more willing to sell themselves to the government, and to assist in oppressing and enslaving their independent and less crafty fellow citizens.

TRUTH records that, during the internal and external contentions of those people, the energetic, industrious, and useful part of the community, emigrated to exercise their talents and experience in foreign countries, thereby transferring to them the foundation of their native country's greatness.

TRUTH illustrates that, in the climax of their national misfortunes, all the fences and securities of civil liberty were destroyed one after another, so that public freedom, public spirit, public glory, public prosperity, and often national independence, were extinguished together!

TRUTH reminds you that Tyre fell a victim to its meddling policy-Carthage to its ambition-Venice to the tyranny of its government-Genoa to foreign wars-and Holland to the corruptions consequent on overgrown wealth.

TRUTH admits that your geographical position and territorial circumstances are more advantageous than the territory and position of those people; and that the prolougation of your national inde pendence rests less than theirs on extraneous circuinstances and warlike atchieve

ments.

TRUTH tells you, however, that all the prosperity, wealth, and power, which arise from foreign commerce, are subject to common laws; and that in these respects, without increased caution and wisdom, you are doomed to follow the fate of other great commercial powers, and sink to the secondary rank prescribed by your territory and population.

TRUTH proclaims, that the commerce and power of the British Islands arise out of their insular security, their commanding geographical position, their political liberty, their staple commodities, and the characteristic energy and industry of their inhabitants, all existing antecedently to their present ascendency. TRUTH declares, that, as the ascendency of the British empire has arisen from the gradual and unpremeditated operation of natural and inherent causes, those efficient causes are adequate to sustain the ascendency which they have conferred, without the hazard of wars to assert abstract powers and commercial rights, which did not originally tend to raise the country to its present eminence. TRUTH reminds you, by a never-failing experience, that wars are alien to

the prosperity, and dangerous to the very existence, of those nations whose strength is founded on their commerce; and that public distress is unfavourable to public spirit, and fatal to the energies of public liberty.

TRUTH tells you that, without liberty, there is no security for person and property; and that, without security of person and property, individual industry, the soul of commerce, can never exist in any country.

TRUTH reminds you that, in Britain, the security of public liberty depends on the free and independent Representation of the people in the legislature; and that the security of personal liberty and property depends on the unbiassed convention and full powers of Juries.

TRUTH declares, that public liberty and personal security must be lost to the people of England whenever any consi. derable part of the House of Commons is nominated by the minister of the day, and becomes identified with the exесиtive governinent; and whenever Juries, who are to try questions between the crown and the subject, can be picked from among the freeholders by an officer of the crown, instead of being returned by the sheriff in regular rotation.

TRUTH then suggests it as your duty to hold sacred those Bulwarks of your freedom as the bases of your public prosperity; to treat as public enemies those who dare to impair them; and to despise, as unnatural sycophants of power, those who decry your unremitting and zealous exertions to maintain them.

TRUTH, in like manner, calls your attention to the confusion and uncertainty of your laws, which have been the growth of a thousand years, of bad as well as good times, and of ages of superstition, ignorance, and despotisin, as well as of epochs of liberty; and it tells you that your entire legal system demands a m dical reform and regeneration.

TRUTH tells you that the liberty and glory of a country must be utterly destroyed, if, after the great barriers of liberty are undermined, slavery is made palatable by the corruptions and subjugation of the public press, thereby reconciling the people to their chains, holding up truth and virtue to the scorn of ignorance and credulity, and hunting down and persecuting all the honest exertions of expiring patriotism,

TRUTH declares that the exportation and disappearance of your specie, is symptomatic of the decay of your public

wealth and external power-it warns you of increasing domestic and foreign ditficulties from that cause-and it ad duces that fact as a proof that you ought to have sanctioned, by your voice, those overtures for peace, which have been so often inade to your government.

TRUTH likens the operations of your government, subject to the incumbrances of an enormous public debt-to those of a trader who has issued a large amount of accommodation-bills. The progress of both is sunilar-is attended by similar difficulties-and, unless such anticipations of means are liquidated by timely sacrifices, they are, in both cases, likely

to be followed by similar effects.

TRUTH calls your attention to the principle, that, as taxes on the people cause the people to indemnify themselves upon each other, so it is impracticable that great public debts can be overtaken by any fund growing out of taxes, because the taxes which generate the fund, angment the expenditure of the government in a higher ratio.

TRUTH proclaims the precarious pur. suit and dependent character of conmerce in any country where the passession of currency depends more on intrigue, sycophancy, and factitious credit, than on real trade and capital. It tells you that, in such a country, speculators overwhelm capitalists, that merchants become the humble tools of power, and that the spirit of trade and honourable enterprize inust soon be destroyed.

TRUTH declares, that increased taxes, levied to carry on wars and pay the interest of enormous public debts, have unduly increased the nominal value of all conimodities; so that many of those comforts are consequently abridged which are usualy enjoyed by industry in wise and well regulated communities.

TRUTH telis you that, as a consequence of uncertain foreign relations, and of fluctuations in trade and property, the reward of industry and enterprize is rendered precarious; that the education of youth in trade and habits of industry has greatly abated; and that trade ceases from day to day to present its usual inducements and its advantageous prospects to industry.

TRUTH reminds you that your commercial system has drawn THREE MILLIoss of your population from agriculture to manufactures, and that those manufacturers have no adequate means of subsistance till the restoration of commerce by a general prace.

:

TRUTH indicates that the fluctuations of prices, of employments, of credit, and of foreign trade, demand an increase of sympathy towards your own poor, most of whom have been created by public circumstances not within their controut, rather than by vice and idleness.

TRUTH calls your attention to the rapid progression of the nominal value of all comunodities, at a time when you are without specie; and proves, that to advance farther or to fall back is equally dangerous to your welfare.

TRUTH solemnly proclaims the rapid progression of your annual public expenditure diture within withi twenty years, from 16 to 20, 24,36,48,60, 80, and 100 millions, affording incontrovertible evidence that in a few years it must advance to 120, 150, 180, 240, and 300 millions, provided the currency and the augmented taxes can continue to sustain such accumulating claims.

TRUTH reminds you that this enormous augmentation of taxes is called for at a moment when your foreign trade and your sources of wealth are comparatively annihilated.

TRUTH tells you that your sure means of defence and offence, lie in your great and invincible NAVY; that a mistaken policy and false notions of glory stimulate your ministers to emulate the military establishments of the great continental powers; and that your condition under such policy, is that of the Frog of Esop, attempting to swell himself to the size of. the Ox.

TRUTH whispers that your public ene my rejoices in the policy which leads your ministers to spend nearly a million weekly in maintaining an army in the Peninsula of Spain and Portugal: and it tells you that your best policy, in regard to Spain under a French dynasty, (if it be necessary to intertere in any way,) should have been to detach from old Spain its extensive colonies, and erect them into independent free governments. TRUTH reminds you of the primary objects and principles of colonization; and teaches you to seek no other colonies than islands whose dependence and produce you can secure by means of your invincible navy.

TRUTH tells you that, as the most pow. erful of free people, you ought every where to sustain public liberty; and, in all your alliances and foreign connections, never to support despotism against exertions of the people made to assert or recover their civil liberties,

TRUTH

TRUTH quotes the example of all history to prove that, to maintain your national independence, it is necessary to husband your resources, and to consider your agriculture and manufactures as the primary sources of your public welfare and power. TRUTH declares that no great nation can ever be conquered till its resources have been drained and exhausted by the long continuance of wars; and that the strength which results from the prosperity of peace is the only perfect security which any country can acquire.

TRUTH asserts, that one country has no right to meddle with or disturb the government established in another; it recognizes the peaceful authority of the Chinese and Japanese, to restrict and forbid intercourse with foreign nations; it legitimatizes the alliance of free states with the tyrants of Algiers and Morocco; and it denies the justice or necessity of wars founded on changes of other governments or dynasties, on the internal policy of other countries, or on the reported character of the heads of other governments.

TRUTH solemnly declares, that, if wicked and corrupt ministers of a free people, at any time, involve those people in foreign wars, with no justifiable object; such free people, so abused, are not bound to become partizans in the war of such ministers, which is not a war of the country, or for the country; on the contrary, they are bound to exert themselves to procure the speedy restoration of peace, by all constitutional

means.

TRUTH declares it to be a great crime to carry on war without some assignable cause of sufficient magnitude, and commensurate with the evils of war; and that noue but defensive wars, provoked by notorious and definable aggressions of the enemy, are justifiable in a moral or religious sense.

Such, O my countrymen, are the dig tates of Truth! May they sink deep into your hearts and govern your practices! It is, however, too certain, that such truths, incontrovertible as they are, will find few votaries! Passion, Prejudice, and Pride, will vigorously resist and assail them! Sophistry will employ all its arts against them; and, great Truths as they are, they will be often denied before their authority is established! Unhappily they do not appear with a Royal signature, nor have they the sanction of any Church, or of any Cabinet Council. Their only recom. mendation is their absolute Verity! There

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is, however, this prodigious difference be tween the effect of eternal truths, and the influence of frauds and falsehoods, that at the end of a thousand generations, the former will retain their original force and vigour; while the sophistry of corruption and the tricks of dishonest statesmen are generally detected, exposed, despised, and rejected within the passing year!

Their most active enemies will be those traders in politics and great events who mislead the public, and pollute, by their sordid calculations, all the ordinary channels of Truth. These persons are the conductors of our venal newspapers, a race of people who live upon public credulity, and who foster all the unhappy prejudices and passions of mankind. Never was a blessing so perverted as the power of the press by these corrupt speculators in news, many of whom care not whether they blast and wither half the world, if they can but procure the sale and ascendency of their newspapers.

Such are the struggles of Truth, even in its connection with its grand agent and natural guardian-the Press! Can-we wonder then at the unhappy fate of men, who in different ages have had the temerity to attack public prejudices, aided by no weapons besides those of a good cause? Can we be surprized at the poisoning of Socrates at the roasting of Cobham -at the perpetual imprisonment of Gahlen -or at the martyrdoms of Truth and Virtue, which have disgraced all ages?

Public ignorance, generating prejudices which are humoured by statesmen, cherished by the priesthood, and pampered by unprincipled writers and editors, is consequently that many-headed monster which in all ages has opposed itself to the progress and ascendency of Truth. The first considerations of every politic statesman, are not what would be right-and what would be consistent with truth; but, what is the most agreeable to the public feelings and in what degree can right conduct be reconciled with existing prejudices! He would be deened a rash statesman whose measure preceded, rather than followed, the preiudices of the public; and, if his conduct is measured by any other consideration equally powerful, it is only that of his interest. A public wrong is perpetrated, but the statesman who inflicts it excuses himself by referring to the public opinion and voice, by which he says, he is governed the priest, who often becomes the moral apologist of the statesman,

consults in like manner the prejudices of the public and the Journalist, the echo of the public voice, in like manner consults the public wishes! A concordant result is thus produced at the very moment in which great public errors are committed! Discords may arise, followed by repentance and mutual accusations; yet the mischief cannot be recalled. Hence the Histories of Human Life, and of the Transactions of Nations, are composed alnost, entirely of a catalogue of Errors, Calamities, Repentance, and often of Vengeance, for crimes which arise less from the fault of individuals than from a defect in the constitution of human society.

Perhaps the justice of these reasonings will be generally admitted, and the writer may probably have credit for purity of intentious and moderation of language, in making the exposition. Far be it from him by any asperity of invective to confirm or irritate the prejudices which he is anxious to diminish and subdue by a sober appeal to the reason and good sense of his readers!

Should his arguments tend further to prove the necessity of educating the whole population, as one means of emancipating the majority from the dominion of the prejudices of crafty men-should it tend to rouse statesmen to think for themselves, and to instruct, rather than mislead, those whose interest they are appointed to direct should it develope to pious and well-intentioned Clergymen, the mischiefs to which they may contribute by fostering prejudices; they may probably be led to think that they shall better serve their country, and obtain the more substantial gratitude of their superiors, by enlightening, rather than blinding, those whose mental powers they govern-should Journalists perceive that truth is the most easily maintained, and may, if perseveringly supported, become as advantageous to their interests, as the gratification of the public prejudices; they may perhaps be led to try the experiment for a limited period, till Truth becomes fashionable should it lead the numerous creatures of their prejudices, the primary authors of public wrongs aud errors, to examine themselves in regard to the grounds and origin of those opinions which, at any time, disturb the repose and happiness of the worldshould it establish more correct views of the cause of the overwhelming influence of prejudice, and illustrate the moral phenomena which accompany the rise,

PEDRO

DE ANDRADE CAMINHA was a Fidalgo, descended from an itustrious family in Castile, from whence his ancestor Fernaō Caminha emigrated, in 1367, to Portugal, and was presented, by King Dom Fernando, with the seigneury of S. Estevao, for the services which he had rendered that monarch,

The family of Caminha had, after this event, made frequent alliances with the Portuguese gentry, and was, at the birth of the poet, divided into two branches. Affonso Vaz Caminha, the grandfather, had two sons. Vasco Fernandez, the elder, was Alcaide Mór of Villa-Viçosa, chamberlain to Doin Theodosio, Duke of Braganza, and father of Alfonso Vaz Cantinha, a very celebrated and learned man. Joao Caminha, the younger, served under Affonso de Albuquerque, in India, where he gained great reputation, and, returning to Portugal, was nominated Comptroller of the Household of the Infanta Dona Isabel, afterwards the consort of Charles V. Joao espoused Dona Filippa de Sousa, and, after living many years with great felicity, died on the same day as lus wife, leaving several children, of whom the subject of this memoir was the eldest.

He entered early into the service of Dom Duarte, Duke of Gunnaraes, and employed his time in the cultivation of literature, and the attentions required by his office. Dom Duarte was a prince of extensive erudition; he was a sincere friend and patron to men of ability, and his death was deeply feit and regretted. In his service, Pedro de Andrade, corresponding with some and mixing in the society of others, secured the friendship of the most enlightened poets of Portos gal. Enjoying a hte dedicated to literature, Andrade lived contented and quite unambitious of that advancement, to which his residence in the palace of A prince might have raised his expectations.

* Chief magistrate.