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which generally distinguish his writings. It labours, indeed, under disadvantages in its present appearance, for many inaccuracies disfigure it which evidently owe their origin to the mode of its publica.

tion.

Art. 44. Remarks upon the Conduct of the respective Governments of
Great Britain and France, in the late Negotiations for Peace. 8vo.
IS. Stockdale. 1797.

G.2.

This pamphlet is by no means drawn up with the same skill as the "Remarks upon the Conduct of the Persons possessed of Power in France," (see Rev. vol. xx. p. 423.) and it will incur a proportionally slight animadversion. It begins by repeating, as a ground of war, the addresses of the British clubs in 1792 to the French Convention, and their reception. If, in the time of Henry VIII., the British universities had transmitted to the Pope opinions unfavourable to a divorce patronized by the Court; and if these opinions had been noticed at Rome with a complacency corresponding to the sympathy of sentiment; would this have been a just ground of crusade against the Pope? The cases are absolutely parallel,-It proceeds to defend the recognition of a constitution which does interfere with the claims of neighbouring nations, in preference to those earlier constitutions of the French which did not interfere with such claims: on the ground that this new constitution resists clubs and universal suffrage.-At length, it comes to the point, and discusses the terms of peace insinuated by Lord Malmesbury. A war to reconquer Brussels for the Emperor may be defined a war to determine, whether the Netherlands shall be called in future Flanders or Belgium. This country is in any event to possess no atom of the territory.-A great value is next set on Pondicherry, Trincomalé, and the Cape. While the French held Canada, their vicinity deterred the Americans from deposing the preferable sovereign. The like will prove true of the East. The gift of these settlements to us will be a gift of rebellion; their possession will certainly be a loss.--Much also is said of the truly contemptuous dismissal of Lord Malmesbury: but of this a sufficient refutation may be gleaned from the ministerial pamphlets relative to Messrs. Chauvelin and Maret.-The concluding paragraph assures us of the growing resources of the country with a positiveness worthy of Lord Auckland, (see Rev. vol. xx. p. 335.) and asserts that the taxes are not burdensome :-an axiom which with ministers passes for a perpetual truism, and with the people for a perpetual falsism. Tay' Art. 45. The Iniquity of Banking or Bank Notes proved to be injurious to the Public, and the real Cause of the present exorbitant Price of Provisions. 8vo. 1s. Jordan. 1797.

We have repeatedly taken pains to counteract an impression, which is very likely to gain much ground whenever the stationary securities of government shall incur an alarming depreciation, as if all the paper currencies of the country were to share a common ruin (see for instance Rev. vol. xi. N. S. p. 336.). The notes of bankers merit, in our opinion, an honourable exemption from suspicion :-of those bankers, at least, who employ their money in private discounts, and do not collect the revenues nor deal in the securities of govern

ment:

ment. Their notes represent a property advanced to and employed by miners, farmers, manufacturers, and merchants, in a productive industry, whose success is very independent of political catastrophes. These notes, though not suddenly convertible into the values for which they stand, are at all times ultimately convertible into substantial commodities, and are in reality mortgaged on the stock reserved for immediate consumption, and on the fixed property of the industrious.

It is not merely at the security, it is also at the utility of banker's notes, that the present author aims his arguments. He maintains that they tend to increase the price of commodities. We apprehend this assertion to be radically erroneous. The price of all things resolves itself (see Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. vi.) into rent, labor, and profit. It is possible that the increase of circulable capital, produced by the coinage of banker's notes, may put in motion so much industry as somewhat to increase the competition for dwellings; and thus, by a very circuitous process, it may insensibly augment that part of price which is resoluble into rent. It will not be contended that they have operated to increase the wages of labor. It is certain that they must always operate, and very powerfully too, to diminish that part of price which is resoluble into profit; because they increase the competition of stock and capital in every branch of industry-now this last is, in necessaries especially, commonly half the constituent price of the commodity :-so that banker's notes are probably the cause of cheapness, the cause that our enormous taxes have not yet placed the conveniences of life above the reach even of the rich. We agree, however, with our author, in thinking that. bullion is rising in value; and we are surprised that the provincial bankers should not imitate the deeply weighed policy of the bank of England, in making all their engagements payable in the nominal and not in the actual coin. Forty notes, of five guineas value each, payable at an indefinite future period, are a better security to a creditor, than twenty-one notes of ten pounds value each: because the pound tends to depreciation, and the guinea to appreciation. Tay.” Art. 46. Ambo; the King and the Country: or the Danger of French Invasion repelled by British Union. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Clark. Of the valuable pamphlet of Mr. O'Bryen, intitled Utrum Horum? an account occurs in our last vol. p. 403. This is a ministerial reply, of which the advocates for the ministry have little reason to be proud, and the party in opposition have no reason to be afraid. Do Art. 47. Democracy Vindicated. An Essay on the Constitution and Government of the Roman State, by Walter Moyle; with a Preface and Notes by John Thelwall. 8vo. Is. Smith. 1796.

Mr. Gibbon, who, with all his zeal for Mr. Burke's creed, has done much to bring sentiments very favourable to liberty into circulation, has bestowed a note of approbation (vol. iii. p. 70.) on the Essay here detached from the works of Walter Moyle, and reprinted for separate circulation; with the addition of a few but proper notes. Art. 48. A Letter to his Grace the Duke of Portland, being a Defence of the Conduct of his Majesty's Ministers, in sending an

Ambassador

Do

Ambassador to treat for Peace with the French Directory, against the Attack made upon that Measure by the Right Hon. Edmund Burke; and an Endeavour to prove that the permanent Establishment of the French Republic is compatible with the Safety of the Religious and Political Systems of Europe. By James Workman, Esq. of the Middle Temple. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Owen. Mr. Workman divides the substance of Mr. Burke's Letters into the following propositions, viz.

1st. That his Majesty's Ministers should not have recognized and negotiated with the Government of the French Republic, because the true and lawful French nation is not now represented by that Government, nor to be found within the limits of geographical France, but in the foreign countries in which her lawful representatives are exiles.

2d. That his Majesty's Ministers should not have recognized and should not negotiate for peace with the French Republic, because she is of a wicked and abominable character, being governed by infamous robbers and murderers.

3d. That if we make peace with the French Republic, we shall not long be able to preserve our religion, property, constitution, or laws; and that the whole system of religion, laws, government, usages, morals and manners, now established in Europe, will be destroyed.

4th. That we ought therefore to continue the war until we subvert the Republican Government of France and the whole system on which it depends; that we should oppose to it for this purpose a force, bearing some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit which that system exerts; and that our resources for carrying on war are still great and abundant.'

These propositions Mr. W. distinctly examines, and candidly discusses, according to the order in which he has arranged them; and after an attentive perusal of his arguments and conclusions, we honestly think that he has completely repulsed all that Mr. Burke has advanced in support of his romantic principles of enmity towards the 'present French Government, and of his extravagant notions of the necessity for our eternally carrying on an exterminating war against that nation. Many readers may possibly deem the Author too favorable to the people with whom we are now at issue: but, making all reasonable allowance for every appearance of partiality, or prepossession, (arising probably and solely from a warmth of attachment to the great cause of freedom, and to the common rights of mankind in general, as well as to the interests of his own country in particular,) still we cannot but consider Mr. W.'s performance as constituting a decisive and well-written answer to Mr. B.'s famous Philippics.

Art. 49. Adam Smith, Auteur des Recherches sur la Richesse des Nations; & Thomas Payne, Auteur de la Décadance de la Ruine prochaine des Finances de l'Angleterre. Essai de critique publié dans toutes les Langues. 8vo. pp. 140. Germanie. 1796, Art. 49. Adam Smith, Author of an Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations; and Thomas Paine, Author of the Decline and Fall of the

EngEsh

English System of Finance. A critical Essay published in all Languages. 8vo. pp. 120. 2s. 6d. Germany. 1796.

This pamphlet, of which we have an English and a French copy before us, comes in a questionable shape, and would probably impose on us had we not our suspicions awake. Its title merely indicates it to be Smith versus Paine, or to be a collection of passages extracted from " the Wealth of Nations" opposed to some assertions in the Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance." When first it met our eye, we deemed this to be the sole object of the pamphleteer, and we gave him some credit for the thought of adducing Adam Smith to combat with and refute a writer who had quoted him as an authority. Professing himself likewise to be an impassioned spectator of public events, and to be, as far as man can be in civil society, independent of all governments, we were prepared to expect that mild and temperate investigation, which, avoiding the narrowness and obliquity of party, contents itself with a philosophic exposure of error, and with establishing general truths for the general good. We soon found, however, that this apathy and indifference were all feigned; and we were induced to believe that the author must be some emigrant, who writes for the meridian of England, under the character of one who is equally a stranger to England as to France.' Indeed, he does not seem very accurately nor very extensively acquainted with the state of either country: but he compensates for his want of knowlege by round assertions, and seems to think that he must convince, provided he manifests his hatred of Thomas Paine and the French Republic. As in courts of law many suits are lost by the advocate attempting to prove too much, so here the object of the writer is defeated from the same cause. Had he satisfied himself with the plan which the title announces, and which is in part executed in the first chapter, (intitled Antilogie de Smith & de T. Paine,' and which in the English edition might have been translated the Dissonance of Smith and Paine,') more in fact would have been accomplished than by his proceeding, as in chapter II., to a declamation on the situation of Great Britain, on the spirit of the present French Government, and on the situation of France with respect to Europe. Here he exhibits a flattering picture of Great Britain, and as frightful an one of France. He describes the wars of kings as preferable to those of democrats, as the former have only power for their object, while the latter seek to enslave; and he asserts that of ten villages destroyed, nine have been demolished by democrats; while, as a proof of the mildness of kingly compared with democratic war, he tells us that the sacking of the village of Bode grave by the army of Lewis XIV. is the only monument of destruction in a war which lasted seven years.' Did this writer never read of the dreadful conflagrations of cities, towns, villages, churches, and castles in the Palatinate, occasioned by order of that monarch or his minister? Even among the horrors of democracy, he can scarcely find a more horrible scene of destruction than this must have been; and he is rather unfortunate in selecting Lewis, whose ambition desolated and impoverished Europe, as a prince whose warfare was mild; when in truth Republican France cannot exceed him in destructive proceedings.

It may be unnecessary to notice many passages in this part of the pamphlet. Suffice it to observe that we cannot subscribe to all its assertions.

The first chapter we deem the most valuable. It is subdivided into sections, or distinct heads, under which the extracts from Dr. Smith are arranged; as, 1. A political body is an immortal [permanent substance. 2. The wealth of a state consists not in the quantity of gold and silver. 3. Gold and silver are merchandice. 4. The value of gold and silver has increased with this century. 5. Paper money has depreciated neither gold nor silver. 6. Price of labour. 7. A well regulated paper money has an equal value with gold and silver. 8. Rule of proportion of paper money to the quantity of gold and silver. 9. Internal guaranty of paper money. 10. External guaranty of paper money. 11. Theory of banks. 12. Bank of England. 13. Paper money of America. 14. The fall of American paper. 15. The present situation of America, &c.

The quotations from the "Wealth of Nations" under these and other heads are judiciously made, and set in opposition to the assertions of Mr. Paine. In the subsequent remarks, an exaggerated picture is drawn of the prosperity and resources of our country, while France is asserted to have neither fabrics, manufactories, commodities, labour, nor industry.' Such statements Credulity itself is unable to swallow. When this writer describes T. Paine as an ardent spirit hurried away by a fiery imagination, and instigated by a passion as full of rancour against England as it is of zeal for the French cause, he should have endeavoured to shun the other extreme; and, professing himself a Cosmopolite, he should have given less way to his partialities and prejudices: but it is much easier, on great questions, and in national disputes, to profess than to practise neutrality.

The author apologises for errors of the English edition. In a foreigner they are venial. We have only to lament that, in one or two places, it is necessary to consult the French edition in order to deve Jope the author's meaning; e. g. p. 95, we read destroyed at the arius the French edition rectifies the error,—' assommés au cirque.' Mo-y. Art. 50. Which is the Oracle, Burke or O'Bryen? By an Impartial Observer. 8vo. Is. Boosey.

Mr. Burke cries "Havock! and slips the dogs of war." Mr. O'Bryen's preferable object, and "dear delight," is " peace The present observer joins earnestly with the latter; and his reasons for embracing the pacific system are well explained and fully vindicated. His language is temperate, but his style is not unanimated: occasionally it is pathetic, especially in those deductions from the argumentative parts of his performance, in which he points to our view the melancholy prospect of the ruin of the British Constitution, and the loss of our Empire, as the natural consequences of our indefinite and implicit adoption of Mr. Burke's wild and outrageous ideas. with respect to the war with France.

* For Mr. Burke's and Mr. O'Bryen's publications, see our Rev. for November and December 1796.

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