THE examination of this subject deserves the best pens. We invite men of ability to favour us with such authentick statements of the commerce, revenue, and forces of the British empire and of France, as will assist us to make conjectures. The world is threatened with subjection to French military despotism. Unless Great Britain can defend herself, we are to look for such another age of iron, as passed in the twelfth century, when soldiers were ruffians, and all that were not soldiers were slaves.

In this scene it is some consolation to perceive, that Britain, at length, discerns her danger. The popularity of the peace is greatly impaired; and the aggrandizement of France, since the preliminaries, has awakened the pride and the fears of the nation.

BRITISH Wealth, commerce, and naval force have greatly increased since the peace of 1783. Her manufactures exported at that period were about nine million and a half of pounds sterling; at the peace of 1801, twenty four millions. Her whole exports, in 1783, fourteen millions; in 1801, thirty five millions. In 1783, her merchant shipping less than six hundred thousand tons; in 1801, fifteen hundred thousand. In 1783, her armed ships of all sorts in commission, less than four hundred; in 1801, seven hundred.

As this great increase, however, is owing, in a great measure to the war, the question returns, will Great Britain be able to keep this superiority over France and her dependencies? During the war, the British navy destroyed the commerce and navigation of her enemies. This forced them to make use of American ships and capital to do that for them, which Great Britain would not permit them to do for themselves. Hence, the vast profits of American ships and merchants; and hence, too, the absurd clamour of the democrats, who cursed Great Britain, as the tyrant of the seas, because she forced our rivals to become our customers. The boasted principle of free ships, free goods, would deprive the United States of a great part of the fair profits of their neutrality. Belligerent nations could, in that case, transact their own affairs, and neutrals would have

no gains but freight. This observation is a digression, but it was obviously proper to make it, as the democrats have never ceased to misrepresent the subject.

It is little to be expected, that America will retain all her navigation and commerce. The nations, which the British navy depressed, are now making regulations to revive their commerce and their colony monopolies. France, the boasted friend of commercial liberty, is setting the example. Indeed it is clear, that the sole object of her policy is, to stir up every nation to a contest with England, to break down the English navigation act, and to establish a more rigorous monopoly system of her own.

THE vast capital of England, augmented, as it is, beyond all former times, and beyond all proportion with her rivals, her manufacturing skill, and the excellence and stability of her government, so favourable to property, are advantages, which France has little to counterbalance, except the goodness of her soil and climate, and the populousness of her territory. Great Britain has gained much, in respect to political strength, by her union with Ireland, a measure, that will extend her growth for some ages; for Ireland is yet semi-barbarous, and the more it civilizes, the more it will augment the strength of the empire. The conquest of Tippoo's country, the Mysore, in India, consolidates her valuable dominions in that quarter of the globe. Ceylon is an important acquisition, and we wish it was in our power to state, how important, to English commerce. In the West-Indies, Trinidad is large enough to absorb many millions of British capital, and to become another Jamaica.

On the whole, France has gained power, and has lost nothing of her arrogance; Great Britain sees her danger, and, without having lost any of her strength, has recovered her spirits.

MONITOR.

First published in the Palladium, April, 1804.

ACCIDENT may give rise and extent to republicks, but

the fixed laws that govern human actions and passions will decide their progress and fate. By looking into history and seeing what has been, we know what will be. It is thus that dumb experience speaks audibly; it is thus that witnesses come from the dead and testify. Are we warned? No. Are we roused? No. We lie in a more death-like sleep than those witnesses. Yet let us hear their testimony, though it should not quicken our stupidity, but only double the weight of our condemnation.

THE experiment of a republick was tried, in all its forms, by the Romans. While they occupied only one city, and a few miles of territory near its walls, they had all the virtues and sustained all the toils and perils of a camp. Every Roman was born a soldier, and the state entrusted arms to the hands of those only who had rights and rank as citizens. But when Rome extended her empire over all Italy, and then over all Asia Minor, her size rendered her politicks unmanageable; and power in her town-meetings, where the rabble at length out-voted the real citizens, corrupted all virtue, extinguished all shame, and trampled on all right, liberty, and justice. Our constitution, as Washington left it, is good; but as amendments and faction have now modelled it, it is no longer the same thing.

WE now set out with our experimental project, exactly where Rome failed with hers: we now begin, where she ended. We think it wise to spread over half this Western hemisphere a form, and it is only a form, of government that answered for Rome, while Rome governed a territory as narrow as the district of Columbia. The Romans were awed by oaths, and restrained by the despotism of a camp; for in every camp, where there is not mutiny, there must be despotism.

We Americans, who laugh at the difference, if difference there be, between twenty Gods and no God; we, who have lost our morals, prate about our liberty. We think, that what the Romans, with the Scipios, and Catuli, and Catos, could not keep, we, with our Jeffersons, cannot lose. Those great Romans thought it better not to live at all, than to live slaves; but we care more for our ease than our rights. We can bear injustice better than expense; and we dread war infinitely more than dishonour. Hence, when we had our election, we chose infamy, and paid fifteen millions for it: we compensated the aggressor for the fatigue of kicking us; and we celebrate, as a jubilee, that treaty that has made our debasement an article of the law of nations. If Rome had ever tamely borne the wrongs that we took, not merely patiently, but thankfully, joyfully, from Spain and Buonaparte, Rome would never have been more than a walled town, where valiant robbers secured their booty. But we who take insults from slaves, and think it victory and glory, to buy the forbearance of a tyrant, we talk of Roman liberty, as if we were emulous of it. The Romans honoured virtue, and loved glory, and thought it cheaply purchased with their blood; we love money, and, if we had glory, we should joyfully truck it off for more money, or another Louisiana. With such a difference of spirit, are we to hold the republican sceptre, that is to sway a million square miles of territory? If we resemble any thing Roman, it is such a domination as Spartacus, and his gladiators and slaves, would have established, if they had succeeded in their rebellion. The government of the three fifths of the ancient dominion, and the offscourings of Europe, has no more exact ancient parallel.

THE plebeians of Rome asserted their right to serve in the highest offices, and at length obtained it; but the people still chose the most able and eminent men, who were patricians, and rejected their worthless tribunes. But we see our tribunes successful: the judges are at the bar, and the whiskey leaders sit in judgment upon them. Surely that people have lost their morals, who bestow their votes on those who have none; surely they

have lost their liberties, when their judges tremble more than their culprits.

THE Romans maintained some barrier about popular rights, as long as the tribunes were sacred; but when Tiberius moved the people to depose Octavius, a fellow tribune, then violence ruled the assemblies, and even the shadow of liberty was lost. We have seen the judiciary law repealed, and the judges, though made sacred by the constitution, in like manner deposed.

THE Romans, in the days of their degeneracy and corruption, set no more bounds to their favour, than to their resentments. While Pompey was their idol, they conferred unlimited authority upon him, over all the Mediterranean sea, and four hundred stadia (about forty five miles) within land. We, in like manner, devolve on Mr. Jefferson the absolute and uncontrolled dominion of Louisiana. It was thus the Romans were made, by their own vote, familiar with arbitrary power.

In the contests of their factions, the conquerors inflicted all possible evils on the fallen party; and thus they tasted and liked the sweetness of revenge. Except in removals from office, and newspaper invectives, in this point our experience is yet deficient; but, from the spirit of ardent malice apparent in the dominant faction, it is manifest, that we have men, who, though sparing enough of their own blood, would rival Marius or Anthony in lavishing that of their enemies.

THE Romans were not wholly sunk from liberty, till morals and religion lost their power. But when the Thomas Paines, and those who recommended him, as a champion against "the presses" of that day, had introduced the doctrines of Epicurus, the Roman people became almost as corrupt as the French are now, and almost as shameless as the favoured patriots of our country, who are the first to get office.

GRADUALLY, all power centred in the Roman populace. While they voted by centuries, (the comitia centuriata) property had influence, and could defend itself; but, at length, the doctrine of universal suffrage prevailed. The rabble, not only of Rome, but of all Italy, and of all the conquered nations, flowed in. In Tiberim, defluxit Orontes. Rome could no