from destroying their power, had only left fome flight ftains on their character. The financial difficulties were only pretexts and inftruments of thofe who accomplished the ruin of that monarchy. They were not the causes of it. Deprived of the old government, deprived in a manner of all government, France fallen as a monarchy, to common fpeculators might have appeared more likely to be an object of pity or infult, according to the difpofition of the circumjacent powers, than to the scourge and terror of them all: but out of the tomb of the murdered monarchy in France, has arifen a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre, in a far more terrific guife than any which ever yet have overpowered the imagination, and fubdued the fortitude of man. Going straight forward to its end, unappalled by peril, unchecked by remorfe, defpifing all common maxims and all common means, that hideous phantom overpowered those who could not believe it was poffible fhe could at all exift, except on the principles, which habit rather than nature had perfuaded them were neceffary to their own particular welfare and to their own ordinary modes of action. But the conftitution of any political being, as well as that of any phyfical being, ought to be known, before one can venture to fay what is fit for its confervation, or what is the proper means of its power. The poifon of other states is the food of the new republic. That bankruptcy, the very apprehenfion of which is one of the causes affigned for the fall of the monarchy, was the capital on which fhe opened her traffic with the world. The republic of regicide with an annihilated revenue, with defaced manufactures, with a ruined commerce, with an uncultivated and half depopulated country, with a difcontented, diftreffed, enflaved, and famished people, paffing with a rapid, eccentric, incalculable course, from the wildeft anarchy to the fterneft defpotifm, has actually conquered the fineft parts of Europe, has diftrefied, difunited, de4 ranged, and broke to pieces all the reft; and fo' fubdued the minds of the rulers in every nation, that hardly any refource prefents itself to them, except that of entitling themselves to a contemptuous mercy by a difplay of their imbecility and meannefs. Even in their greatest military efforts and the greatest display of their fortitude, they feem not to hope, they do not even appear to wish, the extinction of what fubfifts to their certain ruin. Their ambition is only to be admitted to a more favoured class in the order of fervitude under that domineering power. This feems the temper of the day. At first the French force was too much defpifed. Now it is too much dreaded. As inconfiderate courage has given way to irrational fear, so it may be hoped, that through the medium of deliberate fober apprehenfion, we may arrive at fteady fortitude. Who knows whether indignation may not fucceed to terror, and the revival of high fentiment, fpurning away the delufion of a fafety purchased at the expence of glory, may not yet drive us to that generous defpair, which has often fubdued diftempers in the ftate for which no remedy could be found in the wifeft councils. Other great ftates, having been without any regular certain course of elevation, or decline, we may hope that the British fortune may fluctuate alfo; because the public mind, which greatly influences that fortune, may have its changes. We are therefore never authorised to abandon our country to its fate, or to act or advise as if it had no refource. There is no reafon to apprehend, because ordinary means threaten to fail, that no others can fpring up. While our heart is whole, it will find means, or make them. The heart of the citizen is a perennial fpring of energy to the state. Because the pulfe feems to intermit, we must not prefume that it will ceafe inftantly to beat. The public mutt never be regarded as incurable. I remember in the beginning of what has lately been called the feven years war, that an eloquent writer and ingenious fpeculator, Dr. Browne, upon fome reverfes which happened in the beginning of that war, published an elaborate philofophical difcourfe to prove that the diftinguishing features of the people of England had been totally changed, and that a frivolous effeminacy was become the national character. Nothing could be more popular than that work. It was thought a great confolation to us, the light people of this country (who were and are light, but who were not and are not effeminate) that we had found the causes of our misfortunes in our vices. Pythagoras could not be more pleafed with his leading difcovery. But while in that fplenetic mood we amufed ourselves in a four critical fpeculation, of which we were ourselves the objects, and in which every man loft his particular fenfe of the public difgrace in the epidemic nature of the distemper; while, as in the Alps goitre kept goitre in countenance; while we were thus abandoning ourfelves to a direct confeffion of our inferiority to France, and while many, very many, were ready to act upon a fenfe of that inferiority, a few months effected a total change in our variable minds. We emerged from the gulph of that fpeculative defpondency; and were buoyed up to the highest point of practical vigour. Never did the mafculine fpirit of England difplay itself with more energy, nor ever did its genius foar with a prouder preeminence over France, than at the time when frivolity and effeminacy had been at leaft tacitly acknowledged as their national character, by the good people of this kingdom. STATE of the BRITISH EMPIRE at the Clofe of the laft CENTURY, contrafted to its prefent Power, Finances, and Commerce. [From the SAME.] LE ET the portion of our hiftory from the year 1689 to 1713 be brought before us. We fhall find, that in all that period of twenty-four years, there were hardly five that could be called a feason of peace; and the interval between the two wars was in reality, nothing more than a very active preparation for renovated hoftility. During that period, every one of the propofitions of peace came from the enemy; the firft, when they were accepted, at the peace of Ryfwick; the fecond, where they were rejected at the congrefs at Gertruydenburgh; the laft, when the war ended by the treaty of Utrecht. Even then, a very great part of the nation, and that which contained by far the most intelligent statesmen, was against the conclufion of the war. I do not enter into the merits of that question as between the parties. I only ftate the existence of that opinion as a fact, from whence you may draw fuch an inference as you think properly arises from it. It is for us at present to recollect what we have been; and to confider what, if we please, we may be ftill. At the period of those wars, our principal ftrength was found in the refolution of the people; that in the refólution of a part only and of the then whole, which bore no proportion to our exifting magnitude. England and Scotland were not united at the beginning of that mighty ftruggle. When, in the course of the conteft, they were conjoined, it was in a raw, an ill-cemented, an unproductive union. For the whole duration of the war, and long after, the names, and other outward and visible signs of approximation, rather augmented than diminished our infular feuds. They were rather the causes of new discontents and new troubles, than promoters of cordiality and affection. The now fingle and potent Great Britain was then not only two countries, but, from the party heats in both, and the divifions formed in each of them, each of the old kingdoms within itself in effect was made up of two hoftile nations. Ireland, now fo large a fource of the common opulence and power, which wifely managed might be made much more beneficial and much more effective, was then the heaviest of the burdens. An army not much less than forty thousand men, was drawn from the general effort, to keep that kingdom in a poor, unfruitful, and refourceless fubjection. Such was the state of the empire. The ftate of our finances was worse, if poffible. Every branch of the revenue became less productive after the revolution. Silver, not as now a fort of counter, but the body of the current coin, was reduced fo low, as not to have above three parts in four of the value in the filling. It required a dead expence of three millions fterling to renew the coinage. Public credit, that great but ambiguous principle, which has fo often been predicted as the cause of our certain ruin, but which for a century has been the conftant companion, and often the means, of our profperity and greatnefs, had its origin, and was cradled, I may fay, in bankruptcy and beggary. At this day we have feen parties contending to be admitted, at a moderate premium, to advance 18 millions to the exchequer. For infinitely fmaller loans, the chancellor of the exchequer of that day, Montagu, the father of public credit, counter-fecuring the ftate by the appearance of the city, with the lordmayor of London at his fide, was obliged, like an agent at an elton, to go cap in hand from shop to fhop, to borrow an hundred pound, and even fmaller fums. When made up in driblets as they could, their best fecurities were at an intereft of 12 per cent. Even the paper of the bank (now at par with cash, and even fometimes preferred to it) was often at a discount of 20 per cent. By this the ftate of the rest may be judged. As to our commerce, the imports and exports of the nation, now fix and forty million, did not then amount to ten. The inland trade, which is commonly paffed by in this fort of eftimates, but which, in part growing out of the foreign, and connected with it, is more advantageous, and more fubftantially nutritive to the ftate, is not only grown in a proportion of near five to one as the foreign, but has been augmented, at least, in a tenfold proportion. When I came to England, I remember but one river navigation, the rate of carriage on which was limited by an act of parliament. It was made in the reign of William the third; I mean that of the Aire and Calder. The rate was fettled at thirteen-pence. So high a price demonftrated the feebleness of these beginnings of our inland intercourse. In my time, one of the longest and fharpefts contefts I remember in your houfe, and which rather refembled a violent contention among national parties than a local difpute, was, as well as I can recollect, to hold the price up to three-pence. Even this, which a very fcanty juftice to the proprietors required, was done with infinite difficulty. As to private credit, there were not, as I best remember, twelve bankers fhops at that time out of London. In this their number, when I firft faw the country, I cannot be quite exact; but certainly thofe machines of domeftic credit were then very few indeed. They are now in almoft every market-town: and this circumftance (whether the thing be carried to an excefs or not) demonftrates the aftonishing encrease of private confidence, of general circulation, and of internal commerce; an encrease out of all proportion to the growth of the foreign trade. Our naval ftrength in the time of king William's war was nearly matched by that of France; and though conjoined with Holland, then a maritime power hardly inferior to our own, even with that force we were not always victorious. Though finally fuperior, the allied fleets experienced many unpleasant reverfes on 1 their own element. In two years, three thousand veffels were taken from the English trade. On the continent we loft almost every battle we fought. In 1697, it is not quite an hundred years ago, in that ftate of things, amid the general debafement of the coin, the fall of the ordinary revenue, the failure of all the extraordinary fupplies, the ruin of commerce and the almost total extinction of an infant credit, the chancellor of the exchequer himself whom we have just seen begging from door to door-came forward to move a refolution, full of vigour, in which far from being difcouraged by the generally adverfe fortune, and the long continuance of the war, the commons agreed to addrefs the crown in the following manly, fpirited, and truly animating ftyle. This is the eighth year in which your majefty's mott dutiful and loyal fubjects the commons in parliament affembled, have affiited your majefly with large fupplies for carrying on a jult and neceflary war, in defence of our religion, and prefervation of our laws, and vindication of the rights and liberties of the people of England.' Afterward they proceed in this manner: To fhew to your majefty and all Christendom, that the commons of England will not be amufed or diverted from their firm refolutions of obtain ing by war, a fafe and honourable peace, we do in the name of those we reprefent, renew our affurances to fupport your majefty and your government against all your enemies at home and abroad; and that we will effectually affift you in carrying on the war againft France.' The amufement and diverfion they fpeak of, was the fuggeftion of a treaty propofed by the enemy, and announced from the throne. Thus the people of England felt in the cighth, not in the fourth year of the war. No fighing or panting after negociation; ⚫, no motions from the oppofition to force the miniftry into a peace; no meflages from minifters to palfy and deaden the refolution of parliament or the spirit of the nation. They did not fo much as advife the king to liften to the propofitions of the enemy, nor to feek for peace but through the mediation of a vigorous war. This addrefs was moved in an hot, a divided, a faĉtious, and in a great part, difaffected houfe of commons, and it was carried nemine contradicente. While that firft war (which was ill fmothered by the treaty of Ryfwick) flept in the thin afhes of a feeming peace, a new conflagration was in its immediate caufes. A fresh and a far greater war was in preparation. A year had hardly elapfed when arrangements were made for renewing the conteft with tenfold fury. The steps which were taken, at that time, to compofe, to reconcile, to unite, and to difcipline all Europe against the growth of France, certainly furnish to a statefman the finest and most interesting part in the hillory of that great period. It formed the mafter-piece of king William's policy, dexterity, and perieverance. Full of the idea of preferving, not only a local civil liberty united with order, to our country, but to embody it in the political liberty, the order, and the independence of nations united under a natural head, the king called upon his parliament to put itself into a pofture‹ 10 preferve to England the weight and influence it at prefent had on the councils and affairs abroad. It will be requifite Europe fhould see you will not be wanting to yourselves.' Baffled as that monarch was, and almoft heart-broken at the disappointment he met with in the mode he first propofed for that great end, he held on his courfe. He was faithful to his object; and in councils, as in arms, over and over again repulfed, over and over again he returned to the charge. All the mortifications he had fuffered from the last parliament, and the greater he had to apprehend from that newly chofen, were not capable of relaxing the vigour of his mind. He was in Holland when he combined the vaft plan of his foreign negociations. When he came to open his defign to his minifters in England, even the fober firmnefs of Somers, the undaunted refolution of Shrewsbury, and the adventurous spirit of Montagu and Orford, were ftaggered. They were not yet mounted to the elevation of the king. The cabinet met on the fubject at Tunbridge Wells, the 28th of Auguft 1698; and there, lord Somers holding the pen, after expreffing doubts on the ftate of the continent, which they ultimately refer to the king, as beft informed, they give him a molt difcouraging portrait of the fpirit of this nation. Se far as relates to England,' fay thefe ministers, it would be want of duty not to give your majelly this clear account, that there is a deadness and want of Spirit in the nation univerfally, fo as not to be at all difpofed to entering into a new war. That they feem to be tired out with taxes to a degree beyond what was difcerned, till it appeared upon occafion of the late elec tions. This is the truth of the fact upon which your majefty will determine what refolution ought to be taken.' It required fome time to accomplish this work. The people were first gained, and through them their dif tracted reprefentatives. Under the influence of king William, Holland had refifted the allurements of every feduction, and had refifted the terrors of every menace. With Hannibal at her gates, he had nobly and magnanimoufly refufed all feparate treaty, or any thing which might for a moment appear to divide her affection or her intereft, or even to diftinguish her inidentity from England. Having fettled the great point of the confolidation (which he hoped would be eternal) of the countries made, for a com-' mon intereft, and common fentiment, the king, in his meffage to both houfes, calls their attention to the affairs of the fates-general. The houfe of lords was perfectly found, and entirely impreffed with the wisdom and dignity of the king's proceedings. In antwer to the meilage, which you will obferve was narrowed to a fingle point, (the danger of the ftates-general) after the ufual profeffions of zeal for his fervice, the lords opened themfelves at large. They go far beyond the demands of the 'meffage. They exprefs themfelves as follows; We take this occafion further to affure your majefty, that we are fenfible of the great and imminent danger to which / the ftates general are expofed. And we perfectly agree with them in believing that their fafety and ours are fo injèparably united, that whatsoever is ruin to the one must be fatal to the other. His majefty did determine; and did take and purfue his refolution. In all the tottering imbecility of a new government, and with parliament to tally unmanageable, he perfevered. He perfevered to expel the fears of his people, by his fortitude-To fteady their fickleness, by his conftancy-To expand their narrow prudence, by his enlarged wisdom-To link their factious temper in his public fpirit.-In fpite of his people he refolved to make them great and glorious; to make England, inclined to fhrink into her narrow felf, the arbitrefs of Europe, the tutelary angel of the human race. In fpite of the minifters, who flaggered under the weight that his mind impofed upon theirs, unfupported as they felt themfelves by the popular spirit, he infufed into them his own And we further defire your mafoul; he renewed in them, their anci-jefty, that you will be pleased to en-, ent heart; he rallied them in the fame ter into fuch alliance with the emperor, as your majefty fhall think fit, cause. We humbly defire your majefty will be pleafed, not only to make good all the articles of any former treaties to the states general, but that you will enter into a strict league, offensive and defenfive, with them, for their common prefervation: and that you will invite into it all princes and ftates who are concerned in the prefent visible danger, arifing from the union of France and Spain. |