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ARMATA: 
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 
 • 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1817. 
 
London : Printed by C. Rowoitli, 
 
 ljell-yard, Tewple-bai. 
 
1ST 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 When Galilreo discovered the phases of Venus 
 through his telescope, he was cast into prison 
 b} 7 the tribunal of the Inquisition. — He was cast 
 into prison, as Milton in his Areopagitica has 
 well described it, only for differing in astro- 
 nomy from the Franciscan and Dominican 
 monks. — Imperfect as the state of science was 
 in the age of that great philosopher, it was 
 nevertheless believed to be at its fullest ma- 
 turity, and it has always been so considered 
 from Noah's flood to the present hour ; the 
 pride of man will scarcely enable him to accept 
 the most manifest evidence of his senses, when 
 brought into collision with the most manifest 
 errors which time has sanctioned ; and until 
 ignorance shall be fairly pushed from her stool 
 by the main force of truth, she will continue 
 
 B tO 
 
( 2 ) 
 
 to sit staring like an idioj, worshipping the 
 shapeless phantoms of her own blind creation. 
 This is so universally true, that even in this 
 &ra of comparative light, I expect, for a 
 season at least, to find hut little credit for 
 my discovery of a New Land, because I cannot 
 lay down its position on any accredited map ; 
 geographers having decided and certainly almost 
 supported by the fact, that we know as per- 
 fectly every spot of considerable magnitude 
 upon the earth, as I can now see the dots 
 over the i's whilst I am writing. When on 
 my return therefore to England, I first men- 
 tioned my discovery of a New Island, connected 
 too with continents of immense extent, I was 
 immediately asked, in a mixed tone of confi- 
 dence and derision, in what latitudes and lon- 
 gitudes they were all placed? — If I had an- 
 swered at once, without preface or explanation, 
 that they were in no latitudes or longitudes, 
 being as I conceived no parts of the earth's sur- 
 face, I admit that I might have been fairly set 
 down as a lunatic or an impostor, because 
 
 truth, 
 
( 3 ) 
 
 truth, when it breaks in too suddenly, con- 
 founds the understanding, as vision is over- 
 powered by a sudden burst of light. I thought 
 it best therefore for the moment to practise an 
 evasion, and answered, as the truth indeed was, 
 that I had been obliged to commit myself to 
 the waves from a sinking vessel ; that there being 
 more brass than wood on my quadrant, I could 
 not venture to use it as a raft to save me ; and 
 that if I had hung my time-piece round my 
 neck, I should from its weight have only dis- 
 covered the longitude of the bottom. Well, 
 then, said a profound philosopher, waving for 
 the present all localities, let us know something 
 at least of this famous Terra Incognita. — No, 
 Sir, I replied, you will soon, I believe, be 
 looking for it through your telescope. I re- 
 solved, in short, to shut myself up in silence 
 until I addressed myself, as I now do, to the 
 whole public of this great country, and through 
 that public to the whole civilized world. 
 
 b 2 CHAP- 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In which the Author gives an Account of his outward Voyage 
 and Shipwreck. 
 
 I sailed from New York on the 6th of Septem- 
 ber, 1814, in the good ship Columbia, which 
 never returned to any part of the United 
 States, nor, until this publication, was ever heard 
 of in any kingdom of the world. We were 
 bound to China by the way of New South 
 Wales, and as our voyage for nearly three months 
 was prosperous and without unusual accident, 
 I pass it by altogether. — On the 10th of Fe- 
 bruary a storm arose, which soon increasing 
 to a hurricane, accompanied with the most tre- 
 mendous thunder and lightning, our ship, by 
 the pressure of the one and the stroke of the 
 other, became in a few hours an unmanageable 
 wreck, her rudder being torn away, and her 
 masts levelled with the decks. For nearly a 
 month from that period a journal would be 
 
 dismal 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 dismal and uninteresting, as we drifted with 
 every change of wind or current over a track- 
 less ocean ; except that astronomy having been 
 rather a passion than a study from my earliest 
 youth, I carefully noted every day at noon, by 
 my quadrant and time-piece, our forlorn posi- 
 tion ; a precaution which I shall always con- 
 sider as the most fortunate circumstance of 
 my life. The particulars, however, are omitted: 
 a seaman's log-book would, I suppose, have 
 but an indifferent sale in Bond Street. 
 
 On the 16th of March, after full day had risen 
 upon us, we found ourselves as it were over- 
 taken by a second night. — The sea was con- 
 vulsed into whirlpools all around us, by the ob- 
 struction of innumerable rocks, and we were 
 soon afterwards hurried on by a current, in no 
 way resembling any which navigators have re- 
 corded- We felt its influence under the shadow 
 of a dark cloud, between two tremendous 
 precipices overhanging and seemingly almost 
 closing up the entrance which received us. Its 
 
 b 3 im- 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 impetuosity was three times greater, at the least, 
 than even the Rapids above the American Nia- 
 gara, so that nothing but its almost incredible 
 smoothness could have prevented our ship, 
 though of five hundred tons burthen, from being 
 swept by it under water, as our velocity could 
 not be less, at the lowest computation, than 
 twenty-five or rather thirty miles an hour. The 
 stream appeared evidently to owe its rapidity to 
 compression, though not wholly to the compres- 
 sion of land, its boundary on one side, if boun- 
 dary it ought to be called, appearing rather like 
 Chaos and Old Night; and what was most 
 striking and extraordinary, we could see from the 
 deck, not above two ships' length from us, another 
 current running with equal force in the op- 
 posite direction, but separated from our's by 
 pointed rocks, which appeared all along above 
 the surface, with breakers dashing over them. 
 Neither of the channels, as far as my eye could 
 estimate their extent, were above fifty yards 
 wide, nor at a greater distance from each other, 
 and they were so even in their directions, that 
 
 we 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 we went forward like an arrow from a bow, 
 without the smallest deviation towards the rocks 
 on one side, or the dreary obscurity on the other. 
 
 In this manner we were carried on, without 
 the smallest traceable variation, till the 18th of 
 June, a period of three months and two days, 
 in which time, if my above-stated calculation of 
 our progress be any thing- like correct, and I am 
 sure I do not over-rate it, we must have gone 
 straight onward above seventy thousand miles, 
 a space nearly three times the circumference 
 of the earth. On the evening of that day 
 which was to become memorable by the 
 triumphant termination of the immortal battle 
 of Waterloo, and which on my account also, 
 though without any merit of mine, will be a new 
 aera in the history of the world, we found our- 
 selves suddenly emerging into a wide sea as 
 smooth as glass — the heavens above twinkling 
 with stars, some of which I had never seen 
 before, and some of our own constellations, 
 which were visible, shone out with increased 
 lustre, though still not subtending any angle to 
 
 b 4 the 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 the naked sight,* while others of our hemisphere 
 appeared more distant, and some I missed alto- 
 gether; but the moon, full orbed, was by far 
 the most striking object, appearing more than 
 double her size with us, and her light, though 
 borrowed, proportionally resplendent. 
 
 I shall not attempt to describe my astonish- 
 ment at this sublime and hitherto super-human 
 spectacle, because having been in all latitudes, 
 and being, as I have already said, familiar with 
 astronomy in its abstrusest branches, I was 
 now fully convinced, not only that I was in no 
 part of the world ever visited before, but that 
 there was something else belonging to the world 
 itself never even known or imagined. I am well 
 aware that the figure and extent of our planet 
 can neither be denied nor doubted; the moon, 
 whilst I am writing, is just touching the sun's 
 vertical disk within a second of calculated time, 
 and moving onward to predicted eclipse; and 
 iu my voyage homewards, I saw the moon at 
 
 * I found afterwards that no parallax could be obtained by 
 the largest telescopes. 
 
 the 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 the foretold moment wading into the earth's 
 shadow, and at last totally obscured. — The re- 
 volutions round our axis and in our orbit mock 
 in their precision the most celebrated inven- 
 tions by which the astonishing art of man 
 has contrived to measure even their shortest 
 periods ; and as the fixed stars, from wher- 
 ever seen upon our earth, must be uniformly 
 visible in the same positions and magnitudes, I 
 could account, at the moment, in no other way for 
 the position of the ocean in which I now found 
 myself, than by supposing we had a ring like 
 Saturn, which, by reason of our atmosphere, 
 could not be seen at such an immense distance, 
 and which was accessible only by a channel so 
 narrow and so guarded by surrounding rocks 
 and whirlpools, that even the vagrancy of mo- 
 dern navigators had never before fallen in with 
 it, they having always hitherto been sent back, 
 like other vagrants, to their original settlements. 
 An unsurmountable objection, however, after a 
 little attention, soon opposed itself to the theory 
 of this sea being on such a ring ; because, though 
 
 from 
 
( io ) 
 
 from its distance it might not be visible through 
 our atmosphere, yet, as it must occasionally inter- 
 cept the sun's body in the earth's diurnal revo- 
 lutions, its existence must always have been pal- 
 pable. The phenomenon therefore may, perhaps, 
 be better accounted for, by supposing that the 
 channel I had passed connected our earth and its 
 counterpart which had just received me, like 
 the chain of a double-headed shot, both of which 
 might revolve around the sun together, and the 
 moon around both, the interjacent channel re- 
 volving along with them. — There is nothing 
 in this hypothesis at all inconsistent with the 
 Newtonian system, which, standing upon the 
 basis of mathematical truth, cannot be shaken in 
 the mind of any reasonable being; but this chan- 
 nel may exist in perfect harmony with it ; in- 
 deed it is no more inconsistent with the round 
 figure of the earth to have such an appendage 
 protruded from it, than it is unnatural for cows 
 and horses, or other round animals, to have tails ; 
 or, to come closer to the subject, than that co- 
 mets should have them, which are now believed 
 
 to 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 to be opaque bodies like our own; but the best 
 way after all, out of these and all other diffi- 
 culties, is to hark back to the fact. — I am not 
 in the least anxious to be the author of any new 
 theory of the earth, nor to rival the justly cele- 
 brated Herschel in the discovery of other worlds, 
 but I am conscious of my own integrity, and 
 cannot doubt the evidence of my senses. — If this 
 sea, therefore, and the country whose shores it 
 washes beyond it, and which I afterwards visited, 
 can be considered as part of our earth, let them, 
 in God's name, be so considered — and if they 
 cannot, then let philosophy and fancy go each 
 their own way to find places for them: I shall 
 stand perfectly neuter in the controversy. — It is 
 enough for me that I possess the celestial obser- 
 vations taken as we entered the jaws of the 
 current, and as we escaped from its dominion ; 
 these fortunate precautions enabled me to re- 
 turn to England, and could at pleasure lead me 
 back again; but the discovery no man can ex- 
 pect from me without a corresponding compen- 
 sation. — If ten thousand pounds were given to 
 
 Harrison 
 
( w ) 
 
 Harrison for a time-piece not now in use, being 
 long ago left in the shade by the still advancing 
 light of British genius, and which after all was 
 only tried in a voyage to Barbadoes — what re- 
 ward may not honestly be demanded for leading 
 the way to regions never heard of, nor conceived 
 in the most romantic fancy, placed for ages be- 
 yond mortal ken, and opening, as the reader will 
 see hereafter, to the discovery of a nation as 
 highly civilized as our own, though differing 
 from it almost throughout in all the distinguishing 
 characteristics of mankind? I am well aware, 
 however, that until my veracity shall be esta- 
 blished by the Board of Admiralty, doubts 
 may remain in the minds of some as to the 
 authority of this history, yet as far as it has ad- 
 vanced hitherto, there is surely nothing in the 
 least incredible. — Even thirty years ago, a man 
 would not have received more immediate credit 
 who had proposed to produce, at his pleasure 
 and at any distances, the explosions of ce- 
 lestial fire; or to rise above the clouds, and 
 pass the channel which divides us from the 
 
 Con- 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 Continent, in a globe of oiled silk ; or who should 
 have staked a large sum to rival even British 
 navigation, by impelling a vessel with con- 
 densed steam against the winds and tides. — As 
 little would any man have then ventured into a 
 coal-pit, upon the trust that the same means 
 employed as a hydraulic engine would clear it 
 of the torrents rushing inevery direction through 
 the bowels of the earth ; and least of all, that he 
 could safely contend there against the most 
 mortal elements of the subterranean world, by. 
 having the magic lantern of Davy by his side. 
 
 But before I leave for ever this imaginary 
 obstacle to the reception of my adventures, it 
 may be as well to give a decisive answer at 
 once to sceptical readers of every description, 
 upon reasons more within general reach than 
 the principles of philosophy or mathematics. 
 It is not known to the multitude that the 
 earth is held in her place by the attraction of 
 the sun, but all the world knows that every 
 man is attracted by his own interests. — If I 
 
 had 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 had written a romance and not a real history, 
 I must be a lunatic not to blazon it in the 
 largest characters even in the title-page of 
 my work. — No human stupidity or folly ever 
 failed so far in the composition of a novel as 
 to defeat its popularity to the extent of at 
 least two editions, which the circulating libraries 
 of themselves take off, without the sale of a 
 single volume to the collectors of books ; whereas 
 no human learning or wisdom employed upon 
 realities can now-a-days look much farther than 
 to an indemnity for the paper and the types. — 
 High reputation, indeed, (a rare phenomenon!) 
 with the aids of hot-pressed foolscap, a broad 
 margin and expensive engravings, may force a 
 passage for history through the libraries of 
 the great, but Novels alone are the books of 
 universal sale. — The only actual historians are the 
 Editors of Newspapers, and bankruptcy would 
 soon overtake even their most favoured pro- 
 prietors, if they were fettered in their columns by 
 truth. This most useful class of men are there- 
 fore shamefully calumniated for their occasional 
 
 deviations 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 deviations from it. — Printing, in a free coun- 
 try, is surely a lawful trade ; and when a man 
 opens a shop, he must of course fill it with such 
 wares as are saleable. — He is not to set the fa- 
 shions, but to maintain his family by following 
 them. The road therefore was plain before me. 
 The discovery of new lands had often been 
 made the vehicle of romance or satire — witness 
 the voyages of Panurge, Gulliver, and Sinbad 
 the Sailor ; nor would the resort to such a fic- 
 tion have been plagiary when the objects were 
 so different, as mine will be found to be. — The 
 foreign voyage or travel is in these cases only 
 as the bolus, in which a medicine for the mind 
 is to be administered ; and an author could no 
 more be considered even as an imitator by re- 
 sorting to a romance, though so familiar, than 
 Dr. James's patent could have been set aside 
 for the invention of his celebrated powders, if 
 his specification had directed them to be swal- 
 lowed in the common wafers of the shop : what 
 possible motive, then, could I have had for im- 
 posing upon the public an invention as a reality, 
 
 since 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 since it could operate only against myself? 
 Perhaps, therefore, in a few years hence, when 
 packets are continually passing and repassing 
 between the twin worlds, and when the 
 gazettes and pamphlets of the country I am 
 about to describe are lying upon our tables, 
 though this volume must then cease to be inte- 
 resting, its author may be remembered, and his 
 memory respected. 
 
 The placid ocean on which we were now 
 launched continued but a short time pacific. 
 We were soon overtaken by a second storm, too 
 like the former we had encountered, the shock 
 of which, from the shattered condition of our 
 vessel, it was impossible to sustain. I shall not 
 weary the reader, according to custom, with 
 any detailed account of our shipwreck. — If the 
 sunken rock we struck upon had been within 
 the reach of any one who shall read this history, 
 I should have pointed out its position, but that 
 not being the case, at least for the present, and 
 as there can be neither improvement nor delight 
 
 in 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 in dwelling on the agonies of despair and death, 
 I purposely pass over every circumstance which 
 occurred from the striking of the vessel until 
 I jumped into the sea and drifted upon a plank 
 within a short distance of the shore. From 
 that time I became insensible, and can there- 
 fore give no account of the almost miraculous 
 manner in which I must have been saved, as 
 not another soul out of one hundred and forty- 
 eight, of which our crew consisted, were ever 
 seen again, except floating lifeless amidst the 
 waves or dashing against the rocks of a lofty 
 and dangerous coast. 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 In which the Author relates his extraordinary and unexpected 
 Reception. 
 
 On recovering my senses, I found myself 
 stretched nearly naked upon a rock, with the 
 spray of the sea dashing over me, surrounded 
 by an immense number of people whose speech 
 was utterly unknown to me, a circumstance 
 Avhich added to my alarm, because my astrono- 
 mical theorems being altogether obliterated 
 through terror, and being well acquainted with 
 the languages of most civilized nations, I con- 
 cluded I had been cast amongst a savage people, 
 from whom I could expect neither sympathy 
 nor protection. — How then shall I attempt to 
 describe my sensations upon seeing a person 
 for whom every body made way upon his ap- 
 proach — whose dignified appearance marked 
 him to be of a superior order to the rest, and 
 who, upon hearing my bitter lamentations, 
 
 addressed 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 addressed me in the purest English, saying in 
 accents the sweetest and most impressive, 
 " Unhappy stranger, fear nothing !■ — The bene- 
 volence of God extends over all his works, 
 however divided for mysterious causes in the 
 abyss of infinite space. — Even in this unknown 
 and distant world He has preserved a man of 
 your own country to comfort and protect you." 
 However impatient the reader must naturally 
 be that I should advance without digression 
 in a narrative so very extraordinary, yet I must 
 pause here for a moment. It is the office of 
 history not only to amuse but to instruct ; 
 to make men not only wiser, but better — to 
 reconcile them to their various conditions, how- 
 ever clouded or disastrous — to impress them 
 with a constant sense of the Divine Providence 
 and presence — or, to describe it by almost 
 a word in the sublime language of our great 
 poet, 
 
 " To justify the ways of God to men." 
 
 The first reflection, therefore, which the 
 
 reader ought to make upon this extraordinary 
 
 c 2 deliver- 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 deliverance from death, and the sudden transi- 
 tion from absolute despair to comfort and hap- 
 piness, is already made for him in the encourag- 
 ing language of my protector; and I am per- 
 suaded, besides, that no person, however unfor- 
 tunate, can look back upon his own life, without 
 having to remember with gratitude and devotion 
 many singular and auspicious conjunctures 
 which no skill or merit of his own could have 
 contrived ; with many escapes from the natural 
 consequences of his own misconduct, or from 
 accidents which cross us even in our most 
 guarded and virtuous paths ; and who has not 
 felt, in the changes from sickness to health, 
 from pain to pleasure, from danger to security, 
 and from depression to joy and exultation, a 
 fuller and a higher satisfaction (independently 
 of the uses of such reverses) than could have 
 arisen from the uninterrupted continuance of 
 the most prosperous condition. 
 
 As there must be light and shade in every 
 picture, so there must be perpetual changes to 
 
 make 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 make human life delightful. Nothing must 
 stand still : the sea would be a putrid mass if 
 it were not vexed by its tides, which, even 
 with the moon to ra h isc them, would languish 
 in their course, if not whirled round and 
 round those tortuous promontories which are 
 foolishly considered to be the remnants of a 
 ruined world. — Marks, as they undoubtedly arc, 
 of many unknown revolutions ; the earth pro- 
 bably never was nor ever can be more per- 
 fect than it is. — It would have been a tame 
 and tiresome habitation if it had been as 
 smooth as the globes with which we describe 
 our stations on its surface. Its unfathomable 
 and pathless oceans — its vast lakes cast up by 
 volcanic fire, and its tremendous mountains 
 contending with the clouds, are not only 
 sources fc of the most picturesque and majestic 
 beauties, but lift up the mind to the sublime 
 contemplation of the God who gave them birth. 
 
 c 3 CHAP- 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In which the Author beca?ne convificed that he was no longer 
 upon the Earth. 
 
 Having been removed from the shore in a kind 
 of vehicle most admirably constructed for the 
 purpose, and laid upon a couch, which my 
 generous protector had prepared for me, the most 
 intense curiosity now succeeded to the pain and 
 horror which had oppressed me, and I entreated 
 him to relate the miraculous events which could 
 alone have brought us together, desiring him, how- 
 ever, in the first place, to relieve those anxieties 
 which the sight of a person from England could 
 not but have excited. — "Alas '."said my protector, 
 with great emotion, " I have no anxieties con- 
 nected with England, nor with the world of 
 which it is a part. — My parents were cast upon 
 this shore when I was an infant of only three 
 years old; they were, as I have learned from 
 my father, in the course of a voyage to the East 
 
 Indies : 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 Indies: but the vessel having been separated 
 from the rest of the fleet in a dreadful tempest, 
 and having, like your own, from the loss of her 
 masts and rudder, been long the sport of dis- 
 tracting winds and currents, she was wrecked 
 at last, with the whole of her crew — my father 
 and mother, and live others only excepted, all 
 of whom have since been called away to a better 
 world. As for myself, my death, from the help- 
 lessness of infancy, must have been inevitable, 
 but for a dog (long since dead) which my 
 father had brought with him from the Labrador 
 coast, who followed me it seems amongst the 
 breakers when the ship overset, and never 
 quitted me until he brought me to the shore. 
 
 Alas! poor *, how much is the short 
 
 span of your wise and faithful species to be 
 lamented ! 
 
 " From my parents I learned the English lan- 
 guage, but little or nothing of England itself 
 or of its history ; as both of them died before I 
 was of an age to take any interest in such sub- 
 * The name of this famous dog I have forgotten. 
 
 c 4 jects ; 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 jects ; and those who were saved with us, were 
 not only obscure and ignorant persons, but were 
 soon scattered abroad, according to their acci- 
 dental fortunes, in an unknown land, and by the 
 course of nature must long since have been in 
 their graves." 
 
 " But your own history," I said, " must be infi- 
 nitely interesting." "Toa stranger, like yourself," 
 answered my kind protector, " cast not only upon 
 a foreign shore, but upon a new and unheard of 
 world, any account of the most illustrious indi- 
 vidual, much more of myself, would be tiresome 
 and uninstructive. Your courtesy only can ask 
 for it now. My name is Morven — my family 
 most ancient and respectable in Scotland, though 
 not noble — that is all I have now to say concern- 
 ing myself. — It is enough for the present, that 
 I have arrived at such a rank and station as to 
 afford you the means of seeing to the greatest 
 advantage a country which, much as my parents 
 used constantly to exalt my own in my infant 
 fancy, cannot, I think, be inferior to it. Though 
 placed as it were a kind of exile, in a remote 
 
 margin 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 margin of this world, — small in its compass, — in 
 its climate disappointing from its vicissitudes, — 
 surrounded by seas not often favourable to navi- 
 gation, and only emerging from the darkness of 
 barbarism in a late period of nations, it soon 
 towered above them all, and has for a long 
 season been the day-star of our planet. — It seems, 
 indeed, as if the Divine Providence had chosen 
 it as the instrument of its benevolent purpose, to 
 enlighten by an almost insensible progression the 
 distant and divided families of mankind, to hold 
 up to them the sacred lamp of religious and 
 moral truth, to harmonise them by the example 
 of mild and liberal institutions, and to controul 
 the disturbers of the social world with an un- 
 paralleled arm of strength ; — may she always 
 remember that this mighty dominion is a trust — 
 that her work is not yet finished — and that if 
 she deserts or slumbers upon her post, she will 
 be relieved and punished !" 
 
 I availed myself of the pause which seemed 
 to finish his preface to what he evidently con- 
 sidered 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 sidered as a distinct world from our own, by 
 asking his father's opinion upon that momentous 
 subject, as I could not compose my mind to 
 attend to any thing until I was satisfied as to 
 my real situation. " My father," answered my 
 friend, "undoubtedly considered that he was cast 
 forth and for ever from the earth. He used 
 often to say so, but his reasons I can only give 
 you from his Journal, which I have carefully 
 preserved, being too young myself to compre- 
 hend them. The book is in this very chamber, 
 and I can turn in a moment to that remarkable 
 part of it." Having besought him to do so, he 
 put the volume into my hand, where, after de- 
 scribing in the English language the extraordi- 
 nary channel nearly as I have already described 
 it, I found the following short sentence quite 
 conclusive of an opinion which but too clearly 
 confirmed my own. 
 
 " When I consider the unexampled rapidity of 
 the current, with its dismal chaotic boundary, 
 and that we were involved in it for almost three 
 
 months, 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 months, emerging at once into a sea where the 
 heavens above presented new stars, and those of 
 our own in different magnitudes and positions 
 than any they could be seen in from either of our 
 hemispheres, I am convinced, beyond a doubt, 
 that I am no longer upon the earth, but on what 
 I might best describe as a twin brother with it, 
 bound together by this extraordinary channel, 
 as a kind of umbilical chord, in the capacious 
 womb of nature, but which, instead of being 
 separated in the birth, became a new and per- 
 manent substance in her. mysterious course." 
 
 The reader will no doubt observe, that this 
 theory exactly corresponds with my own, though 
 more fancifully expressed than by my vulgar 
 simile of a double-headed shot, and I have 
 little doubt that this new and interesting planet 
 will, in all our almanacks, be styled Gemini 
 hereafter, though it is called Deucalia by its 
 inhabitants. 
 
 I cannot describe my feelings upon this awful 
 
 con- 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 confirmation of such a tremendous exile, and 
 entreated to be informed whether any thing 
 appeared in the Journal that seemed to favour 
 an opinion, that the earth might be regained by 
 pursuing the contrary course. " Undoubt- 
 edly," said my friend, and he turned in a few 
 moments to the following passage : 
 
 " The equal rapidity of the two contrary cur- 
 rents, and the impenetrable division between them, 
 co?ivinces me that a vessel in the mouth of the 
 other, at the point from which we emerged from 
 the one we had been involved in, would re-conduct 
 us to the earth ; but having taken no precautions 
 to ascertain its position, guarded besides by 
 natural obstacles of the most dangerous and per- 
 plexing character, I can indulge no hope of 
 either re-visiting our world myself, or of making 
 it a rational object of future discovery.'' 1 
 
 I leaped with joy when I had finished this 
 sentence, notwithstanding its disheartening 
 conclusion, and said to my protector, "You may 
 
 now 
 
( » ) 
 
 now go on with your history ; I burn with im- 
 patience to hear it — I have no fears for the 
 future — your father's apprehensions were well 
 founded, but they have no application to me. 
 He had not employed the means without which 
 no seaman, even in our own seas, could ever 
 return to his country; but fortunately I was 
 more provident and skilful — I know within a 
 gun-shot where the current began and ended, 
 and could find out both to-morrow ; but the time 
 is not yet arrived for it. — My adventure is too 
 important to be thrown away, and indeed if my 
 passage back again were as short as from Eng- 
 land to France, I should with the utmost re- 
 luctance undertake it, as it might separate me 
 for ever from so kind and generous a friend — - 
 proceed then with the fullest account of the 
 world that has received me — I am all attention." 
 
 " Such a narrative," said the friendly Morven, 
 "even if I were qualified to enter upon it, would 
 be of no value to the inhabitant of another world ; 
 it could only gratify a curiosity which your 
 
 mind 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 mind is not sufficiently at rest to enjoy. — When 
 you have acquired the language of this country, 
 it will then be as open to you as to myself, and 
 the best service I can now render you, is to 
 direct your course ; lest, after burying yourself 
 beneath the thousands of volumes which under 
 my roof will be at your command, hereafter, 
 you might find yourself but little wiser than 
 when you began. Useful history lies within a 
 narrow compass, and all I shall attempt for the 
 present will be to give you such a bird's-eye 
 view of the renowned and powerful Island of 
 Armata, as will best enable you to pursue your 
 own inquiries. — When you have the structure 
 faithfully delineated, you will find your own 
 way through its various apartments, and ex- 
 amine their contents as your particular taste 
 and judgment may direct you." 
 
 I could not help here interrupting my friend, 
 much as impatience was on the stretch, by re- 
 marking that the name of Armata was most ap- 
 propriate, having been just wrecked in full 
 
 sight 
 
( 31 J 
 
 sight of an immense naval arsenal, where ships 
 of the largest classes were constructing, sur- 
 rounded again by a mole crowded with a most 
 formidable navy, whilst on the sloping banks 
 of the fortress, by which the whole was en- 
 compassed and guarded, large bodies of troops, 
 apparently in the highest state of discipline, 
 were encamped and hutted. The name of 
 Armata, I therefore repeated, was most appro- 
 priate. " And why on that account ? " said 
 my friend, plainly not understanding me ; a ques- 
 tion which brought back at once to my recollec- 
 tion, that Rome could not possibly have been 
 the godmother to this Island, her language of 
 course being utterly unknown : but such is the 
 magic power of association, even when reason 
 has dissolved the spell. 
 
 " The name of Armata," he continued, " has 
 nothing at all to do with forces naval or 
 military, but is supposed to have arisen from 
 the extraordinary charms of our women; Ar- 
 mata being, in the fabulous mythologies of our 
 
 remote 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 remote ages, the deity representing and pre- 
 siding over female beauty." Here, as the reader 
 will find in the sequel, the appropriation was 
 indeed most perfect; but it must be left to 
 every reader, according to his own fancy, to 
 form an idea of the Armatian women; because 
 not having any distinct characters of form or 
 countenance, like those of France, or Spain, 
 or Italy, or Greece, or Circassia, but embracing 
 them all in their delightful varieties, the poet 
 must drop his pen, and the painter his pencil : — 
 but I must no longer delay your attention to 
 the history you ask for.* 
 
 * Gn my return to England, and whilst I was writing these 
 pages, I was very much surprized to observe in my pocket 
 edition of Johnson's Spelling Dictionary, that our Venus also 
 went by the name of Armata. I had never heard it before, 
 and only found it in an index to this little volume. It passes 
 all understanding how such a coincidence should have arisen. 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 33 ) 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 In which Moreen begins his Account of the Island of Armata. 
 
 "As there can be little doubt that this planet, 
 like our own, was peopled from two human 
 beings, and as from what remains of my father's 
 writings, they seem strongly to resemble each 
 other in all the characteristics of the species, 
 there is probably a great similarity in their re- 
 mote histories. — Primitive man is nearly the 
 same every where, except as accidental circum- 
 stances have had their influence. — In climates 
 soft and enervating, the inhabitants have often 
 been for ages stationary, and the robuster nations 
 have been their conquerors. With us, indeed, 
 they have repeatedly changed the face of things 
 — multitudes expelling multitudes, like the waves 
 of the sea, sweeping away yet mixing with one 
 another, but still preserving throughout all their 
 changes the distinct and original character of 
 one people. The governments of mankind in 
 
 d the 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 the first ages must of course have been pa- 
 triarchal, their numbers being small, and few 
 occasions for contention in an unpeopled world ; 
 but, in process of time, when tribes, or rather 
 large masses came to be in perpetual motion 
 towards other countries, they often found them 
 pre-occupied; and then, as the sparks fly up- 
 wards, the sera commenced of strife and warfare. 
 This new state of a wandering population gave 
 a corresponding character to their societies, 
 which though barbarous, or at least rude, in the 
 outset, became the accidental source in this 
 favoured island of the most powerful dominion, 
 and the perfection of civil wisdom. This may 
 appear to be carrying you farther back than any 
 human annals need be traced upwards, but the 
 characters and destinies of nations are so often 
 dependent upon one another, that it is difficult, 
 if not impossible, to give an enlightened or use- 
 ful view of them, without almost an abridged 
 history of a world ; and however the ancient 
 parts may appear insignificant from having no 
 visible bearings upon their present conditions, 
 
 they 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 they are sometimes, if not always, the sources of 
 the varieties which distinguish them. 
 
 " It is on this account only that I must lead 
 you by paths now neglected and almost for- 
 gotten, into the great road to the eventful period 
 which embraces you as one of ourselves. 
 
 " The policy forced upon those numerous na- 
 tions, as they were in their turns invaders or 
 driven onwards by successive myriads, was a 
 mixture of military command and civil magis- 
 tracy. — With the sword continually in their 
 hands, the service of it became the tenure of 
 their possessions, and in a descending line from 
 their leaders to the undistinguished multitude, 
 they were held together by an indissoluble bond 
 of union, giving law and protection to one 
 another. 
 
 " It must be admitted that the governments I 
 have been describing had a strong tendency to- 
 wards arbitrary monarchies, an opinion con- 
 
 d 2 firmed 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 firmed by their histories; because, when one or 
 more superior dominions had been established 
 by conquest, the lesser ones surrounding them 
 having no common interest to unite them, nor 
 any support from the great bodies of their 
 people, were often overpowered and extinguish- 
 ed : the most popular captains of fierce adven- 
 turers becoming in another age the sovereigns 
 of nations. 
 
 " One of those invaders once swayed by force 
 and terror the sceptre of Armata; but con- 
 quest and the tyrannical abuse of it may lay 
 the foundation of a system of liberty which no 
 courage could have conquered nor human wis- 
 dom have contrived. — Perhaps in this short sen- 
 tence you have a faithful though as yet an 
 obscure account of the origin of that singular 
 constitution which has raised Armata to the 
 highest pinnacle of fame and glory. Great and 
 invulnerable as she now is, she was once sub- 
 dued, and all the monuments of her ancient 
 wisdom overthrown ; but the dominion of one 
 
 man, 
 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 man, however gifted or fortunate, is sure to pass 
 away when it tramples upon the principles that 
 gave it birth. — The successful invader, con- 
 founding his free and fierce companions with 
 the nation they had conquered, the oppressors 
 soon became numbered with the oppressed, and 
 after the reigns of but a few of his descendants, 
 the successor to his arbitrary dominion was 
 forced to submit to the establishment of free- 
 dom demanded in arms by the conquerors and 
 the conquered now forming an unanimous and 
 indignant people. 
 
 " The extraordinary feature of this singular 
 revolution was, that a nation in arms against its 
 sovereign and reducing: him to terms of submis- 
 sion, had the discretion to know exactly what to 
 demand, and, by demanding nothing more, to se- 
 cure the privileges it had obtained. — Thcordinary 
 insurrections of mankind against oppression have 
 generally been only convulsive paroxysms of 
 tumult and disorder, more destructive than the 
 tyranny overthrown, and often ending in worse; 
 
 d 3 because 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 because civil societies cannot be suddenly new- 
 modelled with safety. — Their improvements, to 
 be permanent, must be almost insensible, and 
 growing out of the original systems, however 
 imperfect they may have been. 
 
 " The rude forefathers of this people had for- 
 tunately not then arrived at that state of political 
 science which might perhaps have tempted 
 them to a premature change of their govern- 
 ment upon abstract principles — they looked 
 only to their actual grievances. — They did not 
 seek to abrogate the system which was the root 
 of their ancient laws and institutions, but only 
 to beat down usurpations, and to remedy de- 
 fects. — They seem indeed to have discovered 
 that there is a magnet in the civil as in the na- 
 tural world to direct our course, though the 
 latter was for ages afterwards unknown. The 
 magnet of the civil world is a Representative 
 Government, and at this auspicious period at- 
 tracted like the natural one by iron, became 
 fixed and immutable from the sword. 
 
 " The 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 " The consummate wisdom of those earliest re- 
 formers appears further in the public councils 
 which they preserved. — From the most ancient 
 times the people might be said to have had a 
 protecting council in the government, but its 
 jurisdiction was overborne. — They had only 
 therefore to guard against the recurrence of that 
 abuse, and as the power over the public purse 
 had been the most destructive engine of their 
 arbitrary sovereigns, they retained in their own 
 hands by the most positive charters that palla- 
 dium of independence, re-enacting them upon 
 every invasion, aiming at nothing new, but 
 securing what they had acquired. 
 
 " To have gone farther in improvement, at that 
 period, would not only have been useless, but 
 mischievous, even if the bulk of the people 
 could have redeemed themselves by force from 
 many intermediate oppressors ; because, having 
 most of all to fear from the power of their mo- 
 narchs, the privileges of their superiors were in- 
 dispensible supports ; invested for many ages 
 
 d 4 with 
 
r ( 40 ) 
 
 with the magistracies of the country, powerful 
 in themselves from rank and property, having a 
 common interest with the whole nation, and 
 no temptations being then in existence to seduce 
 them from the discharge of their duties, they 
 were the most formidable opponents of the 
 prerogatives that were to be balanced; and it 
 was therefore the most unquestionable policy to 
 enlarge and confirm their authority, instead of 
 endeavouring to controul a long established and 
 too powerful a dominion by an untried force. 
 
 " From this period the principles of civil free- 
 dom struck deep root in Armata, deeper perhaps 
 from the weight by which they continued to be 
 pressed, the prerogatives of their princes being 
 still formidable and frequently abused. — Per- 
 haps the law which governs the system of the 
 universe may be the grand type and example of 
 human governments — the immense power of the 
 sun, though the fountain of light and life, 
 would in its excess be fatal ; the planets, there- 
 fore, though they yield to its fostering attraction 
 
 in 
 
( 41 ) 
 
 in their unceasing and impetuous revolutions, 
 are repelled from it by a kind of instinctive 
 terror; since, if the sun could by its influence 
 detach them from their force centrifugal, they 
 would be absorbed with the swiftness of light- 
 ning into the centre, and, like the fly allured by 
 the light of the taper, be instantly consumed. 
 
 "The powers given to executive governments 
 for great national purposes, like those given to 
 the sun, ought to be extensive, nor can they 
 be dangerous if they are sufficiently balanced, 
 and that balance preserved upon the very prin- 
 ciple of centrifugal force ; because the existence 
 of a strong government, and the possibility of 
 its misconduct, are the strongest securities of 
 freedom. Every page of the history of Armata 
 illustrates this important truth ; since, in the 
 same proportion that executive power has at 
 different periods become the objects of salutary 
 jealousy, popular privileges have been uniformly 
 strengthened from the abuses, and when at 
 last a grand and glorious struggle to put an 
 
 end 
 
( 42 ) 
 
 end to them for ever was crowned with the 
 justest and most triumphant success, consti- 
 tutional fear, which had for ages watched over 
 and subdued them, unhappily fell asleep — 
 the centrifugal force was lost; — and power, 
 stripped of its terrors, but invested with the 
 means of dazzling and corrupting, soon began 
 to undermine a system of government which 
 the most formidable prerogatives had for ages 
 been unable to destroy. 
 
 " The progress of this renowned people, from 
 the period of their earliest struggles for 
 liberty, to the final and, I trust, immortal con- 
 summation of their political constitution, was 
 slow and eventful, but perhaps on that account 
 the more secure : the safest road from an un- 
 settled government, of any description, to one 
 that is more perfect, being through those almost 
 imperceptible changes by which the character 
 and circumstances of a nation are changed. 
 The Armatians, from their insular situation 
 and enterprizing genius, were amongst the 
 
 earliest 
 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 earliest though not the first explorers of distant 
 and unknown countries; but their humanity 
 and wisdom secured the advantages which the 
 vices and follies of the original discoverers had 
 cast away, and the dominion over new worlds 
 (if I may so express myself) became their own. 
 Their national government could not but be 
 soon affected by this illustrious career : a com- 
 merce encircling our globe with riches in her 
 train, advancing hand in hand with learning and 
 science, which other causes were reviving, 
 opposed by a silent and .progressive force more 
 efficacious than the sudden shock of a revolution, 
 the oppressive pretensions of her nobles, and the 
 firmest prerogatives of her kings, — to describe 
 this momentous change in a word — the Anna- 
 tians became a People. 
 
 " It would be to you most uninteresting, and 
 to me equally painful, to relate the conflicts of 
 those antagonist powers for more than a hundred 
 years, until the ancient monarchy and aristo- 
 cracy, which for ages had supported each other, 
 
 fell 
 
( 44 ) 
 
 fell to the ground in one ruin together; but as 
 a river swoln and impetuous amidst the tempest, 
 bursting beyond its banks and leaving no trace 
 of its ancient channel, often returns to it, having 
 only fructified the country it overflowed, so the 
 Armatians soon came back again to the vener- 
 able but improved constitution of their fathers; 
 they did spontaneous homage to their exiled 
 monarch, and afterwards to his infatuated suc- 
 cessor, till seeing no security in the mild and 
 generous experiment of Restoration, they were 
 driven at last to seek their safety through a re- 
 volution, but such a one as perhaps will to the 
 end of time continue to be unexampled — accom- 
 plished without blood — cutting off only the can- 
 kered branches, but preserving all the others 
 to hold their places in the ancient tree of their 
 liberties: and as the broad leaf and consummate 
 flower still preserve the distinct characters of the 
 roots that nourish them, so the Armatians, even 
 when principalities and powers were at their 
 feet, never sought to depart from their original 
 cast. 
 
 " The 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 " The ordinary occurrences of history pro- 
 ducing no important changes, I have uniformly 
 passed them over, and I am arrived therefore 
 at a period within living memory, which will 
 require your utmost attention. 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 46 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In which Morven continues his account of the Island of Armata. 
 
 ' This highly favoured island now sat without a 
 rival on this proud promontory in the centre of all 
 the waters of this earth, with her mighty wings 
 outspread to such a distance, that with your 
 limited ideas of its numerous nations, it is im- 
 possible you should comprehend. — She was ba- 
 lanced upon her imperial throne by the equally 
 vast and seemingly boundless continents on 
 either side, bending alike beneath her sceptre, 
 and pouring into her lap all that varieties of 
 climate or the various characters of mankind 
 could produce, whilst the interjacent ocean was 
 bespangled with islands, which seem to be posted 
 by nature as the watch-towers of her dominion, 
 and the havens of her fleets. — Her fortune was 
 equal to her virtues, and, in the justice of God, 
 might be the fruit of it ; since as the globe had 
 
 expanded 
 
( 47 ) 
 
 expanded under her discoveries, she had touched 
 it throughout as with a magic wand ; the wil- 
 derness becoming the abodes of civilized man, 
 adding new millions to her sovereignty, com- 
 pared with which she was herself only like the 
 seed falling upon the soil, the parent of the 
 forest that enriches and adorns it. — She felt no 
 wants, because she was the mother of plenty ; 
 and the free gifts of her sons at a distance, re- 
 turned to them tenfold in the round of a fructi- 
 fying commerce, made her look but to little 
 support from her children at home. — To drop all 
 metaphor, she was an untaxed country; except 
 to that wholesome extent which wise policy 
 should dictate to every government, by making 
 the property of the subject depend in some 
 measure upon the security of the state. 
 
 " The prosperity which then exalted her, after 
 all her dangerous divisions had been swept 
 away by an auspicious renovation of her con- 
 stitution, was unexampled, and although she has 
 been thought by some to have risen much 
 
 higher 
 
( 48 ) 
 
 higher afterwards amidst a splendid career of 
 national glory; yet she then perhaps touched 
 her meridian height, not having at that time 
 embarked in an habitual system of expenditure, 
 beyond the golden medium just adverted to, 
 her debt being then no larger than to create a 
 wide spread interest to support the state, but 
 leaving what might be fairly termed the full 
 fruits of industry and talents, subject to no tor- 
 menting visitations of a prodigal government, 
 which can in the end have no escape from 
 bankruptcy but by rendering its subjects bank- 
 rupt. — In the first condition of a nation, the 
 people may be compared to the crew of a well 
 manned vessel in a prosperous voyage, called 
 upon for no exertions but to forward her in her 
 course : the second may be better likened to 
 the toils and sufferings of a tempest, when 
 the ship can only be kept even in doubtful 
 safety, by incessant pumping, when all hopes 
 of advantage are extinguished, and the only 
 principle of obedience is the preservation of 
 life. 
 
 "Un- 
 
( 49 ) 
 
 " Unhappily for Armata, the lust of dominion, 
 or rather of revenue, beyond the usefulness or 
 even the capacity of enjoyment, ensnared her 
 into a contest with a great and growing" people, 
 to obtain by force what duty and affection had 
 spontaneously held out to her. 
 
 " I pointed out metaphorically to your view 
 two vast continents under her imperial wings : 
 one of them, to which, looking southward, her 
 right extended, she had planted and peopled. 
 The inhabitants of Hesperia were her own chil- 
 dren, worshipping with the same rites the God 
 of their common fathers, speaking the same 
 language, following in the track of the same 
 laws and customs which fashion and characterise 
 a people. — Armata, in short, ruled by the freest 
 consent the whole of this vast country, appoint- 
 ed without question all her magistrates, and 
 enjoyed a monopoly of her commerce, not only 
 in the exclusive import of her various produc- 
 tions into her own bosom, but in the mono- 
 polous return of all her own manufactures: 
 
 e which, 
 
( 50 ) 
 
 which, from the rapid progress of population 
 throughout that immense region, was in itself 
 an inexhaustible source of wealth, setting per- 
 fectly at nought the entire intercourse of our 
 whole world besides. 
 
 " Shall I be then believed when I tell you that 
 with all this Armata was not satisfied, but in- 
 sisted that an useful, affectionate, and distant 
 people should pay for the support of wars she 
 had been foolishly involved in at the other ex- 
 tremity of our planet? — Can the human imagi- 
 nation extend farther to the belief, that even 
 this monstrous claim was acceded to? — the chil- 
 dren of a misguided parent desired only to know 
 what she demanded, that they might have the 
 grace of rendering it as a spontaneous grant, to 
 be bestowed under the same forms of govern- 
 ment and under the sanction of the very ma- 
 gistrates which she herself had created for the 
 purpose. — Must I lastly trespass upon, or rather 
 insult, your credulity, by telling you that even 
 this offer was refused ? Though revenue was the 
 
 object, 
 
( 51 ) 
 
 object, the unlimited grant was rejected, and 
 the revenue after all given up to enforce a 
 nominal demand. — Many eloquent and solemn 
 protests of our most illustrious men of that time 
 were opposed in vain to this insane project. 
 The whole strength of Armata was put forth, 
 and her armies invaded a country so much more 
 extensive than her own, that when collected 
 upon its adverse surface, they could scarcely 
 hear the sound of one another's cannon. — Need 
 I conclude by adding that they were all taken 
 like so many birds in the net of the fowler, and 
 the dominion of Armata, which before had stood 
 upon a rock, was renounced by Hesperia for 
 ever — at first in deiiance — but at last, when the 
 combat became manifestly hopeless, dissolved 
 by mutual consent." 
 
 When my friend had finished this marvellous 
 or rather incredible history, you will not, reader, 
 be surprized that I interrupted him for a mo- 
 ment, much as I was alive to hear its continua- 
 tion, by asking only one question. " How," I 
 
 e 2 said, 
 
( 52 ) 
 
 said, " could it possibly happen, that with so 
 celebrated a constitution as he himself had 
 described, and when the people had obtained 
 so complete a controul over the public counsels, 
 they should have suffered so unjust and ruinous 
 a war to be so long persisted in, contrary to 
 their most manifest interests, and in the face of 
 the most enlightened opinions?" 
 
 " The answer to your question," replied my 
 friend, " involves one of the most curious and 
 extraordinary changes that has ever taken place 
 in the political history of any nation. In the 
 earlier periods of that of Armata, though the 
 sovereigns had more power, and the people's re- 
 presentatives were comparatively nothing jn the 
 balance, the Hesperian war could not have 
 been carried on. The delegates of the people 
 would have strenuously opposed it in every 
 stage of its disastrous progress — the whole na- 
 tion would have upheld them, and the govern- 
 ment even, if not subdued, would have been 
 overawed and checked in its impolitic course ; 
 
 but 
 
( •« ) 
 
 but before this period, the ancient system of the 
 government had been completely inverted; the 
 popular council, though in theory scarcely en- 
 titled to that name or character, had for ages 
 fulfilled all the practical purposes of the most 
 perfect representation; because, having the 
 same interests with the universal mass of po- 
 pulation, and nothing then existing to seduce 
 them from the discharge of their duties, it 
 mattered not by whom they were elected ; but 
 the time was arrived when the right of election 
 became a vital principle.— The crown was now 
 possessed of a great revenue, which was ra- 
 pidly increasing, and as the Commons had ad- 
 vanced in power and importance, it was thought 
 convenient by its ministers to act no longer 
 upon their own responsibility, even in the most 
 ordinary details of business, but to take their 
 constitutional opponents into pay and make 
 them ministers in their stead ; well knowing 
 that they could not possibly oppose, nor even 
 censure the measures which were their own. — 
 Neither can it be matter of wonder that the 
 
 e 3 people 
 
( 54 ) 
 
 people at large, though wise to a proverb, should 
 be the dupes of so artful a contrivance. — They 
 had been long accustomed to regard every act 
 of the executive power with the most jealous 
 apprehension, and to consider the voice of their 
 representatives who had never betrayed them 
 as the Law and the Gospel. — When they saw, 
 therefore, the crown upon this momentous oc- 
 casion so humbly deferring to the wisdom, as it 
 was called, of the national council; when its 
 ministers were entirely behind the curtain, and 
 every step that was taken was by the authority 
 of their own servants, they threw up their caps 
 into the air, and poured in addresses from every 
 part of the island, offering their lives and for- 
 tunes in support of the glorious contest ; gifts 
 which unhappily no opportunity was left them to 
 recal, the personal supporters of the war being 
 knocked on the head, and the pockets of the 
 rest completely emptied. — When the illusion 
 was at length dissolved by disappointment and 
 defeat, an universal hue and cry was raised 
 against the whole system, set on foot by its 
 
 loudest 
 
( 55 ) 
 
 loudest supporters; and the minister of that 
 day, a most able statesman, though in that 
 matter undoubtedly mistaken, and in private 
 life one of the most agreeable and amiable of 
 mankind, was attacked without measure or 
 mercy. — He manfully stood his ground ; and, I 
 am persuaded, with a clear conscience main- 
 tained the policy and justice of his administra- 
 tion; but the most zealous of his adherents 
 now seeing the clearest reasons for condemning 
 him, though none whatever existed which had 
 not been as manifest from the outset, and many 
 more finding it impossible from business to be 
 in their places to defend him, though they had 
 nothing at all to do, he was compelled to re- 
 tire; and in a few weeks afterwards a man 
 would have been probably mobbed in the streets, 
 or perhaps imprisoned as a lunatic, if he had 
 been rash enough to assert that the whole na- 
 tion had been otherwise than mad, and without 
 a lucid interval for fourteen years together." 
 
 " And pray, Sir/' I said, " has this system 
 E 4 con- 
 
( 56 ) 
 
 continued ever since?" — " Not exactly," an- 
 swered Morven, "but, if possible, worse; just 
 as a dropsical patient fills in the proportion of 
 what he drinks. — The subject is most interest- 
 ing and important. — The English, from my 
 father's account, must be the wisest of mankind, 
 and, though the inhabitants of another world, 
 their wisdom, through you, may direct us." 
 
 " Wisdom," I answered, " in the pure abstract, 
 can hardly be brought to bear upon human con- 
 duct. — There must be some direct experience, 
 or at least some analogy, to give it effect. — 
 Upon this subject there is neither. — You might 
 as well set yourself to consider what the inha- 
 bitants of the moon, which belongs alike to both 
 of us, would probably think of your condition ; 
 or those of Jupiter, or Saturn, or. of the seven 
 stars that form the Pleiades, if they are inha- 
 bited, and if not, you must be handed on for 
 an opinion to the planets which probably sur- 
 round them, for England cannot possibly assist 
 you in a case which has no reference to her own 
 
 govern- 
 
( $7 ) 
 
 government, nor to any of her own concerns; 
 but, go on, I am delighted with your discourse; 
 only remember that history is a grave and mo- 
 mentous subject, and that wit and fancy belong 
 to quite different departments."— I said this 
 because my friend was remarkable for both, and 
 whether he was in jest or in earnest it was not 
 always very easy to know : but as I found him 
 to be a man of unquestionable veracity, I was 
 compelled to assent to the truth of his narrative, 
 on his solemnly assuring me that he had depart- 
 ed in nothing from the truth. 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 58 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 In -which More en still continvvs his Account of the Island of 
 Armata. 
 
 " This memorable eera in the history of Armata 
 may perhaps be considered as almost the first in 
 which her representative constitution exhibited 
 any proofs of dangerous imperfection. — The 
 crown (as I have said) was rapidly acquiring the 
 administration of a great revenue, and a suffi- 
 cient guard had not been placed upon its influ- 
 ence in the public councils, without which no 
 forms of election, however free and extensive, 
 can secure a wise and prudent administration; 
 but the evil must manifestly be greater when 
 the popular council, erected as the balance of a 
 monarchical state, does not emanate from the 
 people, but in its greater part from the crown 
 which is to be balanced, and from a body of 
 nobles, powerful from rank and property, who 
 are to be balanced also ; and who have besides 
 
 a scale 
 
( 59 ) 
 
 a scale properly allotted to them, in which their 
 great weight is judiciously deposited. — It must 
 be obvious to the meanest capacity, that if those 
 very powers which are thus to be balanced can 
 create or materially influence the antagonist 
 power which is to controul them, the consti- 
 tution must at all events be theoretically im- 
 perfect. — I have already informed you why, for 
 a long period, this imperfection had not been 
 felt, and the degree of its operation, when it 
 began to operate, and as it now exists, ought to 
 be correctly and temperately stated ; because, 
 without a reverence for government, whatever 
 defects may be discovered in it, a nation must 
 be dissolved. 
 
 " You are not therefore to imagine that the 
 portentous war I have described to you arose 
 from a general and wicked prostitution of high 
 station in those who had in a manner the choice 
 of the popular council, nor from a vile corrupt 
 sale of their voices by those who had been 
 chosen, feeling at the time that they were de- 
 voting 
 
( 60 ) 
 
 voting their country to disastrous consequences 
 — this I think has never happened, nor is likely 
 to happen in Armata ; because her people are so 
 enlightened, their various classes are so happily 
 blended with each other, and the interest in wise 
 counsels is so universal, that a clear and general 
 conviction of misgovernment would then and 
 now have an irresistible effect upon the public 
 councils however constituted ; but the great 
 evil is in cases of doubtful policy, which the 
 worst measures in their beginnings often are : 
 and he must be but little acquainted with the 
 human mind, who does not know by what de- 
 ceptious means, even very honest and intelligent 
 men may be brought to view questionable sub- 
 jects in the light that best corresponds with 
 their interest and their wishes. 
 
 " On the very occasion before us it was not 
 very difficult to conceal some facts, and to over- 
 state others, more especially when the matter 
 to be judged of was at an immense distance, 
 and complicated in the details; some had not 
 
 the 
 
( 61 ) 
 
 the capacity, nor many more the application to 
 digest them, and even supposing the case to have 
 been fairly stated, the rule from time to time to 
 be applied to it was often beyond the reach of 
 those who were to decide, and came for their 
 decision adorned with gifts and graces to secure 
 the most favourable reception. — The public 
 effect also of the decision I have already ex- 
 plained to you. — It was no longer the act of a 
 power for ages the object of jealous appre- 
 hension, but of those who for ages had faithfully 
 controuled it, and the judgment of the people 
 was surprized. 
 
 " The period of the delusion you have also 
 heard. — The consequences of extreme mis- 
 government must be universally felt, and the 
 discontents they produce are irresistible ; but. 
 unfortunately they seldom arrive until the evil 
 complained of is beyond redress. The crown is 
 sure in the dubious season to command the popu- 
 lar council, and through them popular opinion, 
 until errors become palpable and destructive, 
 
 when 
 
( 62 ) 
 
 when the most over ruling influence must give 
 way. — This is the real and the only defect in 
 the constitution of Armata; which, from its 
 wisdom and the happiness it produces, casts 
 into the deepest shade the most perfect institu- 
 tions of mankind. — All the separate parts of it 
 are excellent and well proportioned, if they were 
 allowed to stand in their places, hut govern- 
 ment had now hegun to he carried on by a con- 
 spiracy of powers which should balance and 
 controul one another." " How much then,'' I 
 eagerly said, " is it not to be lamented, that 
 when such an evil was first discovered it was not 
 immediately corrected." " Your observation," 
 answered my friend, " is far more important 
 than perhaps you are aware of. — To have then 
 corrected it, or even at many subsequent periods, 
 could not in the nature of things have convulsed 
 or even disturbed the balance of the different 
 orders so vitally necessary for the security of 
 all ; but by having suffered the defect to con- 
 tinue for a long season, its consequences have 
 also increased, and have produced so strong a 
 
 feeling 
 
( 63 ) 
 
 feeling of irritation, that the most cautious re- 
 formation becomes, with every man of sound 
 discretion, a matter which calls for the most 
 impartial and even trembling consideration. — 
 This observation is not, however, intended to 
 convey an opinion that a safe and salutary 
 amendment is impracticable. A surgeon often 
 examines his patient with a trembling hand, 
 when he is considering whether he shall attempt 
 an operation; but when his judgment is satisfied, 
 it trembles no longer. 
 
 " One mighty benefit', a well timed and judi- 
 cious reformation, if it can be accomplished with 
 safety, would most certainly produce. — The 
 legislature would be more an object of respect 
 and affection in the minds of the people, the 
 highest security against a spirit of disaffection 
 and revolt. — It is infinitely dangerous when bad 
 men, who seek to promote revolution by ex- 
 posing the defects of the public councils, can 
 plead the truth, or even any thing approaching 
 it, in their defence. — Positive law may protect 
 
 a strum- 
 
( 64 ) 
 
 a strumpet when her reputation is invaded, but 
 the appeal to it only serves to make her prosti- 
 tution more notorious, and the libeller, when 
 punished, an object of compassion. 
 
 " When any palpable imperfection exists in a 
 government, it becomes the hotbed of sedition; 
 and it is the more impolitic to suffer it to con- 
 tinue when its great leading principles, like 
 those of Armata, are so perfect. — Where a ty- 
 ranny indeed exists, or any government, how- 
 ever composed, whose interests are different from 
 those of the people, no reformation could be 
 hoped for with their consent, because they could 
 not be reformed without the surrender of in- 
 jurious powers which they won id have a cor- 
 rupt advantage in preserving; but in a country 
 like this, that has opened her arms to receive 
 you, where there is but one sentiment of public 
 spirit and virtue pervading alike the public 
 councils which from defective forms may re- 
 quire reformation, and those who seek to reform 
 them, there can be no difference in opinion ex- 
 cept 
 
( 65 ) 
 
 cept in the consequences of any change. — That 
 part of the subject is too deep for my decision; 
 yet I find it difficult to conceive how a repre- 
 sentation embracing a larger proportion of a wise 
 and moral people could have a greater tendency 
 to produce insecurity, than when it emanates 
 only from those whom the laws have directed 
 to be balanced. — A few individuals might seek 
 to extend their own powers at the expense of 
 the liberties of the people, but the people them- 
 selves could surely have no interest in usurping 
 a greater authority than was consistent with 
 the equilibrium of a constitution which for 
 centuries had been the just object of their na- 
 tional pride, and the admiration of a world it 
 has enlightened. 
 
 " Attending to all these considerations, have 
 you now" said Morven, " any difficulty in form- 
 ing an opinion on this important subject, put- 
 ting England wholly out of the question?" 
 
 " For the reasons I have already given you," 
 v I an- 
 
( 66 ) 
 
 I answered, " I can form no useful judgment 
 in a case so new to me; but there is one princi- 
 ple so clear and so universal, that it must apply 
 equally to all subjects, to the affairs of all 
 countries, and even of all worlds. The first 
 step towards public reformation of every de- 
 scription, is a firm combination against rash and 
 violent men. — Very many of them (perhaps the 
 bulk) are perfectly well intentioned, but not 
 for all that the less dangerous to the cause they 
 would support. — Some of them, indeed, one 
 would think were in our world set on to take 
 the lead by those who opposed any changes, 
 that wise men might retire altogether from the 
 pursuit. For my own part, I would not only 
 submit to the imperfections of such an admirable 
 constitution at you have described in Annate, 
 but would consent to the continuance of the 
 worst that can be imagined, rather than mix 
 myself with ignorance, thrusting itself before 
 the wisdom which should direct it, or with per- 
 sons of desperate fortunes, whom no sound state 
 of society could relieve; but such men, I think, 
 
 could 
 
( 67 ) 
 
 could work no mischief, if rank and property 
 stood honestly and manfully in their places. 
 
 " From your own account, however, it appears 
 to me, upon the whole, to be a question which 
 demands tlie most dispassionate consideration, 
 because the consequences are far from being 
 clear. — The principle of balance has been long 
 departed from, and reciprocal jealousies between 
 your crown and your commons have been laid 
 asleep. — Prerogative (depending wholly upon 
 influence) has exerted itself in nothing, and 
 the whole executive government has been, with 
 its own consent, carried on in your popular 
 council. — This has bestowed upon it an entirely 
 new character, and from the operation of other 
 causes, its powers have no actual limitation, 
 though theory defines and limits them. — How 
 far, therefore, under such circumstances, it might 
 be safe entirely to recast this great assembly, 
 and to disturb a system, which without any new 
 organization has in a manner created a new con- 
 stitution, it is not for a stranger to pronounce. 
 
 f 2 On 
 
( 68 ) 
 
 On the one hand, I should he sorry to ncc the 
 powers of your commons in the smallest degree 
 diminished or struck at; but on the other, in 
 proportion as they are transcendant, they should 
 he, as far as can be made safely practicable, in 
 the choice and under the controul of the great 
 hody of your people." 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 69 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 In which Morten still continues his Account of A r mat a, anil 
 points to the origin of a great Revolution. 
 
 " No country but Armata could have sur- 
 mounted, as she did, so disastrous a conflict 
 as the Hesperian war; but such is the energy 
 of her extraordinary people, that after a short 
 depression, she roused herself like a strong man 
 after sleep, and stood again erect, to sustain the 
 shock of events still more disastrous, which fol- 
 lowed in its train. 
 
 " The nearest country to us is Capetia, 
 a kingdom of great extent and population; 
 but notwithstanding our vicinity and common 
 origin, the people perhaps of no two planets or 
 worlds can be more completely different, and 
 from a mistaken policy in the governments of 
 both for many ages, this difference between 
 them has been always increasing, and ancient 
 F 3 an- 
 
( 70 ) 
 
 antipathies have been exasperated and confirmed. 
 You will not, therefore, be surprized, that when 
 Capetia saw this domestic quarrel she should 
 seize the opportunity of turning it to her own 
 advantage. — In the cause of it she could take 
 no other interest than mischief, as the colonies 
 of Armata were contending for their liberties; 
 whereas the Capetians had been for ages the de- 
 voted subjects of a monarchy nearly despotic, and 
 seemed to glory in their degradation.— The 
 apologists of Capetia have said that her king was 
 advised to assist the revolted subjects of Armata 
 at a distance, to turn the thoughts of his people 
 from disturbing their own government at home: 
 but be that as it may, a large army was sent by 
 him beyond the seas, was encamped with the 
 insurgents, and fought side by side with them 
 in Hesperia — became enthusiasts in their cause, 
 and was schooled for the first time in the princi- 
 ples of a free government, to which the Capetian 
 people had before been strangers. — To maintain 
 this auxiliary army, and to support the war 
 which was of course declared against her for 
 
 this 
 
( 71 ) 
 
 this perfidious alliance, the treasures which had 
 been set aside for the extinguishment of her 
 public debt were devoted to the prosecution of 
 this expensive contest; and on its successful 
 termination, the Capetian soldiers, after having 
 been sharers in the triumphs of freedom, were 
 recalled by their self-devoted country into her 
 own bosom — she found a nest of serpents — Her 
 finances were exhausted by her profligate ex- 
 ertions, her people were discontented, and the 
 ordinary machinery of her government being 
 unequal to the supply of the deficiencies in her 
 revenue, she was driven in a most inauspicious 
 moment to resort to an ancient constitution, 
 which had been long trampled upon and set 
 aside, but she had neither the skill to wield a 
 weapon, the use of which had been long for- 
 gotten, nor the honesty to stand fairly by the 
 popular assembly, whose assistance she had in- 
 voked. — It is not for me to become the historian 
 of Capetia, above all to an inhabitant of another 
 world, who can take no interest in her affairs; 
 it is enough to say, that her government fell to 
 
 f 4 the 
 
( 72 ) 
 
 the ground, and was dissolved in blood — that 
 her monarch was cut off — her ancient magis- 
 tracies annihilated, and the persons of her magis- 
 trates destroyed or exiled; whilst the great mass 
 of her people, who in no country are ever indig- 
 nant but when they have suffered indignities, 
 deprived of the support of their departed govern- 
 ment, defective as it was, and too unskilful and 
 distracted to proceed with wisdom or justice 
 in the organization of a new one, became at 
 once the perpetrators and the victims of crimes 
 too horrible for the ear. 
 
 " It is but justice, however, to this unhappy 
 people to remark, that their history had been 
 widely different from ours. — In the remoter ages, 
 when nations were the property of kings and the 
 people were like the cattle upon the soil, inferior 
 sovereignties had from time to time fallen in by 
 inheritance, or had been annexed by conquest, 
 until the sceptre extended over an immense and 
 various population, with customs as numerous 
 and as different as their origins; without any 
 
 common 
 
( 73 ) 
 
 common bond of union, and with minds en- 
 thralled by priestcraft, or subdued by despotism, 
 to suffer without a murmur, and even to glory 
 in the fetters which bound them. — On this base 
 condition, no light had been let in, as in Armata, 
 by an early commerce encircling a world; by 
 the influences of a purer religion, bursting from 
 the chains of superstition, nor by the combi- 
 nation, as with us, of all classes of the people, 
 with the same interest to resist injustice when it 
 pressed equally upon the whole: — but by an uni- 
 versal law of nature, all violent inequalities 
 have their periods. — The air under its rough 
 dominion is brought to its equipoise by tempests, 
 and civil life by revolutions. — As Capetia grew 
 in power and greatness, these inequalities be- 
 came* more odious; the simplicity of her ancient 
 government, which I before described to you, 
 as the general system of the robuster nations, 
 had lost its character of freedom, and had given 
 way to a dominion in which the people had no 
 share, whilst the nobles and great landholders, 
 instead of standing in their places, as in Armata, 
 
 became 
 
( 74 ) 
 
 became the obsequious satellites of the throne, 
 whilst the clergy, who depended upon both, in- 
 culcated submission. — Yet still, whilst the mul- 
 titude felt no extreme changes in their condition, 
 such a government could suffer no change; but 
 when, from the causes I have brought before 
 you, the defects of this system began to be 
 grievously and universally felt, then was the 
 time for the few to have been wise, and not to 
 have waited for an infuriated multitude to break 
 in upon them. — The impending ruin was so long 
 visible before it came to its fatal crisis, that 
 many wrongs and sufferings may be said to have 
 been almost chargeable upon the victims. Such 
 scenes of horror, though cast in my infancy into 
 this new scene of existence, thanks to the Al- 
 mighty! can never reach me here. — We have 
 our faults and our follies, and we seem now and 
 then so enflamed against one another, as if some 
 mighty contest were approaching, but such 
 sudden heats have no more power to subvert 
 our constitution, than a common pimple upon 
 the skin to destroy the body. — Our rights, our 
 
 pro- 
 
( 75 ) 
 
 properties, and our securities, are so bound up 
 and intervoven, that from the prince upon the 
 throne to the beggar in the streets with his 
 tattered hat held out to you, we are as it were 
 but one being, and nothing but universal death 
 can dissolve us. 
 
 " In reverting to the undone Capetia, I wish 
 I could throw a veil over this afflicting period. — 
 In following my rapid abridgment you must be 
 aware, that such a tremendous accumulation 
 of horrors could not be condensed into a day. — 
 They began in the delirium of popular fury, 
 which could no more be calmed or resisted by 
 the higher orders amongst themselves, nor by 
 foreign assistance, than the desolations of an 
 earthquake can by any human means be avert- 
 ed; but when the victims of the distracted 
 insurrections had been dispersed, and when 
 arranged under more civilized and reflecting 
 leaders, they began to contemplate the preserva- 
 tion of their monarchy ; then was the moment 
 for Armata to have stood forward — then perhaps 
 
 she 
 
( 76 ) 
 
 she might have put aside the calamities which 
 followed, the consequences of which are not 
 yet wound up, nor within the reach of the 
 wisest to foreknow. 
 
 " The Capetian people, except in the frantic 
 moments of this sanguinary crisis, were noto- 
 riously devoted to a monarchical government; 
 and even in the whirlwind of revolution could 
 never have been driven from it, if proper means 
 had been taken to prevent it. — Their earliest 
 leaders professed openly and with an undisturb- 
 ed support from a national council, to preserve 
 the kingly government in the person of their 
 King, under a balanced constitution, and when 
 the storm was gathering at a distance to over- 
 power it, the supplication which in his name 
 they addressed to the Sovereign of Armata will 
 be considered hereafter as the most afflicting 
 and affecting document which history can ever 
 have to record. — That unhappy prince only 
 asked the commanding influence of this great 
 Country with alarmed and confederating govern- 
 ments. 
 
( ri ) 
 
 ments. — He complained of the hostile armies 
 which were surrounding his territories, and 
 painted with but too prophetic a pencil the cala- 
 mities impending over the nations that were 
 assembling them ; yet asked nothing for himself 
 or for his people, than as they themselves should 
 preserve peace, and respect the independence of 
 all other nations. I will translate for you here- 
 after into the English language the whole of 
 this pathetic supplication, with the answer to it, 
 which I shall at present only abridge. — You 
 ought to carry them into your own world, if 
 you ever shall return to it, as the greatest 
 curiosity that can be furnished by our's, or per- 
 haps amongst all those that are now twinkling over 
 our heads, even if they were to raise one by way 
 of subscription through infinite space. — Perhaps 
 the most curious part of the latter composition 
 is, that the ink was not frozen in writing it. — 
 It was a grand effort for an able statesman 
 capable of saying every thing, to succeed so 
 perfectly in saying nothing, and with the 
 
 strongest 
 
( 78 ) 
 
 strongest and most animated feelings of his 
 own, to become the torpedo of the Armatian 
 cabinet. 
 
 " That you may fully understand this answer, 
 I ought to premise that it was not even alleged 
 in it, that the suppliant monarch had forfeited 
 his claim to the compassion or favour of Armata, 
 as he was covered all over with assurances of 
 the warmest friendship ; yet his Majesty's con- 
 currence in the preservation or re-establishment 
 of peace with the powers in question, was pro- 
 mised only through means compatible with his 
 dignity, and with the principles which governed 
 his conduct ; and that the same reasons which 
 had induced him to take no part in the internal 
 affairs of Capetia, ought equally to induce 
 him to respect the rights and independence of 
 other sovereigns, especially those who were in 
 friendship with himself. The mediation was 
 thus declined with another concluding reason : 
 — because the war being now begun, the inter' 
 
 mention 
 
( 79 ) 
 
 mention of the King's good offices could be of no 
 use, unless they were desired by all parties in- 
 terested. 
 
 " Now, bringing down this proceeding from 
 the high forms of diplomacy, what was it? 
 
 " The surrounding sovereigns, and even those 
 remotely distant, were preparing to invade Ca- 
 petia, then grievously and dangerously con- 
 vulsed ; but making an effort through her still- 
 existing sovereign to tranquillize herself by 
 entering into solemn engagements for the tran- 
 quillity of other nations, and Armata was fixed 
 upon as the most powerful amongst them all, 
 to take the lead in this sublime object of morals 
 and policy when a storm was gathering which 
 threatened almost to deluge our world with 
 blood. 
 
 " It may be admitted that there might never- 
 theless have been reasons for Armata, though 
 thus invoked, to pause upon the proposition 
 
 made 
 
( 80 ) 
 
 made to her. — She was not bound to be con- 
 tented with general professions, but might have 
 claimed the character of arbitrator upon her own 
 terms, and have demanded preliminary securities 
 for the performance of her award; and if she 
 found that notwithstanding the dispositions of 
 the sovereign who addressed her, his subjects 
 were incapable of performing any engagements 
 he might stipulate, that reason, after due inves- 
 tigation, might have been acted upon, and even 
 publicly assigned for declining the mediation; 
 or supposing them to have been capable of acting 
 as a nation, yet, if there were doubts of their 
 performing their parts with sincerity, Armata, 
 as the sovereign umpire, might have proposed 
 to add her mighty strength to that of confede- 
 rating monarchs upon any breach of the con- 
 ditions she might propose. But instead of this, 
 or any part of it, or the profession of any one 
 principle which ever entered a negociation for 
 peace, this wretched prince, whose life then 
 hung by a thread, but which might have been 
 strengthened into a cable if the mediation had 
 
 been 
 
C HI ) 
 
 been accepted, wasfrst told (as you have heard) 
 that the King of Annata could only concur in 
 maintaining the peace of nations by such means 
 as were compatible zvitli his dignity, without 
 even a hint of how his dignity could be lowered 
 by becoming blessed as a peace-maker; and, 
 secondly, that he could only act according to the 
 principles which governed his conduct ; without 
 saying a syllable of what those principles were, 
 or how, without his changing them, the supplicant 
 might bring himself within them. 
 
 " The King of Annata was then further ad' 
 vised to say, that not having interfered with the 
 internal affairs of Capetia, the same sentiments 
 ought to induce him to respect the rights and 
 independence of other princes, as if it ever had 
 been heard of as an invasion of the rights of 
 man or nation, to propose (if they themselves 
 should see no objection) to become an arbitrator 
 to avert desolation and bloodshed. 
 
 * The conclusion was in the happiest har- 
 <s monv 
 
( 82 ) 
 
 mony witli the introductory parts; bis Majesty 
 being advised to finish by declaring, ' that the 
 
 ' WAR BEING THEN BEGUN, h'lS good offlCCS COuld 
 
 ' be of no use unless they should be desired by all 
 ' parties interested.' Now according to this doc- 
 trine, it must be taken to be always too late to 
 mediate after a quarrel has begun, which I had 
 always before considered to be the very cause, in 
 all concerns, both public and private, for pro- 
 posing a mediation; and if, according to this 
 answer, mediation can be of no use unless de- 
 sired by all parties, then not only no mediation 
 could ever be useful, but few if any could pos- 
 sibly exist, because the desire of settling differ- 
 ences between contending parties, can rarely be 
 to a moment simultaneous; and all that was 
 asked of Armata was only that she should be the 
 first proposer of this pacific umpirage, and that 
 she should strengthen her proposal by the justly 
 commanding influence of her w r ise and liberal 
 counsels. 
 
 " If indeed she had accepted this god-like 
 
 office. 
 
( M ) 
 
 office, and its usefulness had been disappointed 
 by the obstinacy of other nations, the concluding 
 sentence would then have been correct; but 
 without even sounding- the inclination of other 
 princes on the subject, it is without parallel in 
 the annals of nations, in the records of the courts 
 of justice, or in the transactions of individual 
 men. — The truth is, that it was the answer of a 
 government which had determined to do nothing, 
 and to give no reasons. — There was at that 
 time, in my opinion, a conspiracy of kings 
 against this unhappy nation, because, though 
 'without knowing how to accomplish it, she had 
 determined to become free without asking their 
 consent. — When you hear this from my lips it 
 deserves some credit, because I am no friend to 
 republics, and would shed the last drop of my 
 blood for a monarchy like our own. — But, be it 
 remembered, as I have before related, that it 
 was re-established by our own people when its 
 true principles had been overborne. 
 
 " Wishing however to do all justice to others 
 G 2 whilst 
 
( 84 ) 
 
 whilst I maintain firmly my own opinions, I 
 admit that this was the answer of a most able 
 statesman, of cool reflecting habits, not less re- 
 markable for enlightened opinions than for elo- 
 quence in their support, and I verily believe 
 incapable of betraying the honour or interests of 
 his country. — Were he now to hear what I am 
 saying to you, he would, I am sure, give me 
 credit for equal integrity, but from having long 
 considered the subject in an opposite point of 
 view, would wonder as much at my delusion 
 as I have always wondered at his. — I must add, 
 however, that he was not the minister, though 
 he held the official pen, and I have never been 
 able to persuade myself that it could have been 
 a feather from his own wins:. 
 
 *&* 
 
 " At this critical period, when mediation was 
 thus rejected — critical even to a moment of 
 time, if Armata had raised her voice amongst 
 the nations, and had invited them to concur in 
 the support of the party (no matter what else 
 belonged to it) which then supported the throne, 
 
 or 
 
( 85 ) 
 
 or at all events to take no concern in the in- 
 ternal government of that country whilst their 
 own territories were not invaded, she might 
 have given to that distracted people a free con- 
 stitution, have put down for ever the prejudices 
 which had so long heen the sources of perpetual 
 warfare, and raised perhaps an immortal monu- 
 ment of universal freedom. 
 
 " In the history however of this momentous 
 crisis, and to support this opinion, the utmost 
 precision as to time is necessary, because many 
 still deny that there ever existed any confede- 
 racy of hostile nations antecedent to hosti- 
 lities against themselves; but to dispose of this 
 assertion it may be accepted as truth, and the 
 argument will then stand thus : — With the 
 powers then confederated, or confederating 
 or that only afterwards in their own defence 
 did confederate, the mediation of Armata, if 
 not imperative and conclusive, would have 
 had a most healing and conciliating effect. — 
 At that period no invasion of other nations 
 r; 3 had 
 
( 86 ) 
 
 had taken place, since even the paper war 
 of her frantic democracy had ceased, and its 
 offensive character had been disavowed. — The 
 long succession of unprincipled, ferocious fac- 
 tions, which followed the rejected mediation, 
 has always been resorted to as proof that 
 there was no safety but in the hostile system 
 which was adopted; but they who hold out 
 those insecurities at a later period than the one 
 I have pointed out, should at least be prepared 
 to shew the danger which the earlier mediation 
 might have produced. — It would be no argu- 
 ment in favour of a physician who was skilfully 
 coercing a maniac, and reducing his dangerous 
 strength, if it could be shewn, that by a dif- 
 ferent treatment in the beginning, his fever 
 might probably have been subdued, and his 
 reason completely restored. — It would surely 
 at least lie upon him to shew that lie had made 
 some trial of his art on the first symptoms of the 
 disease. 
 
 i* My confidence in this opinion is the more 
 
 unshaken 
 
( 87 ) 
 
 unshaken from the recollection that I held it at. 
 the very time, in common with a man whom to 
 have known as I did would have repaid all 
 the toils and perils you have undergone. — I 
 look upon you, indeed, as a benighted traveller, 
 to have been cast upon our shores after this 
 great light was set. — Never was a being gifted 
 with an understanding so perfect, nor aided by 
 a perception which suffered nothing to escape 
 from its dominion. — He was never known to 
 omit any thing which in the slightest degree 
 could affect the matter to be considered, nor to 
 confound things at all distinguishable, however 
 apparently the same, and his conclusions were 
 always so luminous and convincing, that you 
 might as firmly depend upon them as when sub- 
 stances in nature lie before you in the palpable 
 forms assigned to them from the foundation of 
 the world. — Such were his qualifications for the 
 office of a statesman : and his profound know- 
 ledge always under the guidance of the sublime 
 simplicity of his heart, softening without un- 
 nerving the giant strength of his intellect, gave 
 g 4 a cha- 
 
( 88 ) 
 
 a character to his eloquence which 1 shall not 
 attempt to describe, knowing nothing by which 
 it may be compared, 
 
 " Had the counsels of this great man been ac- 
 cepted, much more if he himself had been to 
 carry them into execution with his eminent 
 companions, I must ever think that the peace of 
 our world might have been preserved. — I have 
 not forgotten that great numbers of wise and 
 independent men then held and with equal firm- 
 ness persevere in the contrary opinion ; but their 
 grand reason in support of it was never support- 
 ed by the fact. — Their whole argument resting 
 upon the danger to our monarchical constitution 
 from republican infection; but if the course I 
 have insisted on had been adopted, the Capetian 
 monarchy might most probably have been pre- 
 served, and there would have been then no re- 
 public to infect us /" 
 
 My blood now rising in every vein, I could 
 not help exclaiming, "Oh, that England had 
 
 been 
 
( 89 ) 
 
 been Armata. — how differently would She have 
 acted! — As nothing ought to have detached 
 you from the forms and principles of your own 
 government, it might have been incumbent at 
 that period to watch over them with extraordi- 
 nary caution ; but self-preservation, though it 
 vindicates our securing our dwellings by any 
 means from an approaching conflagration, can 
 never justify the refusal of personal assistance 
 to snatch the sufferers from the flames. — As to 
 republican infection, even if Capet ia had then 
 been a republic, you, surely, must be infected 
 yourself with some strange delusion to apply it 
 to such a subject. — The nations preparing to in- 
 vade her whose governments had never been 
 reformed, might, according to your new phra- 
 seology, have dreaded such a contagion; but 
 after what you yourself have within a moment 
 related of Armata, what had she to fear from it? 
 — nothing below is perfect — her almost divine 
 institutions might have been thought capable 
 of still higher improvements, but there was no 
 food within her land for revolution. — Thus 
 
 when 
 
( 90 ) 
 
 when our world is visited by one of its most 
 malignant and contagious maladies it is alarm- 
 ing only to those who have never had it. — It is 
 a disease only attracted by some morbid matter 
 in almost every human body ; but which, when 
 once dispersed by the lever it excites, can never 
 be excited again. — Wisdom therefore with us 
 has disappointed its tremendous ravages, by 
 raising this fever herself; chusing her own 
 mode and her own time for doing it; safely and 
 mildly reforming the constitution which had 
 formerly perished by a revolution, in all the 
 springs of life. — I cannot dismiss this metaphor 
 (it is indeed too close to the subject to be called 
 one) without applying it to Capetia also. — She, 
 no doubt, caught the infection, as you are 
 pleased to call it, from her contact with Hespe- 
 ria, but she was in a condition only to receive 
 it with confluent inflammation. — Her state was 
 so foul that its foulness could not be extracted 
 Without such a shock, as in the natural body 
 would have been death ; but if her history had 
 been like that of Armata, as you yourself have 
 
 told 
 
( 91 ) 
 told it — if all the classes of her people had 
 been, like your's, harmoniously blended, and she 
 had been purified as you progressively became 
 purer, she could no more have expired in the 
 convulsions you are describing than a patient 
 who with us has been vaccinated can be stretch- 
 ed out by it a loathsome carcass covered with 
 putrid blotches, spreading pestilence and terror 
 till the earth swallows him up. — Go on, then, 
 to explain the mystery of this conduct. — You 
 had been placed by Providence, as you set out 
 by telling me, as its instrument and agent in 
 your world, and it appears to me that you slept 
 upon your post when you ought to have been 
 most upon the alert in the fulfilment of your 
 duty." " I feel the force of all you say," an- 
 swered Morven, " but I hasten to pass by this 
 painful subject. — Individual opinions ought to 
 be held as nothing against public counsels, 
 though it is our best privilege to express them, 
 and I should not have insisted upon them at so 
 remote a period, but that they usefully con- 
 nect themselves with the events which will 
 
 soon 
 
( 92 ) 
 
 soon conclude my narrative, in disclosing to 
 you our present condition." 
 
 ♦ 
 
 " That might be a good reason," I said, " for 
 reserve, if you were publishing a history, but 
 none for baulking the curiosity you have set on 
 fire to find the clue to so extraordinary a state 
 of things." — " I can give it you, then," replied 
 Morven, " very shortly;" and he then pro- 
 ceeded as the reader will find in the following 
 chapter. 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 93 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 In uhkh Moreen points out to the Author some additional Causes 
 of the Rcxolutionary War with Capetia. 
 
 " Materials for the annals of nations are diffi- 
 cult to be obtained ; they are often secret, and 
 are fugitive even when they can be traced. 
 Histories, therefore, when written at distant 
 periods, except when they are built upon contem- 
 porary information, judiciously selected by eminent 
 men of letters, cannot but be erroneous. — This 
 very period, involving the interests of almost all 
 nations, most strikingly illustrates this truth. — 
 It depended upon the combination of so many 
 circumstances, that, without being a predesti- 
 narian, I am almost puzzled otherwise to ac- 
 count for them. 
 
 " The astonishing events which are soon to 
 close my narrative, could not, upon any human 
 calculation, (at least in my opinion,) have hap- 
 pened 
 
( 94 ) 
 
 pence! as they did, without the commanding 
 
 talents of an extraordinary young man, who 
 vet miidit not have flourished at so early an 
 age, but from being the son of another man 
 who had justly acquired a great reputation in 
 our country by superior eloquence, always ex- 
 erted in the cause of freedom ; nor could his 
 descendant, eloquent as he was, have risen to so 
 premature an eminence but by treading in his 
 father's steps, pleading the cause of public 
 reformation, which at that time was highly po- 
 pular, and of which he too took the lead in his 
 very earliest youth : neither could even this 
 illustrious course have produced the events 
 which followed, but on the contrary might 
 have averted them, if he had not turned short 
 round on a sudden and not only renounced his 
 former opinions, but sounded the alarm when 
 others persevered in the sentiments they had 
 imbibed from his own lips. — But history is a 
 libel when it departs in any thing from the 
 truth. — It must be admitted that the influence 
 of the Capetian revolution had given an in- 
 flamed 
 
( 95 ) 
 
 flamed and dangerous character to the proceed- 
 ings of many who had mixed themselves with 
 this cause, demanding the most prompt vigi- 
 lance of our government, and the firmest ex- 
 ecution of the laws; but perhaps no man exist- 
 ing was therefore so well qualified as himself 
 to have changed those turbulent excesses, 
 and turned them, upon his own principles, 
 into a safer course; a duty which, without 
 assorting himself unfitly, he had the happiest 
 opportunity of fulfilling, through an association 
 of his own equals in rank and eminence, who 
 were then discountenancing by their influence 
 and example every departure from the sound 
 opinions and declarations recently published by 
 himself in his own name, and widely circulated 
 amongst the people : yet the birth of this very 
 association, (as far at least as times coincide,) 
 \vas made the signal of universal alarm, and 
 a proclamation by his authority almost in- 
 stantly followed, which being the obvious fore- 
 runner of war, put wholly out of the question 
 that politic and humane consideration for the 
 
 suf- 
 
( 96 ) 
 
 suffering people of Capetia, which I shall die in 
 the opinion of having been at the period before 
 related the interest and the duty of the whole 
 civilized world. 
 
 " I take no delight in these observations. — 
 Posthumous reputation is often held too lightly. 
 — We consider that the dead can gain nothing 
 by our applauses, nor surfer from our censures : 
 but supposing a man whilst living to have stood 
 alone like a rock in the ocean, without children 
 or kindred to represent him, I should still 
 remember that this life was but a portion of an 
 immortal existence, and fame being the highest 
 inheritance, I should feel like a felon if I 
 robbed him of what I believed to be his own. — 
 I knew, then, this great minister in his youth, 
 and foresaw his future destination. — His under- 
 standing was vigorous and comprehensive — his 
 reasoning clear and energetic — his eloquence 
 powerful and commanding — and as he was sup- 
 ported throughout his eventful career by im- 
 mense numbers of disinterested and independent 
 
 men, 
 
( 97 ) 
 
 men, it would be unjust not to believe that lie 
 was himself disinterested and independent. — 
 His memory after death received this tribute 
 from many illustrious persons who had differed 
 from him in opinion, and it is not only held by 
 his friends and adherents in affectionate re- 
 membrance, but in reverence as the saviour of 
 his country. — Having from a sense of justice 
 recorded this last testimony of an exalted 
 reputation, I hold it to be a solemn duty to 
 question and deny it, being convinced that if 
 we revere, or even abide by the system which 
 characterized his administration as having for" 
 merly saved his country, we shall not save it 
 
 NOW. 
 
 " But to resume my history. — The circum- 
 stances which attended this ill-fated period 
 are not yet summed up. — When the war with 
 Hcsperia was approaching, a warning voice, as 
 it were out of Heaven itself, from its wisdom 
 and eloquence, though drowned by the clamours 
 of ignorance and folly in the outset, yet in 
 
 n tin- 
 
( 98 ) 
 
 the end alarmed the people into a sense of 
 the ruin they were rushing on ; hut, alas ! this 
 very voice, which had breathed so happily the 
 gentle accents of peace, was now heard louder 
 than the trumpet of war, to collect our world to 
 battle; spreading throughout the land an uni- 
 versal panic, until the public councils com- 
 plained of sedition, but the forum of the com- 
 plaint only inflamed it. — Instead of leaving it 
 to the sovereign, in the ordinary course of law, 
 to bring the suspected to trial, the evidence was 
 collected by the great public councils; was ex- 
 alted into treason of the highest order, and 
 published by their command. — It was no doubt 
 within their jurisdiction, and was their highest 
 duty to protect the state; to proclaim a con- 
 spiracy if they believed it existed, and to direct 
 prosecutions against the offenders; but it was 
 repugnant to the very elements of the Armatian 
 constitution, to involve individuals in the accu- 
 sations, and to circulate amongst the people the 
 accusing testimonies stamped with their supreme 
 authority, when inferior tribunals were after- 
 wards 
 
( 99 ) 
 
 wards to judge them. — In any other nation the 
 consequences to the accused must have been 
 fatal : but there is a talisman in Armata which, 
 whilst it is preserved inviolate, will make her 
 immortal— HER COURTS OF JUSTICE 
 SPOKE ALOUD TO HER PARLIAMENT: 
 —THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO, AND 
 NO FARTHER. 
 
 " In returning to, or rather beginning an 
 account of this extraordinary composition, whose 
 author was only in metaphor brought before 
 you, your surprize at its warlike stimulus will 
 be increased, because I could have subscribed 
 almost to the whole of it except in its remotest 
 
 APPLICATION. 
 
 " He set out by truly and perhaps seasonably 
 observing, ' that men were not the insects of a 
 summer, but beings of a superior order, the heirs 
 of immortality — that they should therefore look 
 upwards with pious reverence to their fathers, 
 and downwards with anxious care to their pos- 
 
 u £ terity — 
 
( ioo ) 
 
 terity — that when they had accomplished a 
 structure sufficient to maintain social order, 
 much more to govern a great and enlightened 
 people, it was more convenient to repair it when 
 time had defaced it, and to improve it if origi- 
 nally defective, than to tumble it down in a 
 moment to its foundations — that society was 
 not a gang of miscreants, plundering and mur- 
 dering one another, reviling all the institutions 
 ordained to lead us into tbe paths of bappiness 
 and virtue, but a pyramid of human beings, 
 rising in majestic order and harmonious in all 
 its parts — that it was fit religion should conse- 
 crate such a structure — that her ministers should 
 therefore be held in high respect, and should 
 not be supported on the alms of those whom it 
 was their duty to correct — that government also 
 should preserve an attitude of dignity and wis- 
 dom, composed of high magistrates, invested 
 with corresponding authorities and supported 
 by revenues to secure obedience and indepen- 
 dence — that a people, above all, for whose hap- 
 piness this mighty system was fashioned and 
 
 sup- 
 
( ioi ) 
 
 supported, should in their morals and manners 
 be assimilated; that they should not be buried 
 like dogs, as if they were to sleep for ever, but 
 be remembered by monumental inscriptions, 
 recording the achievements of those who had 
 lived before them, and reminding the living that 
 their histories would be read by those who were 
 to follow them — that societies, however wisely 
 constructed, were subject nevertheless to be 
 shaken by the follies and wickedness of man- 
 kind, and that in those awful conjunctures the 
 utmost fortitude became necessary to those who 
 were to ride in such storms, yet tempered with 
 a spirit of gentleness and mercy, shrinking back 
 when called upon to strike, though justice and 
 even necessity might demand the blow/ — He 
 summed up all by a most eloquent reprobation 
 of an unprincipled regicide, declaring in lan- 
 guage which I hope will always be remembered, 
 that the immolation of the unhappy prince 
 whom fate had set upon this volcanic pinnacle, 
 and who, without any crimes of his own, must, 
 in the harshest construction, have been the vic- 
 
 h 3 tim 
 
( 102 ) 
 
 tim of the crimes of others, was base and in- 
 human; and in its wanton aggravation by in- 
 dignity and insult, embittered by the foul mur- 
 der of his queen and their helpless infants, cast 
 a dismal shade over the moral world, suffering, 
 as it were, an eclipse by the interposition of 
 some infernal spirit between the Divine Creator 
 and the beings who must perish but in his 
 light. — Believe me, I feel for the hallowed shade 
 of departed genius, and have endeavoured not 
 to degrade, though it is beyond my power to do 
 justice to such a distinguished composition ; but 
 you have no doubt been looking in vain all this 
 while, and through all this eloquence, for any 
 possible incitement to war, though intended by 
 himself and applied by others to justify and 
 provoke it, — If the work had been undertaken 
 to illustrate the principles and duties of civil 
 society in the pure abstract, it would have been 
 as just as it was beautiful ; but as a picture of 
 Capetia, before her revolution, it* was unfounded 
 almost throughout, and in all that followed it was 
 only an exquisite and in many parts a sublime 
 
 ex^ 
 
( 103 ) 
 
 exposure of the unhappy state to which she had 
 been reduced by the desertion of Armata from 
 her post: and how the rushing into battle with 
 this delirious people was either to reform them or 
 to secure ourselves, it is past my comprehension 
 even to imagine." — " And of mine also,' 1 1 hastily 
 replied : — " had you nobody then to say so in 
 your great public councils?" 
 
 " We had many," said Morven : — " occasions 
 consummate the human character. — A political 
 star of the first magnitude was then in his zenith, 
 amidst a constellation of the brightest statesmen, 
 who solemnly and repeatedly protested against 
 the leap we were about to take, whilst we yet 
 stood upon the brink. — They condemned the 
 principle of this war, and foretold the conse- 
 quences, but the delusion was too dense to be 
 dispelled; and, that you may judge of its den- 
 sity, I will give you a specimen of the hap- 
 piest and most approved manner in which this 
 phalanx of great talents was opposed by those 
 who supported their adversaries. To deny their 
 
 11 4 talents 
 
( 104 ) 
 
 talents was impossible; and how do you think 
 they went to work to run them down? — In no 
 other way than by reiterating day after day in 
 all accessible channels of public information, 
 that talents were not only useless, but at all 
 times perfectly ridiculous, and mischievously 
 inconsistent with the wholesome government of 
 a great nation. —You may think, perhaps, I am 
 imposing upon you, or that I am in jest, as you 
 have frequently before imagined; but I most 
 seriously assure you, that this was the only order 
 of the day amongst their opponents for years 
 together." I laughed heartily, and said " it re- 
 minded me of the defence of a lunatic in Eng- 
 land, before the commissioners who had impri- 
 soned him: — He said that those who were at 
 large were an insane majority, and shut up all 
 the rest only because they had the sense to differ 
 from them. — Now from the account you give 
 me of Armata, at this period, your judges, I 
 suppose, would have been imprisoned and the 
 madman discharged." — " Perhaps they might," 
 waid Morven ; " and indeed, since this new dis- 
 covery, 
 
( 105 ) 
 
 covery, it is not at all an uncommon imposture 
 to pretend even to be a natural fool, in hopes of 
 superior preferment. 
 
 " But it is high time to return to the subject, 
 though I seek no apology for the digression. 
 A novel derives its fame from the genius of its 
 author, and its merit principally consists in a 
 fanciful departure from truth; but the best writ- 
 ten Histo?y can only be interesting when it is 
 believed to be true." 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 106 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 In which Morten gives the Author an Account of the War -with 
 Capet ia. 
 
 ■ A war now immediately followed between 
 Armata and this unhappy country, which soon 
 involving many other powerful nations against 
 her, the entire mass of her population, from the 
 very instinct of self-preservation, became one 
 general camp; and her wild democracy being 
 unequal to the rule of a people so circumstanced, 
 the commander of her armies became her King. 
 The stupendous exertions she then made are 
 unparalleled, and nothing could have prevented 
 her from overpowering all the states con- 
 federated against her, but the wealth and 
 energies of our extraordinary people. — We had 
 lost the season at the outset, of turning Capetia 
 into the paths of peace, or (if that were found to 
 be hopeless) of leaving her to be herself con- 
 sumed 
 
( 107 ) 
 
 sumed in the flames her madness had kindled ; 
 and even after they had spread beyond her own 
 territories, and were laying waste our world, 
 Armata, in various stages, might, under other 
 counsels, have extinguished them. — Had the 
 new dynasty of Capetia, when it became firmly 
 established and supported by the undoubted voice 
 of her people, been sincerely acknowledged by 
 other nations before their resistance to it had 
 first overwhelmed them, I see no reason ' for 
 thinking that the general tranquillity might not 
 have been more securely settled than by the 
 destructive scenes that followed, which besides 
 the waste of human life and the enormous ad- 
 ditions to our public burthens, gave a new and 
 alarming character to other nations, from the 
 necessity of large military establishments, coun- 
 tenancing in our own country, from the danger 
 of foreign combinations, a force beyond our 
 finances, and at variance with the spirit of our 
 free constitution. 
 
 " But the practicability of safe pacification 
 
 had 
 
( 108 ) 
 
 had its period. — When the extraordinary person 
 at the head of the Capetian monarchy, who, 
 under a different treatment, might have been to 
 the full as pacific as other princes, began to see 
 that his throne except through Avar was insecure, 
 it is no wonder that, after having trampled upon 
 and overthrown so many powerful kingdoms, 
 his ambition should be lifted up beyond per- 
 haps the impulses of his original character, even 
 to the hope of universal empire. — To have made 
 peace with him then, though brought down at 
 last to a seemingly safe level by signal reverses, 
 when there was a fair prospect of his final sub- 
 jugation, became a doubtful question in the 
 councils of Armata, dividing those in opinion 
 who were divided in nothing else, combining for 
 the occasion the authors of the war and those 
 who had always condemned and continued to 
 condemn them. — On the one hand, in our ex- 
 hausted condition, a failure of the force of 
 nations, or even a protracted contest, would have 
 been fatal, as they looked only to Armata for 
 resources ; but on the other hand, an humbled 
 
 and 
 
( 109 ) 
 
 and mortified ambition might have been un- 
 safely left at the head of a numerous and power- 
 ful people, even if his original dispositions had 
 been like those of other men. — Animals, how- 
 ever large and powerful, if not by nature feroci- 
 ous, may be handled as if they were our children, 
 and are daily conducted with safety through our 
 most populous cities, but when cruelly goaded 
 and roused up almost to madness, they destroy 
 everv thins: in their course, and there is then no 
 safety but in their deaths. — It was nevertheless 
 a most difficult matter for decision, and in a case 
 where such imminent dangers were on either 
 side impending, it would be most unfair in 
 weighing them, to measure them by the events 
 I am to relate; but it is impossible to be the 
 historian of Armata in such a crisis of her affairs 
 without expressing the utmost admiration of the 
 character of her people. 
 
 " When from her mistaken counsels, she was 
 so deeply involved at last, as to have no safe 
 retreat from the course she had taken, she then 
 
 rose 
 
( no ) 
 
 rose even superior to herself, great and power- 
 ful as she ever had been — the combined nations 
 were in themselves nothing — they had indeed 
 brave and numerous armies, but without the 
 sinews of war they were no better than the 
 leaden men which are sold as toys for our children ; 
 — the money of Armata could alone breathe life 
 into them or set them in motion, and it was for 
 her alone to march them from the remotest 
 regions, to end the contest in the Capetian capi- 
 tal; but though the husbandmen, the manu- 
 facturers, the shopkeepers* and miners of Armata, 
 or in other words her People, had bent their 
 bodies, and bathed their foreheads with the 
 sweat of labour to furnish the supplies for this 
 auxiliary force ; they had a still nobler part to 
 perform for the honour of their country — they 
 were before-hand with the legions they had 
 created, and finished at a single blow the mur- 
 
 * The author has only printed the word shopkeepers in 
 italics, because Morven, from some reason or other, raised his 
 voice when he pronounced it. 
 
 derous 
 
( in ) 
 
 derous contest which had been desolating our 
 world. 
 
 " There is near us another island, in union 
 with Armata, and forming with her one em- 
 pire^which came in for her full proportion of 
 this glory; the hardy sons of Patricia were in 
 all our ranks, and her soil produced the immor- 
 tal hero who conducted the battle. 
 
 " No victory in human annals ever produced 
 results so sudden and extraordinary. — The ad- 
 versary, whose ambition and whose boast had 
 been our destruction — who had built a thousand 
 vessels to convey his armies to our shores — and 
 who was then erecting a column, even within 
 our view, to be crowned with his colossal statue 
 pointing at us with his finger for his own, now 
 fled when no one was pursuing, and gave him- 
 self up as a prisoner to the commander of a single 
 ship. 
 
 " Such a fate of so wonderful a being affords a 
 
 con- 
 
( 112 ) 
 
 convincing" proof that our apparent destinies 
 may generally be referred to ourselves. — In the 
 earliest and most flourishing periods of his 
 astonishing career, he was (in my opinion) more 
 sinned against than sinning, and even when he 
 was pushing on his legions to the most distant 
 territories, I was for a while in spirit on his side, 
 because I thought there was a conspiracy of 
 governments against him, inconsistent with the 
 principles of our own. — Some have thought he 
 was so weak as not to see that there was no 
 security for his own sovereignty whilst the 
 sovereigns combined against him had an un- 
 limited power over the persons and resources of 
 their subjects; but my belief is that he foresaw 
 this danger though he upheld their governments, 
 because he feared a worse in their subversion. — 
 He had seated himself upon an imperial throne 
 with a mock and servile representation, and 
 trembled at the influence of free constitutions. — . 
 This was the rock on which he split. — If by 
 politic and moral conventions when the sword 
 was in his hand to enforce them, instead of by 
 
 a sys- 
 
( 113 ) 
 
 a system of oppression and subversion, he had 
 balanced in their own states the princes who 
 opposed him, giving an interest to their people 
 to support him, he might have surrounded him- 
 self with grateful and independent nations, to 
 have guarded and almost to have adored him ; 
 but he left them insulted, pillaged, degraded, 
 and in the hands of their uncontrouled and 
 justly incensed kings, who of course made use 
 of them to destroy him. — They were no lo??ger 
 mercenary, reluctant armies, but nations em- 
 bodied against their oppressors. 
 
 " From the moment I marked this base and 
 senseless policy I foresaw his ruin, because he 
 was now opposing the progression of a world 
 which, in spite of all obstacles, will advance, 
 because God has ordained it. 
 
 " It is a grand and useful example, when the 
 ends of men who abuse mighty trusts are thus 
 signally disastrous. — We see distinctly the Divine 
 Providence superintending and judging us, and 
 
 i when 
 
( 114 ) 
 
 when I visited Capetia whilst Armata was 
 passing through her provinces in triumph, the 
 evidence of it was decisive. — This mighty man, 
 who had shaken the earth, collected all its spoils, 
 and overwhelmed its dominions, was not to be 
 seen or heard of even in his own capital, amidst 
 the trophies of his universal conquests." 
 
 I was moved by this just description, and 
 said to Morven, " that it reminded me of a 
 passage in our Sacred Scriptures most divinely 
 eloquent, and which, since the days of the 
 Psalmist, had never been so strikingly illus- 
 trated : — 
 
 I I myself have seen the ungodly in great power, 
 ' and flourishing like a green bay-tree. — I passed 
 1 by, and lo, he was gone. — / sought him, but his 
 ' place zvas no where to be found' 
 
 " So prosperous a conclusion of a war so pro- 
 tracted and ruinous, was a fair and a national 
 occasion of triumph to its authors and supporters ; 
 
 but 
 
( 115 ) 
 
 but giving them all just credit for honest in- 
 tentions, and for their vigorous exertions, it is 
 the office of impartial history to condemn them. — 
 They themselves created the mighty antagonist. — 
 Their mistaken counsels rendered his subjugation 
 indispensable, and his dominion so powerful that 
 it could not be overthrown without almost the 
 ruin of their country. — Allowing them, even, for 
 argument's sake, all the pre-eminence over their 
 opponents they contend for, what would there 
 be in the comparison to boast of? because sup- 
 posing the storm to have been inevitable, and 
 in the end to have been skilfully weathered by 
 them, which of two pilots would you prefer? — 
 him who, though he saw it gathering, sailed out 
 into the midst of it, and though laden with 
 money only escaped by throwing overboard his 
 cargo, or the other who, seeing the tempest 
 also, would have remained in the harbour till 
 it was overblown : 
 
 " I have now brought you down from the 
 earliest ages to the present times, and the history 
 
 i 2 is 
 
( 116 ) 
 
 is therefore finished ; but one reflection presents 
 itself too forcibly to be suppressed. 
 
 " To such a people as Armata victory ought 
 to be no triumph but in its consequences. — She 
 ought to consult the happiness of the nation that 
 has been subdued, as faithfully as her own — 
 she should hail the dawn of a representative 
 government, the only antidote to despotism or 
 revolution, and now that the evils of war have 
 been terminated by her warlike exertions, her 
 friendly influence should succeed them for the 
 preservation of peace; but lest the fortunate 
 close of this bloody sera should be confounded 
 in future times with its unhappy commence- 
 ment, she ought to blazon upon her national 
 banners the auspicious principles of her own 
 revolution — the guarantee to every people of 
 the government of their own choice, whilst the 
 independence of other nations shall be reci- 
 procally respected. 
 
 CHAP* 
 
( H7 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 In which Morten relates to the Author the condition of Armata 
 on the conclusion of the War, and asks his opinion and adtice. 
 
 " We are now arrived at a most interesting 
 and painful conjuncture, to the particulars of 
 which I must ask your utmost attention. — You 
 have been cast upon the shores of the island, 
 which has received you in a moment of great 
 difficulty, and my father, as I have repeatedly 
 told you, having always held up to me the 
 English people as the great masters of political 
 wisdom, I cannot but. look to you for counsel r in 
 this arduous posture of our affairs. 
 
 " Not many months have passed since the 
 glorious conclusion of the war whose history I 
 have related, and up to that period, notwith- 
 standing the immense sums expended in the 
 contest, no sinew of the state appeared to be 
 relaxed ; no want was felt any where, and ad- 
 
 i 3 ditional 
 
( 118 ) 
 
 ditional burthens, instead of appearing to oppress 
 the people, were overshadowed by voluntary 
 gifts; agriculture flourished beyond the experi- 
 ence of former times; and our manufactures, 
 though struck at by hostile conspiracies against 
 their very existence, monopolised the markets of 
 the world. — Peace came at last, so often invoked 
 as the source of every blessing; but how shall 
 I find credit when I tell you that scarcely had 
 she finished her dove-like flight, and alighted 
 amongst us, amidst universal acclamations, when 
 our prosperity vanished like an enchantment! — 
 The landholders looked in vain to their most 
 opulent tenants for their rents, and they in their 
 turn, even if their rents were remitted, could 
 barely maintain themselves on the soil; labour- 
 ers and servants in husbandry were every 
 where discharged, and thronged our roads 
 seeking in vain throughout the land for employ- 
 ment, and with their children begging their 
 bread. — The manufacturers, though they suffer- 
 ed less, being partly upheld by foreign markets, 
 yet without home consumption, could not but 
 
 languish, 
 
( H9 ) 
 
 languish, and money bad every where disap- 
 peared. — In such a state of a nation it is need- 
 less to say that its revenue must suffer; yet 
 the common remedy by an increased taxation 
 must needs be desperate when the people are 
 already sinking under their present burthens. — 
 It is a maxim in the medical world, that many 
 distempers may be said to be cured when their 
 causes are ascertained ; but the wisest men 
 among us are lost in amazement, and I cannot 
 therefore help pausing here, to ask you what 
 course would be pursued by England if she 
 were in similar distress? — what, I pray you, 
 can be the source of this sudden prostration 
 of our happy condition, and what is the re- 
 medy?" 
 
 " You have given me," I said, " no materials 
 for answering your questions, and I must first 
 put several to you; but perplex me no more by 
 any appeals to England; my understanding is 
 quite bewildered by referring to a state of things 
 so dissimilar. 
 
 i 4 " To 
 
( 120 ) 
 
 " To begin then the series of my inquiries, 
 let me ask how much you have added to your 
 public debt in the prosecution of your late glo- 
 rious war, and what is now the proportion of the 
 whole of it taken together to the tangible con- 
 vertible property of your nation — or, to simplify 
 my question by dividing it, what proportion 
 does your debt bear to the precious metals, 
 which with us, as with you, are accepted by 
 all nations as the universal representative of 
 wealth ?" Movven could not help smiling at this 
 first proposition, and answered, (in jest as I at 
 first supposed,) that it had increased tint fold, 
 and amounted to more than all the precious 
 metals that had been dug from the bowels of 
 the earth since the discovery of the countries 
 which contained them, and that if all nations 
 were to empty into the treasury of Armata every 
 coin in circulation amongst them, laying at her 
 feet in bullion all that had been fashioned from 
 gold or silver into vessels and utensils for luxury 
 or use, tearing from the brows the diadems of 
 all princes, and throwing down into the fur- 
 nace 
 
( 121 ) 
 
 nace the sacred images from the shrines of 
 all temples throughout their whole planet, it 
 would not perhaps be sufficient to extinguish 
 the debt. 
 
 " But let me abandon this general description, 
 which, though calculated to excite astonish- 
 ment, is absurdly misapplied to a subject which 
 requires the utmost possible precision. — I had 
 forgotten also that I was speaking to a stranger 
 from another world, who can know nothing of 
 our mines and metals, or of their supposed pro- 
 ductions and values; and having prepared my- 
 self besides to satisfy your inquiries, I can give 
 you the whole account in your own English 
 money, and unless this twin of your earth lias 
 been for some cause or other disinherited, and 
 all the wealth bestowed by nature upon her 
 brother, the figures of the accountant will even 
 outstrip my figures of speech. 
 
 " To place the subject in the clearest point of 
 view — the island of Annate, though shaken by 
 
 various 
 
( 122 ) 
 
 various revolutions, and though engaged in wars 
 through many centuries, had nevertheless, on the 
 accession of her present sovereign, a debt rather 
 less than an hundred millions of your money, bear- 
 ing an interest of about five millions ; but from the 
 expenses of the war with Hesperia and Capetia 
 united, the Country was delivered over to the 
 charge of the minister I have already described 
 to you, with a debt increased to the immense 
 amount of two hundred and sixty millions, with 
 an annual burthen of thirteen millions, speaking 
 in your English money. 
 
 " Now I cannot surely be charged with leaning 
 upon the memory of any man, however illus- 
 trious, when I assert that so enormous a debt, 
 characterized too by so rapid an increase, ought 
 to have inspired the utmost providence in the 
 administration of our finances; neither can I 
 hazard any censure which I shall at all. regard, 
 when I further assert, that if the popular council, 
 having the uncontrouled dominion over the 
 
 public 
 
( 123 ) 
 
 public wealth, had been itself more under the 
 controul of the people who were to sustain the 
 burthens they laid upon them, the debt would 
 not probably, in so short a period, have reached 
 this magnitude, much less have enabled me to 
 tell you that the same minister left it swoln 
 from the two hundred and sixty millions and 
 upwards, which I gave you, to the sum of Jive 
 hundred and forty millions, increasing the 
 annual taxation before given you from thirteen 
 to above thirty millions ; which in the further 
 prosecution of the war by his successors, and 
 by the public councils acting upon his system, 
 again swelled to the almost incredible amount 
 of nearly seven hundred millions, still speaking 
 in your English money. — Yet the most alarm- 
 ing part is still behind, in the increased ex- 
 penditure, which, unless corrected, seems to 
 mock all redemption. — The same minister found 
 it only about twenty-one and left it nearly 
 sivty millions annually, and it has under his 
 
 successors been still advancing. 
 
 The 
 
( 124 ) 
 
 " The collateral burthens, -which all equally 
 press upon the people, rose in the same pro- 
 portion ; and notwithstanding the universal boast 
 of increasing- prosperity, the same minister found 
 the poor supported by rates not much exceeding 
 the sum of two millions, but left it more than 
 Jive, which afterwards increased under his suc- 
 cessors to nearly seven millions, still speaking in 
 your English money. 
 
 " But other evils must be added. — To pro- 
 duce an annual revenue of so vast an extent 
 many taxes were resorted to of the most per- 
 nicious character, particularly affecting the ad- 
 ministration of justice ; and having thus closed 
 the account of the taxes upon the living, I will 
 conclude the subject with their dominion after 
 death. 
 
 " The highest duty to government only twenty 
 years ago, cither on wills or on inheritances, 
 amounted to only sixty pounds, but now (except 
 when the property vests in near relations or kin- 
 dred) 
 
( \Q5 ) 
 
 tired) on the former it may amount to above two 
 hundred times that sum, and on the latter to nearly 
 three hundred, as the highest duty on the first 
 may be fifteen thousand, and on the last above 
 twenty thousand pounds, without taking into the 
 account a proportion of the property transmitted, 
 which in some cases amounts to a tenth. 
 
 " This is the most grievous of all our 
 burthens. — The justest government may have 
 occasion to resort to a moderate dutv on 
 alienations and transmissions of all descriptions 
 of property, but it ought to advance with the 
 most cautious and even trembling steps. — A 
 mighty nation in its public character should 
 scorn to sit like a vulture over departing breath. 
 
 (t It may appear perhaps ungrateful to a 
 country that embraced my beloved parents and 
 myself in the hour of our peril and distress, 
 that I should have exposed her difficulties in 
 the manner I have done ; but I appeal for my 
 motives to the Great Searcher of hearts. — It is 
 
 of 
 
( 12(5 > 
 
 of the utmost importance that the public con- 
 dition in all its details should be universally 
 kn< >aii and understood. — Ignorance can do no 
 mischief if wisdom has materials to correct it, 
 and evil-disposed persons are always most suc- 
 cessfully resisted, when, though no facts are con- 
 cealed or misrepresented, erroneous conclusions 
 may be denied." 
 
 I expressed the utmost satisfaction at this, 
 just and honest declaration after an exposure 
 sufficiently dismal ; saying*, " that I was well 
 aware of the abundant wealth which might 
 belong to a nation beyond the value of its 
 universal representative, or even to a thousand 
 times its amount. — Goon, then," I added, "that 
 I may know your whole state, before I tell you 
 what I think of it ; and the next question which 
 I shall therefore put to you is, what part of the 
 substance of the people is taken by your govern- 
 ment in the shape of direct taxes, or, of the 
 indirect ones, arising from the increased prices 
 of commodities which are taxed ? and as it is 
 
 extremely 
 
( 127 ) 
 
 extremely difficult to arrive at the total amount 
 of property in a great country, tell me, in the 
 rough, putting it in English money that I may 
 understand you, how much does your govern- 
 ment at an average take from the subject out 
 of every pound he possesses?" — " It is difficult," 
 he said, " to answer that question, because 
 taxation is unequal, and cannot possibly be 
 equalized; but if resort could be had to an 
 equal rate comprehending the aggregate of the 
 various sources, I should say it amounted to 
 one half at the least." 
 
 u I must further ask you, whether you have 
 any other burthens upon property besides those 
 which are directly levied by your government 
 for the support of the state?" — " We have," said 
 Morven, " the clergy and the poor. 
 
 " With regard to the former, though it is a 
 heavy burthen, yet we suffer more in the 
 maimer of its collection, than in the amount. — 
 The ministers who bring us the consolations of 
 
 religion 
 
( 128 ) 
 
 religion ought to be regarded with reverence 
 and affection. — It is a most evil policy to make 
 the common orders of the people consider them 
 as their oppressors. — They ought never to be 
 personally seen in the demand of what is destined 
 for their support. — Deductions from temporal 
 advantages for the maintenance of spiritual 
 comforts should be guarded as much as possible 
 from being constantly felt, and little difficulty 
 would attend an arrangement which would add 
 dignity to the clergy without abridging their 
 revenues, and improve their connection with 
 the multitude they are to instruct. 
 
 " As to the support of what is called the poor, 
 the amount of which I have already related, it 
 has spread pauperism through all the middle 
 classes of the community. — In the earlier periods 
 of our history the burthen of maintaining them 
 was scarcely felt, our ancient law confining it 
 to the relief of ' the lame, the blind, and the 
 ' impotent, and such others amongst them as were 
 ' unable to work.' — Every principle of humanity 
 
 demanded 
 
( 129 ) 
 
 demanded that support from those whom Provi- 
 dence had exempted from such severe infirmities; 
 but every principle of sound policy opposed its. 
 further extension, and it was limited at first, in 
 every district, to one-fortieth, which, speaking in 
 your coin, would be only sixpence in the pound; 
 but, by a strange departure from the principle of 
 the original law, it now often exceeds forty 
 times that amount, and in some places even 
 the annual value of the property on which 
 it professes to be a tax. — To be entitled to 
 relief, it is no longer necessary that the appli- 
 cant should bring himself within any of the 
 descriptions of the ancient law; neither blind- 
 ness, nor lameness, nor impotence, nor even 
 inability to work, are necessary qualifications 
 for support; large houses in every district being 
 now built for the reception of almost any body 
 who chooses to go into them, and from a pro- 
 stration of morals it is no longer felt as a humi- 
 liation or a reproach ; even they who, from their 
 own improvidence, have contracted marriage 
 though they knew themselves to be utterly 
 k incapable 
 
( 130 ) 
 
 incapable of maintaining their children, have 
 a claim to cast them upon the public as soon as 
 they, arc born, and to live with them as inmates 
 in those receptacles intended for the promotion 
 of industry and the relief of want, but which, 
 from the very nature of things, under the best 
 management, become the abodes of vice and 
 misery; where the aged, the diseased, the idle, 
 and the profligate, the two first classes being 
 everywhere out-numbered, are heaped upon 
 one another, giving birth by their debaucheries 
 to a new race of paupers, till they become 
 " a kind of putrid mass above ground ; cor- 
 rupted themselves and corrupting all about 
 them." — To finish the picture of abuse : this 
 enormous and still growing burthen is almost 
 exclusively cast upon the proprietors and occu- 
 piers of land, who ought least to be called upon 
 to bear it, as neither their diseases nor their 
 vices contribute in any kind of proportion to 
 the aggregate of the poor. — The simplicity of a 
 country life furnishes but a small contingent 
 of either. — The vicious and the distempered 
 
 arc 
 
( i31 ) 
 
 are hourly vomited forth from the mines and 
 manufactories, where contaminating multitudes 
 and unwholesome labour produce every disgust- 
 ing variety of decrepitude and crime, yet neither 
 the proprietors of those establishments, nor the 
 capitalists who roll along the streets of our 
 cities in splendid carriages, pay any thing like 
 their proportions to the support of the idle and 
 the unhealthy they have produced. — Almost the 
 whole is cast upon the cultivators of the soil, 
 who, except in the very houses I have de- 
 scribed, supported by their property and labour, 
 see nothing around them but innocence and 
 health. 
 
 " Your questions," said Morven, " arc now 
 answered ; and I burn with impatience to hear 
 how England would deal with the evils I have 
 stated." — I felt, I confess, rather hurt at this 
 insulting reference to my beloved country, after 
 what I had formerly said; but contented myself 
 for the present with informing him that other 
 questions yet remained. 
 
 k 2 " How,* 
 
( 132 ) 
 
 " How," I asked, " after the return of peace, 
 should there have been no markets for the far- 
 mer's produce ? — Surely, in peace, as in war, 
 your people must be fed ?" 
 
 t( The demands of government during war," 
 he answered, " were enormous, and supplied by 
 contracts at very high prices, to be sent beyond 
 seas for the support of fleets and armies, and 
 the inhabitants of countries which were the 
 seats of war, besides the sustenance of immense 
 numbers of prisoners at home. — On the cessation 
 of hostilities this vast consumption not only 
 suddenly stopped, but the tide turned against 
 us, and great quantities of foreign corn were 
 poured in from those very countries whose 
 battles we had been fighting, not only with 
 our blood but our treasure ; so that remaining 
 comparatively unburthened, they could raise 
 every kind of grain at one-third of the expense 
 which falls upon the Armatian farmer. — With 
 this foreign grain of every description our 
 markets now became glutted, whilst our own 
 
 pro- 
 
( 133 ) 
 
 produce remained in our granaries unsold; he- 
 cause the importers could sell at a large profit, 
 for a price which would scarcely pay the labour 
 and taxes upon an Armatian farm." 
 
 " But where was your government all this 
 while ?" 
 
 " Our government," he answered, " was no 
 otherwise in fault than in not being perhaps 
 sufficiently on its guard to prevent the evil at 
 the very first moment of the peace ; and when 
 at last it proceeded to pass a law to check im- 
 portations, it had great difficulties to encoun- 
 ter; the multitude, who, in all nations, are 
 honest and upright, but who, upon the most 
 important occasions, arc often quite incapable 
 of understanding their own interests, became 
 every where tumultuous, even to riot and rebel- 
 lion, reasoning (if it deserve the name) that 
 whatever had a tendency to raise the price of 
 bread, without any reference to the causes of 
 the, then prices of grain, was an unjust and 
 
 k 3 cruel 
 
( m ) 
 
 cruel disregard of the wants and sufferings of 
 the poor, but their ignorance was soon proved 
 by the event. — When the foreign corn was 
 selling cheap in our markets, whilst that of their 
 own country remained in the barns undisposed 
 of, bread was undoubtedly cheaper, but they 
 had then no money to buy it with however cheap, 
 because their masters could no longer employ 
 them, and they were every where discharged. — 
 When grain fetched an encouraging price to 
 the growers, they were all employed, and wages 
 of course rose in proportion to the value of their 
 labour to their employers; but when, from the 
 sale of foreign corn in all the markets, it sunk 
 below any profit from home cultivation, bread, 
 as I have just told you, became cheaper, but the 
 clamourers had no bread at all. — A cheap loaf 
 was but a sorry sight to those who had only to 
 look at it. — The kingdom therefore presented 
 every where a face of the utmost distress ; nor 
 is the law which even now regulates importations 
 by any means sufficiently protective, because 
 that which was intended to be the lowest price 
 
 in 
 
( 135 ) 
 
 in our markets became generally the highest, ;r 
 consequence foretold in our public councils when 
 the law was in progress, by one of the ablest 
 men in our country. — The law indeed would be 
 sufficiently protective, if, when tire ports were 
 open under it, our markets were only refreshed 
 by the fair commerce of foreign countries until 
 they fell again below the importing standard; 
 but that is by no means the case: the impor- 
 tations are not made by foreigners, but by capi- 
 talists amongst ourselves, who having money 
 enough to stand the losses of unsuccessful specu- 
 lations, can bring in their corn at the most 
 favourable times, and being allowed to ware- 
 house without duties, have their granaries al- 
 ways full, when the law enables them to sell ; 
 which suddenly throws down the markets, to 
 the ruin of our agricultural classes. 
 
 " But the mistaken notion, which crippled 
 
 the law in its formation, was very soon exposed. 
 
 When the ruined farmers had in many places 
 
 discharged their labourers, and throughout the 
 
 k 4 whole 
 
( 136 ) 
 
 whole country had reduced their establishments, 
 the unemployed with their children fell of 
 course upon the public; and the manufacturers 
 and traders, whose customers now filled our 
 poor-houses and our prisons, found out at last 
 that God has so fashioned the world, that 
 all his creatures must flourish or decay to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Another evil of almost equal magnitude 
 overhangs us. — We have a creature called the 
 bletur, which is not only the perfection of ani- 
 mal food, but whose covering, given it by na- 
 ture, becomes when manufactured our own also, 
 and for many ages has been the pride and wealth 
 of our country- — -Would you then believe, that 
 though other nations produce the same animals, 
 at such an inferior price, from their climates and 
 untaxed conditions, as to render all competition 
 ridiculous; yet this raw material is suffered to 
 be imported and worked up here, whilst the 
 breeders of Armata can scarcely pay their shep- 
 herds for the care of their flocks, and are every 
 
 where 
 
( 137 ) 
 
 where breaking up their farms, even in those parts 
 of the island proverbially famous for their pro- 
 pagation?' 
 
 I could not here help interrupting again, by 
 asking — " Where was your government all this 
 while? — or rather perhaps I should ask, have you 
 any government at all ?" — " Certainly," he an- 
 swered, " we have, and one that is justly the 
 envy of our world; but nothing is perfect. — 
 The matter was lately brought before the great 
 council, and was passed over without redress; 
 but you must not be hasty in judging of the 
 national character from such a seemingly absurd 
 determination. — The great council is composed 
 of men far superior, from talents and informa- 
 tion, to those of any other country, but who 
 are now and then obliged to suffer their own 
 good sense to be overshadowed by the non- 
 sense of others ; they are not chosen equally 
 by the various classes of an intelligent people, 
 but are got together in such a manner that 
 local interests and local prejudices sometimes 
 
 prevail 
 
( 138 ) 
 
 prevail over the opinions of enlightened 
 statesmen. — If yon had understood our lan- 
 guage, it would have amused you to have been 
 present at their debate. — The greater number 
 said that they would not depart from an ancient 
 policy of free importation, under which the 
 country had so long flourished, and I have no 
 doubt they believed they were pursuing its best 
 interests ; but they probably never looked into 
 an account — they knew nothing of the immense 
 and alarming increase of the importations com- 
 plained of, nor their former proportions at dif- 
 ferent periods to the home growth, nor the 
 effect of this increase upon the staple of the 
 country, nor did they consider whether our own 
 bleturs might not be brought by proper encou- 
 ragements to a higher, perhaps to a perfec- 
 tion equal with those of any other country, so 
 as in time to supply most of our manufactures 
 at as cheap a rate, preserving within ourselves 
 the immense sums annually drained from us by 
 purchasing abroad what we might produce at 
 home. When this improvident conclusion of 
 
 the 
 
( 139 ) 
 
 the select body was brought before the whole 
 council, they, without, further examination, 
 confirmed it; and then, as innocently as the ble- 
 turs which were the subjects of their decision, 
 went out of the fold in which they had been 
 penned to scatter themselves over the capital, 
 where I will very soon carry you to see them/' 
 
 " Have you now," said Morven, " any other 
 questions to propose? — I am impatient to hear 
 your opinions/' 
 
 " Others yet remain. 
 
 " Is there any fixed interest of money amongst 
 you r and, if there be, arc there any means by 
 which avarice and chicanery can successfully 
 evade the law which creates the limitation ?" — 
 " There are," he replied, " and to such an extent 
 as to render it difficult, if not impossible, for men 
 possessed of the clearest and most unburthened 
 property to borrow the smallest sums for the im- 
 provement of their estates." 
 
 " In 
 
( 140 ) 
 
 l( In what state are your manufactures? — Are 
 your people equally industrious as formerly, and 
 are they equal to other nations in the ingenious 
 arts ?" 
 
 " As much beyond them," he answered, " as 
 the sun outshines the smallest star that only 
 twinkles when he has set. There are some arts, 
 perhaps, in which, as we do not prize them so 
 highly as others, we may be inferior; but in 
 all the great improvements of the higher, 
 which assist human labour, and which can only 
 be brought to perfection by the deepest know- 
 ledge of chemistry and mechanics, we have no 
 equals, nor can ever, I believe, be rivalled. There 
 is a force and robustness, if I may so express 
 myself, in the natives of Armata, as if they were of 
 a different species from the ordinary race of men." 
 
 " I rejoice to hear it — one question then only 
 remains — 
 
 " Have you fisheries ? — Are your seas prolific, 
 
 and 
 
( 141 ) 
 
 and are the fish directed by a mysterious instinct, 
 as in our world, to visit periodically the coasts 
 of the ocean, as if brought thither by the Divine 
 command for the sustentation of man?" 
 
 " You seem," answered my friend, " to have 
 been describing this country in adverting to your 
 own. The fish of this planet are prolific beyond 
 all other creatures, and are bound, as with you, 
 to an appointed course. The finger of God, 
 visible as it is throughout all his works, seems 
 here to be more distinct and manifest ; pointing 
 with a benevolent clearness to this inexhaustible 
 source of food. The supply has been always a 
 great national object, hut improvement has not 
 reached its height, and never can reach it whilst 
 a most improvident and enormous duty upon 
 salt, amounting to thirty times and upwards 
 of the value of the commodity, is sufTercd to 
 remain as it is at present regulated by our laws.*' 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 14'2 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 In which the Author begins to deliver his opinion concerning the 
 state of Armata, and the remedies for the difficulties which 
 Morven had related. 
 
 " You shall now then," I said, " be possessed 
 of my opinions — I have little, indeed, to com- 
 municate, having only in a manner to give you 
 back what is your own. Your answers to my 
 various inquiries have been so enlightened, that 
 T can hardly mistake the condition of your coun- 
 try, but its novelty throughout has perplexed 
 me. The remedies, though they may be diffi- 
 cult in the application, are in their principles 
 obvious and simple. 
 
 " Your government, according to your own 
 admission, had long ago absorbed a much larger 
 proportion of the public wealth than can pos- 
 sibly be consistent with the prosperity, I had 
 almost said with the existence of any state. 
 
 And 
 
( 143 ) 
 
 And no ordinary cause of war — nothing, indeed, 
 short of self protection from an invading force 
 could have justified the launching out into such 
 •a wasteful system of expenditure, as to have in- 
 creased ten-fold in less than thirty years the 
 burthen of ten centuries." " We had no 
 choice," said Morven, interrupting me, " after 
 the short opportunity I pointed out to you had 
 passed ; we sought to avoid war, but it. was 
 fastened upon us." 
 
 • 
 " I am in no condition," I answered, " to dis- 
 pute with you upon facts ; but your adversaries 
 were in the phrenzy of a sanguinary revolution, 
 and were more likely to destroy themselves than 
 to injure others. — You should therefore have 
 exerted your influence with other governments 
 to leave them unmolested ; and if, by a firm and 
 faithful combination, some safe direction could 
 not be given to so inflamed and dangerous a 
 people, all nations should have stood aloof 
 from them as from the mouth of a volcano, 
 attaching their own subjects by wise and indul- 
 gent 
 
( 144 ) 
 
 gent councils, increasing for the time their mili- 
 tary establishments, and keeping within their 
 own territories in a state of impregnable defence. 
 
 " But supposing the views of other nations 
 to have been different, or that differing from 
 yours in opinion, your mediation had been re- 
 jected, you were completely independent of them 
 all, and as far therefore as your own country was 
 concerned nothing ought to have removed you 
 from a system of defence. You are an island 
 with immense naval and military strength. 
 Within yourselves you were secure — and you 
 ought not, though you were involved in war, 
 to have carried it beyond your own limits. — A 
 contrary system could not have been contem- 
 plated by men of common discretion without 
 foreseeing a ruinous expense ; but nothing seems 
 to have occurred to your most sagacious finan- 
 ciers beyond the simple question of the compe- 
 tency of the new taxes to pay the interest of 
 additional loans ; their bearings upon the springs 
 of national industry and prosperous commerce 
 
 appear- 
 
( to ) 
 
 appear to have been wholly overlooked, except 
 in the closets of a few speculative writers who 
 foresaw the ruin of the system, but miscalculated 
 its period, from not taking into account the 
 almost incredible energies of your extraordinary 
 people. This was a great evil ; because when 
 the cera of their prophecies had passed away, it 
 operated as a kind of license for unbounded pro- 
 fusion. (Economists were of course discoun- 
 tenanced, and jobbers of every description en- 
 couraged in a triumphant cry against factious 
 predictions, until it seems to have become a 
 received or rather an unquestionable axiom 
 amongst you, that no debt which figures could 
 extend to denominate would ever affect the 
 invulnerable and immortal Armata; since, con- 
 trary to the experience of our jockeys in Eng- 
 land, the more weight she had carried the greater 
 had been her speed. That this bubble did not 
 burst whilst hostilities continued may easily be 
 accounted for. — Whilst your government was 
 the universal paymaster, your forges resounded 
 night and day, your looms were incessantly 
 
 L plied 
 
( 146 ) 
 
 plied, and your warehouses for manufactures 
 and natural productions were almost hourly 
 emptiedand replenished; high prices and prompt 
 payments were considered as symbols of the 
 most permanent prosperity, and the just pride 
 of national glory confirmed the delusion : — 
 well may it be called delusion ! because the traf- 
 fic which you imagined had enriched you was 
 carried on with your own capitals, and every 
 article purchased was paid for with your own 
 money. Individual sellers were, no doubt, often 
 more than compensated for their proportions of 
 what all of you were to discharge, but the com- 
 munity of course became poor in the proportion 
 of the amount expended, since the amount ex* 
 pended was their own. When peace therefore 
 came, which had been so long and so anxiously 
 looked for, markets of every description and the 
 prices of all commodities became comparatively 
 nothing, whilst the people were bent to the 
 earth by the interest of the money borrowed to 
 pay for the goods which had been sold. Your 
 great purchaser was, no doubt, most, liberal and 
 
 punctual 
 
( w ) 
 
 punctual in his payments, but they could only 
 be made by his putting his hand into your own 
 pockets. It is folly to say, that the public debt 
 of a nation is nothing, being only owing from 
 the community at large to a part of it, and so 
 returning in a circle ; likening it to money due 
 from members of the same family to one another, 
 which, it was said, would leave the family just 
 the same as if no such loans amongst themselves 
 had existed. There might be some colour for 
 this comparison if the whole population were 
 public creditors in equal proportions ; but what 
 would become of the argument, if the lenders 
 were not more than a twelfth part of the people, 
 and if those who, when the taxes were brought 
 back by government into circulation, received 
 any part of them for services or from favour 
 were but another twelfth part of them ? — could 
 it, in such a case, be maintained as a grave 
 argument that the five-sixths of the public, 
 paying the same as individuals, but receiving 
 nothing in return for their equal contributions, 
 were yet on a footing of equality with others 
 
 L 2 who 
 
( Mfl ) 
 
 who were more than indemnified, and even with 
 those who had been enriched? or could it be 
 hazarded as doctrine by any political oeconomist, 
 that a nation so circumstanced could be equally 
 powerful or prosperous, or its inhabitants equally 
 happy as if the public wealth flowed in a natu- 
 ral current through all the various classes of 
 the civilized world ? Such sophistry might well 
 pass current in England, where nobody has an 
 interest in questioning it, because our debt is 
 too insignificant to raise up antagonists to 
 oppose it ; but if we had seventy millions to pay 
 annually, a sum more than half the rental of 
 our whole kingdom, and if only three or four 
 millions of our people, out of our whole great 
 population, received any part of it back again, 
 but remained in a comparative state of poverty 
 and exclusion, the air would ring with ex- 
 clamations against the propagation of an error 
 so palpably dangerous and destructive. 
 
 " It cannot, indeed, be better exposed, since it 
 should only be met by ridicule, than by telling 
 
 you 
 
( 149 ) 
 
 you of a loss which I personally suffered before 
 I left England, and for which I was not a little 
 laughed at amongst my acquaintance — 
 
 " I happened to go, after a theatrical repre- 
 sentation in London, to a general rendezvous 
 for refreshment in the neighbourhood of the 
 play-house : whilst I was at supper, there 
 came into my box a person in a state of great 
 agitation and distress. — His appearance be- 
 spoke the utmost poverty, and I was there- 
 fore not a little surprized to see him pull out 
 of his pocket a time-piece, of great beauty, set 
 round with precious stones, which he offered to 
 sell me just at any price I would set upon 
 it, adding, that nothing but finding an imme- 
 diate purchaser could save himself and an infant 
 family from destruction. I excused myself, by 
 saying, that I hoped he would not think I 
 meant to insult him by any suspicion of his 
 honesty, but that common prudence, as well as 
 justice to others, inspired a reasonable restraint 
 in such a case upon the most charitable feelings. 
 
 l 3 I told 
 
( 150 ) 
 
 I told him, however, giving him at the same 
 time my address, that what he asked for was at 
 his service, but not as the price of his watch, 
 which should be re-delivered on the re-payment 
 of the money. He seemed greatly affected by 
 my proposal, returned me a thousand thanks, 
 pressed my hands between his, and turning 
 aside, as if to conceal his tears, retired with the 
 hank notes I bad given him. On returning 
 home I shewed the watch to my family, taking 
 not a little credit for having refused so advan- 
 tageous a bargain, saying it must be, at least, of 
 equal value with my own, which had cost me 
 five times the money. I now put my hand 
 into my pocket to make the comparison, but 
 found I had it not. To cut the matter short, 
 which you no doubt already anticipate, it was my 
 own watch I had paid for, which this ingeni- 
 ous stranger had deprived me of in the play- 
 house, and sold to me as his." Seeing my friend 
 almost convulsed with laughter, I could not 
 help saying to him, " Laughable as it may be, 
 it is scarcely an exaggeration of the account 
 
 you 
 
( 151 ) 
 
 you have been giving me of your country dur- 
 ing your late war, and if you understood Latin 
 I would say to you — 
 
 De te fabula narratur. 
 
 " The true way of estimating the disastrous 
 consequences of your present taxation, is to 
 figure to yourself (if you can bear the reflection) 
 the sensation it would at this moment produce, 
 if some new and unexpected source of annual 
 revenue were to start up to the amount of 
 twenty millions of your money. — Would it not in 
 your present condition be like a resurrection 
 from the dead? — Yet in this one reign you have 
 created a pei^petual burthen of nearly twice 
 that sum. Could volumes so strikingly detail 
 the effect of this worst of evils? 
 
 " The cause of your distress is therefore the 
 clearest imaginable. — Your government collects 
 in taxes so large a proportion of your property, 
 that the rest is not sufficient to support your 
 people; in such a case it is a mistake to com- 
 
 l 4 plain 
 
( 152 ) 
 
 plain of the want of a circulating medium as an 
 accidental and temporary cause of your difficul- 
 ties, capable of being removed by politic con- 
 trivances. We have a vulgar saying in Eng- 
 land, that you can have no more of a cat than 
 his skin; and if out of twenty shillings, not less 
 than ten are consumed by government and by col- 
 lateral burthens, ten only can remain in real and 
 substantial circulation ; the scarcity of money 
 may be lamented, and ingenious devices may 
 be held out as remedies, but without a radical 
 system of improvement, rendering property more 
 productive, and trade more prosperous, what 
 danger can be greater than opportunities of bor- 
 rowing, when there are no means of repaying 
 what is borrowed? — If land, from having sunk 
 below its former rental, is mortgaged to more 
 than half its value, would it be any thing like 
 an advantage to the proprietor to find out even 
 a fair lender, who would advance him money 
 on the remaining part? since, without some 
 means of improvement, his estate in the end must 
 infallibly be sold. 
 
 " The 
 
( 1^3 ) 
 
 " The same consequences apply equally to com- 
 munities as to individuals, and there is there- 
 fore no safety for Armata, but, first, in the wis- 
 dom of her government, and in the energies of 
 her people, to raise the value of every species of 
 property, by the almost infinite ways within 
 their reach ; and secondly, by the immediate 
 reduction of her expenditure to square with 
 her revenue, as far as can be made consistent 
 with the public safety and the principles of 
 national justice. 
 
 " A great orator in our ancient world, when 
 asked what was the first, and the second, and 
 the third perfection of eloquence, still answered 
 Action, not to exclude other perfections but to 
 mark its superior importance ; so I, who am no 
 orator at all, but a plain man, speaking plainly 
 of the policy of an exhausted country, must 
 say that your fiwst, and your second, and your 
 third duty, is retrenchment, meaning, as the 
 rhetorician, not that it is your zchole duty, but 
 only that its pre-eminence may be felt. 
 
 " I am 
 
( £4 ) 
 
 " I am aware of the great difficulties which 
 must attend a satisfactory execution of this 
 momentous trust, but after what you have 
 related of Armata, / cannot doubt the result. — 
 On the contrary, a severe and unexampled 
 pressure may open men's eyes to their real con- 
 dition, and give such a simultaneous impulse to 
 your government and people, as to make them 
 act harmoniously and firmly, in devising and 
 submitting to the measures necessary for the 
 redemption of your affairs. 
 
 u In this grand process of restoration, it is of 
 the first importance that the public mind should 
 not take a wrong direction, looking for savings' 
 which in the aggregate would be as nothing, 
 whilst principles of justice, which are every 
 thing, were disregarded. — Your retrenchments 
 must not have the character of confiscations 
 nor of revolutionary heat, and the different 
 classes of your people, so happily blended as to 
 have a common interest, must not be set at 
 variance. — No justice can be done where irri- 
 tation 
 
( 155 ) 
 
 tation prevails, and in England therefore no 
 court is permitted to sit in judgment, unless 
 they who are to pronounce it are dispassionate 
 and unbiassed. — I can see no distinction between 
 the members of a community in a great crisis of 
 its affairs — when a ship is in distress all on board 
 must take their turns at the pump. — The public 
 creditor undoubtedly lends his money upon the 
 faith of the whole nation, pledged through its 
 government to a stipulated return, and it is a 
 most sacred pledge; but the landholder im- 
 proves his property upon the same faith, that 
 he shall enjoy its profits, subject only to an 
 equal burthen upon all. — What colour then is 
 there for saying, that, if that revenue were to 
 fall short to which the public creditor looked 
 when he lent his money, the deficiency should 
 be made up to him by disproportionate 
 burthens upon lands on which he had no mort- 
 gage, nor their proprietors any special benefit 
 from the loans? 
 
 " Neither — and for the same reasons — ought 
 
 you 
 
( iS6 ) 
 
 you to lay disproportionate burthens upon the 
 profits of any manufactures or ingenious arts, 
 begun in any given state of your country, that 
 you may keep what is termed good faith with 
 a very limited number of your subjects. — Every 
 just government, however, must proceed in ex^ 
 treme or in new cases with the utmost cau- 
 tion, taking care that no principle is adopted 
 which works a wrong, however small in the 
 particular instance it may appear, because it 
 opens a door to other wrongs, the extent of 
 which cannot be known, and saps the very 
 foundations of the social contract. — The true 
 course to be pursued is, after all, most difficult; 
 in the details, though the principles, as I have 
 said, are clear ; since with every qualification 
 of wisdom and justice in those who may have 
 to act, or of fortitude and patience in those 
 who are to suffer, differences of opinion must 
 always attend any sudden and cutting reforms 
 in great national establishments, both as to the 
 extent of reductions and the seasons for their 
 accomplishment. — Every class will feel most 
 
 acutely 
 

 ( m ) 
 
 acutely for itself, and it is difficult to be a righ- 
 teous judge in our own cause. — This prejudice 
 may even extend to cases where there can be 
 no approach to self-interest, and it may per- 
 haps most powerfully affect my own judgment 
 at this moment, when I am discussing the 
 policy of another world. — The first object of 
 retrenchment after the general peace you have 
 described, ought undoubtedly, to some extent 
 or other, to be the reduction of your naval 
 and military forces; because their services are 
 no longer necessary for your safety; but they 
 may again be necessary, and the utmost skill 
 and caution are therefore required to pre- 
 serve their fabric and constitution, when you 
 diminish their extent. — The condition also of 
 many who have so nobly served you, is a sub- 
 ject / almost weep to think on. — It should be 
 remembered, that those brave men have been 
 for years together in most perilous and unwhole- 
 some stations; that their pay could not be suf- 
 ficient to support them, and in many cases their 
 families also, — left behind them, oppressed with 
 
 poverty 
 
( 358 ) 
 
 poverty and the wretchedness of separation. — 
 It is surely, therefore, an intemperate spirit 
 that would drown the acclamations of joy for 
 victories purchased with their hlood, by a cla- 
 mour to dismiss them, at once, to hopeless 
 misery. — A reduction you must nevertheless 
 make, since an unusual pressure demands it, 
 but let not their cause be prejudiced by imagi- 
 nary dangers to your civil government, which, 
 with one stroke of a pen, can sweep away their 
 very name and existence. — Be firm, then, in 
 your purpose to lop off all burthens Avhich lean 
 without necessity upon your revenues, but be 
 gentle and considerate in the process ; softening, 
 as far as possible, the severe privations which 
 duty may compel you to inflict. 
 
 " Let me deceive you however in nothing. — I 
 am no authority on this part of your case. — I 
 was bred to arms from my earliest youth in my 
 own world, and feel such an enthusiasm in every 
 thing that regards the naval or military pro- 
 fessions, that if the subject had arisen with us, 
 
 and 
 
( 159 ) 
 
 and I had been placed in our public coun- 
 cils, I should probably have differed in 
 opinion from those with whom I differ in 
 nothing else." 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 160 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 In which the Author continues to deliver his Opinion upon the 
 State and Condition of Armat a. 
 
 "Another momentous duty now presents it- 
 self, and of a more pleasant character. — Whilst 
 you are reducing your expenditure, every effort 
 ought to be made, and, if possible, without the 
 aid of new burthens, to regenerate the public 
 estate, which neither in its value nor in any of 
 its resources, has nearly reached its height.— 
 From an inhabitant of another world you cannot 
 expect details; but, founding myself upon your 
 own statements, I will point out some manifest 
 errors in your system, and advert to the most 
 obvious remedies : 
 
 " In the first place, then, to enable a state to 
 collect a great and direct revenue from the 
 property of the people, it ought to be a grand 
 object to make all collateral burthens press upon 
 
 them 
 
( 161 ) 
 
 them as lightly as possible by the most refined 
 policy in the administrations of all inferior 
 departments, and to suffer no abuses whatsoever 
 to prevail in them : this is not the work of a 
 day, but of painful and long-continued labour 
 in the legislative body, and throughout all the 
 magistracies of the country* 
 
 " That this duty has been wholly lost sight 
 of in a most vital part of your concerns, 
 you have yourself admitted and lamented. — 
 Nothing indeed can be so extravagantly absurd 
 and preposterous as the management or rather 
 the creation of your poor, by which your 
 government suffers to escape from it, (without any 
 relief to its subjects, but on the contrary op- 
 pressingand corrupting them,) an annual revenue 
 of nearly half your general taxes when your 
 late war began, since you have stated that above 
 seven millions are every year collected on that 
 account. — To advise you, in this case, requires 
 no local knowledge; an inhabitant of the moon, 
 dropped down from it upon your surface, would, 
 
 m in 
 
( 162 ) 
 
 iii the very next moment, be fully qualified to 
 condemn the absurd and disgraceful system of 
 your laws. — It was an insult, (though I am sure 
 not intended,) to ask me what England would 
 do in a condition to which she never can be 
 reduced. — England would never have per- 
 mitted her houses of charity, if a mistaken policy 
 had erected them, to be converted into the 
 haunts of vagabonds and prostitutes to knot 
 and gender in, throwing the whole burthen of 
 their debaucheries upon the industrious classes 
 of her people — England would laugh to scorn 
 the laboured system of folly you have described, 
 bringing no comfort to the necessitous, whilst it 
 swallows up, in many instances, the entire 
 property on which it professes to be a tax — 
 England, instead of setting up courts through- 
 out the whole country to play at foot-ball with 
 the unhappy, whom she meant to protect, 
 driving them to and fro from one part of the 
 kingdom to the other — England would begin 
 by confining public charity to those who were 
 real objects of charitable support ; and, wise in 
 
 all 
 
( 163 ) 
 
 all her regulations, would then enact a system 
 of equal and local contribution from all who, 
 from any source of property or industry, could 
 spare it ; a contribution which the wealthy 
 would not feel, and which would be felt even 
 by the lowest orders not as a burthen, but as a 
 protection from ever being themselves the 
 objects of a degrading and corrupting relief. — 
 Those mischievous receptacles of vice and 
 misery, which you so justly and feelingly re- 
 probated, would then be everywhere rased to 
 the foundations ;, the poor would be restored 
 to their domestic comforts, and contributing 
 millions to an useless and devouring taxation, 
 would be enabled to relieve the public as they 
 became themselves relieved. — When by such a 
 new system of laws, as wise and protective as 
 the present is absurd and oppressive, the mites 
 of almost the poorest came to be dropped into 
 the boxes of so blessed an institution throughout 
 every district in your country, pauperism would 
 soon entirely disappear. — It often indeed exists 
 in its most wretched and degraded forms, when 
 
 m 2 what 
 
( 164 ) 
 
 what can be saved amongst the lower classes, 
 instead of being deposited weekly, for their own 
 benefit, is consumed nightly, in haunts where 
 liquid fire is prepared for them, utterly destroy- 
 ing their constitutions, and disqualifying them 
 from all the duties of good husbands, or fathers, 
 or subjects, not one of which an habitual drunkard 
 was ever yet qualified to fulfil. 
 
 " But the subject of your pauperism is far from 
 being finished. — Humanity cannot pronounce 
 that the poor shall receive no alms when they 
 can work, if there be no work for them. — ■ 
 Every thing therefore you have said regarding 
 those oppressive burthens, in the whole of which 
 I have just concurred with you, must go com- 
 pletely for nothing, and be without any possible 
 remedy until this radical and destructive defect 
 in your present condition is removed. 
 
 " Your laws for the support of the poor 
 were made in a sound and wholesome state of 
 your country, when it was a just legal presump- 
 tion, 
 
( 165 ) 
 
 tion, that every man who was able and wiHing 
 to work might find employment; but that is not 
 the case now, and the evil may be most distinctly 
 traced to your great taxation, and to an erroneous 
 policy, which, by depressing agriculture, has 
 depressed every thing else. — To use the words 
 of a great poet of England, ' We track the felon 
 home/ — This most important subject lies within 
 the narrowest compass, and may be summed up 
 in a word. — Indeed, you have almost exhausted 
 it yourself, and I have little that is my own to 
 offer. 
 
 " The mischief began in the mistaken system 
 you adopted for the importation of foreign 
 grain; but however your government might 
 have been perplexed and almost overborne on 
 the first consideration of the subject, I cannot 
 anticipate that it will suffer such a monstrous 
 evil to continue. — It must surely see that the 
 profits of a few importing merchants, engaged in 
 speculations of this description, can never cir- 
 culate with the same advantage as if the same 
 
 M 3 capital 
 
( 166 ) 
 
 capital were flowing in various channels as a 
 kind of irrigation of wealth through every nook 
 and corner of your island, giving universal spirit 
 to agriculture, and employment to millions who 
 must become national burthens when it declines. 
 
 " You will now, of course, ask for the remedies, 
 which appear to me as obvious as the evils to 
 which they are to be applied. — You must not 
 expect that remedial effects can be sudden, 
 when the causes of your difficulties are con- 
 sidered ; but if they are wisely adopted and 
 firmly persevered in, I will warrant the 
 result. 
 
 " The soil, then, of every country, and the 
 bringing to the utmost perfection its various 
 productions, are the foundations of all wealth 
 and prosperity. — You might as well hope to see 
 the human body in active motion when palsy 
 had reached the heart, or a tree flourishing after 
 its roots were decayed, as expect to see manu- 
 factures, or arts, or industry of any description 
 
 pro- 
 
( 167 ) 
 
 when agriculture has declined. — 
 In an island like Armata, where the earth 
 and the climate are so propitious, no man 
 ought to be able to set his foot upon the 
 ground, except upon the public roads, or the 
 streets of cities, without treading upon human 
 sustenance ; and it ought to be a fundamental 
 policy to bring your entire surface into the best 
 considered use by prudent and appropriate culti- 
 vation. — Well directed bounties, and skilful 
 relaxations of your imposts where they press 
 tod severely, might still accomplish this object; 
 and the unnatural state of your country for so 
 long a period most imperiously demands the 
 attempt; as, without some immediate exertion, 
 thousands, perhaps millions of acres, will soon 
 fall back into the desart more rapidly than they 
 were reclaimed. 
 
 " This retrogression of agriculture would be 
 
 portentous, if the causes were not obvious. — 
 
 The lands I principally speak of were not 
 
 brought into cultivation by a natural course of 
 
 M 4 bus- 
 
( I«8 ) 
 
 husbandry, but were forced into production 
 at an expense that your markets during war 
 could only repay ; and the utmost exertion of 
 unprotected proprietors can never, I fear, redeem 
 them from the consequences of such an improvi- 
 dent course — the State alone can save them, and 
 the public loss will otherwise be ten-fold the 
 amount of the greatest sacrifice which need be 
 made to prevent returning barrenness from deso- 
 lating your land. 
 
 " It is not Money that government could be 
 asked for, but, as I have just said, the skilful ma- 
 nagement of revenue, and an unremitting atten. 
 tion in her legislature to the smaller springs of 
 national ceconomy, which are not examined or 
 thought of when the body politic is in a rude state 
 of health, — the science of agriculture is by no 
 means at its height; and in the almost miraculous 
 advance of chemistry, new means may be found, 
 from the concentration of known composts and 
 the discovery of new, to lessen the cost of 
 culture, and to increase its returns. — But here 
 
 again 
 
( 169 ) 
 
 again your revenue stalks like a ghost across 
 my path whichever way I turn; as otherwise 
 you have a superior unbounded source of im- 
 provement trodden under your very feet, and 
 cast as refuse into your rivers, beyond all that 
 chemistry is ever likely to discover. — You have 
 salt, you say, in endless abundance, but your 
 necessity turns it into money, even to forty times 
 its value, instead of spreading it abroad for vari- 
 ous uses, to rise up in property which no money 
 could purchase. — After thus taxing to the very 
 hone this life's blood of your people, why, to be 
 consistent, do you not bind up by law their 
 veins and arteries to prevent circulation? — Do 
 you know what salt alone would do for you if 
 it were not seized upon as revenue and clung to 
 perhaps as a plank which you cannot quit in 
 your distress? — I will speak of its other uses 
 hereafter ; but can you be so ignorant as 
 not to know, that by taking the tax upon 
 it directly as money, you rob yourselves of 
 fifty times its amount in the productions 
 of your soil, in your fisheries and manufac- 
 tures, 
 
( 170 ) 
 
 tures, and in the universal prosperity of the 
 country ? 
 
 " Lime, which has caused to start into life the 
 most inert and sterile parts of Great Britain, is 
 just nothing as a manure when compared with 
 salt, which differs from it, besides, in two remark- 
 able qualities, decisive of its superior value. — 
 Lime, and I believe all other known composts, 
 are powerful only according to the quantities 
 in which they are used, whereas salt, to be use- 
 ful, must be sparingly employed ; it corrupts 
 vegetable substances when mixed with them in 
 small quantities, but preserves them when it 
 predominates in the mass. — It is needless there- 
 fore to add, that independently of its compara- 
 tive lightness, the expense both of the article 
 and its carriage must be very greatly diminished. 
 Yet you rob the mother of your people of this 
 food which indulgent nature has cast into her 
 lap, sufficient, as you will see hereafter, to 
 feed all her children, even if their numbers 
 were doubled. 
 
 " Nothing 
 
( '71 ) 
 
 " Nothing indeed can so clearly expose the 
 infinite danger of public profusion, as the neces- 
 sity it imposes upon almost all governments, of 
 direct taxation upon articles of universal and in- 
 dispensable consumption: such revenues are un- 
 doubtedly always great, and, in moderation, are 
 therefore the best; but when they are pushed 
 beyond the mark, which an enlightened view 
 of the whole concerns of a country would make 
 manifest to a great statesman, the advantages 
 obtained arc countervailed and become nothing; 
 because they dry up other sources of wealth 
 and improvement which would carry even 
 greater burthens, whilst the national prosperity 
 was preserved. 
 
 u To continue this momentous subject, be 
 assured that the very being of your country, 
 above all at this moment, depends upon your 
 making your own soil support your most ex- 
 tended population, and that to consider popu- 
 lation as an evil, is to be wiser than God, who, 
 in your earth as in mine, commanded man to in- 
 crease 
 
( m ) 
 
 crease and multiply, and who, I am persuaded, 
 throughout all creation, has ordained that no- 
 thing should go backward or stand still. 
 
 " If there were no other proof of the pre- 
 eminence of agriculture, let it be remembered 
 that it is the greatest source of labour, and in 
 a proportion little understood, because it not 
 only comprehends the direct and immediate 
 labour upon its surface and in its bowels, but 
 the labour also of various arts and manufactures, 
 whose raw materials it produces. — Labour, in- 
 deed, is the salt of the earth, the preserver and 
 nourisher of all things — the curse that man 
 should eat his bread with the sweat of his brow, 
 was mercifully repealed in the very moment it was 
 pronounced, and was changed even into a bless- 
 ing — Labour gave him bread, and a comfort along 
 with it, which nothing like labour can bestow. 
 If the earth produced spontaneously, it might 
 be a paradise for angels, but no habitation for 
 beings formed like ourselves; without labour, 
 what could support or adorn the whole fabric 
 
 of 
 
( 173 ) 
 
 of society? — It would vanish like an enchant- 
 ment. 
 
 " The curse of death was also revoked, not 
 only by the promise of immortal life hereafter, 
 but to deliver man at the very moment from the 
 barrenness of the earth that was cursed. — With- 
 out death, he might have toiled and sweated, but 
 the ground would have yielded nothing ; death 
 therefore was ordained to revolve with life in a 
 mysterious and fructifying circle. — The cor- 
 ruption of all created things returning into the 
 bosom of nature, brings them back again to re- 
 ward the industry of man. Every animal that 
 dies ; all vegetables, and they have lives also, 
 every substance which dissolves and becomes 
 offensive, every heterogeneous mixture, which 
 upon the surface would stagnate and become 
 malignant, brought back by human wisdom 
 into their allotted stations, become the future 
 parents of a renovated world. 
 
 " Can we suppose then that God has per- 
 formed 
 
( 174 ) 
 
 formed those stupendous miraeles tor nothing: 
 When our Scripture tells us that man was formed 
 from the dust of the earth, it should not perhaps 
 be taken in a sense too literal — to the Almighty, 
 matter was not necessary for his creation, 
 though his frame was to be material — it may 
 mean that he could live only by the earth, and 
 was to return to it after death. 
 
 "The first national object then is to feed 
 your own people, and to find employment 
 for them all. On such asubjcct you cannot ex- 
 pect details, nor can you need them. — In a country 
 whose splendid history you have passed along- 
 like a kind of fairy tale before me, your means 
 must be infinite. — You have not only the rich- 
 est and most various surface to work upon, but 
 subterranean treasures, inexhaustible and un- 
 equalled ; you have still to make new roads and 
 railways, and canals, and facilities of yet undis- 
 covered descriptions, for the transport of their pro- 
 ductions, which should over-spread your soil as if 
 there were a net-work thrown over it. — The car- 
 
( J75 ) 
 
 riage of manure, of materials for building, and 
 of all articles of traffic, or provisions, are heavy 
 taxes upon the raw materials, and by every pos- 
 sible means should be diminished ; an obser- 
 vation equally applying to every species of human 
 labour, whether employed upon the earth or 
 in arts and manufactures, which should be cur- 
 tailed and lessened not only by the utmost stretch 
 of accidental inventions, but should be drawn 
 out and rewarded and consecrated by the state. 
 
 " This may be thought a paradox whilst the 
 poor are calling out every where for employ- 
 ment ; but be assured no greater delusion ever 
 existed than that the matchless ingenuity of 
 your people, in the construction of mechanical 
 aids, can in any possible instance be an evil. 
 I was shocked, indeed, to hear of outrages, 
 which I should have expected only to have 
 existed amongst the very dregs of a civilized 
 people. The mistaken or rather the delirious 
 incitement, is when numbers are unemployed ; 
 but how many more would be without employ- 
 ment. 
 
( 176 ) 
 
 ment, or rather how many thousands, and tens 
 and hundreds of thousands would be starving* 
 if the machinery they attack were overthrown ? 
 In the present condition of your country you 
 could not send a single bale of your manufac- 
 tures into a foreign market, if they were to be 
 worked up only by manual labour, and then not 
 only the turbulent destroyers, but the most 
 diligent of your people must perish. Having 
 been blessed with religious parents, my mind 
 was directed, from my earliest youth, to contem- 
 plate the benevolent dispensations of an offended 
 God ; and in nothing have they inspired a more 
 constant and grateful admiration than that when 
 the first and greatest of his works had been cast 
 down for disobedience into the most forlorn and 
 helpless condition, he should not only be gifted 
 to subdue to his use and dominion all inferior 
 things, but that, fashioned after the image of 
 Heaven, he should be enabled to scan its most 
 distant worlds, and to augment his own strength 
 in mitigation of his appointed labour, by engines 
 so tremendously powerful as would crush, with 
 
 a sin- 
 
( 177 ) 
 
 a single stroke, his weak frame to atoms, whilst 
 they form, under his directing skill, the smallest 
 and most delicate things for the uses and orna- 
 ments of the world. 
 
 " You must heat down those insane outrages 
 by the whole strength and vigour of your laws. 
 Select the guiltiest for condign punishment; 
 but let no such guilt be spared'* 
 
 Morven here expressed his highest satisfac- 
 tion. Taking me by the hand, he assured me 
 that the very existence of Armata depended upon 
 the most unremitting execution of the laws in 
 this respect; and I was glad to find that her 
 government had acted with the greatest promp- 
 titude and firmness in stigmatizing and punish- 
 ing this opprobrium of a civilized world. 
 
 As I was preparing to finish the little I had to 
 say to him, he desired we might pause a moment, 
 that what had been last said might be the better 
 remembered; and opening the door, which led 
 
 x to 
 
( 17S ) 
 
 to the adjoining apartment, I found a supper of 
 twelve covers prepared for us, and a mixed 
 company of men and women, apparently most 
 accomplished; but being then an utter stranger 
 to the language, I shall postpone all my obser- 
 vations upon Armatian society till I have to 
 speak hereafter of the manners and amusements 
 of the capital ; yet I cannot pass over that the 
 women I saw were most beautiful, several of 
 them singing delightfully, and that, from their 
 address and manner of speaking, it was well, 
 perhaps, for my repose, that I could not under- 
 stand what they said. — The reader, indeed, will 
 have to condole with me hereafter that I ever 
 became more susceptible. 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 179 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 In which the Author concludes his Opinion upon the State and 
 Condition of Armata. 
 
 When Morven visited me next morning, he 
 expressed his impatience to hear what had been 
 left unfinished the night before ; and I then pro- 
 ceeded as follows : — 
 
 " The more I reflect upon every part of your 
 statement, the more I am convinced that a 
 grand system of well directed industry, sup- 
 ported at once by your government and people, 
 would give an entire new face to your country; 
 but it cannot be even begun without re-casting 
 the laws which regulate the importations of 
 what your own soil could produce. I am sen- 
 sible that this subject is complicated in the 
 details, and that I cannot be qualified to deal 
 with them; but a sound principle gives a 
 sure direction throughout all the branches of 
 
 N C political 
 
 »&* 
 
( 180 ) 
 
 political occonomy. Until you come into the* 
 full enjoyment of what wisdom is sure to bestow, 
 you must, of course, have temporary arrange- 
 ments according to circumstances, that provi- 
 sions may be alwa} r s obtained at steady and 
 reasonable rates; but, in the meantime, your 
 undoubted policy is universal cultivation", 
 and when that is accomplished, or so far ad- 
 vanced as to feed your people, not a blade 
 or seed, or grain of any description ought to be 
 permitted to enter the ports of your country, 
 times of famine or scarcity excepted ; and 
 even then the quantity should be measured by 
 the decision of some high and responsible tri- 
 bunal, to secure unfluctuating prices, not so high 
 as to distress the poor, nor so lozv as to throw 
 them out of bread, when the landholders, who 
 employ them, are undersold by general and 
 jobbing importations. 
 
 " To speak plainly — It is my clear opinion 
 that this cannot be accomplished in the present 
 state of things, except by protecting duties, 
 
 which 
 
( "«1 ) 
 
 which should be so regulated as to ensure im- 
 portation, without enabling it to overpower the 
 agriculture of your own country. 
 
 " It would be speaking at random to be more 
 particular in concerns so new to me, but the 
 principle is universal. Importations of natural 
 productions may occasionally be politic, because 
 manufactures are often taken in return ; but 
 advantages may be purchased too dearly, and no 
 price can be more ruinous than when foreign 
 harvests have an injurious interference with the 
 natural productions of any nation. 
 
 " To avoid this evil, affecting alike manufac- 
 tures and agriculture, protecting duties have 
 been constantly resorted to by all governments, 
 and I cannot even conceive the danger of adopt- 
 ing them upon the present occasion, nor the 
 difficulty of settling their amounts. — After 
 fixing a proper standard, you might then keep 
 up your present warehousing system, that you 
 might always have a supply ; securing to the 
 
 n 3 importer 
 
( 182 ) 
 
 importer a fair prospect of profit, without 
 which he would not import, but still keeping 
 him in subordination to your own cultivators, 
 without which your own soil will infallibly be 
 neglected. — This system, however, need be but 
 temporary, like parental duties towards an infant 
 until his growth and strength are completed; 
 because, to say that notwithstanding the most 
 politic protections and bounties, such a country 
 as you have described to me will be found 
 unequal in the end to the support of its own popu- 
 lation, or that provisions are likely to be dearer 
 in proportion as your whole surface is brought 
 into well-directed cultivation, are propositions 
 which no man in England, who dreaded the re- 
 straints ofamad-house, would venture to advance. 
 
 " Anticipating, therefore, that a more pro- 
 tective system will now be speedily adopted, I 
 may revert with some hope to the condition of 
 your poor. When agriculture shall have re- 
 vived, and with it the labour which is insepa- 
 rable from its prosperity, the ancient legal 
 
 presumption, 
 
( I8S ) 
 
 presumption, that men who can work may find 
 employment, will revive also ; and you may 
 then, without inhumanity or injustice act up to, 
 or even re-enact your ancient laws which limit 
 the objects of relief to those whose activities 
 from age, or from disease, or in short from any 
 disabling infirmities have been destroyed. I 
 know nothing, of course, of your various dis- 
 tricts or of the burthens imposed upon them, but 
 I should not be at all surprized if, from the very 
 evils we have been discussing, the rates should 
 be found to be greater in the agricultural than 
 in the manufacturing departments ; because 
 your husbandmen and country servants, of all 
 descriptions, when employed upon lower wages 
 or discharged from employment, would fall of 
 course as burthens upon the places where their 
 families were settled ; but on the renovation of 
 agriculture the very reverse of this would 
 immediately succeed, and the rates in these 
 places would not only be the lowest, but would 
 lead to universal reductions, because, as labour 
 increased and extended, wages would extend 
 
 \ \ and 
 
( 184 ) 
 
 and increase in proportion, the whole of which 
 would circulate amongst your manufacturers 
 and traders, who lost their best customers when 
 agriculture declined. 
 
 " You are not, perhaps, aware of the propor- 
 tional ascendancy of land over other sources of 
 wealth and employment. — But speaking gene- 
 rally, and not from any positive calculation, a 
 tax upon property in England would bear upon 
 land and houses, as opposed to trades and manu- 
 factures, in the proportion of above seven to 
 three; and in the numbers of actual contri- 
 butors of above jour to two. — This disproportion 
 marks besides only the pre-eminence of agri- 
 culture in the ordinary condition of a nation ; 
 but if England were in your exhausted condi- 
 tion, and were called upon for a mighty exertion, 
 you would see how her genius would triumph. — 
 When pressed down with a weight which 
 threatened destruction, her energies would 
 rebound, and raise her as much higher than 
 her former elevation, as difficulties appeared 
 
 to 
 
( 185 ) 
 
 to sink her beneath it. — It is in adversity only, 
 that nations, like individuals, can be estimated; 
 like ships, you can know nothing of them in a 
 harbour ; you must try them in the storm, and 
 prove them by the weather that they make. — 
 England, I am sure, — (but it is a romance so to 
 speak of her, as in a state she can never be 
 brought to) — England would begin by a grand 
 systematic benevolence to the distressed — but 
 her wisdom would inform her that this humane 
 deliverance would be only ruin to her people, 
 if not immediately followed up by a system 
 which would enable them to support themsejves ; 
 and, remembering the efforts she had made for 
 other nations, which were comparatively unbur- 
 thened, she would regulate all her concerns with 
 them upon a just scale, and by well-considered 
 imposts, until she could cherish all her children 
 in her own bosom, by making her fertile soil 
 repay protected cultivation, neither mocking 
 the husbandman by the ruinous vibrations of 
 markets, nor distressing the poor by prices 
 beyond their reach. — When property was thus 
 
 put 
 
( 1S6 ) 
 
 put into the true road of returning to its value, 
 neither charities nor bounties would be neces- 
 sary ; proprietors would do the rest for them- 
 selves — self-interest is the most spirited reformer ; 
 capitals would no longer be wanting, when 
 laud was the best of all securities ; and, to com- 
 plete the process, she 'would brush away the 
 cobwebs of fraudulent money-dealers, the most 
 destructive of all the vermin that infest the 
 earth. — Loans, like all other contracts, should 
 either be the objects of unlimited traffic, or the 
 law that constitutes the exception should be 
 strictly maintained. — When a maximum is esta- 
 blished for interest, it ought to be rigorously 
 enforced; differences of risk are shallow 
 subterfuges to support annuities, except in cases 
 where the borrower has no greater estate than 
 for his own life; because when he has a. Jull 
 dominion over his property, and offers it as a 
 security, the resort to a contingency, which is 
 forced upon him by the lender to evade the law 
 that would rescind the contract, and punish the 
 extortion, is a gross and impudent fraud, for 
 
 which 
 
( 187 ) 
 
 which the usurer should forfeit his character 
 and his money. — Whilst this subterfuge is tole- 
 rated, proprietors of land must continue to be 
 exposed to the greatest difficulties, and in its 
 present depressed condition a greater relief is 
 wanting than even the abolition of this destruc- 
 tive imposition. Your government, in some 
 ivay 07^ other, should contrive facilities for loans 
 upon estates, until the storm that now desolates 
 them has passed away. 
 
 "On the subject of your manufactures I have 
 nothing further to add — their prosperity depends 
 upon the unfettered ingenuity of your matchless 
 people; but you ought to remember that their 
 condition is not the same as when you mono- 
 polized the commerce of your world, and that 
 at an enormous expense which leans most 
 heavily upon them, you have set up foreign 
 markets to rival them. The details of this 
 mighty concern is the office of your statesmen, 
 and I trust will be wisely considered. You have 
 
 said 
 
( 188 ) 
 
 said that the improvement of your fisheries had 
 not reached its height. — This is the moment to 
 reach it by the most unremitting exertions. — 
 Neither the sea nor the land can have been • 
 enjoyed to the full, whilst your population is 
 under difficulties for support. — There arc no 
 doubt with you, as with us, various roots of cheap 
 and easy culture, which though at once prolific 
 and nutritious, are not by themselves inviting to 
 the appetite, nor sufficient for a life of labour, 
 without a mixture of animal food. — In times of 
 distress, therefore, when the plough may fail 
 you, a well ploughed ocean would be a constant 
 refuge. — You can there have no unpropitious 
 seed times, nor uncertain harvests ; — tempests 
 could only disperse the reapers for a short season, 
 and the crop would always remain undamaged in 
 a boundless extent.— Even in England the system 
 of supply is far from being perfect; it is brought 
 to an astonishing height for the luxuries of 
 London, yet is still defective in the more mo- 
 mentous department of general and cheap dis- 
 tribution, 
 
( 189 ) 
 
 tribution ; but, depend upon it, our legislature 
 will never rest till this great object is accom- 
 plished. 
 
 " With you, I fear, there is a fatal bar to 
 improvement. — Be assured every attempt to- 
 wards it must be abortive, whilst you keep up 
 your duty upon salt; because the allowances 
 you make to those who are engaged in fisheries, 
 when guarded by the necessary forms to prevent 
 frauds upon so important a revenue, render them 
 of no use whatsoever, and fish can never be 
 made a support for an inland population in their 
 natural state. — Is it not, then, the height of folly 
 to have resort to foreign fisheries at an immense 
 distance, when other nations leave their own 
 coasts and come almost into your harbours, 
 from the superior abundance of your seas ? — 
 They take your finest fish — they cure them 
 with your own salt, the best in all your world, 
 which is duty-free when exported ; they main- 
 tain their people in comfort, whilst your's are 
 everywhere starving, and prosper by a trade 
 
 out 
 
( w ) 
 
 tmt of which you might chive all nations before 
 you, securing your maritime greatness, whilst 
 you increased your internal strength. — In the 
 creeks and harbours of all countries, the smaller 
 fish are always so numerous, that they are used 
 for manure in quantities that almost exceed 
 belief. — Is it certain that with the use of 
 salt they might not be applied also to 
 purposes more useful, and instead of being 
 entirely cast out in large masses to fructify by 
 corruption, be preserved from it by chemical 
 skill, and be devoted to the subsistence of 
 mankind ? 
 
 " Another momentous subject still more, if 
 possible, demands your attention, and with that 
 I shall conclude.— One of the first sentences 
 you uttered to me, after snatching me from the 
 grave, made an impression upon me which I 
 shall carry there hereafter. You said that this 
 highly-favoured island had been the chosen in- 
 strument of Divine dispensation, and that if she 
 deserted or slumbered upon her post, she would 
 
 be 
 
( 191 ) 
 
 be relieved and punished — Beware that this 
 penal moment is not at hand. — Why do you 
 now permit despotism and fanaticism to palsy the 
 freedom of the rising world, when your duty 
 and your interest are struggling for precedency 
 to crush them at a blow ? — If that vast continent 
 were governed according to the humane maxims 
 of civilized nations, you would have no right 
 to wrest the sceptre out of hands however un- 
 worthy to wield it; but since you have been 
 placed for so many ages in the high post of 
 honour for the advancement of human happi- 
 ness, you ought to suffer no other nation to run 
 on before you in the rescue of suffering millions 
 from famine, dungeons, and the sword. — Re- 
 collect your eulogium upon the triumphs of 
 chemistry and mechanics : — apply them to the 
 mines and other productions of those vast re- 
 gions ; not as robbers or task-masters, but in 
 the liberal spirit of commerce with their people, 
 by which you might resuscitate your own 
 country whilst you were breathing new life 
 into theirs.' 1 
 
 The 
 
( 192 ) 
 
 The noble minded Morven seemed much 
 pleased and affected, and spoke as follows, hut 
 in a voice so subdued as if he almost wished not 
 to be heard : 
 
 a There are difficulties in the way of what 
 
 you propose so warmly. — The project your 
 honest zeal has suggested might kindle a new 
 war throughout our whole world, which might, 
 in the end, be destructive of the happiness and 
 freedom you justly hold so sacred. — There are 
 many desirable objects of policy that are not 
 within our immediate reach, and which we 
 must wait Heaven's own time to see accom- 
 plished ; but the principle should be consecrated, 
 and the occasion closely watched for its earliest 
 application." 
 
 " Not a moment," I answered, " should ever 
 be lost in any thing we have to do, when we are 
 sure we are in the right; there is no time but 
 the present for the performance of a practicable 
 moral duty : England, in such a cause, would 
 
 set 
 
( W ) 
 
 set at nought all the nations of the old \vo v ld it' 
 the new one invoked her assistance. Such a 
 great work could not be begun prematurely. — 
 If the sun stood still of old in the camp of the 
 Israelites, it would now rush to the west with 
 increased velocity and lustre, to shine on the 
 British standard, if it stood planted even for a 
 moment in the night.* 
 
 " 1 have now finished all I have to observe 
 upon the condition of your sublime country. — 
 Looking at it with the eager curiosity of a 
 stranger, bred in one which has long been the 
 admiration of its own world, and not wishing 
 to see her in any thing surpassed, yet I 
 am obliged in justice to say, that I consider 
 
 • It may be proper here to inform the reader, that when it 
 is six in the morning in Armata, it is midnight in the new 
 world alluded to, because this twin planet with the earth re- 
 volves also round its axis from west to east in twenty-four 
 hours; and Armata being eastward of the new world, nearly 
 ninety degrees of longitude, it follow* as above-mentioned, 
 that when it is six in the morning in Armata it must be mid- 
 night in the new world ; every 15 degrees of a great circle of 
 360 being equal to an hour of time ; 15 times 24 being 360. 
 
 o Armata 
 
( 194 ) 
 
 Armata in no respect behind her, except in the 
 state of your finances. — I have not, indeed, been 
 able to trace the smallest defect in any of your 
 institutions, nor in the condition of any of your 
 concerns, that does not come manifestly home to 
 your revenue, which corrupts your government 
 whilst it depresses your people. 
 
 " Your energies are still happily undiminished, 
 your industry is unabated, your courage unsub- 
 dued, your morals uncorrupted ; but you have 
 the same sacrifices, for a season at least, to sub- 
 mit to, as an individual may have to make, 
 though with the highest qualifications, if his 
 expenses have gone beyond his estate; and un- 
 less you now guard with skill and firmness this 
 heel of the Achilles, the result must be fatal. 
 
 " Remember always the noble eminence you 
 stand on, and that no other nation is quali- 
 fied to take your place. In the name of 
 God, then, let this awful but animating consi- 
 deration inspire yon— Be firm in your resolves — 
 
 Be 
 
( 195 ) 
 
 Be patient under temporary privations — Be 
 obedient to your government, and preserve your 
 greatness by the wisdom which made you 
 great." 
 
 & 
 
 I now felt myself exhausted in my weak 
 condition, by an exertion to which I fear my 
 readers may have thought, all along, my mind 
 as much as my body was unequal, but my 
 generous protector was satisfied, and as night 
 was coming on, he left me again to my rest. 
 
 When Morven came next morning into my 
 apartment, I found myself so much recovered 
 from my fatigue and the bruises I had suffered 
 amongst the rocks, that I told him I was ready 
 to attend him any where, and was full of impa- 
 tience to see, in all its parts, so noble a country 
 as he had described; particularly its capital, 
 of which he had as yet said nothing in his 
 general and more important history. 
 
 He seemed highly pleased with my proposal, 
 2 and 
 
( W6 ) 
 
 and said he would send for his son to accompany 
 me, whose youth and modern manners made 
 him a much fitter companion for such an expe- 
 dition than himself. 
 
 The capital, he said, would fill me with 
 admiration and wonder, as the city of Swaloal 
 was, beyond all question, the greatest, the 
 richest and the most illustrious in that world. 
 I was struck with the name as he pronounced 
 it, which he had not mentioned before; and 
 although I well remembered the blunder which, 
 from the habits of association, 1 had before 
 made in the etymology of Armata, yet I could 
 not help inquiring why this metropolis had 
 obtained so singular an appellation. Morven, 
 in answer, said, that he was himself no etymo- 
 logist or antiquary, and could only inform me 
 that Swaloal was a word in the Armatian 
 language, signifying the city long known by 
 that name. I smiled at this luminous explana- 
 tion, saying, it reminded me of an anecdote of 
 our George the Second, who, being a foreigner, 
 
 asked 
 
( w ) 
 
 asked one of the lords of his bed-chamber the 
 meaning of the English word bespatter ; to 
 which his lordship, seemingly much pleased with 
 the easy task imposed upon him, assured the 
 king that he could not have chosen a word 
 whose signification was plainer, or more familiar 
 — " It is just, Sire," he said, " as if your 
 Majesty were to bespatter me, or as if I were 
 to bespatter your Majesty." 
 
 Morven now smiled in his turn; and I 
 observed to him that nothing was often more 
 unsatisfactory than the derivations of words of 
 all descriptions ; though the subject was un- 
 doubtedly interesting, and frequently threw 
 great light upon ancient history, but sometimes 
 no light at all; as was the case, I thought, with 
 our famous city of London, which could never 
 have had its name from King Lud, though so 
 often supposed ; because King Lud reigned 
 before the time that Julius Ca?sar was in Britain, 
 who, nevertheless, called it in his Commentaries 
 the city of the Trinobants, which he could not 
 
 o 3 well 
 
( W ) 
 
 well have done if it had so recently received 
 its name from a prince in the island; Caesar's 
 first landing being, I believe, in the time of 
 Cassibalaunus, who was brother to Lud, and 
 succeeded him; neither could the city have 
 been called London from Lud's Town — town 
 not being a British but a Saxon word; and there- 
 fore, if that had been its true derivation, it would 
 have been called Caer Lud, and not Lud's 
 Town — But it is still more strange how it 
 should have been called Londinum, by Tacitus, 
 as that was only its Latin name after it was 
 called London ; an appellation which it never 
 had in the time of the Britons, nor until the 
 Saxon a?ra, when it received the name of 
 Lundew, but with a termination then bestowed 
 upon all well-fenced places, or such as had forts 
 or castles — viz. Lundenburg and Lunden Ceaster. 
 This name of Lunden was afterwards changed 
 to London, neither of them being at all in 
 honour of King Lud, hut adopted by the Saxons 
 from the metropolitan city of Lundew, in Scotie- 
 land or Sconia, then a place of great traffic in 
 
 the 
 
 
( *99 ) 
 
 the eastern part of Germany. The further, 
 indeed, we trace the connection with King Lud, 
 the more it will fail us; as Ludgate could 
 never be from thence, gate not being British ; 
 and, what is still stronger, Ludgate was for- 
 merly Leougate ; Leod, signifying in Saxon, 
 folk or people, and the name of Leodgate, there- 
 fore, with all due submission to King Lud, was 
 given to this great public passage, as the folk's 
 gate or entrance, the port am populi in that 
 quarter of the city." 
 
 " You quite overpower me with your learn- 
 ing," said Morven; " our great city, like Lon- 
 don, has also changed its names and termina- 
 tions, but as to the reason of those changes, I 
 cannot even hazard a conjecture. — In very 
 ancient times it was styled only Swalo, after- 
 wards Swalomor, and in succeeding periods 
 Swaloup, and Swalodun, or Swalodown; 
 but, for a century at least, it has been univer- 
 sally known by the name of Swaloal." — I 
 asked here with some impatience, whether those 
 
 o 4 idem 
 
( 200 ) 
 
 idem sonans terminations bad the significations 
 as in our language, and on bis answering in the 
 negative, I was still more puzzled. — " None of 
 those terminations," he added, " whether taken 
 by themselves, or used only as adjuncts, have the 
 most distant approach to the meaning which, 
 even adopting your English orthography, M r e 
 should annex to them, nor indeed any meanings 
 at all; but the monosyllables Out and In, and 
 more so when used in the plural, as in Armata, 
 are two of the most significant words in its 
 whole language, and Outs and Ins are therefore 
 as opposite as the two poles which distinguish 
 the hemispheres of both our planets." This un- 
 expected conclusion threw me still more wide 
 of all application to our language or to our- 
 selves. 
 
 Morven now said he had dispatched a mes- 
 senger for his son, that we might settle the plan 
 of our journey, and in a few hours he arrived 
 in a very handsome carriage, which I shall 
 not describe at present, as it rather belongs 
 
 to 
 
( 201 ) 
 
 to my description of the capital hereafter. 
 He was a very handsome young man, highly 
 accomplished, as I understood, according to the 
 fashions of his day, and so full of spirits and 
 life, that he had not been two minutes in the 
 room, nor made any inquiries concerning me, 
 when he seemed most impatient that we should 
 go some where else, saying that the great ships 
 were paying off, and that he would drive me 
 down to the town near which I had been wrecked. 
 I endeavoured to excuse myself, not being yet 
 provided with the dress of the country, nor 
 indeed with any other than that in which I had 
 buffeted the waves and thumped against the 
 rocks; but he would not hear of such an objec- 
 tion.— " Sailors," he said, " went round and 
 round the world, and saw people by turns in all 
 dresses, and whole nations without any dresses 
 at all, — that the admiral was his friend, and 
 would be happy to see us." — He said all this in 
 perfectly good English, which he had learned 
 from his father and grandfather, and seemed so 
 amiable and good naturcd that I thought it best 
 
 not 
 
( £02 ) 
 
 not to refuse him, and we drove oft' immediately, 
 but not until he had acquainted Morven that 
 we should return to supper, when he hoped we 
 should have music, and that he should set out 
 with me for Swaloal next morning as soon as it 
 was light. 
 
 On approaching the port, I observed a great 
 alteration — the stately ships I had seen in full 
 equipment, being now ranged as a kind of hulks 
 for miles together; so that I could not help 
 asking why so grand a fleet had been dismantled, 
 and the answer was a proud one for Armata : 
 
 " Because the fleets of our world," he said, 
 " are lying dismantled by their sides — the ocean, 
 which re-echoed through all its caves with the 
 thunder of foreign navies, is now silent as the 
 grave — their cannon are all spiked or upon our 
 battlements, and their flags are the ornaments 
 of our halls : — yonder, (pointing to an immense 
 number at a distance,) yonder are their brave 
 crews, delivered from all their toils." 
 
 When 
 
( 203 ) 
 
 When we got into the town, I was surprized 
 to see that by far the greater part of them were 
 hale, robust men, in the highest state of comeli- 
 ness and health, though most of them had been 
 ten or twelve years at sea, without ever setting 
 foot upon the land, and many of them much 
 longer. — Every one of them had his lass, decked 
 out with a profusion of ribbons of the same 
 colour as in her sailor's hat. — They were full of 
 glee, and full of money, the whole of which, I 
 was told, must, according to an immemorial and 
 inexorable custom, be spent among the ladies in 
 one day, and indeed they seemed most alert in ob- 
 serving it, as they were parading the streets with 
 music, and shops and places of entertainment 
 of every description gaped wide open to receive 
 them. — I was invited to dine with their officers, 
 where I met the most pleasant men I had ever 
 conversed with. — The table was not quite large 
 enough for us all, but they would hear of no 
 difficulties, and as some of them had left an 
 arm or a leg behind them, we were able (to use 
 a seaman's phrase) to stow the closer. — They had 
 
 all 
 
( 204 ) 
 
 all of them the same frank, gentleman-like 
 manners, which distinguish our most accom- 
 plished countrymen ; but there was something, 
 at the same time, in their aspect, which gave 
 me an idea of how unmoved they must have 
 stood amidst unexampled difficulties and dan- 
 gers. — Wishing that nothing in such noble 
 beings should be imperfect, I said to their com- 
 mander, " Why don't you some how or other 
 contrive to improve the manners and conduct 
 of your seamen, who are now filling your streets 
 with noise and confusion amidst their women ?" 
 " You might as well ask me," answered this 
 great officer, " why God has not made an ele- 
 phant like an ape; or why he has fashioned all 
 things to fill their allotted stations. — Our sailor 
 of Armata is an animal non-descript, and must 
 in nothing be changed or touched. — I am no poli- 
 tician. — You may reform parliament for any 
 thing I care, but don't attempt to reform our 
 sailor. — The love of woman is his distinguishing 
 feature, he lavishes every thing upon her, and 
 returns to sea when his money is spent ; with- 
 out 
 
( 205 ) 
 
 out this passion, even in its excess, our ships 
 would be receptacles of abomination and hor- 
 ror. — The sexes are the elements of the world ; 
 there is male and female in every tree and plant 
 down to the grass we tread upon ; and you mightas 
 well complain, that their farinas mixed with one 
 another in the upland country, as condemn the 
 transient amours of our seamen upon the shore. 
 I respect as much as any man the sanctities of 
 marriage, and acknowledge its usefulness in the 
 social world; but you must not think of con- 
 tending too roughly with the ancient character- 
 istics of mankind. — You may scour an old coin 
 to make it legible ; but if you go on scouring, it 
 will be no coin at all" 
 
 11 I could only say in reply to all this, that I 
 was the last man in the world to object to the 
 admiration of women, and that what he had 
 said of its usefulness to the inhabitants of ships 
 was quite unanswerable; but that no human 
 beings could go beyond our English sailors, who 
 nevertheless were most sedate and considerate, 
 
 generally 
 
( 20G ) 
 
 generally married, and remarkable for the 
 parsimonious care of their money, most of them 
 keeping regular accounts with some banker 
 or slop-seller whilst they were at sea/' — " If 
 that be so," said Morven , " Your sailors could 
 never fight like ours." — I took fire at this, (the 
 only excuse perhaps for what follows) — " A 
 British sailor,'' I replied, (trembling with indig- 
 nation,) " a British sailor, Sir, would fight 
 with the devil, and in the service of his country 
 would enter hell itself to seek him out." — The 
 admiral, whose jealous feelings did not extend 
 to another world, shook hands with me most 
 heartily, and after a few more bottles, I took 
 my leave. 
 
 My young companion at the same time called 
 for his carriage, and we set out by moon-light 
 on our return. As we went along, he asked 
 
 me, " how I had — 
 
 # * # 
 
 # * # 
 
 I can- 
 
 # 
 
 * 
 
 # 
 
 # 
 
 # 
 
 # 
 
 # 
 
 # 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 # 
 
 # 
 
( 207 ) 
 
 I cannot describe, my mortification at being 
 here obliged to acquaint my readers that the 
 printer has this moment returned to me all the 
 remaining part of my narrative, immediately fol- 
 lowing what is above printed, being about four 
 hundred pages in my closest manner of writing, 
 saying it was so obliterated by the sea-water in 
 my shipwreck homewards, as not to be at all 
 legible. I must now therefore abruptly, and 
 most unwillingly, close my publication, at least 
 for the present ; earnestly entreating the indul- 
 gence of the public to refer to the Postscript 
 for a fuller explanation of my situation, and of 
 the extreme difficulty I cannot but feel in sub- 
 mitting to them what is now published in so 
 unsatisfactory and mutilated a state. 
 
 POST 
 
( 208 ) 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 I have felt great difficulty in consenting to 
 publish, at present, what is now offered to the 
 world. — I was aware that, after having described 
 in all its details so extraordinary a passage to an 
 unknown world, it could not but give an air 
 of fable to the whole of it, to be seen sallying 
 forth from Mr. Murray's in Albemarle-street, 
 without a single word having been said of the 
 means by which I got back again to the earth. 
 The scale was however turned in favour of 
 immediate publication. — The loss of my manu- 
 script, when I was shipwrecked in Ireland on 
 my homeward voyage, was irretrievable, and I 
 had no choice left after my return to England, 
 but to publish at once what remained of it, or to 
 let curiosity languish, or perhaps be considered 
 as an impostor. — There was another inducement 
 to pursue this course. — If the public shall take 
 no interest in the part now before it, the other 
 
 had 
 
( 209 ; 
 
 had far better be suppressed ; and, on the other 
 hand, if it should be called for by those who 
 have read the first, it will give fresh spirit to a 
 composition which must now be extremely dif- 
 ficult. 
 
 If I could have saved the rest of my manu- 
 script amongst the breakers, which I should 
 have done, if, like the part preserved, it had 
 been inclosed in leather, I should have trusted 
 without fear to my materials, and to the interest 
 they could not but have created when viewed 
 altogether; and even amidst all the obstacles I 
 have to contend with, from the part published 
 being only a dull narrative, interspersed with no 
 amusing incidents, I feel some confidence that 
 my work will derive sufficient support from 
 what may be expected in its sequel. — An ac- 
 count of the great city of Swaloal cannot but 
 excite the curiosity of Loxdon. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
London: l'linted by C Rovorth, 
 "Bell-yard, Temple-bar. 
 
/ 
 
 THE 
 
 SECOND PART 
 
 OF 
 
 A R M A T A. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1817. 
 
London : Printed by C. Roworth, 
 Bell-yard, Temple-bar. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 1 he history of this Second Volume is a very 
 short one — The F/;\^, as my readers must remem- 
 ber, was suddenly interrupted by sea damage to 
 the manuscript, and all that was left of it re- 
 mained, until about a fortnight ago, in a seem- 
 ingly irrecoverable state; when it happened that 
 a poor man, of a most squalid appearance, came 
 into my apartment to ask for a morsel of bread. 
 He was worn to a shadow, and held in his 
 trembling emaciated hand a small blue bottle. — 
 " My father,' 1 he said, "lived for many years in 
 a garret at Knightsbridge, where he was always 
 to be found amongst his phials and crucibles, 
 mixing together many offensive ingredients, but 
 what they were I know not. — When he was at 
 
 a the 
 
( iv ) 
 
 cumstancc, I should have been saved the great 
 trouble of copying, tor printing, what I had 
 written, and the public the still greater one of 
 reading it. 
 
 I am sensible, indeed, that my remarks are 
 much too short and general, when their objects 
 are considered, and that many of a more interest- 
 ing nature are omitted ; but the truth is, that 
 though I saw enough in Armata to have filled 
 many volumes, I could take no interest in any 
 thing except the very little that had some kind of 
 bearing upon the condition of my country; nor 
 did I write a line but from a desire to make us 
 feel more deeply the value of our admirable insti- 
 tutions, to warn us against the abuses to which 
 the wisest are subject, and to correct a very few 
 mistakes which prevent our manners from being 
 perfect. 
 
 In what relates to the last, I might have given 
 a. powerful interest to my foreign adventures, by 
 ill-natured allusions at home; but as it was my 
 
 wish 
 
( v ) 
 
 wish to reform our manners, it would have been 
 strangely inconsistent to excite an appetite for 
 slander. — The reader will not therefore iind a 
 single sentence that can be tortured into a defa- 
 matory application ; and I publish this even in 
 the Preface, though it may ruin the sale of my 
 book. 
 
 General remarks upon laws and government 
 cannot be thought to be within the scope of 
 this forbearance ; national councils may be mis- 
 taken and even disastrous, though their authors 
 may be intelligent and upright. — Neither should 
 the public interests be compromised by silence 
 when the publication of truth may be useful ; 
 but there is not a word even upon such subjects, 
 that can be construed into personal reproach ! 
 
 Although I have to thank the public for a 
 more favourable reception of what has been 
 already published than it was at all entitled to 
 command, yet I cannot but be severely mor- 
 tified to find that it is generally thought to be 
 
 a ro- 
 
( vi ) 
 
 a romance, and that I am set down as a writer 
 who, for some reason or other, had adopted the 
 fiction of another world, to convey some opi- 
 nions regarding his own; a notion which has 
 naturally enough gained ground by the consi- 
 deration that many things may be put together 
 under a mask of this description, which in a 
 real and grave history it would not be so easy 
 to -write. 
 
 This is all I have to say, since I cannot be 
 duly sworn as a witness for myself; but I fre- 
 quently smile when I think of the figure that 
 many people will make very shortly, when the 
 Admiralty shall have sanctioned my applica- 
 tions, and when taxes have been raised for my 
 next voyage, which unbelievers as well as be- 
 lievers must pay. — These are the ways and 
 means which can alone give credit to my work. 
 
 I am not a candidate for literary reputation, 
 and shall bow with submission to our established 
 critics, because their judgments have, for along 
 
 time, 
 
( vii ) 
 
 time, been sanctioned l)y general consent, 
 evinced by the reception of their works. — They 
 arc, for the most part, men of talents and 
 learning, and seem never to forget, that an en- 
 lightened people are critics over themselves. — 
 This is the only shape in which the press ought 
 to submit to censorship, and it has greatly 
 contributed to the advancement of literature in 
 Great Britain; it prevents us from mispending 
 our time and our money upon useless or mis- 
 chievous publications, and serves as a sample 
 before we buy. Authors, whatever may be their 
 genius or acquirements, are the xroi y st possible 
 judges of their own works t and the great masters 
 of criticism, aware that for the same reason they 
 are subject to error, are remarkable for the can- 
 dour with which they examine publications at all 
 entitled to respect. There are some minor critics, 
 however, who cannot be taught this reserve; 
 but as in the first instance it would neither 
 be just nor prudent for an author to defend him- 
 self against criticism, so in the last it would be 
 inhuman. — An insect upon the most polished 
 
 marble, 
 
( viii ) 
 
 marble, not seeing the structure, but feeling 
 through the minuteness of his organs, that the 
 surface is not even, most naturally magnifies 
 defects ; but would a statuary kill him on that 
 account, or a humane naturalist impale him for 
 the discovery of his tribe ? 
 
A R M A T A 
 
 (continued.) 
 
 By referring to the part already published, it 
 will be seen that, from damage to ,the remaining 
 manuscript by sea-water, when I was ship- 
 wrecked on the coast of Ireland, in my voyage 
 homeward, it ended abruptly thus — 
 
 My young companion at the same time called 
 for his carriage, and we set out by moonlight, 
 on our return. As we went along, he asked me 
 how I had ****** 
 
 It may be proper, therefore, to reprint this 
 unfinished sentence, and the Continuation will 
 
 then begin as follows 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 3 ) 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Containing almost nothing. 
 
 My young companion at the same time called 
 for his carriage, and we set out by moon-light, 
 on our return. As we went along, he asked me 
 how I had been amused — a question I declined 
 answering, until I could find words to express 
 all the delightful recollections and sympathies 
 of my earliest days — Indeed when I looked 
 down on the ocean which now smiled upon us 
 with the pale lustre of reflected light, the 
 thoughts of home rushed upon my mind so in- 
 tensely, that without thinking any more of my 
 companion, nor even recollecting his existence, 
 though he was close by my side, I could not 
 help exclaiming, " Oh, England, England ! — if 
 ever I might but behold your white cliffs again, 
 I could sit upon the highest of them, and gaze 
 upon your world of waters for ever. Dully 
 uniform to the eye is its vast expanse, but, to 
 
 b 2 the 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 the mind, infinitely various — How profound are 
 its caverns winch no line can reach, nor the 
 deepest knowledge account for — unfathomable 
 to the philosopher in his closet, as to the sailor 
 upon its sin face! Has it always, as now, so 
 curiously indented the land, or have its boun- 
 daries been abridged ? If its empire has been 
 contracted, did it retire spontaneously, or did 
 subterranean fire invade it, and plant earth 
 within its domains? From whence is the salt 
 that has for ages preserved it ? If the moon 
 raises its floods by attraction on the side nearest 
 her, how do they rise up on the opposite, and 
 why on the equator are they at rest ? When its 
 tides are thus lifted up, whatever exalts them, 
 and when furious under the lash of the tempest 
 they threaten our shores with destruction, what 
 is it that commands them to return to their beds 
 and to sleep? When smoothed again for the. 
 impatient navigator, what is it which directs his 
 course ? Whence is it that rude, inanimate mat- 
 ter, even the unshapen stone we tread upon, de- 
 rives an intelligence beyond Newton's mind, even 
 
 to 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 to guess at :? Does it point steadily to the poles 
 when in the bowels of the earth, and does it 
 only begin to shift and vary when it comes into 
 contact with unsettled and restless man? The 
 Great First Cause is manifest: but what are the 
 principles which govern such marvellous effects? 
 When the philosopher is thus lost, and driven 
 back within the limits of his faculties, the 
 ocean is not less an object of sublime contem- 
 plation; we see it then with all its roaring multi- 
 tude of waves obsequious to the command of God 
 for the happiness of man — Without it, though 
 propitiation for sin might, by divine mercy, have 
 been accomplished in Palestine, yet all the hu- 
 manizing light of the Gospel would have been 
 eclipsed, and its benign influence upon our fallen 
 condition must have been lost; the weary foot 
 of the pilgrim or missionary could never have 
 traversed such remote regions; India could not 
 now be hearing the sacred voice of divine truth, 
 and America, instead of starting up, as it were, 
 at once throughout her United States, into ci- 
 vilized and moral existence, might, for acres to 
 
 B J come. 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 come, have been a trackless desert, the forlorn 
 abode of uncultivated life ! May the East, then, 
 and the West, from the rising to the setting of 
 the sun, remember, with eternal gratitude, the 
 blessings that have flowed to them from my be- 
 loved country ; may they always work upon the 
 pattern she has set them, whatever forms of 
 government may distinguish them; may they 
 bury in oblivion the occasional imperfections 
 which are inseparable from human dominion; 
 and may the Christian standard she has planted 
 amongst the nations be still carried forward 
 to all tongues and people, until they are ga- 
 thered together at last as a flock under one 
 shepherd, when sin and sorrow shall be at an 
 end! 
 
 " If we examine the aids derived from the sea 
 in the progress of society, and the universal 
 
 comforts which * * # * *" but here my 
 
 youthful companion (tired enough, no doubt, 
 of my soliloquy) recalled me to myself, and ha- 
 ving no wish or thought but to please me, he 
 
 shook 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 shook me gently, as you would awaken an in- 
 fant, and said to me, with infinite good humour 
 and kindness — " Child of another world, we are 
 just at home, and I must take your plaything 
 from you; but since I see you so bewitched, 
 and carried out of yourself by your fust love, we 
 will not leave her so soon as we intended, but 
 pursue the margin, or at least the district of the 
 sea, until we approach nearer to the Capital, 
 which is yet far distant." Here my musings 
 ended as the carriage now drove up to his fa- 
 ther's house. 
 
 B4 CHAP- 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Author is provided "with the Dress of the Country. — With 
 Reflections thereupon. 
 
 Morven soon advanced with his accustomed 
 kindness to receive me, but my gay companion 
 vehemently objected to alighting; saying, he 
 could breathe no longer out of Swaloal, and 
 from what I saw afterwards it was his proper ele- 
 ment, as without being altogether what we should 
 call a Dandy, he was a young man of the most 
 decided fashion in all her higher circles. — It was 
 indeed with the greatest difficulty I could resist 
 being carried on by him in the night, without 
 rest or refreshment, towards this renowned city, 
 but I expressed so strong a desire to appear only 
 in the dress of the country, that he reluctantly 
 agreed to wait till the morning, and good-na- 
 turedly underwent, as a kind of penance, what 
 to me was the highest enjoyment — a quiet sup- 
 per in a most delightful apartment, opening, on 
 each side, to conservatories, fronting a rapid 
 
 stream 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 stream running through a fragrant garden, with 
 beautiful women, delicious music, and now and 
 then some excellent old wine, resembling our 
 claret, which, let water-drinkers think as they 
 please, gives a varnish to such a picture, which 
 as they never looked through it they cannot at 
 all comprehend. 
 
 As I observed that my young companion took 
 but little share in the conversation, and seemed 
 only to speak as if it were to interrupt the 
 singing, I expressed my surprise to him, when 
 humming a tune at intervals to himself, he said 
 to me apart — " I can enjoy all this, my dear 
 absurd friend, as much as any body, in its due 
 season ; but in summer, nay in its very solstice, 
 which I think is to-morrow, I would much 
 rather be in town in the dirtiest lodging, al- 
 most invisible from the dust and rubbish of old 
 buildings pulling down on every side of me, 
 than be seen here amidst the colours and per- 
 fumes of all the trees and shrubs which ever 
 blossomed in our world or in yours, or in that 
 
 one 
 
( io ) 
 
 one there," (pointing up with his cane to the 
 moon,) " that really looks redder than common, 
 as if she were blushing to see us loitering where 
 we are/' 
 
 When morning came, his impatient genius 
 suggested to him a most rapid but seemingly 
 indelicate escape from the further delay of my 
 equipment, as he informed me, with the highest 
 glee, that the barber, who had been setting his 
 razors, overhearing our difficulties, had offered a 
 suit of his own never put on, and which, looking 
 at our two persons, he said would fit me to a 
 hair. — He now directed the young man in his 
 own language to fetch them, saying to me in 
 English, " this I can assure you is a most fortu- 
 nate incident, as I could not have supplied you 
 myself, having nothing here but this coarse 
 wrapper, my only covering in thezvilderness" '(for 
 so I found afterwards he styled the whole 
 country, or rather the whole universe, out of the 
 sound of a celebrated bell in Swaloal, the name 
 of which I have forgotten :) " here," he said, " I 
 
 fol- 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 follow the custom of nature, the beasts of the 
 field know where they are, and have but one 
 suit." 
 
 I was too much disconcerted by this appa- 
 rently strange behaviour to attempt any inter- 
 ruption of this mortifying dispatch, but when it 
 was quite out of reach I could not help saying, 
 that I hoped I should be pardoned for wishing, 
 if the expense would not be an objection, that I 
 might be furnished with what we called, in 
 England, the dress of a gentleman, instead of 
 this young ba? , ber , s apparel, as I had no doubt 
 there were different degrees in a country which 
 his father had described to me as so highly 
 civilized. 
 
 " Undoubtedly," said Cathmor, (for this was 
 the name of my companion,) " there are many 
 degrees among us, more numerous, perhaps, 
 than in any other nation, but there are no 
 distinctions in our ordinary dresses; we have 
 gentlemen, as you say you have in England, and, 
 
 as 
 
( is ) 
 
 as you have just seen, we have barbers also ; but 
 which is the gentleman and which is the barber 
 when you meet them in the streets, it has been 
 long" impossible for the nicest eye to discover, 
 as our highest nobility and our lowest tradesmen 
 dress exactly like one another : there is perhaps 
 something now and then in air and manner, by 
 which people fancy they may be distinguished, 
 but in no other way whatsoever. — I expressed 
 great surprise at this, and said that in my 
 country such a system w r ould be most unpopular; 
 not from any pride in the higher orders, as the 
 principles of equality, where they could practi- 
 cally or usefully exist, were liberally cherished 
 in England, but because the lower classes, who 
 might seem to be exalted, would, with one voice, 
 exclaim against it, as injurious to trade, as de- 
 structive to manufactures, and a cruel oppression 
 of the immense multitudes who only lived by 
 hourly changing fashions, which circulate super- 
 fluities amongst the industrious poor; and though 
 sumptuary laws were inconsistent with our free 
 government, yet an English nobleman would 
 
 be 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 be the subject of very unpleasant remarks, who 
 did not maintain his pre-eminence even in his 
 most ordinary appearance, for the circulation of 
 wealth, and the encouragement of ingenious arts. 
 " I could almost swear," he replied, " that you 
 were describing this very country even less than 
 fifty years ago ; as I have heard from my father 
 that, even in his time, persons of rank were 
 stupid enough to wear lace and embroidery, 
 and other expensive fabrics, in their daily habits, 
 but we have a damned deal more taste now, and 
 they are never beheld except in the palaces of 
 princes, and when you see them there hereafter, 
 you will think that, notwithstanding their absurd 
 unwieldiness, the whole court was engaged in 
 some distant military expedition, as every one of 
 them wears a sword, and carries a kind of knap- 
 sack upon his back. — I am happy, however, the 
 subject has been started, as I should have been 
 much distressed if you had been left for a mo- 
 ment to imagine I had not intended to give you 
 the full benefit of every distinction which a 
 stranger of rank and honour ought to command." 
 
 He 
 
( '4 ) 
 
 lie then left me, but first taking nie kindly 
 by the hand, and saying he would return as soon 
 as he had got rid of some vulgar people who 
 were waiting to see him. — He had not been 
 gone a moment when the barber re-appeared, 
 but without the clothes : he walked about the 
 room, without taking the smallest notice of me, 
 until upon my friend's return, whom I had 
 apprized of my disappointment, they came up 
 to me together, laughing immoderately and most 
 obviously at my expense, Cathmor holding his 
 sides from the convulsion of his mirth, whilst 
 he said, or rather attempted indistinctly to say 
 to me, " My good friend, this is not the barber, 
 as you imagined, but one of the highest of our 
 grandees, who is come down to visit a relation 
 on board the fleet. " — What rendered this suffi- 
 ciently absurd scene more completely ridiculous, 
 was the return at the same moment of the actual 
 barber himself; and when he had laid down his 
 bundle, the nobleman and the shaver were like 
 brothers; no more to be distinguished than twins 
 arc even by midwives at their births. 
 
 Handy 
 
( '5 ) 
 
 Handy Dandy, which is the justice, 
 Which is the thief. — ■ 
 
 I mean no kind of disrespect to the grandee of 
 Armata or to his Double, by this classical quo- 
 tation. 
 
 At the conclusion of this laughable adventure, 
 Morven, the father, joined us, and resumed the 
 subject of costume, but upon a very different 
 principle, saying to me gravely, and as if he was 
 not quite pleased — " I sent for this young man 
 as an agreeable companion, to shew you the face 
 of the country and its fashions, to which I am 
 now quite unequal ; but you must think for 
 yourself on many subjects where his youth and 
 inexperience would lead you far astray : the 
 matter which he has been treating as a mere jest, 
 is of great moment, so much so, that I am 
 anxious to hear how it is considered with you, 
 where wisdom seems to station every thing in 
 its appointed place." 
 
 Flattered not a little by this just remark, and 
 
 wishing, 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 wishing, from a national vanity, to keep up the 
 contrast between our countries, I asked him 
 whether they had any robes of magistracy, which 
 in England were found to be so highly useful in 
 impressing the multitude with respect for the 
 administration of government and justice. 
 
 " We have them,"' answered Morven, " even 
 in the lowest of our courts ; and not only our 
 judges, but all their inferior officers and atten- 
 dants, have grave and suitable habits of distinc- 
 tion, but which arc cast off the moment the 
 business of our councils and courts are over, 
 when the highest of them are to be seen shoul- 
 dered and jostled in the crowd with the pick- 
 pockets whose imprisonments have just expired, 
 and with the culprits they have just amerced. — 
 This is by no means an ancient custom amongst 
 us, but one of late years most ignorantly and 
 thoughtlessly introduced : the robes of justice 
 would undoubtedly be uncouth and out of sea- 
 son if worn as ordinary dresses, but supreme 
 judges, and indeed magistrates of every descrip- 
 tion, 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 tion, above all, when coming immediately and 
 publicly from their tribunals, should have some 
 suitable distinctions to point out their stations, 
 and to continue, by habits of association, the 
 reverence inspired by their dignified appearance 
 when administering the government or the laws. 
 If the robes of justice inspire the multitude with 
 no additional respect for magistrates, why are 
 they worn at all? and if they have that 
 effect, why should the illusion be so abruptly 
 overthrown, by exhibiting to the populace the 
 very same men looking perhaps, from careless 
 habits, more meanly than thousands who had 
 but a moment before beheld them with salutary 
 fear? This cannot be politic : but the true touch- 
 stone to be applied to it is, to ask hoxv Engla?ul 
 considers it ? n 
 
 I was so much struck with this strange med- 
 ley of wise policy, and the total disregard of it, 
 and so set a-thinking on the strange differences 
 between our worlds and nations, that I was un- 
 able, in the instant, to answer him, but I could 
 
 c not 
 
( 1« ) 
 
 not help smiling to myself at the ludicrous idea 
 of all Palace-yard in an uproar at the astonishing 
 sight of our judges coming out of Westminster 
 Mall in such shabby fiocks and brown scratches, 
 as would infallibly subject them to be rejected 
 as bail, in their own courts, even for ten pounds, 
 though they were to swear themselves black in 
 the face. 
 
 " In England," I said, (recovering from my 
 reverie,) — "in England, we view this whole sub- 
 ject in a very different light; we do not regard 
 it as lit to be governed by the idle fashions of 
 the day, but upon principles from which our 
 government may receive substantial support. 
 Distinctions amongst mankind are inevitable, 
 and when left, as in ruder ages, to an unbridled 
 course, arc degrading and destructive; but when 
 adjusted by a wise and liberal policy, each order 
 stands (as you have yourself so well expressed it) 
 in its appointed place, society then forms a dig- 
 nified, harmonious phalanx, and, instead of 
 slavish subjection, or contention in the ranks of 
 
( '9 ) 
 
 freedom, becomes firm and indissoluble, like 
 substances which are held together by an immu- 
 table union in their parts; but it should never 
 be forgotten that adhesions of human contrivance 
 cannot, like those which are natural, be main- 
 tained by silent and invisible attractions; the 
 social union can neither be produced nor con- 
 tinued without well considered management 
 constantly kept in view and in action ; the mul- 
 titude are more governed by visible and perma- 
 nent distinctions, than by reflections on what is 
 wise or just; and as God docs not always ratify 
 by merit, or by mental superiority, the ranks and 
 honours which we wisely nevertheless bestow 
 upon one another, they should be carefully kept 
 up by a kind of ingenious artifice, like that which 
 is so successful at a masquerade or upon the stage. 
 External symbols of superiority, which have 
 been found by experience to be imposing and 
 effectual, cannot be safely let down even in the 
 most apparently insignificant relaxations, be- 
 cause, though not easily shaken if neither abused 
 nor abandoned, they cannot be resumed at plea- 
 C '2 sure 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 sure when cast off. When a person has once un- 
 masked, his character, however well it may have 
 been supported, is irretrievably at an end ; and 
 nothing so suddenly beats down the effect of the 
 best theatrical representation, as to go, though 
 but for a moment, behind the scenes. I disap- 
 prove, therefore, of your higher orders casting 
 off their distinctions and dressing like their 
 grooms; it is what we should in England call 
 felo de se, because the levelling consequence 
 is certain ; and I have heard, indeed, that at this 
 very moment you are enacting the most severe 
 laws to keep down your lower orders from 
 advancing upon their superiors, when, from 
 changes in ancient manners, and by throwing 
 away the most popular distinctions, their supe- 
 riors have been descending to them. 
 
 " Governments must be supported upon diffe- 
 rent principles when their forms are different. — 
 The social union of a republic is different from 
 that of a monarchy. — Each may be equally ex- 
 cellent, and equally consistent with national inde- 
 pendence 
 
( 21 ) 
 pendence and freedom ; but a people must be 
 of a piece with their institutions. — Where the 
 laws equalise all the inhabitants of a state, the 
 laws, and not the makers of them, are the habitual 
 objects of popular respect; but where privileged 
 orders exist, as in free monarchies'//^ mast, the 
 makers of the laws are from habit the objects of 
 reverence, and the lazvs are reverenced with them. 
 In a Republic, therefore, the external distinctions 
 we have been discussing would be useless, be- 
 cause there are no distinct orders to be main- 
 tained ; but in a Monarchy they are important, 
 because the whole frame of such a state being 
 supported by personal privileges and gradations, 
 if that system were disturbed the authority of 
 the laws would be disturbed also. 
 
 " This is, perhaps, exemplified in the magistracy 
 of our City of London, where the elections are 
 popular in the extreme; but being in the very 
 focus of a monarchy, and the monarchical feeling 
 predominating in the pomp and ceremonies 
 which peculiarly distinguish its government, the 
 
 c 3 magistrates, 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 magistrates, though chosen annually from the 
 ordinary classes of her citizens, are held in the 
 highest reverence, and their laws are most 
 punctually observed : but if her Lord Mayor, 
 her Sheriffs, and her Aldermen, on their great 
 public clays of festival and magistracy, were to 
 appear in their bob wigs and pantaloons instead 
 of in their ancient magnificent robes of office, 
 and if the splendid hospitalities of her Guildhall 
 and Mansion-house were to be reduced to the 
 common fare (and set out, as it is called) of an 
 ordinary or a chop-house, it would soon be like 
 Bartholomew Fair — the dishes would run the 
 hazard of being carried off by the mob, and the 
 guests, however noble, in their surtouts and 
 overalls, would probably be hustled in the 
 streets. On the same principle it is not, perhaps, 
 a prudent retrenchment, and in point of value 
 most contemptible, to abolish offices which from 
 the most ancient times have been established, 
 except when the very objects of them have 
 become obsolete; it is like picking up the pave- 
 ment and pulling down the palisades which keep 
 
 off 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 off the crowd from a great house. — If they af- 
 fect public freedom, the most efficacious laws 
 should be made to prevent it; but let a monarchi- 
 cal government, when made a free one by popu- 
 lar balances, have all its ancient trappings. — To 
 say they are useless, because they have no useful 
 duties, may be a false conclusion. — A critic of this 
 description might reason in the same manner 
 with nature, and accuse her of the most senseless 
 profusion for dressing out a cock pheasant or 
 a peacock quite differently from a jackdaw or a 
 crow. — How unmercifully those poor birds would 
 be plucked! not a feather would be left in their 
 sinecure tails. It is not, therefore, in the choice 
 of the high men of my country to depart from 
 those dignities which long custom has establish- 
 ed, nor to relax in the visible distinctions which 
 support them, because, since the laws would be 
 degraded by the degradation of their authors, it 
 would be a kind of treason against the state. 
 
 " England is much too enlightened to be 
 
 seduced by a false notion of equality into a 
 
 c 4 system 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 system (mite alien to the form and character of 
 her government; she knows that whatever gives 
 the greatest stability to her free constitution is 
 the best security the few can have for their privi- 
 leges, or the many for their freedom ; and as there 
 has been no instance (in ourzvorldat least) of a dis- 
 contented people to a just and prudent govern- 
 ment, it would be discreet in the rulers of all 
 countries, before they have recourse to measures 
 of restraint and coercion, to examine well the 
 causes of disobedience and discontent. " If 
 they look into their own conduct they will find 
 the cause — if they amend it they will find the 
 remedy."* 
 
 That I may not have occasion to return here- 
 after to the singular costumes amongst the men 
 of Armata, I have only to add that my clothes 
 perfectly fitted me, and I was not a little amused 
 with my new and double character of a gentle- 
 
 * See Lord Chesterfield's speech against the Play-house 
 Bill. 
 
 man 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 man to those who knew me, or of a barber, per- 
 haps, to those who might not; the ordinary 
 dresses which I afterwards saw in Swaloal 
 amongst all ranks and conditions, were just like 
 my own, and of course so precisely the same that 
 I could not for a long time know one person 
 from another, even after some acquaintance; 
 and when I knew them at last it was only as 
 shepherds know their sheep, by the variety of 
 their faces notwithstanding the similarity of 
 
 THEIR FLEECES I I Saw HO cloth WOITI but of tWO 
 
 colours only, though their fabrics are beauti- 
 fully various, and, indeed, the whole male popu- 
 lation of Armata seemed to be beaten black 
 and blue by that champion of bruisers, Custom. 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Author begins his Journey towards the Capital of Armata. — 
 One of the Horses dies from being over driven. — Reflections on, 
 Cruelty to Animals. 
 
 Being now prepared for our journey, there drew 
 up to the door a light commodious equipage for 
 our conveyance, with animals not very different 
 from our best horses, but apparently more fitted 
 for the course than for the road, and accordingly 
 we set off at a pace which terrified me not a little, 
 and made me so giddy that I could scarcely 
 speak or listen to what was said ; and as we 
 continued above two hours in this furious career, 
 the poor creatures that carried us along became 
 so exceedingly distressed, that I asked Cathmor 
 to check the drivers in their speed ; but devoted 
 to all my wishes as I have already described 
 him, he gently put me aside, saying " it would 
 be absurd in the extreme to interfere." " Are 
 we then pushed," I asked, " to any particular 
 
 hour 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 hour in our clay's progress? the country seems 
 delightful, and we must see it to great disad- 
 vantage by passing so rapidly through it." " I 
 feel the force of what you say," answered my 
 youthful friend, " and we certainly are by no 
 means tasked to anj- time; on the contrary, we 
 shall reach our destination long before night; 
 but it is far better we should linger in an inn, 
 however irksome it may be, than not travel in 
 the style and fashion of gentlemen — If we went 
 slower we should be taken to be low people of 
 some description or other, and we should lose all 
 the respect with which it is my desire you should 
 be everywhere received." 
 
 " You must certainly be the best judge," I 
 replied, " of the manners and customs of your 
 own country ; but I cannot possibly comprehend 
 how, when we are masters of our time, it could at 
 all detract from our consequence, that we should 
 appear to consider the health and comfort of 
 those poor animals, without whose strength and 
 willingness to serve us we could not travel at all — 
 
 you 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 you must surely see how very much they suffer; 
 andean we answer for this abuse to a benevolent 
 Creator, who gave them only for our use ? have 
 they not the same feelings and the same sense 
 of injuries with ourselves, and could you be 
 happy upon this tour of pleasure and satisfaction 
 if you were enjoying yourself through the pain 
 and affliction of any of your own kind V 
 
 " Certainly not," he answered, " because I 
 should be invading human privileges; but ani- 
 mals have none that the law recognises, and why 
 should individuals run before the law, which 
 defines all duties and protects all rights ?" " Is 
 it possible then," / hastily replied, " that such a 
 country as your father described to me can be 
 so shockingly misgoverned?" " To that again," 
 re-plied. Cathmor, " I can only repeat, that it 
 is not for a subject to be wiser, nor more humane, 
 than the legislature which prescribes his rules of 
 action; and if, whenever the laws were silent, or 
 appeared to us to be defective, we were to con- 
 sider such supposed defects to be national mis- 
 government, 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 government, and not errors in ourselves, there 
 would be an*end at once of all government and 
 law — If the subject, indeed, had never been 
 presented to the notice of our councils, there 
 might be matter to pause upon, as your opinions 
 might, perhaps, have been adopted if duly con- 
 sidered ; but the whole subject was brought very 
 lately under their most serious consideration, 
 when all your fanciful notions were rejected and 
 put down. 
 
 " Our government is divided into two delibera- 
 tive assemblies, which must agree upon any law 
 before it can be submitted for adoption to the 
 third estate, which may annul their united deci- 
 sions — The highest of these assemblies frst 
 voted on this very subjects if you yourself had 
 given the rule to them; — they voted unani- 
 mously that animals had rights — They declared 
 that it had pleased Almighty God to endue them 
 with many valuable faculties for the use of man, 
 and they enacted punishments for the abuse ; — 
 but the other branch of our councils refused to 
 
 concur 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 concur in the new law thus proposed to them, 
 when it fell of course to the ground — Soon 
 afterwards, however, ,upon further consideration, 
 this very assembly, which had so refused to con- 
 cur with the other, did of their own mere motion 
 originate the very same law which they had 
 before rejected, and sent it up to its original 
 authors for their undoubted approbation ; but its 
 original authors having been inspired in the 
 mean time (as I ought, at least, to believe) with 
 some new and sudden light upon the subject, 
 did then in their turns reject it ; or in other 
 words, denied that it had so pleased Almighty 
 God as they had before with one voice voted, and 
 wholly refusing to acknowledge any rights in 
 animals such as they had themselves enacted, 
 left them to be driven to death in the manner 
 which so much affects you; but let it not there- 
 fore be imagined, that our councils denied or 
 discountenanced the just claims of humanity, 
 because, though they refused to enact protection 
 to animals, they admitted in argument that it 
 was a duty of imperfect obligation." — " Imperfect 
 
 obliga- 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 obligations" I indignantly answered, " are sure 
 to be imperfectly obeyed — human laws ought to 
 come in positive aid of all moral duties which 
 they can practically deal with, and it is impossi- 
 ble to deny that those for the protection of the 
 lower world are of that description, since both 
 the branches of your most enlightened legislature 
 (as you yourself have related) did solemnly pro- 
 nounce that they were. Nevertheless I highly 
 respect your deference as a subject to their united 
 opinions, though they differed at first/row each 
 other, and afterwards from themselves ; but such 
 absurd inconsistency mustnotthink of travelling 
 into another world for approbation or assent. In 
 England, be assured, it would excite the disgust of 
 an enlightened people, as it now provokes mine." 
 
 The account of this strange proceeding ac- 
 corded so little with what I had before heard 
 from Morven in praise of the councils of Armata, 
 and being forewarned by him not to rely too im- 
 plicitly on my excellent young companion in 
 matters which demanded the experience of age, 
 
 I after- 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 I afterwards asked him to account for it, which 
 he did as follows : — 
 
 " Our great Assembly, which suffers so much 
 in your opinion, has, I believe, no equal in any 
 nation, and like every thing else in Armata, has 
 acquired its value by time and events improved 
 on by the wisdom of our people ; so far from 
 being open to any general censure for versatility 
 of opinions, the union of the judicial and legis- 
 lative jurisdictions has given it a high character 
 for independence and justice; a succession of 
 great and learned men have flourished there for 
 ages, and when I shall have made you acquainted 
 with many of its members, I am sure you will 
 be reconciled to the rest. 
 
 " The history of this national misfortune (for 
 so I must consider it) is a very short one. The 
 right of all animals to protection, but more 
 especially of those without whose aids the con- 
 dition of mankind would be helpless, is a claim 
 so irresistible, that when faithfully stated, it was 
 
 sure 
 
( 33 ) 
 
 sure to carry every thing before it; and when 
 unanswerable in the abstract, it became more 
 affecting by many notorious instances of the 
 most savage cruelties, it is no wonder that 
 there should have been an universal impulse 
 to support it, and that any difficulties in the 
 way of useful legislation, should have been 
 completely overshadowed by the lustre of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 " In this manner, the projected law you 
 have heard of, went down almost by accla- 
 mation, to the other council for its assent, 
 where its success would have been equally cer- 
 tain, if the resolutions of public assemblies were 
 invariably the results of general conviction; but 
 as the bravest armies have been put to flight by 
 the panic of a single soldier, so the wisest coun- 
 cils, by the influence of individual error, may be 
 turned out of the course of wisdom. — It hap- 
 pened at that time, by an accident which can 
 occur but seldom, because the union of so many 
 high and valuable qualifications is a rare occur- 
 
 d rence, 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 rence, that a member of this lower assembly 
 had unaccountably connected in his large and 
 comprehensive mind, the brave and manly cha- 
 racter of the Armatan people, with sports and 
 exhibitions of the most barbarous description. 
 Impressed with so mistaken an opinion, this 
 extraordinary and amiable person seemed to con- 
 sider it as a kind of public duty for the encou- 
 ragement of generous courage and popular free- 
 dom, to protect, by his countenance and pre- 
 sence, the too frequent resorts where animals 
 were excited to more than instinctive ferocity, 
 or where his fellow men, without quarrel, were 
 matched almost to murder one another ; and on 
 those principles, if they deserve that name or 
 character, he became the vehement opposer of 
 the measure that had been adopted. 
 
 " Against an honest feeling of this morbid de- 
 scription, all reasoning was useless ; and remem- 
 bering, as I do, the force of his eloquence, and 
 the influence of that personal friendship which 
 he had acquired with many so justly, and with 
 
 none 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 none more sincerely than myself, I do not at all 
 wonder that his unprepared hearers were for a 
 season at least surprized : and though, as you 
 have heard,. they came to themselves afterwards, 
 yet the recovery was too late : a strong sensa- 
 tion had been created, which, extending to the 
 other branch of our government, this high 
 improvement of our national character was 
 defeated; — but the good seed has been sown, 
 and, as often happens in the natural world, lies 
 dormant for a future and perhaps not a distant 
 harvest. 
 
 " However extraordinary the observation may 
 appear when applied to a person so justly re- 
 spected for his talents, yet I can in no way ac- 
 count for such unconquerable pertinacity in so 
 wrong an opinion against all the dictates of his 
 own general good-nature, and the common 
 feelings of mankind, but by resorting to a doc- 
 trine confirmed by much experience, that every 
 man in the world (myself of course amongst 
 the rest) is so strangely particular in some 
 
 d 2 point 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 point or other, that it may well be considered 
 as an insanity quoad hoc — it being, like other 
 insanities, invulnerable to all argument — If the 
 circle in which this absurdity revolves is so 
 very small as to touch nobody, a man is then 
 only what is called singular in that respect, 
 but if its orbit is extended so as to run foul of 
 other people, he is then called a madman, and 
 is confined." 
 
 Another set of the unhappy victims of imper- 
 fect obligations being now yoked to our carriage, 
 we drove on precisely at the same furious rate, 
 to the great delight of my gay companion, who 
 seemed to sit more erect upon his seat, to pre- 
 serve I suppose our united consequence, whilst 
 the wretched animals were almost expiring 
 under the lash. — As for myself, I said not a 
 single word during the whole stage, and only 
 ofTered up my silent thanks to Almighty God 
 that Armata was not my country. 
 
 On arriving at our evening's destination, we 
 
 saw 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 saw sitting at the door two poor labouring men, 
 seemingly in the greatest pain from over fatigue; 
 they made no complaint of their employer, who 
 had not tasked them beyond their contract, but 
 they were obviously unable, from extreme weak- 
 ness, to reach their homes, though not far dis- 
 tant. — Soon afterwards I missed Cathmor; and 
 as he did not return at the hour our supper was pro- 
 vided, I waited for him with impatience, fearing 
 that some accident had befallen him. — It was 
 night when he appeared, and although he put 
 aside all my inquiries as to his absence, yet I saw 
 from his countenance he had been much affected; 
 and soon afterwards the cause of his distress could 
 no longer be concealed, as he was surrounded at 
 the door of our apartment by two large families, 
 who with their poor mothers were embracing 
 his knees, and though I could not understand 
 what they said, were obviously invoking bless- 
 ings upon his head : — they were the wives and 
 children of the poor labourers whom I found he 
 had carried home, and given them money to sup- 
 port them until they were able to work with 
 
 d 3 comfort. 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 comfort. — Thinking this a most favourable oc- 
 casion for trying the effect of human laws in 
 seconding divine precepts, I carried him into 
 the stable, where I had been told one of the 
 poor animals that had brought us was at the 
 point of death : when he saw him in that con- 
 dition, and was told that the master was just set 
 up in business and had a large family, he said 
 he was truly sorry for him, and desiring the 
 driver to follow us into our apartment, he im- 
 mediately gave him an order for the value as he 
 called it of his master's property ; but I could 
 not perceive that the cold sweat and excruciating 
 pangs of the unhappy dying animal had made 
 the least impression upon him. I cannot, how- 
 ever, conclude this interesting subject, without 
 acquainting my readers with the victory of na- 
 ture and virtue — whilst his feelings were thus 
 so strongly excited by human sufferings, and so 
 striking an analogy was within my view to ex- 
 tend them, I opened my whole battery upon his 
 ingenuous mind — the breach was soon practi- 
 cable, and humanity entered in triumph — my 
 
 companion 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 companion laid down his arms at her feet, lament- 
 ing that the siege had been so long protracted 
 from the false idea that the lower world was be- 
 yond the boundaries of her dominion. 
 
 I was deeply impressed with this interesting 
 conversion, and have often since reflected upon 
 it with delight. — Nothing indeed in the human 
 character is so extraordinary, or, I might rather 
 say, mysterious, as the manner in which the 
 consciences of the most enlightened and virtu- 
 ous men lie prostrate and dormant under the 
 influence of some ruling passion, or where, from 
 the neglect of public law or domestic education, 
 some particular objects of humanity or justice 
 have not been sufficiently implanted and en- 
 forced. — Of the former, the divine eloquence 
 of our sacred Scripture casts into the deepest 
 shade every possible illustration : we there see 
 a highly gifted Sovereign living in such general 
 purity as to have been said to walk after God's 
 own heart, yet sleeping in peace amidst the 
 complicated crimes of cruelty, adultery, and 
 
 d 4 murder, 
 
( 40 ) 
 
 murder, till recalled to himself by the sublime 
 simplicity of the Prophet : of the second, 
 the evidence is now before the reader, in 
 a kind hearted ingenuous being of our own 
 species, though of another world — you have seen 
 him shedding the tears of pity over human suf- 
 ferings, though they were almost at rhe same 
 moment before him in the most heart-rending 
 shapes, without his feeling them at all. — The ani- 
 mal he had doomed to be destroyed for the gra- 
 tification of an imaginary consequence, was a 
 creature also of God ; his docility and strength 
 were given him as supports to man in his fallen 
 and feeble condition ; he was endued with all 
 the faculties, though suited to his inferior sta- 
 tion, which were bestowed upon himself; and 
 he felt all the bodily pains, perhaps all the pangs 
 of a wounded spirit, which the proudest of man- 
 kind can feel : but public law having been silent 
 which should have proclaimed those truths and 
 have drawn the moral conclusion, he had been 
 left as dead to their. impressions as the savage in 
 the desert — but his soul being now laid suddenly 
 
 open 
 
( 41 ) 
 
 open to the light of nature and of truth, he ad- 
 mitted at once all my principles, deplored their 
 imperfect laws which had blindfolded and bru- 
 talized their people, adding, that since the 
 period of rejecting their proposed amendment, 
 the most harmless animals had not only been wan- 
 tonly destroyed, whose mangled carcasses were 
 to be seen daily in the streets, but that savage 
 cruelties to the human species, and even the 
 most atrocious murders, had filled the calendars 
 of their tribunals beyond the example of any 
 former times. I was not surprized at this me- 
 lancholy communication ; the truth is, that laws 
 and laws alo?ie, are capable of forming and 
 fashioning a people — Divine commands are 
 nothing except as they are engrafted upon our 
 system, and we ourselves should be just as little 
 protected against violence from each other, but 
 by the most penal consequences, enforced too 
 by parental warnings to avoid them. — From not 
 extending corrections for the protection of ani- 
 mals, in cases at least of gross and malignant 
 oppression, children are almost universally cruel, 
 
 and 
 
( 42 ) 
 
 and when they grow up, it is too late to correct 
 them but by criminal justice. Some difficulties 
 might perhaps attend such jurisdiction in the 
 outset, but they could hardly reach another 
 generation ; the moral voice of the law would 
 be heard even by infants, when principles, 
 good or evil, are easiest implanted, and which 
 generally endure for ever. 
 
 Soon after sunrise we proceeded on our 
 journey with only pleasant and rational speed, 
 and I can now therefore take some notice of 
 the face of this fine island, which I could see 
 no more of during the former day than if I had 
 soared over it in a balloon. — The air was serene 
 — the roads were smooth, and the hourly shifting 
 landscapes beautifully various — delightful undu- 
 lations of hill and valley enlivened throughout 
 by smooth or rapid waters, and enriched with 
 picturesque villages, through the light smoke 
 of which the distant spires of churches were 
 every where to be seen. — To crown the prospect* 
 the sides of almost all the eminences sloping 
 
 southward, 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 southward, were adorned with the seats of some 
 of the greatest and most ancient families in 
 Armata. I am not sure that a traveller, with- 
 out being tedious, can say much more of the 
 newest country which he is only quickly passing 
 through. — Remarkable scenery should be viewed 
 distinctly, and worked up into pictures by those 
 who know how to paint them, which I certainly 
 do not. 
 
 As we approached very near to one of those 
 noble possessions, many of which we had passed, 
 Cathmor said, he would ask permission to view 
 it, which was immediately granted. 
 
 As we drove through the plantations on the 
 road to the house, or rather the palace, which 
 stood upon nearly the highest ground in the 
 midst of them, I was quite overpowered with 
 the enchanting scene, and, as my eye glided 
 along immense and diversified masses of magni- 
 ficent trees, (a collection seemingly from all 
 
 climates,) 
 
( 44 ) 
 
 climates,) rising in an ascending scale to the 
 lofty summit of what un wooded would have 
 been a precipice, the whole prospect was on a 
 sudden reflected back again, as if by a thou- 
 sand mirrors, from the transparent surface of a 
 splendid lake, which stretched itself out beneath 
 our feet to a vast extent, until it was lost in the 
 distant woods. I stood for a while motionless, 
 and exclaimed aloud to my amazed companion, in 
 a voice of admiration and transport, — " Where 
 am I? What is it I see? Was Milton brought 
 here in vision, or actually like myself, when he 
 described the primaeval paradise of our world ?" 
 I shall insert my whole soliloquy, though it 
 makes me appear myself in the character of the 
 Devil: — 
 
 " So on he fared, and to the border came 
 Of Eden, whose delicious paradise, 
 Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, 
 As with a rural mound, the champain head 
 Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides 
 With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, 
 Access denied ; and overhead up-grew 
 Insuperable height of loftiest shade, 
 
 Cedar, 
 
C 45 ) 
 
 Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, 
 A silvan scene : and as the ranks ascend, 
 Shade, above shade, a woody theatre 
 Of stateliest view." 
 
 To fill up the smaller parts of this fine picture, 
 I would rather refer to Horace Walpole, or Ma- 
 son, or De Lisle, or still more to the delightful 
 realities of England, than attempt any descrip- 
 tion of my own; I am not in the hahits of 
 writing, and always fall short in expressing what 
 I feel. 
 
 We were now placed under a guide to con- 
 duct us through this grand residence, (if rest- 
 dence indeed I ought to call it,) because, though 
 we met with labourers at every step, in great 
 numbers, pruning the shrubs, sweeping the 
 lawns, and supporting the flowers that were 
 bending to the earth in luxuriant beauty, and 
 rilling the air with inexpressible fragrance, I 
 did not see one human being of any description 
 to enjoy this heavenly retreat. I asked my 
 young friend most earnestly how this strange 
 solitude was to be accounted for; but before he 
 
 srave 
 
( 46 ) 
 
 gave me any answer, I thought I could observe 
 a look not indeed of contempt, but of that 
 good-natured complacency and surprize which 
 is frequently raised by the questions of children 
 on what they see ; regarding me then with a 
 smile, he answered — " Oh yes ! it is completely 
 enjoyed in proper times for its enjoyment ; but 
 not at this season : you are probably thrown 
 out by counting months on your voyage, for- 
 getting that the poles of our planets point in op- 
 posite directions, and that though it is now mid- 
 winter in England, this very day, as I told you 
 yesterday, would be our summer solstice. — What 
 need I say more ? — This is not the cell or hut of 
 a hermit, but a mansion for a social being at a 
 very differed period of the year; so much so, 
 that if it were not for your satisfaction, or, to 
 speak the honest truth, that my father has put 
 me about you as his deputy, I would not be 
 found here longer than our cattle can be re- 
 freshed, for any money you could lay down." 
 
 I was so much perplexed with what I heard, 
 
 that 
 
( 47 ) 
 
 that I scarcely knew how to deal with it, being 
 perfectly aware, from every thing around me, 
 that it must be Midsummer in Armata : I 
 could therefore only say, that I was unac- 
 quainted with the natural history of her produc- 
 tions, but that all creation seemed to be in the 
 highest perfection ; " and do those fine trees, 
 then," I asked, " preserve their beauty through- 
 out the year, or are they leafless in winter which, 
 as I have learned from your father, is often most 
 severe?" He here laughed, and muttered some- 
 thing in his own language, which when I 
 afterwards understood, I could not help laugh- 
 ing also — translated literally into English, it sig- 
 nified, Damn all trees, shrubs, and flowers! 
 and then, resuming our English language, which 
 he always spoke to me, he said, " The trees 
 and shrubs are of course without leaves or 
 flowers in winter, and are in their prime now ; — 
 but what then ? Can they converse ? Can they 
 dance? Can they sing? If you poured wine 
 upon them instead of water would they live ? — 
 or can they move from their places and hunt ? 
 
 Would 
 
( 48 ) 
 
 Would you, in short, have a man be like a bird, 
 and sit whistling amongst those branches in the 
 summer, instead of being in Swaloal — divine 
 Swaloal ! where, would to Heaven ! we could be 
 to-morrow ! — and here let me entreat you to re- 
 member, if you speak of this place at all, 
 (which I 'very much wish you would not,) that I 
 only came here under my father's orders to shew 
 it to you ; if you forget this I shall be com- 
 pletely laughed at, as there are seven balls, four 
 concerts, and thirteen private parties, all of 
 which I have missed to-night by this damned 
 stupid adventure : I ordered my servants to 
 say I was in town, but ill of a sore throat; and 
 though I wish our beds might be prepared for 
 us, yet I am ashamed to put my letter into the 
 post at such a distance from town, because the 
 rascally country mark might dodge us ; let me 
 beg of you therefore not to expose me." — 
 Which I the more readily promised not to do, 
 as he had sufficiently exposed himself. 
 
 Seeing at this moment an immense tree, resem- 
 bling 
 
( 49 ) 
 
 blingour English oak, in all the glories of the year, 
 I quitted the path and ran towards it, to sit under 
 its shade ; but my companion, in great seeming 
 agitation, called out loudly to me, " Come 
 back ! come back ! or you will be certainly 
 caught ; there are t7*aps every where." " Traps /" 
 I replied hastily. — "What! traps for men? I 
 wonder no longer at this solitude. — Are you 
 cannibals then, and do you snare your fellow- 
 creatures as if they were larks ?" " No, no," 
 he replied, laughing, " we don't eat one ano- 
 ther, but we like to be to ourselves when we 
 eat our mutton ; and there would be no end of 
 wanderers if we did not catch them by the leg." 
 It was now my turn to laugh, and I could not 
 help telling him, " that if this were done in 
 England, the owner perhaps would be caught 
 himself, and by the neck too, as Jack Catch 
 might retaliate.''* 
 
 * Since my arrival in England, I have learned that law- 
 yers differ upon this subject; — but humanity surely dictates 
 the greatest caution in the use of such dangerous protec- 
 tions. 
 
 e We 
 
( 50 ) 
 
 We now reached the house, where we were 
 received, at a magnificent entrance, by a person 
 who seemed to me to be a lady of the most 
 affable and pleasing manners ; her gown was 
 like one of our rich flowered silks, but rather of 
 an old pattern, and it had been some time 
 worn ; but I was particularly struck with the 
 singular appearance of a very large bunch of 
 keys where our women wear their watches. — I 
 bowed to her with great respect, and asked my 
 friend to present me to her. — " You need not," 
 he said, " bow so profoundly ; it would please 
 her far better if you were to look in your 
 pocket for the largest piece of money in it. 
 How could you imagine she was a lady ; did not 
 I tell you there were none here at this season ? 
 We are not in an enchanted castle ; the woman 
 is not made of wood or marble, nor fastened, 
 as you may see, to the floor ; and, if she were 
 her own mistress, would soon be far enough off. 
 She is only the housekeeper to shew the apart- 
 ments, and pray let us make haste through 
 them ; they smell damnably after having been 
 
 so 
 
( 51 ) 
 
 so long- shut up, and besides we have a 
 long way to go before night." We now passed 
 through a noble suite of rooms, which were 
 rich, and well proportioned, ornamented with 
 the finest tapestry and the richest brocades; 
 the lustres also were most splendid, and the 
 pictures, which were in magnificent frames, 
 seemed to be finely painted; but the portraits of 
 another world were, of course, uninteresting. 
 She pointed, however, with a very long stick, 
 to many great statesmen, philosophers, orators, 
 warriors, judges, and learned men, and with 
 that appropriate cadence which we hear at 
 Exeter 'Change, when we visit the wild beasts. 
 Throughout the whole of this immense round 
 which, without forgetting my friend's injunc- 
 tion, occupied at least two hours, we did not 
 see one man, or woman, or child, nor any one 
 living creature of any kind whatsoever, except 
 several bats, who seemed, by their ilutterings, 
 to have been but seldom disturbed, and now 
 and then a coterie of moths, but who were so 
 busy at luncheon on the velvet cushions and 
 e 2 curtains, 
 
( 52 ) 
 
 curtains, that they did not even seem to ob- 
 serve us. 
 
 When we arrived at the port of exit, I now 
 took Cathmor's advice as to the most agreeable 
 mode or" parting salutation, giving our con- 
 ductress one of the largest coins that circulate 
 in Armata, which she received with a most 
 gracious smile, curtseying to me at the same 
 time till the key of the great hall was stretched 
 motionless on the ground. 
 
 We now returned through the plantations by 
 a different road. — I had a fowling-piece with 
 me, the gift of Morven on my first landing, 
 and, seeing an animal run by, with a smell as it 
 passed me that almost produced suffocation, 
 and carrying in his jaws a most beautiful bird, 
 which he was bringing from a field where se- 
 veral bleturs and their young lay torn and man- 
 gled, I almost instinctively raised my gun to 
 my shoulder to shoot him : but my companion, 
 holding my arm, cried out with the utmost 
 
 emotion, 
 
( 53 ) 
 
 emotion, rt What can you possibly mean ? — 
 How could we answer for such a dreadful breach 
 of hospitality ? It is a great favour, I assure 
 you, to see the place, and would you return it 
 by such an outrage as this?" I was almost pe- 
 trified with surprise ; and, holding fast my nose 
 till the horrid effluvia had evaporated, I asked 
 him how it could possibly be considered as an 
 ungrateful trespass upon the lord of this do- 
 main to kill a most offensive wild beast, de- 
 tected in the murderous act of destroying his 
 property. 
 
 " His killing the bleturs," said Cathmor, " was 
 perhaps incorrect; but it is impossible below 
 the Heavens to have unmixed blessings, and 
 we must be contented to take every good with 
 some alloy of evil. — Those animals, though 
 they formerly infested the country, and still do 
 a vast deal of mischief, are nevertheless bred 
 and preserved at a very great expense for our 
 sport, and you may guess how impossible it 
 would be to live without them, when I inform 
 
 e 3 you 
 
( 54 ) 
 
 you that we desert all those natural beauties 
 you have been admiring, though we exhaust 
 Our fortunes to create and keep them up, — that 
 we prefer the frosts and fogs of our rigorous 
 climate to its most delicious sunshine, — and 
 abandon even our public councils in the most 
 arduous and critical conjunctures rather than 
 not follow up the closest scent of what so much 
 revolts your ultra mundane nostrils.' — Do you 
 wonder now," he said, as if he had just finished 
 the demonstration of the plainest problem in 
 Euclid, " do you wonder now, my good friend, 
 that the absent proprietor of this mansion would 
 have started back with horror, when told of the 
 outrage which I so fortunately averted ?" I lis- 
 tened to all this with silent composure, and 
 taking out my leathern snuff-box, which had 
 fortunately defied sea-water, and in which there 
 still remained some most excellent rappee for 
 the refreshment of my ultra mundane nostrils, I 
 put out my hand, under the pretence of thank 
 ing him, but in fact to take the chance of 
 coming in contact with his pulse, as I was now 
 
 quite 
 
( « ) 
 quite convinced he was mad. Another organ 
 now came in for a full share of delight ; as my 
 ears were saluted on a sudden with a harsh, 
 frightful, and continued yell, such as I had 
 sometimes heard in the woods of America, when 
 fires were lighted to keep back the wolves — so 
 that if I had not known we were in a reclaimed 
 district, I should have expected to be instantly 
 devoured ; and the more so as there was not a 
 soul within a mile who could help us. — The 
 cause soon became manifest in the persons of 
 near a hundred large animals, more resembling 
 our dog than any other creature, but, instead 
 of being of some one hue, or shades of one, 
 their skins appeared as if they were clouted 
 with patches of different colours, which de- 
 formed them not a little. — My young compa- 
 nion seemed now quite enchanted, saying, " that 
 as it was a natural propensity always to imagine 
 something beyond realities, he had no doubt 
 that what we were then hearing had given rise 
 to the idea of the Music of the Spheres." — I 
 made no answer, heartily wishing myself among 
 
 e 4 them. 
 
( 56 ) 
 
 them, without any apprehension of that kind of 
 concert. 
 
 The senses, however, might be said, to have 
 been in full harmony ; as the sight of the motley 
 beasts, with the noise and smell, in such an 
 equal and happy combination, could not but pre- 
 vent their being jealous of one another. 
 
 We now retired to the inn for the night, and 
 in the morning pursued our journey. — Nothing 
 remarkable occurred till the day following, 
 when, soon after sunrise, there suddenly burst 
 upon us, from the summit of a commanding 
 eminence, so sublime a spectacle in the distant 
 view of the Capital, that I thought a second 
 time our immortal poet must have been here be- 
 fore me and described it : — 
 
 " When, by break of cheerful dawn, 
 
 He gain'd the height of a high climbing hill, 
 Which to his eye discovers, unawares, 
 The goodly prospect of a foreign land 
 Just seen, and its renown'd metropolis, 
 With glittering spires and pinnacles adorn'd, 
 Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams." 
 
 On 
 
( 57 ) 
 
 On our nearer approach, the country still pre- 
 served the same variety and beauty, if country 
 it could any longer be called ; as it was rather 
 a countless cluster of towns almost touching each 
 other, in none of which I could discover any 
 laborious arts or manufactures, but only im- 
 mense numbers of decorated villas or cheerful 
 village habitations, interspersed with shops of 
 every useful description.— Reflecting here upon 
 the public burthens, which the reader must well 
 remember the account of in the former volume, 
 I could not but be surprised to see an univer- 
 sal face OF GAIETY, HAPPINESS, AND PLENTY. 
 
 We now came in sight of a fine river, and 
 passed it by a bridge of incomparable structure, 
 from which, on both sides, we discovered others 
 of great magnitude and beauty, connecting the 
 capital at various parts with other populous 
 districts. 
 
 At last wc entered Swaloal; and after being 
 wheeled along many noble streets, thronged 
 
 with 
 
( 58 ) 
 
 with carriages of every description and with 
 multitudes on foot, as business or pleasure 
 might direct them, we arrived at Morven's house, 
 instead of that of my young companion, where 
 we found every thing so well prepared for us, 
 that I was happy he had avoided the disgrace of 
 being traced into the wilderness by the odious 
 marks of a country post, when it was intended 
 that I should be his guest. 
 
 In the evening we had an excellent supper, 
 and I went early to bed, though with very little 
 inclination to sleep, every nerve having been 
 electrified by his promise to attend me next day 
 through the haunts of fashion and delight, 
 which, having never been very distinctly de- 
 scribed, the enchantment of novelty was un- 
 dispelled. 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 59 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Author is introduced to the Amusements and Gaieties 
 of Swaloal. 
 
 The sun next clay, though there was certainly 
 nothing new for him to see, had finished never- 
 theless full twelve hours of his diurnal course, be- 
 fore, as I was told, there was any thing wider the 
 sun to be seen ; and it was not, therefore, till four in 
 the evening, that our horses were at the door for 
 our mornings ride ; — we then proceeded towards 
 the royal park, in the favourite environ of the 
 town, and I must say, that the most partial re- 
 membrance of England, as we entered it, raised 
 up in my mind no rival to its beauties. 
 
 It is several miles in circumference, and at 
 one end of it there is a royal palace, surrounded 
 with a delightful garden, — to both which splen- 
 did demesnes of Royalty the whole people of 
 
 that 
 
( 60 ) 
 
 that free country are indiscriminately admitted, 
 not only in carriages or on horseback, but on 
 foot also. — Indeed, the distant view of it had so 
 raised my desire to see it, that nothing but its 
 real excellence could have saved me from the 
 utmost disappointment. — As we approached the 
 spot, I observed the most smooth and beautiful ex- 
 panse of lawn in every direction, and quite open, 
 except as it was bounded unseen by the general 
 and distant enclosure, and there were tracks, 
 winding through it, which shewed that carriages 
 might almost every where pass. — The whole 
 extent was most happily ornamented with groups 
 of the finest trees, dispersed in the most fasci- 
 nating variety, and in the full pride of all the 
 foliage of the year. — I could not now help ex- 
 pressing my surprize that not one carriage, 
 though so remarkably numerous in all other 
 quarters, nor any one individual mounted, or on 
 foot, were to be seen in any part of this ter- 
 restrial paradise, though our view extended 
 above a mile all around us. — My young friend 
 smiled at me, saying, I should very soon be 
 
 gratified 
 
( 61 ) 
 
 gratified with a sight within the Royal pre- 
 cincts, far more inviting, which would fully ac- 
 count for the solitude that had surprized me; 
 he added, that there would be but little dif- 
 ference between being buried under the turf in 
 those solitary recesses which had filled me with 
 such rapture, or rolling over them in the most 
 costly equipage. — " Now, now," said he, as we 
 rode onward, " now we come to the scene of 
 true splendour and delight." — At this moment, 
 being still galloping from impatience, we turned 
 short round a dead wall, and the wind being 
 very high, my hat was suddenly beat off, and 
 my head entangled in what I took to be a 
 market-woman's basket of flowers, but which 
 turned out to be only the head-dress of a 
 lady that had been blown out of an open car- 
 riage just at the corner we were turning. — As 
 soon as this wreck was cleared away by my 
 friend's assistance, and we were preparing to 
 move forwards, we were involved all at once in 
 a seemingly impenetrable whirlwind of dust 
 and gravel which when mixed with the smoke 
 
 driven 
 
( 62 ) 
 
 driven down from the houses just above us, 
 would have made the blackest assemblage of 
 steam-engines at Birmingham or Wolverhampton 
 appear like the gayest palaces lighted up with 
 gas. — Through this dismal medium, my half- 
 extinguished eyes (which so filled with earth 
 in England would have given me a vote for 
 Middlesex) could see only by short snatches 
 sometimes the head of one horse and sometimes 
 the tail of another, with now and then part of 
 a carriage moving on at the pace of a funeral 
 procession, which my friend told me, (for I 
 could see nothing farther,) extended about a 
 mile, but hemmed in on each side, with people 
 riding or rather tumbling over one another. 
 We were now and then stopped besides by 
 vehicles, completely jammed, out of which 
 we could see ladies disengaging themselves, 
 or at least their head-dresses and drapery, 
 looming, as sailors term it, through the mist, 
 and, to keep up the metaphor, flapping against 
 each other like sails and colours in a gale of 
 wind at sea. 
 
 My 
 
( 63 ) 
 
 My. friend, I could now observe, was in the 
 highest state of enjoyment ; and his countenance 
 being lighted up with all the animation of tri- 
 umph, he exclaimed, with exultation — " This 
 is life indeed! Do you now wonder that 
 those unmeaning miles of grass which enchanted 
 you are left to the beasts that perish ? Good 
 Heavens ! how delightful is this moment ! — 
 Why, Sir, almost all the rank, and wit, and beauty, 
 not only in Swaloal but in the whole Island of 
 Armata, are here condensed within less than 
 three acres of ground ! — It is indeed the very 
 otto of fashion and charms of every descrip- 
 tion.'' " And what then, my good friend," 
 said I, " what would signify the otto of the 
 most delicious perfume, if the stopper were 
 kept in the bottle? and what also can be the 
 delight of beauty when it cannot be seen, or of 
 wit when it cannot be heard, or of rank when 
 all its distinctions are buried in darkness and 
 confusion ? Would not the same assemblage of 
 rank, wit, and beauty, if spread out upon those 
 verdant expanses, where people could see and 
 
 converse 
 
( ^4 ) 
 
 converse with one another, be far more ra- 
 tional and delightful ?" " Not at all," answered 
 Cathmor, " your understanding is overshadowed 
 by the prejudices of your own country ; it is 
 in fashionable assemblies as in war — The close 
 column does all the execution. — Your favourite 
 lawn is too extensive and distinct. — Nothing 
 pleases when it is fully seen and understood." 
 Here he added a sentence in some other lan- 
 guage, the meaning of which I found after- 
 wards to be, Omne ignotum pro magnifico ha- 
 betur — " There must be light and shade, my 
 friend, in every picture." — " Certainly, " I re- 
 " plied, but here all is shade, and not even a 
 glimmering of light." — " Not so," said he, in- 
 terrupting. me, " did you not tell me but a mo- 
 ment ago, that every now and then you could 
 see the head of one horse and sometimes of 
 another, and parts of carriages, as the dust 
 swept magnificently along, some entire and 
 some broken ? What, in the name of Heaven, 
 would you have more? Would you see all at 
 once ? Perhaps then you would wish the women 
 
 to 
 
( 65 ) 
 
 to go naked, though it is the very secret of 
 love and desire, that something should always 
 be concealed and left for the imagination to 
 supply. Neither do you seem to take into the 
 account that, even if you had seen nothing at 
 all, you have still been here; you must know 
 and feel that you have, and even if you had 
 not, and wished to have the credit of it, who 
 could contradict you? — all the devils in hell 
 could not deny it. For all these reasons, my 
 dear friend, and for a thousand others, depend 
 upon it there can be nothing in this world, nor, 
 without meaning to be prophane, perhaps in 
 that hereafter, so absolutely perfect, as the scene 
 we are now um # # # 
 
 The remainder of my friend's sentence, viz. the 
 rest of the word *umbuging, which in Swaloal, 
 it seems, means enjoying, was here unhappily 
 broken, by his bones being nearly broken also ; 
 for at this moment lie was knocked off his 
 horse by another, which having thrown his 
 
 * In the language of Armata it is an aspiration as with us, 
 and not a letter. 
 
 f rider 
 
( 66 ) 
 
 rider had run away, the only living thing 
 within at least half-a-mile that was moving 
 faster than a snail. — I was told indeed that a 
 large sum of money had been made by an un- 
 dertaker, when the town was healthy, or when 
 people had not time to die, by letting out his long- 
 tailed amblers for this slow procession, who 
 were accustomed to a pace which other horses 
 could not manage. My friend was not at all 
 hurt, and with an air of the utmost satisfaction, 
 as I was lifting him off the ground, for nobody 
 else could see him for the dust and smoke, he 
 said to me with a smile, " I am not sorry for 
 what has happened ; such things give incident 
 and anecdote to the panorama, and are its high 
 light and finish." " Very well," said I, " put- 
 ting light wholly out of the question, any thing 
 certainly that finishes such a scene must be 
 satisfactory. Believe me I should pass for a liar 
 or a madman if I were to say in England that I 
 had seen all this or any thing resembling it." 
 
 We now went home to dress, as he had before 
 
 promised 
 
( 67 ) 
 
 promised to introduce me to several great 
 ladies, who, it seems, were to be found within 
 their own houses once in every year, some of 
 the greatest even twice — this phenomenon, he 
 said, had been made known throughout the 
 whole city, by beating against the doors of 
 all persons of condition with an immense ham- 
 mer that moves upon a hinge; and that his 
 own gate having been split a week ago, when 
 the proclamations were left at his house, he 
 thought it was a most fortunate opportunity to 
 present me. 
 
 Having heard so much of the beauty and 
 accomplishments of the women of Armata, and 
 this manner of approach to them being so ex- 
 traordinary and, in point of time, so critical, 
 I confess the hours lingered with me till mid- 
 night, when he said it might be as well to go, 
 as the principal lady, who lived besides at 
 several miles distant, being a great invalid, kept 
 very early hours. We set out, therefore, soon 
 after twelve, and after driving through many 
 
 f 2 streets 
 
( GA ) 
 
 streets we got into a situation to me so per- 
 fectly new and terrific, that I suffered more 
 from fear than I thought it manly to express ; 
 an universal tumult and conflict having taken 
 place, which I of course considered to be a 
 violent sedition, if not the beginning of a revo- 
 lution in the government. — The carriages were 
 driven violently against each other, their drivers 
 assaulting their opponents with the utmost fury. 
 I can liken it indeed to nothing but what we 
 read of in our earliest histories, when the 
 ancient Britons used to rush to battle in their 
 chariots. — The contest at last became so violent 
 that I could no longer conceal my alarm, and 
 said quite plainly to my friend, that though 
 nothing was further from my wish than to 
 detach him from his duty in the service of his 
 country, yet that being myself an entire 
 stranger to Armata and its concerns, I neither 
 wished to take any part in its internal divisions, 
 nor to expose my person on either side. — I en- 
 treated therefore to be let down without delay, 
 as I should take the chance of finding out his 
 
 house 
 
( e 9 ) 
 
 house on foot. Cathmor was most highly 
 amused with my apprehensions, telling me with 
 a smile, and manifestly with the utmost enjoy- 
 ment of the disorder we were involved in, that 
 there was neither rebellion, nor sedition, nor 
 commotion; nor any other quarrel or difference 
 but that which was most natural and of nightly 
 occurrence, from the desire of arriving first at 
 scenes of extreme interest and splendour, ad- 
 ding that I should soon be convinced the plea- 
 sure was well worth the contest. — This declara- 
 tion served a little to compose me, and by the 
 spirit and dexterity of our coachman, who had 
 laid low several of his antagonists, we arrived at 
 a large gate in little more than an hour after- 
 wards, with only two holes through our car- 
 riage, which he said might be repaired at the 
 trifling expense of only £30 of our money, 
 and he was happy to add, that the servant's leg 
 was not broken, but was only severely bruised, 
 which a week or two would set to rights 
 in the Hospital, where he had just sent him. — 
 As we alighted, I saw him give a large coin to 
 
 f3 our 
 
( 70 ) 
 
 our coachman, who whispered him that seven 
 carriages had been broken to pieces, and that 
 their contents (as he called them) would be well 
 off if they got up to the door by day-light. 
 
 I was now perfectly at my ease, expecting of 
 course to be speedily repaid for all our troubles, 
 as we had now reached the foot of a richly 
 carpeted staircase, brilliantly illuminated, at 
 the top of which and onwards I saw the head- 
 dresses, and sometimes even imperfect glimpses 
 of the faces they adorned, but which seemed to 
 ask no ornament whatever. My impatience was 
 now extreme, from the slowness of our ad- 
 vance — and, on asking my friend the occasion 
 of it, and of the thundering noise above, as if 
 some public proclamation were making — he 
 said it was only the announcing of a very high 
 lady a little on before us, who had been lame 
 with an old rheumatism for above fifty years, 
 but, having seen in the newspapers she was re- 
 covering, he had no doubt she would reach the 
 top of the staircase in a quarter of an hour, 
 
 when 
 
( 71 ) 
 
 when the obstruction would cease. — We found, 
 however, to our cost that this calculation was 
 rather sanguine, though it is so difficult to mea- 
 sure time when we wish it to pass quickly, that 
 I shall content myself with saying that we ar- 
 rived at last in the door-way of a magnificent 
 apartment, when I overheard my friend, who 
 was just before me, asking several persons as 
 they passed him to give him some general idea 
 of where the lady of the house was to be found, 
 and so impossible was it to have approached her, 
 wherever she might have been, that, instead of a 
 passage being forced by any man or woman, pat- 
 ting all ceremony out of the question, I am confi- 
 dent, that, if we had been at the bottom of Snow- 
 Hill, the most furious bullock, escaping out of 
 Smithfield, would not have made an attempt 
 upon the crowd that was before us — the in- 
 stinctive wisdom of the brute would have pro- 
 tected mankind in the zenith of this folly. 
 
 The heat now became excessive, and nobody 
 f 4 seemed 
 
7*) 
 
 seemed to take any notice of each other, fur- 
 ther than the constant repetition on every side 
 of " Kee see ! Kee see ! Asmate ! Asmate /" 
 which, I found afterwards, were exclamations, 
 that the pressure of the crowd and the difficulty 
 of respiration were intolerable. — My face was 
 now running* down with sweat, as if I had been 
 in a vapour-bath, but without the possibility of 
 having recourse to my handkerchief, both my 
 hands being as completely pinned down as if I 
 had been on my way to Newgate under a com- 
 mitment for murder. I will fairly own, never- 
 theless, that amidst all this misery I was so cap- 
 tivated with even the transient view of the 
 most exquisitely beautiful women, that I was 
 making a desperate and despairing effort for a 
 nearer view of them, by an assault upon the 
 door-way into the first apartment, when my 
 friend, pulling me by the sreeve with one of his 
 hands, which with great dexterity he had dis- 
 engaged for my relief, told me that, supposing 
 I could have succeeded, it was much too late, 
 
 as 
 
( 73 ) 
 
 as we had five other places to go to, where 
 we might prohahly see even greater beauties 
 than those who had attracted my admira- 
 tion. We then retired to a small room at the 
 bottom of the staircase, on the steps of which 
 we had been detained two hours, and, whilst 
 our servants were engaged in finding the car- 
 riage, I earnestly pressed him to return home, 
 and to find some other opportunity of present- 
 ing me to his friends. — " Friends of mine!'*' he 
 answered ; " Damn me ! if I ever saw one 
 of them before to-night — nor care if they 
 were all in hell." Encouraged by this, I now 
 fairly owned to him that I had not the strength 
 nor inclination to proceed any farther. — He 
 seemed much affected with my distress, saying, 
 at the same time, with the greatest possible 
 kindness, that he would most willingly give up 
 every satisfaction of his own for my accommo- 
 dation, but that it was really not in his power — 
 " My sister," he said, " whom you have not yet 
 seen, having had the misfortune to lose her 
 
 mother 
 
( M ) 
 
 mother in her infancy, from an overturn at a 
 horse-race, her education devolved upon my 
 father, who is obliged on this occasion to put 
 her under the protection of some kind female 
 friend; now it happens most unluckily that this 
 her Umdrumm," (pointing to a huge woman who 
 stood near us,) " with whom she might go any 
 where, and do any things being a martyr to corns, 
 and somebody having trod upon them, she can 
 accompany her no longer, and I am obliged to 
 take care of her myself." This dilemma si- 
 lenced, of course, all further objection, more 
 especially when, on my speaking of another 
 night for the remaining parties — " Another year, 
 my friend, you must mean; to-night Witt end 
 them all ; and, believe me, it would be little 
 better than ruin to a young woman, after she 
 tens once out, not to be seen every where ; — 
 perple would naturally say she could not have 
 been asked, and that, there must be some- 
 
 thing against her character." 
 
 To 
 
( 75 ) 
 
 To all this I could only observe, that it was 
 inconceivable to me how a woman could possi- 
 bly risk her character by taking natural rest in 
 the season which Nature had universally pointed 
 out. " Nature," replied my friend, " has pointed 
 out no such thing — night is the season for 
 the lower world only; — plants of all kinds, 
 down to the grass we tread on, open their bo- 
 soms to the rising sun, and fold them again 
 in their mantles when he sets — Animals, in 
 the same manner, following their brute in- 
 stinct, rejoice in the light of day, and repose 
 until it returns ; mankind also, taken in the 
 mass, have the same propensities — a kind of 
 higher instinct, for the government of those who 
 are to live by labour, which can only be done 
 when they can see their way to do it: — the 
 day, therefore, my good friend, is their portion 
 also, but night was made for their superiors. 
 The stars of Heaven shine forth only in 
 the dark — at day-break they disappear. — Nei- 
 ther is the want of rest, which, from a national 
 prejudice, you are pleased to call natural, 
 
 in 
 
( 76 ) 
 
 in any manner destructive of health and beauty ; 
 on the contrary, I know many women of rank 
 who began this career at seventeen, yet who 
 now, at the age of six or seven and twenty, nay, 
 some even at thirty, still retain a considerable 
 share of freshness ; and, as to longevity, put- 
 ting looks out of the question, I know fifty, 
 aye a hundred, women who are far above eighty, 
 and, though constantly in mobs from night to 
 morning, without ever seeing the sun for 
 months together, nor ever desiring to see him, 
 yet continue to set death and disease at defiance. 
 Fashion, therefore, my dear friend, gives birth 
 to a species of mummy, which the Egyptians 
 you once told me of never knew. " 
 
 Finding I had no chance of prevailing upon 
 the topic of sleep, I now tried my chance by 
 suggesting, as the truth was, that his sister's 
 dress was rather disordered; submitting how 
 far it might be decent that she should any 
 longer appear in it ; here, however, I was 
 equally unfortunate; my friend expressed the 
 
 utmost 
 
( 77 ) 
 
 utmost astonishment at this new conceit, as he 
 termed it — exclaiming, with his hands clasped 
 together, " What must be the condition of your 
 vulgar country — how happy was my father's 
 escape from it into a region of higher civiliza- 
 tion ! You should know, Sir, if you have the 
 organs to understand me, that there is a pic- 
 turesque in art as well as in nature — in the arti- 
 ficial dresses of men and women, as much as 
 in the romantic scenery of the woods; and that 
 the flattened head-dress and torn garment, when 
 their gay causes become manifest, are as sub- 
 limely beautiful in the view of sublunary fashion 
 as the rocky fragment or ruined forest in the 
 divine eye of philosophy, when traced back to the 
 universal confusion of the world." I was quite 
 overpowered with this last flight — I was igno- 
 rant of the language of Armata, and there being 
 nothing in our own which could do justice to 
 my unconvinced submission, I could only say, 
 with a most profound bow, " Vous avez raison> 
 Monsieur." 
 
 . . The 
 
( 78 ) 
 
 The carriage was now called up, and, after 
 passing through a similar scene of confusion, 
 which was, however, far less alarming when I 
 was acquainted with the causes, we arrived in 
 the street near the house we were going to, 
 when our coachman being thrown off his box 
 after all his victories, from the accident of a 
 wheel being carried away, we proceeded on 
 foot with lights carried before us, a ceremony 
 which cost me about fifty pounds of our money, 
 as my clothes were entirely ruined with a mix- 
 ture of wax and grease from the lower stars of 
 the earth, which, in Swaloal, light up the re- 
 sorts of fashion, when the stars of heaven are 
 gone to bed. 
 
 At last we entered the proclaimed mansion, 
 more magnificent and crowded than the first ; 
 but how will the reader ever recover from his 
 astonishment, when I inform him, upon my 
 most sacred word of honour, and as I hope to 
 dance at the next ball at Almack's, that stand- 
 ing in just such another door-way as the iden- 
 tical 
 
( 79 > 
 
 tical one we had just come from, and sweating 
 again like a bull, with my arms pinioned down 
 as before, in a vain and fruitless approach to 
 my handkerchief, I saw — may I never see an 
 English play or opera if I deceive the reader in 
 any thing — I saw the same individual men and 
 women I had just before seen, and at the same 
 inaccessible distances, unless it had pleased 
 Heaven, for the punishment of a vain curiosity* 
 or rather as a reward for my perseverance, to 
 convert me into a salamander for the night. 
 There is always, however, something to be 
 learned, and even to be enjoyed, in this proba- 
 tionary world from every occurrence, however 
 painful. Seeing my friend and his sister ob- 
 viously delighted, whilst I was literally dying, 
 I could not help raising my mind to the con- 
 templation of higher objects, reconciling to 
 myself that the planets nearest the sun, and 
 even the sun himself, might be inhabited by 
 beings in other respects like ourselves, but with 
 organs suited to their atmospheres, or perhaps to 
 none at all, either of which would in a mo- 
 ment 
 
( 80 ) 
 
 ment reduce us to ashes, and perhaps shrivel up 
 like a scroll even the world which we inhabit. 
 
 I shall not describe the other places we went 
 to, as they Merc all precisely the same, except 
 that I Mas told there was at one a celebrated 
 concert, which, being passionately fond of music, 
 I endeavoured to approach ; but it being, it seems, 
 a kind of mongrel, between a public subscription 
 and a private party, all access to be within 
 distinct hearing was impossible. — I was in the 
 outermost room, which being open to the air of 
 the passages, I felt myself just able to breathe, 
 but could not possibly imagine how animal life 
 could be sustained in those within, from whence 
 there issued sounds so beautifully plaintive, that 
 I began to think the story of Orpheus was not 
 fabulous, and that he was still at the gates of 
 hell to bring back his Eurydice to the upper 
 world. 
 
 We were now on the top of the staircase, 
 (indeed we had never got any farther,) and in 
 
 a state 
 
( 81 ) 
 
 a state of the utmost impatience, as our carriage 
 being broken, we had places in another that- 
 stopped the way, when we were detained for 
 half an hour by an accident too ludicrous to be 
 passed over. — The old woman, whom we had 
 been stopped by at the first house going up stairs, 
 was now just before us going down, and before 
 she had limped half way to the street, our 
 coachman was obliged to drive off, and we had 
 near a quarter of a mile to walk to it in the dark. 
 
 Not wishing; to distress mv friend any fur- 
 ther, who was always devoted to oblige me, nor 
 ignorantly perhaps to interfere with his sister's 
 advancement in the world, I suffered myself to 
 be still carried onward, from house to house, until 
 the sun, so odious to fashion, most rudely broke 
 in upon us. 
 
 On my return home, I had, for the first time 
 in my life, an opportunity of comparing the 
 effect of fatigue from useful labour, or cheerful 
 recreation, with the lassitude arising from such 
 
 *o 
 
 a night 
 
( 82 ) 
 
 a night as I had spent. — Instead of peaceful and 
 refreshing slumbers, the blessed refuge from 
 painful recollections, whilst the body is wind- 
 ing up into recruited strength, I tossed and 
 tumbled in my bed, with shattered nerves, and 
 a fever which consumed me; with images 
 brought into view neither by waking remem- 
 brance, nor the offspring of sleep, but partaking 
 distractedly of both ; perplexing the mind with 
 hideous phantoms in their pursuit. One distinct 
 consoling thought only preponderated — the 
 sweet remembrance of my own dear country. 
 
 It can hardly have escaped the observation of 
 the reader, that in the course of life I have been 
 describing, the Armatans could have no natural 
 enjoyment of the summer, nor see much of the 
 light of day. — Yet to assert that nature herself 
 might be infected with this inversion, or affronted 
 by such neglect, would, in this age of philo- 
 sophy, be a hazardous proposition — but there 
 can be no hazard whatever in stating a fact : if 
 you hatch the eggs of a hen for three genera- 
 tions, 
 
( 83 ) 
 
 tions, by the heat of a fire instead of by the 
 parent's incubation, that animal instinct becomes 
 lost for ever in the race so matured, though all 
 the other characteristics of the species are conti- 
 nued : but why or wherefore nobody can tell. — 
 Just so, and without meddling with any theory, 
 I have only to relate, that during the whole 
 time I was in Swaloal I seldom saw the sun, 
 nor was it to be seen any where else in Armata 
 throughout the diurnal sphere ; their summers 
 had entirely taken their leave, and gone over to 
 the winter months, which were mild and de- 
 lightful — Phoebus rejoicing in the sky till the 
 return of spring, when he appeared, as I was 
 told, with a P P C upon his disk. — I need 
 hardly say, that the harvests suffered grievously 
 by this inauspicious transition, but the artificial 
 system of Swaloal went on just the same — Art 
 every where supplied the place of nature, and. 
 even excelled her in her happiest days : — the 
 tables of the wealthy were covered with a pro- 
 fusion of the choicest fruits, and a couple of 
 hundred chickens were often seen upon a single 
 
 g 2 board ; 
 
( S4 ) 
 
 board ; but whether brought up by fire or by 
 incubation I did not venture to inquire ; though 
 I suppose that even a hen would have been 
 laughed at for being at home upon her nest. 
 
 Disgusted with the preposterous scenes I 
 have been describing, I now earnestly pressed 
 Cathmor to exert all his influence for my in- 
 troduction into domestic life, that I might by 
 degrees acquire the language of Armata, and 
 become acquainted with her unadulterated man- 
 ners ; as I could not believe that a people who 
 had so preeminently risen to be a proud example 
 to all nations in a highly civilized world, could 
 have no discourse for one another, but that it 
 was hot to suffocation, nor any means of form- 
 ing societies, but by treading and trampling 
 upon one another. My request was speedily 
 granted; but I little thought at what price I 
 was to purchase the pleasure I sighed for. 
 
 To give me the entr6 I asked for, Cathmor 
 introduced me to the fair Morvina, his sister 
 
 whom 
 
( 85 ) 
 
 whom I had never seen but on the crowded 
 staircases, the only situations in which she could 
 be looked at with safety. — I shall not attempt 
 to describe her. — It was now indeed beyond 
 conjecture that Milton must have been ship- 
 wrecked here, before he had his blindness to 
 lament. — In no other region could the image of 
 female beauty have suggested the description of 
 our first woman, whose likeness, indeed, shone 
 every where around me in Armata; and, with- 
 out meaning any affront to Adam, seemed to be 
 improved by some crossing in the breed. 
 
 Morvina had been taught our language by 
 her grandfather and father, and spoke it in per- 
 fection j but though, from the first moment I 
 saw her, I was overpowered by the charms of 
 her person, yet I little feared any lasting im- 
 pression, from a being so vain and so frivolous 
 as of course I expected to find her. — How much 
 I was deceived in her w r ill appear hereafter. 
 
 g 3 CHAP- 
 
( 86 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Author is introduced into the private Societies of the Capital. 
 
 I was now invited to a private dinner of only 
 twelve covers, and remained during the evening, 
 with a party more numerous though select. — The 
 company at both were persons of distinction, 
 most of whom I recognised as having been in 
 the mobs I had passed through, and from whom, 
 on that account, I expected also but little that 
 could amuse me ; — but although much is lost 
 when a foreigner can only collect what passes 
 through interpretation, yet the conversation was 
 most interesting and delightful. — Indeed, the 
 whole scene, in perfect good manners, in 
 vivacity, and useful information, surpassed what 
 I had ever seen in Europe, many parts of which 
 I had visited in my youth ; I can bring of course 
 but a small part of it before the reader. 
 
 The conversation, as might be expected, took 
 
 its 
 
( «7 ) 
 
 its rise, on their parts, from the extraordinary 
 circumstance of seeing among them, as a familiar 
 guest, the inhabitant of an unknown world; and 
 on my part, in remarks upon customs so very 
 unaccountable, and differing so entirely from 
 our own. There was great restraint and diffi- 
 culty in the outset, but Morvina, having un- 
 dertaken the office of interpretess, I ventured, 
 after a few glasses of excellent wine, to ask this 
 question, which, from curiosity or politeness, 
 seemed to engage very general attention : 
 
 " With the means and faculties for such plea- 
 sant and rational society as I am now enjoying, 
 why, may I ask, arc health and enjoyment 
 sacrificed to tumultuous and unmeaning assem- 
 blies, which seem to form the grand business of 
 all the rank and opulence of your great city?" 
 
 The fair interpretess, after having, no doubt, 
 proposed my question, and conversed for some 
 time with those who were to resolve it, now ad- 
 dressed me in English, nearly as follows: — 
 
 c 4 " Although, 
 
( 83 ) 
 
 " Although, Sir, it may not always be easy to 
 reconcile some particular customs, amongst the 
 most civilized nations, with their general man- 
 ners and character, yet I am charged to deliver 
 our opinion, that they will be found, in most 
 instances, to have had some reasonable begin- 
 nings, though, from change of circumstances, 
 they may appear to strangers ridiculous, or even 
 offensive. — The nobility, and those amongst us 
 of consideration and respect, do not consist now, 
 as in old times, of a very few persons elevated 
 to rank by the personal choice of the sovereign, 
 or from having attended his person in courts or 
 in battle, but of many others, rising to emi- 
 nence in the various ways by which superiority 
 and distinction may be arrived at in a free 
 country — by eloquence and knowledge of bu- 
 siness in the superior councils of the state, or 
 by ability and learning in the courts of justice — 
 by great and splendid achievements in naval or 
 military warfare, or having been engaged in 
 useful and perilous service — by the great in- 
 fluence derived from the possession of great 
 
 landed 
 
( 89 ) 
 
 landed property, when in the hands of consi- 
 derable men who have preserved and added to 
 their inheritances from their fathers, instead of 
 dissipating* them by negligence or excess, or by 
 great personal fortunes acquired in trade, a 
 source of wealth by no means to be held lightly 
 in a nation which, without its commerce and 
 manufactures, must instantly be overthrown. — • 
 There are others besides, who, though not falling 
 within any of those classes, are justly distin- 
 guished by science or by the liberal arts, and 
 many more by general good manners and ta- 
 lents for conversation, having visible means to 
 take their places in cultivated and expensive 
 life. — All these orders, when assembled toge- 
 ther in our capital, are naturally drawn towards 
 each other, and distinctions of any new kind, 
 much more exclusions, would be invidious. — 
 Equality, properly understood, is an useful, 
 ennobling principle, and nothing has more con- 
 tributed to the stability of this ancient and 
 powerful kingdom than the innumerable shades 
 in which all her people are blended. — Our com- 
 munity 
 
( 90 ) 
 munity is like a changing coloured silk — the 
 eye can perceive that there arc different colours, 
 but cannot distinctly trace where any one of 
 them ends or another begins. — But this is not 
 all — if the imperial sway of this small island 
 were circumscribed, as in old times, by the sea 
 which surrounds it, even all those multitudes 
 might form one society without the crowds you 
 complain of; but you have not considered, nor 
 perhaps even know, the almost boundless ex- 
 tent of our dominion : — the remotest and most 
 populous nations are our subjects — they all gra- 
 vitate towards Armata — and, when brought 
 within our vortex, a new gravitation commences, 
 and our capital becomes the centre of attrac- 
 tion. — A society so widely extended must al- 
 ways have been rapidly increasing, and could not 
 in the end be conveniently brought together — 
 but greater inconvenience would attend separa- 
 tions. — Our numerous classes, long accustomed 
 to associate with good humour and kindness, 
 might view each other with malignity and 
 envy — the bundle of arrows, an ancient em- 
 blem 
 
( 91 ) 
 
 blem of our nation, would be defaced, and the 
 metropolis, where our duties compel us to con- 
 gregate, instead of being perhaps too alluring, 
 would become odious from defamation, conten- 
 tion and distrust. 
 
 " There are other advantages besides,- to 
 countervail defects so new to you. — Connexions 
 formed here pervade the whole country, and 
 the influence of the great and opulent, giving 
 fashion to their inferiors, makes friends of many 
 who otherwise might be jealous and adverse, 
 binding them all together as it were by innume- 
 rable threads of silk, nothing in effect when 
 single, but stronger than bars of iron when 
 combined. — A state of society so accidental and 
 anomalous must, after all, from the most ob- 
 vious causes be imperfect — but it contributes, not 
 a little to make the manners of our country 
 what they are, and which we flatter ourselves 
 are better than any other." 
 
 Although this defence of the follies I had 
 
 witnessed 
 
( 9<2 ) 
 
 witnessed could from other lips have made no 
 impression, yet it was delivered with so much 
 grace that I felt myself for the moment almost 
 convinced; and it was rather to hear again the 
 sweet accents of Morvina, than from any hope 
 of prevailing with so prejudiced an audience, 
 that I asked her to make this reply : — 
 
 "To all that has been said I not only fully 
 assent, but am delighted with the wise policy 
 which unites the higher orders of your people, 
 whose union connects the rest; and, if there 
 were no better means of securing that friendly 
 intercourse which you have so happily described, 
 I should be the advocate of all I have con- 
 demned. — The worst vices are generated in soli- 
 tude, and the safety of public morals may be 
 perfectly reconciled with all the pleasures which 
 the law allows in this great city. — It would be 
 impious indeed to believe that God had given 
 faculties to multiply our satisfactions, yet that 
 his gifts were only for our temptation, and 
 could not be enjoyed without sin : — but have 
 
 you 
 
( 93 ) 
 
 you not various public places of fashionable 
 resort, whose rules are at your command, and 
 which you might multiply without end, making 
 them as select or general as what you call as- 
 semblies, though they cannot be convened? — 
 It would be useful besides, for the encourage- 
 ment of arts and manufactures, that such fine 
 buildings should be erected in your city, and 
 become rivals in taste and splendour ; where 
 dress might be seen in all its magnificence and 
 beauty in all its lustre — where, unsubdued by 
 unrespirable air, the worst of all oppressions, 
 the mind as well as the body would be free, 
 and amusements, whatever were their descrip- 
 tion, be enjoyed with comfort. — "When I re- 
 commend such improvements the women surely 
 must be on my side, for it is in such scenes 
 that their most powerful impressions would be 
 made; but never, never, in the haunts where 
 even vou, divine interpretess, could be seen 
 without emotion — why then, but from the force 
 of truth, should I have reviled the sanctuary 
 that saved me? — Would to God I had never 
 
 left 
 
( 04 ) 
 
 left it ! I scarcely know what I am saying — but 
 happily our language is to ourselves." 
 
 Morvinu was very young and not prepared 
 for this — she changed and re-changed colour ; 
 she half looked at me but withdrew her eyes, 
 and half looked at me again. — She was the first 
 woman I had seen so closely in this other 
 world, and I found her to be like all our own. 
 She was not at all offended — no woman is ever 
 offended at being admired, nor ought to be — 
 we are irresistibly drawn towards one another 
 by unknown sympathies, but which, like other 
 mysteries of nature, may perhaps one day or 
 another be understood. 
 
 If the fair Morvina had been obliged in the 
 instant to resume her interpretation, our embar- 
 rassment might have been observed, but her gay 
 brother relieved us by interposing (as he thought) 
 a fatal objection to public places as substitutes 
 for the private mobs. " They might do well 
 enough," lie said, " once a fortnight, or even once 
 
 a week, 
 
( 95 ) 
 a week, but that oftener they would become 
 C^yy^l (which translated would signify bores :) 
 " and what, in the name of God, was to become 
 of people all the rest of the week ? — Were they to 
 be shut up in their own houses by themselves ? — 
 This was a scheme quite impracticable, the af- 
 fairs of many persons requiring insurances upon 
 their lives, which could be done at no premium 
 if such risques were to be run as being at home 
 alone.'' — I was thrown out at first by this remark, 
 but I found afterwards that suicide was not 
 often excepted in their policies on lives as by 
 all of ours in England. — The whole objection, 
 however, was soon replied to and put down by 
 a very fine young woman, who said, " that 
 though it might be difficult to answer the ob- 
 jection, she knew, personally, it had been car- 
 ried too far, having been at home herself two 
 nights following, only three years before, but 
 that by taking a few nervous draughts and 
 going to three balls every night for a fortnight 
 afterwards, she got well in less than a month." 
 This 7vas quite decisive, and as I now saw that 
 
 my 
 
( 96 ) 
 
 my opinion in favour of public places was 
 beginning to gain ground, I desired Morvina to 
 
 add for nic, that we had them in the highest 
 perfection in London, to the utter extinction of 
 that itinerant mendicant dissipation, begging 
 nightly at private houses for the smallest mor- 
 sels of entertainment in every nook and corner 
 of the town. 
 
 I was the friend, I said, of universal hospi- 
 tality. — I wished to see in the spacious apart- 
 ments of the great the most splendid festivals, 
 and that even the most private houses should 
 often resound with music, gaiety, and mirth. — ■ 
 I objected only to those cruel experiments on 
 animal life in over-crowded parties, which, after 
 all, could be out-done by the air-pumps of every 
 chemist in the very same streets, but who, by 
 the bye, would be disgraced by such practices 
 even upon frogs or mice. 
 
 Here the discussion ended — 
 
 I was 
 
( 97 ) 
 
 I was the more surprized at this strange per* 
 version of taste, and abandonment of all comfort) 
 when I was afterwards introduced into their 
 private societies, whieh were every where de- 
 lightful. — I forbear to dwell upon them, lest I 
 should seem to he casting into the shade even 
 English accomplishments and beauty. — I shall 
 content myself therefore with saying, that 
 almost every woman I saw when drawn out 
 from the confused masses where I had seen 
 them before, or rather not seen them, appeared 
 like the sun himself when emerged from clouds 
 
 '&' 
 
 that had obscured him. — From the great care, 
 even from infancy, of their hair, their teeth, 
 their complexions, and their whole persons, 
 beauty had almost ceased to be a distinction* 
 and when I afterwards became acquainted with 
 the language, I found them so amiable in their 
 dispositions, and captivating in their manners, 
 so delightful in conversation, so highly accom- 
 plished, so well instructed in all useful know- 
 ledge, and so domestic in the midst of allure- 
 
 h ments 
 
( M ) 
 
 nients all around 'them, that had my heart been 
 disengaged, it must have been at a loss where to 
 fix. — Most of them indeed when in youth, 
 " might have lain by an Emperor s side to com' 
 " maud him tasks.'' — And as to those who had 
 passed that prime season, I found them also, 
 upon acquaintance, to be just what the wisest 
 of us in England would wish to see in the 
 dearest of our kindred or our friends — I met 
 with very few who were debauched in their 
 principles, or disqualified by habits of dissipation 
 for the offices of domestic life ; they knew all 
 that women ought to know ; they spoke of the 
 scenes they mixed in very much as I have done 
 myself, and preserved, in the midst of them, the 
 same moral feelings, the same affection for their 
 families, and the same attention to their duties, 
 that the simplest times ever knew. 
 
 It often brought to my mind the words of 
 Solomon, most usefully corrective of a very 
 general disposition to lind fault with the age in 
 
 which 
 
( 99 ) 
 
 which we live : — ' Say not you that the former 
 1 times were better than these, you have not 
 ' considered wisely of this.' 
 
 Let me hope that this sincere and affectionate 
 tribute to the women of Armata may induce 
 them (when our worlds shall be open to each 
 other hereafter) to forgive the lidicule I have 
 cast, perhaps too freely, upon the prevailing 
 fashions of the day. — My only object was to 
 discountenance a system which destroys their 
 health, cuts short the fleeting period of their 
 beauty, conceals it from universal attraction, 
 and alarms the prudent when admiration is 
 ripening into love. 
 
 I was now introduced every where, and was 
 confirmed in my opinion that their domestic 
 society would have been perfect, if it could 
 have been enjoyed undisturbed ; but from 
 feverish habits the most agreeable people were 
 always running off to join the tumults of the 
 night — It reminded me of our parties upon the 
 
 h 2 Thames, 
 
( ioo ) 
 
 Thames, when after we are all comfortably 
 seated and enjoying ourselves together, we are 
 suddenly obliged to land again, whilst the boat 
 is shooting London-bridge. — This only draw- 
 back to complete satisfaction would be at once 
 removed by the substitution of public places, at 
 reasonable intervals, for the endless and toilsome 
 system I have described. 
 
 On making this remark to Morven, who was 
 now again my companion, he said, he would 
 carry me next day beyond the vortex which 
 involved us; and after a drive through the park 
 I have described and only half- a- mile beyond it, 
 we arrived at a palace of singular architecture, 
 the abode of distinguished men of old, but 
 which had lost none of its lustre in its present 
 possessor. — We passed through an antique gal- 
 lery enriched with the learning of ages in a 
 magnificent collection of books, and there was 
 a calmness in the whole scene from the com- 
 posing shadows cast all around us by the loftiest 
 trees. — The noble host and hostess now received 
 
 us. 
 
( ioi ) 
 
 «s, when the solemn character of the place on a 
 sudden seemed to change and to smile upon us 
 with the warm light of hospitality and kindness. 
 — I was charmed, on further acquaintance, to 
 see in the same man an assemblage of qualities 
 very rarely united — universal knowledge with 
 the simplicity of an infant's mind ; the proudest 
 public spirit with the gentlest complacency; 
 and a vehement Fox-like public eloquence with 
 the most uninterrupted playfulness and gaiety 
 in private life. — The table, which was the same 
 throuo-hout the year, abounded with a rich and 
 equal repast for mind and body, being the con- 
 stant resort of the most eminent and accom- 
 plished persons. I was struck with the contrast 
 of finding myself, upon the very margin of such 
 an immense city, amidst dark groves and gay 
 flowering shrubberies resounding with the wild % 
 notes of the thrush and blackbird, and the song 
 of the nightingale amongst the rest, who though 
 he followed the fashion in keeping late hours, 
 very wisely spent them in the woods. 
 
 h 3 I remained 
 
( 102 ) 
 
 I remained till it was near morning, and as 
 the conversation became warm upon the in- 
 teresting subject of Armatan freedom — I almost 
 thought I heard the majestic commanding 
 voice of Grey, enlightening our minds and 
 compelling our conviction — the clear and ner- 
 vous persuasion of Lansdowne— the dexterous 
 pith and keen argumentative wit of Tierney 
 — the comprehensive and splendid energy of 
 Brougham — the pure and learned eloquence 
 of Mackintosh — and all Scotland personified 
 in the able, acute, powerful, unrelenting de- 
 mand of Lauderdale upon our well-earned assent 
 to what he saitl. — Nor can I thus call to mind 
 a scene both as to time and place so distant, 
 •without reflecting upon the Pleasures of Me- 
 mory and the delightful talents of the author. 
 
 When I afterwards visited the public places 
 for conversation and dancing, all my objections 
 to their mistaken notions of amusement were 
 confirmed. — Some of them, by a well-regulated 
 
 selection, 
 
( 103 ) 
 
 selection, embraced every advantage of private 
 circles, and all the splendour of numerous as- 
 semblies; a system that if encouraged under 
 the patronage of rank and opulence, which lead 
 fashions in all countries, would soon extinguish 
 the minor dissipations, and when improved by 
 the erection of buildings in the highest perfec- 
 tion of architecture and sculpture, would be- 
 come a great feature in the eyes of strangers 
 visiting, like myself, this ancient and illustrious 
 city. 
 
 In nations depending for their wealth and 
 greatness upon arts and manufactures it is 
 the grossest mistake to imagine that mat- 
 ters of this kind are indifferent — They are, on 
 the contrary, of high importance. — Folly 
 only declaims against the luxuries of the 
 wealthy, because it is too short-sighted to see 
 that they relieve the necessities of the poor. 
 Nothing impoverishes a people but what is 
 taken, without measure, by governments from 
 the common stock ; all other expenses, wise or 
 
 h 4 unwise 
 
( 104 ) 
 
 unwise in the individuals, soon return to it, and 
 are sources of universal wealth. If London, 
 "which God avert ! should decline in after-ages, 
 and be visited like Rome in her declension, I 
 would rather that the remains should be seen 
 of an immense edifice where the sons and daugh- 
 ters of England had rejoiced in the meridian of 
 her glory, than the ruins of a disgusting Coli- 
 seum for the savage combats of wild beasts. 
 
 I cannot, perhaps, find a better place for illus- 
 trating the striking effects of public assemblies 
 in apartments erected for the purpose, where 
 every art is exerted to give splendour to the 
 scene, than in what I saw at an entertainment 
 of the Chief Magistrate of that great city. 
 
 We entered a magnificent hall, but which, in- 
 stead of being lighted up, was in such a state 
 of darkness that we could scarcely discern one 
 another. — I was on the point of inquiring the 
 cause of this, when in a second, and without a 
 hand being stretched forth, I found myself in 
 
 the 
 
( ™5 ) 
 
 the centre of a transeendant blaze of light, 
 brighter than if all the whales in the South Seas 
 and Greenland had been melted down into oil 
 and set fire to at my feet. — I am almost afraid 
 to express the similitude it suggested, and the 
 sensation it produced ; though it cannot surely 
 be prophane to feel the power of the Creator in 
 the inventive faculties of his creatures — it ex- 
 alted my mind to contemplate the astonishing 
 effect of the divine word upon the universe 
 throughout its boundless extent, when God 
 said — Let there be light, and there was 
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 Whether this grand discovery can be brought 
 into all the uses of man, is wbat I had neither 
 skill nor leisure to examine. 
 
 I was next shewn how well they knew what 
 concerts ought to be. — Music of every descrip- 
 tion seemed to have reached perfection, and its 
 characters were as various, as the nations of its 
 authors were different. In the softer climates 
 
 it 
 
( 106 ) 
 
 it is soft and voluptuous, expressive, beyond 
 description, of the passions, and the language 
 of the people most happily accords with it. In 
 other countries, where the inhabitants are more 
 robust and intellectual, their music is corre- 
 spondent, being animated and intensely vigo- 
 rous, lifting the mind to Heaven when devotion 
 is to be impressed, rousing it to battle when 
 martial ardour is to be excited, and electrifying 
 the whole frame of man by the endless measures 
 of harmonious combination. Armata herself, 
 though at the head of her world, was here, 
 perhaps, not pre-eminent, but her wealth and 
 her commanding station collected in her capital 
 all vocal and instrumental talents, leaving other 
 countries, comparatively, without chord or 
 voice. 
 
 Being totally illiterate in music, though 
 charmed by it even to rapture, I can say no 
 more of it than that I sometimes imagined 
 Handel himself to have been at the organ, with 
 the Messiah spread out before him ; and some- 
 times 
 
( 107 ) 
 
 times as if Mozart, and Haydn, and Paesiello 
 having charmed the sentinels of another world, 
 had come back again from the dead. 
 
 I could have wished their grand theatre had 
 been less extensive, but as it was a mixed 
 amusement of spectacle, conversation, and 
 music, there was the advantage of meeting 
 every body, without the probable disappoint- 
 ment of missing the very people zee might the 
 most wish to see. — Let this theatre therefore 
 stand without rival or critic, or Lord Chamber- 
 lains, to disturb it ; but let no apology be 
 offered for the absurd magnitude of their play- 
 houses, which I afterwards visited. 
 
 The first I went to was quite as large as our 
 Covent Garden or Drury Lane, a very great 
 defect. — I sat in that part of the house the most 
 resembling our pit or front boxes, though the 
 construction seemed to be different, and being 
 placed as it were in the centre of vision, and 
 
 looking 
 
( 108 ) 
 
 looking above, below, and all around me, I was 
 delighted to see such an immense number of 
 well-dressed happy people, of various classes and 
 conditions ; but all of them obvious parts of a 
 well-adjusted harmonious whole. There was 
 no tumult or disorder, which I was told almost 
 never took place but when something was radi- 
 cally wrong. As the play advanced, I became 
 more sensible that the golden mean of magni- 
 tude had been trangressed in the formation of 
 the house, because, though my imperfect ac- 
 quaintance with the language rendered it diffi- 
 cult to take a just measure of such a defect, 
 yet I was convinced that the more distant parts 
 of the audience M^ere often disappointed, by 
 their repeated calls for that degree of silence 
 which in an extensive theatre it is impossible to 
 command. — The scenes were beautifully painted, 
 equal in effect to our finest panoramas, the 
 dresses rich and appropriate, and the performers, 
 as far as I could form a judgment of their ta- 
 lents, were highly accomplished in their art, 
 
 but 
 
( 109 ) 
 
 but there was the same manifest imperfection as 
 in our theatres, which are much too large for 
 the enjoyment of exquisite acting. 
 
 It is not sufficient that we can see distinctly 
 the persons of our actors, or hear their voices, 
 however clearly, when raised to their ordinary 
 pitch — we ought to be near enough to mark 
 the effect of the passions, even in the most fu- 
 gitive changes of expression, which cannot pos- 
 sibly be within the reach of the bulk of a Lon- 
 don audience. — If this is once felt by the 
 most accomplished actor, if he cannot but 
 observe that he falls short in extending the deli- 
 cate touches of his art throughout so wide a 
 circle, he inevitably acquires the habit of mark- 
 ing them more strikingly than Nature dictates, 
 which totally destroys their effect — But this im- 
 perfection, when vision only becomes indistinct 
 from distance, is much more destructive of fine 
 acting if the most inxcard voice of the actor falls 
 short of reaching the ear. — Almost all the finest 
 parts of tragedy or comedy must be finished in 
 
 tones 
 
( no ) 
 
 tones so subdued, so transient, and so delicately 
 expressive, that to extend the voice in them 
 would annihilate the scene, and the very con- 
 sciousness that its extension is necessary, dis- 
 turbs and baulks the actor in the noblest exer- 
 tions, and by sympathy, even in the most re- 
 fined conceptions of his art. If this great er- 
 ror shall remain uncorrected, acting will not 
 only be retrograde, but a taste so vicious will be 
 created by it, that if in another age our Gar- 
 rick, and Siddons, and Kemble, were to re-ap- 
 pear amongst us, their talents might be eclipsed 
 by the mere speaking trumpets of the stage. 
 
 Another cause has long perhaps obstructed a 
 more continued succession of superior actors, 
 but, which, from the improved manners and 
 genius of many of them, both dead and living, 
 has been for some time insensibly wearing away — 
 I mean the estimation in which the stage has 
 been regarded. To secure for it a perpetual and 
 still increasing lustre, the road should be open, as 
 in other professions, to the most liberal consi- 
 deration, 
 
( m ) 
 
 deration, though not to the highest distino 
 tions — nothing else can invite its professors to 
 learned and polished educations; without which, 
 in the superior branches of acting, there can be 
 no brilliant succession. — We might have self- 
 taught genius even from the desert, but the 
 ordinary soil of nature must be highly dressed 
 to be eminently productive, and its culture must 
 be encouraged by the prices of the harvest. 
 This truth is constantly exemplified in the Lon- 
 don theatres — we have many clowns and buf- 
 foons, and lower characters, most admirably re- 
 presented, because, without at all undervaluing 
 the talents such imitations call for, the most 
 uneducated may excel in them, nay perhaps 
 even excel the most; but, to fill the higher parts of 
 tragedy, where the great, the wise, and the accom- 
 plished, have often to speak in the stately measure 
 of sublime poetry, or, as in genteel comedy, in 
 the language of the high and fashionable world, 
 classical taste and high breeding are indispensa- 
 ble, and which no genius can imitate, because 
 manners must be insensibly worked into the 
 
 habit 
 
( no ) 
 
 habit by the same means that many have ac- 
 quired them who have acquired nothing else ; 
 and because, although they are nothing when 
 compared with more exalted qualifications, yet 
 people of all descriptions must be conciliated in 
 the language they have been accustomed to 
 hear, and their feelings prepossessed by the same 
 kind of address which wins them in ordinary 
 life. 
 
 To bring the stage, therefore, in England, 
 and indeed every where else, to its proper bear- 
 ings, its professors must be cherished and re- 
 spected. 
 
 Transcendant plays, though avowedly writ- 
 ten for public exhibition, and which if confined to 
 the closet would lose their highest lustre, are 
 justly ranked amongst the noblest exertions of 
 human genius ; their authors when living have 
 been objects of universal admiration, and their 
 fame has become immortal; — why then should 
 not actors, without whose aids they are compa- 
 ratively 
 
( 113 ) 
 
 ratively nothing, be trained up in corresponding 
 acquirements, and rewarded by similar applause? 
 
 As I had complained so much of neither see- 
 ing nor hearing as I wished, Morven, who was 
 now again my companion, carried me the next 
 day to an apartment near the stage where all 
 these defects were removed. — I was presented to 
 the proprietor, who said there were all kind of 
 refreshments at my command ; he was an old 
 man of the most interesting aspect, and there 
 was something in his manners far beyond fashion 
 in the benignity of his whole deportment. — 
 When the play was over, he said he would carry 
 me to some favourite music at another theatre, 
 where I found, to my surprize, the same accom- 
 modation ; servants in waiting, and carriages to 
 attend us to our houses, or wherever we chose 
 to go : I accepted one of them, and, as we 
 passed to a distant quarter, Morven said to me, 
 11 That extraordinary person, whose acquaintance 
 you have just made, is one of the richest men 
 in Armata, but differing from many others in 
 
 i the 
 
( 114. ) 
 
 the whole character of his mind and temper. — 
 How often do we see the most opulent, either im- 
 providently wasting their fortunes, or sacrificing 
 every satisfaction to increase them ! and even in 
 the absence of such insane propensities, how 
 frequently do we find them entangled through- 
 out their whole lives by senseless fashions and 
 opinions, unconnected with either happiness or 
 virtue, and dropping at last into their graves, 
 weighed down by accumulated wealth, without 
 having either enjoyed it themselves or adminis- 
 tered it to the support of others ! — Of all this 
 he is the very reverse; though most intelligent 
 in every branch of business, and most carefully 
 precise in all its multiplied concerns, he is so 
 entirely removed from all thought of them when 
 with his family and his friends, that you could 
 not possibly discover he had ever spent an 
 hour in such pursuits, and his vast fortune rolls 
 on more rapidly, whilst he is spreading it abroad 
 with a liberal hand for all the uses which make 
 its possession a blessing and a trust." It brought 
 to my mind the true but singular saying of 
 
 Solomon — 
 
( ii5 y 
 
 Solomon — 'There is that scattered] yet in-' 
 ' creaseth ; and there is that withholdeth more 
 ' than enough, yet it tendeth to poverty.' 
 
 I thought I had now exhausted all the social 
 satisfactions of this great city, when a new 
 world suddenly burst upon me through my in- 
 troduction to many philosophical and literary 
 institutions, of some of which I was even- ad- 
 mitted a member. — In science, they said, there 
 were no aliens; and it was happily remarked in 
 one of thetri, by a stranger from a distant 
 country, that as many charitable foundations of 
 the capital rejecting local qualifications, ex- 
 tended their benevolence to all who were in dis- 
 tress, so her philosophical bodies would be al- 
 ways ready to embrace the whole intellectual 
 world. Nothing indeed ever interested me so 
 highly as to see, every where throughout Armata, 
 the vigorous and capacious mind of man, cast- 
 ing off all the fetters and entanglements which 
 impede it in the search after truth, vindicating 
 
 i C the 
 
( 116 ) 
 
 the belief that we are formed after the image of 
 God. 
 
 By her astronomers, I was brought to a nearer 
 and astonishing view of the remotest planets, 
 and her naturalists amused me with the curio- 
 sities of their own ; tracing not only the families 
 of all animals, but of plants, down to the grasses 
 we tread upon, in the sexual intercourses of their 
 tribes: whilst others again, with a skill which 
 seemed more like magic than ordinary science, 
 were exploring the hitherto latent characteris- 
 tics of inanimate matter, till all the strata of their 
 globe were laid out before me, and their struc- 
 tures as clearly explained as if they had been 
 the work of human hands. 
 
 To examine the wonders which chemistry 
 and mechanics had accomplished amongst them 
 would almost demand the skill that gave them 
 birth. — They had discovered a power I am quite 
 unable to describe, which, though when left at 
 
 large 
 
( 117 ) 
 
 large insensibly mixes itself with the air, and 
 scarcely lifts a feather in its ascent, would, when 
 imprisoned, unhinge a world for its freedom. — 
 Over this subtle and almost omnipotent agent 
 they had gained a complete dominion, and, by 
 a limited and wisely adjusted compression, to 
 give it a safe direction, had obtained a momen- 
 tum for their most ponderous engines, which 
 neither wind nor water, nor any combinations 
 of matter could have produced. 
 
 May not politicians take a lesson from this? 
 May they not learn from it that there is a re- 
 straint of liberty, which cannot safely be im- 
 posed ; and that man must finally be free to the 
 extent at least which Heaven has appointed for 
 his happiness ? — Like the constructors of those 
 powerful engines, they may give health and 
 vigour to their governments by the honest and 
 judicious restraints of a liberal system of laws, 
 but, if they transgress that just and necessary 
 dominion, human nature, like the natural ele- 
 
 i 3 ments 
 
( 118 ) 
 
 mcnts I have spoken of, will open a passage for 
 itself till the invaded equilibrium is restored. 
 
 In all the other branches of knowledge I 
 found this highly favoured island as eminently 
 exalted ; and, on looking into the best accounts 
 of other countries, which were as nothing in 
 the scale, I should have wondered at the phe- 
 nomenon of her wisdom and greatness, were it 
 not clear, that when Providence appoints a na- 
 tion for extraordinary duties, she must be fur- 
 nished with the means to fulfil them. — The lower 
 world is left to the guidance of various in- 
 stincts, which are sufficient for the parts to be 
 sustained, and animals, from age to age, are there- 
 fore every where the same; but Man has a nobler 
 office, and is sifted according to the work which 
 is in hand.- — This was my clue to the biography 
 of Armata — and I thought I saw, in a long and 
 shadowy train before me, the martyrs to her 
 pure religion — her patriots expiring on the 
 scaffold and in the field for her laws and 
 
 liberties — 
 
( 119 ) 
 
 liberties — her wise men deliberating in councils 
 and courts of justice — her historians recording 
 her virtues for universal example — her poets 
 enshrining them in immortal numbers— and a 
 host of heroes defending her against an en- 
 vious world. Establishments of charity Mere 
 numerous, but though admirable alike in their 
 objects and administrations, I pass them by 
 altogether as not within the scope of my re- 
 marks. — When the twin- worlds shall become as 
 open hereafter as the continents of our own are 
 to each other, every hospital in Armata will be 
 as well known in London as St. Luke's or Bride- 
 well, and I should be sorry to see the little 
 pocket-books of the year made up by a 
 piracy of my work : — I have selected therefore 
 for my objects matters that are beyond their 
 reach. 
 
 CHAP 
 
( 120 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Authors Remarks upon the Laus and Religion of Armata y 
 and upon the Police of the Capital. 
 
 I now became anxious to be acquainted with 
 the general character of the Armatan laws, 
 which had acquired amongst strangers from all 
 nations an unexampled reputation ; and I had 
 not long been engaged in this interesting in- 
 quiry, before 1 could see distinctly the cause of 
 her progressive prosperity through so many ages, 
 whilst other governments had been swept away 
 in the storms of revolution. I deeply lament 
 that my acquaintance with the language, though 
 now amply sufficient for the common purposes 
 of a traveller, was still too imperfect for the in- 
 vestigation of so difficult a subject ; and that 
 neither my education, nor the habits of my life 
 in my own country, enabled me duly to com- 
 prehend the information I received from the 
 most accomplished lawyers to whom I had the 
 advantage of being introduced. I shall there- 
 fore be very short — all details indeed, had I been 
 
 competent 
 
( 121 ) 
 
 competent to embrace them, would have been 
 beside my purpose. 
 
 The legal constitution of Armata is of a 
 most singular character; its principal maxims, 
 and even its minutest forms, having come down 
 from a high antiquity, and acquired from thence 
 a claim to reverence and attachment which the 
 wisest institutions very seldom obtain, when 
 men have seen their beginnings and have known 
 their authors however wise. — The more ancient 
 of her laws are unequalled for their clearness 
 and precision, an excellence which may have 
 arisen from their having been in a manner con- 
 quered by her people from their oppressors, 
 which made it necessary to secure indelibly 
 the land-marks of popular independence; and 
 the same state of society produced other cha- 
 racteristics of her jurisprudence, which remain 
 to this hour, and promise to be immortal. 
 
 The necessity of the utmost clearness in the 
 records of customs and in the language of 
 statutes, inculcated a corresponding strictness 
 
 in 
 
( 1*8 ) 
 
 in the judicial administration, so as, in some 
 instances, even to produce injustice; an imper- 
 fection, however, not complained of by those 
 who were capable of weighing the advantages 
 by which such rare evils are counterbalanced. 
 But no precision in the records of customs nor 
 in the enactments of statutes, though main- 
 tained in judicial administration by a corre- 
 sponding strictness, could have secured the liber- 
 ties of Armata, without the grand pecu- 
 liarity THAT HER LAWS ARE ADMINISTERED 
 
 by her people. — The rigid adherence to this 
 popular jurisdiction, together with its correct 
 limitation, are most striking instances of wisdom ; 
 as it was to be feared that when this only security 
 had been adopted against the abuses of fixed 
 magistracy it might have been carried too far, 
 and that neither property nor liberty could have 
 been supported, when there was no fixed depo- 
 sitary of the rules which maintained them. 
 
 It requires the precision of a lawyer to handle 
 this subject, and I am almost afraid to touch it, 
 though the principle seems to be simple. 
 
 The 
 
( 323 ) 
 
 The rules which govern property of every 
 description through all its transmissions, and 
 which prescribe the forms of legal remedies 
 when it is invaded, cannot he left to the un- 
 settled judgments of the most enlightened peo- 
 ple, without bringing the utrfiost uncertainty 
 upon all inheritances and titles. — These must 
 always be the subjects of written codes, or 
 recorded decisions, which learning alone can 
 treasure up and apply. — The rights of indivi- 
 duals also, and their vindications when violated, 
 must upon the same principles be positively de- 
 fined ; else no man could know what were 
 his privileges, or in what manner to assert them. 
 The people of Armata, from the very earliest 
 times, were as well aware of this indispensable 
 division between fact and law, as geographers 
 are of the line by which they divide the hemi- 
 spheres of our globe, and although invested, in 
 many cases, with the power of deciding upon 
 both, they uniformly respected the rules which 
 referred the law to judicial determination, and 
 the Judges possess all the authorities for pro- 
 tecting their legal jurisdictions. 
 
 Crimes, 
 
( 124 ) 
 
 Crimes, in the same manner, must be defined 
 by positive laws, or known through ancient 
 customs which, by the force of decisions, have 
 become equally positive ; as otherwise no man 
 could know what course he might justly pursue, 
 or deliver himself from any snares which might 
 be spread in his path. In this most important 
 branch of jurisprudence, the good sense of the 
 Armatan nation may be said to be summed up. 
 
 To the definition of crimes, whether created 
 by a written code or evidenced by the records 
 of antiquity, they adhered with the most scru- 
 pulous strictness; they suffered no ambiguities 
 to prevail, and when their own security was 
 more emphatically at stake, in the enactments 
 of treasons against the state, there was even a 
 curiosity in their precision ; stung with the 
 utmost jealousy of fixed magistrates, though it 
 was impossible with wisdom to abrogate or 
 abridge their authorities, they repeatedly recast 
 those tremendous statutes, reprobating their 
 extension by constructive judgments, and al- 
 ways bringing them back, with the recorded 
 
 disgi*ace 
 
( 125 ) i 
 
 disgrace of their invaders, to the very words 
 which had been misunderstood or overborne. 
 
 But though the definitions of crimes are as 
 much the province of judicial learning as the 
 rules which govern property, and all civil rights, 
 yet the Armatans were always alive to the clear 
 and vital distinction hetween civil and criminal 
 justice. — What is a crime is a question of law; 
 but whether committed or not must always be a 
 question of fact, which they would never trust 
 to any decision but their own, nor permit any 
 plea or answer to be addressed either in form or 
 substance but to themselves. — They were, from 
 the most ancient times, therefore, an integral 
 part of the courts ; more independent indeed 
 than the highest judges, whose decisions might 
 be reviewed by superior tribunals, but no tri~ 
 bunal could ever touch an acquitting sentence by 
 the equals of the accused. 
 
 This had been the life's-blood of public freedom 
 through all ages, yet a few years had only passed 
 
 since 
 
( 126 ) 
 
 since it was running out like water in Armata, 
 and she was dying without attending to her com- 
 plaint. — Her Judges, following one another, had, 
 it seems, settled, as they called it, by a series of 
 decisions, that writings forming an anomaly in 
 criminal proceedings, were to be left to their cen- 
 sureship, and that it was for them alone to decide, 
 even when no rights of individuals were affected, 
 in what language the opinions of mankind upon 
 every possible subject was to be expressed ; as- 
 suming to themselves the sole judgment of in- 
 tention whilst they shut themselves up from all 
 testimony by which alone it could, in many 
 cases, be ascertained. — This blind and pre- 
 sumptuous pretension was not only a palpable 
 violation of the ancient law through which 
 every popular jurisdiction might in turn have 
 been argued away, but gave to the fixed magis- 
 trates, appointed by the crown, the power of con- 
 trouling the press, which is but another name for 
 
 AN ABSOLUTE DOMINION OVER THE PEOPLE. 
 
 The conflicts to resist this usurpation were 
 
 obstinate 
 
( 127 ) 
 
 obstinate and protracted, but common sense pre- 
 vailed in the end, and sophistical nonsense was 
 overthrown. 
 
 I wondered much when I heard this strange 
 history, but I 'have wondered much less since I 
 came home; because I never can admit that 
 Armata has more public spirit or wisdom than 
 England, yet what at this moment is our own 
 condition, though we are in complete, unques- 
 tioned possession of the privilege just spoken of, 
 and which for a season only she had lost? — 
 The subject is so clear that I enter upon it 
 without apprehension ; though I declare, upon 
 my honour, that I should have known nothing 
 of the law, nor ever even thought of it, if I 
 had not left my own country and visited the 
 nation I have been describing. 
 
 The Libel Act of Mr. Fox withdrew a long- 
 exercised jurisdiction over the qualities of wri- 
 tings upon general subjects, even from our most 
 exalted judges, not because their justice and in- 
 dependence were then particularly suspected, but 
 
 because 
 
( 128 ) 
 
 because it appeared to parliament, that it never 
 had been ; nor reasonably could be, any part of 
 the judicial office, to judge on subjects as law- 
 yers where the law could give them no possible 
 rule to go by, or to exercise a boundless and 
 dangerous dominion over the free thoughts and 
 opinions of mankind, when no individual com- 
 plained that his character had been invaded. 
 
 One would have thought it must have been 
 held to be a mere corollary to such a proposi- 
 tion, that a jurisdiction thus taken from the 
 superior judges could not remain with the infe- 
 rior magistrates, even if it had been vested in 
 them before ; and that it never could have been 
 thought just, nor in England practicable, to sti- 
 mulate the most unlettered justices, without the 
 aid of legal advisers, to act, perhaps beyond 
 the dictates of their own opinions upon questions 
 which no court in England, without the con- 
 currence of a jury, could decide. — One would 
 have thought that upon any sound construction 
 of this modern statute, whatever might have 
 been the practice of former times, a jurisdiction 
 
 to 
 
( 129 ) 
 
 to arrest before indictment found, must have 
 been virtually abrogated, or, at all events, that 
 the people of England would not have been 
 more than ever subjected to arbitrary imprison- 
 ments by the lower magistrates appointed and 
 removable by the crown, after it had been de- 
 clared by Parliament that it was not safe to 
 confide a jurisdiction over libel, even to supe- 
 rior and independent judges, as an abstract 
 question of law. — It may be safely admitted, 
 that there may be many libels so clearly mis- 
 chievous as to require no judicial discretion ; 
 but what can that have to do with an universal 
 jurisdiction over every thing that is written, 
 whatever it may be ? 
 
 In all other criminal cases within the power 
 of justices to arrest before indictment, the defi- 
 nitions of the crimes imputed are legal ques- 
 tions, which a magistrate may therefore examine, 
 and which are generally of a plain and simple 
 character; but what is a libel, is not now matter 
 of laze, nor even a fact which any tribunal but 
 a jury is competent to decide. — This must have 
 
 k been 
 
( 130 ) 
 
 been the opinion of Parliament, when by the 
 Statute of the 48th of the King, they gave to the 
 justices of the King's Bench and to them only, 
 a power to issue warrants after information filed 
 in that court, and such must be the opinion of 
 every man living, lawyer or no lawyer, who 
 has read the speech of Earl Grey in the House 
 of Lords, which, even as it is published, may 
 range with the -most invincible arguments ever 
 delivered from the bench or at the bar, and 
 his opponents may well say with iEschines in 
 doing justice to Demosthenes — What would you 
 have said if you had heard hint ! 
 
 This power, nevertheless, still remains in Eng- 
 land, and probably will for some time continue : 
 but common sense, and the spirit of English 
 freedom, will, in the end, be triumphant. 
 
 I ought not, however, to conclude this ab- 
 stract consideration of fixed magistracy without 
 a just homage to the judges of Armata. — I 
 found, from all inquiries, that they were re- 
 markable, like our own, for their integrity and 
 
 learning ; 
 
( m ) 
 
 learning ; that the administration of the lav/ 
 was held in the highest reverence, and that no 
 instance had occurred in modern times of any 
 corrupt departure from their duties. — Their in- 
 dependence had exalted the sacred character 
 of their office, and had secured the confidence 
 of the public. — I was presented to the whole 
 bench, and found them as familiarly pleasant in 
 private life as they were dignified in their 
 tribunals of justice. 
 
 I make no apology for this long digression — 
 I could not possibly alter the world I was cast 
 on, nor depart with truth from what I saw in it ; 
 but wherever the occasion offered, I have ap- 
 plied it throughout, to the illustration of my 
 own country, or for the reformation of what 
 appeared to be errors and defects. — This (as 
 the Preface has spoken for me) has been the 
 only object of my work, and where I may be 
 mistaken my motive should protect me. 
 
 I have the rather enlarged upon this mo- 
 lt 2 mentous 
 
• ( 132 ) 
 
 mentous subject because it is so dangerously 
 misunderstood. — They who hold high the popu- 
 lar institutions of the country are supposed of 
 late to be adverse to the monarchy, whereas 
 they are its only supporters : — a revolution, and 
 of a very different character from the last, might 
 be the probable consequence of any attempt to 
 bear down the trial by jury or the li- 
 berty of the press; and whilst they remain 
 undisturbed, and in full action, the multitude 
 so unjustly suspected will not only be obedient, 
 but government itself may be often saved from 
 the fatal consequences of ignorant misrule. 
 What spectacle indeed can be more sublime than 
 to see a blind system of jealous and arbitrary 
 dominion carried on through the profligate and 
 corrupting agency of spies in every part of 
 the kingdom, receive as it were a death- 
 blow from twelve honest men, indifferently 
 chosen out of the undistinguished mass of our 
 people ! 
 
 Another striking feature in the criminal law 
 
 of 
 
( 133 ) 
 
 of Armata is, that the power of accusation, in 
 the highest offences, is vested also in a popular 
 tribunal, which, in ancient practice, extended 
 to inferior offences ; but summary jurisdictions 
 had for a long- time been undermining this great 
 security against oppression. — The creation of an 
 immense revenue, and the powers necessary for 
 its collection, had introduced a new system, 
 which, extending by analogy and custom to 
 many collateral cases, had greatly altered the 
 condition of the Armatan people. — Their exclu- 
 sive, dominion over the greatest offences remained 
 inviolate, but they were subject in too many 
 instances to the jurisdiction of the lower magis- 
 trates, without appeal for the facts to their 
 equals, or to their superior judges for the law. 
 
 This is an evil which in its beginning ought 
 to have been zealously opposed. — When new 
 conditions of society arise in any country, the 
 objects of justice cannot but multiply, and 
 many changes in ancient systems must necessa- 
 rily follow; but the utmost caution should be 
 
 k 3 used 
 
( 134 ) 
 
 used to depart as little as possible from the 
 principles which gave them birth, because they 
 are the sources of obedience and contentment. — 
 I thought I saw throughout Armata strong 
 symptoms that this salutary precaution had been 
 overlooked. 
 
 Nothing indeed is more painful than to ob- 
 serve the inevitable difficulties and dangers at- 
 tendant on the most perfect institutions, when 
 cases accumulate, which demand new rules, and 
 when the decisions upon the old ones are rapidly 
 increasing — the science of jurisprudence then 
 becomes abstrusely complicated, and the law, in- 
 stead of being any longer a plain and simple 
 rule of action for the people, becomes too difficult 
 even for the judges to comprehend. — Expense, 
 delay, and uncertainty, cannot but follow in 
 proportion, till the courts, which should be looked 
 up to as sanctuaries, are beheld only with a salu- 
 tary year. 
 
 I cannot perhaps better describe the extent 
 
 to 
 
( 135 ) 
 
 to which their decisions and statutes had multi- 
 plied, than hy relating an anecdote which, 
 though it diverted me as a stranger, ought to 
 be matter of painful consideration in Armata 
 both for government and people. 
 
 Being much delighted, as I could not but be, 
 with an outline of the law, so beautifully sim- 
 ple, I expressed to my learned conductor the 
 strongest desire to see the book in which their 
 decisions and statutes were compiled and regis- 
 tered for public instruction and the administra- 
 tion of justice. — He smiled "very significant lyi 
 saying he would carry me to where my curiosity 
 should be indulged, and, in a few minutes after- 
 wards, we arrived at a house, from whence I 
 expected to carry home, under my arm, the 
 volume I had been promised : — it was one of 
 the great libraries of the country, being the 
 property of a nobleman, in whose family books 
 had been accumulating for centuries, and who 
 preserved them in the utmost regularity and 
 order. 
 
 k 4 We 
 
( 136 ) 
 
 We were shewn into a spacious apartment, 
 handsomely fitted up and provided with ladders, 
 such as are common in England, for reaching 
 their highest orders. — I was greatly struck with 
 the immense number of volumes, in the view of 
 which, however, my learned conductor inter- 
 rupted me, by saying, that, as our time was 
 limited, we must not waste it in one part of the 
 library, as it was divided into different cham- 
 bers, in which the books were classed according 
 to their subjects. — I was surprized at this, and 
 told him, that though England was more fa-» 
 mous for literature of every character and 
 description than any nation of our world, yet 
 I had conceived the hall we were leaving con- 
 tained the whole collection. " The whole col- 
 lection !" he re-echoed with the utmost seeming 
 amazement — " why, my dear stranger, they are 
 only his Law-books." " What do you mean ?" 
 I answered, with equal surprize on my part, as the 
 reader may well believe — " what law-books ? 
 Have you communications then with the planets 
 and fixed stars, and made a digest of all their 
 
 institutions?" 
 
( 137 ) 
 
 institutions ?" " Oh, no," he said, " they are 
 only books of very local jurisdiction — t/ici/ are 
 our own laws only. — Those on your right 
 hand," pointing as far as we could see, " are 
 our decisions — and those on your left are our 
 statutes." I stood silent for a while, and then 
 broke out with an astonishment I could not con- 
 ceal — " If this be really so, how are your peo- 
 ple to know by what rules they are to govern 
 themselves, what duties they are to perform, or 
 how to avoid the penalties annexed to disobe- 
 dience ?" " Nothing so easy," replied my 
 learned conductor; " Nothing in either of our 
 worlds so perfectly plain and simple," laying his 
 hand, at the same time, on what seemed to cor- 
 respond with some of the indexes in our own 
 books — "what shall I find for you? — I will 
 turn to it in a second." — "Turn then," I said, 
 " to your law for preventing infection from the 
 plague." — For I had been told they had regula- 
 tions for quarantine. " Here it is," said the Ar- 
 matan counsellor, as he read the title ; but he 
 had not proceeded ten lines in the enacting-part 
 
 when 
 
( 138 ) 
 
 when we found it principally related to the 
 smuggling of chew-chum, a leaf resembling 
 our tobacco. " Oh," said he, on my laughing 
 at the discordancy, " this is a mere mistake, 
 depend upon it, some misprinting — let me turn 
 to another." " Well then," I said, " find me the 
 law which regulates your marriages ;" which he 
 turned up accordingly in a moment, and read 
 its title with an air of triumph ; but he had 
 not read far, when we found it mostly related 
 to horned cattle — he was now rather discon- 
 certed, when I laughed, and said to him, " Oh, 
 this can only be a misprinting — try something 
 else — let me see the act which regulates the 
 functions of your bishops and clergy." " That 
 I can do," he replied ; '* it is now," he said, 
 " before you," as he read the title; but there 
 was little in the body of it, except as to passing- 
 women with child of bastards to their proper 
 parishes, as we at least should call them. It 
 was now my turn to triumph, and I could 
 not help exclaiming, " You have found it, 
 at last, have you ? — your women I hope don't 
 
 swear 
 
( J89 ) 
 
 swear their bastards to your bishops and clergy? 
 I will now positively give you but one chance 
 more, and you must find me at once something 
 consistent, or I will go back again to England 
 and send over Lord Stanhope to thump you" — 
 Alas ! I little thought how soon he was to be lost 
 to ourselves ! 
 
 He now turned, by my desire, and as his last 
 effort, to an act against bribery and corruption, 
 the title of which he was not long in finding, 
 but so little was the concordance of the enact- 
 ment that, on the contrary, it only continued 
 and secured the constitutions of their rotten 
 boroughs. 
 
 As he went on, referring to the decisions of 
 their courts, he was frequently in the same 
 manner most sorely puzzled — Sometimes he 
 found a case settled, and told me it was un- 
 doubted law; but on looking farther, he often in- 
 formed me that it had been afterwards settled the 
 other way, and in a subsequent volume, which he 
 
 turned 
 
( 140 ) 
 
 turned to, he frequently discovered that the 
 last decision was clogged with exceptions which 
 supported neither, but that, by still looking on- 
 ward, he could shew me how it was settled at 
 last; — he accordingly found some of his cases, 
 but they had many times stood over for another 
 argument, and had never been decided. 
 
 In this way he went on, until he was driven 
 in the end to admit, that if a young man were 
 to begin to read all the books of their laws, 
 written and unwritten, public and private, on 
 his first entering their courts, he would be super- 
 annuated before he got through them. 
 
 I confess I retired from this scene severely 
 mortified, because no words can convey an idea 
 of the extreme wisdom of their whole constitu- 
 tion; and I cannot here help imploring the par- 
 liament of my own country to guard against 
 this worst of evils, before it reaches, as in Ar- 
 mata, to such a dreadful extent, that time 
 alone, without either errors or abuses, must 
 
 destroy 
 
( 141 ) 
 
 destroy all the simplicity of our venerable con- 
 stitution. 
 
 I am aware it must be a Master's hand 
 that touches such a string. — It would be 
 most difficult to make a dictionary of final 
 decisions, abrogating all those upon which they 
 were founded; because it would cast into the 
 shade the history and progress of the law which 
 preserves and consecrates its character; yet I 
 still think that means might be found, by the 
 aid of Parliament, to simplify its practice, 
 leaving the ancient books as the fountains of 
 more modern judgments, which, like statutes, 
 might give the rule until repealed. 
 
 In carrying such a system into effect, the 
 language of decisions ought of course, not even 
 in a letter, to be touched, as it would be the 
 parent of new litigations ; but the decisions 
 themselves might be sanctioned, so as to prevent 
 all resort to others more ancient, shut out by 
 
 the 
 
( 14a ) 
 
 the adoption of those that might be selected as 
 law. 
 
 I am not prepared to say that such a plan is 
 safely practicable, but the proper question for 
 the legislature ought to be, Is it absolutely im- 
 practicable and impossible ? because, when such 
 increasing and ruinous mischiefs are in the other 
 scale, every effort ought to be made to suppress 
 them. 
 
 My own opinion is, that though mighty diffi- 
 culties are in the way, the attempt, in some mode 
 or other, under the sanction of the judges, ought 
 to be made ; and my confidence in the result is 
 founded upon the immense care and learning 
 which distinguish the modern decisions of our 
 courts ; and because almost all the subjects 
 which the laws have to deal with, not only 
 come round again in a very few years, but in 
 a country which has reached its summit would 
 be less likely to fluctuate, than when it was pro- 
 gressive, 
 
( 143 ) 
 
 gressive, as in former times. — Why then might 
 not the best materials in our later reports, 
 though not established as conclusive, be held 
 by the profession to be the order of the day, 
 and all other arguments be excluded or abridged? 
 — I am informed indeed by eminent lawyers, 
 that absolute necessity is working this effect, 
 but some authorised system is still wanting to 
 give it continuity and force. 
 
 I need hardly conclude by saying that the 
 judgments to be thus selected, must be such as 
 are beyond all question, and which could not be 
 reversed or shaken without bringing confusion 
 upon the law. 
 
 For the reasons I have already adverted to, it 
 would be most difficult and dangerous to recast 
 our statute law, or even to simplify and con- 
 dense it by enactments, because no care in their 
 language could prevent disputes upon their con- 
 structions, whilst those that were abrogated had 
 finally received them in the courts. — Perhaps, 
 
 therefore, 
 
( 144 ) 
 
 therefore, the utmost that can be safely accom- 
 plished, is most carefully to class and digest our 
 written laws, but without alterations, and to dis- 
 courage as much as possible that rage for legisla- 
 tion which an eminent advocate, now dead, used 
 to consider as an increasing disease, saying — 
 " that no man in his time could sleep in his bed 
 without tinkering at some act of parliament.'* — 
 Yet here again the same question ought to be 
 put to the legislature, and be patiently and 
 anxiously considered — Is it certainly impracti- 
 cable to go farther with safety, in our escape 
 from the gulph that is hourly widening to swal- 
 low us up ? 
 
 On examining the civil branch of Armatan 
 jurisprudence, I was equally impressed with the 
 
 * From all accounts of this excellent and interesting person, 
 I deeply lament that I did not know him. — He was universally 
 beloved in the profession of the law, and I cannot give a 
 stronger instance of it than that I have seen a bag which he 
 gave many years ago to a young barrister, for whom he had a 
 great friendship, who literally wore it to rags in the courts, 
 and whom I once heard say,, that he would not sell even the 
 tattered remnant of it for five hundred pounds. 
 
 strong 
 
( 145 ) 
 
 Strong intellectual powers of this highly gifted 
 race of men, and in nothing more than in the 
 dexterous mode of liberalising their decisions, 
 by the equitable aids of a distinct court, a thing 
 utterly unknown in any other country of their 
 world. 
 
 I have already observed, that the jurisdictions 
 and forms of their tribunals were derived from 
 the most ancient customs ; that their whole law 
 was remarkable for its precision ; and that the 
 liberty and property of the nation were deeply 
 involved in the preservation of that stubborn 
 strictness. — It is obvious that such a code 
 could not be safely engrafted on. — It might have 
 been hazardous in the extreme to obliterate the 
 very characteristic of so admirable a system, by 
 making it necessary for judges to supply, by 
 constructive judgments, any defects which ap- 
 peared in the application of very ancient rules 
 to the complicated concerns of a great empire, 
 extending, or rather originating an enriching 
 commerce, which gives an infinite variety to the 
 
 l trans- 
 
( 146 ) 
 
 transactions of mankind. — The necessity of such 
 constructions, by unsettling the principles and 
 practice of the law, might not only have affected 
 the security of property, but what would have 
 been far worse, might have sapped the very 
 foundations of public freedom, by extending 
 their influence to the administration of criminal 
 justice. i 
 
 When equitable considerations, therefore, be- 
 came indispensable, even beyond the natural 
 equity comprehended in the most positive laws, 
 it was fit that they should be confided to a 
 separate tribunal ; and this new system, like the 
 old one, to which it came in aid, was not enacted 
 by any statutes, but grew up in the very teeth 
 of them, and for a season even of the legisla- 
 ture itself; forcing, or rather stealing its way, 
 until it settled at last in the very station where 
 it was wise it should remain ; becoming an 
 useful auxiliary, equally precise and certain as 
 that whose precision it preserved. — There is an 
 analogy, perhaps, between the elements of the 
 
 natural 
 
( 147 ) 
 
 natural and civil world — There is a point where 
 the first are absolutely at rest, and the second 
 as nearly so as the condition of human affairs 
 will admit. 
 
 I was most curious to arrive at some under- 
 standing of the principles which governed this 
 extraordinary court; but I might have long 
 remained without a clue to it, but for a small 
 book, not much larger than a Court Kalendar, 
 the work, as I was told, of a most learned man, 
 which gave me all the heads of it in a manner 
 so brief and yet so luminous, that I shall trans- 
 late them into English, that the people of Eng- 
 land may feel the duty of perpetually watching 
 over all their inestimable institutions, to prevent 
 their becoming useless, and even mischievous, 
 by a departure from their original designs. 
 
 The jurisdiction of this high court, according 
 to the great authority above alluded to, becanje 
 necessary : — 
 
 l 2 1st, 
 
( 148 ) 
 
 1st, When the principles of the law by which 
 the ordinary courts were guided gave a right, 
 but where their powers (for the reasons I have, 
 adverted to) were not sufficient to afford a com- 
 plete remedy. 
 
 2dly, Where the courts of ordinary juris- 
 diction were made instruments of injustice. 
 
 3dly, Where they gave no right, but where, 
 upon the principles of universal justice, the in- 
 terference of the judicial power became neces- 
 sary to prevent a wrong, when positive law was 
 silent. 
 
 4thly, To remove impediments to the fair de- 
 cision of a question in other courts. 
 
 5thly, To provide for the safety of property 
 in dispute, pending a litigation in the ordinary 
 courts. 
 
 6thly, 
 
( 149 ) 
 
 tfthly, To prevent the assertion of doubtful 
 rights in a manner which might be productive 
 of irreparable injury. 
 
 7thly, To prevent injury to a third person by 
 the doubtful title of others. 
 
 8thly, To put a bound to vexatious and op- 
 pressive litigation. 
 
 9thly, To compel a discovery, which was be- 
 yond the customary powers of other courts. 
 
 JOthly, To preserve testimony. 
 
 These short and simple outlines were after- 
 wards, even in this small volume, so clearly, yet 
 so amply filled up, that I was told by the mosj 
 eminent lawyers that none of the proper objects 
 of this court's jurisdiction were omitted, and 
 that a man of sound understanding, who had 
 acquired a legal apprehension by ordinary study 
 
 L 3 ancj 
 
( 1^0 ) 
 
 and practice, could hardly miss his way in their 
 application. 
 
 I cannot perhaps better illustrate those sepa- 
 rate jurisdictions, than by selecting an instance 
 of one of the highest of them, to vindicate the 
 principle which seemed almost to govern them 
 all. — Having carefully read the little book, and 
 having found that there existed a power in this 
 high forum to prevent a man from proceeding in 
 a court of law, if it could be shewn that he 
 contemplated injustice, and even to make him 
 abandon the fruit of the most unimpeachable 
 judgment, if obtained through fraud, I asked how 
 such an interference could be necessary ; as in 
 both cases the lower courts themselves might do 
 equal justice— in the jirst, by repelling the fraud 
 contemplated, by its own decisions ; and in the 
 second, by reversing its own judgment, if its 
 justice had been surprized; and that, in both 
 instances, the same evidence which would war- 
 rant the interference of an equitable tribunal, 
 ought equally to defeat the action in a court of 
 
 law; 
 
( 151 ) 
 
 law; but the answer I received convinced me I 
 was mistaken, as such a course would be de- 
 structive of all the certainty I had so much ad- 
 mired : The frauds might be of a character 
 M'hieh the courts, in other times, had not em- 
 braced in their recorded proceedings, and the 
 judges must either have made new laws by their 
 judgments, instead of administering the old 
 ones, or have abandoned the principles of jus- 
 tice ; and the cases might not be such as to have 
 admitted, even in future, of practicable cor- 
 rections by statutes. — In the same manner, the 
 reversal of decisions, by the very tribunals 
 which had pronounced them, must have led to 
 endless dissatisfactions and appeals. In pursu- 
 ing this enlightened jurisdiction through all its 
 parts, as far as an unlettered stranger could 
 comprehend it, I found it to be justified through- 
 out. — I was filled with admiration of the wis- 
 dom which had reared it up, and was convinced 
 that, but for an accident which I hasten to 
 relate, the civil jurisdictions of Armata would 
 have been as perfect as her criminal law. 
 
 l 4 The 
 
( 152 ) 
 
 The ancient rules which governed the tenures 
 of lands,- and the forms of asserting inheritances, 
 were most curiously precise, and all convey- 
 ances of property were equally remarkable for 
 their brevity and clearness; evidenced besides 
 by the public delivery of possession which al- 
 Avays attended them ; but the singular and fatal 
 occurrence, which I have just promised an ac- 
 count of, wrought a total and sudden change in 
 this simple and venerable system. — The clergy, 
 ■who, in the infancy of letters, were by far the 
 most learned amongst the people, had been 
 long availing themselves of the superstitions of 
 darker times, to draw to themselves the posses- 
 sion of the richest domains in various parts of 
 the country, and, to give secrecy to such trans- 
 actions, (as they were all prohibited,) public con- 
 veyances were not taken from the dupes of their 
 hypocrisy, who only bound themselves to permit 
 the use and enjoyment to belong to those reli- 
 gious bodies ; but the heads of them contrived 
 to seat themselves in this high court, where they 
 compelled the execution by their own decrees, 
 
 though 
 
( 353 ) 
 
 though they were not only void of all legal so- 
 lemnity, but were in contempt of positive law. 
 
 This dangerous system of fraud was carried 
 at last to such a height, that the great council 
 of Armata resolved to put an end to it; and 
 the manner they set about its destruction was 
 just what might have been expected from the 
 sagacity and shrewdness so visible in all their 
 institutions. — They said by a statute, in a jew 
 plain words, that whoever had the use of land 
 should be taken to be the legal proprietor, and 
 having before prohibited the clergy from re- 
 ceiving conveyances, no other path was open to 
 them : without the use they had nothing ; and 
 the use now becoming the land itself, they 
 could no longer hold it — thus the foxes" holes 
 were completely earthed up. Now comes the 
 extraordinary matter — which, as I could hardly 
 myself believe when I heard it, I am almost 
 afraid to be a suitor for belief from others; I 
 can only promise to relate what I was told, 
 though I cannot be confident I understood it.— 
 
 When 
 
( 154 ) 
 
 When the above-mentioned foxes came to their 
 holes, and found the trick that had been played 
 upon them, they fell upon this notable contri- 
 vance. — If pious A. possessed of land, had 
 now given to clerical B. the use of it; such 
 ttse could no longer have been available, because 
 the use having, by the new law, become the 
 land itself, clerical B. could not hold it ; to 
 avoid this awkward consequence, the)' settled 
 that the clerical fox, who was to enjoy the land, 
 should go down one step in the alphabet and 
 become C. and that pious A. should find some 
 nominal B., or any son of a B., to give the use 
 to, which of course made this B., or this son of 
 a B., the legal proprietor, but who, it was set- 
 tled in this court, was only to hold it to the use 
 of the same fox, noiv clerical C. 
 
 When this most manifest and impudent shuffle 
 was brought before the judges of Armata, it 
 was of course expected that an instant end 
 would have been put to it ; because the very 
 object of the new law being that whoever had 
 
 the 
 
( 155 ) 
 
 the use and enjoyment of land, should be held to 
 be the legal owner, it must be evident not merely 
 to a lawyer, but to any shoc-blaek in an 
 English alley, that if instead of sending down 
 clerical B. to be clerical C. he had run the 
 gauntlet through twenty alphabets, the use still 
 pursuing him and becoming always the land 
 itself, he could not possibly hold it. But the 
 Judges of Armata, though profoundly learned in 
 their general administration, unluckily thought 
 otherwise, and pronounced that clerical C. had 
 a good title, inasmuch as they could not go 
 beyond B. who had the first use, nor carry on 
 farther the end and object of the statute, by 
 adjudging that the second use was still the land 
 itself as much as if it had been the first. I can 
 no otherwise account for this astonishing judg- 
 ment except by what we frequently observe in 
 one of the wisest and bravest of animals, who 
 will in general advance against a cannon, yet 
 who, in one of our lanes such as in Kensington 
 or Knightsbridge, with nothing but shrubs and 
 flowers all around him, will suddenly stand stock 
 
 still, 
 
( 156 ) 
 
 still, startled at something or other, but without 
 either himself or his rider knowing what the 
 devil it can be. — In such conjunctures there is 
 no remedy but the spur, which is, however, by 
 no means a sure one, as riders have been thrown. 
 — Now this is no simile, but the very case itself: 
 Not a peg would the judges move, and the 
 great council being some how afraid to spur 
 them, their judgment was neither reversed in 
 the supreme tribunal, nor a new law passed to 
 follow on the use through all its windings, so as 
 still to make it the land itself. The conse- 
 quence requires no lawyer's skill to point out. — 
 The evil intended to be beat down continued, 
 and the jurisdiction of the courts of law over 
 the landed territory of Arinata was at an end 
 for ever. From that period, almost all the 
 estates throughout that great country were con- 
 veyed to second uses upon the ingenious 
 model of clerical C. which even after the clergy 
 had no longer any interest in the contrivances, 
 remained the almost universal mode of settling 
 property — the legal proprietor in the land 
 
 being 
 
( W ) 
 
 being nothing more than a chair in a country 
 dance, the interest vesting in another, subject 
 only to the jurisdiction of the court I have 
 described. 
 
 The effects of this unexampled revolution were 
 most disastrous. — Instead of the short and 
 simple deeds of ancient times, with the clear 
 and cheap evidence of public possession, a new 
 system of conveyancing arose, which has ever 
 since involved titles to land in the most expen- 
 sive and perplexing intricacies, no man in Ar- 
 mata not a lawyer having the least guess at the 
 tenure of his estate, and even a large class of 
 lawyers themselves existing upon their contro- 
 versies with each other, which, with the most 
 honest disposition to finish them, become darker 
 the more they are brought to light — the 
 venerable judges of the law having no more 
 jurisdiction over them than the keeper of the 
 wild beasts at the Tower has a right, ex officio, 
 to sit in parliament, or as a privy counsellor to 
 the King. 
 
 On 
 
( m ) 
 
 On conversing with the most learned men, I 
 found that this strange emancipation of real 
 property from the dominion of the ancient 
 courts to this more modern tribunal, was not 
 merely a change of one jurisdiction for another 
 of the same character, but as entire an alteration 
 of the whole system of the law as could possibly 
 exist in countries the most remotely separated, 
 depriving the subject of the most valuable 
 part of the legal constitution ; the forms of this 
 court excluding oral testimony, and requiring 
 that not only the pleadings and answers of the 
 parties, but all the facts, however numerous the 
 witnesses or however voluminous their testi- 
 mony, should be reduced into writing, at an 
 expense quite ruinous, and creating a delay 
 destructive of the ends of justice. 
 
 I found moreover, that this dominion over land 
 and over personal contracts so connected with 
 it as to be quite inseparable, was in itself more 
 than sufficient to occupy the whole time of any 
 single judge, or even of twelve if they sat sepa- 
 rately, 
 
( 159 ) 
 
 rately, and that its equitable aid to the other 
 courts, which was its real and admirable pro- 
 vince in the legal constitution, was completely 
 overshadowed and almost swallowed up by this 
 ill-omened jurisdiction. — Unskilled indeed as I 
 was in such subjects, I could see most plainly 
 that if the powers of this high court, as they 
 are marked out in the masterly sketch before the 
 reader, could have been made its sole jurisdiction, 
 constantly applied to assist the other courts, 
 as must have been originally intended ; and if, 
 as far as facts were concerned, the practice could 
 have been assimilated to that of their other 
 courts, by the admission of parole evidence, the 
 justice of Armata would have been perfect. 
 
 But this unprincipled jurisdiction over landed 
 property, wholly unconnected with its equitable 
 office, M'as not the only obstruction which I 
 found that the most indefatigable judge of this 
 high court had to contend with. — Many other 
 jurisdictions, never dreamed of in former times 
 but which had arisen out of new conditions of 
 
 society, 
 
( 160 ) 
 
 society, were heaped without measure or mercy 
 upon his devoted head.' — Whenever, indeed, any 
 new subject of judicature started up, no matter 
 from whence it came or to what it properly be- 
 longed, and for which the legislature was at 
 fault for a forum, it was sure to be cast upon 
 the heap — Like Milton's Limbo of Vanity, every 
 thing that went wrong in the world was sure 
 to be found here; and to swell the confusion, 
 lunatics, mendicants, and bankrupts, even all 
 the children of the kingdom were perpetually 
 dancing around him — and as if all this was 
 not sufficient occupation, it was found out be- 
 sides that he ought to be placed as a legislative 
 president in the highest council, where after 
 having had his mind and body worn down 
 by his judicial functions, he was compelled 
 to sit and listen to all that the most unex- 
 hausted had to say. — I had a curiosity to see 
 this great magistrate, and thought it no 
 small one to see that he was alive. — He was a 
 most able and agreeable man; by all accounts 
 deeply learned in every branch of the law, 
 
 trem- 
 
( lol ) 
 
 tremblingly alive to the justice of decision, and 
 most unwearied in the discharge of his multi- 
 plied and momentous trusts.— I asked him how 
 he could possibly exist in such a scene as I 
 have described: he laughed and said to me, 
 " You may go and ask the first salamander you 
 meet, how he lives in the fire ? I have been 
 here all my life." 
 
 I found that this great Court had another 
 Judge who sat separately, a person of great 
 learning and eloquence, and that on account 
 of the evils I have been describing, they had 
 lately recourse to another ; but, for my own part, 
 I could see enough to be quite sure that if as 
 many more were added to them as there are 
 Martello towers upon our coast of Sussex, it 
 would be just such a reform in judicature, as the 
 others were in war.— The delays are inseparable 
 from that Babelof jurisdictions I have described, 
 and from a system of conveyancing, commenc- 
 ing, as the reader must have seen, in fraud and 
 rapacity, but which, being afterwards sanctioned 
 
 by 
 
( 162 ) 
 
 by general practice, became almost the common 
 assurance of that realm, and from its very nature 
 the parent of expenses to an intolerable extent — 
 all persons who can in any way be affected in 
 their property or interests must invariably be 
 made parties to any proceedings in this court, 
 because its decrees are universally conclusive, 
 and of course if any of them die, the suit may be 
 said to die along with them ; so that in cases of 
 great value, where there are often many com- 
 plainants, and great numbers impleaded, the 
 cause is perhaps laid out a corpse once a month, 
 until after a decent time for interment, at which 
 the Commissioners of Stamps, like our under- 
 takers, are sure to be constant attendants — the 
 heirs or other representatives succeed to the de- 
 funct upon the record — and if their sheep were 
 not as prolific and as short-lived as our own, it 
 would be impossible to find a succession of 
 parchment for their records. It is no wonder, 
 therefore, that complaints are often loudly 
 heard, and many have reason to complain, but 
 never of the Judges, and very seldom of the 
 
 professors 
 
( 163 ) 
 
 professors of the law : — As well indeed might a 
 traveller in our York waggon complain of the 
 driver for not overtaking the mail ; — hut it 
 appeared, from all my inquiries, that it was 
 much too easy, without proper securities, to 
 institute complaints in this court — The Romans 
 punished their criminals by throwing them over 
 the Tarpeian rock, but the punishment was in 
 the hands of the magistrates, whereas any man 
 in Armata may throw his neighbour over this 
 tower of Babel, which differs only from the 
 Roman precipice in this, that the victim seldom 
 reaches the bottom. 
 
 I shall conclude the subject by a curious spe- 
 cimen of Armatan conveyancing, which I lite, 
 rally was witness to myself, and to which indeed 
 I was a party, before its mysteries were known 
 to me. 
 
 As I was sitting at dinner with Morven and 
 a large company, a coach suddenly drove up 
 to the door, when the person it belonged to 
 
 m 2 coming 
 
( 164 ) 
 
 coining up to me with great seeming satis- 
 faction said — " I am delighted to have found 
 you at last, as I am borrowing money upon my 
 estate, and could not have touched a mite if I 
 had missed you." I was almost struck dumb 
 with astonishment, and could not guess what 
 he meant, until he told me I was the legal 
 proprietor of his whole estate, and that I must 
 therefore convey it to the lender of the money. 
 — " Good God, Sir," I answered, " you must 
 mistake me for some other person, as I do not 
 remember ever to have seen you in my life." — 
 " Oh yes, you have," said Morven, " he dined 
 with you at my house soon after you were ship- 
 wrecked, and I remember he then said, it would 
 be a pleasant thing to make such a use of so 
 extraordinary a stranger." — I was now, of course, 
 obliged to say, that under Morven's guidance I 
 was at his command, though I could not com- 
 prehend what was intended. — The coach was 
 now emptied out, when I signed my name, I 
 believe twenty times, upon different writings, 
 which of course I could not read, and then 
 
 made 
 
( 165 ) 
 
 made my bow to him, heartily glad to get away ; 
 but Morven stopped me by saying, that I must 
 wait until the boot was unloaded, as the deeds 
 disposed of had all been in the body of the 
 coach, and I was detained above half an hour 
 longer. — I found afterwards, upon inquiry, that 
 I stood in the place of nominal B. and was pro- 
 prietor in law to this troublesome man's use. 
 
 There is yet another evil which visits, or 
 rather overwhelms, all their jurisdictions, though 
 it bears the heaviest when landed property is in 
 question, but it extends to the proceedings of 
 all courts, and to almost all the transactions of 
 mankind. — Upon every page of their voluminous 
 mass of records, and evidence, and process, 
 which if set fire to in Armata, though but a 
 speck upon that planet, might not only be seen 
 from our earth, but perhaps be viewed with 
 alarm as a comet by all worlds — Yes — upon 
 every page of all this accumulation of writing, 
 there must be a miniature impression of their 
 King; without which no suitor can be heard, 
 
 m 3 nor 
 
( 166 ) 
 
 nor a syllable of testimony be read before the 
 Judge ; and they sometimes exceed the value of 
 the subjects in contest, which are abandoned, of 
 course, to any knave who may be in possession — , 
 They are not political contrivances to excite awe 
 and reverence for the Sovereign, but have been 
 resorted to for revenue, and threaten in the end 
 to destroy all the benefits of courts of justice. 
 
 I never was more affected than when I saw 
 the virtue and wisdom of so many ages thus 
 shamefully overthrown by the mad profusion of 
 spendthrift governments in very modern times. 
 I had thought it worth all the perils I had 
 encountered, to be present in their ordinary 
 courts; I had visited them almost daily, and it 
 was more like enchantment than the imperfect 
 condition of human affairs, to witness the dis- 
 patch and unerring justice with which the most 
 complicated concerns were disentangled and 
 decided ; but after this sad communication, 
 their tribunals appeared to me like painted sepul- 
 chres. — I found that little was left for the 
 
 suitors 
 
( m ) 
 
 suitors who succeeded, and the unsuccessful 
 were often undone, nay, sometimes all of them 
 together, and the lawyers whom they em- 
 ployed — of which I saw a most notable instance 
 in the prison of the principal court, which I was 
 carried as a curiosity to see. 
 
 In passing through the rooms of the prisoners, 
 we observed four persons who were playing at 
 cards together, when my conductor, who was 
 still the same eminent advocate, desired me to 
 stop and observe them — " That first," he said, 
 (pointing to the man nearest us,) " is an honest 
 baker with a large family, who brought a suit 
 against his partner at the table, to recover about 
 twenty pounds of your money for bread that 
 he had sold him ; but for which the other, Avho 
 is a carpenter, could not pay, having a large 
 family also, and his taxes to government in 
 arrear, for which his little effects had been sold. 
 — The baker prevailed in his suit, but the 
 pictures of the sovereign, and the expenses of 
 the proceeding, beyond what he could charge to 
 
 m 4 his 
 
( 168 ) 
 
 his opponent, would have left him but little to 
 receive, even if the carpenter could have paid ; 
 hut receiving nothing at all, he took him to 
 prison for the debt, which was swelled by the 
 expenses to more than double the sum. — But 
 the poor baker, thus receiving nothing from his 
 prisoner, and not being able to pay his attorney 
 for the proceedings and the portraits, he was 
 sued himself, and was soon taken to prison 
 also, and the plaintiff and defendant now sit 
 opposite. — But the attorney was just in the 
 same condition as his client, whom he had sued; 
 as, by getting nothing from the baker, he 
 was unable to pay for the portraits which the 
 paper-merchant had sold him, and he was sued 
 and carried to prison himself, where he met with 
 the gentleman who is now his partner, viz. the 
 attorney for the carpenter, he having been sued 
 for the portraits also, which he had bought for 
 the carpenter's defence — and being cast into the 
 same prison the gaoler has got the whole covey. — 
 They have not amongst them all the smallest 
 coin in circulation, yet they are as eager at 
 
 their 
 
( 169 ) 
 
 their game as if the fate of the universe was at 
 stake on every card ; and they pay one another 
 with slips of paper, which they pleasantly 
 enough call exchequer hills, as they are to be 
 paid only b}- similar slips of paper when they 
 become due." — I never witnessed such a scene. — 
 It was inhuman to laugh as I did, but it would 
 have been more than human to resist. — I wish 
 that high councils of state, when a quarrel 
 is engendering between nations, and peace or 
 war are in the balance, would a little more con- 
 sider the consequences before the die is cast; as 
 nothing short of invasion and conquest can in- 
 flict upon a nation so severe an evil as a de- 
 vouring taxation, which fastens upon all the 
 springs of life. — But no revenue should ever ap- 
 proach the sanctuaries of justice, to drive their 
 votaries into dungeons, whilst luxury can shew 
 herself in the streets. 
 
 When from this pressure of taxation, and the 
 entanglements of forms too technical and expen- 
 sive, the law had ceased to be a plain and simple 
 
 remedy 
 
( 170 ) 
 
 remedy for the recovery of debts, the adminis- 
 tration of justice, from no faults of its own, be- 
 came unpopular, and many reformers started up. 
 Temporary expedients were first resorted to — 
 The public councils frequently throwing open 
 the gates of the prisons throughout the whole 
 country; but such acts of necessity produced 
 as many sufferings as they redressed; — they 
 could reach only those who were in custody 
 when they passed, but could take no account 
 of many more who were subject to imprison- 
 ment by the insolvency of their debtors who 
 were set free, and thus the ruined creditors of 
 redeemed prisoners soon took their places, 
 without any hope of redemption, until the 
 intervals between such statutes had passed 
 away. — This was a system of manifest injustice ; 
 yet such is the danger of meddling with old 
 establishments, however imperfect, that although 
 many able and benevolent statesmen clubbed all 
 their talents for its reformation, their new law, 
 even in its infancy, is more destructive of credit, 
 and more injurious to both debtors and credit- 
 ors 
 
( 171 ) 
 
 ors than the old one which they undertook to 
 reform. 
 
 The principle was to substitute a cession of 
 property for the imprisonment of debtors ; but 
 the creditor, before he can enforce it, must 
 establish his debt in the superior courts, by 
 the same dilatory process, and under all the 
 pressure of revenue, as if he were still to 
 have the ultimate fruit of it under the ancient 
 judgments and executions. — He may now, as 
 formerly, deprive any person of his liberty 
 whom he onuses to call his debtor, even be- 
 fore he is possessed of any judicial confirma- 
 tion of his demand ; yet he has no sooner ob- 
 tained judgment against him, by a tedious suit, 
 and at an expense in many cases beyond the 
 amount of the debt, than the prison doors fly 
 open, and the debtor, as if the proof of the 
 debt entitled him to freedom from the conse- 
 quences, has now only to offer what he has, or 
 to say that he has nothing; and thus, after all 
 the cost and delay of a solemn process, the cre- 
 ditor 
 
. ( m ) 
 
 ditor who sued him has only an equal claim with 
 others zvho were at no expense at all, and even 
 with collusive claimants, set up by the debtor, 
 to cover such property as could not with safety 
 be concealed. — Surely such a system is not 
 merely defective, but is a dangerous nuisance. 
 
 If the cession of property be adopted as 
 a general rule, it should not be left to the 
 option of the debtor only, at the conclusion of 
 a regular suit, but the creditor ought to have 
 his election also from the beginning, and by the 
 same summary forms as the debtor may resort to 
 in the end, but this could not have been accom- 
 plished without throwing the whole jurisdiction 
 over contracts into the hands of inferior magis- 
 trates, to the very extinction of our ancient courts 
 of law, which would be exposed even to an insult- 
 ing reproof, by having their immemorial juris- 
 dictions swept away. — Upon the whole, there- 
 fore, the practice of imprisonment for debt had 
 far better been reformed and modified, without 
 rashly subverting our legal constitution, which 
 
 it 
 
( 173 ) 
 
 it is too much the fashion to boast of yet to 
 condemn. — The cession of property may be a 
 wise and beneficial system, if applied with 
 speedy and costless ceremonies to the insolvencies 
 of the commercial world, where property is 
 large and tangible, but when extended to 
 the very lowest orders of the people, whose 
 effects can rarely be follozved, it holds out a dan- 
 gerous temptation to fraud, and strikes at the 
 very foundation of credit, by destroying all the 
 securities of trust. 
 
 I had now been so long engaged in the exa- 
 mination of the laws of Armata, and so much 
 pleased with my companions of the profession, 
 who were most eminent and incorruptible per- 
 sons, highly esteemed for their general learning 
 and talents, that I almost resolved to think no 
 more of our world, and to become an advo- 
 cate in their courts. — They were highly diverted 
 and pleased with my project, but suggested to 
 me that their language was not easy — an ob- 
 jection however which I answered by observing, 
 
 that 
 
( 174 ) 
 
 that Scotchmen flocked daily into London, and 
 became intelligible by degrees. — To cut the 
 matter short, I had set my mind, at last, upon 
 the plan, and which was only defeated by a 
 conspiracy against me of the most extraordinary 
 description — Many witnesses having started up, 
 and declared themselves ready to prove that I 
 had practised there many years, and for some 
 reason or other had been expelled from the bar. — 
 I was astonished at this attempt, but what could 
 be done to resist it? they were persons whose 
 credit I had no means of impeaching, and I 
 could prove no alibi without witnesses from the 
 earth. 
 
 I consulted their great chief justice, who 
 wished much to help me, but said he could 
 give me no relief — and that he would tell me 
 the reason the first time he saw me, which he 
 soon afterwards did — but the conversation was 
 private. 
 
 I now proceeded to examine the police of this 
 
 immense 
 
( 175 ) 
 
 immense city, in which there were many imper- 
 fections, but in my opinion often referable to a 
 population which no magistracy could duly 
 superintend, and to houses of entertainment for 
 the lower orders multiplied beyond the calls of 
 necessity, and too much cherished on account 
 of the revenue they produced. — No vigilance 
 could repress all the disorders they created, nor 
 protect the moral character of the people, the 
 debasement of which, in many instances, was 
 frightful. — Thefts and robberies M r ere almost of 
 nightly occurrence, and so far was there from 
 being any prospect of safety by sweeping away 
 the gangs of old and hardened offenders, that 
 juvenile delinquency maintained a more depraved 
 succession. — Thousands of boys, from the vices 
 of parents, neglect of education, and want of 
 employment, were to be found in the streets, the 
 associates of professed thieves, and of girls sub- 
 sisting by prostitution, frequenting houses of 
 the most infamous description, where they con- 
 cealed and divided their plunder. 
 
 I was 
 
( W ) 
 
 I was the more attentive to those abuses, be- 
 cause London itself is not free from them, and 
 they cannot be removed but by striking at 
 their roots. — The system of licenses to publicans 
 should be totally changed, and the partialities 
 with which they have been granted done away. 
 — Character, most respectably and cautiously 
 certified, ought to be the only qualification ; 
 severe punishment should attend irregularities 
 and disorders, and no established Victual- 
 ler should be deprived of his license upon any 
 pretence whatsoever, xvithout trial by a jury, 
 instead of being, as heretofore, at the will of 
 the justices of the peace; none of whom be- 
 sides should license any houses of their own, 
 nor be seen upon the bench when the titles to them 
 are discussed. — I have a great respect for the 
 magistrates of our country, and for none more 
 than many of them in the metropolis — but no 
 one ought to be placed in a situation which 
 exposes him even to suspicion, nor sit in judg- 
 ment when he has the remotest interest in the 
 decision. 
 
 The 
 
( 177 ) 
 
 If all those provisions were enacted and 
 duly executed, there would be fewer offences, 
 because their shelters would be destroyed. — 
 Publicans so selected and encouraged by the 
 security of their possessions, whilst they acted 
 with honesty and discretion, would become a 
 kind of lower magistrates, and be sureties for the 
 peace of the city. 
 
 Mendicity also, from the same causes, had 
 become a shameful nuisance in Swaloal. — In the 
 most populous cities of Europe, it is only dis- 
 gusting from the wretchedness of the suppli- 
 cants, but here compassion was constantly 
 abused, and blunted by the most atrocious im- 
 postures. — A sovereignty of beggars had been 
 Ions* established with the most regular autho- 
 rities, and the streets throughout all that wide 
 extent, which we call the Bills of Mortality, 
 were assigned for the walks of the pretended 
 paupers, many of which had become inheri- 
 tances, and had descended through several 
 generations. — The following instance of long-t 
 
 n practised 
 
( 178 ) 
 
 practised iniquity I considered it my ill fortune 
 to detect ; because, though it is a high duty to 
 the public to expose such evils, yet their expo- 
 sure bears heavily upon many innocent people, 
 and steels our hearts against the most genuine 
 objects of compassion. 
 
 The charity of the fair Morvina was prover- 
 bial, and our doors had long been surrounded 
 by the poor of every description. — There was an 
 old man who peculiarly interested us, being one 
 hundred and three years of age, confirmed by a 
 certificate which seemed to be as old as himself; 
 the writing being much torn, and the seal im- 
 perfect. — We were constantly attended also by a 
 woman, who had lost her eyes from lightning, 
 which were covered with black patches of silk, 
 and by a man, her companion, who from palsy 
 had lost the use of both his legs, and was drawn 
 on a kind of sledge through the streets. — There 
 was, from time to time, besides, another wretched 
 woman with six little children, and near delivery 
 ©f a seventh; all these paupers, and many 
 
 more, 
 
( 179 ) 
 
 more, were almost daily relieved and fed, until 
 an accident occurred for our deliverance. — To 
 state it in almost a word, my Match was stolen 
 and found upon one of them, who, to save him- 
 self from the gallows, informed me privately 
 that we were the victims of imposition, and that 
 if I would disguise myself, he would carry me 
 to where I might see the real condition of those 
 on whom pity had been thrown away. 
 
 I was pleased with the scheme, and having 
 secured myself from discovery, he accompanied 
 me at the time appointed to a public breakfast 
 of the fraternity, before they dressed for their 
 rounds. 
 
 On entering the room I could not help think- 
 ing that my repentant conductor, as he de- 
 scribed himself, had some new fraud in agi- 
 tation, since I saw nothing that could give me 
 the least expectation of meeting the wretches 
 we had so long supported — The company 
 were seated round a long table, where neither 
 
 n 2 disease 
 
( iso ) 
 
 disease nor old age were to be seen, but on the 
 contrary, above twenty well-dressed, healthy, 
 happy people, regaling themselves with the best 
 fare, and pledging one another in their cups; 
 on the ringing of a bell their president told 
 them to deliver in their accounts, and to assume 
 their different characters for the day — the audit 
 was soon over, and after they had been gone 
 about a quarter of an hour, I saw all of them 
 return, and every one of my friends amongst 
 the rest — They were exactly the same as I had 
 always seen them, and their real characters and 
 descriptions were as follows — The old man of 103 
 had not seen 30, he had been a drummer in a re- 
 giment, and was just returned from transporta- 
 tion before his time.* — The woman who had lost 
 her eyes, which were now covered again with 
 patches, my conductor had shewn me in the 
 room, where instead of their being obscured by 
 lightning, they flashed lightning in every glance. 
 
 * The Armatans transport their felons, as we do, to a very 
 distant region. 
 
 —She 
 
( 181 ) 
 
 — She was a beautiful creature, not more than 
 seventeen years of age, and hired for the pur- 
 pose by the gang. — The paralytic patient, whose 
 sledge stood in the passage, was cutting his 
 capers in the way to it, as indeed he very well 
 might, having been a rope-dancer at one of the 
 smaller theatres, from which he had lately been 
 discharged, on his being discovered picking a 
 pocket behind the scenes — The pregnant lady 
 was among the last, as her pillow had not been 
 carefully adjusted, and she had to pay the 
 mothers of the six children who were going 
 out with her, as they always attended to receive 
 the ready money for the day. 
 
 My felonious friend now made me a signal to 
 be gone, as my disguise, he said, might perhaps 
 be discovered, which would not only be ruinous 
 to him but might be dangerous to myself. 
 
 For the evils I had witnessed, to some extent 
 and in some shape or other, there is, perhaps, no 
 remedy in a large city, and we ought not to 
 
 N 3 surlier 
 
( 182 ) 
 
 suffer the knowledge of their existence, though 
 highly useful, to make us cold to the sufferings 
 of our fellow-creatures. — We may often be mis- 
 taken in the true objects of charity, but if from 
 the impression of imposture, a real one should 
 be passed by, how fatal might be the mistake ! 
 In times like the present, we should suspend the 
 very remembrance of it, and go forth into the 
 streets to take our chance of being deceived. 
 
 Before I leave the subject of human suf- 
 ferings, I must shock the feelings of the reader 
 by taking notice of a most barbarous custom in 
 Armata, wholly inconsistent with the benevolent 
 character of her people. 
 
 Although their mechanical inventions had 
 reached such perfection that almost nothing 
 was left for human hands to perform without 
 aids to assist labour and to avert dangers, yet 
 they persisted in devoting the unprotected chil- 
 dren of the poor to misery, disease, and death, 
 by a practice, not yet reformed amongst our- 
 selves, 
 
( 188 ) 
 
 selves, of cleansing their fire-places by climbing 
 boys instead of by machines; frequently goad- 
 ing them on by sharp instruments applied to 
 the soles of their feet, when to escape suffocation 
 they have halted in their ascent. 
 
 I frequently and loudly remonstrated against 
 this horrible cruelty, and on being told, with 
 indifference, of the forms of their houses which 
 made machinery difficult, though it had failed 
 in nothing else, / lost all patience. — " Talk not 
 to me (I said) of the antiquity of your houses, 
 or of their unsuitableness for the performance 
 of your duty to God and your fellow-creatures. 
 — If you will not alter them in your capital, 
 where the abuses are so afflicting, Heaven 
 may reform your manners as in ancient times 
 the vices of nations have been rebuked; — « 
 Earthquake, which has hitherto been confined 
 to other countries, may be let loose to tumble 
 them on your heads." 
 
 To Englishmen also let me lift up my voice : — 
 
 n 4 " You 
 
( 184 ) 
 
 " You have raised an immortal monument of 
 fame and glory by the abolition of the Slave 
 Trade throughout the world, and will you suffer 
 a worse slavery to debase even your own chil- 
 dren, whose colour, if colour indeed can be a 
 degradation, was not given by Heaven but by 
 yourselves?"* 
 
 The religions of new countries having always 
 been considered by travellers as interesting ob- 
 jects of curiosity, I shall now make a few 
 short remarks upon the Armatan church. 
 
 I found they had a Revelation as we have — 
 Simple and eloquent, bearing throughout the 
 stamp of divine truth, communicating, like our 
 own, a fallen condition and a mediatorial re- 
 demption^ — It is published by authority, and 
 circulated as the universal source of faith and 
 morals. Their forms of prayer are solemn and 
 
 * I have just heard with great satisfaction, that whatever may 
 be the construction of houses in Armata, our own throughout all 
 England will admit machinery. 
 
 impres- 
 
( 185 ) 
 
 impressive, composed in former times by the 
 most eloquent fathers of her communion, and 
 established by law to give uniformity to public 
 worship. The dignified clergy were distin- 
 guished for their piety and learning, setting an 
 useful example to inferior pastors, which was 
 generally though not always followed. 
 
 Their Articles of Belief are also published to 
 give a distinct character to their national esta- 
 blishment, which might otherwise be corrupted 
 and degraded by ignorant or designing men. — 
 They were drawn up with great wisdom and 
 moderation in very difficult times, but at some 
 more favourable period they should have been 
 re-considered. — The utmost care ought to be 
 employed in the composition of such a sacred 
 code; and the doctrines it comprehends should 
 be divested of all that is dark and mysterious. 
 Not that such doctrines ought therefore to be 
 rejected when supported by the authority of 
 Scripture, but they should rather be maintained 
 in preaching than rigidly insisted upon as tests. 
 
 I can- 
 
( 136" ) 
 
 I cannot perhaps better illustrate this in- 
 teresting subject, than by giving the reader a 
 short account of a conversation I had with an 
 eminent member of their communion; most 
 virtuous in his life, and devoted to the practice 
 of every good work. — He deeply lamented the 
 growth of what we call Sectaries, and dwelt 
 with great anxiety upon the unhappy state 
 of his country, predicting at no very distant 
 period the utter extinction of the church. 
 ■ — Clear as, he said, were the Articles of her 
 religious faith, they had by no means been 
 universally accepted, and that, although those 
 who rejected them were not only excluded from 
 the priesthood but from many civil offices and 
 distinctions, yet they still persevered in their 
 own opinions, and were corrupting the world 
 by their unbeliefs. — The great bulk of the 
 Articles would, he admitted, have been accepted, 
 but that some of them, though standing upon 
 divine authority, were wickedly rejected ; a 
 heresy the more detestable, as their sacred 
 writings were not only circulated by authority 
 
 for 
 
( 187 ) 
 
 for public instruction, but by the charity of 
 many pious persons were now universally read. 
 
 I here interrupted to observe, that I did not 
 altogether comprehend him. — " How," I asjced, 
 " can your people be thus invited by public law 
 to study a book of which they are told that God 
 himself is the author, yet be expected to receive 
 its interpretation from man, and be charged 
 moreover with wickedness for having an honest 
 opinion of their own ; I do not at all object to 
 your national church for adopting and adhering 
 to the most approved doctrines, but upon what 
 principle of policy do you exclude men from 
 your ministry, much more from any office in 
 the state on account only of different impres- 
 sions of the divine nature, or of the hopes and 
 expectations of mankind, as they faithfully be- 
 lieve them to be derived from the word of 
 God, so given to them, without comment, by 
 both church and state, which concur in such 
 exclusions? — I must suppose that the professed 
 beliefs of such persons thus shut out from your 
 
 com- 
 
( ] 88 ) 
 
 communion are either so manifestly erroneous 
 as to carry with them the evidence of fraud and 
 irreligion, or that they involve political tenets 
 which might endanger the establishments of 
 your country." 
 
 " I am not prepared," (said the aged and 
 reverend pastor,) " to make either of such 
 charges upon those who are yet properly ex- 
 cluded from our sanctuary, and even from 
 some of our civil functions. — The times have 
 undoubtedly passed away since disaffection to 
 our government can be justly imputed to them ; 
 neither can I go the length of saying that their 
 beliefs, or rather their unbeliefs, ought to be 
 considered as proofs of irreligion or fraud ; but 
 can any church receive communicants who do 
 not accept her communications, or admit mi- 
 nisters who deny her creeds ?" — " That" I an- 
 swered, " no man of common sense can require, 
 but why in matters not absolutely essential to 
 faith or morals, and of most obscure and 
 doubtful import, do you not leave men to 
 
 them- 
 
( 189 ) 
 
 themselves? — Why do you hold up mysteries 
 to others as tests of acceptation which you do 
 not even agree upon among yourselves ? and if 
 you dread such immaterial differences of opi- 
 nion, why do you embalm bodies of men by laws 
 and statutes, which otherwise might disperse 
 and perish ?" 
 
 " We complain of their perverseness" replied 
 the good old man, " which ought surely to 
 have a mark set upon it, though of a gentle 
 character. — To give you one instance, among 
 many others, of their obstinacy and blindness, 
 what do you say to their refusing even to attest 
 their belief in all things visible or invisible?" I 
 acknowledged that this was certainly most pro- 
 voking ; though, perhaps, its generality might 
 alarm tender consciences. — If they doubted in- 
 deed the existence of God because invisible, I 
 should condemn and reject them, since the 
 Deity could not be visible to mortal sight, but 
 all things," I said, " was rather a startling 
 proposition." " Not at all, 1 ' said the good old 
 
 man. 
 
( 190 ) 
 
 man, " when in the mouth of the church that 
 pronounces it, as it can then only mean all 
 things which the Church believes.''' — " And 
 pray, Sir," said I, " what are they r" — He here 
 looked at his watch, saying, that at another 
 time he would converse with me farther, but 
 that he was engaged to go out. — Suspecting, 
 however, (though I am persuaded without 
 foundation,) that he was rather puzzled and 
 wished to evade the question, I said I waved it 
 for the present as it might run into length, and 
 that I wished only to revert to the absurdity of 
 circulating the Scripture without comment, 
 yet insisting upon their own interpretation. — ■ 
 " We have found that to be an error," he re- 
 plied, " and are now beginning to correct it by 
 notes and commentaries of our own." 
 
 " That you may undoubtedly do," I rejoined 
 
 with warmth, " as learned commentators, leaving 
 
 other men also to their own expositions ; but if 
 
 you were to do this in England, upon the 
 
 footing of authority, we should tax you with 
 
 relapsing 
 
 
( W ) 
 
 relapsing into the very errors of the catholic 
 church, by beating up for proselytes to your 
 own establishment, instead of publishing the pure 
 word of God as proceeding, through inspiration, 
 from himself. — This was the damnable usurpa- 
 tion of the papacy in the world 1 came from, 
 and after having shed our blood for its ex- 
 tinction, we should hardly submit to it again. — 
 Any man, with us, may write what notes upon 
 the Bible he pleases, but no man, nor the state 
 itself, can put upon it any fetters of the law." 
 
 The old man made no reply to this, and I 
 rather thought he was ashamed of what he had 
 said. 
 
 I found after all when the differences came 
 to be sifted between the Armatan church and 
 many, at least, who had ranged themselves 
 under various establishments of dissent, that 
 they had arisen, for the most part, from the 
 adoption of mysteries as inexorable articles of 
 faith, instead of softening them by expressions 
 
 that, 
 
( 192 ) 
 
 that, without departing from the best interpre- 
 tations of Scripture, might give a fair latitude to 
 conscientious men, who, whilst they reverenced 
 the Established Church and in general embraced 
 its doctrines, could not honestly swear to an 
 implicit belief in matters so deep that the 
 human mind could not fathom them. 
 
 The excellent old man seemed to feel the 
 force of this, yet such is the dominion of pre- 
 judice over the most enlightened understand- 
 ings, that he made only this reply — " We have 
 done every thing to open our arms to all chris- 
 tians who would subscribe our Articles — We 
 have held out in one hand large ecclesiastical 
 preferments, and mortifying exclusions in the 
 other, yet the former have been rejected and the 
 latter patiently end u red. — I ought however to do 
 justice to numbers who have consented to be- 
 come priests with benefices, by swearing in the 
 end to what before they had utterly denied." — 
 He raised his voice at the conclusion of this 
 sentence as if an irresistible demonstration had 
 
 been 
 
( 193 ) 
 
 been wound up ; and so indeed there had, be- 
 cause the proof was irresistible that his church 
 bad shut her doors against the highest proofs of 
 religious sincerity, and thrown them open to 
 self-interest and falsehood. 
 
 I did not chuse, however, to mortify him by 
 this declaration, but contented myself with re- 
 peating my admission that every national church 
 was fully justified in publishing its own creeds, 
 and that such professions should, in a religious 
 sense, be considered as the national faith, but 
 not so as to touch the consciences of men by 
 exclusions of any description for differing only 
 as to mysteries, the truth of which no church 
 could perfectly know, and which were immaterial 
 if they could be known. — " How far," I said, 
 " are we distant from that beautiful bridge, 
 which promises to be as immortal as the victory 
 it has recorded ?" — " Above a mile," he answered, 
 " but I cannot comprehend the meaning of your 
 question." — " Then I will tell you," I answered, 
 " in a word." 
 
 o 
 
 « Some 
 
( 194 ) 
 
 " Some of the mysteries which you insist 
 upon, and make the parents of a widely-spread- 
 ing dissent, are so immaterial to the essential 
 truth and character of divine revelation, that 
 perhaps, on that very account, they are covered 
 as with a veil from the presumptuous mind of 
 man ; and so little do I seek to remove it, that 
 if an angel were now standing upon the centre 
 arch of the bridge I point to, I would not 
 walk through the rain that is falling, to know 
 from him which opinion concerning them was 
 best, so as I knew that God had through re- 
 demption received me, and in any manner had 
 enlightened me with his holy spirit. — It is most 
 fit, nevertheless, that your Scriptures should in 
 those points be examined, and that the best 
 expositions should be supported and illustrated 
 by your church, but they should neither be 
 made proscriptive articles of belief, nor subjects 
 of contention amongst mankind. — Her establish- 
 ment, as you have described it, is entitled to re- 
 verence for its purity and wisdom, and if all 
 her ministers would only preach their own evan- 
 gelical 
 
( 195 ) 
 
 gelical doctrines, one half of the chapels that 
 within a few years have started up and out- 
 numbered your steeples, would probably tumble 
 down of themselves, and as she has not half 
 room enough for her own congregations, she 
 might then build even cathedrals from their 
 ruins, and bring back into her bosom dissenters 
 of all descriptions, who now threaten to swallow 
 her up." 
 
 I intended this advice to be private, and that 
 it should never travel from thence into our own 
 world, though the gossip of a traveller has re- 
 vealed it ; because, though I sincerely honour 
 the Church of England, and hold by her 
 doctrines, as the purest, and the best, yet I wish 
 that our national religion, as well as our civil 
 state, should be balanced by a popular consti- 
 tution, and that the free spirit of the dissenters 
 should continue. 
 
 Absurd, enthusiastic ardour ought to be ex- 
 posed and discountenanced, because it brings 
 
 o 2 religion 
 
( 196 ) 
 
 religion into contempt, but it consists with my 
 own knowledge that many persons in England, 
 of the purest lives, and of the most exalted wis- 
 dom and virtue, have been reproached or sneered 
 at as Methodists, only for maintaining and be- 
 lieving the very same doctrines which Our Sa- 
 viour preached when upon the earth. 
 
 CHAP- 
 
( 197 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Author resolves to leave Armata, and to return to the 
 Earth — He prepares for his Voyage, regains the connecting 
 Channel, and passes it in safely, but is qftemards wrecked on 
 the Coast of' Ireland, and proceeds from thence to London. 
 
 The enjoyments of this great and delightful 
 city were now drawing to a close. — I had been 
 long passionately attached to Morvina, though 
 I have not troubled the reader with the progress 
 of my passion. — Her accomplishments and 
 beauty absorbed every thought, but, alas! they 
 were suddenly embittered by the dreadful com- 
 munication of her father, that, though he had 
 not betrothed, nor had she engaged herself to 
 any of the illustrious suitors who were pursuing 
 her, yet that I must not think of impeding her 
 advancement in the world by my attentions, 
 which, he said, had been observed. — What could 
 I answer to this, or how could I complain ? — 
 Let the reader indeed only figure to himself a 
 man dropping down upon our surface, an alien 
 
 o 3 not 
 
( m ) 
 
 not only to our country, but to our world, dis- 
 puting the prize of the finest woman in Lon- 
 don, and asking her father's preference, how- 
 ever much he might be his friend — Need I add 
 that my own thoughts rebuked me ? — I felt all 
 I owed to the noble-minded Morven, but my 
 honour forbad me to promise what it might not 
 enable me to perform. — I saw Morvina almost 
 at the moment, to whom he had given similar 
 commands, and who, for the same reason, had 
 silently received them. 
 
 I shall not attempt to affect the reader with a 
 tender story. — All people who are in love are so 
 very much the same, that it may be one reason 
 why the general run of novels so strongly re- 
 semble one another. — It is a most difficult kind 
 of composition. — There is but one Tom Jones, 
 one Guy Mannering, and Landlords are more apt 
 to distress us for their rents, than to delight us 
 with such tales as only one of them I ever 
 heard of had to tell. — Yet were I not re- 
 strained by the fear of failure, I might be 
 
 tempted 
 
( 199 ) 
 
 tempted to work up into a scene of deep interest 
 our desperate plan of an elopement from one world 
 to another; for no less an adventure our mutual 
 passion had the instant daring to project, and 
 I had secretly engaged an adventurous navigator 
 to run the hazard of our exploit, — hut worse 
 evils than parental rejection lurked behind : She 
 was obliged to continue the race of dissipation 
 on the high road to a settlement of her father's 
 choice, instead of calmly retiring with the object 
 of her own ; and the race, alas ! was a short 
 one — At an assembly, such as I have but too 
 faithfully described, the dancers becoming 
 breathless, in a small and crowded apartment, all 
 the windows were thrown open, and the air 
 rushing in upon her delicate frame, now more 
 susceptible from anxiety and agitation, she was 
 seized with a violent fever which, in a very few 
 days, proved fatal to all our hopes. — I now re- 
 vealed to Morven our unhappy secret, and as 
 all expectations on this side the grave were 
 extinguished, his friendship and compassion ad- 
 mitted my visits even to the last moment of 
 o 4 life, 
 
( 200 ) 
 
 life, when fainting in my arms her angel form 
 seemed to grow lighter and lighter, and to 
 escape from me with her dying breath — But 
 surely, wherever our lots may be cast hereafter, 
 the souls of those who loved as we did can 
 never be divided. 
 
 I was now resolved that nothing should pre- 
 vent my immediate attempt to return to the 
 earth. — I collected all my nautical observations, 
 and Morven having tendered me his purse to 
 any extent, I continued the engagement which 
 I had secretly begun, and prepared for my 
 voyage, doubtful and dangerous as it was. — The 
 passage, I found, would in its beginning be 
 circuitous, requiring only a coaster's skill, until 
 my vessel should reach the open sea ; I put her 
 therefore under the care of her owner, and ac- 
 cepted the offer of my beloved friend to accom- 
 pany me himself to the more distant shore, 
 where I might commit myself at once to the 
 only Pilot that could then shape the course I 
 was to pursue — the Divine Providence which 
 
 had 
 
( 201 ) 
 
 had watched over me with so many signal 
 deliverances from the beginning of my adven- 
 turous life. 
 
 My ship now left the port, and in four days 
 the accounts having reached us that she was 
 anchored at the appointed place, we set out 
 immediately to join her. 
 
 On our arrival next day I learned from Mor- 
 ven, that the King was then at a palace near 
 the sea, and that it was fit 1 should be pre- 
 sented before I sailed. I had indeed, and with 
 deep regret, gone through the same ceremony 
 on taking leave of a Prince, the very pattern of 
 hospitality and kindness, who from my first 
 lauding had received me as a frequent and 
 familiar guest. — His consort was a foreign Prin- 
 cess, the daughter of a King, and all the kings 
 of the earth, from her high qualifications, might 
 be proud of such an illustration of royal birth. 
 
 I was now presented to the Sovereign, whom 
 
 I found 
 
( 202 ) 
 
 I found singularly graceful and accomplished-— 
 he had been bred in the general world, the best 
 school for princes, as for other men. — Fame also 
 with her trumpet was sounding, almost at the 
 same moment, the approach of another genera- 
 tion of his royal house, and Morven, as if he 
 had been read in Shakspeare, said he thought 
 he saw the Genius of Armata holding up a glass 
 " which shewed him many more." 
 
 I was received most graciously, and need not 
 say how highly gratified I returned from a scene 
 so interesting and so new. — I should like, indeed, 
 to see how people would stare, and to hear what 
 they would say, if the Man in the Moon 
 were to be presented at St. James's or Carlton 
 House — Yet what better was I in Armata, than 
 that honourable gentleman would be here ; who, 
 though the inhabitant of a long known and do- 
 mestic planet, has never yet advanced to a higher 
 distinction amongst us, than to have his portrait 
 swinging upon a sign-post, as a notice that ale 
 is to be sold. 
 
 Though 
 
( 203 ) 
 
 Though I have never been a courtier, I have 
 not suppressed the poetical flight of Morven 
 respecting the Genius of Armata, because it is 
 not useless in a monarchy like our own to sepa- 
 rate a kind-hearted interest in our native princes 
 from the indiscriminate support of any ministers 
 they may employ ; — the first, when honestly 
 kept within the limits of duty to the people, 
 gives dignity and security to the state; — the 
 second, (too often a blind, unprincipled follow- 
 ing,) is a pernicious homage, degrading to the 
 individuals, and destructive to the constitution 
 of our country. — A firm adherence to political 
 principles, and to the friendships they create 
 among public men, is a great antidote to cor- 
 ruption in parliament. — I honour those who 
 support ministers from such considerations, as 
 much as those who may oppose them, but 
 the ranks are always swelled by those who 
 range themselves under no standard but that 
 which is planted by the Minister of the 
 Day. 
 
 My 
 
( 204 ) 
 
 My observation is general, and points to no 
 particular statesmen, nor to any parties. 
 
 My vessel now lay within a mile from the 
 shore, fully equipped for my adventurous voy- 
 age, and ready with her sails all loose to receive 
 me. — I fell into the arms of my generous deli- 
 verer, embracing him with tears of gratitude 
 and affection, and my boat being upon the 
 strand, I was very soon on board. — The wind 
 M'as fair, and when the night closed in upon 
 us, heaven seemed to smile upon my under- 
 taking with all her multitude of stars — the polar 
 constellation bidding me as it were depend upon 
 it for my course, as much as if I had been on 
 the earth. — I knew indeed I was secure ; as even 
 a million of miles on the one side or the other, 
 could not in the smallest degree affect its 
 bearings upon any of our planets so incon- 
 ceivably distant. — They have a kind of magnet 
 in Armata, but I knew it not. — I looked up 
 only to those other worlds to conduct me to 
 my own. 
 
 We 
 
( 205 ) 
 
 We reached in a few days the tranquil ocean* 
 and I marked well the peculiar birds and the 
 sportive fishes which seemed to welcome me on 
 my return. — The sea now becoming strongly 
 agitated, though the Avind even slackened, I 
 thought that the connecting channel must be 
 near, and my hopes were not disappointed; but 
 the entrance was so tremendous as we ap- 
 proached it, that my courage almost forsook me. 
 — It was as black as Hell, and the sounds which 
 re-echoed between the rocks were hideous and 
 distracting. — My crew (though Armatan sailors) 
 were for a moment discomfited by this scene of 
 horror, but I reminded them that God was in the 
 whirlwind as in the zephyr, and a song and a 
 dram soon settled all their fears. — As we were 
 sucked deeper into the channel the water became 
 less convulsed, and in a few hours, the current 
 becoming uniformly smooth, and running with 
 the same velocity as in my voyage outward, I 
 knew to a certainty we were in the returning 
 course, and took my measures accordingly. — As 
 nothing could now occur during the months 
 
 which 
 
( 206 ) 
 
 which must elapse before the gulph could be 
 cleared which divided our worlds, I ordered up 
 our dead lights, lashed the helm a-midships, 
 furled every sail, and, encouraging my crew 
 by the most hospitable indulgence, Ave lived 
 as jollily as if we had been on shore. — Our 
 sea stock of every kind was abundant, and I had 
 no more fears for the result of my voyage, than 
 if my cargo had been coals on a voyage from 
 Newcastle to London. — There were no dangers 
 to encounter at the other aperture of the current, 
 and the remainder of the passage was over our 
 own seas. 
 
 The longest day will have an end — we emerged 
 from the channel after a transit of nearly the 
 same period as outward, having been three 
 calendar months, four days, and seven hours in 
 its rapid tide and under its sable shadow. — We 
 now pursued our course without any unusual 
 incident till we made the coast of Ireland, when a 
 sudden storm arose which I tremble to think of, 
 and shall not attempt to describe. — The winds, 
 
 or 
 
( 207 ) 
 
 or rather all the elements combined, blew directly 
 upon the shore; at midnight we were embayed, 
 and before the day dawned, a brighter and an 
 eternal day rose, I trust, upon my brave and 
 hapless companions; as the vessel having taken 
 the ground and overset above two cables' length 
 from the shore, every soul of them 
 perished. — I jumped overboard myself the 
 moment she struck, and being a dexterous swim- 
 mer, which gave me confidence amidst waves 
 that seemed contending with the clouds, I was 
 dashed to and fro till I felt something strike 
 against my breast. — It was a spar from the vessel, 
 and clinging to it I was saved. 
 
 The coast was thinly inhabited, or rather 
 almost a desert; but a few honest and kind- 
 hearted people came down to the beach in the 
 morning and comforted me in their little cabins 
 near the sea. — They seemed much surprized at 
 the floating fragments of the vessel, as, though 
 the structure of it was demolished, the timbers, 
 
 they 
 
( 208 ) 
 
 they said, were quite different from any they had 
 ever seen. It was not long before we were 
 visited by a neighbouring magistrate, with 
 several people from the higher country, who set 
 about the construction of a raft to preserve, if 
 possible, some remains of so curious a wreck ; 
 but the wind coming off the land, and, as is 
 often the case in such tempests, blowing with 
 equal fury, every attempt to save even an atom 
 of her was in vain. 
 
 After a few hours rest I thanked the good 
 people for their kindness to me, and when they 
 had dried my clothes by a peat fire, and given me 
 a glass of some very strong spirit, I set out on 
 foot, and meeting every where with the most 
 friendly, hospitable reception from the brave and 
 honest sons of St. Patrick, I arrived safe at 
 Dublin, where, finding credit for a few pounds 
 with a merchant who had formerly known me, 
 I crossed the channel in a vessel bound for the 
 Thames, and, having some acquaintances at 
 
 Black- 
 
( c 209 ) 
 
 Blackheath, I arrived there on the 1/th of Octo- 
 ber, and on the 19th in London, where I have 
 continued ever since, but arn now in daily ex- 
 pectation of receiving my dispatches for a 
 voyage with a commercial fleet. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 London: Printed by C. Itoworth, 
 Bell-yard, Templ e-bar. 
 

 
 
 
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