may

but at the beginning of the next year, instead of this promised surplus in the income, we find a defciency in it of £.436,990.-In like manner, in the year 1793, the fupplies were ellimated at £11,503,996, and the expenditure at 11,138,884, which fuppofed a balance, in favour of the former, or £.365,182; but, at the conclufion of this year, the balance proved, as it did in the preceding year, to be on the other fide, and the grants were found to be deficient £.575,325. In the year 1793, though 4 millions were borrowed, the expenditure exceeded the grants .824,000; and in the year 179;, after borrowing 11 millions, the deficiency of the grants amounted to 1,095,000. In the prefent year, including the Imperial loan, our own loan, the vote of credit for the army and navy, &c. &c. the enormous fum of £30,583,000 has been already added to the public debts; and if we reafon from the experience of the three foregoing years, in which the deficiency of the fupplies increafed in proportion to the magnitude of the expenditure, it is probable that the grants in this year will prove more deficient than ever. But does not this circumstance portend our near approach to the termination of our refources? for, if this courfe be perfifted in, of adding millions annually to the public debts, the deficiency of the grants in the preceding year will exeed the intereft of the new loan in the following year, and it will become neceffary, even in times of peace, to borrow money every year in order to render the revenue equal to the ordinary expenditure. In fuch circumftances no credit can long be fuitained; and though the induftry and enterprize of this nation are undoubtedly very great, yet all induftry and enterprize mult fink at laft under the continual accumulation of fresh burdens; and should our credit be deftroyed, it will require more ability than has hitherto been difplayed by the prefent conductors of our public affairs, to preferve a nation like ours, overwhelmed as it is with debts and taxes, from bankruptcy and ruin.

From the year 1784 to the year 1789, new taxes have been laid to the amount of £1,075,300. In the year 1791 further taxes have been impofed to the amount of .82c,oco. In the year 1793 ftill further taxes have been laid to the amount of £.480,000; and this year has been diftinguished, above all others in the annals of the country, by additional taxes to the ftupendous amount of £.1,5co,coo: fo that fince the commencement of the prefent administration, the public burdens have been increafed about 4 millions per annum, or, at least, L.3,800,000, even after dedufting thofe taxes which have been repealed in confequence of the oppolition raifed against them from their being confidered as vexatious and oppreffive. But it should be remembered, that with all this mafs of taxes we are fill involved in the moft expenfive war that has ever diareifed this country, without a profpect of its conclufion; and to what magnitude the debts may be further increafed by the contelt exceeds all the powers of computation to determine. Were peace to be immediately made, the ordinary expenditure would at least be 20 millions per annum.— A fum which is fuppofed to be two millions greater than the yearly rents of all the lands in the kingdom. If, therefore, the annual income arifing from all the landed property be infuficient to pay the ordinary expences, and if our commerce, as one of our legiflators magnanimouly, though

perhaps

perhaps not very wifely declared, must perifh rather than the object of this juft and neceffary war fhould not be attained, there is reafon to apprehend, from the prefent appearance of things, that we are haftening towards a ftate of difficulty and danger unknown in the hiftory of this country; and that we shall exhibit to the world an awful example of the folly of a commercial nation's preferring war and its ruinous confequences, to the cultivation of trade, and the peaceful enjoyment of all its advantages.

It was my intention to have made fome obfervations on the terms of the late loan, and alfo on the courfe which the commiflioners have invariably chefen to purfue, in oppofition to the plan originally propoled by Dr. Price, of purchafing flock in the Three per Cents. rather than in the Four per Cents. But while our debts are yearly increafing twenty times fafter than they are paid off, it is of very little confequence how they are contracted, or at what rate of intereft the funds are improved by which they are redeemed. I fhall therefore take my leave of a fubject, which is every day rendered more hopeless; convinced, however, that it will foon want no arguments to enforce it on the most serious attention of this infatuated country.

ART. XVII. Vindication of the Character and Conduct of Sir William Waller, Knt. Commander in Chief of the Parliamentary Forces in the Weft explanatory of his Condu& in taking up Arms against King Charles the Firft. Written by himself. Now first published from the original Manufcript. With an Introduction by the Editor. 8vo. pp. 140. 6s. Boards. Debrett.

WHY

HY a publication of this nature has been fo long delayed, the defcendants of Sir William Waller, who poffefs the manufcript, fhould have explained; for to have kept this vindication from the public eye during fo many years, if they deemed it rational and fatisfactory, muft be confidered as a fin of omiffion against the reputation of their celebrated anceftor. It is intimated that the circumftances of the prefent times have contributed to draw it from its obfcurity: and, from the tendency of the introduction, it may be prefumed that the vindication of Sir William was lefs an object with the editor in fending this MS. to the prefs, than the inculcation of the principles which it contains, and of the general inference deducible from its hiftorical details. This motive for publication we do not in the leaft intend to cenfure. To lead men to the recollection of paft fcenes, to invite them to the calm confideration of the leffons of hiftory, is in generalto-furnish them with the beft rules of conduct. The work be. fore us may not be unprofitable in this refpect it is curious; and, though it may fail to intereft merely as a vindication of a man who has long ago been removed. from the bufy theatre of fublunary beings, it will excite fome attention as illuftrative of the politics of the diftra&ted times to which it refers, and in which the author bore fo confpicuous a part.

The

The anonymous editor remarks that the struggle between the Prefbyterian and Independant parties, after the king had fallen into their power, is defcribed more particularly in this work than in any other memorial of that time; and that on this account alone it forms a valuable addition to the collection of pieces relative to the hiftory of England at that interefting period. We are farther informed, as to its date, that it was written previously to the restoration of the monarchy ;-it might perhaps have been added, not long before it, and with a view to that event, at least a part of it.

Sir William begins with ftating the grounds on which he was induced to engage in the fervice of the parliament. This he does in a general way: but, confidering the exalted notions which he appears to entertain of monarchy, he does not fay enough to justify him for taking up arms against his king. He fays that he had no other ends to ferve than the reformation and maintenance of religion, the prefervation of the perfon, dignity, and honour of the king, and the fettling of the safety and peace of the kingdom: it may be fo: but an advocate for the divine right makes a very awkward figure when he draws his sword against his king, and that too with the plea of preferving his perfon, dignity, and honour. He adds that he abhorred the war ; if fo, why was he a commander in chief in it? Disgusted he no doubt was with it; and he may have written feelingly when he thus fpeaks of the effect or refult of their fuccefs against the king, yet furely not ftriatly within the line of truth:

After the expence of fo much blood and treasure, all the difference that can be difcerned between our former and prefent eftate is but this; that before this time, under the complaint of flavery, we lived like freemen; and now, under the notion of a freedom, we live like flaves, enforced by continual taxes and oppreffions, to maintain and feed our own mifery.'

If the former affertion be true, how could he justify his refiftance to the king? If the complaint of flavery were imaginary, and, previously to the breaking out of the civil war, they lived like freemen, the part which he took was infufceptible of any vindication. We apprehend that the immediate defcendants of Sir William thought that this work would do him little credit, and that therefore they kindly withheld it from the public.

To the hiftorical part of this vindication is added a kind of effay on monarchical authority, in which Sir William advances many weak pofitions, which the editor would have done well to have fuppreffed.

The whole work is compofed in the quaint ftyle of the period to which it belongs, interlarded with fcriptural phrafes. Sir

William

William profeffes to write with impartiality; or, as he phrases it, without blanching a particularity.'

The editor, with a view to the prefent times, deduces in his introduction a general reflection from the hiftorical part of this work; viz. that those who scatter the feeds of fedition are unequal to the gathering in of the harvest, and that the multitude is an engine eafily to be fet in motion, but when checked, it recoils with increafing force upon its mover.' To this obvious reflection we wonder that he did not fubjoin another equally obvious, and as fairly deducible from this narrative,-on the mifery which must arife to a state when the military power gains an afcendancy over, and dictates to, the legislative.

ART. XVIII. An Account of the Colony of Sierra Leone, from its first Establishment in 1793; being the Subftance of Report delivered to the Proprietors. Published by Order of the Directors. 8vo. pp. 244. 4s. Boards. Philips. 1795.

T

"HIS account of an infant colony, established with a view of accelerating the abolition of the flave trade, will be perused by the friends of humanity with eagerness and pleasure. It is impoffible not to admire the perfevering zeal of those who are engaged in this laudable undertaking, and not to lament the unavoidable difficulties and misfortunes which have hitherto opposed their views and retarded their defigns.

The Directors, in the introduction to this report, ftate, as correctly as they are able, the whole expenditure that has taken place, and the prefent fituation of the funds of the company. On the whole, when reviewing what is paffed, they are ready to own that they fee fome things which, if poffeffed of more experience, they might have conducted in a more frugal or advantageous manner; and they perceive that many of the circumftances, which have arifen, have been fuch as no human forefight could have anticipated, and no human wisdom have controlled. They look back on many escapes and deliverances which the colony has experienced, not through any care or management of those whom the proprietors have appointed to fuperintend it, but through the help of divine Providence. They look forwards to farther difficulties and dangers; aware that the beginning of colonization has been in general arduous, hazardous, and expenfive. They by no means allow themselves to indulge any expectations of rapid or uninterrupted fuccefs; yet they are led, by the gradual advances towards maturity which the colony has already made amid fo many difficulties, to entertain an increafing hope of its eftablishment and profperity.

We are forry that our limits will not allow us to enter more fully into this Report, nor to notice the several heads under which

it

it is arranged. Under the divifion which treats of the civilization of the natives of Africa, the Directors have brought forwards much additional evidence in proof of the cruelty, injustice, and turpitude of the flave trade.

Let the whole aggregate of mifery caufed by this iniquitous trade, (fay they) be contemplated; let it be remembered chat LIGHTY THOUSAND men are annually carried from Africa, torn from their families and their native country by the civilized nations of the world, — let the blood fpilt in wars, the cutting off of flave-fhips, the acts of fuicide reforted to by the wretched captives, and the wild and bloody vengeance of the incenfed natives on the fhore, be borne in mind. Let the moral evil chargeable on this trade be confidered, the drunkenness, the treachery, and the violation of all the natural feelings which it occafions, and above all the ftop which it puts to the progrefs of civilization, to the improvement and happiness of one fourth part of the habitable globe; and its enormity muit indeed be abundantly evident.'

The Report concludes with an Arpendix, giving an account of the natural productions of Sierra Leone, by Mr. Atzelius, boranift to the Society-to the whole of which is added a report relating to the calamity fuftained by the colony, through the depredations of a French fquadron. The pecuniary lofs to the Company on this occafion is computed to be about £.40,000, exclufive of the buildings deitroved, of which the coft was about 15,000. It is however with great fatisfaction that we find that no events, which have yet happened at Sierra Leone, have in any degree fhaken the refolution of the Directors with refpect to the profecution of the great caufe in which they are engaged.

MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For DECEMBER, 1795.

HISTORY, ANTIQUITIES, &c.

Art. 19. Hifiory of the City and County of Lichfield, Sc. 8vo. pp. 117. 2s. 6d. fewed. Robin fons.

THIS fmall work, to the dedication of which is affixed the name of John Jackson, jun. has nothing either in its contents or manner of writing, that will entitle it to much attention out of the place on which

it treats.

Art. 20. An Hiftorical and Topographical Account of Leominster and its Vicinity; with an Appendix. By John Price. 8vo. pp. 272. 6s. Boards. Longman. 1795.

In order to render a topographical work interefling beyond the limits of its own circle, it is neceffary either that the objects on which it treats fhould be of fome intrinfic importance, or that the writer fhould have talents for inftructing or entertaining the public from his

own