can greatly and rapidly be increased by suffering them to trade with one another. Some commodities, now imported by the West Indies through the mother-country, would in this case not come at all to England, but stop in their way from China or Bengal. But the increase of settlers in the West Indies, which would result from permitting a trade with the East, would make up by another sort of consumption for that lost in the form of East India articles. Besides, the eastern tropical agriculture and arts of life would thus become familiar to the western Indies, and be more speedily naturalized there. The charter of the India company not only retards and paralyzes the prosperity of Asia; but of all those portions of our dominion which might profit by its inter

course.

Without acceding to the fundamental principles of Mr. Playfair, we have derived gratification from his book: it collects from various quarters phænomena relative to the history of commerce: it illustrates them by a copious commentary; and impresses them on the recollection by various coloured charts ingeniously devised, in which curved lines describe the fluctuations of prosperity. The titlepage announces disquisitions far more comprehensive in topic than are to be

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found in the subsequent volume. The causes of the decline and fall of commercia! wealth are alone discussed: whereas oge is led to expect a theory of national power, and an investigation of the causes which have led occasionally, as in Spain, to the rise and the fall of agriculture, or as a Italy to the rise and to the fall of literature and of the arts. The author promises speculations as various as those of Mantesquieu; but the fates of jurisprudence, of religion, of military discipline, are ali for gotten, over the tariffs of the customhouse. The style is inelegant, unaffected but redundant; the same ideas repeated? recur with little variation of form in fresh chapters; Adam Smith is a dilute writer, but his expounder chooses to outdo b's fault, and runs into a mawkish exuberanc Time was, when literary epitomizers were in fashion; when a Wynne obtained reputation, by stripping Locke of his dritt less ambiguity and voluminous tautology. Time is, when literary expanders are vogue, and the materials of a pamphlet, in order to be rendered saleable, must be dilated into a quarto. Time will be, when acres of barren paper will be willingly exchanged for a small but fertile garden; and when merit will be meted not by the magnitude but by the quality its efforts.

HAD the law about baking, which passed in the thirty-first year of his present Majesty, included a provision to prohibit selling, or exposing to sale, during Lent, or on meagre-days, oyster-patties and baked custards, lest a superstitious consumption of the same should be made by Roman catholics, in preference to the roast beef of Old England; possibly the injustice of such a law might have been detected by the worthy Deputy. Is it less unjust to prevent a Roman catholic from exchanging his bodily or mental gifts for a portion of that income which the nation offers as a bounty to the soldier, or the barrister; than to prevent his exchanging a part of his income for the food which he prefers? Both are impertinent interferences with the mode of subsistence the most agreeable to the individual. Both tend to narrow the public supply of luxurious support.

The haranguing Deputy bawls out, that

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our religion, our laws, our liberties, every thing is at stake."-By our religio he can only mean the monopoly enjoyed by his own sect (the Bucerist, no doub of holding public offices. By our laws, be can only mean two or three laws which must be repealed to grant prayer of the petition. By our liberties, he can only mean our restrictions on liberty: the catholics ask for the removal, for the withdrawment, of prohibitions: our liberties would be increased by granting their request. This last slang phrase is not merely an idle exaggeration, like the two former; but a glaring, inexcusable, dishonouring contempt for truth.

Next comes an abusive picture of catholic intolerance. A member of the church of England reviling catholic intolerance is a little like the Empress of Rus sia writing a comedy against lewdness, or Frederic of Prussia composing his Antimachiavel. This church has been the

most intolerant of all the protestant churches, and with even-handed injustice has fired from a double battery the bullets of persecution, both at those who believe more, and those who believe fewer, than her thirty-nine articles. Under one sovereign a hundred and thirty catholic priests were put to death; under another, two thousand presbyterian priests had their revenues confiscated, Not one sovereign educated in her faith has yet

terminated a reign of glory; for Elizabeth was a catholic-William, a presbyterianand the two first Georges, lutherans, when they acceded.

The Deputy concludes his speech by saying, "We know in our consciences we shall always tolerate them."--The Deputy cannot know in his conscience what is historically false in fact. Inspiration itself cannot unrealize truth.

THESE suggestions deserve the attention of government: a great revolution is become necessary in our armed establishment: we have not the removable force which the mere protection and preservation of our widely-scattered empire requires. The continent is concreting into larger masses: its enterprises depend on few wills, and Great Britain has been offered by our hereditary foe, like another Poland, as the quarry of partition. Navies are not a sufficient pledge for independence, habits of military service must pervade the mass of our populousness: and armies far more numerous than heretofore must be made a standing disposable force.

This will endanger our liberty. Submit then. Our independence is a higher care. But measures may be taken to render standing armies compatible with free constitutions. The venality of commissions, though in other respects mischievous, his the merit of connecting the army with the property of the country, and thus with the class most interested in the observation of justice, to the security of which liberty is essential. If rights of suffrage were the recompence of long service, there would be a tendency in the soldiery to defend such rights. The patronage of the army could be transferred to committees of the senatorial bodies. A larger proportion of independant rank, of rank resulting from mere seniority of service, might be tolerated; and the old officer, instead of selling his resignation to his successor, might have specific claims on the state.

After all, is it not a prejudice to suspect that large standing armies tend to strengthen the monarchic branch of any constitution? Did the army side with Charles 1. Did the army side with James II.? Did the army side with Louis XVI. Has the power of Bonaparte been endangered by any disaffection but that of the army? The imperial dynasty

of Rome was often changed by the army. The whig jealousy of a standing army may well have arisen, from a suspicion that the intruded dynasty would be dismissed in its turn, by a powerful native force. Military revolutions always enthrone the best general. If any power in the community can limit the arbitrium of the chieftain of the armed strength of a country, it is that of an hereditary nobility: they alone constitute a force which cannot be cashiered by dispersion. Representatives of the people vanish before military usurpation; not so patrician families: if the House of Commons never repeats the blunder of voting the House of Lords useless, military usurpations are not to be dreaded.

At all internal risks, let us improve our army. A prudent alteration is proposed at page 22 :·

"It appears to me advisable to divide enlistments into the regular service into three ed, should complete a species of twenty-four distinct voluntary periods, which, when unityears, or that period of a soldier's life which intervenes between his sixteenth and his fortyfirst year. I would place the whole of the army, which is now serving, upon the first period. This should be for ten years; and I would in future cause all recruits to be enlisted for that period. I would establish a second period, which should be for eight years, and self previous to the close of his first period. for which period a soldier may enroll himOn entering the second period, he should receive a half bounty, and, whilst serving in it, should have an addition to his pay, and bear some distinguishing mark on his dress. Previous to the close of the second period, a soldier should have the option of re-engaging for the third and last period, which I would term exceed six years. I recommend that this the veteran's service, and which ought not to period be likewise accompanied by pay and distinction on dress additional to the preceding. The soldier who shall have completed his third period of uninterrupted ser

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vice (for to this condition alone would I attach the advantage either of period or pension), should become entitled to half-pay for the remainder of his life, according to the rank which he may have held at the time of his discharge, or served under during the greater part of his third period. I would, moreover give every soldier, who is now in the regular army, credit towards his pension for as many years as he may have already served uninterruptedly, and when the twentyfourth shall be completed, place him on the half-pay list, although he may not have gone through his three periods, according to this regulation.

For the cavalry and artillery I would prolong the first period by two years, deducting them from the second; the additional time is in the first instance requisite for the instruction which is peculiar to those services.

"I conceive that the whole of these pensions may be borne on the Chelsea funds, but not necessarily the only bounty which issues from that institution, it being understood that extraordinary cases of service, wounds, or loss of health, shall entitle such soldiers as may be duly recommended to the benefit of it, at any period, as is observed at present: my object is to secure to every soldier who can produce a certificate of twenty-four years service, a comfortable pension for the remainder of his life, without his being indebted for it to any thing excepting the liberality of his country, and his own long services. The pension ought to be according to the pay of the third period, and not of the first; thus, for instance, I will suppose the pay of a private soldier in his first period to be fourteen pence per day, in the second to be fifteen pence, and in his veteran period to be sixteen pence per

day. The half-pay will be thus: eight pence for a private, probably eleven pence for a corporal, and fifteen pence for a serjeant, a proportional increase being understood to take place upon the pay of their ranks. When a soldier abroad shall have completed a period, he ought to be found in his passage home, if he will not re-engage.”

The recommendation at page thirtythree, of a levy of boys, merits consideration: the military exercises are learnt with advantage early and might with less encroachment on profitable labour be allotted in volunteer corps to younger lads. An augmentation of one-third in the pay of the middle class of officers is proposed, and the introduction of a new rank of cadet, or sub-ensign, is ingeniously suggested as a form for preparing the advancement of meritorious serjeants, or other non-commissioned officers, into the commanding and liberal grades of the service. A reform in the guards is. for

obvious reasons advised.

A vast enlargement of the regular force, an annihilation of the subsisting militia, and a modification of the volunteers into a stationary militia, seem to be objects of admitted expediency. The police, however, cannot be intrusted to a stationary militia: volunteers would object, in cases of riot, to fire upon neighbours, on account of the permanency of vindictive feelings. The regulars must be at the call of the magistrate.

Against a landed enemy, the regulars constitute the most satisfactory resource, and in case of their defeat, the rifle-corps, who would thin the foreign force one by one very rapidly. But militiamen and volunteers can seldom be brought to such a state of discipline, while in their semicivil capacity, as to be entirely relied on for formal warfare and pitched battles. The great use of such associations is to drill and train men who may afterwards be regularized. The exemption from ballot was a strange inconsistency in the volunteer system, and has gradually stocked the corps precisely with those who shun

real service. One proposal of this officer deserves notice.

"If I might venture to suggest any thing, (which I do with great diffidence) that may, in my opinion, contribute to tactical improvement, I would recommend that the mode of formation should be always in three ranks; and that the third rank consist of pikemen, whose pikes, in the act of charging, should range with the bayonets of the line in front. The impulse arising from this method of forming would be irresistible, as the steadiness of the front rank, from a confidence of their being so well supported, would so increase the momentum of the charge, as to bear defensive weapon against cavalry, is so far down all before it. The pike, likewise, as a preferable to the bayonet, as its length would keep the horseman at such a distance that he could make little or no use of his sword."

Much verbiage occurs about sir Robert Wilson's pamphlet and the battle of Zama: and much just praise of the earl of Moira.