From this and many other of his splenetic effusions, we might be naturally led to infer, that the bard had not experienced from the sex that attention which he claims as his due. The following effusion on WOMAN breathes the language of spleen as well as that of disappoint ment. "Away, away-you're all the same, "Slow to be warm'd and quick to rove, "Still panting o'er a crowd to reign, The beginning of the poem entitled " the VASE," is so equivocal as to have the most ludicrous effect; and thus to mar the bard's object, which is to convey a moral admonition. The merit of the smaller pieces is various as the subjects of them are; many of them are marked by taste and genius; while others betray sterility and negligence. Poets may certainly, by prescription, claim a much greater licence than can be tolerated in prose-writers; but our language of late, has been so dreadfully corrupted by the introduction of new-coined words, and of foreign idioms, that, whenever we meet with either, we feel it our duty to notice them. Thus we would suggest to Mr. Moore, that Penumbral is not an English adjective; and though the substantive Penumbra has the sanction of a Newton, and is therefore tolerated, no other new word can be legitimately grafted upon it. If we have not the aid of scholars in checking such corruptions, our language soon will become a miserable jargon. Strictures on the Necessity of inviolably maintaining the Navigation and Colonial System of Great Britain. A new Edition very much enlarged, with an Appendix. By Lord Sheffield. 8vo. PP. 342. Nicols. 1806. THE first edition of these Strictures was duly noticed by us at the time of their appearance; but the work now before us is so con siderably siderably enlarged, and the arrangement of the matter is so totally changed, and the subject so much more amply discussed, that it ouglit to be regarded as a new production. It is full of most important matter, interesting to every one who has the independence and the welfare of his country at heart. It is divided into twelve chapters, under the following heads: 1. Nature and Motives of the Discussion. 2. On the late Suspensions of the Navigation Laws of Great Britain, and on their Effects on British Shipping, &c. 3. On the Origin and Progress of the Navigation System, and on the Effects which the Suspensions of the System have produced on the several Branches of the Marine, and especially on the English and American Commerce. 4. On the Policy of the Navigation Laws with respect to Foreign Nations, particularly France, Sweden, Denmark, and America, and to the Maritime Prosperity of England. 5. The restrictive Regulations of the Navigation System întimately connected with the sole Object of founding Colonies, and reciprocal in their Operation with respect to the Colonies, and the Mother-Country. 6. The Navigation System rendered of yet greater Necessity by the existing Circumstances of England and of Europe. 7. Further Evidences of the Importance of the Navigation and Colonial System. 8. Consequence of future Suspensions of the Navigation Laws. 9. On the Capability of the United Kingdom and its Dependencies, to supply the British West Indies; and on the Political and Commercial Necessity of maintaining the exclusive Right to that Supply. 10. On Licenses and discretionary Powers. 11. General Principles and Notices of Objections. 12. Recapitulation and Conclusion. The Appendix contains a variety of documents, illustrative of the arguments of the noble author; and the Postscript exhibits some very judicious reflections on the Bill now depending (if not actually passed) in the American Congress, respecting the prohibition to import English goods. The whole subject is discussed with considerable ability, knowledge, and temper; and the premises from which the noble author's conclusions are drawn, are supported by such proofs and arguments as will not easily be confuted. Indeed, to us, they appear irresistible; and we should be heartily sorry to have any portion of the responsibility, attaching to the advisers of such measures as the American Intercourse Bill, and others of a similar nature, rest upon us. It is a most serious, and a most awful responsibility; and, if we mistake not, the period is not far distant when the eyes of the nation will be opened, and, the subject being once seen in its true light, woe be to those who have occasioned the discussion of it. It seems perfectly clear that Great Britain and Ireland, and the American Colonies belonging to the United Kingdom, are fully competent to the supply of our West India Islands with every article of which they stand in need; and that the present system of allowing America to supply them, while it violates one of the leading principles of the Navigation Laws, is highly ruinous to our Ship-owners, and consequently 1 detrimental detrimental to our navy. If this be not a most serious consideration, we know not what question of political economy is so.. But let us ask, in the name of common sense, what has produced this strange revolution in the councils of our country, and in the minds of our countrymen? Whence has arisen the dreadful infatuation which has made us trust for the support of our Colonies to foreigners, rather than to ourselves; and, by so doing, encourage the commerce and marine of an enemy, at the expence of our own! We confess our utter inability to answer this question. Lord Sheffield, in his concluding chapter, after enforcing his main arguments in a masterly manner, and in shewing that in three years, ending with 1797, no less than 1289 foreign American cargoes were entered inwards in the different ports of our West India Islands, presses on his readers the following judicious reflections. "Whatever may be my anxiety to assert the true principles of commerce by discussions of this nature, the recollection of the temporizing and ill considered policy which has of late prevailed, does not diminish that anxiety. Even at this awful moment (January 1806) when so many amongst us look for danger only from abroad, I think I see internal causes, which, if they should long continue, are likely to accelerate the fall of the British Empire. The disposition to sacrifice, on so many occasions, not merely the genuine principles of trade, but also every other conside. ration, to the immediate demands of finance, menace not only the mari. time strength, but the prosperity of the realm. However great may be the necessity of extraordinary supplies, I cannot see the necessity of ren. dering a taxation which is excessive beyond all example, yet more vexa. tious by the odious modes lately adopted of collection and enforcement. The effect of such measures, together with the consequences of immense loans, encouraged by a pampered credit, and deranging almost every thing of public and private concern, impresses ideas which, by lessening the interest which each subject should feel in the State, contributes to diminish national strength, by extinguishing the ardour of public attach. ment, or chilling the generous spirit of defence. "A still greater evil arises from this thirst of finance. We slight the more stable dependence on permanent property, for the precarious depen. dence on confidence and credit; and it is to these, and to a capital, in a great degree sustained by both, that the attention of the times is perpe. tually turned. There may, indeed, be good and sound reason for confidence in Parliament, but the credit arising from that confidence has, perhaps, been abused and stretched beyond the bounds of political prudence; and it should not be forgotten that confidence, and, of course, credit, cannot always be commanded, and that however they have appeared to serve us when less necessary, they may fail when most wanted. " I hope it will not be thought further digressive to observe, that the "At any other time than the present crisis I should add, unfortu nately, as the facility of raising money encourages a wasteful expenditure, and, perhaps, too great a promptness to war." NO. XCVII, VOL. XXIV, T landed 1 landed interest of the country, to which the nation should be accustomed to look for permanent welfare and security, appears studiously to be kept down, and, comparatively speaking, is little mentioned or heard of.That respectable body, which ought to be the first in consideration, and which in its associated strength and talents, would effectually assert and vindicate its consequence, has inertly endured depression which it should not have suffered, and seems to have sunk into a torpid forgetfulness of the necessity of maintaining its own importance. It is obviously the policy of commercial bodies to acquire ascendancy as far as possible in the legislature, and the policy which directs the attention of Ministers to those bodies, and to the monied interest, is equally obvious. The con'sequence of these circumstances is not to be considered as referring to the individual, but to the nation. The representatives of permanent property not having their due weight, and tired out by the length of a session, protracted almost to the autumn, retire from the duty they owe to their constituents, and the most essential measures of taxation, finance, or trade, are brought forward and carried, sometimes with much precipitation, and sometimes without notice * at the close of the session, which, at former periods, would have been investigated with independent vigilance, or rejected, perhaps, with independent energy. How long the landed interest will continue, thus voluntarily, to sanction its own depression, it is not easy to predict. But this renunciation of consequence, and this secession from influence, render it only the more necessary to guard against that management and policy which, on some late occasions, have so freely tampered with the genuine principles of navigation and commerce, as well as the most essential interests of the State. Trade alone may open a source of precarious and fleeting prosperity. But the honest statesman, and the true British merchant, will not be willing to resign, for any secondary views, the high interests of that commerce which, while it enriches the nation, provides a navy for its defence. At all events it must, even at * "An essential infringement of the Navigation Laws was managed with extraordinary precipitation, and without notice, in July 1804.A Bill was brought into Parliament to authorize the export of salt from the Bahamas in foreign American bottoms. Besides the detriment resulting therefrom, to the British carrying trade, the Counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, and that great emporium, Liverpool, were much interested. The Bill was rapidly hurried through the various stages, as the following state. ment of its progress will evince: it was proposed and ordered on the 11th July, presented and read the first time on the 12th, read a second time on the 13th, in Committee on the 14th (the 15th was Sunday), reported on the 16th, passed on the 17th, and on the same day carried to the Lords. It was returned on the 23d, without having excited the smallest attention in either House, and without the slightest reason being assigned for the measure, or the necessity of such precipitancy in passing it. It was not known at Liverpool that such a Bill was even in contemplation, until the 16th, and of course it was then too late to petition against it; application, however, was immediately made to Ministers, to suspend the progress of the Bill, and strong representations against the measure, but without effect." the the moment of actual embarrassment or calamity, be peculiarly dangerous to sacrifice any of those old and necessary principles which connect the interests of the commercial and the military marine, and which once conceded, from whatever weak and temporizing motive, we may never be able to recover." The subject of the Postscript is so highly important in itself, and fraught with such serious consequences to the Country, and it is also discussed in a manner at once so convincive, and in such perfect conformity with the sentiments which, at various times, we have laboured to impress on the public mind, that, long as it is, we shall make no apology to our readers for extracting it. "I had just finished the preceding sheets, when new circumstances occurred to alter my opinion, not of the temper, but of the prudence and good sense of foreign America. I had ventured to suppose that, the policy of that country would have anxiously avoided any desperate mea. sure of legislative hostility, or of embargoes and sequestrations. But it begins to appear that I have indulged on this subject, some delusive expectations. By a recent message of President Jefferson to Congress, and by consequent debates and resolutions, the disposition of the American States towards this Country, has been sufficiently evinced. The Presi. dent, it seems, has complained, that the Belligerents, but particularly England, have been guilty of practices, derogatory to the rights of Neutrals, contrary to the laws and usages of Nations, and ruinous to the law.. ful commerce and navigation of the American States. And he further states to the Congress, that the right of a neutral to carry on commercial intercourse with every part of the dominions of a Belligerent, permitted by the laws of the country (with the exception of blockaded ports and contraband of war), was believed to have been decided between Great Britain aud America, and that in consequence of the infraction of this right, he has instructed the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States, at the Court of London, to remonstrate with due zeal on this particular, and to insist on rights too evident and too important to be surrendered." This message, we are informed, occupied, for some days, the secret meetings of both Houses of Congress, and a Bill of a very singular nature, having been brought forward in consequence, in the Lower House of Congress, it may not be wholly useless to devote some attention to the subject. "The language which Mr. President Jefferson has thought proper to use, on this occasion, is, though general in the terms, obviously hostile in the meaning. But, in the zeal of accusation, he has utterly overlooked the circumstances most intimately connected with the question which he has discussed; and he loudly complains of the grievances endured by the States of America, without, in the slightest degree, adverting to the extreme relaxation by Great Britain, in favour of Neutrals, of the rule already mentioned, of 1756; to the English orders, also already mentioned, of 1794, and 1798, by which so many new privileges have been conferred on neutral bottoms; and to the countless frauds, practised in the very custom houses, and under the very flag of the American States; the false clearances, the pretended neutralization of hostile property, the fraudulent T2 |