wish that the people should be difpofed or taught to confider reform and revolt as fynonymous terms, muft find it a difficult task to prove that he is not an advocate for the perpetuation of abufes in the admi. niftration of the British government. We are ready to agree with Mr. M. that too much care cannot be taken of internal peace, the prefervation of which is one of the great ends of government: but, at the fame time, it ought to be allowed that, dear and valuable as it must be to every well-meaning man in fociety, there are things which ought not to be facrificed to it. If the dread of endangering public tranquillity were a fufficient ground for rejecting every measure by which it might be endangered, the British conftitution either had never existed, or had long fince perished; we never should have heard of magna charta, the revolution, nor the bill of rights; and we might at this moment be groaning under the defpotifm of a Stuart, inftead of breathing freely under the mild fway of a limited monarch of the houfe of Brunswick. To put this matter in a fair point of view, we would ask this one plain queftion; is there any ground for reform in our Constitution: If there be, why fhould men fet their face againft it? Because, forfooth, there are perfons who, under colour of reforming, would pull down the whole fabric. This is a very poor reason for refifting reform. Can any man with decency fay, it would be proper in us to refufe to do what ought to be done, merely because there are certain persons who might want us to go farther, and do what ought not to be done? We scarcely know on which defcription of men we should pafs the greater cenfure, as endangering the public peace, those who refufe to do what is right, or those who aim at carrying meafures that are evidently wrong. Man fhould begin by doing his duty; if bad confequences enfue, his confcience is clear; and in the eyes of God and man he cannot be refponfible for them.

We agree with Mr. Miles in every thing that he fays in fupport of monarchy and the House of Peers as integral and effential parts of our conflitution: but we prefume that he was not ferious when he told us, page 16, that it is in fact, the nation that confers, the peerages.' The king indeed may be faid, as the hereditary reprefentative of the nation, to act in its name; and thus in theory it might be admitted that what is done by the agent is done by thofe in whofe name or in whofe behalf he acts: but are theory and practice united on this point, refpecting grants of peerages? The man who will take the trouble of opening the red book, and of running over the lift of Peers, will foon be able to determine whether it was the voice of the nation that called them all to the Upper House.

In page 107, Mr. M. appears to have loft fight of Lord Stanhope; for he there begins an invective against Mr. Burke, the most bitter that we ever read. To account for this virulent attack on a man who has been the great leader in the caufe in which our author is himself engaged, is beyond our power. Thefe two gentlemen feem to agree fo well in general principles, that we are really furprised to find that what ftrikes us as a very flight difference fhould be productive of fo much violence: one might well be tempted to fufpect that, the apparent caufe being inadequate to fuch an effect, there is fomething more in the bufinefs than meets the eye. Mr. M. is an advocate

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for the prefervation of the monarchy, the peerage, the church eftablishment, and property; fo is Mr. Burke: Mr. M. charges the French with abfurdity in the formation of the fyftem of constitution which they established; fo does Mr. Burke: Mr. M. reproaches the revolutionists with injuftice to the nobles and clergy, and with barbarities fhocking to human nature, exercifed on all defcriptions of perfons; fo does Mr. Burke. Mr. M. condemns the conduct of various clubs in England, and imputes to them motives which they dare not avow; fo does Mr. Burke. Thus far they are fighting on the fame fide, and engaging one common foe. In what do they chiefly differ? In their opinion of the principles of Monf. de la Fayette. Mr. M. thinks that gentleman a hero, the champion of liberty, and a model of patriotifm; Mr. Burke thinks that many of the calamities which have defolated France may be imputed to him. Is it poffible that a difference on fuch a topic, without the concurrence of fome other cause or motive, not ftated to the public, could induce Mr. M. to attack not merely the political but the moral character of Mr. Burke and to treat both with an afperity which we believe to unexampled in the annals of party invective? He calls Mr. Burke a man who is always in the extremes, and whofe whole life is little elle than a series of contradiction, abfurdities, and impudence—a man of brutal infolence, raifed into confequence more by favour than by merit; and whofe whole life exhibits, in ftrong colours, a tissue of all the meanneffes which degrade our common nature.

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It is proved, (fays Mr. M.) in a publication which I have avowed, though my name is not affixed to it, that Mr. Burke has as little refpect for truth, as he has for humanity in affliction..... It is not private hiftory that I mean to inveftigate; but the impudent profligacy and arrogance of a man in public life, who has the effrontery to hold himfelf out as a model of loyalty. Faulty, reprehenfible, and marked by an infinity of low cunning, as his private life may be, it is beneath my cenfure or regard. I will not conjure from the filent manfions of the dead, the ghofts of departed friends! Peace to the venerable fhades of Saunders, Rockingham, and Reynolds! Peace to the haplefs injured fhades of Verney and Hargrave, let them fleep in quiet; they can neither be cozened nor IMPEACHED! I will not rake among their ashes, left I fhould be compelled to call for Civet to fweeten my imagination. Surely, a little oil to foften the afperity of his invective might be of fome ufe to Mr. M.! In this attack on Mr. Burke, he appears to us to have gone lengths which nothing can justify; and to have ufed language for which even the ftrongest perfonal provocation could fcarcely be confidered as an excufe. What could have been his inducement, we confefs, we are not able to difcover in the letter before us. We have nothing to do with the characters of individuals, except in as much as it would give us pleasure to find great men good, and pain to find them bad: it is not, therefore, from any particular intereft in the character of Mr. Burke that we condemn, in the moft unequivocal manner, the violent attack which Mr. M. has made on it in his long note, which fills nearly 17 pages of the tract now under our confideration. As to Mr. B.'s private character, we know not what Mr. M. has to do with it; if Verney and Hargrave REV. SEPT. 1794.

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were ever injured in their property, did they not leave behind them executors that could apply for redress, and courts of law that could grant and enforce it? Have these perfons commiffioned Mr. M. to act in their name, and to proceed by way of libel, inftead of a legal procefs? Surely not; they knew better what belonged to justice, to themselves, to the party against whom the bitter infinuation is made, and to the public, Mr. M. obliquely condemns the impeachment of Mr. Haftings, and fpeaks of it as difreputable to Mr. Burke. Here the cenfure extends farther than Mr. M. seems to be aware; for it reaches the last House of Commons that voted it, the present House of Commons that declared it had not abated by the diffolution of parHament, and refolved that it should be continued; and alfo the prefent minister and his colleagues, who argued for and concurred in the original vote for the impeachment, and in the fubfequent declaration that it had not abated, but should be continued, and be conducted by the fame managers.

Mr. M. undertakes to prove that the prefent war was unavoidable on our part; that France had refolved at all events to break with us; and that those perfons, with whom minifters are blamed by fome for not having treated, had no power whatever to treat with our government. This is a point of great importance to be cleared up; as on it depends the juftification or condemnation of the British Cabinet on the great question of peace or war. The readers of this pamphlet will perceive that the evidence here adduced refts on the credit of Mr. M. who vouches for the authenticity of a letter to him from Monf. Maret; and that there is one circumftance which corroborates it; for he reminds Lord Stanhope that he one night met his Lordship at M. Maret's apartments in Portman-fquare; from which it would appear that our author was in habits of intimacy with this fuppofed negotiator. We will make no farther obfervations on the subject, but leave Mr. M. in the full enjoyment of the honour which he will gain by the converfion of Lord S.-fhould he be able, by the energy of his arguments and the politeness of his addrefs, to feduce his Lordship into a renunciation of his political principles.

Art. 25. A fhort Expofition of the Important Advantages to be derived by Great Britain from the War, whatever its Iffue and Succefs. By the Author of " A Glimpse Through the Gloom." 8vo. is. Owen. 1794.

In our Review for June we had an opportunity of appreciating the talents of this author, when we gave an account of his " Glimpse through the Gloom;" and the prefent performance affords us no ground for altering the judgment which we then formed of them. Abilities he certainly poffeffes: but the liveliness of his imagination, and the ardour with which he purfues his object, make him frequently overlook the paths which prudence would point out, and betray him into inconfiftencies fo obvious and glaring, that it is aftonishing how they could escape his obfervation.

In his "Glimpfe through the Gloom," he was decidedly against that fpecies of warfare in which we, as a maritime people, could moft effectually employ our force both for annoying the enemy, and fecuring advantages to ourselves. "Away, at all rates, (faid he in that work,) with

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foreign colonial conquefts: if our object be to bring France to reason, France is only vulnerable in France." It is evident from this that he then thought a land war was moft conducive to the end for which we had drawn the fword:-but now he has changed his mind, and recommends naval operations as best suited to our infular fituation, and as moft likely to weaken France on the element on which alone she could be truly formidable to us, and to fecure to us incalculable commercial advantages, by vefting us with the uncontrolled dominion of the sea. It is his former opinion that we reject; the latter we applaud, as founded in that policy which has raised this country to enviable greatnefs. Let us confider the fea as our chief, if not the only theatre, on which we are calculated to act a great part in the face of nations; and whatever government may prevail in France, we shall have nothing to fear from it :-but be it remembered at the fame time that, if we wish to pursue our commercial career with as little interruption from war as poffible, we must never lofe fight of moderation; let not our profperity make us haughty and overbearing; let us not grafp at too much, left we should provoke other powers to unite against us, and fhould meet the fate of the dog in the river, who, not satisfied with the poffeffion of a real good, loft it in attempting to procure what he falfely thought a greater: a fhadow instead of the fubftance. Were it to be understood in Europe that what the author, in the fervor of his zeal for his country's prosperity, recommends to minifters was to be the fyftem of our government, we fear it would raife up a confederacy against England not lefs formidable than that which is at prefent acting against France :-but, as the author's object will be beft explained in his own words, we lay before our readers the following extract:

But what is most effentially important to our interests, is the feizure of the precife moment to wither the naval ftrength of France, to burn her fleets to the water's edge, to obliterate every veftige of her commerce on the path of the fea, to fland its uncontrolled and unrivalled mafter, and to bear away, for the next century at least, the monopoly of the world, and virtually of the world's empire with it.

Hæ erunt tibi artes.

This is a work of ambition, truly worthy the British mind: here is interest upon intereft, for millions upon expended millions; yet thank God, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the expences of the war have not hitherto been felt; we feel no twinges, nor make wry faces as yet, and I think while we give credit to Miniftry, in this refpect, we fhall not withhold our acknowledgments for thofe motives to the war, of finking our only commercial rival in the duft, and bending and blending the force of other powers to effect this our great defign, that "we may get the ftart of the majestic world, and wear the palm alone."

That the complete annihilation of the French navy may be a defirable object to Englishmen we will take as granted: but we may be permitted to doubt whether fuch an event would be viewed with a favourable eye by the other powers of Europe. Commercial monopolies in any ftate are thought to be injurious to the members even of that ftate; and, on the fame principle, it must be injurious to many na

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tions, that any one among them should poffefs a monopoly of trade which would leave all the others at its mercy; and confequently we ought not to fuppofe that they would confent to countenance the rife of fuch a monopoly in England, ftill lefs to become our inftruments in eftablishing it. Indeed our author appears in one place to be not only aware of the poffibility of the jealoufy of other states being excited at the profpect of our fuccefs which might lead to fuch a monopoly, but even to think that it is actually roufed in fome places, and planning measures to defeat our views. Already, (fays he,) have the maritime powers of Europe and America taken the alarm, and, jealous of the paramount tranfcendency of Great Britain, are in effect combining with France to fet limits to our vast, but just ambition. Ruffia, Sweden, Denmark, Genoa, and other states, that fain would deny their deeds, but dare not, are so far from affording aid to the common caufe, that they are fecretly fapping and undermining, by armed neutralities, and other fnaky pretences, our very foundations of commercial power.' Let us afk the author if it would be wife in us to provoke all the reft of Europe to join with those powers? Whether the univerfal monarchy of trade, if we may use the term, be not in its nature more alarming to all mankind, than the universal monarchy of power to which Lewis XIV. afpired, and which drew on France the arms of all her neighbours, and reduced her to the humiliating neceffity of fuing for peace at the hands of thofe on whofe necks the had endeavoured to place a yoke? To be profperous, and to continue to be fo, we must fell to willing cuftomers; and as long as our immense capital, and the induftry and ingenuity of our manufacturers, enable us to fend into foreign markets a better and cheaper affortment of goods than any rival nation can oppofe to it, we fhall enjoy a monopoly in effect, and enjoy it, not in confequence of the dread of our naval thunder, which would be a precarious tenure, but by the freewill of ftates which would buy of us from choice, because no other people could fupply them on fuch advantageous terms.

We are forry to find that in politics this writer is a very Machiavel. The moral, (he obferves,) will very incompetently apply to the political code, and ill muft it fare with the nation that acts rigidly upon the fquare; honefty, to a certain degree, may be the best public policy, but not to the extent to which the individual will act as wifely as rightly to pursue it. Obvious intereft is the national ftimulus and main spring of action, and the glofs and varnish of the most virtuous proclamation ill conceals the blude-red" colours of war, or the unmuzzled monfter would never be let loofe at all upon the world. Every old bawd has the cant of virtue upon her tongue when the object is its ruin and deftruction.' On this principle, drawn from the Machiavelean school, we will make no comment, but leave it entirely to the feelings of our readers.

We would here have clofed our review of this work, if we did not think it advisable, before we difmiffed the fubject, to correct an error into which the author has fallen; for this purpo.e, we fubjoin the following extract, and obfervations on it:

This is indeed a glorious epoch, I fhould blush to compare it with the most boafted reigns of other times; the best were bad and bloody,