popular or liberty-side of the queftion; and, perhaps, is not lefs worthy of the public attention. The learned freeholder likewife, with the author of the Fair Trial, admits the expulfive power, but does not hold that incapacity or difqualification is the neceffary or legal confequence. He denies the fufficiency of all precedents to justify the power of difabling by a refolu. tion of the Houfe only. That expulfion implies a difability, he fays, is illogical, and unreasonable; and he maintains that it is contradicted by not only the language, but the practice of the Houfe. If he is right in this, it will certainly follow, as he obferves, That Mr. Lutterell is not duly elected for Middlefex; and that unless the judgment given in his favour be in fome proper manner corrected, it will become a precedent of very dangerous confequence to the freedom of elections, which will no longer be governed by the known laws of the land, but by occafional votes of one Houfe of parliament.'

Art. A Vindication of the Rights of Election, against the disabling Power of the Houfe of Commons; fhewing that Power to be contrary to the Principles of the Conftitution, inconfiftent with the Rights of the Electors, and not warranted by the Law and Usage of Parliament, 8vo. I s. 6d. Woodfall.

Another refpectable champion for the rights of the people, in oppofition to what fome have termed the ufurpations of their reprefentatives. He too allows the power of expulfion, though neither he, nor any of the writers pretend to fay, whence it is derived.] But he does not mean an arbitrary power. 'Such a power, fays he, can never be founded in reafon, or confiftent with the principles of any regular conftitution. Such a power,' he adds, cannot exift, even in the legiflature. The legislature is fovereign and fupreme; but it is not ar bitrary. There is a boundary to all determinations; a limit which

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