the question that we are at issue with him. The official accounts from whence our figures were borrowed are now printed, and it will be seen from thence that the statement in our last number is perfectly correct.

Extending our inquiries still higher than that statement allows, we find ample reason to think that our export trade to India has not increased of late years in so great a ratio as in preceding years, and consequently that it is unfair to assume that the augmentation, which has undoubtedly taken place in this branch of our commerce, has arisen altogether from the admission of private traders to a participation therein. The following table will show the value of exports to the East-Indies and China from the United Kingdom since the year 1790, and the average amount, as far as practicable, in equal periods. It is proper to state that the figures for the years up to 1811 inclusive, are borrowed from Mr. Moreau's work on the East-India trade, &c., who quotes the Parliamentary papers stated below* as the sources from whence they were taken.

A statement of the value of Exports from the United Kingdom to the EastIndies and China from the year 1791 to the year 1826, both inclusive.

17,491,379 20,270,795 12,900,619

Average value.
L.
1,624,357
2,109,121

3,095,438
3,303,355
3,059,137
3,498,276
4,054,159
4,300,206

Three years from 1824 to 1826 It is needless to encumber the reader with calculations; it must be evident that in the progressive increase which has taken place in the amount of our exports to India, the ratio has been less of late years than at earlier periods.

Our object in the present article is to institute some comparisons, which the Parliamentary accounts furnish the means of doing, between the state of the East-India and that of the West-India trade. It has been frequently alleged that the latter is the more important of the two to the mother country, and a very strong argument in favour of the colonists has been drawn, or attempted to be drawn, from the large amount of the commerce between this country and the West-Indies compared with that we carry on with the East. Let us see how far this is the fact.

We shall commence with the imports. The following is an account of the official value of goods imported into the United Kingdom, during the last thirteen years, from the East and West-Indies.

Hence it appears that the amount of each trade is now pretty nearly equal; and that whilst the difference between the value of eastern commodities imported in 1814 and in 1826 is an excess of £1,704,452 in the latter; the difference between the value of commodities from our colonies in the west, imported in the same years, is a falling-off to the amount of £738,802. The quantities of the principal articles of the imports confirm this fact, and show, indeed, that the trade is diminishing even to a still greater extent than the total imports authorize us to assume. The importation of sugar has been steady at upwards of three millions of cwts. Rum has fallen from 6,496,505 gallons in 1814, to 4,003,799 gallons in 1826. Coffee has shrunk from 47,628,644 lbs. in 1814, to 25,225,009 lbs. in 1826. Of cocoa, which was imported in 1814 to the amount of 2,306,101 lbs., there was imported in 1826 only 638,554 lbs. Lastly, of cotton-wool there was imported in 1814, 14,916,957 lbs., and in .1826 only 4,751,059 lbs. These are the only articles particularized in the official accounts, and the defalcation is surprising.

Let us now proceed to the exports, of which the following statement exhibits an account of the value for the last thirteen years.

To the East-Indies and China. To the British West-Indies.

This statement shows a result more disadvantageous to the West-Indies than the preceding. The declared value of the exports to the West-Indies has fallen off almost exactly in the same proportion in which that of the exports to the east has increased. But this is not all: a very large part of the merchandize sent from this country to the West-India islands is intended for other parts, and passes through the ports of those islands for convenience only. From the Parliamentary Papers of last year, it appears that the declared value of British merchandize

*This account includes the exports from Ireland.

merchandize re-exported from our West-India colonies to foreign parts was, in 1824, £1,519,350, and in 1825, £1,014,152. Making these reductions in the gross amount, it will be perceived that the value of the exports to the West-Indies is very considerably less than that of the exports to India.

Lest it should be imagined that, in respect to our staple manufactures, the exports to the west occasion a larger demand upon the productive industry of this country, we subjoin a few particulars, which will shew precisely the contrary.

No woollens (of course) are exported to the West-Indies. The East took last year 296,563 yards of cloths, camblets, serges, and other woollen goods, the declared value of which was £1,197,909, of which the East-India Company's exports amounted to £921,852.

Manufactured cottons, white and printed, were exported to the West-Indies in 1814 to the amount of 32,878,565 yards, the declared value of which was £2,100,846. In 1826 only 19,292,606 yards were exported, the value of which was £734,418! In this very year, the exports of cotton manufactures (exclusive of twist and yarn) exported to the East-Indies amounted to 26,225,103 yards; the declared value of which, with other manufactured cottons, was £1,059,471.

These are the two principal articles of British manufacture, the external demand for which it is the interest and the object of our Legislature to increase. The East-Indies take off the value of £2,257,380 in these articles, and the demand in this quarter is increasing; the West-India colonies take to the, value of £734,418 only, and their demand is diminishing, in a very material degree, every year.

It is not necessary to urge any further arguments to show the futility of the pretensions put forth by those writers who claim for the West-India colonists privileges and protection, to the prejudice of the eastern trade, and who found their claims upon the superior benefits which their commerce confers on the manufacturing interests of Great Britain.

LAMENT OF KOCHANOWSKI.*

WOULD thou hadst ne'er been born-or being born
Hadst left me not, sweet infant! thus forlorn:

I have paid lasting woe for fleeting bliss

A dark farewell, a speechless pang like this:
Thou wert the brightest, fairest dream of sleep;
And as the miser cherishes his heap

Of gold, I held thee: soon 'twas fled-and nought
Left but the dreary vacancies of thought,

That once was blessedness.-And thou art fled,
Whose fairy vision floated in my head

And play'd around my heart.—And thou art gone,

Gone with my joys; and I am left alone:

Half of my soul took flight with thee, the rest

Clings to thy broken shadow in my breast.

Come raise her tombstone, sculptor! Let there be
This simple offering to her memory,—

"Her father's love;-his Ursula lies here,

His love;-Alas! his tears, his misery.

Thine was a barbarous mandate, death! The tear

I drop for her, she should have shed for me.”

From Mr. Bowring's Polish Anthology.

NEW SETTLEMENT AT WESTERN PORT IN AUSTRALIA.

AMONGST the places on the coast of New Holland, which have been recommended as eligible spots for new settlements, is Western Port, situated in about 38 degrees of south latitude, and in about 145° 45' of east longitude, distant somewhat less than 500 miles south-west, in a direct line by land, from Sydney. From the flattering description of the country in this part given by Mr. Hovell, one of the persons by whom part of the coast of this vast island has been surveyed, and from its obvious advantages in respect to Bass's Straits, it was chosen as the spot for the formation of a new settlement, and an expedition was accordingly fitted out from Sydney in November last for that purpose it consisted of his Majesty's ship Fly, Capt. Wetherall, with two other vessels containing a number of convicts, and a party of military, with stores, &c. We are furnished with several reports, from the Sydney newspapers, of the proceedings of the expedition, which arrived at its destination in sixteen days from the time of leaving Port Jackson, notwithstanding some strong gales and heavy weather.

In standing in for the entrance of Port Western, they passed on the right several rocky and singularly formed islets, lying off the S.W. point of Philip Island, which receives on its southernmost side the rolling waters of Bass's Straits, and forms an extensive natural barrier, crossing the mouth of the harbour. One of the smaller islets is of rather a singular pyramidal form, but considerably flattened at top; its barren sides raise themselves abruptly from the waves which are continually roaring around, and lashing them with their heavy spray. On another islet several sealers appeared in anxious pursuit of their amphibious prey. As the vessels ranged along Philip Island, the face of the country became pleasingly varied; patches of open land, irregularly dispersed, and cheating the eye with the semblance of having been cleared by the united hands of art and nature, here and there usurped the places of barren brush and apparently close impenetrable forest land, which occupied a principal portion of the country extending along a flanking range of hills, and as far as the eye could discern. Some men (Europeans) dressed in seal skins, and accompanied by a number of dogs, appeared along the shores; and shortly after were observed several conical, rudely constructed huts, half hid amongst the prolific honeysuckle, mimosa, and gaudy acacia pendula, which had sprung up there and flourished, unassisted and unregarded. These people, it afterwards appeared, were a party of sealers; they had come over from Port Dalrymple, and mustered seven in number. One or two spoke of having continued on the island for several preceding years. Some black native women, whom they had managed to carry off from the main land, lived with them. They seemed extremely fond of each other's society!

Capt. Wetherall's first care being to obtain an accurate acquaintance with the harbour and places offering the best inducements for fixing a settlement upon, boats were despatched on survey in different directions, and a party commenced clearing away a commanding portion of the island, situate nearly opposite to the anchorage. Near this point the country towards the interior is thinly timbered, and partially covered with a long tough species of natural grass, on which the stock appeared to thrive. A hut had been already constructed there, and a well dug by some sealers, who in their excursions up the harbour frequently refreshed in this port. At high tide the water of the well became brackish, and indeed was at no time remarkably limpid. This sandy beach

forms

forms the only good landing along the northern extent of Philip Island; a low mud flat making its appearance all along to the eastward at half ebb. A great portion of the overhanging wood which crowned the sides of the hill being cleared, and a sort of glacis formed, so as to command the landing place, this battery was named Fort Dumaresq.

It was round a point of the main land, distant about nine miles N. and E. from the south-east extreme of l'Isle des Français, and N. 2o, or nearly so, from Fort Dumaresq, on Philip Island, where the land appeared to be of the most luxuriant description, and from whence the eye might wander undisturbed and delighted over some of the most wild and fantastical, rich and unstudied scenes of natural loveliness, to be found in any country, that the new settlement was determined to be formed. The shore at half flood is accessible to boats, and a small stream of fresh water runs at no great distance. The soil around the settlement for some miles is rich and productive. The timber, which is indeed in every part of the circumjacent country as yet explored not of the most majestic kind, appears diversely scattered about in clumps, and extends in this manner, it is imagined, with little variation towards Bass's River, which discharges itself among the flats to the southward of the settlement, but continues salt for six miles up from its entrance on the eastern shore of Western Port. On this part of the harbour, the military party, prisoners, government stock, and provisions were landed, under the directions of Capt. Wright, of the Buffs, who acts as commandant.

Roads have already been cut (one of which, running in a direction S.W. towards the sea, has already been carried the length of three miles), huts built, gardens planted, and wells sunk. The want of water seems the great evil at present; none of a good quality has yet been obtained; after digging to fifteen and sixteen feet the water still retains a brackish taste. The sealers hold out some hopes of a stream of water being hid behind a range of hills which look out on the sea. A stratum of coal has also been mentioned as existing on the island. The soil on many parts is of a rich arable nature; and, to judge from the products of a small garden formed by the sealers near their huts, on which no great labour had been expended, promises most favourably. The island is nearly overrun with timber of a stunted growth, and low scrub, or thick, but yielding underwood. The tea-tree, honeysuckle, beef-wood, and several kinds of mimosa, generally prevail; but here, as well as on the main land, neither remarkable for majestic beauty or utility. The interior bears in many instances marks of an extensive conflagration; the sealers attribute it to some runaways from Van Diemen's Land, or elsewhere. The number of flowering shrubs and plants is considerable. Samphire roots itself in abundance among the rocks, and a wild vegetable which flourishes luxuriantly, and when boiled is not a bad substitute for French beans, is equally abundant. In the woods, the garrulous notes of the mocking bird, of iris-coloured loories, and parroquets, the harsh screams of the black cockatoo, and plaintive cooings of numberless woodquests, resound incessantly; whilst quail and partridge start from under the feet of every new explorer, and again plunge in amongst the thickest underwood. Wallowbies were said to frequent the bush land, but none could be captured or even seen by any of the officers, who frequently went in pursuit of them: guanoes and lizards were not so scarce. Black swans cruize about the mud flats round the harbour in considerable numbers; they afford great diversion. Cranes and pelicans are found in considerable numbers along the shores and flats which nourish the spreading mangroves, and which latter obtain principally on the N.E. shore of Philip Island. Mutton birds