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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
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ENGLAND, 
 
 H 
 
 IRELAND, 
 
 AND 
 
 A iVI E R I C A. 
 
 BY 
 
 A MANCHESTER MANUFACTURER. 
 
 ** The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is. In extending our com 
 inercial relations—to have with them as little political connection as possible.**— Washing 
 ton's Furewell Address to the American People . 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JAMES RIDGWAY AND SONS, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCXXXV. 
 

 CHARI FS WOOD AND SON, PRINTERS, 
 
 Popping Court, Fleet Street, 
 
zi. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE C. P. THOMSON, 
 
 MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT Fon MANCHESTER, 
 
 THE ENLIGHTENED ADVOCATE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE PEACEFUL PRINCIPLES OF FREE TRADE, 
 
 THESE PAGES 
 
 ARE DEDICATED 
 
 BY 
 
 ONE OF HIS CONSTITUENTS. 
 

 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following pages were written, princi¬ 
 pally, with a view to endeavour to prove the 
 erroneous foreign policy of the government 
 of this country. English statesmen of every 
 age, down even to the present day, have, 
 one and all, lost sight of that distinguishing 
 and privileged feature, which is peculiar to 
 the insular situation of Great Britain. 
 
 If we go back to the year 1805, when 
 Nelson destroyed the remains of the French 
 navy at Trafalgar, these islands were thence¬ 
 forth as secure against foreign molestation 
 as though they had formed a portion of the 
 moon’s territory; yet, from that time down 
 to 1815, we waged incessant war, and in- 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 curred four hundred millions of debt lor 
 interests purely continental*. 
 
 It ought to have been expected, whilst 
 borrowing and wasting so much treasure, 
 that a day of reckoning must at some time 
 arrive. We fear the day is at hand. That 
 grievous disorder, the “ maladie cle poche ,” is 
 spreading throughout the middle classes of 
 the community, revealing itself, not only in 
 the changed complexion and subverted 
 habits, but even still more strongly in the 
 altered tastes of the present generation. 
 
 Yet the cause of all this — our fatal mania 
 
 * Our European commerce yields but a poor set-off 
 against the expenses of the war. The hundred days of 
 Napoleon cost us forty millions; the interest of which, 
 at five per cent., is two millions. Now, our exports to 
 all Europe, of British manufactures, amount to about 
 eighteen millions annually ; and taking the profit at ten 
 per cent., it falls short of two millions. So that all the 
 profit of all our merchants, trading with all Europe, will 
 not yield sufficient to pay the yearly interest of the cost 
 of the last one hundred days’ war on the Continent, 
 leaving all the other hundreds of millions spent pre¬ 
 viously as so much dead loss. 
 
PR EFACE. 
 
 VII 
 
 lor intervention in foreign politics — still 
 survives. We learn by the newspapers, that 
 Pozzo di Borgo has arrived in England, and 
 that London is now the focus of political 
 intrigue for all Europe. The same infor¬ 
 mants have told us, from time to time, that 
 the British agent arrested the march of Ibra¬ 
 him at Koniah; — that our envoy to Persia 
 has just assisted to instal the young Schah, 
 at an expense to us of thirty thousand 
 pounds ; — that our fleets are watching Con¬ 
 stantinople, prepared to rescue the Sultan 
 from the hands of his rebellious subjects; — 
 and that Lord Eliot is dispatched to the 
 head quarters of Don Carlos in Spain. And 
 wc are taught to consider all these and 
 similar things as calculated to promote the 
 honour and interests of Great Britain ; 
 against which doctrine we protest, for reasons 
 which are here humbly offered to the con¬ 
 sideration of our readers. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND AMERICA. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 To maintain what is denominated the true balance 
 of European power, has been the fruitful source of 
 wars from the earliest time; and it would be in¬ 
 structive, if the proposed limits of this work per¬ 
 mitted it, to bring into review all the opposite 
 struggles into which England has plunged, for the 
 purpose of adjusting, from time to time, according to 
 the ever-varying theories of her rulers, this national 
 equilibrium. Let it suffice to say, that history ex¬ 
 hibits us, at different periods, in the act of casting 
 our sword into the scale of every European state. 
 In the mean time, events have proclaimed, but in 
 vain, how futile must be our attempts to usurp the 
 sceptre of the Fates. Empires have arisen unbidden 
 by us: others have departed, despite our utmost 
 efforts to preserve them: all have undergone a 
 change so complete, that, were the writers who 
 only a century ago lauded the then existing state of 
 the balance of Europe to reappear, they would be 
 
 u 
 
2 
 
 startled to find, in the present relations of the Con¬ 
 tinent, no vestige of that perfect adjustment which 
 had been purchased at the price of so much blood. 
 And yet we have able writers and statesmen of the 
 present day, who would advocate a war to prevent 
 a derangement of what we now choose to pronounce 
 the just equipoise of the power of Europe. 
 
 For a period of six hundred years, the French 
 and English people had never ceased to regard 
 each other as natural enemies. Scarcely a genera¬ 
 tion passed over its allotted section of this vast in¬ 
 terval of time, without sacrificing its victims to the 
 spirit of national hate. It was reserved for our own 
 dav to witness the close of a feud, the bloodiest, the 
 longest, and yet in its consequences the most nuga¬ 
 tory, of any that is to be found in the annals of the 
 world. Scarcely have we had time to indulge the 
 first emotions of pity and amazement at the folly of 
 past ages, when, as if to justify to the letter the 
 sarcasm of Hume, when alluding to another sub¬ 
 ject *, we, the English people, are preparing, 
 through the vehicles of opinion, the public press, to 
 enter upon a hostile career with Russia. 
 
 Russia, and no longer France, is the chimera 
 
 • “ Though, in a future ag-e, it will probably become difficult 
 to persuade some nations that any human two-legged creature 
 could ever embrace such principles. And it is a thousand to 
 ODe but those nations themselves shall have something fall as 
 absurd in their own creed, to which they will give a most implicit 
 assent. r 
 
3 
 
 that now haunts us in our apprehensions for the 
 safety of Europe : whilst Turkey, for the first time, 
 appears to claim our sympathy and protection 
 against the encroachments of her neighbours ; and, 
 strange as it may appear to the politicians of a 
 future age, such is the prevailing sentiment of hos¬ 
 tility towards the Russian government at this time 
 in the public mind, that with but few additional 
 provocatives administered to it by a judicious mi¬ 
 nister through the public prints, a conflict with that 
 Christian power, in defence of a Mahomedan people 
 more than a thousand miles distant from our shores, 
 might be made palatable, nay popular, with the 
 British nation. It would not be difficult to find a 
 cause for this antipathy : the impulse, as usual with 
 large masses of human beings, is a generous one, 
 and arises in great part from emotions of pity for 
 the gallant Polish people, and of indignation at the 
 conduct of their oppressors — sentiments in which 
 we cordially and zealously concur: and if it were 
 the province of Great Britain to administer justice 
 to all the people of the earth — in other words, if 
 God had given us, as a nation, the authority and 
 the power, together with the wisdom and the good¬ 
 ness, sufficient to qualify us to deal forth his ven¬ 
 geance—then should we be called upon in this case 
 to rescue the weak from the hands of their spoilers. 
 But do we possess these favoured endowments? Are 
 we armed with the powers of Omnipotence ; or, on 
 the contrary, can we discover another people rising 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 into strength with a rapidity that threatens inevi¬ 
 tably to overshadow us? Again, do we find our¬ 
 selves to possess the virtue and the wisdom essential 
 to the possession of supreme power; or, on the other 
 hand, have we not at our side, in the wrongs of a 
 portion of our own people, a proof that we can 
 justly lay claim to neither? 
 
 Ireland and the United States of America ought 
 to be the subjects of our inquiry at this period, when 
 we are, apparently, preparing ourselves to engage 
 as parties to a question, involving countries with 
 which we are but remotely, and in comparison very 
 little, interested. Before entering upon some re¬ 
 flections under each of these heads, we shall call 
 the consideration of our readers to the affairs of 
 Russia and Turkey; and we shall use, as the text of 
 our remarks, a pamphlet that has recently made its 
 appearance under the title of “ England, France, 
 Russia, and Turkey,” to which our attention was 
 first attracted by the favourable comments bestowed 
 upon it by the influential portion of the daily 
 press. 
 
 The writer appears to be versed in the diplomatic 
 mysteries of the courts of St. Petersburgh and Con¬ 
 stantinople : indeed he hints that he has been him¬ 
 self a party to the negociations carried on with the 
 Sublime Porte. He says, p. 77, “ The details into 
 which we have already entered may probably con¬ 
 tain internal evidence of our opinion not having- 
 been formed in a closet, remote from the subject we 
 
are treating.” And the concluding words of the 
 pamphlet are calculated to lead to a similar in¬ 
 ference; and they are moreover curious, as illus¬ 
 trating the tone of feeling with which the author 
 regards the Russian government. “ Our words 
 have been fewer than our thoughts; and while we 
 have to regret abler hands had not wielded our 
 arms, we owe it to our subject to state, that others, 
 unproduced, prudence forbad to draw, until the 
 hour of retribution arrives 
 
 After a preliminary appeal to the sympathies of 
 his readers in favour of Poland, he proceeds to 
 ask, “Is the substance of Turkey to be added to 
 the growth of Russia? Is the mammoth of the 
 Sarmatian plains to become the leviathan of the 
 Hesperian seas ? Is another victim to be sacrificed 
 within so short time on the same altar, and because 
 the same trifling succour is again withheld ? Are 
 the remains of Turkey to be laid upon the tomb of 
 Poland, to exclude every ray of hope, and render 
 its doom irrevocable ?” 
 
 To what extent this trifling succour is meant to 
 go, will be explained in the writer’s own words by 
 and by. But we propose in this place to inquire, 
 what are the motives that England can have to 
 desire to preserve the Ottoman empire at the risk 
 of a war, however trifling? In entering on this 
 question, we shall of course premise, that no govern¬ 
 ment has the right to plunge its people into hostili¬ 
 ties, except in defence of their own national honour 
 
(i 
 
 or interests. Unless this principle be made the rule 
 of all, there can be no guarantee for the peace of 
 any one country, so long as there may be found a 
 people whose grievances may attract the sympathy, 
 or invite the interference, of another state. How 
 then do we find our honour or interest concerned in 
 defending the Turkish territory against the en¬ 
 croachments of its Christian neighbour ? It is not 
 alleged that we have an alliance with the Ottoman 
 Porte, which binds us to preserve its empire intact; 
 nor does there exist, with regard to this country, a 
 treaty between Russia and Great Britain (as was the 
 case with respect to Poland), by which we became 
 jointly guarantees for its separate national existence. 
 The writer we are quoting, puts the motive for our 
 interference in a singular point of view : he says, 
 “ This obligation is imposed upon us, as members 
 of the European community, by the approaching 
 annihilation of another of our compeers. It is im¬ 
 posed upon us by the necessity of maintaining the 
 consideration due to ourselves, — the first element 
 of political power and influence.” From this it 
 would appear to be the opinion of our author, that 
 our being one of the nations of Europe imposes on 
 us, besides the defence of our own territory, the 
 task of upholding the rights, and perpetuating the 
 existence, of all the other powers of the Continent; 
 a sentiment common, we fear, to a very large por¬ 
 tion of the English public. In truth, Great Britain 
 has, in contempt of the dictates of prudence and 
 
7 
 
 self-interest, an insatiable thirst to become the peace¬ 
 maker abroad; or, if that benevolent task fail her, 
 to assume the office of gensdarme, and keep in order, 
 gratuitously, all the refractory nations of Europe. 
 Hence does it arise, that with an invulnerable 
 island for our territory, more secure against foreign 
 molestation than is any part of the coast of North 
 America, we magnanimously disdain to avail ourselves 
 of the privileges which nature offers to us, but cross 
 the ocean, in quest of quadripartite treaties or 
 quintuple alliances, and, probably, to leave our own 
 good name in pledge for the debts of the poorer 
 members of such confederacies. To the same spirit 
 of overweening national importance, may in great 
 part be traced the ruinous wars, and yet more ruin¬ 
 ous subsidies of our past history. Who does not 
 now see, that to have shut ourselves in our own 
 ocean fastness, and to have guarded its shores and 
 its commerce by our fleets, was the line of policy 
 we ought never to have departed from—and who is 
 there that is not now feeling, in the burthen of our 
 taxation, the dismal errors of our departure from 
 this rule, during the last war? How little wisdom 
 we have gathered, along with these bitter fruits of 
 experience, let the subject of our present inquiry 
 determine! 
 
 Judging from another passage in this pamphlet, 
 it would appear that England and France are now 
 to be the sole dictators of the international relations 
 of all Europe. The following passage is dictated 
 
8 
 
 by that pure spirit of English vanity, which has 
 already proved so expensive an appendage to our 
 character; and which, unless allayed by increased 
 knowledge among the people, or fairly crushed out 
 of us by our financial burthens, will, we fear, carry 
 us still deeper into the vortex of debt. “ The 
 squadrons of England and France anchored in the 
 Bosphorus, they dictate their own terms to Turkey; 
 to Russia they proclaim, that from that day they 
 intend to arbitrate supremely between the nations of 
 the earth." 
 
 We know but of one way in which the honour 
 of this country may be involved in the defence and 
 preservation of the Turkish empire; and that is, 
 through the indiscreet meddling in the intrigues of 
 the Seraglio, on the part of our diplomatists. After 
 a few flourishes of the pen, in the style and spirit 
 of the above quotations, Shall have passed between 
 the gentlemen of tb'fc.ival embassies of St. James’s 
 and St. Petersburgh, who knows but tile English 
 nation may, some day, be surprised by the discovery, 
 that it is compromised in a quarrel from which 
 there is no honourable escape but by the disastrous 
 course of a long and ruinous war. 
 
 If our honour be not committed in this ease, still 
 less shall we find, by examining a little more at 
 length, that our interests are involved in the preser¬ 
 vation of Turkey. To quote again from the pam¬ 
 phlet before us. “ Suffice it to say, that the coun¬ 
 tries consuming to the yearly value of thirty mil- 
 
9 
 
 lions* of our exports, would be placed under the 
 immediate control of the coalition (Russia, Prussia, 
 and Austria), and, of course, under the regulations 
 of the Russian tariff ; not as it is to-day, but such 
 as it would be when the mask is wholly dropt. 
 What would be the effect on the internal state of 
 England, if a considerable diminution of exporta¬ 
 tion occurred ? But it is not only the direct effects 
 of the tariffs of the coalition that is to be appre¬ 
 hended : would it not command the tariffs of North¬ 
 ern and Southern America.” Passing over, as too 
 chimerical for comment, the allusion to the New 
 World, we here have the argument which has, im¬ 
 mediately or remotely, decided us to undertake 
 almost every war in which Great Britain has been 
 involved, — viz. the defence of our commerce. And 
 yet it has, over and over again, been proved to the 
 world, that violence and force can never prevail 
 against the natural wants and wishes of mankind : 
 in other words, that despotic laws against freedom 
 of trade never can be executed. “ Trade cannot, 
 will not, be forced ; let other nations prohibit by 
 what severity they please, interest will prevail : 
 they may embarrass their own trade, but cannot 
 hurt a nation whose trade is free, so much as them¬ 
 selves.” So said a writer f a century ago, whilst 
 experience down to our own day has done nothing 
 
 * Official value. 
 
 f Sir Matthew Decker. 
 
10 
 
 but confirm the truth of his maxims; and yet people 
 would frighten us into a war, to prevent the forcible 
 annihilation of our trade. Can any proofs be offered, 
 how visionary are such fears, more conclusive than 
 are to be found in the history of Napoleon’s cele¬ 
 brated war against English commerce ? Let us 
 briefly state a few particulars of this famous strug¬ 
 gle, — the subject, though familiar to every body, 
 is one, the moral of which has never been properly 
 enforced. 
 
 The British Islands were, in 1807, declared by 
 Bonaparte in a state of blockade, by those decrees 
 which aimed at the total destruction of the trade of 
 Great Britain. The Berlin and Milan edicts de¬ 
 clared, 
 
 1. The British Isles were in a state of blockade. 
 2. All commerce and correspondence were for¬ 
 bidden. All English letters were to be seized in 
 the post-houses. 3. Every Englishman, of what¬ 
 ever rank or quality, found in France, or the 
 countries allied with her, was declared a prisoner 
 of war. 4. All merchandize or property, of what¬ 
 ever kind, belonging to English subjects, was 
 declared lawful prize. 5. All articles of English 
 manufacture, and articles produced in her colonies, 
 were, in like manner, declared contraband, and 
 lawful prize. 
 
 France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Italy, 
 and the States of Germany, joined in this conspiracy 
 against the commerce of England. To euforce 
 
 Q O 
 
11 
 
 more effectually these prohibitions, commissioners of 
 rank were appointed to each of the principal sea¬ 
 ports of the Continent. Now let us mark well the 
 result of this great confederation, which was formed 
 for the avowed purpose of annihilating us as a 
 trading people. The following is an acccount of 
 the declared value of our exports of British products 
 for each of the years mentioned, ending 5th of 
 January. 
 
 £. 
 
 1804 . 
 
 
 1805 . 
 
 
 1800 . 
 
 . 37,200,000 
 
 1807 . 
 
 . 39,700,000 
 
 1808 . 
 
 
 1809 . 
 
 . 36,300,000 
 
 It must be borne in mind, that the proclamation 
 of war against our trade, above mentioned, was 
 dated in 1807. It appears then by the preceding 
 tabular view, that our commerce sustained a loss to 
 the extent of about 7-+- percent in 1808 and 1809, as 
 compared with 1806 and 1807; whilst the amount 
 of exports in the year 1808, or 1809, if compared 
 with the mean or average amount of the above six 
 years, shows a diminution only of about two per 
 cent. And all this took place, be it remembered, 
 when two-thirds of our foreign trade was confined 
 to Europe # . 
 
 * It would be amusing, and full of romantic interest, to detail 
 some of the ten thou.and justifiable arts invented to thwart this 
 
12 
 
 It is singular to observe, that, by the following 
 Table, the declared value of our exports, during the 
 last six years, has remained nearly stationary, at a 
 point varying from the average of the former series 
 of years only by a fraction. 
 
 Below is a table of the exports of the products of 
 British industry for six years, ending in 1833. 
 
 of. 
 
 1828 . 30 , 400,000 
 
 1829 . 36 , 200,000 
 
 1830 . 35 , 200,000 
 
 1831 . 37 , 700,000 
 
 1832 . 36 , 600,000 
 
 1833 . 36 , 000,000 
 
 But it must be borne in view, that as the price of 
 the raw materials of manufacturers, such as wool, 
 cotton, silk, iron, &c., together with the price of 
 grain, has undergone a vast depreciation in cost 
 siuce the former periods, of course the actual ex¬ 
 changeable value of the money-amounts in the 
 second Table is very much greater than in the first. 
 
 unnatural coalition, which, of necessity, converted almost every 
 citizen of Europe into a smuggler. Bourieune, who was him¬ 
 self one of the commissioners at Hamburgh, gives some interest¬ 
 ing anecdotes in his Memoirs under this head. The writer is 
 acquainted with a merchant, who was interested in a house 
 that employed five hundred horses in transporting British goods, 
 many of which were landed in Sclavonia, and thence conveyed 
 over-land to France, at a charge of about twenty-eight pounds a 
 cwt , more than fifty times the present freight of merchandize 
 from London to Calcutta ! 
 
13 
 
 In fact, the official value of our exports appears to 
 have doubled, whilst the real or declared value has 
 remained stationary. Bearing all this in mind, still, 
 if we take into consideration the great increase of 
 our exports, siuce 1809, to the Americas, and to 
 Asia, — the quarters where our commerce has been 
 principally increasing,—and if we also recollect the 
 higher rate of profits at the earlier periods, it be¬ 
 comes a question if our trade with Europe, notwith¬ 
 standing its rapid increase in population and wealth, 
 has been benefited by the peace. It is exceedingly 
 doubtful, whether, whilst we were engaged in a war 
 for the avowed emancipation of our commerce, our 
 merchants were not, all the while, carrying on a 
 more gainful traffic with the Continent than they now 
 do, when its people have become our bloodless rivals 
 at the loom and the spinning-frame. 
 
 Where then is the wisdom of our fighting Euro¬ 
 pean battles in defence of a commerce which knows 
 so well of itself how to elude all its assailants ? 
 And what have we to show as a per-contra for the 
 four hundred millions of debt incurred in our last 
 continental wars ? 
 
 We have dwelt at greater length upon this point, 
 because the advocates of an intermeddling policy 
 always hold up the alluring prospect of benefiting 
 commerce; and we think we have said enough to 
 prove, that Russian violence cannot destroy, or even 
 sensibly injure our trade. 
 
 But it here becomes proper to ask, are we war- 
 
14 
 
 ranted in the presumption that Russia is less inclined 
 than other nations for trading with us. Our author 
 indeed says, p. 90, “ Is it for England to allow an 
 empire, a principle of whose existence is freedom of 
 commerce, to be swallowed up by the most restric¬ 
 tive power on the face of the earth ? Is it for Eng¬ 
 land to allow the first commercial position in the 
 world to be occupied by such a power? Is it for Eng¬ 
 land to allow freedom of commerce to be extinguished 
 in the only portion of Europe where it exists ? ” 
 
 We are at a loss to account for the ignorance 
 that exists with reference to the comparative import¬ 
 ance of our trade with Russia and Turkey. The 
 following tables exhibit the amounts of our exports to 
 each of the two countries, at the dates mentioned. 
 
 Exports 
 
 to Russia. 
 
 Exports to Turkey. 
 
 A. D. 
 
 £. 
 
 A. D. 
 
 of. 
 
 1700 ... 
 
 
 1700 .... 
 
 . 220,000 
 
 1“50 ... 
 
 ... 100.000 
 
 1750 . 
 
 . 135,000 
 
 1790 ... 
 
 ... 400,000 
 
 1790 . 
 
 . 120.000 
 
 1S00 ... 
 
 
 1800 . 
 
 . 165,000 
 
 1820 ... 
 
 ... 2.300.000 
 
 1820 . 
 
 .. 800.000* 
 
 By which it will be seen, that, whilst Turkey has 
 in more than a century quadrupled the amount of its 
 purchases, Russia has, in the same interval of time, 
 increased her consumption of our goods nearly forty- 
 fold. Our exports since the year 1700 have in¬ 
 creased in a more rapid ratio to Russia thau to any 
 other country of Europe. 
 
 * M‘CulIoch’s Diet., 2d edit. p. 6/1. 
 
15 
 
 The rise of the commerce of St. Petersburgh is 
 unparalleled by any thing we meet with in Europe, 
 out of England. This city was founded in 1703; 
 in 1714 only sixteen ships entered the port, whilst 
 in 1833 twelve hundred and thirty-eight vessels 
 arrived, and of which no less a proportion than six 
 hundred and ninety-four were British. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten, in drawing a com¬ 
 parison between the value of our trade with Russia 
 and that with Turkey, that whilst the former has, 
 until very recently, possessed but little sea-coast, 
 with but one good port, and that closed by ice one 
 half of the year; the latter had, down to the date at 
 which we have purposely brought the comparison 
 (when the Greek Islands still formed a portion of 
 the Turkish empire), more than double the extent 
 of maritime territory of any power in Europe, situ¬ 
 ated in latitudes, too, the most favourable for com¬ 
 merce, including not only the best harbours in the 
 world, but the largest river in Europe. 
 
 Neither must it be forgotten, that the natural pro¬ 
 ducts of the Russian empire are restricted to corn, 
 hemp, tallow, timber, and hides, with a few minor 
 commodities; andthatof these, the two importantarti- 
 cles of corn and timber are subjected to restrictive, or 
 we might almost say, prohibitive, duties at our hands; 
 whilst Turkey contains the soil and climate adapted 
 for producing almost every article of commerce, with 
 the exception probably only of sugar and tea. We need 
 only mention corn, timber, cotton-wool, sheep's-wool, 
 
16 
 
 wood and drugs for dyeing, wine and spirits, tobacco, 
 silk, tallow, hidesandskins, coffee, spices, and bullion 
 —to exhibit the natural fertility of a country which is 
 now rendered sterile by the brutalizing rule of Maho¬ 
 metanism. Nor can it be said that commerce is wholly 
 free in Turkey, since the exportation of silk is 
 burthened with a duty, and it is prohibited to export 
 grain, or any other article of necessity, including the 
 products of the mines. It is true that this otherwise 
 barbarous government has set an example to more 
 civilized countries, by its moderate import duties on 
 foreign productions; and this, we suspect, is the se¬ 
 cret of that surprising tenacity of life which exists 
 in the Ottoman empire, notwithstanding the thousand 
 organic diseases that are consuming its body 
 politic. But what avails it to throw open the ports 
 of a country to our ships, if the population will not 
 labour to obtain the produce wherewith to purchase 
 our commodities. 
 
 Plains, which Dr. Clarke compares to the fairest 
 portions of Kent, capable of yielding the best silk 
 and cotton, abound in Syria ; but despotic violence 
 has triumphed even over nature; and this pro¬ 
 vince, which once boasted of Damascus and Antioch, 
 of Tyre, Sidon, and Aleppo, has, by the oppressive 
 exactions of successive pachas, become little better 
 than a deserted waste. 
 
 “ Everywhere,” says Volney, speaking of Asiatic 
 Turkey, “ everywhere 1 saw only tyranny and 
 misery, robbery and devastation. I found daily on 
 
17 
 
 my route abandoned fields, deserted villages, cities in 
 ruins. Frequently I discovered antique monuments, 
 remains of temples, of palaces, and of fortresses; 
 pillars, aqueducts, and tombs : this spectacle led my 
 mind to meditate on past times, and excited in my heart 
 profound and serious thought. I recalled those ancient 
 ages when twenty famous nations existed in these 
 countries : I painted to myself the Assyrian on the 
 banks of the Tigris, the Chaldean on those of the 
 Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the Indus to 
 the Mediterranean. I numbered the kingdoms of 
 Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and Samaria, the 
 warlike states of the Philistines, and the commercial 
 republics of Phoenicia. This Syria, said I, now al¬ 
 most unpeopled, could then count a hundred power¬ 
 ful cities, its fields were covered with towns, villages, 
 and hamlets. Everywhere appeared cultivated fields, 
 frequented roads, crowded habitations. What, alas ! 
 has become of those ages of abundance and of life ? 
 What of so many brilliant creations of the hand of 
 man ? Where are the ramparts of Nineveh, the walls of 
 Babylon, the palaces of Persepolis, the temples of 
 Baalbec and Jerusalem ? Where are the fleets of 
 Tyre, the docks of Arad, the looms of Sidon, and 
 that multitude of sailors, of pilots, of merchants, of 
 soldiers ? Where are those labourers, those harvests, 
 those flocks, and that crowd of living beings that then 
 covered the face of the earth? Alas ! I have surveyed 
 this ravaged land—I have visited the places which 
 were the theatre of so mm h splendour, and have 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 seen only solitude and desertion. The temples are 
 crumbled down ; the palaces are overthrown; the 
 ports are filled up ; the cities are destroyed ; and the 
 earth, stripped of its inhabitants, is only a desolate 
 place of tombs.’ 
 
 Nor less hideous is the picture given to us by 
 another eloquent eye-witness of the desolation of 
 this once flourishing region. “ A few paltry shops 
 expose nothing but wretchedness to view, and even 
 these are frequently shut from apprehension of the 
 passage of a Cadi. 
 
 “ Not a creature is to be seen in the streets, not 
 a creature at the gates, except now and then a pea¬ 
 sant gliding through the gloom, concealing under 
 his garments the fruits of his labour, lest he should 
 be robbed of his hard earnings by the rapacious sol¬ 
 dier. The only noise heard from time to time is the 
 galloping of the steed of the desert; it is the janissary, 
 who brings the head of the Bedouin, or returns from 
 plundering the unhappy fellah 
 
 A still more recent traveller, and one of our own 
 countrymen, has these emphatic words when speak¬ 
 ing of the Turkish territory:—“ Wherever the Os- 
 manli has trod, devastation and ruin mark his steps, 
 civilization and the arts have fled, and made room 
 for barbarism and the silence of the desert and the 
 tomb j\” 
 
 But why need we seek for foreign testimony of 
 
 * Chateaubriand. 
 
 f Macfarlane’s Turkey. 
 
19 
 
 the withering and destroying influences of Mahome¬ 
 tanism: the Turks themselves have a proverb, which 
 says, “ Where the sultan's horse has trod, there no 
 grass grows.” 
 
 “ And where the Spain’s hoof hath trod, 
 
 The verdure flies the bloody sod.” 
 
 Bvjion. 
 
 Our limits do not allow us to dwell on this portion 
 of our task ; suffice it to say, that beneath the sway 
 of Ottoman violence, the pursuits of agriculture and 
 commerce are equally neglected, in regions that once 
 comprised the mart and granary of the world. No 
 ship was ever seen to leave a Turkish port, manned 
 with Turkish sailors, upon the peaceful errand of fo¬ 
 reign mercantile traffic. On the ocean, as upon land, 
 this fierce people have always been the scourge of 
 humanity, and a barrier to the progress of commerce 
 and civilization. In their hands, Smyrna, which 
 was termed by the ancients the ornament of Asia, 
 and Constantinople, chosen for the unrivalled seat 
 of empire by one who possessed the sovereignty of 
 the entire world—thesetwo cities, adapted by nature 
 to become the centres of a vast trade, are now, 
 through the barbarism and indolence of their rulers, 
 little better than nurseries of the plague ! 
 
 What shall we say more to prove, that England 
 can have no interest in perpetuating the commer- 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 eial bondage of such a land as we have been de¬ 
 scribing ? 
 
 Before quitting the consideration of this part of 
 our subject, we will, for a moment, give way to our 
 imagination, and picture the results that would fol¬ 
 low, supposing that the population of the United 
 States of America could be moved from their present 
 position on the earth's surface, and in a moment be 
 substituted in the place of the inhabitants of Turkey 
 Very little difference of latitude opposes itself to the 
 further supposition, that the several pachalics, being 
 transformed into free states, should be populated by 
 the natives of such districts of the new world, as 
 gave the fittest adaptation to their previous ha¬ 
 bits of labour. Now let us picture this empire, 
 after it had been for fifty years only subject to 
 the laws, the religion, and the industry of such 
 a people. 
 
 Constantinople, outrivalling New York, may be 
 painted, with a million of free citizens, as the focus 
 of all the trade of eastern Europe. Let us conjure 
 upthe thousands of miles of railroads, carrying to the 
 very extremities of this empire — not the sanguinary 
 satrap, but — the merchandize and the busy traders 
 of a tree state; conveying—not the firman of a ferocious 
 sultan armed with death to the trembling slave, 
 but —the millions of newspapers and letters, which 
 stimulate the enterprise, and excite the patriotism of 
 an enlightened people. Let us imagine the Bospho- 
 
21 
 
 i 
 
 rus and the sea of Marmora swarming with steam¬ 
 boats, connecting the European and Asiatic conti¬ 
 nents by hourly departures and arrivals ; or issuing 
 from the Dardanelles, to reanimate once more with 
 life and fertility the hundred islands of the Archipe¬ 
 lago ; or, conceive the rich shores of the Black Sea 
 in the power of the New Englander, and the Danube 
 pouring down its produce from the plains of Molda¬ 
 via and Wallachia, now subject to the plough of the 
 hardy Kentuckian. Let us picture the Carolinians, 
 the Virginians, and the Georgians, transplanted to 
 the coasts of Asia Minor, and behold its hundreds of 
 cities again bursting from the tomb of ages, to 
 recal religion and civilization to the spot from 
 whence they first issued forth upon the world. 
 Alas! that this should be only an illusion of the 
 fancy ! 
 
 There remains another argument in favour of an 
 interposition on our part in defence of Turkey for 
 us to notice, and it points to the danger our colonies 
 might be in, from any movements which Russia 
 should make eastward. “ Our Indian possessions,” 
 says the pamphlet before quoted : “ shall we fight 
 for them on the Dnieper, as directing the whole 
 Mussulman nation, or shall we fight for them on 
 the Indus, at Bagdad, or in Persi a, single-handed 
 close to the insurrection she will raise in he 
 rear, and when she is in possession of Turkey?” 
 
 We might have passed over this point as too 
 chimerical for comment, were it not that it involves 
 
a question upon which we believe there is greater 
 misapprehension than upon any other subject that 
 engages the attention of our countrymen. Sup¬ 
 posing Russia or Austria to be in possession of the 
 Turkish dominions, would she not find her attention 
 and resources far too abundantly occupied in re¬ 
 taining the sovereignty over fifteen millions of fierce 
 and turbulent subjects, animated with warlike hatred 
 to their conquerors, and goaded into rebellion by 
 the all-powerful impulse of a haughty and into¬ 
 lerant religion, to contemplate adding still further 
 to her embarrassments by declaring war with Eng¬ 
 land, and giving the word of march to Hindoostan? 
 Who does not perceive that it could not, for ages 
 at least, add to the external power of either of 
 these states, if she were to get possession of Turkey 
 by force of arms ? Is Russia stronger abroad by 
 her recent perfidious incorporation of Polish ter¬ 
 ritory ? Would Holland increase her power if she 
 were to reconquer her Belgic provinces to-morrow? 
 Or to come to our own doors for example, was 
 Great Britain more powerful whilst, for centuries, 
 she held Ireland in disaffected subjection to her 
 rule; or was she not rather weakened by offering, 
 in the sister island, a vulnerable point of attack 
 to her continental enemies. 
 
 But supposing, merely by way of argument, that 
 Russia meditated hostile views towards our eastern 
 colonies. 
 
 Constantinople is about three thousand miles 
 
23 
 
 distant from Calcutta: are our Indian possessions ot 
 sucli value to the British people, that we must guard 
 them with operations so extended and so costly, as 
 would be necessary if the shores of the Bosphorus 
 are to be made the outpost for our armies of the 
 Ganges? Surely it becomes a momentous question, 
 to the already overburdened people of England, to 
 ascertain what advantages are to be reaped from 
 enterprises like this, which, whatever other results 
 they may chance to involve, are certain to entail 
 increased taxation on themselves. 
 
 Nothing, we believe, presents so fair a field for 
 economical analysis, even in this age of new lights, 
 as the subject of colonization. We can of course 
 only briefly allude to the question ; but, in doing so, 
 we suggest it as one that claims the investigation 
 of independent public writers, and of all those 
 members of the legislature who are of and for the 
 people, distinct from selfish views or aristocratic 
 tendencies. 
 
 Spain lies at this moment a miserable spectacle 
 of a nation, whose own natural greatness has been 
 immolated on the shrine of transatlantic ambition. 
 May not some future historian possibly be found 
 recording a similar epitaph on the tomb of Britain? 
 
 In truth, we have been planting, and supporting, 
 and governing countries upon all degrees of ha¬ 
 bitable, and some that are not habitable, latitudes 
 of the earth’s surface ; and so grateful to our national 
 pride has been the spectacle, that we have never, 
 
24 
 
 lor once, paused to inquire if our interests were 
 advanced by so much nominal greatness. Three 
 hundred millions of permanent debt have been ac¬ 
 cumulated—millions of direct taxation are annually 
 levied — restrictions and prohibitions are imposed 
 upon our trade in all quarters of the world, for the 
 acquisition or maintenance of colonial possessions; 
 aud all for what ? That we may repeat the fatal 
 Spanish proverb, “ the sun never sets on the king 
 of England's dominions." For we believe that no 
 candid investigator of our colonial policy will draw 7 
 the conclusion, that we have derived, or shall 
 derive, from it advantages that can compensate for 
 these formidable sacrifices. 
 
 But we are upon the verge of a novel combina¬ 
 tion of commercial necessities , that will altogether 
 change the relations in which we have hitherto stood 
 with our colonies. We call them necessities, be¬ 
 cause they will be forced upon us, not from con¬ 
 viction of the wisdom of such changes, but by the 
 irresistible march of events. The new world is 
 destined to become the arbiter of the commercial 
 policy of the old. We will see in what manner 
 this is in operation. 
 
 At the passing of the Negro Emancipation Act, 
 an effort was made by the merchants of Liverpool, 
 trading to South America, to prevail on the legis¬ 
 lature to abolish the discriminating duties on West 
 India sugar, which operated so severely on the trade 
 with the Brazil' It was finally decided, that the 
 
25 
 
 bounty in favour of the importation of our colonial 
 productions should be continued for ten years. At 
 the end of this period, if not long before, therefore, 
 the monstrous impolicy of sacrificing our trade with 
 a new continent, of almost boundless extent of rich 
 territory, in favour of a few small islands, with 
 comparatively exhausted soils, will cease to be sanc¬ 
 tioned by the law. What will then follow ? If we 
 no longer offer the exclusive privileges of our 
 market to the West Indians, we shall cease, as a 
 matter of justice and necessity, to compel them to 
 purchase exclusively from us. They will be at 
 liberty, in short, to buy wherever they can obtain 
 goods cheapest, and to sell in the dearest market. 
 They must be placed in the very same predicament 
 as if they were not a part of his Majesty’s do¬ 
 minions. Where then will be the semblance of a 
 plea for putting ourselves to the expense of govern¬ 
 ing and defending such countries? Let us apply 
 the same test to our other colonies. 
 
 It is no longer a debatable question, amongst en¬ 
 lightened and disinterested minds, that the privi¬ 
 leges which we give to the Canadian exporters of 
 timber to Britain, and by which alone we command 
 a monopoly of that market for our manufactures, 
 are founded on gross injustice to the people of this 
 country, and are calculated to give a forced mis¬ 
 direction, as all such bounties are, to the natural 
 industry of these colonies, by causing the invest¬ 
 ment of capital in the preparing and shipping of 
 
26 
 
 inferior timber, which would otherwise seek its 
 legitimate employment in the pursuit of agriculture. 
 This monopoly must yield to the claims of the l nited 
 States and Baltic trades. Nor have we been con¬ 
 tented with sacrificing our own interests to the pro¬ 
 motion of a fictitious prosperity in our colonies, but 
 we destroy the interests of one of these, in the vain 
 hope of benefiting another. Thus, in the same 
 spirit of withering protection, we have awarded to 
 the West Indies a monopoly of the trade to Ca¬ 
 nada. whilst to the latter we give the privilege of 
 exclusively supplying the former with corn aud 
 lumber: and all this whilst, at the same time, those 
 islands lie within half the distance of the shores of 
 the United States, whose maritime districts possess 
 all the identical exchangeable products with Canada, 
 and teem with a population of industrious and 
 enterprising people, eager lore commerce with these 
 prohibited islands. 
 
 True, the Government of the United States has 
 lately compelled us. in stlf-dc/emw to relax from this 
 >ys:c;n . and every one now sees, that the same motive 
 prescribes that the commerce of the W est Indies be 
 wholly and without restriction thrown open to the 
 people of the neighbouring continent, from which it 
 has hitherto been shut out only by means of unnatu¬ 
 ral prohibitions. 
 
 \A e have said that the N ew W crld is the arbiter of 
 the commercial policy of the Old, aud we will now 
 see in what way this the fact in the case of our East 
 
27 
 
 Indian trade. Hitherto it has been the eustom to im¬ 
 pose discriminating duties in favour of the products of 
 these colonies; and this, and this only, has given us 
 the right to compel these dependencies, in return, to 
 restrict themselves to the purchase of our manufac¬ 
 tures. We have seen that this restrictive policy 
 must be abandoned in the case of the West Indies 
 and Canada, and still less shall we find it practicable 
 to uphold it in the East. Our leading imports from 
 this quarter must be cotton-wool, silk, indigo, and 
 sugar. The last of these articles, as we have already 
 shown in speaking of the West Indies, the Brazils 
 have, by its successful culture, forced us to remove 
 from the list of protected commodities ; whilst the 
 three first being raw products, in the supply and 
 manufacture of which we are so closely check-mated 
 by the competition of the United States or of Euro¬ 
 pean countries, it would be madness to think of sub¬ 
 jecting the fabrication of them to restrictive duties, 
 however trifling. 
 
 We shall then be under the necessity of levying 
 the same duties on the cotton, sugar, &c. imported 
 from the East Indies, as on similar products coming 
 from North or South America ; and it will follow, of 
 course, that as we offer no privileges in our markets 
 to the planters of Hindoostan, we can claim none for 
 our manufacturers in theirs. In other words, they 
 must be left at liberty to buy wherever they can 
 purchase cheapest, and to sell, where they can do so, 
 at the dearest rate; they will in all respects be, com- 
 
28 
 
 mercially and fiscally speaking, the same to us as 
 though they did not form a part of His Majesty’s 
 dominions. Where then will be the plea for subjecting 
 ourselves to the heavy taxation required to maintain 
 armies and navies for the defence of these colonies? 
 
 Provided our manufactures be cheaper than those 
 of our rivals, we shall command the custom of these 
 colonies by the same motives of self-interest which 
 bring the Peruvians, the Brazilians, or the natives of 
 North America, to clothe themselves with the pro¬ 
 ducts of our iudustrv ; and, on the other hand, they 
 will gladly sell to us their commodities through the 
 same all-powerful impulse, provided we proffer for 
 them a more tempting price than they will command 
 in other markets. 
 
 We have thus hastily and incidentally glanced at 
 a subject, which we predict will speedily force itself 
 upon the attention of our politicians; and we know 
 of nothing that would be so likely to conduce to a 
 diminution of our burdens, by reducing the charges 
 of the army, navy, and ordnance (amounting to 
 fourteen millions annually), as a proper understand¬ 
 ing of our relative position with respect to our 
 colonial possessions. We are aware that no power 
 was ever yet known voluntarily to give up the domi¬ 
 nion over a part of its territory. But if it could be made 
 manifest to the trading and industrious portions of 
 this nation, who have no honours or interested ambi¬ 
 tion of any kind at stake in the matter, that whilst 
 our dependencies are supported at an expense to 
 
29 
 
 them, in direct taxation of more than five millions 
 annually, they serve but as gorgeous and ponderous 
 appendages to swell our ostensible grandeur, but in 
 reality to complicate and magnify our government 
 expenditure, without improving our balance of 
 trade,—surely, under such circumstances, it would 
 become at least a question for anxious inquiry with 
 a people so overwhelmed with debt, whether those 
 colonies should not be suffered to support and 
 defend themselves, as separate and independent 
 existences. 
 
 Adam Smith, more than sixty years ago, promul¬ 
 gated his doubts of the wisdom and profitableness of 
 our colonial policy; at a time, be it well remem¬ 
 bered, when we were excluded by the mother coun¬ 
 tries from the South American markets, and when 
 our West Indian possessions appeared to superficial 
 minds as an indispensable source of vast wealth to 
 the British empire. Had he lived to our day, to 
 behold the United States of America, after freeing 
 themselves from the dominion of the mother country, 
 become our largest and most friendly commercial 
 connection,—had he lived also to behold the free 
 states of South America only prevented from out¬ 
 stripping in magnitude all our other customers 
 by the fetters, which an absurd law of exclusive deal¬ 
 ing with those very West Indian Colonies has 
 imposed on our commerce, how fully must his 
 opinions have coincided with all that we have urged 
 on this subject! 
 
 Here let us observe, that it is worthy of surprise 
 
30 
 
 
 bow little progress has boon made in the study ot 
 that science of which Adam Smith was. more than 
 half a century a-jo, the great luminary. \\ e regret 
 that no society has been formed for the purpose of 
 disseminating a knowledge of the just principles of 
 trade. Whilst agriculture can boast almost as many 
 associations as there are British counties, whilst 
 every city in the kingdom contains its botanical, 
 phrenological, or mechanical institutions, and these 
 a^-ain possess their periodical journals (and not 
 merely these, for even war sends forth its United 
 Service Magazine). — we possess no association of 
 traders, united together for the common object of 
 enlightening the world upon a question so little 
 understood, and so loaded with obloquy, as free 
 trade. 
 
 We have our Banksian. our Linnaean, our Hun¬ 
 terian Societies, and why should not at least our 
 greatest commercial and manufacturing towns pos¬ 
 sess their Smithian Societies, devoted to the purpose 
 of promulgating the beneficent truths of the “ Wealth 
 f A■,.* f Such institutions, by promoting a cor¬ 
 respondence with similar societies that would pro¬ 
 bably be organized abroad (for it is our example in 
 questions affecting commerce that strangers follow'', 
 might contribute to the spread of liberal and just 
 views of political science, and thus tend to amelio¬ 
 rate the restrictive policy of foreign governments, 
 through the legitimate influence of the opinions of 
 its people. 
 
 Nor would such societies be fruitless at home. 
 
31 
 
 Prizes might be offered for the best essays on the 
 corn question, or lecturers might be sent to enlighten 
 the agriculturists, and to invite discussion upon a 
 subject so difficult and of such paramount interest to 
 all. 
 
 The question of the policy or justice of prohibit¬ 
 ing the export of machinery might be brought to the 
 test of public discussion; these and a thousand 
 other questions might, with usefulness, engage the 
 attention of such associations. 
 
 But to return to the consideration of the subject 
 more immediately before us. 
 
 It will be seen, from the arguments and facts we 
 have urged, and are about to lay before our readers, 
 that we entertain no fears that our interests would be 
 likely to suffer from the aggrandizement of a Chris¬ 
 tian power at the expense of Turkey, even should 
 that power be Russia. On the contrary, we have no 
 hesitation in avowing it as our deliberate conviction, 
 that not merely Great Britain, but the entire civilized 
 world, will have reason to congratulate itself the 
 moment when that territory again falls beneath the 
 sceptre of any other European power whatever. Ages 
 must elapse before its favoured region will become, as 
 it is by nature destined to become, the seat and centre 
 of commerce, civilization, and true religion ; but the 
 first step towards this consummation must be to con¬ 
 vert Constantinople again into that, which every 
 lover of humanity and peace longs to behold in it,— 
 the capital of a Christian people. Nor let it be 
 
objected by more enlightened believers, that the 
 Russians would plant that corrupted branch of our 
 religion, the Greek church, on the spot where the 
 first Christian monarch erected a temple to the true 
 faith of the apostles. We are no advocates of that 
 church, with its idolatrous worship and pantomimic 
 ceremonials, fit only to delude the most degraded 
 and ignorant minds; but we answer, put into a peo¬ 
 ple's hands the Bible hi lieu of the Koran,—let the 
 religion of Mahomet give place to that of Jesus 
 Christ; and human reason, aided by the printing 
 press and the commerce of the world, will not fail to 
 erase the errors which time, barbarism, or the cun¬ 
 ning of its priesthood, may have engrafted upon 
 it. 
 
 But to descend from these higher motives to the 
 question of our own interests, to which, probably, as 
 politicians, we ought to confine our consideration. 
 
 Nothing, we confess, appears so opposed to the 
 facts of experience, as the belief which has been so 
 industriously propagated in this country, that Rus¬ 
 sia, if she held the keys of the Dardanelles, would 
 exclude all trade from the Black Sea and the Sea of 
 Marmora. The writer so often quoted says, “ On 
 the occupation of the Dardanelles disappears the 
 importance of our possessions in the Levant. They 
 were only valuable because the Turks held these 
 straits. When Russia is there they are valueless, 
 and will soon be untenable " It might be a suffi¬ 
 cient reply to these assertions, unsupported by facts 
 
33 
 
 or reasoning, to demand of what use will these mari¬ 
 time possessions be to Russia, or any other power, 
 unless for the purposes of trade ? Why did the 
 Government of St. Petersburgh, for nearly a cen¬ 
 tury, bend a steady and longing eye on the ports 
 of the Euxine, but for the facilities which the 
 possession of one of them would give to the traffic 
 between the interior provinces of Russia and the 
 Mediterranean ? 
 
 We write, however, with no motive but to dis¬ 
 abuse the public mind on an important question ; 
 and as we prefer in all cases to appeal to facts, we 
 shall here give a few particulars of the rise and 
 progress of the only commercial port of consequence 
 as yet established in the Black Sea. 
 
 The first stone of the town of Odessa was laid by 
 order of Catherine, in 1792. 
 
 Previously to this, the Euxine was so little visited 
 by our mariners, that every kind of absurd story was 
 advanced and credited respecting the danger of its 
 navigation; the very name was held to be only 
 synonymous with the black and dismal character of 
 its storms, or the perilous mists that it was imagined 
 constantly shrouded its surface. The Danube was, 
 in a like spirit of credulity, suspected to pour from 
 its channel so vast a deposit of mud, as to fill the 
 Black Sea with shoals, that threatened, in the course 
 of a few ages, to convert its waters into dry land ; 
 whilst this river, the noblest in Europe, sealed by 
 Turkish jealousy, thus blotting out as it were from 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 commercial existence that vast pastoral district 
 through which it flowed.—this stream, whose course 
 laid almost in the centre of Christendom, was as 
 little known as the great yellow river of China. 
 
 Odessa has fully equalled the rapid commercial 
 rise of St. Petersburgh, to which only in importance 
 it is now the second in the Russian empire. These 
 two ports, which we are taught to believe belong to 
 the most anti-commercial people, present, singularly 
 enough, the two most astonishing instances in Europe 
 of quick advances in wealth, trade, and population. 
 
 The population of Odessa is estimated at 40,000 
 souls. The exportation of tallow has increased in 
 two years twenty-fold, thus civilizing and enriching 
 extensive districts which must have remained in 
 comparative barbarism, had not this outlet been 
 found for their produce. During the same time the 
 breed of sheep has been much improved in these 
 vast southern regions of the Russian territory, by 
 the introduction of the merinos, and the consequent 
 increase of the export of wool has been very consi¬ 
 derable. 
 
 The amount of imports is stated at 30,000,000 
 roubles. 
 
 We subjoin a statement of the movement of 
 Russian and British shipping at this port, to show 
 that here, as at St. Petersburgh and elsewhere, the 
 commerce of England finds a proportionate exten¬ 
 sion with the trade of other countries. 
 
35 
 
 SHIPPING AT ODESSA *. 
 
 *sels. 
 
 1826. 
 
 1827. 
 
 1828. 
 
 1829. 
 
 1830. 
 
 1831. 
 
 
 Arriv. 
 
 Sailed 
 
 Arriv. 
 
 Sailed 
 
 Arriv- 
 
 Sailed 
 
 Arriv. 
 
 Sailed. 
 
 Arriv. 
 
 Sailed. 
 
 Arriv. 
 
 Sailed. 
 
 ssian 
 
 164 
 
 111 
 
 167 
 
 122 
 
 50 
 
 38 
 
 24 
 
 38 
 
 172 
 
 194 
 
 155 
 
 136 
 
 itish 
 
 104 
 
 100 
 
 155 
 
 143 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 65 
 
 43 
 
 147 
 
 169 
 
 81 
 
 83 
 
 This town has latterly been declared a free port 
 with exemption from taxes, and therefore we can¬ 
 not but anticipate for it a much more rapid career 
 in the time to come. 
 
 Already have its merchants appeared as our cus¬ 
 tomers on the Exchange of Manchester; and it 
 only requires that we remove our suicidal restric¬ 
 tions on the import of corn, to render Odessa ulti¬ 
 mately one of the chief contributors to the trade of 
 Liverpool. 
 
 The influence of Russia, since she has gained a 
 
 * M‘Culloch’s Dictionary, p. 858 ; a work of unrivalled 
 labour and usefulness, which ought to have a place in the library 
 of every merchant or reader who feels interested in the commerce 
 and statistics of the world. We will quote, from another part of 
 this valuable work, the opinion of the author upon the influences 
 of Russian sway in this quarter :—“ On the whole, however, a 
 gradual improvement is taking place ; and whatever objections 
 may on other grounds be made to the encroachments of Russia 
 in this quarter, there can be no doubt that by introducing com¬ 
 parative security and good order into the countries under hei 
 authority, she has materially improved their condition, and acce¬ 
 lerated their progress to a more advanced state.” P. 1108. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 settlement on the shores of the Euxine, has been 
 successfully exercised in throwing open the navi¬ 
 gation of its waters, with those of the Danube, to 
 the world; and this noble river has at length been 
 subjected to the dominion of steam, which will, 
 beyond all other agents, tend most rapidly to bring 
 the population of its banks within the pale of civi¬ 
 lization. A Danube Steam Navigation Joint Stock 
 Company has been projected, and will in all pro¬ 
 bability be in operation next summer; and as this 
 will give the route from the west of Europe to 
 Turkey, by the way of Vienna, the preference, there 
 is no reason to doubt that eventually this river will 
 enjoy a considerable traffic both of passengers and 
 merchandize. 
 
 V e have probably said sufficient to prove, from 
 facts, that Russia is not an anti-commercial nation. 
 
 We have endeavoured likewise to show, that 
 alarms for the safety of our eastern possessions, ought 
 not to induce us to go to war to check a movement 
 three thousand miles removed from their capital : 
 and to those who are inspired with fear for our 
 European commerce, from the aggrandizement of 
 Russia, we have answered by showing, that Napo¬ 
 leon, when he had all Europe at his feet, could not 
 diminish our trade eight per cent. 
 
 What, then, remains to be urged in favour of the 
 policy of this government putting its overtaxed 
 people to the cost of making warlike demonstrations 
 in favour of Turkey ? At the moment when we 
 
37 
 
 write, a British fleet is wintering in the gulf of 
 Vourla, the cost of which, at a low estimate, pro¬ 
 bably exceeds two millions, to say nothing of living 
 materiel; and this is put in requisition in behalf of 
 a country with which we carry on a commerce les3 
 in annual amount than is turned over by either of 
 two trading concerns that we could name in the 
 city of London ! 
 
 But we are to await a regeneration of this Maho¬ 
 metan empire. Our arms, we are told, are not only 
 to defend its territory, but to reorganize or recon¬ 
 struct the whole Turkish government, and to bestow 
 upon its subjects improved political institutions. 
 Let us hear what the pamphlet before us says upon 
 this subject, and let it be borne in mind, that the 
 writer’s sentiments have been applauded by some of 
 our influential journals : — “ It is the policy of 
 England which alone can save her : it is therefore 
 no trivial or idle investigation which we have under¬ 
 taken, since it is her political elements that we have 
 to embody into a new political instrument,” p. 54. 
 Again—“ In the capital, in the meanest villages, in 
 the centre of communications, on the furthest fron¬ 
 tiers, a feeling of vague but intense expectation is 
 spread, which will not be satisfied with less at our 
 hands than internal reorganization and external 
 independence,” p. 62. Again — “ Unless antici¬ 
 pated by visible intervention on the part of England, 
 which will relieve them from the permanent menace 
 of the occupation of the capital, and which will 
 
38 
 
 impose on the government (!) the necessity of a 
 change of measures, a catastrophe is inevitable, 
 p. 63. And again—“ An empire which in extent, 
 in resources, in population, in position, and in indi¬ 
 vidual qualities and courage—in all, in fact, save 
 instruction—is one of the greatest on the face of the 
 earth, is brought to look with ardent expectation for 
 the arrival of a foreign squadron, and a body of 
 auxiliaries in its capital, and to expect from their 
 presence the reformation of internal abuses (!) and 
 the restoration of their political independence,” 
 p. 73. 
 
 To protect Turkey against her neighbour Russia— 
 to defend the Turks against their own government— 
 to force upon the latter a constitution we suppose— 
 to redress all internal grievances in a state where 
 there is no law but despotism ! Here then, in a 
 word, is the “ trifling succour" (p. 3) which we are 
 called upon to render our ancient ally; and if the 
 people of Great Britain desire to add another 
 couple of hundred of millions to their debt, we think 
 a scheme is discovered by which they may be 
 gratified, without seeking for quarrels in any other 
 quarter. 
 
 If such propositions as these are however to be 
 received gravely, it might be suggested to inquire, 
 would Russia, would Austria remain passive, whilst 
 another power sent her squadrons and her armies 
 from ports a thousand miles distant to take posses¬ 
 sion of the capital, and supersede the government 
 
39 
 
 of their adjoining neighbour ? Would there be no 
 such thing as Russian or Austrian jealousy of British 
 aggrandizement, and might not our quixotic labours 
 in behalf of Mahometan regeneration be possibly 
 perplexed by the co-operation of those powers ? 
 These questions present to us the full extent of the 
 dilemma in which we must be placed, if we ever 
 attempt an internal interference with the Ottoman 
 territory. Without the consent and assistance of 
 Russia and Austria, we should not be allowed to 
 land an army in that country. We might, it is 
 true, blockade the Dardanelles, and thus at any 
 time annihilate the trade of Constantinople and the 
 Black Sea. But our interests would suffer by such 
 a step, and the object of intermeddling at all is of 
 course to benefit, and not destroy our trade. We 
 must then, if we would remodel Turkey, act in con¬ 
 junction with Russia, Austria, and France. Would 
 the two former of these*powers be likely to lend a 
 very sincere and disinterested co-operation, or mu$t 
 we prepare for a game of intrigues and protocols?* 
 
 * We here give an extract from the correspondence of a 
 London morning paper upon the affairs of Greece, that is illus¬ 
 trative of the case in hand : — 
 
 “ Nauplia, Nov. 28, 1834. If we (the English people) had 
 not been paying for fleets, destroyers of fleets, protocols, loans, 
 extraordinary ambassadors, presidents, couriers, subsidies, &c., 
 in the Levant, we might not have been surprised at the present 
 state of things. But taking into account the talents of Palmer¬ 
 ston and S. Canning, and the straightforward open John Bull 
 policy of their agent here, really it is wonderful how they can 
 
40 
 
 These are the probable consequences of our in¬ 
 terposing- in the case of Turkey, and from the danger 
 of which the only alternative lies in a strict neu¬ 
 trality. We are aware that it would be a novel 
 case for England to remain passive, whilst a struggle 
 was going on between two great European powers ; 
 
 have allowed the other powers to have made such a mess of the 
 business. But the worst part of the affair is, that things are 
 quite as complicated now as they were a week after the breaking 
 out of the Revolution. Here we have a fleet reaching from 
 Gibraltar to the Dardanelles—here we have the Russians as busy 
 as ever—and here we have not the proceeds of the loan which our 
 (the British) government have guaranteed, nor have we a reve¬ 
 nue that will pay the interest of it.” Amusing enough, we find 
 in another column of the very same copy of the same journal a 
 letter from its correspondent, dated at Constantinople, Nov. 25, 
 from which the following is extracted :—“ Now is the time to 
 step forward : a crackiug south-wester and a bold front are all 
 that would be wanted; and our ships once at anchor in the 
 Bosphorus, adieu to the ambitious news of Russia! They 
 would burst like a child's bubble. Adieu to the stupid notions 
 about the inevitable dissolution of Turkey. Adieu to the ac¬ 
 cursed treaty which binds lovely 'Turkey to a remorseless 
 ravi slier ! 
 
 ********** 
 
 One of her vain finesses is now visible in Austria, where a hired 
 press could make the world believe that Austria is seriously 
 opposed to Russian schemes. It does not require a very long or 
 sharp look-out to see that the two absolute governments are act¬ 
 ing in collusion. * * * * It is a petty manoeuvre to lead us 
 from the real point of attack—a mere feint: we must pay no 
 attention to it, but direct all our streugth and energy to the true 
 point, Constantinople; that Constantinople which, once in 
 Russia's hands, becomes the mistress of Europe.” 
 
4i 
 
 un.d we know also, that there is a predilection for 
 continental politics amongst the majority of our 
 countrymen, that would render it extremely difficult 
 for any administration to preserve peace under such 
 circumstances. Public opinion must undergo a 
 change; our ministers must no longer be held 
 responsible for the every-day political quarrels all 
 over Europe; nor when an opposition member of 
 parliament, or an opposition journalist*, wishes to 
 assail a foreign secretary, must he be suffered to 
 taunt him with neglect of the honour of Great 
 Britain, if he should prudently abstain from in¬ 
 volving her in the dissensions that afflict distant 
 communities. 
 
 There is no remedy for this but in the wholesome 
 
 * Extract from a London paper, October 22, 1834 :—“ As 
 at home, so abroad ; the Whigs have failed in all their negocia- 
 tions, and not one question have they settled, except the passing 
 of a Reform Bill and a Poor Law Bill. The Dutch question is 
 undecided; the French are still at Ancona; Don Carlos is 
 fighting in Spain ; Don Miguel and his adherents are preparing 
 for a new conflict in Portugal; Turkey and Egypt are at daggers 
 drawn; Switzerland is quarrelling with her neighbouring states 
 about Italian refugees ; Frankfort is occupied by Prussian troops 
 in violation of the treaty of Vienna; Algiers is being made a 
 large French colony, in violation of the promises made to the 
 contrary by France in 1829 and 1830; ten thousand Polish 
 nobles are still proscribed and wandering in Europe; French 
 gaols are full of political offenders, who, when liberated or ac¬ 
 quitted, will begin again to conspire. In one word, nothing is 
 terminated.” It is plain that if this writer had his will, the 
 Whigs would leave nothing in the world for Providence to 
 attend to. 
 
A 2 
 
 exercise of the people's opinion in behalf of their 
 own interests. Tire middle and industrious classes 
 of England can have no interest apart from the 
 preservation of peace. The honours, the fame, the 
 emoluments of war belong not to them ; the battle- 
 plain is the harvest-field of the aristocracy, watered 
 with the blood of the people. 
 
 We know of no means by which a body of 
 members in the reformed House of Commons could 
 so fairly achieve for itself the patriotic title of a 
 national party, as by associating for the common 
 object of deprecating all intervention on our part in 
 continental politics. Such a party might well com¬ 
 prise every representative of our manufacturing and 
 commercial districts, and would, we doubt not, 
 very soon embrace the majority of a popular House 
 of Commons. At some future election, we may pro¬ 
 bably see the test of “ no foreign politics" applied 
 to those who offer to become the representatives of 
 free constituencies. Happy would it have been 
 for us, and well for our posterity, had such a feeling 
 predominated in this country fifty years ago ! But 
 although, since the peace, we have profited so little 
 by the bitter experience of the revolutionary wars as 
 to seek a participation in all the subsequent conti¬ 
 nental squabbles, and though we are bound by 
 treaties, or involved in guarantees with almost every 
 state of Europe; still the coming moment is only 
 the more proper for adopting the true path of na¬ 
 tional policy which always iies open to us. 
 
 We sav the cominc moment is only the more fit 
 
43 
 
 for withdrawing ourselves from foreign politics, and 
 surely there are signs in Europe that fully justify 
 the sentiment, With France, still in the throes ot 
 her last revolution, containing a generation of young 
 and ardent spirits, without the resources of com¬ 
 merce, and therefore burning for the excitement 
 and employment of war; with Germany, Prussia, 
 Hungary, Austria,* and Italy, all dependent for 
 tranquillity upon the fragile bond of attachment of 
 their subjects to a couple of aged paternal mo- 
 narchs; with Holland and Belgium, each sword in 
 hand; and with Turkey, not so much yielding to 
 the pressure of Russia, as sinking beneath an in¬ 
 evitable religious and political destiny ;—surely, with 
 such elements of discord as these fermenting all 
 over Europe, it becomes more than ever our duty 
 to take natural shelter from a storm, from entering 
 into which we could hope for no benefits, but might 
 justly dread renewed sacrifices. 
 
 Nor do we think it would tend less to promote 
 the ulterior benefits of our continental neighbours 
 than our own, were Great Britain to refrain from 
 participating in the conflicts that may arise around 
 her. An onward movement of constitutional liberty 
 must continue to be made by the less advanced 
 nations of Europe, so long as one of its greatest 
 families holds out the example of liberal and en- 
 
 * Since writing this the death uf the Emperor of Austria is 
 announced. 
 
44 
 
 lightened freedom. England, by calmly directing 
 her undivided energies to the purifying of her own 
 internal institutions, to the emancipation of her 
 commerce, above all to the unfettering of her press 
 from its excise bonds, would, by thus serving as it 
 were for the beacon of other nations, aid more effec¬ 
 tually the cause of political progression all over the 
 continent, than she could possibly do by plunging, 
 herself, into the strife of European wars. 
 
 For, let it never be forgotten, that it is not 
 by means of war that states are rendered fit for the 
 enjoyment of constitutional freedom; on the con¬ 
 trary, whilst terror and bloodshed reign in the land, 
 involving men's minds in the extremities of hopes 
 and fears, there can be no process of thought, no edu¬ 
 cation going on, by which alone can a people be 
 prepared for the enjoyment of rational liberty. Hence 
 after a struggle of twenty years, begun in behalf 
 offreedom , no sooner had the wars of the French 
 revolution terminated, than all the nations of the 
 Continent fell back again into their previous state 
 of political servitude, and from which they have, 
 ever since the peace, been qualifying to rescue 
 themselves, by the gradual process of intellectual 
 advancement. Those who, from an eager desire to 
 aid civilization, wish that Great Britain should in¬ 
 terpose in the dissensions of neighbouring states, 
 would do wisely to study, in the history of their 
 own country, how well a people can, by the force 
 and virtue of native elements, and without external 
 
45 
 
 assistance of any kind, work out their own political 
 regeneration: they might learn too, by their own 
 annals, that it is only when at peace with other 
 states that a nation finds the leisure for looking * 
 within itself, and discovering the means to accom¬ 
 plish great domestic ameliorations. 
 
 To these generous spirits we would urge, that, in 
 the present day, commerce is the grand panacea, 
 which, like a beneficent medical discovery, will 
 serve to inoculate with the healthy and saving taste 
 for civilization all the nations of the world. Not a 
 bale of merchandize leaves our shores, but it bears 
 the seeds of intelligence and fruitful thought to the 
 members of some less-enlightened community : not 
 a merchant visits our seats of manufacturing in¬ 
 dustry, but he returns to his own country the mis¬ 
 sionary of freedom, peace, and good government. 
 Whilst our steam-boats, that now visit every port of 
 Europe, and our miraculous rail-roads, that are the 
 talk of all nations, are the advertisements and 
 vouchers for the value of our enlightened insti¬ 
 tutions. 
 
 In closing this part of our task we shall only add, 
 that, whatever other plea may in future be allowed 
 to induce us to embark in a continental conflict, we 
 trust we have proved, that, so far as our commerce 
 is concerned, it can neither be sustained nor greatly 
 injured abroad by force or violence. The foreign 
 customers who visit our markets are not brought 
 hither through fears of the power or the influence 
 
40 
 
 ot‘ British diplomatists: they are not captured by 
 our fleets and armies: and as little are they at¬ 
 tracted by feelings of love for us; for that “ there 
 is no friendship in trade,” is a maxim equally ap¬ 
 plicable to nations and to individuals. It is solely 
 from the promptings of self-interest, that the mer¬ 
 chants of Europe, as of the rest of the world, send 
 their ships to our ports to be freighted with the pro¬ 
 ducts of our labour. The self-same impulse drew 
 all nations, at different periods of history, to Tyre, 
 to Venice, and to Amsterdam; and if in the revo¬ 
 lution of time and events a country should be found 
 (which is probable), whose cottons and woollens 
 shall be cheaper than those of England and the rest 
 of the world, then to that spot—even should it, by sup¬ 
 position, be buried in the remotest nook of the globe— 
 will all the traders of the earth flock; and no human 
 power, no fleets or armies, will prevent Man¬ 
 chester, Liverpool, and Leeds, from sharing the 
 fate of their once proud predecessors in Holland, 
 Italy, and Phoenicia*. 
 
 * Lest it might be said that we are advocating Russian objects 
 of ambition, we think it necessary to observe, that we trust the 
 entire spirit of this pamphlet will show that we are not of Rus¬ 
 sian politics. Our sole aim is the just interests of England, 
 regardless of the projects of other nations. 
 
PART II. 
 
 W ii ilst, within the last twenty years, our sympa¬ 
 thies have gone forth over the whole of Europe in 
 quest of nations sulfering from, or rising up against, 
 the injustice of their rulers; — whilst Italy, Greece, 
 Spain, France, Portugal, Turkey, Belgium, and 
 Poland, have successively filled the newspapers with 
 tales of their domestic wrongs ;—and whilst our 
 diplomatists, fleets, and armies, have been put in 
 motion, at enormous cost, to carry our counsel, or, 
 if needful, our arms, to the assistance of the people 
 of these remote regions ; — it is an unquestionable 
 fact, that the population of a great portion of our 
 own empire has at the same time presented a 
 grosser spectacle of moral and physical debasement, 
 than is to be met with in the whole civilized 
 world. 
 
 If an intelligent foreigner, after having travelled 
 through England, Scotland, and Wales, and en¬ 
 joyed the exhibition of wealth, industry, and hap¬ 
 piness, afforded everywhere by the population of 
 these realms, were, when upon the eve of departing 
 for the shores of Ireland, to be warned of the 
 
48 
 
 scenes of wretchedness and want that awaited him 
 in that country, he would naturally assume the 
 cause in some such question as this — “ The people 
 are no doubt indolent, and destitute of the energy 
 that belongs to the English character? ” If it were 
 answered, that, so far from such being the case, the 
 Irish are the hardiest labourers on earth ; that the 
 docks and canals of England, and the rail-roads of 
 America, are the produce of their toil; in short, that 
 they are the hewers of wood and drawers of water for 
 other nations. Then the next inquiry from this 
 stranger would probably be in some such form as 
 this :—“ But their soil no doubt is barren, and their 
 climate inhospitable: nature has, besides, probably 
 denied to them the rivers and harbours which are 
 essential to commerce?" What would be his sur¬ 
 prise to be answered, that in natural fertility, and 
 in the advantages of navigable streams, lakes, and 
 harbours, Ireland is more favoured than England, 
 Scotland, or Wales*. 
 
 * “ And sure it is yet a most beautiful and sweet country as 
 any is under heaven, being stored throughout with many goodly 
 rivers, replenished with all sorts of fish most abundantly, sprin¬ 
 kled with many very sweet islands and goodly lakes, like little 
 inland seas that will carry even shippes upon their waters; 
 adorned with goodly woods, even fit for building of houses and 
 shippes so commodiously, as that, if some princes in the world 
 had them, they would soone hope to be lords of all the seas, and, 
 ere long, of all the world : also full of very good ports and havens 
 opening upon England, as inviting us to come unto them, to see 
 what excellent commodities that country can afford ; besides, the 
 
49 
 
 Where, then, shall we seek for the causes of the 
 poverty and barbarism that afflict this land? How 
 shall we be able to account for the fact, that com¬ 
 merce and civilization, which have from the earliest 
 ages journeyed westward, and in their course have 
 even stayed to enrich the marshes of the Adriatic 
 and the fens of Holland, should have passed over, 
 in their rapid flight to the New World, a spot more 
 calculated by nature than almost any besides, to be 
 the seat of a great internal and external trade ? 
 
 We do not profess to be able to disclose all the 
 precise causes of the depressed fate of Ireland ; still 
 less do we pretend to offer a panacea for all the ills 
 that afflict her. Our object in introducing the sub¬ 
 ject here is, to show the absurdity and injustice of 
 that policy, which leads us to seek amongst other 
 nations for objects of compassion and care, and to 
 neglect the urgent demands that are made upon us 
 at our very door. 
 
 The strongest ground of grievance that we have 
 ever heard alleged against us by intelligent Irish¬ 
 men, unembued with party feelings, is the total 
 neglect and ignorance of their country that prevail 
 amongst the people of England. To the middle 
 classes of this country, as to an impartial tribunal 
 untainted by the venom of their political and reli- 
 
 soyle itselfe most fertile, fit to yeeld all kinde of fruit that shall 
 be committed thereunto. And, lastly, the heavens most milde 
 and temperate, though somewhat more moist than the parts 
 toward the east ”— Spenser. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 gious factions, a large portion of the Irish people 
 look for the probable regeneration of their unhappy 
 country. Without this tardy effort of justice at our 
 hands, they will never be able to escape from the 
 vortex of their social distractions. This patriotic 
 party, including so much of the intelligence and 
 industry of Ireland, claim from their fellow-subjects 
 on this side of the Channel (and they have a right 
 to claim it), such a consideration of their country, 
 its population and resources, its history, institutions, 
 and geography;—in fact, just such a study of Ire¬ 
 land as shall give them a knowledge of its anoma¬ 
 lous physical and moral state. 
 
 It is almost incredible how little is known of 
 this, one of the largest both in area and population 
 of the four divisions of the kingdom. Let any one 
 of our readers take a person of average intelligence, 
 and ask him which is the finest river in the United 
 Kingdom : he will answer, probably, the Thames, 
 the Humber, or the Severn; it is ten to one against 
 his naming the Shannon. 
 
 We will venture to say, that there are as many 
 individuals in England conversant with the city of 
 New York and the course of the Hudson, as there 
 are who are acquainted with the topography of Li¬ 
 merick, and the banks of the largest river in the 
 British empire. 
 
 The past fate of Ireland, like the present condi¬ 
 tion of its people, presents to our view an anomaly 
 that has no parallel in the history of nations. Dur- 
 
51 
 
 ing all that period of time which has sufficed to 
 enable the other states in Europe to emerge from 
 barbarism, some to attain their zenith of glory and 
 again decay, others to continue at the summit of 
 prosperity, Ireland has never enjoyed one age of 
 perfect security or peace. She has consequently, 
 unlike every other nation, no era of literature, com¬ 
 merce, or the arts to boast of; nay, she does not 
 exhibit, in her annals, an instance in which she has 
 put forth in war a combined force to merit even 
 the savage honours of military or naval fame. 
 
 Poets have feigned a golden age for this, as for 
 every other country ; but it never existed, except in 
 the pages of romance. Ireland never was at any 
 known period of her history, more tranquil or happy 
 than at this day. She has, from the first, been 
 the incessant prey of discord, bloodshed, and 
 famine. 
 
 We, who are fond of digging deep into the foun¬ 
 dations of causes, incline to assign, as one reason of 
 the adverse condition of this island, the circum¬ 
 stance of the Romans never having colonized it. 
 That people, by deposing the petty chiefs, and 
 gathering and compressing their septs into one 
 communion,—by inoculating the natives with a 
 love of discipline, — by depositing amongst them 
 the seeds of the arts, and imparting a taste for 
 civilization, — would, probably, have given to them 
 that unity and consistency, as one people, the want 
 of which has been the principal source of all their 
 
 e 2 
 
weakness and misfortune. Had the Romans occu¬ 
 pied for three centuries such a country as this, they 
 would perhaps have left it, on their departure from 
 Britain, more advanced, in all respects, than it 
 proved to be in the sixteenth century. 
 
 But, whatever were the causes of the early degra¬ 
 dation of this country, there can be no doubt that 
 England has, during the last two centuries, by dis- 
 courao-ino- the commerce of Ireland— thus striking 
 at the very root of civilization — rendered herself 
 responsible for much of the barbarism that at the 
 present day afflicts it. 
 
 However much the conduct of England towards 
 the sister island, in this particular, may have been 
 dwelt upon for party purposes, it is so bad as 
 scarcely to admit of exaggeration. 
 
 From the time when the first restrictions were put 
 upon Irish commerce, in the reign of Charles II, 
 down to the era when the united volunteers of Ire¬ 
 land stepped forward to rescue their country from 
 its oppressors (the only incident, by the way, in the 
 chronicles of Ireland, deserving the name of a really 
 national effort), our policy was directed, incessantly, 
 to the destruction of the foreign trade of that country. 
 Every attempt at manufacturing industry,with one ex¬ 
 ception, was likewise mercilessly nipped in the bud. 
 Her natural capabilities might, for example, have led 
 the people to the making of glass ; it was enacted, 
 that no glass should be allowed to be exported from 
 Ireland, and its importation, except from England, 
 
53 
 
 was also prohibited. Her soil, calculated for the 
 pasturing of sheep, would have yielded wool equal 
 to the best English qualities ; an absolute prohibi¬ 
 tion was laid on its exportation, and King William, 
 in addressing the British parliament, declared, that 
 he would “ do every thing in his power to dis¬ 
 courage the woollen manufacture of Ireland.” Down 
 to the year 1779, we find that the export of woollen 
 goods from that island remained wholly inter¬ 
 dicted. 
 
 Not only was her commerce with the different 
 ports of Europe fettered by the imposition of re¬ 
 strictions upon every valuable product that could 
 interfere with the prosperity of England ; not 
 only was all trade with Asia and the east of Europe 
 excluded by the charters which were granted to the 
 companies of London ; but her ports were actually 
 sealed against the trade of the American colonies. 
 Although Ireland presented to the ships of North 
 America, the nearest and the noblest havens in 
 Europe, and appeared to be the natural landing- 
 place for the products of the New World, her peo¬ 
 ple were deprived of all benefit, —nay, they were 
 actually made to suffer loss and inconvenience from 
 their favoured position; laws were passed, prohibit¬ 
 ing the importation of American commodities into 
 Ireland, without first landing them in some port of 
 England or Wales, whilst the export of Irish pro¬ 
 ducts to the colonies, excepting through some Bri¬ 
 tish port, was also interdicted. 
 
54 
 
 If we add to this, that a law was enacted, pre¬ 
 venting beef or live cattle from being exported to 
 England, some idea may be formed of the commer¬ 
 cial policy of this country towards Ireland; — a 
 policy, savouring more of the mean and sordid 
 tyranny of the individual huckster over his poorer 
 rival, than of any nobler oppression that is wont 
 to characterize the acts of victorious nations. 
 
 Need we wonder that, at this moment, the entire 
 foreign commerce of Ireland does not much exceed 
 the trade of one second-rate port of Scotland * ? 
 
 There are those, who think the Irish genius is 
 unsuited to that eager and persevering pursuit of 
 business which distinguishes the English people ; 
 and they argue, that but for this, the natives of 
 a region in all respects so favourable to commerce, 
 must have triumphed over the obstacles that clogged 
 their industry. 
 
 There is, we believe, one cause existing, less con¬ 
 nected with the injustice of England, and to which 
 we are about to allude, why Ireland is below us, 
 and other Protestant nations, in the scale of civiliza¬ 
 tion ; yet if we look to the prosperity of her staple 
 manufacture, — the only industry that was tolerated 
 by the government of this country, —it warrants the 
 presumption, that, under similar favouring circum¬ 
 stances, her woollens, or indeed her cottons, might, 
 equally with her linens, have survived a competi¬ 
 tion with the fabrics of Great Britain. 
 
 * Dundee, 
 
55 
 
 But there exists, apart from all intolerant or party 
 feelings on the question, a cause, and we believe a 
 primary one, of the retrograde position, as compared 
 with England and Scotland, in which we find Ire¬ 
 land at the present day, in the circumstance of the 
 Roman Catholic religion being the faith of its peo¬ 
 ple. Let us not be misunderstood, our business 
 does not lie in polemics, and far be it from us to 
 presume to decide which mode of worship may be 
 most acceptable to the great Author of our being. 
 We wish to speak only of the tendency, which, 
 judging from facts that are before us, this church 
 has to retard the secular prosperity of nations. 
 
 Probably there is no country in which the effects 
 of the catholic and reformed religions upon the 
 temporal career of communities, may be more fairly 
 tested than in Switzerland. Of twenty-two cantons, 
 ten are in the majority of the population Catholic, 
 eight Protestant, and the remaining four are mixed, 
 in nearly equal proportions of Protestants and Ca¬ 
 tholics. Those cantons in which the Catholic faith 
 prevails, are wholly pastoral in their pursuits, pos¬ 
 sessing no commerce or manufacturing industry, 
 beyond the rude products of domestic labour. Of 
 the mixed cantons, three * are engaged in the ma¬ 
 nufacture of cotton; and it is a remarkable feature 
 in the industry of these, that the Catholic portion of 
 their population is wholly addicted to agricultural, 
 
 * 
 
 Appenzell, St. Gall, and A argaii. 
 
1 
 
 56 
 
 and the Protestant section to commercial pursuits. 
 All the eight Protestant cantons are, "more or less, 
 engaged in manufactures. 
 
 Nor must we omit to add, which every tra¬ 
 veller in Switzerland will have seen, that in the 
 education of the people, the cleanliness of the 
 towns, the commodiousness of the inns, and the 
 quality of the roads, the Protestant cantons possess 
 a great superiority over their Catholic neighbours. 
 Whilst such is the difference in the value of land, 
 that an estate in Friburg, a Catholic canton, pos¬ 
 sessing a richer soil than that of Berne, from which 
 it is divided only by a rivulet, is worth one-third 
 less than the same extent of property in the latter 
 Protestant district. 
 
 Such are the circumstances, as we find them in 
 comparing one portion of the Swiss territory with 
 another. The facts are still more striking if we 
 view them in relation to the states immediately 
 around them. 
 
 Switzerland, being an inland district, far removed 
 from the sea, is compelled to resort to Havre, Genoa, 
 or Frankfort, for the supply of the raw materials of 
 her industry, which are transported by land three, 
 four, or five hundred miles through Catholics states , 
 for the purpose of fabrication; and the goods are 
 afterwards reconveyed to the same ports for expor¬ 
 tation to America or the Levant; where, notwith¬ 
 standing this heavy expense of transit, and although 
 Switzerland possesses no mineral advantages, they 
 
57 
 
 sustain a prosperous competition witli their more 
 favoured, but less industrious neighbours and rivals. 
 
 If we refer to France, we shall find that a large 
 depot of manufacturing industry has been formed 
 upon the extreme inland frontier of her territory on 
 the Rhine, where her best cottons are fabricated 
 and printed, and conveyed to the metropolis, about 
 three hundred miles off, for sale. Alsace, the Pro¬ 
 testant district we allude to, contains no local ad¬ 
 vantages, no iron or coals ; it is upwards of four 
 hundred miles distant from the port through which 
 the raw materials of its manufactures are obtained, 
 and from whence they are conveyed, entirely by 
 land, passing through Paris, to which city the goods 
 are destined to be again returned. Thus are these 
 commodities transported, over-land, more than 
 seven hundred miles, for no other assignable reason, 
 except that they may be subjected to the labour of 
 Protestant hands. 
 
 Germany gives us additional facts to the same 
 purport. If we divide this empire into north and 
 south, we shall find the former, containing Prussia, 
 Saxony &c., to be chiefly Protestant, and to com¬ 
 prise nearly all the manufacturing and commercial 
 interests of the country ; whilst the latter are prin¬ 
 cipally Catholic, and almost wholly addicted to 
 agriculture. Education, likewise, follows the same 
 law here as in Switzerland ; for whilst the Catholics 
 amount to about twenty millions, and possess but 
 
live universities, the Protestants support thirteen, 
 with only a population of fourteen millions. 
 
 If we turn to Catholic Italy, where there is very 
 little manufacturing of any kind, we yet find that 
 the commerce of the country is principally in the 
 hands of foreigners. The merchants of Genoa, 
 Naples, Trieste, Xc., are chiefly British, Swiss, or 
 Germans, whose houses, again, have their own 
 agents in the principal interior cities, so that the 
 trade of the Italian States is in great part transacted 
 by Protestants. We need scarcely add to these 
 statements the fact, which all are acquainted with, 
 that, in Ireland, the staple manufacture is almost 
 wholly confined to the Protestant province. 
 
 We shall probably be reminded of the former 
 commercial grandeur of Spain and the Italian re¬ 
 publics. This was however, to a great extent, the 
 effect of monopolies, which must, from their nature, 
 be of transient benefit to nations; and moreover, 
 they flourished prior to the complete triumph of the 
 Reformation, and our object is merely to exhibit a 
 comparison between Protestant and Catholic com¬ 
 munities of the same period. Besides, Spain and 
 Italy have left no evidences of the enlightened in¬ 
 dustry of their people, such as are to be seen, for 
 example, to attest die energy of the Dutch, in the 
 canals and dykes of Holland. 
 
 We have thus briefly glanced at the comparative 
 condition' of the Catholic and Protestant interests 
 
59 
 
 in Europe, and, disclaiming, as we tlo, any theolo¬ 
 gical purpose, we trust we may demand for our 
 argument, what is not often accorded to this invidi¬ 
 ous topic, the candid attention of our readers: the 
 above facts then go far to prove, that, in human 
 affairs at least, the Reformed faith conduces more 
 than Catholicism to the prosperity of nations. 
 
 We shall not argue that the temporal welfare of 
 states, any more than of individuals, affords proof of 
 spiritual superiority, we will admit that it does not: 
 but if it can be proved from facts, as we think even 
 our intelligent and ingenuous Roman Catholic rea¬ 
 ders will agree we have done, that the Protestant is, 
 more than the Catholic faith, conducive to the 
 growth of national riches and intelligence, then 
 there must be acknowledged to exist a cause, inde¬ 
 pendent of misgovernment, for the present state of 
 Ireland, as compared with that of Great Britain, for 
 which England cannot be held altogether respon¬ 
 sible. 
 
 The deficient education of a people is no doubt a 
 circumstance that must tend, in these days when the 
 physical sciences and the arts are so intimately 
 blended with manufacturing industry, and when 
 commerce itself has become a branch of philosophy, 
 to keep them in the rear rank of civilized nations; 
 but we think the abhorrence of change that charac¬ 
 terizes Catholic states, and which we shall find not 
 merely to affect religious observances, but to per- 
 
60 
 
 vade all the habits of social life, has even a more 
 powerful influence over their destinies. 
 
 In proof of this, if we take the pages of Cervantes 
 and Le Sage, and compare the portraits and scenes 
 they have depicted, with the characters, costumes, 
 and customs of the present day, we shall find that 
 the Spanish people are, after the lapse of so many 
 ages, in even the minutest observances wholly 
 unchanged. On the other hand, if we look into 
 Shakspeare, or examine the canvass of Teniers, we 
 shall find that, during the same interval of time, 
 the populations of Holland and England have been 
 revolutionized in all the modes of life, so as scarcely 
 to leave one national feature of those ages for recog¬ 
 nition in our day. 
 
 Ireland has clung tenaciously to her characteris¬ 
 tics of ancient days. 
 
 “ There is a great use among the Irish,” says 
 Spenser, writing more than two hundred years ago— 
 “ to make great assemblies together upon a rath or 
 hill, there to parley, as they say, about matters and 
 wrongs between township and township, or one 
 private person and another.” Vol. viii, p. 399. 
 Now no person could by possibility pass six months 
 in the south of Ireland, during the present year, but 
 he would be certain to witness some gatherings of 
 this nature. But who that has travelled in that 
 island can have failed to be struck with that uni¬ 
 versal feature in the dress of the people—the great 
 
61 
 
 coat. “ He maketli liis mantle,’ says Spenser, 
 speaking- of the Irish peasant of his time, “ his 
 house, and under it covereth himself from the wrath 
 of heaven, from the offence of the earth, and from 
 the sight of men ; when it raineth it is his pent¬ 
 house; when it bloweth it is his tent; when it 
 freezeth it is his tabernacle. In summer he can 
 wear it loose, in winter he can wrap it close; at all 
 times he can use it, never heavy, never comber- 
 some,” p. 367. We have ourselves seen the Irish 
 of our own day in the midst of winter wrapping 
 the mantle close, and we have seen them spreading 
 it loosely in summer; we have seen the peasant, 
 whilst at plough, obliged to quit one of the stilts 
 every minute for the purpose of adjusting the great 
 coat that was tucked clumsily round his loins; and 
 we have beheld the labourer at work, with his 
 mantle thrown inconveniently over his arms and 
 shoulders; but we never witnessed it thrown aside. 
 In truth, it is still the mantle that “ hides him from 
 the sight of men;” for, like charity, it cloaks a mul¬ 
 titude of defects in the garments beneath." 
 
 But it is not in mere externals that we shall find 
 the character of Irish society unchanged. In the 
 manifestations of the passions, in the vehement dis¬ 
 plays of natural feeling, there is, amidst the ge¬ 
 neral amelioration of the surrounding world, alas ! 
 no improvement here. To quote again from the 
 pages of Spenser, an eye-witness :—“ I saw an old 
 woman, which was his foster-mother, take up his 
 
G2 
 
 head whilst he was quartered, and sucked up all 
 the bloode that runne thereoute, saying, that the 
 earthe was not worthy to drinke it; and therewith 
 also steeped her face and breast, and tore her hair, 
 crying out and shrieking most terribly.” Ibid, 
 p. 381. 
 
 Let us compare the above scene, which was enacted 
 at the execution of one of the turbulent natives of the 
 sixteenth century, with the following incident that 
 occurred at the late Rathcormac tithe tragedy. 
 
 “ I went up to inspect the haggart where the 
 carnage occurred, and so awful a spectacle I never 
 witnessed; the straw, all saturated with human 
 gore, so that blood oozed through on the pressure 
 of the foot; and, shocking to relate, the widow 
 Collins was seen to kiss the blood of her sons, im¬ 
 precating God’s vengeance on the murderers of her 
 children*.” 
 
 Who would imagine that more than two cen¬ 
 turies have elapsed between the dates when these 
 parallel occurrences took place in one and the same 
 country ? 
 
 Viewing, as we confessedly do, the Roman Ca¬ 
 tholic religion to be a great operating cause against 
 the amelioration of the state of Ireland, it becomes 
 an interesting question, how it happens that we find 
 its dogmas to be professed with so much zeal at the 
 present day in that country. How does it arise, 
 
 Dublin Evening Tost, Dec. 23, 1834. 
 
63 
 
 that whereas, during the last three centuries, history 
 exhibits nation after nation yielding up its religion 
 to those reforms which time had rendered neces¬ 
 sary, until nearly the whole of northern and western 
 Europe has become Protestant, — Ireland, notwith¬ 
 standing so much contiguous change, still clings, 
 with greater devotion than ever, to the shattered 
 tiara of Rome ? That such is the case is proved by 
 the evidence of a trustworthy author, whose recent 
 travels in Ireland we shall have occasion to allude 
 to. # 
 
 We fervently believe that persecution—perhaps 
 honestly devised, but still persecution—has done for 
 this church what, under the circumstances, nothing 
 besides could have achieved; it has enabled it to 
 resist, not only unscathed, but actually with aug¬ 
 mented power, the shocks of a free press, and the 
 liberalizing influence of the freest constitutional 
 government in Europe. 
 
 We shall be told that the epithet persecution no 
 
 * “In no country is there more bigotry and superstition among 
 the lower orders, or more blind obedience to the priesthood ; in 
 no country is there so much intolerance and zeal among the mi¬ 
 nisters of religion. I do believe, that .at this moment Catholic 
 Ireland is more rife for the reestablishment of the inquisition than 
 any other country in Europe.” Inglis’s Travels in Ireland. 
 See the same traveller’s description of Patrick’s Purgatory, Loch 
 Dergh. It adds weight to the testimony of this writer upon such 
 a subject, when it is recollected that he is the author of Travels 
 in Spain. 
 
G4 
 
 longer applies, since all civil disabilities are re¬ 
 moved from our Catholic fellow-subjects : but we 
 ask, does it not still apply as much in principle, 
 though not in degree, to the present condition of 
 the Irish church, where six millions of Catholics 
 are forced to see the whole tithe of their soil pos¬ 
 sessed by the clergy of one million of Protestants, as 
 it did to the persecutions of the ancient martyrs, or 
 the auto-da-fes of modern Spain ? Is not the spirit 
 of persecution the same, but modified to meet the 
 spirit of the age ? 
 
 If we would bring this case home to our own 
 feelings, let us suppose that the arms of the United 
 States of America were to achieve the conquest of 
 Great Britain ; we will further suppose that that 
 country possessed an established church, differing 
 in faith and doctrine from our own—for instance, let 
 it be imagined to be of the Unitarian creed. Now, 
 then, we put it to the feelings of our countrymen, 
 would they, or would they not, regard it as perse¬ 
 cution, if they saw the whole of the tithes of Eng¬ 
 land diverted from their present uses to be applied 
 to the support of a faith which they abhorred? 
 Would it not be felt as persecution to be compelled, 
 not only to behold their cathedrals and churches in 
 the hands of the ministers of a (by them) detested 
 creed, but to find the lands and revenues, which 
 appertain to them, wrested from their present pur¬ 
 poses, by the force of a government on the other 
 side of the ocean ? And, seeing these things, would 
 
65 
 
 it not be felt and suffered as persecution, if the 
 people of England, still clinging to a man to their 
 national church, were impelled by conscience to 
 erect other temples of worship, and out of their own 
 pockets to maintain their ejected and despised mi¬ 
 nisters ? 
 
 But, to come to the still more important question, 
 we appeal to the breasts of our readers would they, 
 under such circumstances, be likely to become con¬ 
 verts to the religion of their spoilers and oppressors; 
 or would they not more probably nourish such a 
 spirit of resentment and indignation as would render 
 impossible a calm or impartial examination of its 
 dogmas ? And would not their children and their 
 children’s children be taught to abhor, even before 
 they could understand, the very name of Unitari- 
 anism? But, pursuing our hypothesis, supposing all 
 this to occur in England, and that the nation were 
 compelled, by the presence of a sufficient army, to 
 submit; what would the probable effects of such a 
 state of things be upon the peace and prosperity of 
 the community? However excellent might be the 
 laws and institutions, however liberal and enlight¬ 
 ened the policy, in other respects, of the govern¬ 
 ment set over us by the Americans, whatever com¬ 
 mercial advantages might be derived from a com¬ 
 plete incorporation with the United States,—would 
 the people, the church-loving people, of these realms 
 be found to be quietly and successfully pursuing 
 
 F 
 
GO 
 
 their worldly callings, forgetting the grievances of 
 their consciences? We hope not! For the honour 
 of our countrymen we fervently believe, that all 
 worldly pursuits and interests would be by them 
 and their sons, and their sons’ sons, even down to the 
 tenth generation, abandoned, that agitation would 
 be rife in the land, and that every county in Eng¬ 
 land would put forth its O’Connell, wielding the 
 terrible energies of combined freemen, until the 
 time that saw such monstrous tyranny abated ! 
 
 Persecution may be, as it often has been, the but¬ 
 tress of error; but all history proves that it can never 
 aid the cause of truth. 
 
 What has preserved the Jews a distinct people, 
 scattered as they have been amidst all the nations of 
 the earth? No miracle, certainly, for they are now 
 dissolving into the ranks of Christians before the 
 sun of American toleration*, and our own country ; 
 but especially the spot where we write, gives us a 
 similar beneficent example in comparison with other 
 states. Nothing more than the universal and unin¬ 
 termitted series of oppressions that characterized the 
 conduct of every government towards that despised 
 people, from the destruction of Jerusalem down to 
 
 * In the United States a Jew can hold all offices of state ; he 
 may by law become Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chief Justice, 
 or even President. An American naval commander of the He¬ 
 brew faith, was upon one occasion introduced to George IV. 
 
67 
 
 the last century, can be necessary to account for the 
 fact, that the Hebrew church exceeds, perhaps, at this 
 moment in numbers, the population of Judaea at the 
 most flourishing period of its history. Nor, if it 
 were desired during the eighteen centuries to come, 
 to preserve the Jews a separate people, could the 
 wit or philosophy of man devise a scheme to 
 prevent their amalgamating with the nations of the 
 earth, other than by persevering in the same infal¬ 
 lible course of persecution. 
 
 Let them search the annals of religious persecu¬ 
 tion (and it is the most humiliating chapter in the 
 history of poor human nature), and we will chal¬ 
 lenge the advocates of coercive dealings in matters 
 of conscience to produce an instance where vio¬ 
 lence, bribery, or secular power in any form, has 
 ever aided the cause of true religion. To the ho¬ 
 nour of the immaterial portion of our being, although 
 the body may be made to yield to these influences, 
 the soul, disdaining all mortal fetters, owns no alle¬ 
 giance but to itself and its Maker. 
 
 So long, then, as the Church of England pos¬ 
 sesses the whole of the religious revenue of Ireland, 
 there cannot be, nay, judging of the case as our own, 
 there ought not to be, peace or prosperity for its peo¬ 
 ple ; and what is of still more vital importance, there 
 can be, judging by the same rule, no chance of the 
 dissemination of religious truth in that country. 
 
 Let us ?wt be met by those unthinking persons who 
 
 f 2 
 
(38 
 
 view tithes ns religion, with the cry about the de¬ 
 traction of the Protestant church. We are of that 
 church; and we reckon it amongst the happiest circum¬ 
 stances of our destiny that Providence lias placed us in 
 a Protestant land. In our opinion, and we have endea¬ 
 voured to prove it from the homely but incontrovert¬ 
 ible arguments of facts, no greater temporal misfor¬ 
 tune can attach to a people of the present age than to 
 profess the Roman Catholic religion : and it is in 
 order to give the Irish an opportunity of considering 
 with that indiffereney , which, we believe with Locke, 
 is the indispensable prelude to the successful search 
 after truth, the doctrines of our reformed faith, that we 
 would do them the justice in the first place of putting 
 them on a perfectly equal footing, as respects 
 matters of conscience, with their Protestant fellow- 
 subjects. 
 
 We are not visionary enough to shut our eyes to 
 the vast impediments in the way of such a consum¬ 
 mation as we have jumped to. These, however, do 
 not in the least affect the question, as to its justice or 
 expediency. The obstacles lie in the House of 
 Peers, and probably in the breast of the King. If 
 the conscience of the latter should be affected with 
 scruples as to the binding nature of the coronation 
 oath, precautions might be taken to prevent a similar 
 future obstacle on the demise of the crown. With 
 respect to the House of Lords, difficulties of a less 
 august nature will have to be encountered ; for why 
 
69 
 
 should the fact be concealed, that the church ques¬ 
 tion, in whichever way agitated, is one that concerns 
 the interests of the aristocracy. Hence is the diffi¬ 
 culty : that whereas, we sincerely believe, if a can¬ 
 vass were made from house to house throughout 
 Great Britain, four-fifths of the middle classes of its 
 people would be found at once not interested in the 
 temporalities of the Irish Church, and willing to 
 grant to their Catholic fellow-subjects of Ireland a 
 complete equality of religious privileges ; on the 
 contrary, if an appeal were to be made to the votes 
 of the House of Peers, four-fifths of that assembly 
 would very likely oppose such a measure of justice 
 and peace, and probably that great majority of 
 its members would be found to be, immediately 
 or remotely, interested in the revenues of that 
 church. 
 
 We would recommend the most ample concessions 
 to be made to countervail the obstacles of self-in¬ 
 terest. There is no present sacrifice of a pecuniary 
 nature that will not be an ultimate gain to the middle 
 and working classes of England, if it only tend to 
 pacify and regenerate Ireland. 
 
 Viewing the subject as a question of pounds, shil¬ 
 lings, and pence (and it partakes a great deal more 
 of that character than folks are aware of), the people 
 of England would be gainers by charging the whole 
 amount of the church revenue of Ireland to the con¬ 
 solidated fund, if by so doing they were only to 
 
70 
 
 escape the expense of supporting an enormous army * 
 for the service of that country. 
 
 * Stations of the British Army in Ireland, on the 
 1st November, 1834. 
 
 {From the United Service Journal.) 
 
 Those marked thus * are depots of regiments. 
 
 3d dragoon guards, Dublin. 
 
 47th foot, Boyle *. 
 
 4th do. Cork. 
 
 52d, Enniskillen. 
 
 7 th do. Limerick. 
 
 56th, Cork *. 
 
 9th lancers, Newbridge. 
 
 60th, Nenagb *. 
 
 10th hussars, Dundalk. 
 
 2d batt. Kilkenny 
 
 14th light dragoons, Longford. 
 
 67 th, Cashel *. 
 
 15th hussars, Dublin. 
 
 69th, Clare Castle *. 
 
 3d batt. gren. guards, Dublin. 
 
 70th, Cork *. 
 
 1 st foot, 1 st batt. Londonderry* 
 
 74th, Belfast . 
 
 2d batt. Athlone. 
 
 76th, Boyle *. 
 
 7th, Drogheda *. 
 
 81st, Dublin. 
 
 9th, Y'oughal *. 
 
 82d, Belfast. 
 
 14th, Mullingar. 
 
 83d, Newry. 
 
 18th, Limerick. 
 
 85th, Galway. 
 
 24th, Kinsale*. 
 
 89th, Fermoy. 
 
 25th, Armagh *. 
 
 90th, Naas. 
 
 27th, Dublin. 
 
 91st, Birr. 
 
 29th, Kinsale *. 
 
 94th, Cork. 
 
 30th, Clonmel*. 
 
 95th, Templemore. 
 
 43d, Cork. 
 
 96th, Kinsale. 
 
 46th, Dublin. 
 
 
 Here is an array of bayonets, that renders it difficult to believe 
 that Ireland is other than a recently conquered territory, through¬ 
 out which an enemy’s army has just distributed its encampments. 
 Four times as many soldiers as comprise the standing army of 
 ihc United States, are at this time quartered in Ireland ! 
 
71 
 
 But we are, from another motive of self interest, 
 far more deeply concerned in the tranquillity and 
 improvement of the sister kingdom : for it ought to 
 be borne in view, and impressed upon the minds of 
 the industrious classes of this country, that, unless 
 we can succeed in laying the foundations of some 
 plan for elevating the people of Ireland to an equality 
 with us, they will inevitably depress us toa level with 
 themselves. There cannot permanently be, in a free 
 community, two distinct castes or conditions of exist¬ 
 ence, sack as are now to be found in this united em¬ 
 pire. Already is the process of assimilation going 
 on, and the town in which we write furnishes, 
 amongst others, a striking example of the way in 
 which the contagion of Irish habits is contaminating, 
 whilst the competition of that people is depressing, 
 the working' classes of Britain. 
 
 Manchester is supposed to contain fifty thousand 
 Irish, or the immediate descendants of Irish. The 
 quarter in which they congregate is, like the district 
 of St. Giles’s of London, a nursery of all the customs 
 that belong to savage life. In the very centre of 
 our otherwise civilized and wealthy town, a colony, 
 which has acquired for its locale the title of Little 
 Ireland, exhibits all the filth, depravity, and barbarism 
 that disgrace its patronymic land. Nor is the evil 
 confined within such limits. Its influences are felt 
 in the adulteration of character, and the lowering of 
 the standard of living of our artizans generally : it is 
 
72 
 
 a moral cancer, that, in spite of the efforts of science 
 or philanthropy to arrest its progress, continues 
 to spread throughout the entire mass of our labour¬ 
 ing population. 
 
 No part of England or Scotland is exempt from 
 its share in the natural consequences of this ter¬ 
 rible state of degradation to which the people of Ire¬ 
 land are reduced. There is not a village or parish 
 of the kingdom into which its famine-impelled na¬ 
 tives do not, at certain periods of the year, penetrate 
 to share the scanty wages of our peasantry ; thus 
 dragging them down to their own level, and in re¬ 
 turn imparting to them the sad secrets of their own 
 depraved modes of life. 
 
 But great as this evil has hitherto been, it is only 
 a subject of astonishment to us, that the immigration 
 of the Irish people into this portion of the empire 
 has not been more extensive : sure we are, from the 
 accounts we have of the present state of the southern 
 portion of that island, that nothing short of Berkley’s 
 wall of brass can, for the future, save us from an 
 overwhelming influx of its natives. 
 
 Let those who are incredulous of our opinion con¬ 
 sult the recent work on Ireland, from which we are 
 about to offer an extract or two for the perusal of 
 our readers. 
 
 We look upon every writer who directs the attention 
 of the people of England to the facts connected with 
 the present state of Ireland, as a benefactor of his 
 
73 
 
 country. Even should an author, for the sake of being 
 read, or for party purposes, like Cobbett, throw 
 some exaggeration into the pictures of the horrors of 
 this land, we still view him in the useful capacity of 
 a watchman, sounding the alarum of danger, scarcely 
 too loud, to the indifferent minds of Great Britain. 
 Though, like the hydro-oxygen microscope, when 
 applied to physical objects, his descriptions magnify 
 its social monsters, till their magnitude terrifies the 
 beholder,— still the monsters are there, they are 
 only enlarged, and not created ; in the purer ele¬ 
 ments of English society, such evils could not, 
 through whatever exaggerating medium, be dis¬ 
 covered. 
 
 But the traveller from whom we are about to 
 quote, gives intrinsic evidences of not only compe¬ 
 tent intelligence, but strict impartiality, and a sincere 
 love of truth. We do not think that he possesses in 
 an eminent degree the organ of causality, as the 
 phrenologists call it, for he attributes, as the ultimate 
 cause of the miseries of Ireland, the want of employ¬ 
 ment of its people; not recollecting that this evil must 
 have its cause : but in the qualities of a careful and 
 experienced observer of facts, he is, unquestionably, 
 a competent authority. 
 
 These are his words, in speaking of the remunera¬ 
 tion of labour in Ireland :—“ I am quite confident, 
 that if the whole yearly earnings of the labourers of 
 Ireland were divided by the whole number of la- 
 
74 
 
 bourers, the result would be under this sum — four 
 pence a day for the labourers of Ireland. 
 
 Again, in speaking of the habitations of the pea¬ 
 santry of Ireland, the following is the description given 
 by the same author :—“ The only difference between 
 the best and the worst of the mud cabins, is, that 
 some are water-tight, and some are not: air-tight I 
 saw none ; with windows, scarcely any ; with chim¬ 
 neys — that is, with a hole in the roof for the smoke 
 to escape through —' as many perhaps with it as 
 without it. As for furniture, there is no such thing; 
 unless a broken stool or two, and an iron pot, can be 
 called furniture. I should say, that in the greater 
 part of Leinster and Munster, and in the flat districts 
 of Connaught, bedsteads are far from general, and 
 bed clothing is never sufficient.” 
 
 Let us reflect for a moment on what would be the 
 effects upon the condition of our industrious popula¬ 
 tion, if they were brought down to share one 
 common average with these labourers: a fate 
 which, we repeat, they are doomed to suffer, un¬ 
 less by imparting peace and prosperity to Ireland, 
 we shall succeed in elevating her people to our own 
 level. 
 
 This intelligent traveller sums up his recital of all 
 that he witnessed during a tour of many months 
 throughout the island, great part of which time 
 he spent in unrestrained intercourse with the 
 peasantry, in these words, which, along with every 
 
75 
 
 other portion of his volumes, do equal honour to his 
 moral courage and philanthropy. 
 
 “ I, Henry David Inglis, acting under no supe¬ 
 rior orders ; holding no government commission ; 
 with no end to serve, and no party to please; hoping 
 for no patronage, and fearing no censure; and with 
 no other view than the establishment of truth ;—hav¬ 
 ing just completed a journey throughout Ireland, 
 and having minutely examined, and inquired into, 
 the condition of the people of that country, do 
 humbly report, that the destitute, infirm, and aged, 
 form a large body of the population of the cities, 
 towns, and villages of Ireland : that, in the judgment 
 of those best qualified to know the truth, three- 
 fourth parts of their number die through the effects 
 of destitution, either by the decay of nature acce¬ 
 lerated, or through disease induced by scanty and 
 unwholesome food, or else by the attacks of epide¬ 
 mics, rendered more fatal from the same causes. 
 That the present condition of this large class is 
 shocking for humanity to contemplate, and beyond 
 the efforts of private beneficence to relieve, and 
 is a reproach to any civilized and Christian coun¬ 
 try.” 
 
 A Christian country does he say? Posterity will 
 doubt it! There is no such picture as this of a 
 permanent state of national existence to be found in 
 any authentic history, ancient or modern, Christian 
 or Pagan. We shall search the volumes of the most 
 
76 
 
 accredited travellers in Russia*, Turkey f, or India, 
 and find no description of a people that is not envi¬ 
 able, in comparison with the state of millions of our 
 fellow-subjects in Ireland. The natives of Moldavia 
 and Wallachia, which provinces have been the 
 battle-field for Turks and Christians for centu¬ 
 ries, are now living in happiness and plenty, when 
 compared with the fate of the inhabitants of a coun¬ 
 try that has known no other invader but England. 
 
 We lavish our sympathies upon the serfs of Po¬ 
 land, and the'slaves of Turkey ; but who would not 
 prefer to be one of these, to the perishing with 
 hunger under the name of freeman ? We send forth 
 our missionaries to convert the heathen; but well 
 might the followers of Mahomet or Zoroaster instruct 
 us in the ways of charity to our poor Christian 
 brethren! 
 
 * Dr. Clarke tells us, that the serfs of Russia, when old, are 
 of right supported by the owners of the estate. 
 
 f In the Koran, the charities are enjoined : and Tournefort 
 tells us, “ There are no beggars to be seen in Turkey, because 
 they take care to prevent the unfortunate from falling into such 
 necessities. They visit the prisons to discharge those who are 
 arrested for debt; they are very careful to relieve persons who 
 are bashfully-ashamed of their poverty. How many families may 
 one find who have been ruined by fires, and are restored by cha¬ 
 rities ! They need only present themselves at the doors of the 
 mosques. They also go to their houses to comfort the afflicted. 
 The diseased, and they who have the pestilence, are succoured 
 by their neighbour’s purse.” Vol. ii, p. 59. The Bible still 
 more strictly commands charity, and-see Inglis’s Ireland! 
 
77 
 
 Far be it from us to say, with a celebrated French 
 writer, that we distrust the philanthropy of all those 
 who seek in distant regions for objects of their cha¬ 
 rity ; but we put it to our countrymen, whether, in 
 lending themselves to any scheme, having benevo¬ 
 lence for remote nations in view, whilst such a case 
 as this stands appealing at their doors, they are not, 
 in the emphatic words of Scripture, “ taking the 
 children's meat and casting it to the dogs.’' 
 
 We shall be told, that the hundreds of thousands 
 of pounds that are sent annually to remote regions 
 are for the promotion of religion. But there cannot 
 be religion where there is not morality'; and can 
 morals survive in a starving community such as 
 exists in Ireland ? No ; and therefore we say, until 
 the above proclamation of her desperate sufferings 
 be controverted (and who will gainsay it ?) a copy 
 of it ought to be affixed to every public building, 
 and to the doors of every church and chapel in parti¬ 
 cular of England; and all attempts, of whatever 
 description, to subsidize the charity of this country, 
 in behalf of alien nations, whilst this member of our 
 own family, in the extremity of want, supplicates for 
 succour at our hands, should be denounced and 
 put aside by the common sense and humanity of the 
 nation. 
 
 If not, if for more fanciful, because more distant, 
 projects of benevolence, we neglect our obvious duty 
 towards these our fellow-countrymen, then will the 
 sins and omissions of their fathers be visited upon 
 
78 
 
 the future generations of Englishmen ; for assuredly 
 will the accumulated ills of Ireland recoil upon 
 their heads, until one common measure of suffering 
 shall have been meted out to both ! 
 
 But we will not forget that our object in entering 
 upon the consideration of this subject, was to illus¬ 
 trate the impolicy and injustice of the statesmen of 
 this country, who have averted their faces from this 
 diseased member of our body-politic ; and, at the 
 same time, have led us, thus maimed, into the midst 
 of every conflict that has occurred upon the whole 
 continent of Europe. To give one example, let us 
 only recur to the year 1823, when the French inva¬ 
 sion of Spain drew forth those well-known powerful 
 appeals of Brougham * to the ever-ready-primed 
 
 * In alluding to this eminent, and we fervently believe disinte¬ 
 restedly patriotic individual, we have no wish to be thought to have 
 Caught the contagion of that virulence, with which, perhaps from 
 the unworthiest of motives, his character has been latterly assailed. 
 We feel no very great respect for mere eloquence, which, from 
 the time of Demosthenes down to that of the subject of these 
 remarks, has, probably, as often been sacrificed at the altar of 
 falsehood as upon the purer shrine of truth. But Lord Brougham’s 
 labours in behalf of popular intelligence, at a time too, be it 
 always remembered, when the cause of education was not, as now, 
 fashionable, places his fame on a monument that is based securely 
 upon the broad and durable interests of the people. 
 
 At the very instant of penning this note, we have seen the 
 report of a speech, made by Lord Brougham in the House of 
 Lords upon the subject of foreign politics, from which we subjoin 
 an extract, illustrating how little the judgment of this nobleman 
 has profited, by the interval since 1823, upon a question on 
 
79 
 
 pugnacity of his countrymen, in which he exhausted 
 his eloquence in the cause of war against France, 
 
 which, unluckily for England, her statesmen have, one and all, 
 been alike infatuated .—“ With regard to the change of the 
 sovereign in Austria, he could not avoid expressing his hope, that 
 His Majesty’s government would seize upon the opportunity 
 offered, by the change in the reigning sovereign there, and 
 enforce, what he knew their predecessors had tried to enforce (!) 
 the humane, and in his conscience he believed the sound, pru¬ 
 dent, and politic course, as regarded the individual interest of 
 the Austrian government, imposed upon the government of his 
 Imperial Majesty, to mitigate the rigours, if not to terminate the 
 sufferings, that for nearly the whole of the last seventeen years, 
 had been inflicted upon some of the ablest, most accomplished, 
 virtuous, and enlightened individuals, the ornaments of the nobi¬ 
 lity of a part of his Imperial Majesty’s dominion. He hoped that 
 an occasion would be taken of enforcing this subject on the 
 attention of the Austrian government, in a manner that became 
 the character, the policy, and the wisdom (?) of this country ; for 
 lie was convinced,” &c. &c.— Morning Chronicle Report, March 
 11th, 1835. 
 
 The circumstances under which the above was uttered, were 
 even still more inopportune than those we alluded to of 1823. 
 
 Under the same roof, at the very same instant of time, in which 
 an interference with the domestic concerns of a capital nearly a 
 thousand miles distant, and with which we have scarcely more inte¬ 
 rested connection than with Timbuctoo, was thus invoked, a debate 
 was proceeding in the House of Commons (the malt question), in 
 which it was stated by several speakers, that three-fourths of the 
 population of this kingdom are plunged in distress and poverty ; 
 and, in the course of which, the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 declared, that he possessed not the power of alleviating such 
 misery ; whilst such was the extremity to which this minister of 
 the Crown was driven, that he felt impelled to appeal to the 
 honesty of a British parliament in behalf of the national creditor. 
 
80 
 
 declaring, amongst similar flights, that we ought to 
 spend our last shilling in behalf of Spanish inde¬ 
 pendence ; whilst at the very same moment of time, 
 famine, pestilence, and insurrection were raging even 
 to an unparalleled extent in Ireland, whose natives 
 were driven to subsist on the weeds of the fields, 
 and for whom a subscription, fund amounting to 
 more than a quarter of a million, was that very year 
 raised by the people of Great Britain. 
 
 Subsequently, as our readers know, our Govern¬ 
 ment despatched an armament to the succour 
 of Portugal. We witnessed the departure of those 
 troops from London, and well do we remember 
 the enthusiasm of the good citizens on that oc¬ 
 casion. In the next meeting of Parliament it 
 was stated, that this display of our power and 
 magnanimity towards an old ally cost upwards of a 
 million sterlings Here was a sum that would have 
 sufficed to employ the starving peasantry of Ireland 
 in constructing a rail-road fifty miles in length. 
 What fruits have we to exhibit, in the present state of 
 the peninsula, that can be said to have grown out of 
 this expenditure ? 
 
 But the worst effects of an intermeddling policy 
 are, that we are induced, at all times, to maintain an 
 attitude, as it is termed, sufficiently formidable, in 
 the face of Europe. Thus the navy, which after 
 the peace was very properly reduced, so that in 
 1817 it comprised only 13,000 seamen and 6,000 
 marines, was, under the plea of the disturbed state 
 
81 
 
 of Europe, from time to time augmented, until, in 
 1831, the estimate amounted to 22,000 seamen, and 
 10,000 marines: whilst the army, which in 1817 
 had been cut down to G9,000 men, was, by succes¬ 
 sive augmentations, raised to 88,000 men in 1831. 
 
 Our limits do not allow us to go further into 
 details upon this portion of our task. But we can¬ 
 not dismiss the subject altogether, without a few 
 observations upon the remedies which are proposed 
 for the present state of Ireland. That “every quack 
 has his nostrum for the cure of poor Erin,'’ is a 
 common remark with her people; and although we 
 find the doctors, as usual, differ exceedingly in 
 opinion, there are two prescriptions which have 
 been very numerously recommended — we allude to 
 a law against absenteeism, and a poor’s law. 
 
 We should hail any measure that promised the 
 slightest relief to the wretched people of this coun¬ 
 try. But it is necessary to ask, could these plans, 
 through any law, be efficaciously enforced ? There 
 is, we think, much raving after impracticable legis¬ 
 lation now-a-days. Let us see if these be not spe¬ 
 cimens of it. 
 
 We never yet met with a person who professed 
 to understand how an act of parliament could be 
 framed, that, without committing the most grievous 
 injustice and cruelty, would be more than a dead 
 letter against Irish absenteeism. Let us imagine, 
 that a law was enacted to compel every owner of an 
 estate in Ireland to reside upon his property. Well, 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 this would be imprisonment for life. No, is the 
 answer: he might range over the whole island, and 
 even reside on the sea-coast, or, for a portion of the 
 year, in Dublin. Good : then he must have a pass¬ 
 port, and at every move his person must be cog¬ 
 nized ; and for this purpose a police, similar to the 
 French gensdarmerie, must be organized throughout 
 the country. But the traders, the farmers, the pro¬ 
 fessional men, the tourists, the beggars, the com¬ 
 mercial travellers, the strangers, all these, we sup¬ 
 pose, would not be subjected to the like surveil¬ 
 lance? Oh, no ! must be the reply ; that would be 
 to obstruct the entire business of the country. Thus 
 this law falls to the ground, since the landowner 
 might elude it under any of these disguises. 
 
 But to approach the subject in another way. The 
 enactment would not of course be passed, without 
 some clauses of exceptions. It would be barbarous, 
 for example, to prohibit a man from changing his 
 abode, if illness demanded it, or if his wife or 
 children were in that extremity. What, then, would 
 be the market price of a doctor’s certificate, to 
 transport a malade imaginaire to France or Italy ? 
 Again, if a Milesian landlord pined for a trip to 
 London, would not a subpoena to attend some sham 
 law process be a favourite resource ? Ora friend 
 might summon him before a parliamentary com¬ 
 mittee, or find him comfortable apartments in the 
 rules of the Fleet. Fictitious conveyances, nomi¬ 
 nal divisions of property, and a thousand other ex- 
 
83 
 
 pedients, might be named, for rendering nugatory 
 this law, each one of which would, to a reasonable 
 mind, prove the impracticability of such a mea¬ 
 sure. 
 
 Let those who think that a poor’s-rate, sufficient 
 to operate as a relief to the pauper population, 
 could be levied in the south of Ireland, peruse 
 Inglis’s description of the present state of the pro¬ 
 vince of Connaught. How would the rate be agreed 
 upon, when no one of the wretched farmers would 
 come forward to fix the amount ? Or, if they did 
 agree to a levy, who would be bold enough to col¬ 
 lect the rate ? Who would distribute it, where all 
 are needing its assistance? But, for the sake of 
 contemplating the probable effects of such a law, 
 let us suppose that these difficulties were got over. 
 We believe that those who recommend a poor’s-law 
 as a remedy for Ireland, are imperfectly acquainted 
 with its desperate condition. 
 
 The poor’s-rate of England had, two years ago, 
 in various districts, reached fourteen shillings in the 
 pound ; and, in one instance, it absorbed the entire 
 rental of the land : and this occurred in Bucking¬ 
 hamshire, within fifty miles of London, and where 
 there are rich farmers and landowners. 
 
 What, then, would be the effects of any poor-law 
 in a country where parish after parish throughout 
 vast districts contains not an inhabitant who tastes 
 better food than potatoes, or knows the luxury of 
 shoes and stockings, or other shelter than a mud 
 
 c 2 
 
84 
 
 cabin? We dread to contemplate the results, 
 which, in our judgment, would follow such an 
 attempt to ameliorate the lot of this population. As 
 soon as a competent provision for the poor were 
 ordered — such as a Christian legislature must as- 
 sign, if it touch the subject at all — the starving 
 peasantry of Ireland, diverted from their present 
 desperate resources of emigration or partial em¬ 
 ployment in towns, would press upon the occupiers 
 of the soil for subsistence with such overwhelming 
 claims, as to absorb the whole rental in less than 
 six months. What must follow, but that every per¬ 
 son, owning a head of cattle or a piece of furniture, 
 would fly to the cities; leaving the land to become 
 a scramble to the pauper population, which, in turn, 
 abandoned to its own passions, and restrained by no 
 laws or government, would probably divide itself 
 once more into septs, under separate chieftains (the 
 elements of this savage state are still in existence 
 in many parts of the south of Ireland), and com¬ 
 mence a war of extermination with each other. 
 The days of the pale and all its horrors would be 
 again revived; famine would soon, of necessity, 
 ensue; the towns would be assailed by these bar¬ 
 barous and starving clans ; and the British govern¬ 
 ment would once more be called on to quell this 
 state of rapine with the sword. 
 
 Such, we conscientiously believe, would be the 
 inevitable consequences of a measure, which, to the 
 eye of the uninformed or unreflecting philanthropist, 
 
85 
 
 appears to be the most eligible plan for the peace 
 and prosperity of Ireland. 
 
 What remedies, then, remain for this suffering 
 country ? 
 
 We shall pass by the cry for the repeal of the 
 Union, because everybody knows that to have been 
 only used as an engine, for the purpose of acquiring 
 a power to coerce England into other acts of justice. 
 A parliament in Dublin would not remedy the ills 
 of Ireland. That has been tried, and found unsuc¬ 
 cessful; for all may learn in her history, that a more 
 corrupt, base, and selfish public body than the do¬ 
 mestic legislature of Ireland never existed ; and the 
 very first declaration of the united volunteers, when, 
 in 1781, they took the redress of her thousand wrongs 
 into their own hands, was to the effect, that they 
 resolved to use every effort to extirpate the corrup¬ 
 tions that so notoriously existed in the Irish parlia¬ 
 ment : and one of the first acts of the same patriotic 
 body, was to invest the Parliament House in Dub¬ 
 lin, and, at the point of the bayonet, to extort from 
 those native legislators a redress of their country’s 
 grievances. 
 
 To come, next, to the scheme of emigration. All 
 must regard with feelings of suspicion and disfavour 
 any attempt to expatriate a large body of our fellow- 
 countrymen ; and we hold such an antidote to be 
 only like removing the slough which has arisen 
 from a wound, whilst the disease itself remains un¬ 
 touched. 
 
86 
 
 But, unhappily, the maladies of Ireland have 
 taken such deep root, that legislation cannot hope, 
 for ages to come, effectually to eradicate them. 
 Whilst here is a mode by which hundreds of thou¬ 
 sands of our fellow-creatures are eager to be enabled 
 to escape a lingering death. Surely, under such cir¬ 
 cumstances, this plan, which would leave us room 
 to administer more effectually to the cure of her 
 social disorders, deserves the anxious consideration 
 of our legislature. 
 
 Here let us demand, why some forty or fifty of 
 our frigates and sloops of war, which are now, at a 
 time of peace, sunning themselves in the Archipe¬ 
 lago, or anchoring in friendly ports, or rotting in 
 ordinary in our own harbours, should not be em¬ 
 ployed, by the government, in conveying these emi¬ 
 grants to Canada, or some other hospitable des¬ 
 tination ? The expense of transporting an indivi¬ 
 dual from Limerick to the shores of America, by 
 such a method, would, probably, not exceed two 
 pounds. On arrival, the government agents might, 
 probably, find it necessary to be at the charge of 
 his subsistence for a considerable time, perhaps, not 
 less than twelve months. 
 
 Altogether, however, the expense of a project of 
 emigration, on a scale of magnitude, must be enor¬ 
 mous. But again we say, that any present sacrifice, 
 on the part of the people of this country, by which 
 the Irish nation can be lifted from its state of de¬ 
 gradation, will prove an eventual gain. 
 
87 
 
 Contemporary with any plan of emigration, other 
 projects for the future amelioration of the fate of 
 that miserable people must be entered upon by the 
 British parliament; and we should strongly advocate 
 any measure of internal improvement, which, by 
 giving more ready access to the southern portion of 
 the island, would throw open its semi-barbarous 
 region to the curiosity and enterprise of England. 
 Steam navigation has already given a powerful 
 stimulus to the industry of the eastern maritime 
 counties; and if, by means of rail-roads, the same 
 all-powerful agent could be carried into the centre 
 of the kingdom, there can be no doubt that English 
 capital and civilization would follow in its train. 
 Every one conversant with the subject is aware, 
 how greatly the pacification and prosperity of the 
 Scotch Highlands were promoted by carrying roads 
 into those savage districts; and still more recently, 
 how, by means of the steam navigation of the lakes, 
 and the consequent influx of visitors, the people 
 have been enriched and civilized. Similar effects 
 would doubtless follow, if the facilities of rail-road 
 travelling were offered in Ireland, whose scenery, 
 hardly rivalled in Europe, together with the frank 
 and hilarious temperament of its people, could not 
 fail to become popular and attractive with the Eng¬ 
 lish traveller. 
 
 We will here introduce a scheme to the notice 
 of our readers, which, whilst we gladly acknowledge 
 
88 
 
 with gratitude the source from whence it originated, 
 we think deserves the notice of our government. 
 
 In the New York Courier and Enquirer newspaper 
 of December 24, 1834, appeared a letter, headed, 
 “ Traverse Atlantic ,” which, after stating that the 
 writer, on a recent visit to Europe, had suffered a 
 delay of ten days in ascending the French Channel, 
 from Finisterre to Havre, and of eight days in de¬ 
 scending the Irish Channel, from Liverpool to Cape 
 Clear, says he “ believes, that, on an average, one- 
 third or one-fourth of the time is wasted, upon 
 every transatlantic voyage, in getting into, or out 
 of, the European ports now resorted to.” The 
 writer then proceeds as follows:— 
 
 “ The commerce of America chiefly centres in 
 the ports of Hamburgh, Havre, London, and Liver¬ 
 pool. Each of these is distant from the ocean, and 
 difficult of access. On the western coast of Ireland 
 there are several harbours far superior in every re¬ 
 quisite. As for instance, the island of Valencia, 
 which is the nearest point of land in Europe to 
 America. Between it and the main, reposes an 
 excellent receptacle for shipping of any burthen, 
 approached by two easily practicable inlets, com¬ 
 pletely land-locked, capacious, and safe. Situated 
 immediately on the brim of the Atlantic, a perfectly 
 straight line can be drawn from this harbour to the 
 port of New York, the intervening transit unob¬ 
 structed by islands, rocks, or shoals. The distance 
 
S9 
 
 being less than two thousand seven hundred miles, 
 may be traversed by steam in about eight days; 
 and the well-known enterprize of the American 
 merchants, renders it unnecessary for me to do more 
 than to intimate, that they will avail themselves of 
 every opening or inducement that may arise to 
 establish the first link of intercourse by a line of 
 packet boats. 
 
 “ The extent of this undertaking has been stated 
 as beyond the means of those likely to engage in 
 it. This seems to me incredible, when I advert to 
 the facts, that Ireland has a population of eight 
 millions, multitudes of them are in beggary for want 
 of work, with wages at from four pence to one 
 shilling a day, and money, on the average, not 
 worth more than three per cent.; and recollect, at 
 the same time, that the state of South Carolina, one 
 of the smallest in the American confederation, with 
 a population of three hundred thousand, wages at 
 five shillings sterling a day, and capital at seven per 
 cent, interest, has, unaided, and by private enter¬ 
 prize, constructed a rail-road from Charleston to 
 Augusta, one hundred and forty-five miles in 
 extent, at present the longest in the world, which 
 is travelled with locomotive engines in the course 
 of ten hours. 
 
 “ The advantages to accrue to Ireland in parti¬ 
 cular, by thus opening a regular communication 
 from New York to London in twelve, and to Paris 
 
90 
 
 in fifteen days, are incalculable. That island would 
 become, of necessity, the thoroughfare between the 
 two hemispheres; and the occupation of the public 
 mind in such an enterprize, and the constantly in¬ 
 creasing fruits of its progress, would do more to 
 pacify the fearful dissensions of the people, and 
 ameliorate their most lamentable condition, than 
 any legislation of even the best disposed parlia¬ 
 ment.” 
 
 The above project, which, in the affluence of 
 their enterprize, our American friends have sug¬ 
 gested for the benefit of Ireland, merits the atten¬ 
 tion of the landowners and patriots, concerned for 
 the welfare of her people. 
 
 It has long been decided, by the merchants and 
 nautical men engaged in the intercourse between 
 Liverpool and America, that steam boats * would 
 be found capable of navigating the Atlantic with 
 perfect safety; and the more sanguine, amongst 
 those interested in increasing the facilities of com¬ 
 munication with the two countries, have gone so 
 far as to predict, that, in a dozen years' time, we 
 may hope to witness the arrival and departure of 
 steamers twice a week between England and the 
 United States. 
 
 As any scheme of this nature must necessarily 
 require that the vessels take their departure from 
 
 * June 1819, a steam ship crossed the Atlantic from Savannah 
 to Liverpool. 
 
91 
 
 the nearest points of approximation of the two 
 hemispheres, Ireland would thus become the 
 starting place for all Europe ; and it is scarcely 
 possible to conceive any thing that would be more 
 calculated to enrich and civilize that country, than 
 by thus irrigating it, as it were, with the con¬ 
 stant tide of emigration to and from America. 
 
 A railway, for the purpose here alluded to, would 
 pass through the centres of Leinster and Munster; 
 intersecting the counties of Kildare, Queen’s 
 County, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Limerick, Cork, and 
 Kerry; and would pass within twenty miles of the 
 port of Limerick, and thirty miles from that of 
 Cork, to both of which cities, it might reasonably 
 be expected, that branches would be carried by 
 public subscription : thus, not only would these two 
 great commercial havens be connected with Dub¬ 
 lin, but, by opening a direct communication with 
 each other, it would afford a medium for traffic, by 
 steam, between the fifteen counties that are washed 
 by that noble stream, the Shannon, and the ports of 
 Cork and Bristol; and, ultimately, by means of the 
 great western railway, with London. 
 
 Rail-roads are already begun for connecting 
 Liverpool with Southampton, by way of Birming¬ 
 ham and London. The French have long been 
 engaged in making surveys for a railway from 
 Havre, by way of Rouen (the Manchester of 
 France), to Paris : and although characteristic 
 delays may arise to retard the completion of this, 
 
92 
 
 as of other projects of mere usefulness, with that 
 fanciful people ; yet as it is, perhaps, the only line 
 in all France that would prove a remunerating 
 speculation, there can be no doubt that it will 
 be the first that is undertaken in that country. 
 
 Presuming this to be effected, then, by means 
 of such a plan as is here recommended, for con¬ 
 structing a line from Dublin to the extreme point 
 of Munster, a traveller would be enabled to trans¬ 
 port himself from the French metropolis, via 
 Havre, Southampton, London, Liverpool, and Dub¬ 
 lin, to Valencia Island, or any other point of em¬ 
 barkation on that coast, in about sixty hours ; and 
 as the voyage to New York would be accomplished 
 in about eleven or twelve days, the whole distance 
 from Paris to America, which now upon an average 
 occupies forty days in the passage, would be ac¬ 
 complished, by the agency of steam, in about a third 
 of that time. 
 
 That such a project, if completed, would secure 
 the preference of voyagers to all parts of North 
 America, not only from Britain, but from every 
 quarter of Europe, must be apparent: that all we 
 have recommended is perfectly practicable, we have 
 no difficulty in believing : and that a traffic, of 
 such magnitude as is here contemplated, would 
 have the effect of imparting wealth and civiliza¬ 
 tion to the country through which it passed, all ex¬ 
 perience proves to be unquestionable. 
 
 But it is not merely the future benefit that must 
 
93 
 
 accrue to Ireland, from the construction of a rail¬ 
 road through her provinces, that we should alone 
 regard. The present support of her unemployed 
 peasantry, is another cogent motive for some such 
 undertakings : for unless a diversion of the surplus 
 labour from the land be effected, through the em¬ 
 ployment of English capital amongst its population, 
 no change can be attempted in the agricultural 
 economy of Ireland. There is not, absolutely, in 
 the present densely crowded state of her rural in¬ 
 habitants, elbowr-room, so to speak, sufficient for 
 readjusting their position. Yet there are reforms 
 indispensably requisite to the agricultural pros¬ 
 perity of the island. The fanning implements of 
 its people are, for example, notoriously inferior, 
 requiring twice the labour, both of men and cattle, 
 of our own ; yet, how shall we hope to see any 
 improvements effected in these, by which the de¬ 
 mand for labour shall be temporarily diminished, 
 whilst one half of the peasantry is perishing for 
 want of work ? 
 
 Again : the farms are so minutely subdivided, to 
 meet the desperate competition of a people who 
 possess no resource but the land to preserve them 
 from famine, that their occupiers are destitute alto¬ 
 gether of capital, and aim at no other end but to 
 secure a daily subsistence on potatoes. 
 
 Under a better system, the cultivation of flax 
 might be extended almost indefinitely. At present, 
 the estimated value of the annual production of this 
 
94 
 
 raw material of their staple manufacture is about 
 1,500,000/., which is yielded from one hundred 
 thousand acres of land — not one tenth of the area 
 of a moderate-sized county. But how can we 
 apply a remedy to these, or the other evils of the 
 soil, amidst a ferocious and lawless community, that 
 visits with fire and sword * the pragdial reformer ? 
 
 We confess we see no hope for the eventual 
 prosperity of this country, except in the employment 
 of a portion of its people, through the instrumentality 
 of English capital, in the pursuit of manufactures or 
 commerce. Of capital they are literally more des¬ 
 titute, in some parts of the west coast of the island, 
 than are the North American Indians on the banks 
 of the Mississippi. As an instance in proof of 
 which it may be stated, that, in a recent govern¬ 
 ment survey of that quarter, a vessel of war was the 
 first to discover some of the fiuest fishing stations to 
 be found in the British waters; and yet the natives 
 of the neighbouring shores possess not the means of 
 procuring boats or nets, through which to avail 
 themselves of these treasures ! 
 
 Capital, like water, tends continually to a level, 
 and if any great and unnatural inequality is found to 
 exist in its distribution over the surface of a com¬ 
 munity, as is the case in this United Kingdom, the 
 
 * The barbarities committed in Ireland as frequently spring 1 
 out of feuds arising from the competition after land, as from dis¬ 
 putes upon the question of tithes. 
 
95 
 
 cause must, in all probability, be sought for in the 
 errors or violence of a mistaken legislation. The 
 dominant church, opposed to the national religion , is, 
 we conscientiously believe, in this case, the primary 
 existing cause of this discrepancy. Capitalists 
 shrink, with all the susceptibility of the barometer 
 in relation to the natural elements, from the storms 
 and tempests of party passion; but how infinitely 
 beyond all other motives must this privileged class 
 be impelled, by the impulses of feeling and taste, to 
 shun that atmosphere where the strife of religious 
 discord rages with a fury unheard of in any other 
 land ! * There cannot be prosperity for Ireland, 
 until the law, by equalizing the temporalities of 
 Catholics and Protestants, shall have removed the 
 foundation of this hideous contention. 
 
 To this consummation we must be ultimately 
 driven ; for nothing short of this will content the 
 people of Ireland, because less would be short of 
 the full measure of justice. We advocate no spoli- 
 
 * When at the commencement of the last century, a commis¬ 
 sion of the most intelligent merchants of Holland drew up, at the 
 request of the government, a statement of the causes of the com¬ 
 mercial prosperity of that country, they placed the following 
 words first in the list of “ moral causes.” “ Among the moral 
 and political causes are to be placed, The unalterable maxim and 
 fundamental law relating to the free exercise of different reli¬ 
 gions ; and always to consider this toleration and connivance as 
 the most effectual means to draw foreigners from adjacent 
 countries to settle and reside here, and so become instrumental 
 to the peopling of these provinces.” 
 
9G 
 
 ation : let the vested rights of every individual be 
 respected, — especially let no part of the tithes fall 
 to the merciless grasp of the landlords of Ireland, 
 who, with many exceptions, may be regarded as the 
 least deserving body of its people. But let the 
 British Parliament assert the right to the absolute 
 disposal of the Irish church revenues, excepting in 
 cases of private property ; and let an equal govern¬ 
 ment grant be applied to the religious instruction of 
 both faiths, according to the numbers of each , as is 
 the rule in France and Belgium * at the present 
 day. 
 
 Such a regulation, by preventing Englishmen 
 from holding benefices in Ireland (there would then 
 be no longer the temptations of rich livings and 
 sinecures), would lead to a beneficial influence of the 
 Protestant ministers in that country : for what 
 could so much tend to destroy all hope of their 
 proselyting the poor Catholics, what in fact could 
 be so much calculated to make those ministers 
 “ despised and rejected f,” as to send amongst 
 
 * At the last sitting of the Belgian Chambers, a sum of 400f. 
 was voted towards the support of the English chapel; and a 
 similar amount was granted for the service of the Jewish faith. 
 
 f “ In planting of religion, thus much is needful to be done, 
 that it be not sought forcibly to be impressed into them with 
 terror and sharpe penalties, as now is the manner, but rather 
 delivered and intimated with mildnesse and gentlenesse, so as it 
 may not be hated before it be understood, and their professors 
 despised and rejected. And therefore it is expedient, that some 
 
97 
 
 them, as is now the case, and ever has been, stran¬ 
 gers, who, whatever may be their worth (and we 
 believe the Church of England clergy, as a class, to 
 be at this moment about the best body of men in 
 Ireland), are ignorant of the character and habits, 
 nay even of the very language of the people. What 
 chance have these in competition with the Roman 
 Catholic priesthood, who, drawn from the middle or 
 
 discreete ministers of their owne country-men, be first sent over 
 amongst them, which by their meeke persuasions and instruc¬ 
 tions, as also by their sober lives and conversations, may draw 
 them first to understand, and afterwards to imbrace the doctrine 
 of their salvation ; for if that the auncient godly fathers which 
 first converted them, when they were infidells, to the faith, were 
 able to pull them from idolatry and paganisme to the true beliefe 
 in Christ, as St. Patrick and St. Colomb, how much more easily 
 shall godly teachers bring them to the true understanding of that 
 which they already professed ? Wherein it is great wonder to 
 see the oddes that is betweene the zeale of popish priests and 
 the ministers of the gospell; for they spare not to come out 
 of Spaine, from Rome and from Remes, by long toyle and dann- 
 gerous travayling hither, where they know perill of death away- 
 teth them, and no reward or richesse is to be found, only to 
 draw the people unto the Church of Rome. Whereas some of 
 our idle ministers, having a way for credite and estimation thereby 
 opened unto them, and having the livings of the country offered 
 unto them without paines and without perile, will neither for 
 the same nor any love of God nor zeale of religion, nor for all the 
 good they may doe by winning soules to God, bee drawne foorth 
 from their warme nestes to look out into God’s harvest, which is 
 even ready for the sickle and all the fields yellow long ago; 
 doubtless those good olde godly fathers will (I fear mee) rise up 
 in the day of judgement to condemme them.”— Spenser. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 lower ranks of their countrymen, after an appro¬ 
 priate education in Maynooth College (where are 
 always four or five hundred of such students), are 
 sent back to, perhaps, their native village, to resume 
 the personal and familiar acquaintance of its inha¬ 
 bitants. 
 
 Would the spiritual interests of the Scotch people 
 be consulted by displacing their present excellent 
 native pastors, in favour of the younger sons of 
 English noblemen ? 
 
 If it be objected, that the English establishment is 
 involved in the fate of the Church of Ireland, we 
 answer, that the circumstances of the two are of as 
 opposite a complexion as light is to darkness. In 
 England, the national church comprises within its 
 pale a great majority of the people; whilst in Ire¬ 
 land we behold a state religion, upheld for the ex¬ 
 clusive benefit of one-seventh of its population. 
 Can we, on the face of the earth, find another 
 example of an established church opposed to the 
 consciences of six-sevenths of its supporters ? We 
 say supporters, for, although the revenues may not 
 go directly from their pockets, coaid the present 
 income of the Protestant church be raised without 
 the Catholic population ? 
 
 What should we say if the government of Austria, 
 Russia, or Turkey (for each of these has a state 
 religion, differing from ours, and from one another, 
 yet each pronounced by the law of the land to be 
 the only true belief), were found to be applying the 
 
99 
 
 whole of the religious revenues of its country to the 
 service of the faith of one-seventh of its subjects ? 
 What should we think, if the Russian government 
 were to bestow the entire of the property of the 
 Greek church upon the Catholic or Armenian frac¬ 
 tion of its people ? In every country we find the 
 established religion in harmony with the consciences 
 of its people, excepting in Ireland, which, in this as 
 in other respects, presents to us an anomaly that 
 has no resemblance amongst the nations of the 
 world. 
 
 In concluding our observations upon this portion 
 of our task, we shall briefly ask,—Does not the ques¬ 
 tion of Ireland, in every point of view, offer the 
 strongest possible argument against the national 
 policy of this country, for the time during which we 
 have wasted our energies and squandered our wealth 
 upon all the nations of the continent; whilst a part 
 of our own empire, which more than all the rest of 
 Europe has needed our attention, remains to this 
 hour an appalling monument of our neglect and 
 misgovernment. Add to this, that our efforts have 
 been directed towards the assistance of states for 
 whose welfare we are not responsible ; whilst our 
 oppression and neglect have fallen upon a people, 
 over whom we are endowed with the power and 
 accountable privileges of government, — and the 
 extent of the injustice of our statesmen becomes 
 fully disclosed. 
 
 The neglect of those duties, which in such a case 
 
 h 2 
 
100 
 
 devolve upon the governor, as in the instance of 
 every infringement of moral obligations, bears within 
 it the seeds of self-chastisement: the spectacle of 
 Ireland, operating like a cancer in the side of 
 England;—of Poland, paralyzing one arm of the 
 giant that oppressed her;—of the two millions of 
 negroes in the United States, whose future disposal 
 baffles the ingenuity of those statesmen and philan¬ 
 thropists who would fain wash out this indelible 
 stain upon their religion and government:—these 
 are amongst the lessons, which, if viewed properly, 
 serve to teach mankind, that no deed of guilt or 
 oppression can be perpetrated with impunity, even 
 by the most powerful,—that, early or late, the 
 invincible cause of truth will triumph against every 
 assault of violence or injustice. 
 
 May the middle classes of Great Britain, in whom 
 the government of this country is now vested, pro¬ 
 fit, in the case of Ireland, by these morals of past 
 history! 
 
PART III. 
 
 It is a singular fact, that whilst so much of the 
 time and attention of our statesmen is devoted to the 
 affairs of foreigners, and whilst our debates in par¬ 
 liament, and the columns of our newspapers, are so 
 frequently engrossed with the politics of petty states, 
 such as Portugal, Belgium, and Bavaria, little notice 
 is taken of the country that ought, beyond all others, 
 to engage the attention, and even to excite the appre¬ 
 hension of this commercial nation. 
 
 A considerable portion of our countrymen have 
 not vet reconciled themselves to the belief, that the 
 American colonies of 1780 are now become a first- 
 rate independent power. The more aged individu¬ 
 als of this party, embracing of course a considerable 
 section of the House of Peers, possess a feeling of 
 half pique and half contempt towards the United 
 States, somewhat analogous to that which the old 
 Scotch Jacobite lady, described by Burns, indulged 
 with reference to Great Britain more than half a 
 
102 
 
 century after it had rebelled, as she persisted in 
 designating it, against the legitimate rule of the 
 Stuarts. 
 
 We have met with persons of this very respect¬ 
 able and influential party, who believe, conscien¬ 
 tiously, that the Americans threw off the yoke of the 
 mother country, merely with a view to escape the 
 payment of certain sums of money due to English 
 creditors*; and that they have ever since been 
 struggling after a dubious kind of subsistence, by 
 incurring fresh debts with us, and occasionally 
 repaying our credulity in no very creditable coin. 
 If these be told that the people of the United States 
 constitute our largest and most valuable commercial 
 connection, that the business we carry on with them 
 is nearly twice as extensive as with any other peo¬ 
 ple, and that our transactions are almost wholly 
 conducted on ready-money terms, they will express 
 surprise; but then they will predict, that no good 
 will arise ultimately from trading with Yankee 
 republicans. 
 
 If a word be said about the well-known religious 
 and moral character of the Americans, these worthy 
 people will stop you with the exclamation of, “ How 
 can there be religion or morality in a country that 
 maintains no established church ?” 
 
 Offer to enter into an argument with these spirits 
 
 * cuuld their Sovereign, in their purse, forget, 
 
 Ami break allegiance but to cancel debt. 
 
 Moore, 
 
103 
 
 of olden time, or to adduce evidence in reference to 
 the present condition of the American States, and, 
 ten to one, you will find that they have read the 
 works of no authors or travellers upon that country, 
 with the exception of those of Moore, Mrs. Trollope, 
 and Basil Hall. If the news-rooms and the libraries 
 that are under the direction of this prejudiced party 
 be consulted, the former will be found to contain no 
 specimens of the millions of newspapers that issue, 
 cheap as waste paper, from the press of the United 
 States; whilst, from the shelves of the latter, all 
 books *, calculated to give a favourable picture of 
 the state of its flourishing community, are scrupu¬ 
 lously excluded. 
 
 Should we look into the periodical journals which 
 are under the patronage of the same class, we shall 
 find the United States’ news but rarely admitted to 
 their columns, unless it be of such a nature as tends 
 to depreciate the character of republican institutions, 
 
 * An instance of this nature has come to our own knowledge. 
 A gentleman presented to the Lincoln Mechanics’ Institution a 
 copy of Stuart’s work on America (probably the best, because 
 the most matter of fact and impartial of all the writers upon that 
 country), which an influential and wealthy individual of the 
 neighbourhood, one of the patrons of the society, induced the 
 committee to reject. 
 
 We do not feel intolerant towards these errors of judgment, 
 the fruits of ignorance, or a faulty education. The only wonder 
 is, in this instance, to find such a character so out of his element, 
 as to be supporting a Mechanics’ Institute at all ! 
 
104 
 
 or serves as an occasion for quizzing the social 
 peculiarities of American society. 
 
 Yet it is to the industry, the economy, and peace¬ 
 ful policy of America, and not to the growth of 
 Russia, that our statesmen and politicians, of what¬ 
 ever creed, ought to direct their anxious study ; for 
 it is by these, and not by the efforts of barbarian 
 force, that the power and greatness of England are 
 in danger of being superseded : yes, by the success¬ 
 ful rivalry of America, shall we in all probability be 
 placed second in the rank of nations. 
 
 Nor shall we retard, but rather accelerate this 
 fate, by closing our ears, or shutting our eyes, to all 
 that is passing in the United States. We regard it 
 as the first duty of every British statesman, who 
 takes an enlightened interest in the permanent gran¬ 
 deur of his country, however unpalatable the task 
 may prove, to weigh, in comparison with all the 
 features of our national policy, the proceedings in 
 corresponding measures on the other side of the 
 Atlantic. Possibly we may not, after all, be enabled 
 to cope with our more fortunate rivals in the energy 
 or wisdom of their commercial legislation, owing to 
 the embarrassments and burdens with which we are 
 encumbered ; but still it only the more becomes the 
 character for high moral courage that belongs to us, 
 to strive to understand from which quarter danger is 
 the most to be apprehended. 
 
 By danger, we do not, of course, allude to war- 
 
105 
 
 like hostilities. England and America are bound up 
 together in peaceful fetters, by the strongest of all the 
 ligatures that can bind two nations to each other,— 
 viz. commercial interests ; and which every succeed¬ 
 ing year renders more impossible, if the term may be 
 used, a rupture between the two governments. This 
 will be sufficiently apparent when we state, that a po¬ 
 pulation of upwards of a million of the inhabitants of 
 tliis country, supported by the various branches of 
 the cotton industry, dependent for the supply of the 
 ■raw material upon the United States # , would be 
 deprived of subsistence ; at the same time that a capi¬ 
 tal of thirty millions sterling, would, for the moment, 
 be annihilated, if such a catastrophe were to occur 
 as the suspension of the commerce between England 
 and the United States. Whilst the interests of the 
 Americans would be scarcely less vitally affected by 
 the same circumstance. 
 
 But we allude to the danger in which we are placed, 
 of being overshadowed by the commercial and naval 
 ascendancy of the United States. It has been 
 through the peaceful victories of mercantile traffic, 
 and not by the force of arms, that modern states have 
 yielded to the supremacy of more successful nations : 
 thus the power and civilization of maritime Italy 
 succumbed to the enterprise of Spain and Portugal ; 
 these again were superseded by the more industrious 
 
 * The total amount of cotton worked up in this country in 
 1832, was 277)260,490 lbs. Of which no less a proportion than 
 212,313,690 lbs. was imported from the United States. 
 
106 
 
 traders of Holland ; who, in their turn, sunk into in¬ 
 significance before the gigantic growth of the manu¬ 
 facturing industry of Great Britain ; and the latter 
 power now sees, in America, a competitor in every 
 respect calculated to contend with advantage for 
 the sceptre of naval and commercial dominion. 
 
 Whether we view the rapid advance of the United 
 States, during the last forty years, in respect of po¬ 
 pulation or wealth, it is equally unparalleled in any 
 other age or country. The past history, however, of 
 this country is so well known, indeed it is compressed 
 into so short a space of recent history, that it would 
 be trite to dwell upon it: our object is to draw a 
 short comparison between the future prospects of the 
 two countries. 
 
 The population of the United States was, at the 
 first census taken in 1790, found to be 3,929,328 ; 
 and in 1830, the number had, according to the fifth 
 government return, reached 12,856,171, exhibiting 
 an increase, during the last ten years, of thirty-three 
 per cent., that is, doubling itself in rather less than 
 twenty-five years. In 1831, the population of the 
 British Islands amounted to 24,271,763, being an 
 increase of about fourteen per cent, upon the enume¬ 
 ration for 1821. Looking, therefore, to the present 
 proportionate increase of the two countries, and con¬ 
 sidering the relative circumstances of each , it may be 
 predicted, that in thirty years, the numbers of the 
 two people will be about equal; and we further find, 
 that at the same ratio of augmentation, and making 
 
107 
 
 no allowance tor the probable increase of emigration 
 from Europe, the population of the United States 
 will, in seventy years from this time—that is, during 
 the lifetime of individuals now arrived at maturity— 
 exceed one hundred millions. 
 
 These circumstances demonstrate the rapid ten¬ 
 dency towards a superiority, so far as numbers go ; 
 but we apprehend, that in respent to the comparison 
 of our commercial prospects with those of America, 
 the position of Great Britain does not, according to 
 facts which we have to state, wear a more flattering 
 aspect. 
 
 We find, by a table in the American Almanack 
 for 1835, that the exports from the United States, for 
 the year ending the 25th September, 1833, amounted 
 to 90,140,000 dollars, or about twenty millions ster¬ 
 ling of our money. 
 
 The British exports for the same period were 
 47,000,000/., of which thirty-six millions were 
 of home commodities or manufactures, whilst the 
 remaining eleven millions consisted of foreign and 
 colonial produce. But it will be proper to exclude 
 the colony trade from the question altogether, unless, 
 in order to state the matter fairly, we agree to take 
 into account at the same time the inhabitants of our 
 dependencies, which would not improve our case. 
 
 Now, in order to institute a fair comparison be¬ 
 tween the respective trades of the two countries, it 
 will be necessary to bear in mind, that at the above 
 period the population of America was about four¬ 
 teen millions, whilst that of the British empire 
 
 
108 
 
 may be reckoned to have been twenty-five and one 
 half millions. 
 
 We arrive then at this result, that whilst our po¬ 
 pulation, as compared with that of the United States, 
 is as 25^ to 14 *, our commerce bears the proportion 
 of 36 to 20. Further, if we compare the mercantile 
 navy of Britain with that of America, we find the 
 tonnage of the former, in 1832, to have been 
 2,261,860; whilst that of the latter, in 1833, 
 amounted to 1,439,450 tons : by all which it appears 
 clear, that America is, in proportion to its popu¬ 
 lation, at this moment carrying on as extensive a 
 commerce as England, or any other state in the 
 world. 
 
 But we should take a very inadequate view of 
 the comparative prospects of the two nations, unless 
 we glanced at other circumstances, which will affect 
 very oppositely the career of England and the 
 United States, in their future race of commercial 
 rivalry. 
 
 This republican people presents the only example 
 of past—as we believe it will prove of future—his¬ 
 tory, in which a nation has honourably discharged its 
 public debt; and the greatest financial pressure its 
 government will in future have to contend against, 
 singular as the fact may appear to us, is the difficulty 
 of applying its surplus treasure impartially to the 
 services of the separate states. The time is gone by, 
 
 * Bearing in mind that two millions of the American popula¬ 
 tion are Negroes, it makes the commerce decidedly in favour 
 of the United States. 
 
109 
 
 we believe, when people could be found to argue, 
 that a national debt is a national blessing *. Sure 
 we are, that, in our case, no person possessing sound 
 reason will deny, that we, who find it necessary to 
 levy upwards of thirty millions annually upon the 
 necessaries of life, must be burdened with grievous 
 disadvantages, when brought into commercial com¬ 
 petition with the untaxed labour of the inhabitants 
 of America. 
 
 But it is not only the load of debt, heavy as that 
 is, that we have to contend with; our oppressive 
 public establishments are, throughout, modelled, un¬ 
 necessarily, we believe, for the service of the common- 
 
 * Another fanciful theory upon the subject of the debt, invented 
 we believe by Coleridge (it must have been by a poet, for the 
 consolation of less ideal minds), has been lately promulgated. We 
 are told that the country is none the worse off for the national 
 debt, because it is all owing to Englishmen ; and that, therefore, 
 it is only like drawing off the blood from one part of the body to 
 inject it into another vein,— it is still all in the system. We feel 
 sorry to molest so comfortable an illusion. 
 
 But does it make no difference in what manner the outlay is in¬ 
 vested,— whether eight hundred millions of capital be sunk in the 
 depths of the sea, or put out to good interest? Is there no dif¬ 
 ference between such a sum being thrown away, destroyed, anni¬ 
 hilated, in devastating foreign countries, whilst the nation is 
 called upon out of its remaining capital, and with its gratuitous 
 labour, to pay the interest,—and the like amount being employed 
 in making canals, railways, roads, bridges, drains, docks, &c. ; 
 planting trees, educating the people, or in any other way in which 
 it would return its own interest of capital ? 
 
wealth , upon a scale enormously disproportioned to 
 those of our more economical rivals, We will pass 
 by the whole of our civil expenditure, because we 
 have not space for the detailed notice of its indivi¬ 
 dual items; and we shall proceed to notice, as more 
 connected with the design of this pamphlet, our 
 army and navy, as compared with the military and 
 naval forces of the United States. 
 
 We find, from a table in Reuss’s Statistics of the 
 United States, that the number of seamen in the 
 American mercantile navy is estimated at 86,000: 
 whilst the States government employs, in vessels of 
 war, 6,000 * men. The British merchants’ service, 
 exclusive of the colonial registry, supports 140,000 
 sailors; and the number voted for the royal navy, 
 in 1833, was 27,000 men. Thus, then, we arrive 
 at the unsatisfactory result, that, whilst in America 
 the government’s, as compared with the merchants’ 
 service, contains, in the proportion of hands, as 
 rather less than one in fourteen, the number of men 
 employed in the royal navy of Britain, in compa- 
 
 * We believe, almost incredible as the fact is even to our¬ 
 selves, that the British naval commissioned officers exceed, by 
 upwards of a thousand, the whole number of the men and offi¬ 
 cers of the American navy. A comment of a similar tenour, 
 applied to the army of England, is to be found in a following 
 page. 
 
 Yet we are in the twentieth year of peace, and every King’s 
 Speech assures us of the friendly disposition of all foreign 
 powers ! 
 
111 
 
 rison with the quantity supported by the merchants’ 
 service, is nearly in the ratio of one to five. 
 
 The royal navy of England, actually in commis¬ 
 sion at this time (see the United Service Magazine 
 for February), consists of one hundred and forty- 
 eight vessels of war; of which there appear to be, 
 according to the same authority, forty-six in the 
 different harbours of Great Britain, thirty-three in 
 the Mediterranean, thirteen on the coast of Africa*, 
 twenty-seven in the West Indies, and the remainder 
 in various other destinations. 
 
 We find, in the American Almanack for 1835, 
 the United States navy given as twenty-one ships of 
 war, of the following description ;—one line-of-battle 
 ship, three frigates, ten sloops, seven schooners f. 
 
 * Upon what principle of justice are the people of these realms 
 subjeeted to the sole expense of attempting to put down the 
 slave trade ? We say attempting, because it is well known that the 
 traffic is carried on as actively as ever; and during the last year, 
 the number of Negroes conveyed away from the shores of Africa 
 has been estimated at twenty thousand. Here is a horrid trade, 
 which will entail a dismal reckoning, at the hands of Providence, 
 upon the future generations of those countries that encourage it! 
 But by what right, by what credentials from on high, does Eng¬ 
 land lay claim to the expensive and vain office of keeping all man¬ 
 kind within the pale of honesty? 
 
 ■( These statements refer to the ships in commission. Our 
 navy comprises about six hundred vessels of all sizes and in all 
 conditions. The whole American naval force consists of seventy 
 ships. Yet Sir James Graham, when bringing forward our 
 
112 
 
 It appears, then, that our royal navy contains, as 
 nearly as possible, seven times as many ships as are 
 to be found in the government service of America. 
 
 Now, whatever objections may be urged with 
 respect to other branches of expenditure, against a 
 comparison of our burthens with the corresponding 
 economy on the other side of the Atlantic, we think 
 no reasonable mind will deny, that it is by reference 
 to the commerce of a people alone that we can form 
 a correct judgment of their policy, so far as the ma¬ 
 rine service is concerned, and judge of their ability 
 to support permanently their naval establishments. 
 
 The disadvantageous nature of our position, in 
 comparison with that of America, will be better 
 understood, if we repeat in two words, as the sub¬ 
 stance of what we have proved from the foregoing 
 figures, that whilst the population, exports, tonnage, 
 and mercantile seamen of Great Britain are not 
 double those of the United States, our royal navy 
 is about six times as great as the corresponding go¬ 
 vernment force of that country. 
 
 But if we proceed to a comparison of the land 
 forces, we shall find them to exhibit a yet more 
 striking disproportion in the burthens of the two 
 nations. 
 
 The entire military service of America comprises 
 
 navy estimates for 1833, actually made use of this comparison to 
 justify our force. So much for the usefulness of that which is 
 called dexterity in debate ! 
 
113 
 
 rather less than 7,000 men. In 1833, the parlia¬ 
 ment of Great Britain voted 90,000 soldiers for the 
 army of this country. Here, then, we perceive the 
 odds are —still bearing in mind the population, &c. 
 of the two countries — as nearly as possible, six to 
 one against us. 
 
 If we had the space, however, to allow of our 
 entering into a comparison of details, we should 
 find that the proportion of our officers greatly ex¬ 
 ceeds the above ratio. It will suffice to prove this, 
 when we add, that the number of our commissioned 
 officers alone, at this time, exceeds the entire amount 
 of the army of the United States; and of these we 
 see, by the army list for 1835, that 2,087 are field 
 officers, of and above the rank of major! 
 
 To render the comparison of the respective bur¬ 
 thens of the two people more simple and complete, 
 we shall add their expenditure under these heads. 
 
 In the budget of 1833, the army and navy esti¬ 
 mates of Great Britain were as follows : — 
 
 £. 
 
 Army . 7»000,496 
 
 Navy . 4,505,000 
 
 Ordnance . 1,634,817 
 
 making a total of £.13,14G,3i3, for these warlike 
 purposes. 
 
 In 1832, according to the American Almanack 
 for 1835, the military service of the United States, 
 including fortifications, arsenals, armouries, ord¬ 
 nance, internal improvements, &c., cost £. 1,134,589; 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 whilst the navy estimate was for £.817,100, making 
 a total of £.1,951,689. 
 
 Thus it appears, that our gross expenditure, under 
 the United Service heads, is in the ratio of six and 
 a half to one, as compared with that of America; — 
 a country, be it repeated, whose population, trade, 
 and registered tonnage, are more than the half of 
 our own — a country, too, whose public debt is 
 cancelled, wdiilst ours amounts to nearly eight hun¬ 
 dred millions! 
 
 But it will be said, that our local position making 
 it necessary to guard our shores with this demon¬ 
 stration of power, and our colonies calling for a 
 vigilant protection, render unfair a comparison of 
 this kingdom with the United States. We believe 
 it might be shown, that the dependencies of Great 
 Britain are at this moment, and in future are des¬ 
 tined still more to be, the source of a considerable 
 amount of taxation and pecuniary loss to the mother 
 country; and we trust that some abler pen will be 
 applied to the elucidation of this important ques¬ 
 tion. 
 
 With respect to our proximity to the Continent, 
 we recommend the experiment to be tried, whether 
 that need necessarily embroil us in continental poli¬ 
 tics. Let us imagine, that all our ambassadors and 
 consuls were instructed to take no further share in 
 the domestic concerns of European nations, but, 
 throwing overboard the question of the balance of 
 power — as we have long done that equally absurd 
 
115 
 
 bugbear of our ancestors, the balance of trade — to 
 leave all those people to their own quarrels, and to 
 devote their attention exclusively, after the example 
 of the Americans, to the commercial interests of their 
 country. This might prevent our diplomatists dis¬ 
 playing their address in finessing with Metternich, 
 or Pozzo di Borgo: it might save the bones of our 
 couriers, who now scour the continent of Europe 
 carrying dispatches and protocols; and it might 
 enable us to dispense with the services of one-half 
 of the establishment at the foreign office. But will 
 any one who understands the subject, pretend to 
 tell us, that our trade would suffer by such a 
 change ? 
 
 Or if we imagine that our army and navy were 
 reduced one-half, in consequence of this improve¬ 
 ment of our policy, does any person seriously ap¬ 
 prehend that these islands would be in danger of 
 being molested by any European power? If such 
 there be, let him recollect that the British empire 
 contains a population of twenty-five millions of free 
 people, compressed within a space of little more 
 than three hundred miles square—probably a denser 
 crowd of human beings than was ever before found 
 upon a similar area: and, further, let it be borne in 
 mind, that rail-roads are now in progress for con¬ 
 necting one extremity of England with the other, in 
 such a way, that not only any required force of men, 
 but the entire munitions of war, may be transported 
 in twelve hours from Lancashire or Yorkshire to 
 
11G 
 
 the coast of Sussex or Kent; — thus converting, as 
 it were, the entire island into a fortified position of 
 such wonderful strength, that the genius of Vauban 
 or Marlborough could not have conceived any thing 
 so formidable. Which is the power of the Continent 
 that will make a descent upon a people placed in 
 such an attitude? 
 
 But supposing even that such a scheme should be 
 contemplated, it will be owned, we suppose, that 
 some preparation for so mighty a conquest would be 
 necessary, which must afford us the necessary time 
 for preparations of defence. No one will contend, 
 that a fleet and an army of sufficient magnitude to 
 pounce upon England for its prey, could be conjured 
 up on the scene, like the creations of Harlequin’s 
 wand, without the spectators knowing, or caring to 
 know, that the machinery for so grand a perform¬ 
 ance had been long: in contrivance. 
 
 Besides, is it not apparent that, henceforth the 
 pressure of their own domestic affairs will engross 
 the resources, and impair the external power of all 
 the governments of Europe . Reform bills will be de¬ 
 manded by their people, but they will not be obtained 
 without bloodshed ; and all must foresee, that the 
 struggle between the antagonist principles of feu¬ 
 dalism and constitutionalism is inevitable througjiout 
 the whole of the Continent. 
 
 But to recur to the subject of America. It might 
 be said, that the primary cause of all the prosperity 
 and happiness of its people is to be found in the 
 
117 
 
 wisdom of that advice whicli we have prefixed for 
 the motto of this pamphlet. Happily for that na¬ 
 tion, this precept has been religiously obeyed ; for 
 never have the political concerns of other states been 
 suffered for one hour to divert the United States’ 
 legislature from the pursuit of the just interests of 
 its own people. The results may be seen, not only 
 in unparalleled advances in wealth and civilization 
 at home, but in the fact we have just demonstrated, 
 and which we doubt not will surprise most of our 
 readers, that even the foreign commerce of this people 
 is, in proportion to population, as great, or greater, 
 than our own ; notwithstanding our battles by land 
 and by sea, and notwithstanding those expensive 
 fruits of our victories, the colonies, that east, west, 
 north, and south, own our dominion ! 
 
 It is a question of very considerable interest to us, 
 whether America will continue her career as a manu¬ 
 facturing country, after the protective duties, which 
 have confessedly created her present cotton and 
 other interests, shall have, in pursuance of the recent 
 tariff’ law, been partially repealed. 
 
 It is the opinion of some writers, whose works are 
 entitled to deference, that the United States cannot 
 for centuries become our rival in manufactures. They 
 argue, that with an unlimited extent of unsettled 
 territory to tempt the inhabitants to engage in the 
 natural labour of agriculture, they will not be in¬ 
 duced, unless for much higher wages than in Eng- 
 
118 
 
 land, to follow the more confined and irksome pursuits 
 of the factory or workshop 
 
 But does not the present industry of the population 
 of the New England States tend to prove, that there is 
 a disposition in the people of the older portions of 
 this country to settle down into the pursuits incident 
 to towns at an advanced stage of society, and leave 
 to agriculture the natives of the newer states? We 
 shall find that the exports from Boston comprise, 
 amongst other articles of domestic manufacture 
 equally unconnected with the system of factory la¬ 
 bour, annually about 3,500,000 pairs of boots 
 and shoes, 600,000 bundles of paper, together 
 with a large quantity of cordage, nails, furni¬ 
 ture, See. 
 
 We are inclined, however, to view the natives of 
 the maritime portion of the Union, but particularly 
 the inhabitants of the New England States, as emi¬ 
 nently commercial in their tastes and characteristics ; 
 and, as such, looking to the amount of capital at pre¬ 
 sent embarked in their cotton manufacture, as well 
 as to the circumstance of the raw material being the 
 produce of their own soil, and bearing in mind the 
 prodigious increase that is taking place in the num¬ 
 bers of their people, we profess to see no prospect of 
 this our own staple industry being abandoned ; and if 
 not given up, we may expect, from the well-known 
 and well-deserved panegyric paid by Burke to the en¬ 
 terprise of the New Englanders, in prosecuting the 
 
119 
 
 whale-fishing, that the competition on the part ol’ 
 such a people will be maintained with energy. 
 
 The capital employed in the various branches of the 
 cotton manufacture in the United States, is, accord¬ 
 ing to a calculation for 1832, in Reuss’s Statistics of 
 America, in amount about 11,000,000/.; and the 
 consumption of raw cotton is estimated at 173,800 
 bales, or about one-fifth of all the growth of the 
 country, and, as nearly as possible, a fifth of the 
 quantity worked up, during the same year, in Great 
 Britain. 
 
 The greater portion of all the products of this la¬ 
 bour is consumed at home, the rest is exported in 
 the shape principally of heavy calicoes, that have 
 sustained a competition with our own fabrics in the 
 Mediterranean and the East. 
 
 Some occasional shipments of low yarns have been 
 made to this country, but these transactions have 
 not been of considerable magnitude. 
 
 Bearing in mind, that the supply of the raw mate¬ 
 rial of nearly one-half of our exports, is derived from 
 a country that threatens to eclipse us by its rival great¬ 
 ness, we cannot, whilst viewing the relative positions 
 of England and the United States at this moment, 
 refrain from recurring to the somewhat parallel cases 
 of Holland and Great Britain, before the latter be¬ 
 came a manufacturing state, when the Dutchman 
 purchased the wool of this country, and sold it to us 
 again in the form of cloth. Like as the latter nation 
 became at a subsequent period, we are now over- 
 
120 
 
 whelmed with debts contracted in wars, or the ac¬ 
 quisition of colonies ; whilst America, free from all 
 burdens, as we were at the former epoch, is prepared 
 to take up, with far greater advantages, the fabrica¬ 
 tion of their own cotton than we did of our wool* 
 The Americans possess a quicker mechanical genius 
 than even ourselves,—such again was the case with 
 our ancestors, in comparison with the Dutch,—as 
 witness their patents, and the improvements for 
 which we are indebted to individuals of that country 
 in mechanics, such as spinning, engraving, &c. 
 We gave additional speed to our ships, by im¬ 
 proving upon the naval architecture of the Dutch ; 
 and the similitude again applies to the superiority 
 which, in comparison with British models, the Ame¬ 
 ricans have, for all the purposes of activity and eco¬ 
 nomy, imparted to their vessels. 
 
 Such are some of the analogous features that war¬ 
 rant the comparison we have instituted : but there 
 are other circumstances of a totally novel character, 
 affecting, in opposite degrees, the destinies of these 
 two great existing commercial communities, which 
 must not be lost sight of. 
 
 The internal improvement of a country is un¬ 
 doubtedly the first and most important element of 
 its growth in commerce and civilization. Hence 
 our canals have been regarded by Dupin as the pri¬ 
 mary material agents of the wealth of Great Britain. 
 But a new invention—the railway—has appeared in 
 the annals of locomotion, which bids fair to super- 
 
121 
 
 sede all other known modes of land transit ; and by 
 seizing at once, with all the energy of a young and 
 unprejudiced people, this greatest discovery of the 
 age, and planting, as it were, its fruits first through¬ 
 out the surface of their territory, the Americans have 
 made an important stride in the career of improve¬ 
 ment, in advance of every nation of Europe. 
 
 The railroads of America present a spectacle of 
 commercial enterprise, as well as of physical and 
 moral triumph, more truly astonishing, we consider, 
 than was ever achieved in the same period of time 
 in any other country. Only in 1829 was the expe¬ 
 riment first made, between Liverpool and Manches¬ 
 ter, of applying steam to the navigation of land, so 
 to speak, by means of iron railways, for the convey¬ 
 ance of passengers and merchandize ; and now, in 
 1835, being less than seven years after the trial was 
 first made and proved successful, the United States of 
 America contain upwards of seventeen hundred 
 miles of railroads in progress of construction, and of 
 which no less than one thousand miles are complete 
 and in actual use *. 
 
 The enthusiasm with which this innovation upon 
 
 * The railroads, which were partly finished, partly in pro¬ 
 gress, at the time when I visited the United States, were as 
 follows : — 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Baltimore and Ohio (from Baltimore and Pittsburgh). 250 
 
 Massachuscts (from Boston to Albany) . . . 200 
 
the ancient and slower method of travelling was 
 hailed in America, — by instituting a newspaper 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Catskill to Ithaca (State of New York) . 16/ 
 
 Charleston to Hamburgh (South Carolina) . 135 
 
 Boston and Bratrleboro' vMassachusets aod Vermont) ... 114 
 
 Albany and New York . 160 
 
 Columbia and Philadelphia (from Philadephia to York) ... 96 
 
 Lexington and Ohio (from Lexington to Cincinnati) . 75 
 
 Camden and Amboy ( New Jersey) . 60 
 
 Baltimore and Susquehanna (Maryland) . 48 
 
 Boston and Providence (Massachusets and Rhode Island) 43 
 
 Trenton and Philadelphia . 30 
 
 Providence and StoniugtOD. 70 
 
 Baltimore and Washington. 38 
 
 Holliday's Burgh and Johnstown (Pennslyvania). 37 
 
 Ithaca and Oswego (New York) . 28 
 
 Hudson and Berkshire (New York and Massachusets) ... 25 
 
 Boston and Lowell (Massachuset*^ . 24 
 
 Senectady and Saratoga (New York). 214 
 
 Mohawk and Hudson (New York). 15 
 
 Lackawaxen (from Honesdaleto Carbondale, Pennsylvania) 17 
 
 Frenchtown to Newcastle (Delaware and Maryland) . 16 
 
 Philadelphia and Norristown (Pennsylvania) . 15 
 
 Richmond and Chesterfield (Virginia) . 12 
 
 Manch Chunk (Pennsylvania) . 9 
 
 Haerlem (from New York to Haerlem). 8 
 
 Quincey (from Boston to Quincey) . 6 
 
 New Orleans (from Lake Pontchartrain to Orleans) . 54 
 
 The extent of all the railroads forms an aggregate of one thou¬ 
 sand seven hundred and fifty miles. Ten years hence this 
 amount of miles will probably be doubled or trebled ; so that 
 scarcely any other roads will be used, than those on which 
 stea»«earriages may travel." — Arfwedmm's Travels in 1834. 
 
123 
 
 expressly for its advocacy, and by the readiness of 
 support which every new project of the kind encoun¬ 
 tered,—evinced how well this shrewd people disco¬ 
 vered, at a glance, the vast advantages that must 
 accrue to whichever nation first effected so great a 
 saving in that most precious ingredient of all useful 
 commodities, time, as would be gained by the ap¬ 
 plication of a discovery which trebled the speed, at 
 the same time reducing the money cost, of the entire 
 intercourse of the community. 
 
 Already are all the most populous districts of the 
 United States intersected by lines of railroads; 
 whilst amongst the number of unfinished, but fast 
 advancing undertakings, is a work, now half com¬ 
 pleted, for connecting Baltimore on the Chesapeake, 
 with the Ohio river at Wheeling, a distance of more 
 than two hundred and fifty miles. 
 
 Not content, however, with all that has been done 
 or is still doing, a scheme is at present favourably 
 agitated in the public press of that country, that 
 shall connect Washington city with New Orleans, 
 by a series of railways, which, with those already in 
 progress between New York and \\ ashingtou, will 
 join the Atlantic at the mouth of the Hudson and the 
 Mexican Gulf, a project, which, if completed, will 
 enable a traveller to visit New York from New 
 Orleans in four days,—a transition of scene that 
 may be better appreciated, when it is remembered, 
 that a person might pass, in winter, from the frozen 
 banks of the Hudson, into the midst of the orange 
 
124 
 
 and sugar regions of the Mississipi, in about ninety 
 hours ! Other plans, of even a more gigantic cha¬ 
 racter, are marked out as in contemplation, upon 
 the latest map published of the United States*,— 
 plans, that nothing but the prodigies already achieved 
 by this people, prevents us from regarding as chi¬ 
 merical. 
 
 It demands not a moment's reflection to perceive 
 the immense advantage that must ensue from these 
 improvements, to a country which, like America, 
 contains within itself, though scattered over so wide 
 a surface, all the elements of agricultural and manu¬ 
 facturing greatness. By subjecting this vast terri¬ 
 tory to the dominion of steam, such an approxima¬ 
 tion of the whole is attained, that the coals and iron 
 of Pennslyvania, the lead of Missouri, the cotton of 
 Georgia, the sugar of Louisiana, and the havens of 
 New York and New England, will all be brought 
 into available connection with each other: in fact, 
 by the almost miraculous power of this agent, the 
 entire American continent will, for all the purposes 
 of commercial or social intercourse, be compressed 
 into an area not larger than that of England, sup¬ 
 posing the latter to possess only her canals. 
 
 Nothing more strongly illustrates the disadvan¬ 
 tages under which an old country, like Great Britain, 
 labours in competing with her younger rival, than to 
 glance at the contrast, in the progress of railroads, 
 in the two empires. 
 
 13y Amos Lay. 
 
125 
 
 At the same time that, in the United States, 
 almost every day beheld a new railway company 
 incorporated, by some one of the states’ legislatures, 
 at the cost only of a few dollars, and nearly by 
 acclamation; the British Parliament intercepted by 
 its votes some of the most important projects that 
 followed in the train of the Liverpool railroad. 
 
 The London and Birmingham company, after 
 spending upwards of forty thousand pounds, in 
 attempting to obtain for its undertaking the sanc¬ 
 tion of the legislature, was unsuccessful in the 
 House of Lords. The following characteristic ques¬ 
 tions are extracted from the evidence taken before 
 the committee. 
 
 “ Do you know the name of Lady Hastings 
 place? — How near to it does your line go ?—Tak¬ 
 ing the look out of the principal rooms of the house, 
 does it run in front of the principal rooms?—How 
 far from the house is the point where it becomes 
 visible ?—That would be about a quarter of a mile ? 
 — Could the engines be heard in the house at that 
 distance ? — Is there any cutting or embankment 
 there? — Is it in sight of the house? — Looking to 
 the country, is it not possible that the line could be 
 taken at a greater distance from the residence of 
 Lady Hastings ? 
 
 *##.####*## 
 
 Was that to pass through Lords Derby and 
 Sefton’s land? — Yes, they both consented. They 
 threw us back the first year, and we lost such a line 
 
126 
 
 as we could never get again. Since which they 
 have consented to the other line going through their 
 property ****** Supposing that line as easy 
 for you as the present, was there any objection aris¬ 
 ing from going through anybody’s park?” 
 
 The following question put, on the same occa¬ 
 sion, by a peer to a shopkeeper, is one that probably 
 would not have been asked by any other person but 
 an hereditary legislator. 
 
 “ Can it be of any great importance whether the 
 article goes there in five or six hours, or in an hour 
 and a half? ” 
 
 The Brighton and several other railways were 
 abandoned, through dread of the expensive opposi- 
 sion that was threatened in parliament; amongst 
 which, the great western tine was successfully op¬ 
 posed by the landowners, seconded by the heads of 
 Eton College, under the plea that it would tend to 
 impair the character of the scholars ! And a large 
 party, headed by the Marquis of Chandos, actually 
 met in public, to celebrate, with drinking and re¬ 
 joicing, the frustration of this grand improvement. 
 Yet this nobleman has since had the otfer of a 
 voice in the cabinet council of the king; and but 
 that he was as honest, as he most assuredly is unen¬ 
 lightened and prejudiced, he might have been one 
 of the ministers of this commercial country ! 
 
 But to recur to the consideration of affairs on the 
 other side of the Atlantic. There is another pe¬ 
 culiarity in the present attitude of the American 
 
127 
 
 people, as compared with our own, that is probably 
 more calculated than all others to accelerate their 
 progress towards a superior rank of civilization and 
 power. We allude to the universality of education 
 in that country. One thirty-sixth portion of all 
 public lands, of which there are hundreds of thou¬ 
 sands of square miles unappropriated, is laid apart 
 for the purposes of instruction. If knowledge be 
 power, and education give knowledge, then must, 
 the Americans inevitably become the most powerful 
 people in the world. 
 
 Some writers have attempted to detract from this 
 proud feature in the policy of the United States, by 
 adducing, as examples, the backwoodsman and his 
 family, and holding up their uncultivated minds, as 
 well as their privation of Christian instruction, for 
 proofs of the religious and moral abandonment of 
 American society; forgetting that these frontier sec¬ 
 tions of the community are thinly spread over an in¬ 
 hospitable wilderness, where it must be acknowled¬ 
 ged that no state provision for mental improvement 
 could possibly embrace all their scattered members. 
 When a man is placed at the distance of, perhaps, 
 ten miles from his next neighbour, he is driven, as 
 Doctor Johnson observes, to become his own car¬ 
 penter, tailor, smith, and bricklayer ; and it is from 
 no fault in the laws, but owing to the like unavoid¬ 
 able nature of things, that the same solitary indivi¬ 
 dual must also be left to act the part of teacher and 
 pastor. 
 
128 
 
 But by referring’ to the last message of the Go¬ 
 vernor of New York to the legislature of that state, 
 which happens to be before us, we are able to ex¬ 
 hibit to our readers, by a very brief quotation, the 
 state of education in that most populous division of 
 the union. 
 
 “ In the whole range of your duties,” says this 
 most enlightened address, “ there is no subject in 
 which the interests of the people are more deeply 
 involved, or which calls for higher efforts of legisla¬ 
 tive wisdom, than the cause of education. The 
 funds already provided by the state for the support 
 of common schools is large, but not so ample as the 
 exceedingly great importance of the object de¬ 
 mands.’' After some other details, it goes on to say 
 —“ Eight hundred and thirty-five towns and wards 
 (the whole number in the state) have made reports 
 for the year 1833. There are nine thousand eight 
 hundred and sixty five school districts; the whole 
 number of children, between the ages of five and six¬ 
 teen years, in the state, was five hundred and thirty- 
 four thousand and two; and the number instructed 
 in the common schools in 1833, was five hundred 
 and thirty-one thousand two hundred and forty. 
 ****** The whole amount expended during 
 the year 1833, on the common schools, cannot fall 
 short of one million two hundred thousand dollars.” 
 
 Bearing in mind that this refers only to one state 
 of the union, containing rather less than two mil¬ 
 lions of inhabitants, could we imagine a more strik- 
 
129 
 
 ing contrast to the above statement than in the fact, 
 that, during the corresponding session of the British 
 parliament, a sum of twenty thousand pounds was 
 voted towards educating the people of England ; 
 whilst, in close juxta-position to this, was a grant of 
 sixty thousand pounds for the purpose of partly fur¬ 
 nishing Buckingham Palace ! 
 
 The very genius of American legislation is op¬ 
 posed to ignorance in the people, as the most deadly 
 enemy of good government. Not only are direct 
 measures, such as we have just quoted in the case 
 of New York, taken to instruct the poor throughout 
 the United States,—not only are all newspapers and 
 advertisements untaxed,—but care is used, by ex¬ 
 empting from fiscal burdens the humblest ingre¬ 
 dients of the materiel of printing—such as paper, 
 rags, type, &c. — to render knowledge as cheap and 
 accessible as possible. 
 
 The newspaper press forms a distinguishing and 
 rapidly-improving feature in the economy of the 
 United States. In 1834, according to the American 
 Almanack for 1835, the aggregate of newspapers, 
 published under different titles in America, was 
 1,265, of which ninety were daily journals; and the 
 entire number of copies circulated during the year, 
 is estimated at ninety millions. 
 
 In the British islands, three hundred and sixty- 
 nine newspapers are published, of which seventeen 
 only issue daily. The annual sale of these is esti¬ 
 mated at about thirty millions. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 If, therefore, we compare the newspaper press of 
 America and England together, allowing for the 
 disproportion of inhabitants in the two countries, 
 we shall be compelled to acknowledge that there is 
 more than six times as much advertising and read¬ 
 ing on the other side of the Atlantic as in Great 
 Britain. 
 
 There are those, who are fond of decrying news¬ 
 paper reading. But we regard every scheme that 
 is calculated to make mankind think , — every thing 
 that, by detaching the mind from the present mo¬ 
 ment, and leading it to reflect on the past or future, 
 rescues it from the dominion of mere sense, — as 
 calculated to exalt us in the scale of being; and 
 whether it be a newspaper or a volume that serves 
 this end, the instrument is worthy of honour at the 
 hands of enlightened philanthropists. 
 
 We know of nothing that would tend more to 
 inform the people of England, and especially of 
 Ireland, than by removing the excise fetters from 
 our press. Independently of the facilities to com¬ 
 merce, and of the benefits which must ensue to 
 temperance and morals generally, a free press 
 would, by co-operating with a good government 
 (and henceforth it is our own faults if we have a 
 bad one), assist essentially the efforts of those who 
 desire to reduce the expenditure of the state, and 
 help us to dispense with that costly voucher of our 
 ignorance, the standing army of this country. 
 
 We have thus hastily glanced at a few of the 
 
131 
 
 points of comparison to be found in the prospects 
 of Great Britain and America, at this moment. To 
 what shall we liken the relative situations of these 
 two great commercial and naval rivals ? We will 
 venture on a simile. 
 
 Such of our readers as remember the London 
 tradesman of thirty years ago, will be able to call 
 to mind the powdered wig and queue, the precise 
 shoes and buckles, and the unwrinkled silk hose, 
 and tight inexpressibles, that characterized the shop¬ 
 keeper of the old school. Whenever this stately 
 personage walked abroad, on matters of trade, 
 however pressing or important, he never forgot for 
 a moment the dignified step of his forefathers : 
 whilst nothing gratified his self-complacency more, 
 than to take his gold-headed cane in hand, and, 
 leaving his own shop all the while, to visit his 
 poorer neighbours, and to show his authority by 
 inquiring into their affairs, settling their disputes, 
 and compelling them to be honest, and to manage 
 their establishments according to his plan. His 
 business was conducted throughout upon the for¬ 
 mal model of his ancestors. His clerks, shopmen, 
 and porters, all had their appointed costumes ; and 
 their intercourse with their chief, or with each other, 
 was disciplined according to established laws of 
 etiquette. Every one had his especial department 
 of duty, and the line of demarcation at the counter 
 was marked out and observed with all the punctilio 
 of neighbouring, but rival states. The shop of 
 
 k 2 
 
132 
 
 this trader of the old school retained all the pecu¬ 
 liarities and inconveniences of former generations ; 
 its windows displayed no gaudy wares to lure the 
 vulgar passer-by, and the panes of glass, inserted in 
 ponderous wooden frames, were constructed exactly 
 after the ancestral pattern. Such were some of the 
 solemn peculiarities of the last generation of 
 tradesmen. 
 
 The present age produced a new school of 
 traders, whose first innovation was to cast oft' the 
 wig, and cashier the barber with his pomatum-box, 
 by which step an hour was gained in the daily 
 toilet. Their next change was, to discard the shoes 
 and the tight unmentionables, — whose complicated 
 details of buckles and straps, and whose close ad¬ 
 justment occupied another half-hour, — in favour 
 of Wellingtons and pantaloons, which were whipped 
 on in a trice, and gave freedom, though perhaps at 
 the expense of dignity, to the personal movements 
 during the day. Thus accoutred, these supple 
 dealers whisked or flew, just as the momentary 
 calls of business became more or less urgent; 
 whilst so absorbed were they in their own interests, 
 that they scarcely knew the names of their nearest 
 neighbours, nor cared whether they lived peaceably 
 or not, so long as they did not come to break their 
 windows. 
 
 Nor did the spirit of innovation stop here ; for 
 the shops of this new race of dealers underwent as 
 great a metamorphosis as their owners. Whilst the 
 
133 
 
 internal economy of these was reformed with a view 
 to give the utmost facility to the labour of the esta¬ 
 blishment, by dispensing with all forms, and tacitly 
 agreeing even to suspend the ordinary deferences 
 due to station, lest their observance might, however 
 slightly, impede the business in hand,—externally, 
 the windows, which were constructed of plate glass, 
 with elegant frames extending from the ground to 
 the ceiling, were made to blaze with all the tempting 
 finery of the day. 
 
 We all know the result that followed from 
 this very unequal rivalry. One by one, the 
 ancient and quiet followers of the habits of their 
 ancestors yielded before the active competition of 
 their more alert neighbours. Some few of the less 
 bigoted disciples of the old school adopted the new- 
 light system, but all who tried to stem the stream 
 were overwhelmed. For with grief we add, that the 
 very last of these interesting specimens of olden time 
 that survived, joining the two generations of London 
 tradesmen, and whose shop used to gladden the 
 soul of every Tory pedestrian in Fleet-street with 
 its unreformed windows, has at length disappeared, 
 having lately passed into the Gazette, that schedule 
 A of anti-reforming traders. 
 
 That which the shopkeeper of the present day is 
 to him of the last age, such, comparing great things 
 with small, is the commercial position of America 
 as contrasted with that of Great Britain at the 
 present moment. Our debt may be called the in- 
 
134 
 
 expressibles or tights, which incessantly restrain us 
 from keeping up with the nimble pace of our panta- 
 looned rivals. The square-toed shoes * and the 
 polished buckles may be compared to the feudal 
 laws and customs, which, in competition with Wel¬ 
 lington-booted brother Jonathan, impede the march 
 of improvement and the enterprise of Englishmen. 
 The powdered wig and queue we shall liken to our 
 Church establishment, which, although very orna¬ 
 mental and imposing in appearance, does yet en¬ 
 gross a great share of the time and attention of our 
 Parliament to adjust it properly^, all of which the 
 legislature of our straight-haired competitor has 
 been enabled to apply to the encouragement of a 
 prosperous trade. The untaxed newspapers of 
 America, with their wide expanses of advertisements, 
 
 * There is scarcely a large town in England, whose prosperity 
 and improvement are not vitally affected by the operation of our 
 laws of entail. In the vicinity of Manchester, scarcely any free¬ 
 hold land can be bought ; Birmingham is almost wholly built 
 upon leasehold land ; Wolverhampton has long been presenting 
 a dilapidated aspect, in the best part of the town, in consequence 
 of the property required for improvement being in the hands of 
 the church, and consequently inalienable. In many parts, 
 manufactures are, from the like obstructing causes, prevented 
 extending themselves over our coal beds. The neighbourhood of 
 Bullock Smithy might be instanced for example. 
 
 f It would form an instructive summary to collect from our 
 parliamentary history, for the last three hundred years, details of 
 the time spent in the vain endeavour to make consciences square 
 with acts of parliament. — See the debates in both Houses on 
 Ireland in 1832 and 1833 for examples. 
 
135 
 
 contrasted # with the stamped sheets of this country, 
 are the new and old light windows of the two gene¬ 
 rations of shopkeepers. The quickened gait of the 
 trader of to-day, and the formal step of his predeces¬ 
 sor, are the railways of the United States in com¬ 
 petition with our turnpikes and canals. And, to 
 complete the simile, if we would see in the conduct 
 of the two nations a resemblance to the contrast, 
 between the policy of the dealer of the old school 
 who delighted to meddle in the concerns of his 
 neighbours, and that of the reformed tradesman who 
 rigidly confined his attention to the duties of his 
 own counter,—let us picture England, interfering 
 with and managing the business of almost every 
 state in Europe, Asia, and Africa, whilst America 
 will form no connections with any one of them, 
 excepting as customers. 
 
 What! shall we consign old England then to ruin ? 
 Heaven forbid ! Her people are made of tough mate¬ 
 rials, and he would be but a dastardly politician that 
 despaired of them even yet. We say not, then, that 
 this country will, like the antique establishment of 
 
 * It is not uncommon to find two thousand advertisements, 
 principally of merchandize, contained in a single copy of a New 
 York journal. We have counted no less than one hundred 
 and seventy announcements in one column or compartment 
 of the New York Gazette. Of course the crowded aspect 
 of one of these sheets, in comparison with a London newspaper, 
 is as different as is one of the latter in contrast with a Salisbury 
 or any other provincial journal. 
 
the individual trader, perish at the feet of its more 
 youthful and active competitor: but we fervently 
 believe, that our only chance of national prosperity 
 lies in the timely remodelling of our system, so as to 
 put it, as nearly as possible, upon an equality with 
 the improved management of the Americans. 
 
 But let us not be misconstrued. We do not 
 advocate republican institutions for this country. 
 We believe the government of the United States to 
 be at this moment the best in the world ; but then 
 the Americans are the best * people ; and we have 
 a theory, that the government of every state is 
 always, excepting periods of actual change, that 
 which is the best adapted to the circumstances and 
 wants of its inhabitants. 
 
 ♦ We mean individually and nationally. As individuals, be¬ 
 cause, in our opinion, the best educated population must, 
 morally and religiously speaking, be the best. As a nation, 
 because it is the oulv great community that has never waged 
 war, excepting in absolute self-defence ;—the only one which 
 has never made a conquest of territory by force of arms ; 
 (contrast the conduct of this government to the native Indians on 
 the Mississipi, with our treatment of the Aborigines on the 
 Swau river ;) — because it is the oulv nation whose government 
 has never had occasion to employ the army to defend it against 
 the people ;— the only one which has never had oue of its citizens 
 convicted of treason ;— and because it is the ouly country that 
 has honourably discharged its public debt. 
 
 The slavery deformity was forcibly impressed upon this people 
 in its infancy by the mother country. May the present genera¬ 
 tion outgrow the blemish ! 
 
137 
 
 But they who argue in favour of a republic, in lieu 
 of a mixed monarchy, for Great Britain, are, we sus¬ 
 pect, ignorant of the genius of their countrymen. 
 Democracy forms no element in the materials of 
 English character. An Englishman is from his 
 mother’s womb an aristocrat. Whatever rank or 
 birth, whatever fortune, trade, or profession may be 
 his fate, he is, or wishes, or hopes to be an aristocrat. 
 The insatiable love of caste that in England, as in 
 Hindostan, devours all hearts, is confined to no 
 walks of society, but pervades every degree, from 
 the highest to the lowest *. Of what conceivable 
 use then would it be to strike down the lofty patricians 
 that have descended to us from the days of the Nor¬ 
 mans and Plantagenets, if we, of the middle class, 
 who are more than any other enslaved to this pas¬ 
 sion, are prepared to lift up, from amongst ourselves, 
 an aristocracy of mere wealth,—not less austere, not 
 less selfish,—only less noble than that we had de¬ 
 posed. No : whatever changes in the course of 
 time education may and will effect, we do not be¬ 
 lieve that England, at this moment, contains even 
 the germs of genuine republicanism. 
 
 * A diverting specimen of aristocracy in low life is to be found 
 in an amusing little volume, called, “ Mornings at Bow Street.” 
 A chimney-sweep, who had married the daughter of a coster¬ 
 monger, against the latter’s consent, applied to the magistrate for 
 a warrant to recover the person of his wife, who had been taken 
 away from him by her father. The father did not object to the 
 character of the husband, but protested against the connection as 
 being “ so low .” 
 
138 
 
 We do not, then, advocate the adoption of demo¬ 
 cratic institutions for such a people. But the ex¬ 
 amples held forth to us by the Americans, of strict 
 economy, of peaceful non-interference, of universal 
 education, and of other public improvements, may, 
 and indeed must be emulated by the government of 
 this country, if the people are to be allowed even the 
 chance of surviving a competition with that republi¬ 
 can community. If it be objected, that an economi¬ 
 cal government is inconsistent with the maintenance 
 of the monarchical and aristocratic institutions of 
 this land, then we answer, let an unflinching economy 
 and retrenchment be enforced —mat cesium ! 
 
 Of the many lessons of unsophisticated and prac¬ 
 tical wisdom which have—as if in imitation of that 
 arrangement of perpetual decay and reproduction 
 that characterizes all things in material nature—been 
 sent back from the new world to instruct the old, 
 there are none so calculated to benefit us, because there 
 are none so much needed, as those maxims of pro¬ 
 vidence and frugality, to which Franklin first gave 
 birth, and which, gaining authority and strength 
 from the successive advocacy and practice of Wash¬ 
 ington, Jefferson, and now of Jackson, have at 
 length become identified with the spirit of the laws 
 and institutions of the United States. 
 
 An attempt has been made latterly by that class of 
 our writers* denominated conservative, to deride this 
 
 * Basil Hall’s spending class. 
 
139 
 
 parsimony of the Franklin school, as unworthy of 
 the American character, But we are at this present 
 moment writhing beneath the chastisement due to 
 our violations of the homely proverbs of “ Poor 
 Richard and it is only by returning within the so¬ 
 ber limits of our means, and rigidly husbanding our 
 time and resources, and by renouncing all idle 
 pomp and luxury,—it is by these methods only, and 
 not by advocating still further outrages of the laws 
 of prudence, that this nation can be rescued from the 
 all but irretrievable embarrassment into which its 
 own extravagance and folly have precipitated it. 
 
 The first, and indeed only certain step towards a 
 diminution of our government expenditure must be, 
 the adoption of that line of foreign policy which the 
 Americans have clung to, with such wisdom and 
 pertinacity, ever since they became a people. 
 
 If ever there was a territory that was marked out 
 by the finger of God for the possession of a distinct 
 nation, that country is ours; whose boundary is the 
 ocean, and within whose ramparts are to be found 
 in abundance all the mineral and vegetable treasures 
 requisite to make us a great commercial people. 
 Discontented with these blessings, and disdaining the 
 natural limits of our empire, in the insolence of our 
 might, and without waiting for the assaults of en¬ 
 vious enemies, we have sallied forth in search of 
 conquest or rapine, and carried bloodshed into every 
 quarter of the globe. The result proves, as it ever 
 must, that we cannot violate the moral law with 
 impunity. Great Britain is conscious that she is 
 
140 
 
 now suffering the slow but severe punishment in¬ 
 flicted at her own hands—she is crushed beneath a 
 debt so enormous, that nothing but her own mighty 
 strength could have raised the burthen that is 
 oppressing her. 
 
 Again we say (and let us be excused the repeti¬ 
 tion of this advice, for we write with no other 
 object but to enforce it), England cannot survive 
 its financial embarrassments, except by renouncing 
 that policy of intervention with the affairs of other 
 states, which has been the fruitful source of nearly 
 all our wars. 
 
 We trust that this opinion will be generated 
 throughout the population of this country, and 
 that the same spirit will be reflected, through its 
 representatives in parliament, upon the govern¬ 
 ment. 
 
 In future, it will not be sufficient that no ques¬ 
 tion concerning the state policy of other nations is 
 allowed to occupy the attention of our legislature, 
 unless it be first shown that our own honour or our 
 interests are involved in its consideration—it will 
 not be enough that our fleets and armies are not 
 permitted to take a part in the contentions of other 
 nations;—all this will not avail, unless our diplo¬ 
 matists and foreign secretaries are jealously re¬ 
 strained from taking a share, either by treaties or 
 protocols, according to the invariable wont of their 
 predecessors, in the ever-varying squabbles of our 
 continental neighbours. Ety this course of policy, 
 and by this alone, we shall be enabled to reduce 
 
141 
 
 our army and navy more nearly to a level with 
 the corresponding burdens of our American 
 rivals. 
 
 May we be allowed, once more, to refute the objec¬ 
 tion which will be urged, that our numerous fleets 
 are necessary to the defence of our commerce ? 
 Then, we ask, does any one deny that the persons 
 of American merchants, or their vessels, are as safe 
 in every quarter of the world as our own ? We 
 have seen to how great a proportion of our tonnage 
 the American mercantile navy now amounts; we 
 have seen how vast an export trade they carry on, 
 and we have seen with how small a government 
 force all this is protected,—may not an unanswer¬ 
 able argument, then, be found here in favour of 
 dispensing, henceforth, with a portion of our enor¬ 
 mous naval and military establishments ? 
 
 Hitherto, whenever a war has at any time been 
 threatened between two or more European states, 
 however remote or however insignificant, it has 
 furnished a sufficient pretence for our statesmen to 
 augment our armaments by sea and land, in order 
 to assume an imposing attitude, as it is termed; 
 forgetting, all the while, that by maintaining a 
 strict neutrality in these continental brawls, and 
 by diligently pursuing our peaceful industry, 
 whilst our neighbours were exhausting themselves 
 in senseless wars, we might be growing in riches, 
 in proportion as they became poorer; and, since 
 it is by wealth after all that the world is governed, 
 
142 
 
 we should, in reality, be the less in danger from 
 the powers on the continent, the more they indulged 
 in hostilities with each other. 
 
 It is a common error with our statesmen to 
 estimate the strength of a nation — as for instance 
 is the case at this moment, in their appreciation 
 of the power of Russia, Prussia, or Austria—accord¬ 
 ing to the magnitude of their armies and navies, 
 whereas these are the signs, and indeed the causes, 
 of real poverty and weakness in a people. 
 
 “ Our public debt is cancelled,” said Mr. Benton, 
 a speaker at the dinner lately held at Washington 
 to celebrate the extinction of the American debt— 
 “ our public debt is cancelled; and there is more 
 strength in those words than in one hundred ships 
 of the line ready for battle, or in a hundred thou¬ 
 sand armed soldiers.” And, to exemplify the 
 truth of this sentiment, we have subsequently 
 beheld this very people, with only a few schooners 
 and frigates, and seven thousand troops, menacing 
 the French government, steeped in debt, at the head 
 of its million of fighting men, and its three hundred 
 vessels of war. 
 
 To remove, if possible, for ever the extravagant 
 chimera that haunts the government and people of 
 this country, of our being in danger from any pos¬ 
 sible combination of continental hostilities, let us 
 suppose, for sake of argument, that Russia were to 
 invade Turkey—or that France were again to cross 
 the Rhine, having first seized upon Holland and 
 
143 
 
 Belgium, and attack Prussia and Austria—or that 
 the Spaniards should seize upon Portugal—or that 
 the Austrian government were to invade Naples, 
 or Sardinia—or, if such a supposition be possible, 
 let us imagine these powers to be engaged in a 
 battle-royal all together;—now does any sober and 
 reasoning mind believe that Great Britain, who, 
 we will presume, had wisely availed herself of the 
 opportunities afforded by her insular position to 
 remain neuter, would be selected, by any one of 
 these powers, in addition to the enemies already 
 opposed to it, for the object of gratuitous attack ? 
 Does any rational person think that we should, 
 under such circumstances, be in greater jeopardy 
 than the Americans from these contentions ? 
 
 Having already demonstrated that even Napo¬ 
 leon, with Europe at his feet, was powerless in his 
 attacks upon our exports, we are afraid of being 
 tedious in recurring to that subject. 
 
 Were a war once more to break forth over the 
 continent of Europe, and were we to stand aloof 
 from the conflict, our commerce and manufactures, 
 instead of receiving injury in any quarter, would 
 be thereby benefited; for, besides the well-known 
 facilities which a state of warfare would give to 
 the smuggler for supplying those very belligerents 
 themselves with the products of our labour, it 
 would, at the same time, put an end to the compe¬ 
 tition which we now sustain, in other parts of the 
 world, from our manufacturing rivals of Europe. 
 
144 
 
 Germany, France, Switzerland, and Belgium, and 
 indeed almost every nation of the continent, for 
 whose independence and existence we fought so 
 long and arduously, have profited by the peace to 
 exclude our fabrics from their markets, and, in 
 mistaken policy, borrowed from our own restrictive 
 code, to raise up, at great sacrifices of national 
 wealth, a manufacturing industry for themselves. 
 
 Thus we find, that, at this moment, Prussia is 
 completing a wall of tariffs, which she has been 
 sedulously constructing for many years, and which 
 will, more effectually than did Napoleon, exclude 
 us from the German market—Prussia, for whom 
 we bled, and for whose subsidies we are still taxed ! 
 Austria, another of our costly allies, whose disasters 
 our most renowned statesman* would not outlive— 
 Austria has, ever since the peace, sealed her terri¬ 
 tory against our merchandize. Naples, that un¬ 
 worthy protege , in behalf of whose court England’s 
 greatest hero f sullied his otherwise untarnished 
 fame—Naples repays us with an impost of cent, 
 per cent, upon our manufactures. Whilst France 
 has, since Napoleon’s fall, been a less profitable 
 customer to England than she was during the time 
 of his extremest enmity towards this country. 
 
 True, at the close of the war, our ministers 
 might have stipulated for, and might have com¬ 
 manded a trade with all Europe, as some indem- 
 
 * Pitt and Ulm. 
 
 t Nelson, Lady Hamilton, Prince Oaraccioli. 
 
145 
 
 nity for our expenditure; but the warriors and 
 statesmen who represented us at Vienna, and who 
 took pains to forward such measures as the mili¬ 
 tary occupation of France, or the erection of for¬ 
 tresses in Belgium, or the binding us to become 
 guarantee for the permanency of the union of the 
 Netherlands, forgot to utter one word about our 
 merchants. It was unbecoming the dignity of our 
 gallant and noble plenipotentiaries to stipulate for 
 the welfare of the artizans and manufacturers of 
 Great Britain. Compare this with the results of 
 the cheap diplomacy of the Americans. 
 
 Alas! by what numberless arts, neglects, and 
 caprices (to say nothing of crimes), have the inte¬ 
 rests of this industrious and greatly favoured people 
 been victimized ! 
 
 Before closing this pamphlet, we will offer a few 
 remarks as to the course which it behoves Great 
 Britain to pursue, for the future, upon an important 
 question of commercial polic}^. 
 
 With a view to enlarge, as much as possible, the 
 capabilities of this people to support the burden of 
 debt and taxation with which they are destined to 
 be permanently loaded, every possible facility must 
 be given to the increase of population by the 
 expansion of our foreign trade, and which can only 
 be accomplished by repealing the protective duties 
 on corn. 
 
 We shall here be met with the cry, that we are 
 desirous of converting England into one vastmanu- 
 
146 
 
 factory, that we advocate the interests of our 
 order, and so forth. Far from nourishing any 
 such esprit-de-corps, our predilections lean altogether 
 in an opposite direction. We were born and bred 
 up amidst the pastoral charms of the south of 
 Eno-land; and we confess to so much attachment 
 for the pursuits of our forefathers (always provided 
 that it be separated from the rick-burnings and 
 pauperism of modern agriculture), that had we the 
 casting of the role of all the actors on this world’s 
 stage, we do not think we should suffer a cotton- 
 mill or a manufactory to have a place in it;—not 
 that they remind us of “ billy rollers ,” “ straps ,” 
 and “ infant martyrdoms ,” for we never saw such; 
 but we think a system which draws children from 
 home, where they formerly worked in the com¬ 
 pany of parents, and under the wholesome restraint 
 incident to disparity of years—nature’s own moral 
 safeguard of domestic life—to class them in fac¬ 
 tories, according to equalit}* of age, to be produc¬ 
 tive of vice. But the factory system, which sprang 
 from the discoveries in machinery, has been adopted 
 in all the civilized nations of the world, and it is 
 in vain for us to think of discountenancing its 
 application to the necessities of this country ; it 
 only remains for us to mitigate, as far as possible, 
 the evils that are perhaps not inseparably connected 
 with this novel social element. 
 
 The present corn laws are founded on the prin¬ 
 ciple of limiting, as far as possible, the growth of 
 
147 
 
 the population of Britain, within the means of the 
 soil to supply it with subsistence. No candid 
 advocate of a protective duty will deny that it 
 must have this tendency; nor will he dispute, that 
 to restrict the import of corn into a manufacturing 
 nation, is to strike at the life of its foreign com¬ 
 merce. 
 
 It is objected by the landowners of England, 
 that, if the duty on grain were to be reduced, it 
 would operate unfavourably upon their interests, 
 and they claim a protection at the hands of the 
 rest of society. Now, without entering at all into 
 the question of the right which belongs to such 
 pretensions, we shall content ourselves with taking 
 our stand upon the simple ground of necessity, and 
 declare, that the people of this country are in an 
 emergency that precludes the possibility of their 
 ministering to the selfishness of any one class in 
 the community. 
 
 The interest of the public debt cannot be paid 
 except by the co-operation of our foreign com¬ 
 merce ; and this cannot be preserved permanently, 
 unless the price of that first element of the cost of 
 our manufactures, food, be the same here as with 
 our competitors abroad. We are surprised that 
 the question has not before been placed in this 
 point of view by the advocates of a free trade in 
 corn, since it withdraws the subject altogether from 
 that invidious position which it has hitherto held 
 betwixt the rival contentions of agriculture and 
 
148 
 
 commerce, and places it under the control of in¬ 
 exorable state necessity. 
 
 We have been amazed (if any thing could asto¬ 
 nish us from this unintelligent party) to find that 
 the national debt is one of the leading arguments 
 made use of, by the economists of the Sadler school, 
 in advocating a restrictive duty on corn. A brief 
 appeal to a very few simple facts will, we believe, 
 not only deprive them of this argument, but, in the 
 opinion of all unprejudiced minds, place it on the 
 opposite side of the question. 
 
 Our public debt, funded and unfunded, amounts 
 to about eight hundred millions. Let this sum 
 be more fully appreciated, by bearing in mind that 
 it exceeds the aggregate of all the debts of the 
 whole world, including that of the East India 
 Company, amounting to one hundred and fifty 
 millions. Here, then, we have the British empire, 
 with only its twenty-five millions of population— 
 possessing a territory of only ninety thousand 
 square geographical miles, and containing only 
 forty-five millions of acres of cultivable land (about 
 two-thirds of the area of France), supporting an 
 annual burthen, for the interest of the national 
 debt, equal to the taxation borne, for the same 
 purpose, by all other states. How then can a 
 country, of so confined a boundary, and with no 
 greater population than we have named, find it 
 possible to endure so great a disproportion of tax¬ 
 ation ? If it be asked, how does France meet her 
 
149 
 
 public expenditure, we can answer, by pointing to 
 the superabundant production of wine, oil, silk, 
 tobacco, fruit, and corn, yielded throughout an 
 expanse of territory so wide as to ensure an almost 
 perpetual harvest to its people. If we inquire, 
 how does Russia maintain her government bur¬ 
 dens—the surplus timber, corn, hemp, and tallow 
 of that country must be the reply. Would we 
 know by what resources Italy, Spain, and America 
 discharge their respective national encumbrances 
 —the excess of the produce of silk, oil, wine, fruits, 
 cotton, and tobacco, over and above the wants of 
 the population of those countries, solves the 
 mystery. 
 
 But we demand to know, by what means Great 
 Britain can sustain an annual burden, for interest 
 of debt, exceeding that of these and all other states 
 together. Is it out of the surplus production of 
 its corn ? Her soil has not, for the last forty years, 
 yielded sufficient to supply the necessities of her 
 population. Is this enormous demand satisfied by 
 the yearly excess of her wines, silk, oil, fruits, 
 cotton, or tobacco ? The sterile land, and inhospit¬ 
 able climate of Britain, are incapable of producing 
 any one of these. Where, then, lies the secret of 
 her wealth—is it in her colonies ? How, if we are 
 prepared to prove that these are at this moment, 
 and in future are still more destined to become, a 
 severe burden to the people of these realms ? 
 
 Our mineral riches are the means by which alone 
 
150 
 
 we have been enabled to incur this debt, and by whose 
 agency only can ice at this moment discharge the 
 interest of it. 
 
 To satisfy ourselves of this, let us examine the 
 year’s return of our revenue, and we shall there 
 discover nearly twenty’ millions of income under 
 the head of customs duties. How are the commo¬ 
 dities, on which this amount of taxation is levied, 
 obtained from foreigners—are they 7 received in 
 exchange for our agricultural produce ? By 7 look¬ 
 ing over the list of articles exported, we shall, on 
 the contrary, find, that out of thirty-six millions of 
 home products, not one million is the unmixed 
 growth of the soil. 
 
 These commodities are purchased by our cottons, 
 woollens *, hardware, and the other articles pro¬ 
 duced bv the manufacturers of this country 7 ; the 
 growth, to use the term, of the coal and iron of 
 Great Britain—which are, we repeat, the primary 7 
 sources of all her wealth and power, and the want 
 of which alone prevents other nations of Europe 
 from rivalling her in manufacturing greatness. 
 Of course it is known that our agricultural labour 
 supplies a great portion of the food of our weavers, 
 and other artizans, and therefore mixes with the 
 results of their industry; but when it is recollected 
 that the cost of food here is from fifty 7 to one hun- 
 
 * We have the testimony of the Leeds manufacturers, in 
 their evidence before the legislature, that foreign wools are 
 absolutely indispensable to our Yorkshire industry. 
 
151 
 
 dred and fifty per cent, dearer than in other states, 
 it will be admitted that it is not owing to the cheap 
 price at which the farmer supplies the corn of the 
 manufacturer, that the latter is enabled to under¬ 
 sell his foreign competitors. 
 
 To come to the point with those who advocate a 
 restrictive policy on our foreign trade, by a protec¬ 
 tion, as it is called, of our agriculture, we ask, in 
 what way do they propose ever to pay off the 
 national debt, or permanently to discharge the 
 interest of it, out of the indigenous wealth of these 
 islands ? 
 
 The whole area of cultivated land in this monar¬ 
 chy is, as we before stated, estimated at about forty- 
 five millions of acres: at twenty pounds an acre, 
 the fee simple of the soil of these islands (we of 
 course leave out the houses, &c.) would very little 
 exceed the amount of our debt. There is an end, 
 therefore, of the idea of discharging the principal 
 out of the real property of the country; and by 
 what means would they, who obstruct a foreign 
 commerce, profess to pay the interest of the debt, 
 without the assistance of that trade ? Supposing 
 that our exports were diminished, and that owing 
 to the consequent falling oft’ in our imports our 
 customs were sensibly reduced, from what articles 
 of our agricultural produce would these advocates 
 of a Japanese policy raise the deficient revenue ? 
 In France (where the prohibitive system, which 
 has long reigned supremely, is drawing fast to a 
 
 , u >fr V / X- ^ 
 
 y ft 
 
 ft 
 
152 
 
 dismal end) the customs duties only amount to 
 about one-fifth of our own, and the great bulk of 
 the revenue is levied from the land. But, pro¬ 
 vided that a reduction of our foreign trade ren¬ 
 dered such a step necessary, we ask again (and it 
 is an important question, involving the whole gist 
 of our argument), upon what branch of British 
 agriculture could an augmented impost be levied ? 
 May not the recent almost fanatical outcry against 
 the malt tax, the only burthen of any magnitude 
 borne directly by the land in this country, serve 
 as a sufficient answer to the inquiry ? 
 
 The question of the repeal of the corn laws, 
 then, resolves itself into one of absolute state 
 necessity: since our foreign trade, which is indis¬ 
 pensable to the payment of the interest of the 
 national debt, cannot be permanently preserved if 
 we persevere in a restrictive duty against the 
 principal article of exchange of rude, unmanufac¬ 
 turing people. To prohibit the import of corn, 
 such as is actually the case at this moment, is to 
 strangle infant commerce in its cradle—nay, worse, 
 it is to destroy it even in its mother’s womb. 
 
 We recommend the landowners, but especially the 
 great proprietors who constitute the upper house of 
 legislature, to reflect upon this view of the corn laws. 
 
 But we have remarked an inclination in a part 
 of the landed interest to slight—to use the mildest 
 possible term—the public creditor; a feeling that 
 shone forth in the motion of the Marquis of 
 
153 
 
 Chandos to remove the malt tax; thus aiming’ at 
 the insolvency of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 without caring first to inquire by what fresh im¬ 
 posts he should meet the engagements of his 
 country. These unreflecting minds are, we appre¬ 
 hend, quite incapable of estimating the conse¬ 
 quences that will ensue, if ever we should be found 
 unable to meet the interest of the debt—in other 
 words, if the British nation should be declared 
 bankrupt! Let us for one moment contemplate 
 the results that would follow from such an event. 
 
 We find, from a statement in Porter’s Official 
 Tables, that there are 250,000 persons receiving 
 dividends, of and under the amount of 200/. a 
 year. Presuming the families or dependants of them 
 to average * two each, then we shall have here half 
 a million of individuals looking to the public funds 
 for support. Moreover, we find the total amount 
 of the deposits in all the savings’ banks of the 
 kingdom to be 13,500,000/.; and the number of 
 depositors, according to the same authority, is 
 412,217, averaging 33/. each : taking the families 
 or dependants of these at the same average as 
 before, and it gives three quarters of a million 
 more. Then there is an immense amount of the 
 public debt owing to charities, including insurance 
 offices, benefit clubs, schools, &c., involving the 
 interests of an incalculable multitude of necessitous 
 persons. Guessing these to amount to only the 
 
 * To avoid exaggeration, we have named a lower average than 
 we are entitled to quote. 
 
 
154 
 
 same total as the last mentioned (for it is impos¬ 
 sible to form a correct estimate on the subject), 
 then we arrive at an aggregate of two millions of 
 the middle and lower classes, who are directly and 
 indirectly claimants on the national debt. 
 
 Now no one capable of thinking upon such a 
 subject at all, will for a moment believe, that if we 
 were driven to such an extremity as to rob these 
 two millions—comprising so many of the labour¬ 
 ers, the small traders, the orphans and widows— 
 of their subsistence, that the pomp of the court, or 
 the wealth of the clergy, or the privileges of our 
 nobles, would be more secure than the bread of 
 these humble annuitants. 
 
 No rational mind can suppose that lords in wait¬ 
 ing, grooms of the stole, gold sticks and silver 
 sticks, would be maintained—that bishops and 
 prebends would still be found in undisturbed pos¬ 
 session of their stalls and revenues—or that the 
 peers would retain their law of primogeniture, or 
 the right of hereditary legislation, whilst desolation 
 and misery overspread the land with horrors as 
 terrible as any it could undergo from the ravages 
 of half a million of Cossacks *. 
 
 The cleverest of our journalists has said, and the 
 words have passed into a proverb, “ Before you rob 
 
 * Here let us remark, in reference to the absurdest of all 
 absurd chimeras with which we haunt ourselves, of this empire 
 being; in danger from the assaults of Russia—that we are con¬ 
 vinced there is, at this moment, ten thousand times more cause of 
 apprehension from the financial evils of Great Britain, than from 
 all the powers of the world. 
 
155 
 
 the public creditor, send your throne to the pawn¬ 
 shop.” And nothing can be more certain, than 
 that the national debt (which never ought to have 
 been incurred, and the authors of which some 
 future generation will, probably, deem to have 
 been madmen) must be borne by the people of 
 England, entire and untouched, so long as they 
 can stand beneath its burden. If ever the day 
 should come that sees this mighty fabric crush the 
 nation to the dust, it will bury in its ruins the 
 monarchy, church, and aristocracy, with every 
 vestige of our feudal institutions, and every ances¬ 
 tral precedent—leaving the state, like Mr. Courte¬ 
 nay’s sheet of blank paper, upon which the then 
 existing generation will have the task of inscribing 
 a new constitution, borrowed from the freest and 
 most flourishing community of that day, and which, 
 in all probability, will be found on the continent 
 of America. 
 
 From such a catastrophe there is no escape, but 
 in either honestly paying oft’ the principal of the pub¬ 
 lic debt, or in continuing to discharge the interest 
 of it for ever. The ravings after an equitable adjust¬ 
 ment, and other like expedients, are but the imprac¬ 
 ticable schemes of those who would wish to precipi¬ 
 tate such a calamity as we have been describing. 
 
 If every house in England were converted into a 
 Court of Chancery, and if all the men between 
 twenty and sixty were constituted Lord Chancellors, 
 there would not then be a sufficient quantity of 
 equity courts and equity judges to effect sucli an 
 
156 
 
 equitable adjustment of tlie national debt as is 
 meant, during the life-time of an entire generation. 
 
 The national debt, then, is inviolable; and this 
 recals us to the inquiry of how it is to be perma¬ 
 nently supported ; which brings us again to the 
 question of the corn laws. 
 
 The only way in which we can lighten the 
 pressure of the debt is, by adding to the population 
 and wealth of the country. The agricultural dis¬ 
 tricts have, we suspect, so far as the middle classes 
 are concerned, already experienced that dull state 
 incident to the stationary period of society; whilst, 
 under the present amended poor laws, we believe that 
 the further increase of the pauper population will 
 be effectually checked. The sole way then of adding 
 to our numbers is, to give the freest possible develop¬ 
 ment to the only present superabundant contents of 
 the soil—the mineral products of Great Britain. 
 
 By repealing the present corn laws, and putting- 
 only a fixed duty of such an amount as would 
 bring the greatest revenue (we object no more to 
 a tax on corn than on tea or sugar, for the purpose 
 of revenue, but we oppose a protective duty, as it is 
 called), which probably might be found to be two 
 shillings a quarter, such an impulse would be given 
 to the manufactures of this country, whilst so 
 great a shock would be experienced by our rivals 
 from the augmented price of food all over the 
 world, that a rapid growth of wealth and increase 
 of numbers must take place throughout the coal 
 and iron districts of England, Wales, and Scotland. 
 
157 
 
 The population of Staffordshire, Lancashire, 
 Yorkshire, Lanarkshire, and of the counties adja¬ 
 cent to these, might be trebled in the course of a 
 couple of generations; and there would be no limit 
 to its increase but in the contents of our coal 
 mines, to which geologists assign a duration, vary¬ 
 ing from two to three thousand years! 
 
 It will be asked, what would be the effects of 
 such a change upon the agriculture of the country. 
 The best way of replying to this question is, to 
 consider what must have been the consequences to 
 all interests in this country, if, in lieu of the re¬ 
 strictions put upon the import of corn in 1810, a 
 law had been passed, imposing only such a mode¬ 
 rate duty as would ultimately produce the greatest 
 revenue, and which, in our opinion, would be 
 found to be two shillings a quarter. The factory 
 system would, in all probability, not have taken 
 root in America or Germany;—it most certainly 
 could not have flourished, as it has done, both in 
 those states, and in France, Belgium, and Switzer¬ 
 land, through the fostering bounties which the 
 high-priced food of the British artizan has offered 
 to the cheaper fed manufacturer of those countries. 
 
 Our belief, after some reflection upon this ques¬ 
 tion, is (having already very far exceeded the in¬ 
 tended limits of this pamphlet, we are precluded 
 from going into details), that had a wise modifi¬ 
 cation of our corn laws been effected at the close of 
 the war, the official value of our exports would have 
 exceeded, by one-third, its present amount. This is 
 
158 
 
 of course presuming that our manufacturing popula¬ 
 tion had augmented proportionately; — we believe 
 that, under such circumstances, the before-mentioned 
 counties would have now sustained upwards of a 
 million more than their present numbers; but, as 
 the increase of their inhabitants would not have 
 been equal to the demand for labour, a great 
 immigration must have taken place from the agri¬ 
 cultural districts. This would have saved those 
 quarters that frightful ordeal of pauperism and 
 crime with which they have disgraced our modern 
 history. The farmer would, by the offer of other 
 resources for his family and dependents, have been 
 saved from the state of servility into which he is 
 plunged. Instead of the rent of the tenants being- 
 dictated by the landlords, the former would, under 
 this more favourable state of things, have been the 
 arbiters of the incomes of the latter. In short, the 
 buyers, i. e. the farmers, would in this case, as the 
 purchasers do in dealing with all other commodi¬ 
 ties, have decided the prices of their farms—they 
 would not have been, as at present, determined by 
 the sellers, i. e. the landowners. 
 
 Under such an assumed state of things this 
 country would, we believe, by this time have ac¬ 
 quired an increase to its present wealth, to the 
 extent of 350 * millions — nearly one half the 
 amount of the national debt. 
 
 * It is estimated that our annual loss on corn alone is nine 
 millions. 
 
159 
 
 The immediate effects of all this to the landed pro¬ 
 prietor would, clearly, have been a reduction of rent; 
 or, where the property was heavily encumbered, 
 his estates would have passed into other hands. 
 
 We should not, in such a case, have heard of 
 those displays of wanton extravagance that tend so 
 much to demoralize all classes. Instead of the 
 exhibitions of prodigality and insolence abroad with 
 which some of those proprietors affronted the 
 nations of the continent, and disgraced at the same 
 time their native country,—instead of their con¬ 
 tributing, at home, to raise and support a palace 
 for Crockford,—instead of their dispensing with all 
 decorum, and herding with grooms and black-legs 
 at Newmarket, or Doncaster,—instead of the neces¬ 
 sary consequences of all this, the subsequent ruin 
 and exile of such wastrels *,—in place of these 
 things, we might have beheld a provident and 
 virtuous proprietary residing principally upon, and 
 managing their estates; and who, we verily be¬ 
 lieve, would, under tins supposed state of things, 
 have become richer in wealth, as well as honour, 
 than they are at this day. 
 
 But selfishness, which is ever short-sighted, has 
 hitherto governed supremely the destinies of this 
 empire; and we have seen how disastrous has been 
 its rule, not only to its own interests, but to the 
 prosperity of the nation at large. Should the 
 same misgovernment, from no better motives, 
 
 * Wastrel, in Lancashire phrase, an idle, debauched, and 
 worthless spendthrift—a word that may be useful in London. 
 
160 
 
 be persevered in, with respect to the corn question, 
 the effects will be still more calamitous for the 
 future. The public debt, that “ eternal ally of 
 truth and justice” (to use the words of a famous 
 political writer, without adopting his malignancy), 
 will visit with terrible reprisals the monopolists who 
 shall persist in upholding the present corn laws. 
 
 We cannot do better than conclude with the 
 words of an intelligent American, as they were ad¬ 
 dressed to an English traveller. The extract is 
 taken from the preface to “ Ferguson’s Tour in 
 Canada, and a portion of the United States.” 
 
 “ Even with your present burden of debt, if your 
 government were to renounce all interference with 
 the affairs of the Continent, and keep no more force, 
 land or naval, than is necessary for your own security, 
 have no more wars, and diminish the expenditure 
 as much as possible, you would grow so rapidly in 
 the next fifty years, that your debt would cease to 
 be of any importance. I earnestly hope that the 
 passage of the Reform Bill may be only the pre¬ 
 lude to an entire change of system; and that you»r 
 successors may feel, as we do here, that wars do 
 not promote the prosperity of a nation, and have 
 the good sense to avoid them.” 
 
 CHARLES WOOD AND SON, PRINTERS, 
 Poppin’s Court, Fleet Street.