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man's trousers, white as the driven snow, and hung down to the calf of the leg, just far enough to show under them a pair of brown stockings, manufactured in Peru from the best Vicuna wool. The potro boots of Senor Candioti fitted his feet and ankles as a French glove fits the hand, and the tops of them were turned over, so as to give them the air of buskins. To these boots were attached a pair of unwieldy silver spurs, brightly polished. To complete his personal attire, the princely Gaucho wore a large Peruvian straw hat, with a black velvet band around it, while his waist was girded with a rich crimson sash of silk, serving the treble purpose of riding-belt, braces, and girdle for a huge knife in a morocco sheath, from which protruded a massive silver handle.

Gorgeous as was the apparel of the rider, it was, if possible, outdone by the caparison of his horse. Here all was silver, elaborately wrought, and curiously inlaid. The peaks of the saddle, and the complicated head-piece of the bridle, were covered with the precious metal; the reins were embossed with it; and in the manufacture of the stirrups there must have been exhausted all the ingenuity of the best Peruvian silversmith, with at least ten pounds of plata pina (or virgin silver) to work upon. Such, in character and person, was Candioti, the patriarch of Santa Fé. To complete the sketch of him, I must give you some idea of his extraordinary and successful career in life; of how he became possessed of such a vast extent of territory; and how his flocks and herds increased till they greatly exceeded in number those of Jacob. Like him, Candioti waxed great and went forward, and grew until he became very great; and, like Abram, he was rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. The town of Santa Fé was originally founded about 1563, by a very intrepid soldier, Juan de Garay, at the head of only eighty-six men. The establishment of a town on that spot was undertaken by order of Martin Saenz de Toledo, then governor of Paraguay, and with a view to extending the conquests and increasing the Indian subjects of Old Spain. In a short time, more than twenty-five thousand natives from the Pampas, Chaco, and other parts, submitted to Garay and his small band; and though many of them afterwards dispersed, and the town was subject to frequent attacks and inroads from hostile tribes of Indians, yet the conquest was maintained, and the settlement gradually increased in strength and numbers. But it was not till within the last seventy or eighty years that it attained to even its present importance; and to that it reached in a way so connected with Candioti's rise in the world, that its traffic, wealth, and population, such as they are, have run parallel with the fortunes of its patriarch, and have been essentially owing to his spirit, industry, activity, and indefatigable perseverance. Having, in his youth, with a few mules for sale, made a short excursion into Peru, at a time when the mines of Potosi, and other parts of that country, were yielding a vast produce, Candioti saw how inadequate to the demand was the supply of those useful animals, for the purpose of conveying ores and merchandise, as well as passengers, over a rocky and arid country. Increasing numbers of them were also required for the purpose of carrying the produce of Paraguay to Cordova, Mendoza, San Luis, Tucuman, Salta, and other towns. Returning to Santa Fe, the sagacious speculator and observer invested the ten thousand dollars earned by his trip, in the purchase of an estate in the Entrerios, about thirty leagues from Santa Fé, on the opposite side of the river Paraná. He determined to give his chief attention to the breeding of mules for exportation to Peru. From this time forward he made an annual journey to that country; and every year a more successful one than that which had preceded. As he returned periodically to his native town, he regularly invested in new estates, contiguous to the old ones, and in cattle upon them, the whole profit of his year's adventure. At that period of superabundance of land in South America, and indeed up to a much later period, the mode of purchasing an estate was not by paying so much a rood, an acre, a mile, or even a league for it; but simply by paying so much a head for the cattle upon it, and a trifling sum for the few fixtures, such, perhaps, as half-a-dozen mud huts, and as many corrales, in which to shut up the live stock. The general price then paid for each head of horned cattle was two shillings, and for each horse sixpence. An estate of five leagues in length, by two and a half in breadth, that is, of twelve and a half leagues, might have upon it, generally speaking, about eight thousand head of horned cattle, and fifteen thousand horses. The price of it, at the above-mentioned rates, would be,

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Cost, therefore, of the stock and fixtures £1275 leaving the estate of twelve and a half square leagues, or thirtyseven and a half square miles, as a bonus to the purchaser. Now, if it be considered that Candioti's journeys to Peru, becoming every year more profitable, enabled him at last to buy in the year three or four such estates as that described above, it will soon be seen how his landed possessions must have extended; how his horned cattle, his horses, and his mules, must have increased and multiplied; and how the man himself must have waxed exceeding great.'

We stumbled upon this passage as we hastily opened the book, and could not refrain from transcribing this picture of patriarchal dignity, but in doing so we have somewhat violated the plan we had proposed to ourselves. The career of Francia possesses an interest very distinct from that derived from accounts of the manners of the people and the description of the country; and these latter subjects, together with the personal adventures of our authors, we intend to recur to at some future period: at present we will confine ourselves to Francia, that arbitrary tyrant, whose iniquitous proceedings, in regard to the celebrated French botanist M. Bonpland, excited a great desire in the public mind to know more of such a character.

Before we go further, however, it may be necessary to state that the territory comprised in Paraguay, under the government of Francia, is that which is separated from Brazil, on the North, by the Rio Blanco, a small river flowing into the Paraguay, in latitude about 21° South. The course of this river marks the line of separation to its rise in the mountains of Santa Amam. bay, which there form the boundary as far as the sources of the Ivinhama, which flowing into the Paraná, is the limit in that direction. The rivers Paraguay and Paraná, meeting at a point about 27° 30' S. lat., complete the boundaries. This explanation may be useful, since the term Paraguay was formerly applied to a district of greater extent.

To return to Francia; "His father,"-we quote from our authors, and, to prevent interruption in the thread of our story, shall in future intimate this fact merely by the use of the common distinction of inverted commas ;-" Francia's father, as alleged by himself, was a Frenchman; but generally believed to be a Portuguese, who, having enigrated to Brazil, had gone to the interior and ultimately settled in the Missiones* of Paraguay. Here he married a creole, by whom he had a pretty large family. José Gaspar, now dictator of Paraguay, was his first son, and was born about the year 1758. Young Francia was originally intended for the church, and he received the rudiments of his education at one of the indifferent conventual schools of Assump. tion. Thence he was sent to the University of Cordova de Tucuman. Having no taste however for theology, he turned, at college, to jurisprudence, and took his degree of doctor in the faculty of law with great éclat. Returning to Assumption, which he never thenceforward left, he entered on his profession, and as an acute lawyer and eloquent advocate he soon stood alone. His fearless integrity gained him the respect of all parties. He never would defend an unjust cause; while he was ever ready to take the part of the poor and the weak, against the rich and the strong. But his manners were, generally, and especially to his own countrymen, distant and haughty; his studies were incessant; and general society he shunned. He never married; his illicit intrigues were both low and heartless; he had no friends; he looked with cold contempt on every one around him; and he thus gradually grew into that austerity of habit and inflexibility of character, which so strongly marked his career in after life." One anecdote strongly illustrative of his relentless cruelty we cannot omit.

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Many years before Francia became a public man, he quarrelled with his father, though I believe the latter was in the wrong. They spoke not, met not for years; at length the father was laid on his death-bed; and before rendering up his great and final account, he earnestly desired to be at peace with his son José Gaspar. This was intimated to the latter, but he refused the proffered reconciliation. The old man's illness was increased by the obduracy of his son, and indeed he showed a horror of quitting the world without mutual forgiveness taking place. He conceived his soul to be endangered by remaining at enmity with *The territory occupied by the Jesuits.

his first-born. Again, a few hours before he breathed his last, he got some of Francia's relatives to go to him, and implore him to receive the dying benediction of his father. He refused: they told him his father believed his soul could not reach heaven unless it departed in peace with his son. Human nature shudders at the final answer which that son returned :-' Then tell my father that I care not if his soul descend to hell.' The old man died almost raving, and calling for his son José Gaspar." When, in common with the other Spanish settlements, Paraguay threw off allegiance to the mother country, the government was vested in a junta consisting of three members, assisted by a secretary, an assessor, and a notary. Francia in the first instance held the post of secretary, but he quickly disagreed with his colleagues, and withdrew to his country house, where he occupied himself with so much tact and diligence, in exciting a distrust of the members of the government, at the same time skilfully insinuating his own superior abilities, that he soon found himself in possession of sufficient influence to command the power he coveted, and in a situation to give the law to all. It was during this period of retirement that Mr. J. P. Robertson, at that time a young man of twenty, who had just established himself as a merchant in Assumption, first became acquainted with Francia, and with his account of this remarkable interview, we shall, for the present, conclude:

"On one of those lovely evenings in Paraguay, after the southwest wind has both cleared and cooled the air, I was drawn, in my pursuit of game, into a peaceful valley, not far from Dona Juana's, and remarkable for its combination of all the striking features of the scenery of the country. Suddenly I came upon a neat and unpretending cottage. Up rose a partridge; I fired, and the bird came to the ground. A voice from behind called out, Buen tiro'-'A good shot.' I turned round, and beheld a gentleman of about fifty years of age, dressed in a suit of black, with a large scarlet capote, or cloak, thrown over his shoulders. He had a mâté-cup in one hand, a cigar in the other; and a little urchin of a negro, with his arms crossed, was in attendance by the gentleman's side. The stranger's countenance was dark, and his black eyes were very penetrating, while his jet hair, combed back from a bold forehead, and hanging in natural ringlets over his shoulders, gave him a dignified and striking air. He wore on his shoes large golden buckles, and at I apologised for having fired so close to his house; but, with great kindness and urbanity, the owner of it assured me there was no occasion for my offering the least excuse; and that his house and grounds were at my service, whenever I chose to amuse myself with my gun in that direction. In exercise of the primitive and simple hospitality common in the country, I was invited to sit down under the corridor, and take a cigar and a mâté. A celestial globe, a large telescope, and a theodolite, were under the little portico; and I immediately inferred that the personage before me was no other than Doctor Francia. The apparatus accorded with what I had heard of his reputation for a knowledge of the occult sciences; but I was not long left to conjecture on this point; for he presently informed me, in answer to my appeal whether I had not the honour of addressing Dr. Francia, that he was that person. And I presume,' he continued, 'that you are the Cavallero Ingles, who resides at Dona Juana Ysquibel's?' I replied that I was; when he said he had intended to call on me ; but that such was the state of politics in Paraguay, and particularly as far as himself was concerned, that he found it necessary to live in great seclusion. He could no otherwise, he added, avoid the having sinister interpretations put upon his most trifling actions. Passing from this subject, he was pleased that I should know what were his occupations. He introduced me to his library, in a confined room, with a very small window, and that so shaded by the roof of the corridor, as to admit the least portion of light necessary for study. The library was arranged on three rows of shelves, extending across the room, and might have consisted of three hundred volumes. There were many ponderous books on law; a few on the inductive sciences; some in French and some in Latin, upon subjects of general literature, with Euclid's Elements,' and some school-boy treatises on algebra. On a large table were heaps of law-papers and processes. Several folios bound in vellum were outspread upon it; a lighted candle (though placed there solely with the view to light cigars) lent its feeble aid to illumine the room; while a maté-cup and inkstand, both of silver, graced another part of the table. There was neither carpet nor mat on the brick-floor; and the chairs

the knees of his breeches the same.

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were of such ancient fashion, size, and weight, that it required a considerable effort to move them from one spot to another. They were covered with old tanned ox-leather, indented with curious hieroglyphics, and, from long use, very brown and glossy. Their straight backs were conspicuously higher than the head of the party seated upon them, and to sit in a reclining posture was out of the question. The ground of the apartment was scattered over with thousands of pieces of torn letters, and untorn envelopes. An earthen jar for water, and a jug, stood upon a coarse wooden tripod in one corner, and the doctor's horse-furniture in another. Slippers, boots, and shoes, lay scattered about, and the room altogether had an air of confusion, darkness, and absence of comfort, the more striking that the outside of the cottage, though lowly, was perfectly neat, and so romantically placed, as to have all the air of an abode at once of beauty and of peace. Not a trace of the sanguinary propensities, or of the ungovernable caprice, by the exercise of which he afterwards attained so bad a celebrity, was recognisable in the manner, or deducible from the conversation, of Francia, at the time I am now speaking. Quite the reverse. His demeanour was subdued and unostentatious; his principles, as far as they could be ascertained from his own declarations, just, though not very exalted; and his legal integrity, as an advocate, had never been disputed. Vanity seemed to me to be the leading feature of his character; and though there was a latent sternness and almost continual severity in his countenance, yet, when relaxed into a smile, they only made, by contrast, an impression the more winning upon those with whom he conversed. He was pleased it should be known that he understood French, a very uncommon branch of knowledge in Paraguay. He made some display of his acquaintance with Voltaire, Rousseau, and Volney, and he concurred entirely in the theory of the latter. But he was most of all proud to be known as an algebraist and He was, it is true, but a very short way inducted into these sciences. It was sufficient, however, in Paraguay, to verify the Spanish proverb, that En tierra de los ciegos, el tuerto es rey,'-' In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.' In Paraguay, an acquaintance with French, Euclid's Elements, equations, the mode of handling a theodolite, or with books prohibited by the Vatican, was, in point of knowledge, quite the exception to the general rule. Night drew on apace, and I bade adieu to my loquacious, as well as gracious, host. I little fancied, then, either that he was to figure as he has since end with so much injustice. At this time, Francia, though living done, or that an intercourse, begun with so much civility, was to in such apparent seclusion, it was afterwards known, had been busy in intrigue against the government.”

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OH! who would sit in the moonlight pale,
Mock'd by the hooting owl?
Oh! who would sit in the silent vale
Where the winds go howl?
Our parlour floor, our parlour floor,
Is better than mountain, moss, and moor.
This lamp shall be our orb of night,
And large our shadows fall
On the flowery beds all green and bright,
That paint our parlour wall;

And silken locks and laughing eyes
Shine brighter than stars in bluest skies.
Oh! the nightingale's is but a silly choice,
To trill to the evening star,

A listener cold-and sweeter the voice
That sings to the light guitar.
For moonlight shades and brawling brooks
We will have music and sunny looks.
Oh! we will the happy listeners be,
When songs and tales begin;
And at our open casement see

How the rose is peeping in,
As it were a fairy with half-closed eye,
That on this our pleasanter world would spy.
Oh! who would exchange a home like this,
Where sweet affection smiles,

For the gardens, and banks, and "bowers of bliss,"
In beauty's thousand isles?

Oh! that Kaisar or King the peace could find
Within our bright walls, and a cheerful mind!

Rev. J. Eagles.

THE BASTINADO IN EGYPT.

MR. WILKINSON, in his admirable book, the "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," thus describes to us the employment of the bastinado as an ancient as well as a modern Egyptian punishment; adding, by way of illustration, an amusing instance of the light in which the punishment is regarded by the Copts. "Some of the laws and punishments of the Egyptian army I have already noticed; and in military as well as civil cases, minor offences were generally punished with the stick; a mode of chastisement still greatly in vogue among the modern inhabitants of the Nile, and held in such esteem by them, that, convinced of (or perhaps by) its efficacy, they relate its descent from heaven as a blessing to mankind *.'

"If an Egyptian of the present day has a government debt or tax to pay, he stoutly persists in his inability to obtain the money, till he has withstood a certain number of blows, and considers himself compelled to produce it; and the ancient inhabitants, if not under the rule of their native princes, at least in the time of the Roman emperors, gloried equally in the obstinacy they evinced, and the difficulty the governors of the country experienced in extorting from them what they were bound to pay; whence Ammianus Marcellinus tells us, an Egyptian blushes if he cannot show numerous marks on his body that evince his endeavours to evade the duties (Amm. Marcel. Life of Julian.)

"The bastinado was inflicted on both sexes, as with the Jews. (Exodus xx. 1, 2.) Men and boys were laid prostrate on the ground, (as with the Jews,) and frequently held by the hands and feet while the chastisement was administered; but women, as they sat, received the stripes on their back, which were also inflicted by the hand of a man.

Nor was

it unusual for the superintendants to stimulate labourers to their work by the persuasive powers of the stick, whether engaged in the field or in handicraft employments; boys were sometimes beaten without the ceremony of prostration, the hands being tied behind their back while the punishment was applied.

It does not, however, appear to have been from any respect, that this less usual method was adopted; nor is it probable that any class of the community enjoyed a peculiar privilege on these occasions, as among the modern Moslems, who, extending their respect for the Prophet to his distant descendants of the thirtysixth and ensuing generations, scruple to administer the stick to a Shereef until he has been politely furnished with a mat, on which to prostrate his guilty person. Among other amusing privileges in modern Egypt, is that conceded to the grandees, or officers of high rank. Ordinary culprits are punished by the hand of persons usually employed on such occasions: but a Bey, or the governor of a district, can only receive his chastisement from the hand of a Pasha, and the genteel daboss (mace) is substituted for the vulgar stick. This is no trifling privilege; it becomes fully impressed upon the sufferer, and renders him long after sensible of the peculiar honour he has enjoyed; nor can any one doubt that an iron mace, in form not very unlike a chocolate mill, is a distingué mode of punishing men who are proud, of their rank.

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"Having noticed the pertinacity of the modern Egyptians, in resisting the payment of their taxes, I shall introduce the following story as remarkably illustrative of this fact. In the year 1822, a Copt Christian, residing at Cairo, was arrested by the Turkish authorities for the non-payment of his taxes, and taken before the Kehia, or deputy of the Pasha. 'Why,' inquired the angry Turk, have you not paid your taxes?' 'Because,' replied the Copt, with a pitiable expression, perfectly according with his tattered appearance, I have not the means.' was instantly ordered to be thrown upon the floor, and bastinadoed. He prayed to be released, but in vain: the stick continued without intermission, and he was scarcely able to bear the increasing pain. Again and again he pleaded his inability to pay, and prayed for mercy, the Turk was inexorable; and the torments he felt at last overcame his resolution, they were no longer to be borne. Release me,' he cried, and I will pay directly.' 'Ah! you Giaour, go!' taken home, and accompanied by a soldier; and the money being paid, he imparted to his wife the sad tidings. You *The Moslems say, "Nezel min e'semma e'neboot, baraka min Allah." "The stick came down from heaven, a blessing from God."

He was released and

coward, you fool,' she exclaimed; 'what, give them the money on the very first demand! I suppose after five or six blows, you cried, I will pay, only release me! next year our taxes will be doubled through your weakness; shame! shame!'- No, my dear!' interrupted the suffering man, I assure you I resisted as long as it was possible; look at the state I am in, before you upbraid me. I paid the money, but they have had trouble enough for it; for I obliged them to give me at least a hundred blows before they could get it.' She was pacified, and the pity and commendation of his wife, added to his own satisfaction in having shown so much obstinacy and courage, consoled him for the pain, and, perhaps in some measure, for the money thus forced from him.- Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

THE following observations on "freedom of speech," are extracted from Discourses, by the Rev. Orville Dewey, an American clergyman. Though principally applicable to the state of society in the United States, they are not without interest to English readers :-

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We, in this country, have our own dangers. And the greatest of all dangers here, as I conceive, is that of general independence of character. I think that I see something of this pusillanimity, of moral cowardice, of losing a proper and manly in our very manners, in the hesitation, the indirectness, the before the tongue can finish its sentence. cautious and circuitous modes of speech, the asking assent I think that in other boldly up and deliver their opinion without asking or caring countries you oftener meet with men, who stand manfully and what you or others think about it. It may sometimes be rough and harsh; but at any rate it is independent. Observe, too, in liable to find bondage instead of freedom. If he wants office he how many relations, political, religious, and social, a man is must attach himself to a party, and then his eyes must be sealed in blindness, and his lips in silence, towards all the faults of his party. He may have his eyes open, and he may see much to his choice is often between bondage and beggary; that may condemn, but he must say nothing. If he edits a newspaper, actually be the choice though he does not know it: he may be so complete a slave that he does not feel the chain; his passions may be so enlisted in the cause of his party, as to blind his disindependence. So it may be with the religious partisan. He crimination, and to destroy all comprehension and capability of knows, perhaps, that there are errors in his adopted creed, faults in his sect, fanaticism and extravagance in some of its measures. See if you get him to speak of them; see if you can get him to breathe a whisper of doubt. No, he is always believing. He has a convenient phrase that covers up all difficulties in his creed; layman, perhaps he does not believe it at all. What then, is his he believes it for substance of doctrine;' or, if he is a conclusion? why, he has friends who do believe it; and he does he does not believe; outwardly acquiescing; inwardly remonnot wish to offend them. And so he goes on, listening to what strating; the slave of fear or fashion, never daring, not once in his life daring, to speak out and openly the thought that is in him. Nay he sees men suffering under the weight of public reprobation, for the open espousal of the very opinion he holds, too.' Nay, more; by the course he pursues, he is made to cast and he has never the generosity or manliness to say, 'I think so his stone, or he holds it in his hand at least, and lets another arm supply the force necessary to cast it, at the very men who are suffering a sort of martyrdom for his own faith!"

only advocating a manly freedom in the expression of those "I am not now advocating any particular opinions; I am opinions which a man does entertain. And, if those opinions are unpopular, I hold that, in this country (America) there is so much the more need of an open and independent expression What is ever to correct the faults of society, if nobody lifts his of them. Look at the case most seriously, I beseech you. voice against them; if everybody goes on openly doing what everybody privately complains of; if all shrink behind the faint-hearted apology, that it would be over bold in them to religious fanaticism or social folly, if no one has the independence attempt any reform? What is to rebuke political, time-serving to protest against them? Look at it in a larger view. What barrier is there against the universal despotism of public opinion in this country, but individual freedom? Who is to stand against

it here, but the possessor of that lofty independence? There is no king, no sultan, no noble, no privileged class, nobody else to stand against it. If you yield this point, if you are for ever making compromises, if all men do this, if the entire policy of private life here is to escape opposition and reproach, everything will be swept beneath the popular wave. There will be no individuality, no hardihood, no high and stern resolve, no selfsubsistence, no fearless dignity, no glorious manhood of mind left among us. The holy heritage of our fathers' virtues will be trodden under foot by their unworthy children. They feared not to stand up against kings and nobles, and parliament and people. Better did they account it that their lonely bark should sweep the wide sea in freedom; happier were they when their sail swelled to the storm of winter, than to be slaves in palaces of ease. Sweeter to their ear was the music of the gale that shrieked in their broken cordage, than the voice at home that said, 'Submit, and you shall have rest.' And when they reached this wild shore, and built their altar, and knelt upon the frozen snow and the flinty rock to worship, they built their altar to freedom, to individual freedom, to freedom of conscience and opinion; and their noble prayer was, that their children might be thus free. Let their sons remember the prayer of their extremity, and the great bequest which their magnanimity has left us. Let them beware how they become entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Let the ministers at God's altar, let the guardians of the press, let all sober and thinking men, speak the thought that is in them. It is better to speak honest error than to suppress conscions truth. Smothered error is more dangerous than that which flames and burns out. But do I speak of danger? I know of but one thing safe in the universe, and that is truth; and I know of but one way to truth for an individual mind, and that is unfettered thought; and I know but one path for the multitude to truth, and that is, thought freely expressed. Make of truth itself an altar of slavery, and guard it about with a mysterious shrine, bind thought as a victim upon it, and let the passion of the prejudiced multitude minister fuel, and you sacrifice upon that accursed altar the hopes of the world."

JOHN LAW OF LAURISTON,

of a quarrel between him and a Mr. Edward Wilson, which led to a meeting in Bloomsbury square, when Mr. Wilson was killed on the spot, on the 9th of April, 1694.

Mr. Law was immediately seized and tried for murder at the Old Bailey, and received sentence of death, 20th April, 1794. But it not clearly appearing that the meeting was premeditated, his case was submitted to the crown, and he obtained a pardon; but an appeal being lodged by deceased's brother, he was detained in prison. This appeal was heard in Trinity term, 1694; several objections were raised by Mr. Law which were overruled. But whilst this was pending, Mr. Law effected his escape and fled to the Continent. It is said that he officiated for some time as secretary to the British Resident in Holland, but the next certain information we have of him is at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when he published "Proposals and Reasons for constituting a Council of Trade" at Edinburgh; but the scheme met with no encouragement. This publication had the effect of introducing him to several of the principal personages of the country. Relying on their support, he offered in 1705 a scheme to Parliament for introducing the circulation of paper money in order to obviate the difficulties which Scotland was at that time labouring under, and he published another work, Money and Trade considered, with a Proposal for supplying the Nation with Money," explanatory of his scheme; but although he was supported by the whole court party and that called the Squadrone, (a few monied men excepted,) yet his plan was rejected; the House passing a resolution "that to establish any kind of paper credit, so as to oblige it to pass, was an improper expedient for the nation*."

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Mr. Law now resolved to try his fortune abroad, where he addicted himself to all sorts of games, and by his skill in calculation was astonishingly successful. He visited many of the principal cities in France, Germany, and Italy. He made three expeditions to Paris, where he associated with the highest circles, and on his first visit he gained an introduction to the Duc de Chartres, afterwards Duc d' Orleans and Regent of France; on his second visit, he proposed a scheme to the king, (through Desmarets, the comptroller general) for reducing the national debt, but Louis inquiring whether he was a catholic, and being answered in the

AND ACCOUNT OF THE CELEBRATED BUBBLE, KNOWN AS "THE negative, he declared he would have nothing to do with a heretic,

MISSISIPPI SYSTEM*.

[Some account of the "Missisippi System," that surprising speculation which in the early part of the last century turned the heads of all the inhabitants of Paris; which converted the very streets into one vast Stock Exchange; which elevated footmen to fortune, and reduced millionaires

to beggary, will we think be acceptable to our readers, and with this

purpose we lay before them a short sketch of the remarkable man who first devised that gigantic undertaking, which, if suffered to remain under Mr. Law's management, instead of being seized upon by the despotic government of France, would in all probability have enriched the nation, instead of plunging it into bankruptcy.]

JOHN LAW was born at Edinburgh in the year 1671, his father William Law was great-grandson of James Law, archbishop of Glasgow from 1615 to 1632, and second son of James Law, of Brunton in Fife, by Margaret, daughter of Sir John Preston, of Preston Hall, Bart. William Law followed the profession of a goldsmith (a business then partaking more of the nature of a banker than that to which the name is now restricted) with such success as to enable him to purchase the lands of Lauriston and Randleston, containing about a hundred and eighty Scottish

acres.

John Law, the subject of this memoir, was educated at Edinburgh, and made himself perfectly acquainted with arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. He likewise bestowed much time and labour in acquiring a knowledge of political economy.

He lost his father before he was fourteen, and falling into dissipated habits, he soon involved himself so deeply that by deed, dated 6 Feb. 1792, he conveyed the estate of Lauriston to his mother, who paid his debts, and by her prudent management freeing the estate from every burden, she executed entails in order to continue the property in the family.

In London, whither Mr. Law now removed, his superior personal beauty, ready wit, and engaging manners, aided by his propensity to deep play, procured him admittance into some of the first circles. He had the reputation of being extremely fortunate in affairs of gallantry. One of these was attended with disastrous consequences; a Mrs. Lawrence was the occasion • Life of John Law of Lauriston, by John Philip Wood, Esq.

and dismissed the scheme.

In 1714 Mr. Law visited Paris for the third time, bringing with him about £110,000, the profits of his various rambles. Louis XIV. dying shortly after Mr. Law's arrival at Paris, the Duc d'Orleans assumed the reins of government, under the title of Regent. He, being fully aware of Mr. Law's superior abilities, and their disposition with respect to pleasure coinciding, he shortly afterwards appointed that gentleman one of the counsellors of state.

The situation of affairs in France was at this time dreadful; the long wars of Louis had loaded the people with a national debt of frightful magnitude, and they were also burdened with ruinous taxes imposed to pay the interest of the debt. All industry was thus checked, trade almost annihilated, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, had almost ceased. The merchant and trader were reduced to beggary, and the artificer was compelled to leave the kingdom for want of employment.

In this state of affairs a national bankruptcy was actually proposed in council, but it was rejected by the regent, who adopted the plan of establishing a commission, or visa, to inquire into the claims of the state creditors.

By this commission the national debt was at last put into a kind of order, and the amount reduced to somewhat more than 2000 millions of livres, which at 28 livres to the marc of standard silver (two pounds sterling,) the then denomination of the specie in France, made above 142 millions sterling. Of this sum, 1750 millions of livres were established upon particular funds at the rate of 4 per cent, and for the remaining 250 millions the creditors obtained billets d'état as they were called, bearing also interest at 4 per cent, making altogether 80 millions of interest per annum, which from the distressed situation of the kingdom was very irregularly paid; and after doing that, there hardly remained, out of an ill-collected revenue, a sum sufficient to defray the necessary expense of the civil government.

Law, perceiving this calamitous state of affairs, determined to exert himself in order to rectify the evil. The most efficacious mode he judged to be, the establishment of a well-regulated * Smollett mentions this circumstance, and adds, that Dr. Hugh Chamberlyne also proposed a scheme of the same nature, which was also rejected.

paper credit; but as this matter was little understood in France, he translated into the French his publication on Money and Trade, and explained its principles in a series of Letters addressed to the Duc d'Orleans, and in two Memorials presented to that prince. In these he strongly inculcates his favourite maxim that the power and prosperity of a state increase in proportion to the quantity of money circulating therein; and after asserting that even the richest nations have not specie sufficient to afford full employment to all their inhabitants, and to carry their trade to the height of which it is capable*, he expatiated on the advantages of paper credit for supplying that defect. In support of this proposition, he instances the vast benefits accruing to England and Holland from the banks of England and Amsterdam, and adduces a variety of arguments to prove that the setting up of an establishment of a similar nature, but on an improved plan, at Paris, would be accompanied with beneficial results.

Law now proposed to open a national bank, but his scheme was rejected, because the then present conjuncture was not thought favourable.

Law then requested permission to open a private bank in his house, in La Place de Louis le Grand. This bank was established by letters patent, dated 2nd and 20th May 1716, containing the following regulations :-

The stock of the bank to consist of 1200 actions or shares of 1000 crowns, or 5000 livres each; the denomination being then fixed by law, at 40 livres the marc, consequently each share was worth £250, and the whole stock £300,000 sterling.

All persons whatsoever to be at liberty to subscribe for as many shares as they pleased, and it was declared that the bank securities belonging to, as well as the money lodged in it, by foreigners, should not be subject to any confiscation or attachment whatsoever, even in case of war with the nations to which the proprietors respectively belonged.

All questions to be decided by vote.

The accounts to be balanced twice every year at stated periods. Two general courts to be held yearly, in which the state of the company's affairs were to be discussed, and their dividends settled. The treasurer never to have more than 200,000 crowns, nor any of the cashiers more than 20,000 in hand at a time.

The bank not to undertake any sort of commerce, nor to charge itself with the execution of any commissions. The notes to be all payable at sight, and no money allowed to be borrowed by the bank.

Various other regulations of minor importance were added. This association was carried on under the firm of The General Bank of Law & Co.; and Law and his brother William were the principal proprietors.

The bank opened under very favourable auspices, it being known that they enjoyed the favour of the regent, and a high idea of their stability was entertained from the discourse which Law unceasingly held, that a banker merited the punishment of death, if he issued notes or bills of exchange without having their effective value in his repositories. But what most attracted the public confidence, was the security their notes provided against the arbitrary practice of varying the standard of the coin at the will of the monarch; an unjustifiable measure frequently put in execution by the French government, to the infinite prejudice of debtors and creditors, particularly at the general coinages in 1709 and 1716, by the former of which the king gained 23 per cent, and by the latter 20 per cent upon the whole specie of the kingdom. The terms in which the notes of the general bank were couched, viz:-"The Bank promises to pay to the Bearer, at sight, the sum of crowns, in coin of the weight and standard of this day, (of the date of each note,) value received," effectually guarded against this contingency. On this account, as well as from the quickness and punctuality of the payments, and the orders given to the officers of the revenue in all parts of the kingdom to receive the paper without discount, in payment of taxes, the notes of the general bank soon passed current for 1 per cent more than the coin itself. This bank produced the most beneficial results on the industry and trade of the nation; the taxes and royal revenues being by means of the notes remitted to the capital at little expense, and without draining the country of specie. Foreigners who had hitherto been very cautious of dealing with the French, now began to * Another of Law's arguments was that gold merely received its value from being employed as a circulating medium, and that in effect it was indifferent whether gold or paper is employed, forgetting that gold has an intrinsic value.-Cours d'Economie Politique de M. Henri Storch. Paris, 1823,

interest themselves deeply in this new bank, so that the balance of exchange with England and Holland soon rose to the rate of 4 and 5 per cent in favour of Paris. The bank subsisted in high credit, to the no small profit of the proprietors, till the close of the year 1718, when the Duke of Orleans took it into the hands of government, as at first proposed. The proprietors petitioned to be allowed to continue the general bank at the same time that the royal bank should be set on foot, but their request was refused.

Thus the bank, being placed in the king's hands, departed from the principles of private and mercantile credit upon which Mr. Law had originally fixed it, and proceeded upon those of public credit, which in an absolute monarchy is no other than that of the sovereign, and consequently cannot be depended upon. To add to the evil, the tenor of the notes was changed, and ran thus :-" The Bank promises to pay the Bearer at sight -livres in silver coin, value received," thus subjecting the notes to the variations in the value of specie. It had, however, no effect on the credit of the bank. Of these notes there were to the amount of 1000 millions of livres fabricated betwixt the 5th Jan. and 29th Dec. 1719. In Feb. 1720, the royal bank was incorporated with the company of the Indies; and from that incorporation to the 1st May following, 1,696,400,000 livres were fabricated, making altogether 2,696,400,000 livres in paper money, of which vast sum, 2,235,083,590 livres were in circulation on the 29th May 1720, when the bank stopped payment.

After the establishment of the general bank, Mr. Law began to lay open the plan of that great and stupendous project he had long meditated, known by the name of the MISSISSIPPI SYSTEM, which for a while turned the heads of the French, and attracted the attention of all Europe. The scheme was no less than the vesting of the whole privileges, effects, and possessions, of all the foreign trading companies, the great farms, the mint, the general receipt of the king's revenues, and the management and property of the bank, in one great company, who, thus having in their hands all the trade, taxes, and royal revenues, might be enabled to multiply the notes of the bank to any extent they pleased, doubling, or even trebling at will the circulating cash of the kingdom, and by the immensity of their funds possessed of a power to carry the foreign trade and the culture of the colonies to a height altogether impracticable by any other means. The outlines of this plan, being laid before the regent, met, it would seem, with the approbation of that prince, as measures were taken for the establishment of the proposed company, and directions issued for making the requisite grants to enable them to commence their operations.

In a future Number, we will proceed to trace the progress of this extraordinary scheme, which in the end caused so much mischief and misery.

LAUDABLE CURIOSITY OF A PERSIAN GOVERNOR.

MR. FRASER, in his narrative of his travels in Khorasan in 1821 and 1822, tells us that he visited the governor of Shahrood, a Persian frontier town, not far from Astrabad, on the shores of the Caspian sea. "He received me with much kindness in h dewan-khaneh, a comfortable warm room, where he entertained me with tea and fruit, and held a long conversation with me on Europe, and of England in particular, imagining, however, what a variety of subjects. He was very inquisitive on the subject of people, that England was but a city of Feringheestan or Europe. I found was a common mistake even amongst the best-informed He put many questions about America (yengee dunia, or the new world) and India, and wished to know what sort of inhabitants the former had, whether they were Mahometans or Christians; how they lived, what were their habits and customs, of what description was the country, and its productions. Of the latter he made inquiry as to the extent of territory in the English possession; and whether any, and how much, remained to the native powers. I discovered that he, in common with most of his countrymen, had taken up the idea that the British the country; so, as the best mode of combating this impression, had gone to India with the premeditated intention of conquering I gave, as well as I could, a short account of the rise and progress of the British power in India, showing, as I proceeded, that we had been forced into the measures by which we had acquired territorial possessions in India, instead of voluntarily adopting them."

*The notes were of four different denominations, viz:-10,000, 1000, 100, and 10 livres.

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