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newal of hostilities, with infinitely more effect than he can do at present, and from which he will take care that we shall not be abl to dislodge him, without great cost and preparation. If we giv him back his West Indian colonies, he will have it in his power to send a large force there, under the pretext of reducing the negroes, &c. with which he may overrun all our islands, on the sudden breaking out of hostilities. He may endanger our Indian dominions in the same manner, by sending troops to the Isle of France, or to Ceylon, or Pondicherry; and, at all events, he will garrison those settlements so strongly, that it will occupy a great part of our force, for a year or two, to reconquer them, and to replace ourselves in the situation in which we now stand, and in which, by the continuance of the war, we may now maintain ourselves with perfect security.

In the third place, the restoration of peace will enable the enemy to bring home the treasure and the stores which are now locked up in their settlements by our triumphant navy, and to export that great accumulation of commodities which is in a great measure withheld from the market by the same pressure of hostility.

These consequences would follow immediately from a peace, and are disadvantages to which we should be subjected by the cessation of the war for ever so short a period. There are others from which we should have nothing to apprehend, unless the peace was of some continuance; they require but to be named. France might restore her commerce, and, moving without the load of our enormous taxes, might eclipse and supplant us in the great market of the world. She would also revive her navy, and, after she had got trade, could scarcely fail to rival, and even to outmatch us in this most essential particular, with her enor mous extent of coast, and tributary maritime states. Lastly, that we may leave out nothing in the enumeration, we may mention the opportunities which a long peace would afford to the enemy to sow disaffection among our people, especially in Ireland, and in our tributary kingdoms in the East.

To meet those dangers and disadvantages of peace, it would, perhaps, be enough to state the deliverance which it would bring from the danger of immediate subjugation, and the opportunity it would afford for completing those preparations by which that fate may be ultimately averted. There is no man, we believe, who deliberately considers the statements we have already copied from the work before us, who will be of opinion, that our present preparations are adequate to the danger with which we are threatened, or even that they can be made so within the period during which the attempt may be expected, if the war is to continue.

If we are satisfied that peace must be insecure, and that our enemy will busily employ it in improving his navy, with a view. to the renewal of war, it cannot be imagined that we should neglect to improve our army during the same interval. We cannot, perhaps, create a military force sufficient for our defence during war, before an invasion is attempted; but we can certainly create such a force, with ordinary exertion, before the enemy can have created a navy sufficient for our destruction. To make a navy, it is necessary, first of all, to establish an extensive foreign commerce; to make an army, nothing more is requisite, than to train the population already at our disposal. In this point of view alone, therefore, we think peace would be infinitely more valuable to England than to France; and that, if properly and judiciously improved, it might place us in a situation to defy the menaces of our enemy on a renewal of hostility, and to deliver us for ever from the hazards to which it cannot well be denied that we are now liable.

When we mention the name of Ireland, however, we use an argument for peace, which admits, we conceive, of no reply. How vulnerable that country is, and how essential its preservation is to the very existence of our empire, all men who are capable of judging, are now, we believe, agreed. The measures by which alone it can be secured (now, alas! once more thwarted and delayed), must necessarily be gradual in their operation. No system of management, perhaps, would render Ireland secure, if it were to be invaded by a strong force, within a year or two after this time. A A very few years, however, of wise administration, would render it even more invulnerable than the rest of the British territory. Such an interval of peace, therefore, is beyond all value with regard to that vital portion of our land, and would give us an incalculable advantage, even if the contest were then to be renewed in every other respect upon a more unfavourable footing, '. It would be like a truce obtained, while Orlando was recovering from his insanity; or a parley prolonged, till Jupiter could be aroused from his amorous slumbers.

It is needless to suggest, that, by the restoration of peace, we should be relieved from an oppressive and almost intolerable load of taxation;-that our industry, disburdened of this grievous pressure, would be quickened into new forms of prosperous enterprize; and that our trade would then rush like a golden deluge over all those regions into which it is now forced to insinuate itself by circuitous and diminished channels. A few years of peace would so recruit and restore our resources, as to render us equal to any exertion in case of a renewal of war. The commercial rivalry of our enemies, we think, is but little to be dreaded. If

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we undersell all the world at this moment, when our taxes are so enormous, and our access to the market so variously impeded, we should have little to fear from the free competition of France, although all its cannon were melted down into steam-engines, and all its swords beaten out into axles.

By making peace, too, even with the intention of renewing the war at a convenient opportunity, France will eventually be feduced into pacific habits, and lofe many of thofe advantages which the now enjoys as a belligerent. To improve her commerce, as the rival of ours, and the basis of her future navy, must be the first great object of her ruler; but a cominercial people, and, above all, a people just beginning the tempting career of commercial profperity, muft naturally be averfe to war; and, most of all, to war with the greatest maritime power in the world. The war and the confcription, we are credibly informed, are very far from being popular in France at this moment; but if the war were once terminated by an honourable peace, and the people begun to be occupied in peaceful purfuits, it would not be eafy to make them fubmit to this returning plague, nor very fafe, perhaps, for their ruler to compel them.

It is likewife deferving of confideration, that the longer we can protract the period of peace, the more we get over, in fafety, of the life of that extraordinary individual, with whom, it is extremely probable, that much of the rancour, and much of the power by which we are endangered, will die. But it is of ftill more confequence to obferve, that the longer we can poftpone the crisis of our contest, the weaker and the lefs provided we shall find our adversary for the encounter; and this not merely from the difufe and diftafte for war which the experience of peace will produce, but from the rapid decay of those advantages which the now poffeffes as a new government. Already the throne of Bonaparte begins to be furrounded by court-favourites, and princes. and dignitaries of all defcriptions; and the accefs of merit to his imperial patronage, will probably foon be as difficult as it is to other thrones. The eminent perfons who forced themselves into notice in the tumultuary times of the revolution, mußt disappear in no long period; and the genius and form of the exifting government, is by no means calculated to fupply their place, except, perhaps, during the opportunities and cafualties of an, actual campaign. If a more liberal and patriotic fyftem, therefore, be adopted in England, while a more jealous and exclusive policy is daily gaining ground in France, it is not difficult to conjecture what the refult will be, nor in how fhort a time the fituation of the combatants may be in this respect entirely rever fed.

There are many other confequences of peace which might be anticipated

anticipated with nearly equal probability. Those in particular that relate to the revival and recruiting of the other Continental powers; the probable difunion of the tributary fovereigns by which France has now furrounded herself; and the difmemberment of many parts of her overgrown and difcordant dominions. All thefe events at least, it is easy to fee, are rendered much more improbable by the continued preffure of war; and though most likeĮy, and indeed almoft certain in themfelves, can scarcely be expected to occur till peace have restored to the system, its natural fprings of development. We have no longer room, however, to enlarge upon thefe, or any other confiderations; and fhall conclude with one general remark.

Peace is in itself fo great a good, and war fo great an evil, that whenever we are not able to forefee exactly all the confequences of either, we may fafely prefume, that all that are unknown of the one will be good, and all that are unknown of the other will be evil. In moft human affairs, however, the confequences which are not forefeen are more important than those that can be predicted. History and experience illuftrate this fufficiently as to the prefent parallel, and fhow that the most fuccefsful war is ufually productive of lofs and difafter, even to the victorious party, while peace fcarcely ever fails to supply a thousand advantages that had not been calculated upon, and to repair, with incredible celerity, the wounds which hoftility had inflicted. Among the chief bleffings of peace, we think, is its tendency to generate a fpirit of peace; a fpirit which cannot be generated, we believe, in any other way, and which, in an advanced state of fociety, and after a long experience of the miferies of contention, may perhaps prolong into habitual amity those hoftile truces and breathing-times to which nations have lately limited their intervals of war.

Without indulging in fuch anticipations, however, we may be permitted to fay, that Europe now ftands in need of refreshment and repofe; that the experiment of war has been carried quite far enough to show that its further profecution would be ruinous; and that with regard to this country in particular, whofe only remaining object of war must be fecurity, that object will be rendered infinitely more attainable by a peace, even of temporary endurance, than by an obftinate perfeverance in measures of hoftility. We express these opinions with the lefs hefitation, because it rather appears that they concur with thofe which our enemy has formed on the fubject. If peace were to do so much good to him, and fuch injury to us, as is alleged by the advocates for war, it is fingular that he should have appeared fo much more reluctant than any administration of ours has yet been to enter into

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terms of pacification. It is a strong ground for believing that peace would be advantageous to us, that our wily and perfevering enemy has uniformly refused to confent to it. This is an evil to which we muft fubmit, and against which we muft ftruggle as valiantly as we can: but it is painful to think how many there are among ourselves who fecond thefe purposes of the enemy, from mifguided zeal and mistaken patriotifm, and labour to perpetuate that hoftility from which he alone has hitherto derived any tage. We cannot obtain peace, to be fure, by wifhing for it, or even by offering it; but it is fomething to be prepared to receive it, if the offer fhould be made to us; and, at all events, it is of confequence that the grounds of our election fhould be fully and generally confidered, before the time calls on us for an immediate determination.

advan.

ART. II. Remarks on the Husbandry and internal Commerce of Bengal. 8vo. Blacks & Parry. 1806.

A TREATISE on the husbandry and commerce of Bengal, was printed at Calcutta about ten years ago. The prefent work is a republication of the first portion of that treatise, and was written by Mr Colebrooke in 1794, though corrected for this edition in 1803. The remainder of the original publication was chiefly compofed by the late Mr Lambert, and related to the manufactures and external commerce of Bengal, whilft the obfervations of Mr Colebrooke are confined to the internal traffic. We have already remarked, that this work was not unknown to Dr Tennant, for whom plagiarism has fometimes furnished an Indian recreation.

We should have thought the whole treatise eminently calculated to excite and to reward the public attention; but fince we are obliged to content ourselves with a portion of those interesting fpeculations, we have no hesitation in giving the preference to that with which we are here prefented. Mr Lambert was a highly refpectable merchant of Calcutta; a man endowed with uncommon fagacity, and bred up in mercantile habits. • Mere chants,' fays Dr Smith, during their whole lives engaged in plans and projects, have frequently more acutenefs of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the intereft of their own particular branch of bufinefs, than about that of the fociety, their judgments, even when given with the greatest candour, is much more to be depended upon, with respect to the

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