Suppofing it to be one or a few that tyrannife over the many, where is the impediment to their civilization? Are they not a part of the people? What cloyster has impeded their progrefs in refinement? But governments go to war, and war is an uncivilifed ftate, whether engaged in to repel injury and violence, or to extend commerce and dominion. Two men fight a duel: they are confequently barbarians. A man refifts and fights with a ruffian: he is himself uncivilifed. These are the confequences of this curious reafoning. One of the effects of war is the decay of commerce; it impedes the free mutual communication between nations; and, when war ceases, it is restored. This is too plain for modern reformers. That the principles of commerce, and its univerfal operation may be understood, without understanding the practice, is a pofition that reason will not deny; and it is on this ground only that I argue the subject. It is one thing in the counting-house, in the world it is another. With refpect to its operation it must neceffarily be contemplated as a reciprocal thing; that only one half its powers refide within the nation, and that the whole is as effectually deftroyed by deftroying the half that refides without, as if the deftruation had been committed on that which is within; for neither can act without the other. When in the laft, as well as in former wars, the commerce of England funk, it was because the general quantity was leffened every where; and it now rifes, becaufe commerce is in a rifing ftate in every nation. If England, at this day, imports and exports more than at any former period, the nations with which the trades muft neceffarily do the fame; her imports are their exports, and vice versa. There can be no fuch thing as a nation flourishing alone in commerce; she can only participate; and the deftruction of it in any part must neceffarily affect all. When, therefore, government are at war, the attack is made upon the common stock of commerce, and the confequence is the fame as if each had attacked his own. The prefent increase of commerce is not to be attributed to minifters, or to any political contrivances, but to its own natural operations in confequence of peace. The regular markets had been destroyed, the channels of trade broken up, the high road of the feas infefted with robbers of every nation, and the attention of the world called to other objects. Thofe interruptions, have ceased, and peace has restored the deranged condition of things to their proper order.' The only principle on which reafoning can reft is, that a certain certain degree of commercial communication; a certain quan tity only of commerce, if we may fo fpeak, can exift in the world; and that, when one nation has more, another has lefs. This is connected with another propofition equally curious, .that commerce is in a rifing ftate in every nation. But does every nation manufacture with equal fuccefs? Afk France at this time? and enquire into the fource of the numerous ecus circulating in England, derived from that fingularly happy, free, and enlightened nation? Again: the custom-houfe books are not faithful records of the ballance of trade; for one curious reafon among others, that fmuggled goods are not inserted among the imports. Did this commercial genius never hear of fmuggled exports, or exports fmuggled under different appellations? We would recommend the enquiry; and he need not go out of England for fatisfaction, or beyond the neighbouring coafts of the metropolis. But let us add, that there are fome remarks of importance in this part of the work: one of these we fhall tranfcribe. Two merchants of different nations trading together, will both become rich, and each makes the balance in his own favour; confequently, they do not get rich out of each other; and it is the fame with refpect to the nations in which they refide. The cafe muft be, that each nation must get rich out of its own means, and increases that riches by fomething which it procures from another in exchange. If a merchant in England fends an article of English manufacture abroad, which costs him a fhilling at home, and imports fomething which fells for two, he makes a balance of one fhilling in his own favour: but this is not gained out of the foreign nation or the foreign merchant, for he alfo does the fame by the ar ticle he receives, and neither has a balance of advantage upon the other. The original value of the two articles in their proper countries were but two fhillings; but by changing their places, they acquire a new idea of value, equal to double what they had at first, and that increafed value is equally divided. • There is no otherwise a balance on foreign than on domeftic commerce. The merchants of London and Newcastle trade on the fame principles, as if they refided in different nations, and make their balances in the fame manner: yet London does not get rich out of Newcastle, any more than Newcastle out of Lon don but coals, the merchandize of Newcastle, have an additional value at London, and London merchandize has the fame at Newcaftle.' We may add too that he feems to reafon justly when he endeavours to prove that commerce cannot be advantageously retained by force; in his own peculiar language, which, by the way, does not exprefs his idea, cannot be engroffed by dominion; dominion;' but this does not apply, as he feems to intimate, to our Indian commerce. If this be ruinous in a commercial view, as we fear it is, the ruin is prevented by the revenue gained from the dominion. In this inftance, the political power obviates the difadvantage. The obfervations on charters, the defects of the two houses of parliament, the impertinent remarks on the monarchy, and on the progrefs of taxation, afford little fubject of particular animadverfion: On fome part of this subject we have had oc÷ cafion to offer our fentiments, where, perhaps, they may not be looked for, in our examination of Peter Pindar's new Odes. Paine's obfervations are often weak, and his plans of the Utopian kind, which deferve not a remark. The alliance of France and England is a pleafing topic to the philanthropist; but where must we look for France? In the exiled aristocracy; in the Jacobines; the Feuillants, the Dames de le Halle, or the affembly? To whom muft an ambaffador deliver his credentials: each, at different times, feems equal in authority and power. The Appendix contains a ftrange ftory refpecting this publication, and a kind of infinuation, that Mr. Pitt obtained a fight of the work, and caught the idea of the diminution of taxes from the fuggeftions in this notable system of schemes. We remember fomething like this in a curious tract of Swift, The Importance of a Man to Himself,' of which we have more than one inftance in the crude trash before us, written in the true fpirit of memoir-writers.' We quote the Memoirs of P. P. clerk of this parish.' Lo thus did our councils enter into the hearts of our generals and our lawgivers, and henceforth, even as we devised this did they.' Now one of this very learned fociety was George Pilcocks, late exciseman, a fufferer alfo, of zealous freeeom of fpeech, infomuch that his occupation had been taken from him." The language of this pamphlet deferves reprehenfion, as it often fets grammar and syntax at defiance: but we are weary of the task which neceffity has impofed; and we shall leave Thomas Paine with the confolation of having attempted the greatest of mifchiefs, in which he might have fucceeded had his abilities borne a moderate proportion to his malevo lence. More Money! or, Odes of Inftruction to Mr. Pitt: with a Variety of other choice Matters. By Peter Pindar, Esq. A new Edition. 4to. 2s. 6d. Symonds. 1792. INterefted or defigning malice probably fuggefted the report which has offered our facetious bard fo popular a fubject. A wife government would never take advantage of a C. R. N. AR. (III.) March, 1792. Y momen momentary gleam of profperity, a gleam which but begins to break through the thick clouds that have long overspread the darkened horizon; and a prudent one, among the many daring acts that it might do, will confider what is expedient to be done. Eager calumny could alone occafion the fuppofition that it was the minifter's intention to apply again to the public purfe, in order to fupply deficiencies in the civil lift. The candle that lights the manufacturer is ftill highly taxed; the fhoes that protect the husbandman from cold and wet are with difficulty purchafed: the birth or death of his child must still drain his fcanty purfe. Will it confole him under thefe difficulties to tell him of the high price of ftocks, the advantageous rate of exchange, the fame and glory of the nation? Thefe affect him not; and he may reply, if thefe are true, why must not I feel my share of comfort? Muft the overflowings of the treafury, the furplus of what his labours have contributed to furnish, be turned from the proper channel to fupply the means of luxury and diffipation? If we look at the expedience of the attempt, allowing in fome refpects its propriety, and in all its poffibility, much may be faid that, in our fituations, it would be improper to hint at. While Faction rears her head, even amidst general profperity; while doubts, fufpicions, and murmurs difturb even the prefent tranquil fcene; it would neither be prudent to afford fuel for the flame, nor wife to add infult to oppreffion.-But we are undefignedly ferious; the infamous report at firft roused our indignation, and then led us to reflections,-to reflections more ferious, and furrounded as we have lately been by the clamours of the fac tious, of those who hate the names of kings, who are loud in their exclamations on the ufclefs expences of monarchies, and are forward to take advantage of the inadvertencies of govern ment, that they may lay the foundations of revolution. Peter could not fuffer fo fplendid a Cynthia to fleet unfeen, or to disappear unnoticed. Though no friend, he tells us, to a violent fyftem of revolution, he is too much the poet of the people not to fing of reformation.' He fings with his usual fweetnefs, and with his ufual inequality-But it is, in general, the hackneyed theme of royal failings, a theme grown threadbare; and now kings are known only to be men, placed by the cautious hand of political fecurity, as a regulating ballance, it is almoft ufelefs. The poet's fire has, however, often illumined our pages; and we fhall not forget fo good, fo convenient a cuftom. The following lines are a part of the fuppofed reply of the minifter, dictated by the defcendant of the Theban. Sty, "Sire, we've crippled the poor people's backs; Dread fr, they are moft miferable hacks How How 'tis they bear it all, is my furprife! I cannot catch another tax indeed, With all your fox-hounds nofes, and my speed, A pound of butter midft a pack of hounds! Say, "fire, your wifdom is prodigious great! He hates fnapdragon-'tis a game of danger- Our beaft, the public, foon must eat the manger." Say, "Good my liege, indeed there's no more hay→→ Lean as old Rofinante, and forlorn." Say," Sire, your parliament I dare not meet; If forc'd with money-meffages to greet, Your majefty mult lend me HRY's face.' The make-weight poetry,' fubjoined to the Odes, is, we think, more valuable than the Odes themselves. The first is entitled, Royal Bullocks, a confolatory and paftoral Elegy,' occafioned by a report (Calumny, that wicked deity, is always at work) that it was attempted to fatten bullocks with horfe chestnuts: we need not add unfuccefsfully; but, perhaps, in the eagerness of projection, the prickly coats were overlooked, or may be unknown. The Moral Reflections,' on the fame fubject, are excellent; but, on these subjects, the exquifite pathos of quid meruiftis oves,' &c. dims every other attempt. Peter's tender reflections are in his own ftyle. • I cannot meet the lambkin's afking eye, Pat her foft neck, and fill her mouth with food, Y 2 |