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cle, we hear that they have pierced into the oppofite region of polar cold, that they are at the Antipodes, and engaged under the frozen ferpent of the fouth. Falkland Island, which feemed too remote and romantic an object for the grafp of national ambition, is but a flage and refting-place in the progrefs of their victorious induftry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more difcouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilft fome of them draw the line and frike the harpoon on the coaft of Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coaft of Brazil. No fea but what is vexed by their fifheries. No climate that is not witnefs to their toils. Neither the perfeverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dextrous and firm fagacity of English enterprize, ever carried this moft perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; a people who are ftill, as it were, but in the grifle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate thefe things; when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not fqueezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and fufpicious government, but that through a wife and falutary neglect, a generous nature has been fuffered to take her own way to perfection: when I reflect upon these effects, when I fee how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power fink, and all prefumption in the wifdom of human contrivances melt, and die away within me. My rigour relents. I pardon fomething to the fpirit of liberty.'

From the importance of America, the fpeaker obferves, that dif ferent conclufions may be drawn.-That fome gentlemen will fay it is an object well worth fighting for. And certainly it is (adds he) if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them.'-Force, however, he thinks, not only an odious but a feeble inftrument for preferving a people fo numerous, fo active, fo growing, fo fpirited, as this, in a profitable and fubordinate connexion with us.' -He particularly ftates his objections against force, on account of the temporary nature of its operation, the uncertainty of its fuccefs, and the injuries which it must produce to the object we thus endeavour to preferve-and he particularly remarks on the temper and character of the colonifts, in which a love of freedom is faid to be the predominating feature, that marks and diftinguishes the whole, and that has been derived from their defcent, form of government; religion, in the northern provinces; manners in the southern; education; and remoteness of fituation from the firft mover, of government. With refpect to this fpirit of freedom or of stubbornness, he thinks there are but three modes of proceeding-either to change that fpirit as inconvenient, by removing the causes; to profecute it as criminal; or to comply with it as neceffary.-The firft of thefe he reprefents as hardly practicable, though fome have recommended the attempt, by endeavours to arreft the further progrefs of American fettlements, and population; and particularly by stopping all future grants of land from the crown-a narrow, illiberal and mifchievous expedient, to which a late American minifter was ftrongly attached. But to this fcheme (fays the speaker) there are two ob

jections;

jections; the firft, that there is already fo much unfettled land in private hands, as to afford room for an immenfe future population, although the crown not only withheld its grants, but annihilated its foil. If this be the cafe, then the only effect of this avarice of defolation, this hoarding of a royal wilderness, would be to raise the value of the poffeffions in the hands of the great private monopolifts, without any adequate check to the growing and alarming mischief of population.

But, if you stopped your grants, what would be the confequence? The people would occupy without grants. They have already fo occupied in many places. You cannot flation garrisons in every part of these deferts. If you drive the people from one place, they will carry on their annual tillage, and remove with their flocks and herds to another. Many of the people in the back fettlements are already little attached to particular fituations. Already they have topped the Apalachian mountains. From thence they behold before them an immenfe plain, one vaft, rich, level meadow; a fquare of five hundred miles. Over this they would wander, without a poffibility of reftraint; they would change their manners with the habits of their life; would foon forget a government, by which they were difowned; would become Hordes of English Tartars; and, pouring down upon your unfortified frontiers a fierce and irrefiftible cavalry, become mafters of your governors and your counfellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all the flaves that adhered to them. Such would, and, in no long time, must be, the effect of attempting to forbid as a crime, and to fupprefs as an evil, the command and bleffing of Providence, "Increase and Multiply." Such would be the happy refult of an endeavour to keep as a lair of wild beasts, that earth, which God, by an exprefs charter, has given to the children of men. Far different, and furely much wifer, has been our policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people by every kind of bounty, to fixed eltablishments. We have invited the husbandman, to look to authority for his title. We have taught him pioufly to believe in the myfterious virtue of wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract of land, as it was peopled, into diftricts; that the ruling power fhould never be wholly out of fight. We have fettled all we could; and we have carefully attended every settlement with go

vernment.'

With respect to profecuting the fpirit of ftubbornnefs, in its overt acts, as criminal, he obferves, that there is a wide difference in reafon and policy between the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of individuals who disturb order within the ftate, and the civil diffenfions which may from time to time, on great queftions, agitate the feveral communities which compofe a great empire. It looks to me, (fays he), to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary idea of criminal justice, to this great public conteft. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people. I cannot infult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures, as Sir Edward Coke infulted one excellent individual (Sir Walter Rawleigh) at the bar. I am not ripe to pafs fentence on the graveft public bodies, intrusted

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with magiftracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the fafety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very fame title that I am. I really think, that for wife men, this is not judicious; for fober men, not decent; for minds tinctured with humanity, not mild and merciful.'

Rejecting, therefore, the two firft of thefe methods, as, either impracticable, or inexpedient, the fpeaker neceffarily adopts the laft; and prefuming conciliation and conceffion to be neceffary, he proceeds to confider of what nature the conceffion ought to be.' But as this and other parts of the fpeech before us contain matters worthy of particular notice, we hope it will not be thought improper to defer the conclufion of this article to our next. B.. Art. 21. Motions made in the House of Commons, on Monday the 27th of March 1775. Together with a Draught of a Letter of Requifition to the Colonies. 4to. I s. Almon. Thefe Motions, and the propofed Letter of Requifition, were the parts of an offered plan by Mr. Hartley, for rettoring the peace and affection, and commerce, formerly fubfitting between the inhabitants of Great Britain and of British America -Two other plans had before been delivered, one by lord Chatham, (fee our Review for Feb. p. 179), and the other by Mr. Burke.-It would, however, be prefumptuous in us to decide refpecting their comparative me rits-and therefore we fhall only obferve that the piece before us appears to have all the advantages of fimplicity; that it recurs to the fyftem of colonial government which was fo happily practifed until the end of the lalt war; and that it avoids the decifion of many claims and questions, which have contributed to extend our prefent unhappy controverfy. B....t. Art. 22. An Appendix to a Letter to Dr. Shebbeare. To which are added fome Obfervations on a Pamphlet intitled "Taxation no Tyranny" in which the Sophiftry of that Author's reafoning is detected. By a Doctor of Laws. 8vo. I s. 6d. Donaldson. This Appendix to a former letter (fee our Review for Jan. p. 35) contains a fober defence of the Prefbyterians, and of the character of King William, against the afperfions of the writer to whom it is addreffed; and likewife fome reflections on the late measures of government refpecting the Colonies. The Letter to the Author of Taxation no Tyranny' contains many pertinent obferyations upon the reprehenfible parts of that pamphlet. B....B. Art. 23. The Reply of a Gentleman in a felect Society, upon the important Contest between Great Britain and America. 8vo. I S.

Almon. 1775:

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We are told that the fociety in which this reply was delivered, confifted of near fifty members.-That three fourths voted in favour of America, among which majority above two thirds were gentlemen of the law;' and we are inclined to believe their decifion to have been juft, (however unauthorized and unimportant) as it seems probable that the reply before us contained more reafon and force of argument than any thing that was delivered on the contrary fide of the question.

B....t.

Art. 24. American Independence the Interest and Glory of Great Britain. A New Edition. To which is added, a copious Appendix, containing two additional Letters to the Legislature; a Letter to Edmund Burke, Efq; controverting his Principles of American Government. And a Poftfcript, containing new Arguments on the Subject; a Draught of a Bill propofed to be brought into Parliament for reftoring Peace and Harmony between Great Britain and British America, and for perpetuating the fame. Together with the effential Materials for a propofed grand British League and Confederacy, to be entered into by Great Britain and all the States of British America: The whole of which fhews beyond Denial or Doubt, that by granting the Colonists an unrestrained civil Freedom and legislative Independence, we may moft effectually fecure their future commercial Dependence upon, and confequently fhall beft promote the Intereft, and fupport the Glory, of Great Britain. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Wilkie. 1775.

Of the former edition of this performance an account was given in our Review for November laft. Refpecting the Appendix, it may be proper to obferve, that in the letter to Mr. Burke our Author's general opinions of the right of the Colonists are applied in oppofition to the arguments which had been alleged to fupport the American Declaratory Act. The propofed Bill for rendering the Colonies independent of the legislative authority of Parliament is founded on those principles of which we before gave a general account; but the particular application of them in the draught' before us well deferves confideration. The latter part of the Poftfcript contains feveral important additional propofals, refpecting the future adminiftration of government in the feveral states, as parts of the propofed Grand British League and Confederacy,' among which we hall extract the following:

And for the more effectually preferving the future balance of power between all the ftates of that immenfe continent, might it not be expedient that the limits and boundaries of each, which they fhould never hereafter pafs, fhould be newly defined by the Grand British League and Confederacy; and fome of their nominal interior boundaries now lying very far within the wilderness, be changed for others at a nearer diftance?-For the fame good purpose and other apparent good reafons, might not the remainder of the wildernefs be partitioned out into certain determinate and limited tracts, according to foil and fituation; each of which fhould be confidered as the territory of fome future flate which in procefs of time might be therein directed. And I would propofe that no interruption fhould be given to the growing of fuch new ftates (other than every government has a right to give by wholefome laws within itself to prevent as much as may be a spirit or practice of emigration ;) but that until the fettlers within any fuch partitioned tract of the wilderness fhould be increafed and multiplied to the number of fifty thousand fouls, they fhould be confidered as incapable of forming an independent political itate, and be fubject for the intermediate time to the government of Great Britain. But as foon as their numbers should amount to fifty thousand fouls as aforefaid, they should be entitled and free to erect themfelves into an independent political ftate, and

*The author Major Cartwrig

to conftitute for their own government fuch a legislative power as they fhould judge moft proper; provided only that they acknowledged the King of Great Britain as their lawful fovereign, that they made the proteftant faith the established religion of the country, and confented to become a party to the Grand British League and Confederacy.

During the short space of time indeed that remains of that winter's day, to the evening of which we may hope to continue the defpatic lords of North America, thofe immenfe divisions of country we have affected to make by our charters and by act of parliament on a late memorable occafion, may, like all other arbitrary compendiums, be convenient to us, fo long as we determine to continue arbitrary rulers; or it might hereafter be favourable to the ambition of fome one American ftate hungering to fwallow up its neighbours, to have its territory like that of the ambitious Catherine reaching from the falt ocean to the fresh water feas in midland, and thence to the falt ocean again quite across the vaft continent; but in neither cafe would it be defirable or good for the people of thofe coun tries. Nations are most free and happy when their extremities are near enough to the vital feat of government to feel its pervading principle in its full warmth and activity, and by the spring of their own re-action to pour into the heart again full-flowing tides of health, life, and vigour. On thefe principles I fhould wish to fee the North American flates arranged back to back like habitations in a well-built city, leaving thofe yet to rife into being to front the lakes and great rivers St. Lawrence and Miffiffippi, as the prefent ones do the Atlantic fea. We have already enumerated in the foregoing draught for an act of parliament eighteen ftates already formed; and by fuch a divifion of the remaining country by the grand confederacy as we have propofed, provifion might be made for the future gradual and quiet establishment of nineteen more at leaft, all of ample extent, and every one having a very confiderable frontier acceffible to fhipping and upon waters which are at this time navigated by the British navy. Thus each of these numerous ftates, by the fame means that would enable it through commerce to become a refpectable member of the grand British confederacy, would be effectually subject to the controul and influence of Great Britain, their common maritime protector and umpire, fo neceffary for preferving the harmony of the whole. According to this fyitem no ftate adjoining to the two great rivers fhould poffefs the thores on both fides; as navigations of fuch magnitude and importance should be always boundaries and frontier.'

Our Author afterwards gives the names and boundaries of nineteen American ftates, and he likewife prefixes a map of North America, divided according to the plan thus propofed. D. Art. 25. The Speech of Lord Lyttelton, on a Motion made in the Houfe of Lords, for a Repeal of the Canada Bill, May 17, 1775. 8vo. I s. Ridley.

This fpeech (which might have employed ten or twelve minutes in rehearsal) was intended as a reply to that delivered by lord Camden. in fupport of his bill for repealing the Quebec act; and excepting a few corrections and amendments probably fince made

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