bers; and we must repeat, that the very pretence on which the catholics are now to be admitted into parliament, and to the higher offices of the state the pretence of their insignificance is such, as will naturally array them against the protestants, and give ten-fold energy to their struggle for the mastery. It will give them a powerful and a permanent interest in the overthrow of that ascendancy which dares to proclaim their eternal subordination; and he must be a mere driveller indeed who does not, in such circumstances, discover the origin of a contest far more momentous than all the controversies maintained by all the factions which have flourished since the Revolution.

Would the catholics, however, have the power of accomplishing their ambitious schemes, and of establishing themselves on the ruins of protestantism? Their numbers in parliament would be but small compared with those of the protestants; and it would be too much to say with confidence, that their zeal and intrigue must secure them an ascendency. But it cannot be necessary to prove so much as this; it is enough to indicate in what manner so melancholy a catastrophe is not improbable.—The influence of the crown has become very great in both houses of parliament; a prince might ascend the throne, not openly professing, but secretly encouraging the catholic religion, and with even the limited aid which the catholics could afford him, he might be able to execute his purposes. If he were not a madman, he would not hastily venture on any measures of open hostility towards the protestants, but with the help of his own mighty influence in the legislature, with the aid of the influence and property of the catholics, and with the assistance also of foreign alliances, we do not say that he could subdue the resistance of

VOL. V. PART I.

the protestants, but he might succeed in reviving controversies, similar to those which drove the Stuarts from the throne. It would then become necessary to encounter anew the storms of revolution; and if the minds of the people should not sink under the pressure of the moment-if they should not become the martyrs of tyranny and persecution-if they should still cling with fervour and energy to that constitution, of which the essence is protestant ascendency, although the honours of the triumph would be theirs, the guilt which should expose them to so fiery a trial, would not be the less an object of their just indignation and vengeance.

We can discover nothing in the precedent taken from the policy of Henry the Fourth of France, on which Mr Canning dilated so largely, that is applicable to the state of this country. Many things are possible to a vigorous despotism, which would be very unsafe under a free constitution of government; where the whole power of the state is vested in the monarch, if he have capacity for the trust, he need not fear the most bitter animosities of faction. Henry the Fourth did not, by the edict of Nantes, give any substantial or independent power to his protestant subjects; he still remained the absolute master of their destinies just as much as he was before he issued that famous ordinance. In an English House of Commons, however, the whole powers of the realm have been justly said under different forms to reside; he who is admitted to the functions of a senator, therefore, shares in the supreme powers of the state, and obtains, of course, a consequence and authority which no subject of monarchical France ever possessed. He becomes dangerous also as he becomes powerful; and in such circumstances there is no ground for supposing that the experiment made so long ago in France could be safely repeated in England.

We can, upon the whole, discover no way in which the claims of the catholics can be reconciled with the natural feelings, or just demands of the protestants; and much as we regret the

obstacles which stand opposed to them, we must fairly own, that we can see no prospect of their speedy removal.

THE relations subsisting betwixt

Great Britain and the United States of America, had for many years exhi bited a very singular aspect. The nations were not indeed in a state of open war with each other; but the conflict of opposite pretensions, the angry discussion of many intricate questions of international law, the charges and recriminations which had for a series of years formed the only subject of their diplomatic intercourse, had dif fused over both countries a spirit of distrust and animosity, which could find in war alone its natural gratification. As this unhappy result was actually produced in the course of the present year, it may not be uninterest ing to take a hasty retrospect of the causes which led to an event so much lamented by the enlightened men of both countries.

It seems to be generally thought that the Americans, whether right or wrong in the principles of public law, on which they so obstinately insisted, (a point which shall be afterwards examined) might have brought matters to an amicable arrangement, without any material sacrifice even of the questionable maxims for which they contended for never was the spirit of conciliation carried farther than by the

British government in its intercourse

with the ministers of the United States. England had many obvious reasons for endeavouring to avert the calamities of an American war at this period; she was engaged in a very arduous contest in Europe,-she had the most numerous and formidable enemies to contend with,-she had the interests of her commerce to maintain, which are always dependent in some degree on a friendly connexion with America; and she had, moreover, a natural and a generous aversion to conquer, before she could bring herself to draw the sword against a people connected with her by a resemblance in language, laws, and institutions. These were motives sufficiently powerful to have restrained the intemperance of the English ministers, even if they had not been otherwise remarkable for mildness and forbearance. Had the principles of international law advanced by the Americans been as sound as an impartial examination of them may perhaps shew that they were unreasonable, still it would have been in the power of America, had she sincerely desired peace, to have preserved it by an honourable compromise on those points which had created the greatest difference of opinion, or

almost by any thing short of an absolute surrender of the rights and honour of Great Britain, which it was rather too much in any people to expect. But if there be any point in recent history which even the arts of faction cannot involve in doubt, it is this, that the government of America was not sincerely desirous of peace with Great Britain,-that it took all possible means to disturb the moderation and provoke the anger of the British ministers; and that upon all occasions it betrayed symptoms of the most unaccountable partiality to the despotism of France. Those who have studied the history of American affairs for the last three or four years, will be well aware of the grounds on which this opinion has been formed; and a curious enquiry thus suggests itself,how it should have happened that the only republican government in the world should, at the greatest crisis of affairs, have combined with the most odious of despotisms against a country which has always been recognised as an illustrious model of practical freedom, and which was at this very moment engaged in a grand effort to vindicate the independence of nations.

In attempting to account for this singular phenomenon in politics, some thing must, no doubt, be allowed for the yet unextinguished animosity produced by our unfortunate colonial war. It may be thought that prejudices so antiquated must long since have become the exclusive property of the vulgar; and must have given way, in the minds of enlightened men, to considerations more recent in point of time, and more important in their practical influence on American affairs. It is a common belief in Europe, however, that the government of America is, to a more than ordinary degree, under the discipline and controul of the rabble; and if indeed there be any truth in the common spe

culations as to the motives of its hostility towards Great Britain, it must be very far gone in vulgar absurdity. National prejudices so indiscri minating and so mischievous, are every where but in America confined to the lowest ranks ;-they have been long banished out of the more respectable circles even of private life, and could never find their way into the councils of a great European state without devoting it to the unsparing ridicule and contempt of its neighbours.

With the narrow prejudices of the American mob, other causes combined to hasten a rupture with England.— The commercial system,-that miserable tissue of blunders which had so long kept down the growing prosperity of Europe, had been wisely exploded by the most enlightened of the European states before the French revolution. The enlarged views and fine talents of the political philosophers who cast a lustre round the close of the last century, had triumphed over every obstacle which ignorance and prejudice could oppose; and England and France at last discovered that they had a mutual interest in the commercial greatness of each other. They did more than this; they reduced their principles to practice, and embodied them in a treaty which, if not unexceptionable in all respects, was at least a great step towards the triumph of genuine philosophy over the errors and absurdities of the old political school. The French revolution, however, deranged all the plans of enlightened men,-it engendered a rancour and animosity betwixt the nations more violent and pernicious than the ancient jealousies of the commercial system, and terminated at last in a despotism which threw France and her dependencies far back in the scale of improvement. The commercial system was revived by the new French government with a barbarous and destructive

fury which had never been even contemplated at any former period; the refined and generous principles which so many great men had contributed to establish, were forgotten; their works were neglected or proscribed; the progress of human improvement was arrested, and ail seemed about to become a sacrifice to the rude genius of an overwhelming despotism. Even during the short interval of repose which succeeded the treaty of Amiens, the maxims of the new government were sufficiently indicated in the impolitic restraints and prohibitions by which the commercial intercourse of the countries was fettered. England did not indeed pretend that such measures afforded a legitimate ground for hostilities, since every nation being supreme within itself, has a right to determine whether it shall receive the commodities of foreign states; but if the commercial animosity of France could not have justified England in de laring war, it certainly afforded her a solid ground for entertaining jealousy against a pow. er thus hostile to her interests, and called upon her to watch all the proceedings of that power with the most scrupulous vigilance.

The unrivalled commercial greatness of England at this period, surpassing all that history records, and all that even the most flattering visions of her statesmen had contemplated, was an object of bitter and unceasing mortifi cation to the politicians of France,her naval supremacy, which was founded on the prosperity of her commerce, and promised for it an indefinite duration, filled their minds with jealousy and apprehension. These feelings rose to the highest pitch after the peace of Amiens. Europe seemed to learn, for the first time, that the commercial grandeur of England possessed a stability which had never been supposed to belong to this species of power. It had withstood the shock of the most

extended and desolating warfare; and at the close of a contest of long duration and unparalleled fury, in which the empire had sometimes contended with the combined energies of Eu rope, it not only remained untouched, but had mightily extended itself duing every year of hostility. The war had terminated in the establishment of a naval power which had gathered strength by all the efforts made to weaken it; and had now risen so high as to bid defiance to all rivalry. The rulers of France reflected on these matters with bitterness corresponding to the disappointment of their hopes; they despaired of being able to meet this enormous power by any ordinary efforts; and could think of no way of checking its further growth, but by the entire sacrifice of their own commerce and resources. They hoped, that by excluding all the productions of British industry from their ports, and by prohibiting the use of British commodities throughout France and her dependencies, they might gradually undermine this overgrown power; while their depraved policy at the same time sought to inculcate a belief among their subjects, that such measures would promote the industry of France. Thus was a system established (if indeed so rude and impolitic a thing deserve the name) in direct opposition to all the views of modern science; a system which was in truth but a barbarous extension of the old theories, which so many enlightened men had endeavoured to banish for ever from the world

The measures thus adopted by France had a twofold connection with the affairs of America. In the first place, the American statesmen entertained much the same feelings with respect to the commercial and naval greatness of England with their friends in France; their understandings were in general of the same character, and