"In the bedding season the does retire i_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 393, July 1848

thickets, or other lonely places, to produce their young, and

cover them so carefully that they are very rarely found; we

have, however, deceived their vigilance. There was a solitary

doe which lived in the hollow below the Bràigh-cloiche-léithe

in Tarnaway. I suppose that we had killed her 'marrow;' but I

was careful not to disturb her haunt, for she was very fat and

round, stepped with much caution, and never went far to feed.

Accordingly, when at evening and morning she came out to pick

the sweet herbs at the foot of the brae, or by the little green

well in its face, I trode softly out of her sight, and if I

passed at noon, made a circuit from the black willows, or thick

junipers, where she reposed during the heat. At last, one fine

sunny morning I saw her come tripping out from her bower of

young birches as light as a fairy, and very gay and 'canty'--but

so thin, nobody but an old acquaintance could have known her.

For various mornings afterwards I saw her on the bank, but she

was always restless and anxious--listening and searching the

wind--trotting up and down--picking a leaf here and a leaf

there, and after her short and unsettled meal, she would take a

frisk round leap into the air--dart down into her secret bower,

and appear no more until the twilight. In a few days, however,

her excursions became a little more extended, generally to the

terrace above the bank, but never out of sight of the thicket

below. At length she ventured to a greater distance, and one day

I stole down the brae among the birches. In the middle of the

thicket there was a group of young trees growing out of a carpet

of deep moss, which yielded like a down pillow. The prints of

the doe's slender-forked feet were thickly tracked about the

hollow, and in the centre there was a bed of the velvet 'fog,'

which seemed a little higher than the rest, but so natural,

that it would not have been noticed by any unaccustomed eye. I

carefully lifted the green cushion, and under its veil, rolled

close together, the head of each resting on the flank of the

other, nestled two beautiful little kids, their large velvet

ears laid smooth on their dappled necks, their spotted sides

sleek and shining as satin, and their little delicate legs as

slender as hazel wands, shod with tiny glossy shoes as smooth

and black as ebony, while their large dark eyes looked at me out

of the corners with a full, mild, quiet gaze, which had not yet

learned to fear the hand of man: still they had a nameless doubt

which followed every motion of mine--their little limbs shrunk

from my touch, and their velvet fur rose and fell quickly; but

as I was about to replace the moss, one turned its head, lifted

its sleek ears towards me, and licked my hand as I laid their

soft mantle over them. I often saw them afterwards when they

grew strong, and came abroad upon the brae, and frequently

I called off old Dreadnought when he crossed their warm

track. Upon these occasions he would stand and look at me with

wonder--turn his head from side to side--snuff the ground again,

to see if it was possible that he could be mistaken--and when he

found that there was no disputing the scent, cock one ear at me

with a keener inquiry, and seeing that I was in earnest, trot

heavily onward with a sigh.

"The affection of the roe for their young is very strong; and

timid and feeble as they are by nature, inspired by the danger

of their offspring, they become brave and daring, and, in their

defence, will attack not only animals but men. We were one day

passing along the west walk of Eilean-Agais, and, beyond a turn

in the path, heard the sound of feet running towards us, and

immediately out shot a cat round the corner, and, close at her

heels, a doe pursuing her with great eagerness. Knowing that her

pursuer could not overtake her, and having no instinctive dread

of her kind, the cat did not give herself the trouble to run

faster than just sufficient to keep beyond her reach, while the

doe pursued her with an angry scrambling pace, and, whenever she

was near overtaking her, endeavoured to kneel on her back. This

is a mode of attack common to deer as well as cattle, which,

when they have overthrown their object, not only gore them with

their horns, but bruise and crush them with their knees. At our

appearance there was a pause; the cat cantered up the brae to

the top of a little rock, where she lay down in the sun to see

what would happen between us and her pursuer. The doe, after

a few bounds, turned round and looked indignantly at us, and

stamped and belled in great displeasure; this she continued for

some moments, glancing occasionally at the cat with a strong

desire to resume her chase; but being restrained by a sense of

prudence, she slowly ascended the hill, stopping at intervals to

stamp and bell at us, who knew very well that she had two kids

in the junipers upon the craig."

Now let us up to the hill, where the mighty herds are feeding.

Scotland will, in all probability, never see a tainchel more;

indeed, save at a royal hunting, it were scarcely desirable now. The

feudal system has melted away, the clans are broken and scattered,

and we care not again to see a pageant which is indissolubly

connected in our memories with national gallantry and misfortune.

But the deer are still on the mountain and in the wood, and we shall

seek them in their former haunt. Wood-stalking, though the Stuarts

speak of it with considerable enthusiasm, was never much to our

taste. It is true that the largest stags are generally to be met

with in the wood, and we have followed the sport ere now in the

Spessart, among the pines of Darmstadt, and the thickets of Strath

Garve; but it must always partake more or less of the character

of driving, and we never have felt, while engaged in it, that

enthusiasm and keenness which sends the blood to the heart of the

hunter when he first discovers a herd in the gorge of some solitary

glen. Then he feels that he must put forth the whole resources of

his art--that he must baffle the acutest of all instincts by the aid

of human cunning--that he has a thousand difficulties to overcome

before he can arrive within reach of his quarry, and that a single

false step or miscalculation is sufficient to destroy the labour,

the patience, and the vigilance of a day.

Great, fat fallow-deer, waxing into obesity in a park, do not seem

to mind the approach of a human being, even were he an alderman

redolent of black-currant jelly. But the red-deer, as many incipient

stalkers know to their cost, has a very different amount of

perception. Unless you take the wind of him, he is off like a shot,

though your distance may be upwards of a mile. In the words of the

old stalker, "Above all things, let not the devil tempt you to

trifle with a deer's nose: you may cross his sight, walk up to him

in a gray coat, or, if standing against a tree or rock near your

own colour, wait till he walks up to you; but you cannot cross his

nose, even at an incredible distance, but he will feel the tainted

air. Colours or forms may be deceptive or alike; there are gray,

brown, and green rocks and stocks as well as men, and all these

may be equivocal; but there is _but one scent of man_, and that he

never doubts or mistakes; that is filled with danger and terror,

and one whiff of its poison at a mile off, and, whether feeding or

lying, his head is instantly up, his nose to the wind, and, in the

next moment, his broad antlers turn, and he is away to the hill or

the wood; and if there are no green peas, corn, or potatoes in the

neighbourhood, he may not be seen on the same side of the forest

for a month." A word to the wise, from the lips of a Celtic Solon!

So much for your chance, if, in the plenitude of your full

flavour, you take the hill, regardless of the currents of the air,

which, moreover, are perpetually shifting. But there are other

difficulties. Though not impossible, it is very ticklish work to get

within shot of a deer by any other means save diligent creeping, and

sometimes, when the ground is unusually flat and open, that method

of approach is impracticable. Then there are divers enemies--that

is, of yours, for in reality they are scouts to the deer--whom you

must try particularly to avoid. This is not easy. Sometimes when

you are sinuating like a serpent towards the especial stag of your

heart, a blundering covey of grouse will start from the heather, and

give an effectual alarm; sometimes the shrill whistle of the plover

will change your anticipated triumph into mourning; and sometimes

a charge of that disagreeable cavalry the mountain sheep, little

less sagacious and wary than the deer themselves, will put the

whole of the glen into disorder. But the worst enemies you have to

guard against are the hinds, who are usually so disposed as to be

out upon the feeding-grounds, and thus to mask the stag. In such a

position, it becomes a point of honour to circumvent the lady, which

is any thing but an easy task. The Stuarts give us an admirable

recollection of such a scene in the forest of Glen-Fidich, which

is so exciting that, though rather long, we make no apology for

transferring it to the columns of Maga.

"After about an hour's stalking, we came upon the shoulder

of a long slope, which looks into the gorges of two or three

short glens, opening to a narrow plain, on which we saw a noble

sight--a herd of four or five hundred deer, among which were

many very fine stags. After having feasted my eyes with this

splendid sight--the illustrious cavalry of the hill, the crowned

and regal array of the wilderness--I began to calculate how to

make the approach, how to slip between the chain of vidette

hinds, and numerous picquets of small stags, which commanded

almost every knoll and hollow. In the centre of the main body,

with a large plump of hinds--which he herded within a wide

vacant circle--there was a mighty black hart, with a head like

a blasted pine, and a cluster of points in each crown. Though

each stag of the surrounding circle had not less than ten

points, there were none which approached his size, and they all

kept at a respectful distance, while he marched round and round

the central group of hinds. 'He will have them all in the ring

before long,' said MacLellan; 'yon's one of the old heroes of

the Monadh-liath; he has not been four-and-twenty hours in the

forest.' I looked with an eager and longing eye at his gigantic

stature, but there was no apparent possibility of approaching

even the outward circle of stags. The herd was scattered over

all the ground between the hills, and every little knoll and

eminence had its restless picquets, and plumps of discomfited

stags, which had been beaten by the great hart, and were chafing

about, driving off and broding the buttocks of all the inferior

stags which came in their way, then returning and staring

with jealous disgust at the mighty stranger, who gave them no

notice, except when one or two more audacious, or less severely

beaten, made a few steps before his companions; upon which he

immediately charged, drove them before him, and scattered the

nearest in every direction. Upon these occasions, some hind of

greater levity than the rest took the opportunity of extending

her pasture, or paying her compliments to her companions, for

which she immediately received a good prod in the haunch, and

was turned back again into the centre.

"'There is no doing any thing there,' said I.

"''Deed no', replied MacLellan, shutting up his glass, 'we be to

go down to the foot of the burn.'

"This was a stream which runs through the middle of the narrow

plain, and empties itself into the Fidich, about four miles

below, at the east end of the forest. Before resolving upon

this, however, we made an attempt to cross the little glen

to the north-west; but, after passing round one hill, and

nearly to the top of another, we fell in with a small herd

of insignificant stags, but none among them being worth the

disturbance of the great herd; and being unable to pass them

unobserved, we were obliged to adopt the last alternative, and

descend to the Fidich. In about an hour and a half we performed

this retrogration, and, having crossed at the forester's house,

ascended the burn till we again approached the deer, and

stealing from knoll to knoll, again came in sight of the herd.

The outskirts of its wide circle had been much broken and

deranged by the jousts and expulsions during our absence; and we

saw that it was impossible to get near the better stags without

taking the channel of the stream. We immediately descended

into the water, and crept up the middle, sometimes compelled

to crouch so low, that the pools reached our hips, and, as the

stones were round and slippery, it was very uneasy to proceed

without floundering and splashing. At length, however, we were

within the circle of the deer: there was not a breath of wind,

and the least sound was audible in the profound stillness.

We slipped through the water like eels, till we came to a

little rock, which, crossing the burn, made a shelving fall,

which there was no means of passing, but by drawing ourselves

up the shoot of the stream. With some difficulty I pushed my

rifle before me along the edge of the bank, and then, while

the water ran down our breasts, we glided up through the gush

of the stream, and reached the ledge above. The return of

the water, which I had obstructed, made, however, a rush and

plash different from its accustomed monotonous hum, and I had

scarce time to lay flat in the burn, when a _hind_ sprung up

within a few yards, and trotted briskly away, then another, and

another. I thought that all was over, and that, in the next

moment, we should hear all the clattering hoofs going over the

turf like a squadron of cavalry. All remained still, however,

and, in a few seconds, I saw the first hind wheel about, and

look back steadily towards the fall. I was rejoiced to observe

that she had not seen us, and had only been disturbed by the

unusual sound of the water. She continued, however, anxious and

suspicious--watched and listened--picked off the tops of the

heather--then walked on, with her ears laid back, and her neck

and step stilting away as stiff as if she had been hung up in

the larder for a week. This, however, was not the worst; all the

surrounding _hinds_ which noticed her gait gathered here and

there, and stood on the tops of the little knolls, like statues,

as straight as pucks, with nothing visible but their narrow

necks and two peg-legs, and their broad ears perked immovably

towards us, like long-eared bats. MacLellan gave me a rueful

look. 'Cha n'eil comas air.' 'Never mind,' said I, 'we shall

see who will be tired first.' The forester gave a glance of

satisfaction, slid up his glass on the dry bank, and we lay as

still as the stones around us, till the little trouts, which had

been disturbed by our convulsion, became so accustomed to our

shapes, that they again emerged from under the flat pebbles, and

returned to their station in the middle of the stream, skulling

their little tails between my legs with no more concern than if

I had been a forked tree. At length the immobility of the hinds

began to give way: first one ear turned back, then another,

then they became sensible of the flies, and began to flirt and

jerk as usual, and, finally, one applied her slender toe to

her ear, and another rubbed her velvet nose upon her knee;--it

was more than half an hour, however, before, one by one, they

began to steal away, perking and snuffing, and turning to gaze

at the least air that whiffed about them. At length they all

disappeared, except one gray, lean, haggard old grandmother

of hinds, who had no teeth, and limped with one leg, probably

from a wound which she received fifty or perhaps a hundred

years before I was born. Her vigilance, however, was only

sharpened by age; time, and the experience of many generations,

had made her acquainted with all the wiles and crafts of the

hill,--her eyes and ears were as active as a kid's, and I have

no doubt she could smell like Tobit's devil.--MacLellan looked

at her through his glass, and spit into the burn, and grinned

against the sun--as if he was lying in the bilboes instead of

cold water.--The old sorceress continued to watch us without

relaxation, and at last lay down on the brow of the knoll, and

employed her rumination in obstinate contemplation of the bank

under which we were ambushed. There was now no alternative but

to recommence our progress up the burn; and as I was determined

to circumvent the hind, I prepared for every inconvenience

which could be inflicted by the opposite vexations of a sharp,

rough, slippery, and gravelly stream. Fortunately, at the place

where we then were, it was so narrow, that we could hold by the

heather on both sides, and thus drag ourselves forward through

the water, between each of which advances I pushed my rifle on

before me. In this manner we reached the turn of the brook,

where I concluded that we should be round the shoulder of the

knoll, and out of sight of the hind, who lay upon its east brow.

This was effected so successfully, that, when we looked behind,

we only saw her back, and her head and ears still pointing at

the spot which we had left. One hundred yards more would bring

us within sight of the great hart; the general position of the

herd had not changed, and I hoped to find him near the central

knoll of the flat, at the base of which the burn circled. We

were almost surrounded by deer; but the greater number were

small vigilant hinds, the abomination and curse of a stalker.

At length, however, we reached the knoll, and rested, to take

breath, at its foot; I examined my rifle, to see that the lock

was clean and dry. We took a view of all around us, and, drawing

ourselves cautiously out of the burn, slid up through the

heather on the south side of the eminence.--Scarce, however, had

our legs cleared the stream, when we discovered a pair of ears

not above fifteen yards from the other side.--'_Mo mhallachd

ort!_' [My curse upon you]--whispered MacLellan. She had not

discovered us, however, and we glided round the base of the

knoll--but on the other side lay three hinds and a calf, and I

could see no trace of the great hart.--On the edge of the burn,

however, further up, there were five very good stags, and a

herd of about thirty deer, on the slope of the north brae. All

round us the ground was covered with hinds; for the prevalence

of the westerly wind, during the last few days, had drawn the

deer to that end of the forest. Upon the spot where I lay,

though I could only see a portion of the field, I counted four

hundred and seventy; and it was evident that no movement could

be made upon that side. We tried again the opposite slope of the

knoll;--the hind which we had first seen was still in the same

place, but she had laid down her head, and showed only the gray

line of her back over the heather. We drew ourselves cautiously

up the slope and looked over the summit. On the other side

there was a small flat moss, about seventy yards in breadth;

then another hillock; and to the left two more, with little

levels, and wet grassy hollows between them. Upon the side of

the first knoll there were two young stags and some hinds; but

the points of some good horns showed above the crest.--The

intervening ground was spotted with straggling hinds, and we

might lay where we were till to-morrow morning, without a chance

of getting near any of the good deer. While we deliberated,

MacLellan thought that, by crawling with extreme caution up a

wet hollow to the left, we might have a chance to approach the

stags whose horns we had seen behind the other knoll, and, as

nothing better could be done, we decided upon this attempt. The

sun was going down from the old towers of Auchandùn, and we had

no more time than would give light for this venture.--We slid

away towards the hollow, and, drawing ourselves, inch by inch,

though the heather and tall thin grass, had reached the middle

of the level between the hillocks, when we heard a stamp and

a short grunt close beside us--I had scarce time to turn my

head, and catch a glimpse of a base little gray hind who, in

crossing the hollow, had stumbled upon us.--It was but a moment:

a rapid wheel and rush through the long grass, and I heard the

career of a hundred feet going through the hollow. I sprung on

my knee, and skaled a dozen small stags and hinds which came

upon us full speed; for those behind, not knowing from whence

came the alarm, made straight for the hill. The herd were now

gathering in all directions; charging--flying--re-uniting,

dispersing, and reassembling in utter disorder, like a rout of

cavalry.--I made a run for the middle knoll,--two stags, with

pretty good heads, met me right in the face.--I did not stop

to look at them, but rushed up the brae.--What a sight was

seen from its top!--upwards of six hundred deer were charging

past--before, behind, around, in all directions.--The stately

figure which I sought--the mighty black hart, was slowly

ascending an eminence about three hundred yards off, from whence

he reconnoitred the ground below; while the disarray of stags

and hinds gathered round him, like rallying masses of hussars

in the rear of a supporting column. I was so intent upon the

king of the forest, that I saw nothing else.--No other heads,

forms, numbers, took any place in my senses; all my faculties

were on the summit of that height.--At this moment I felt my

kilt drawn gently; I took no notice--but a more decided pull

made me look round:--MacLellan motioned up the slope, and I

saw the points of a good head passing behind a little ridge,

about eighty yards away. I looked back at the hart--he was just

moving to the hill. What would I have given to have diminished

a hundred and fifty yards of the distance which divided us! He

passed slowly down the back of the eminence and disappeared, and

the gathering herd streamed after him. '_O Chìal! A Chìal!_'

exclaimed the forester--'_bithidh è air fàlbh!_' The stag whose

horns I had seen had come out from behind the ridge, and stood

with his broad side towards me, gazing at the herd; but as they

moved away, he now began to follow. The disappearance of the

great hart, and the disappointment of MacLellan, recalled me to

the last chance. I followed the retreating stag with my rifle,

passed it before his shoulder, whiz went the two-ounce ball, and

he rolled over headlong in the heath, on the other side of the

knoll, which the next stretch would have placed between us. I

looked to the hill above: the whole herd was streaming up the

long green hollow in its west shoulder headed 'by the mighty

of the desert.' They rounded and passed the brow, and sloped

upward on the other side, till the forest of heads appeared

bristling along the sky-line of the summit. In a few moments

afterwards, as the sun was going down upon Scùr-na-Lapaich, and

the far western hills of Loch Duaich, the terrible wide-forked

tree came out in the clear eastern sky on the top of the hill,

and, crowding after, at least two hundred heads--crossing, and

charging, and mingling--their polished points flashing in the

parting sunbeams, and from many a horn, the long steamers of the

moss fluttering and flying like the pennons and bannerolles of

lances. The herd continued to file along the ridge of the hill,

and wheeling below the crest, countermarched along the sky-line,

till their heads and horns slowly decreased against the light."

With such a book as this before us, we could go on alternately

commenting and extracting until we had broken the back of the

Number. Even now we are dying to pilfer the account of the late

Glengarry's course with "Black Dulochan," and the no less exciting

history of the three day's ruse with a roebuck. But abstinence is a

virtue which is forced upon us in the present instance, rather from

the lack of space than from any exercise of voluntary discretion;

and we shall now leave the deer without further molestation for

a season, hoping soon to encounter them in person with our rifle

somewhere about the skirts of Cairn-Gorm.

This is, we have no hesitation in saying, the best work on

deer-stalking which has yet been written; and the amount of

information which it contains regarding the habits of the stag and

roe, combined with the vivid pictures of which we have made such

ample use, cannot fail to render it popular. In an antiquarian point

of view, it is also highly interesting; for it embodies a large

amount of traditionary lore, sketches of the clans, and fragments of

Highland song, of much superior merit to those which have hitherto

come into our hands. The disquisitions, too, upon the disappearance

of some animals once indigenous to Scotland--such as the wolf,

the elk, the wild bull, and the beaver--exhibit a great amount of

research, and supply a gap which has long been wanted in the page of

natural history.

One word to the authors--though we fear our words must travel a long

way before they can reach them in a foreign land. Why should they

not recast and add to their second volume, so as to make it a single

and unrivalled work upon the noblest sports of the Highlands? If

it has proved so fascinating, as in truth we have felt it, in the

more cumbrous shape of notes, how much better would it be if issued,

not as an appendage to the poems, but in a distinct and articulate

form? Perpend upon this, John Sobieski and Charles Edward, at

your leisure; and let us add, that we trust some of your more

gloomy anticipations may fall short of reality; that the walks of

Eilean-Agais, that little Eden of the north, may again be gladdened

by your presence; and that the sound of your hunting-horns may once

more be heard in the woods of Tarnaway, and on the hills near the

sources of the Findhorn.

THE BURIED FLOWER.

In the silence of my chamber,

When the night is still and deep,

And the drowsy heave of ocean

Mutters in its charmèd sleep,

Oft I hear the angel voices

That have thrill'd me long ago,--

Voices of my lost companions,

Lying deep beneath the snow.

O, the garden I remember,

In the gay and sunny spring,

When our laughter made the thickets

And the arching alleys ring!

O the merry burst of gladness!

O the soft and tender tone!

O the whisper never utter'd

Save to one fond ear alone!

O the light of life that sparkled

In those bright and bounteous eyes!

O the blush of happy beauty,

Tell-tale of the heart's surprise!

O the radiant light that girdled

Field and forest, land and sea,

When we all were young together,

And the earth was new to me!

Where are now the flowers we tended?

Wither'd, broken, branch and stem;

Where are now the hopes we cherish'd?

Scatter'd to the winds with them.

For ye, too, were flowers, ye dear ones!

Nursed in hope and rear'd in love,

Looking fondly ever upward

To the clear blue heaven above:

Smiling on the sun that cheer'd us,

Rising lightly from the rain,

Never folding up your freshness

Save to give it forth again:

Never shaken, save by accents

From a tongue that was not free,

As the modest blossom trembles

At the wooing of the bee.

O! 'tis sad to lie and reckon

All the days of faded youth,

All the vows that we believed in,

All the words we spoke in truth.

Sever'd--were it sever'd only

By an idle thought of strife,

Such as time might knit together;

Not the broken chord of life!

O my heart! that once so truly

Kept another's time and tune,

Heart, that kindled in the spring-tide,

Look around thee in the noon.

Where are they who gave the impulse

To thy earliest thought and flow?

Look around the ruin'd garden--

All are wither'd, dropp'd, or low!

Seek the birth-place of the lily,

Dearer to the boyish dream

Than the golden cups of Eden,

Floating on its slumbrous stream;

Never more shalt thou behold her--

She, the noblest, fairest, best:

She that rose in fullest beauty,

Like a queen, above the rest.

Only still I keep her image

As a thought that cannot die,

He who raised the shade of Helen

Had no greater power than I.

O! I fling my spirit backward,

And I pass o'er years of pain;

All I loved is rising round me,

All the lost returns again.

Blow, for ever blow, ye breezes,

Warmly as ye did before!

Bloom again, ye happy gardens,

With the radiant tints of yore!

Warble out in spray and thicket,

All ye choristers unseen,

Let the leafy woodland echo

With an anthem to its queen!

Lo! she cometh in her beauty,

Stately with a Juno grace,

Raven locks, Madonna-braided

O'er her sweet and blushing face:

Eyes of deepest violet, beaming

With the love that knows not shame,--

Lips, that thrill my inmost being

With the utterance of a name.

And I bend the knee before her,

As a captive ought to bow,--

Pray thee, listen to my pleading,

Sovereign of my soul art thou!

O my dear and gentle lady,

Let me show thee all my pain,

Ere the words that late were prison'd

Sink into my heart again.

Love, they say, is very fearful

Ere its curtain be withdrawn,

Trembling at the thought of error

As the shadows scare the fawn.

Love hath bound me to thee, lady,

Since the well-remember'd day

When I first beheld thee coming

In the light of lustrous May.

Not a word I dared to utter--

More than he who, long ago,

Saw the heavenly shapes descending

Over Ida's slopes of snow:

When a low and solemn music

Floated through the listening grove,

And the throstle's song was silenced,

And the doling of the dove:

When immortal beauty open'd

All its grace to mortal sight,

And the awe of worship blended

With the throbbing of delight.

As the shepherd stood before them

Trembling in the Phrygian dell,

Even so my soul and being

Own'd the magic of the spell;

And I watch'd thee, ever fondly,

Watch'd thee, dearest, from afar,

With the mute and humble homage

Of the Indian to a star.

Thou wert still the Lady Flora

In her morning garb of bloom;

Where thou wert was light and glory,

Where thou wert not, dearth and gloom.

So for many a day I follow'd

For a long and weary while,

Ere my heart rose up to bless thee

For the yielding of a smile,--

Ere thy words were few and broken

As they answer'd back to mine,

Ere my lips had power to thank thee

For the gift vouchsafed by thine.

Then a mighty gush of passion

Through my inmost being ran;

Then my older life was ended,

And a dearer course began.

Dearer!--O, I cannot tell thee

What a load was swept away,

What a world of doubt and darkness

Faded in the dawning day!

All my error, all my weakness,

All my vain delusions fled:

Hope again revived, and gladness

Waved its wings above my head.

Like the wanderer of the desert,

When, across the dreary sand,

Breathes the perfume from the thickets

Bordering on the promised land;

When afar he sees the palm-trees

Cresting o'er the lonely well,

When he hears the pleasant tinkle

Of the distant camel's bell:

So a fresh and glad emotion

Rose within my swelling breast,

And I hurried swiftly onwards

To the haven of my rest.

Thou wert there with word and welcome,

With thy smile so purely sweet;

And I laid my heart before thee,

Laid it, darling, at thy feet!--

O ye words that sound so hollow

As I now recall your tone!

What are ye but empty echoes

Of a passion crush'd and gone?

Wherefore should I seek to kindle

Light, when all around is gloom?

Wherefore should I raise a phantom

O'er the dark and silent tomb?

Early wert thou taken, Mary!

In thy fair and glorious prime,

Ere the bees had ceased to murmur

Through the umbrage of the lime.

Buds were blowing, waters flowing,

Birds were singing on the tree,

Every thing was bright and glowing,

When the angels came for thee.

Death had laid aside his terror,

And he found thee calm and mild,

Lying in thy robes of whiteness,

Like a pure and stainless child.

Hardly had the mountain violet

Spread its blossoms on the sod,

Ere they laid the turf above thee,

And thy spirit rose to God.

Early wert thou taken, Mary!

And I know 'tis vain to weep--

Tears of mine can never wake thee

From thy sad and silent sleep.

O away! my thoughts are earthward!

Not asleep, my love! art thou,

Dwelling in the land of glory

With the saints and angels now.

Brighter, fairer far than living,

With no trace of woe or pain,

Robed in everlasting beauty,

Shall I see thee once again,

By the light that never fadeth,

Underneath eternal skies,

When the dawn of resurrection

Breaks o'er deathless Paradise.

W. E. A.

HUZZA FOR THE RULE OF THE WHIGS!

AIR--"_Old Rosin the Beau._"

All ye who are true to the altar and throne,

Come join in this ditty with me;

And you who don't like it may let it alone,

Or listen a little and see.

How quietly now we may sleep in our beds,

And waken as merry as grigs;

Though fears of rebellion hang over our heads,

We're safe while we're ruled by the Whigs.

In the 'nineties we saw (I remember the day)

Revolution disguised as Reform;

But the country was saved in a different way,

By the Pilot that weather'd the storm.

Our vessel was steer'd by the bravest and best,

And, except a few quality sprigs,

The whole English nation had thought it a jest

To propose being ruled by the Whigs.

But as matters now stand in this ill-fated realm,

When old comrades will give us the slip,

We are strangely compell'd to put men at the helm.

To prevent them from scuttling the ship.

Only think, for a moment, if Russell were out,

How wild he'd be running his rigs!

About popular rights he would make such a rout--

'Tis lucky we're ruled by the Whigs.

The Church--can you doubt what her danger would be

Were Tories at present in power?

Lord John, or his friends, we should certainly see

Attacking her posts every hour.

But as long as the Bishops may help out his lease,

He won't injure a hair of their wigs;

Nay, he even proposes the list to increase--

So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

If Grey were at large, how he'd lay down the law

On the cures he for Ireland had found;

And swear that he never would rest till he saw

Her Establishment razed to the ground.

But Grey, while in office, sits muffled and mum,

Like a small bird asleep in the twigs;

And Ward, in the Commons, is equally dumb--

So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

If any of us had made war on Repeal

With the weapons that Clarendon tries,

What shrieks of indignant invective from Shiel

At the wrongs of Old Erin would rise.

By millions of noisy Milesians back'd,

From the peer to the peasant that digs--

How would Monaghan murmur that juries were pack'd!--

So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

On Aliens or Chartists to hear them declaim,

You'd think Castlereagh come from the dead.

Though the mixture of metaphors isn't the same,

And the courage and coolness are fled.

But the Whigs are becoming respectable men

As any that ever kept gigs,

They are practising _now_ all they preach'd against _then_--

So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

Go on, my good lads--never think of retreat,

Though annoy'd by a squib or a squirt;

You're fulfilling the fate such impostors should meet,

And eating your bushel of dirt

Then swallow it fast, for your hour may not last--

We shall soon, if it pleases the pigs,

Give your places to men of a different cast,

And get rid of the rule of the Whigs!

THE NAVIGATION LAWS.

"When the Act of Navigation," says Adam Smith, "was made, though

England and Holland were not actually at war, the most violent

animosity subsisted between the two nations. It is not impossible,

therefore, that some of the regulations of this famous act may have

proceeded from national animosity. They _are as wise, however, as if

they had all been dictated by the most deliberate wisdom_. National

animosity, at that particular time, aimed at the very object which

the most deliberate wisdom would have recommended,--the diminution

of the naval power of Holland, the only naval power which could

endanger the security of England. The Act of Navigation is not

favourable to foreign commerce, or to the growth of that opulence

which can arise from it. As defence, however, is of much more value

than opulence, the Act of Navigation is perhaps the wisest of all

the commercial regulations of England."[8] Before these pages issue

from the press, this, undoubtedly the wisest of all the commercial

regulations of Great Britain, and under which the maritime strength

and colonial empire of England have risen to a pitch of grandeur

unknown in any other age or country, will be numbered among the

things which have been. The House of Commons, by a majority, have

voted for the repeal of the Navigation Laws.

[8] _Wealth of Nations_, iv. c. 2.

Free trade will soon have done its work, so far, at least, as the

House of Commons is concerned. It is gradually but unceasingly

advancing, and swallowing up successively all the great interests of

the empire, save that of the capitalists, as it moves forward. The

agricultural interests will find themselves deprived, in February

next, of all protection; and the British cultivator exposed to

the competition, without any shield save a nominal duty of 1s. a

quarter, of states where wheat can be raised, with a fair profit

in average years, at 18s. a quarter, and brought to this country

for 10s. at the very utmost of freight. As soon as we have two fine

harvests in succession, it will be seen to what state this system

will reduce British rural production. The West India interests have

been next assailed; and our colonies, upon whom free labour has

been forced, upon a compensation being given to the proprietors on

an average of a fourth of the value of their slaves, are speedily

to be exposed, with no protection but a differential duty of 5s.

6d. a hundredweight, diminishing 1s. 6d. a-year, till, in 1854, it

disappears, to the competition of slave colonies, where sugar can be

raised for £4 a ton, while in the British colonies the measures of

government have precluded its being raised for less than £10 a ton.

As a natural consequence, cultivation is about to cease in those

noble settlements; the forest and the jungle will speedily supplant

the smiling plantations, and £100,000,000 worth of British property

will be lost beyond redemption.

Domestic manufactures were at the same time assailed, though with a

more gentle hand than rude produce. Protective duties on them were

lowered, though not entirely removed; and the consequence is, that

at this time there are 8000 hands wholly unemployed at Manchester,

and above 10,000 at Glasgow, and distress to an unparalleled extent

pervades the whole commercial and manufacturing classes. Nothing

daunted by these calamitous results, so exactly what the opponents

of free trade predicted would ensue, so diametrically the reverse

of the unbounded prosperity which they promised the nation as the

consequence of their changes, the Free-traders, in pursuance of

their usual system of preferring their own opinions to the evidence

of facts, are preparing to apply the same system to the commercial

navy of the country, and, by the repeal of the Navigation Laws,

against the opinion of Adam Smith, to depress our shipping interest

as much as they encourage that of foreign states, and endanger our

national existence, by crippling our own means of defence as much

as they augment the means of attack in the hands of our enemies. Not

content with rendering us dependent for a large part of our bread

on foreign nations, they are determined on measures calculated to

deprive us of the means of maintaining our naval superiority, or

upholding the national independence. They are set upon saying the

nation a few millions a-year in freight, though the consequence is,

that we shall be alike unable to withstand a pacific blockade or

hostile aggression.

Many estimable and thoughtful persons in the country, struck with

astonishment at the adoption and determined adherence to such a

suicidal policy--alike by our rulers and a powerful party in the

country--in the face of the decisive evidence afforded by facts, and

the universal distress of the nation, as to its ruinous tendency,

have come to the opinion, that we have been struck with a judicial

blindness, and that Providence, as a just punishment for our sins,

and for the furtherance of its mysterious designs in the general

government of mankind, has rendered our own infatuation the means

of working out our destruction. They think it affords a marvellous

proof of the weakness of the human mind, and the impotence of man

against the arm of his Creator, that this vast empire, which has

done such mighty things in the annals of history, and which has

stood proof against the hostility of the combined world, directed

by consummate ability, when its rule was that of justice, should

thus crumble away and perish, not from external violence or foreign

aggression, but solely from domestic infatuation, when that rule has

passed away. And observing that this country has already suffered

greater losses, and been more severely crippled in its resources

by the effects of three years of free trade and fettered currency

policy, than by the whole efforts of France during a war of twenty

years--and still the same course is blindly persevered in--they draw

the conclusion that the evil is irremediable by human means, and

that the nation, if not absolutely shipwrecked, will approach as

near the verge of ruin as the providence of God will permit human

infatuation to effect.

Without denying that there is much truth in these observations, and

humbly acknowledging a Divine superintendence alike in the rise and

the decline, the prosperity and decay, of nations, it yet appears

more reasonable to trace the extraordinary obstinacy of the ruling

party in the nation to the causes which, humanly speaking, seem to

have been mainly instrumental in producing it. The fanaticism of the

political economists, who, like all other fanatics, are inaccessible

to reason or experience, is, without doubt, a main cause of the

disastrous policy to which the nation seems now irrevocably pledged.

But a still more powerful agent in producing the determined

adherence to this system, in the face of the most conclusive

evidence of its pernicious tendency, is to be found in the _class_

government which it is now apparent the Reform Bill has imposed upon

the nation. It is now unhappily proved that the _trading_ interest,

in whom a decisive majority both in the constituency and the number

of seats in parliament has been vested by the Reform Bill, are

alive, like all other classes, mainly to the suggestions of their

own advantage; and that advantage they think is, to buy cheap and

sell dear. Whatever we were in the days when Napoleon said it, we

are now, if not a nation of shopkeepers, at least a nation _ruled

by shopkeepers_. The colonies are entirely unrepresented. Schedules

A and B, sixteen years ago, cut off all their representatives. The

landed interest is in a minority, from two-thirds of the seats in

the Commons being for boroughs; and those boroughs, owing to the

depression of the producing classes by the currency laws, and the

vast increase of the trading interests from the same cause, being

for the most part under the direction of the commercial part of

the community. It is in these circumstances that we are to look

for the real causes of the adoption of free-trade principles of

late years by our statesmen, and the determined adherence to it,

in spite of all experience, by a majority of the House of Commons.

Such conduct is the inevitable result of every _uniform_ system

of representation, because that lands the government in the class

government of the majority, composed of a particular interest. The

evil was not felt under the old constitution, because it was _not_

a class government, being based on a multifarious, not a uniform

representation. Its _defects_, as they are now called, _i. e._ its

nomination boroughs, combined with the extension of our colonial

and shipping interests, had let in a most efficient representation

of _all_ the interests in the empire, as well as that of the

inhabitants of those islands, into the House of Commons. It is to

this cause that the protection of _all_ interests by the old House

of Commons is to be ascribed. Doubtless, under the old system the

Corn Laws would have been upheld; but the West Indies would have

been saved from ruin, domestic industry rescued from bankruptcy and

the Navigation Laws, the palladium of our national independence,

preserved from destruction.

That the Navigation Laws have been a great advantage to our

shipowners and seafaring interests is self-evident. They afforded

superior advantages in conducting the trade of the empire to

British over foreign shipowners; and they nursed up, accordingly,

the immense and hardy body of British seamen, who have founded and

protected our colonial empire, and rendered Great Britain the terror

and admiration of the world. What, then, is the great benefit which

is anticipated from the repeal of laws, the practical operation of

which has been attended with such uniform and unparalleled benefits?

The benefit is, that it will save our merchants some millions a-year

in the payment of freights. It is calculated by the Free-traders

that £30,000,000 yearly is paid by Great Britain for freights; and

of this sum, it is thought a fourth, or £7,500,000 yearly, may be

saved by the employment of foreign instead of British sailors in the

conducting of our commerce, or the reduction of freight and seamen's

wages in these islands, which will result from their unrestrained

competition. This is the benefit to attain which our Navigation

Laws, the nursery of our seamen, are to be sacrificed. And the

question to be considered is,--Is the gain real, or apparent only;

and, supposing it is real, is it worth the risk with which it is

attended?

Is the advantage real, or apparent only? Concede to the Free-traders

all they contend for: call the saving to the nation annually in

freights, to be effected by free trade in shipping, not £7,500,000

but £10,000,000 annually. The strength of the argument will admit

of almost any concession. Admit this, and consider what it is

worth, and on whom it is made. It is not worth a _fiftieth part_

of the revenue of the nation, which, in the produce of land and

manufactures alone, is above £500,000,000 annually. A week of

sunshine in autumn, a favourable set of Fall orders from America,

the stoppage of a revolution in Europe, are each worth more to the

nation. But, such as it is, from whom is it gained? Why, it is all

_gained from our own people_: it is a saving effected to _one class

of our inhabitants by impoverishing another class_. If our merchants

and the purchasers from them pay £20,000,000 a-year for freight of

goods sea-borne, instead of £30,000,000 as formerly, undoubtedly

there is a saying of £10,000,000 _to them_, or the consumers who buy

from them. But of whom is this saving made? From whom is it derived?

Is it not from our shipbuilders, shipowners, and seamen, who get

so much the less: either by being driven out of the market by

foreign mercantile navies, or by getting their own profits or wages

reduced by external competition to that amount? Ten millions now

earned by shipowners and sailors in Great Britain, is, on the most

favourable supposition for the Free-traders, _taken from them_, and

given to the dealers in or consumers of the commodities which they

transport. Is the nation, as a whole, any gainer by that transfer?

If ten pounds are taken from John and given to James, are John and

James, taken together, any gainers by the transfer? And is not the

great family of the nation composed of all its members, not of John

only, but of John and James taken together? Is not the repeal of the

Navigation Laws, in this view robbing Peter to pay Paul? This is

the mighty advantage, for the attainment of which we are going to

crush by external competition our mercantile shipping; and endanger

the national independence, by withering the nursery of the navy, by

which it can alone be maintained! Can there be a stronger proof of

how completely, by the operation of the Reform Bill, we have fallen

under the influence of class government; and how entirely such

class government blinds the vision even of the most clear-sighted,

to any thing but the perception of its own immediate interests?

The evidence taken before the Commons' committee, on the comparative

cost of building and navigating ships in the north of Europe

and in this country, comes to this, that both are about _twice_

as expensive in this country as on the shores of the Baltic. A

copper-sheathed vessel, which there costs £4500, cannot here be

constructed for less than £9000: a master's wages there, which are

£2, 11s. a month, are here £5 for the same period: seamen's, there

7d. a day, besides provisions, &c., are here 1s. 2d. Every thing

else is in the same proportion. Shipbuilding and ship-navigating are

twice as costly in Great Britain as they are in Norway and Denmark.

How could it be otherwise, when they have the materials of ships

and rigging at their doors, while we have to transport them to the

British shores from Canada or the Baltic; and they are the poor

nations, whose money being scarce goes far, and we are the rich one,

whose money being comparatively plentiful goes but a little way.

Compare the cost of living in London during the season, with what

it is in Aberdeen or Inverness, and you will at once see the main

cause of the extraordinary difference in the value of money, and

consequently in the money-price of articles, in the two situations.

The difference in the cost of shipbuilding and seamanship, viz. one

half, is nearly the same as the difference in the cost of raising

sugar in our free-labour colonies and the foreign slave ones,

which is £10 a ton in the former situation, and £4 in the latter.

And it is in the perfect knowledge of the entire ruin which the

approach even to a free trade in sugar has brought, under these

circumstances, upon the British West India islands, that government

are prepared to force a similar disastrous competition upon the

British shipowners, and through them on the palladium of British

independence, the royal navy.

Mr Labouchere said, in the debate on this subject in the House

of Commons, that the Protection Party seemed to consider every

importation as in itself an evil, inasmuch as it displaced a

corresponding amount of native industry; but that till he found that

goods were brought by merchants into the country for nothing, he

never could see how importation did not encourage domestic industry

as much as home orders. This is manfully spoken: it comes home to

the kernel of the question. It is pleasing to have to contend with

such an antagonist. We will answer him equally briefly, and, as it

seems to us, decisively. The difference between home orders and

foreign orders is this, that the one encourages industry at _both

ends_, viz., in the consumers and the producers; the other, at _one

end only_, viz., in the consumer. This difference, however, may

become vital to the national fortunes. If a London merchant pays

£20,000 a-year to British shipowners and seamen, he keeps in motion

at once the industry of the consumers, by whose produce the freights

are ultimately paid, and the industry of the seafaring classes by

whom they are earned. But if he pays the £20,000 a-year not to

British but foreign shipowners, the only industry put in motion, so

far as we are concerned, is that which raises the produce which is

to pay the freight. The other end of the chain is placed in Norway

or America, and any encouragement to industry there afforded is

wholly lost to England. It is just the difference between rents

spent in Great Britain, and rents spent in Paris or Naples.

Doubtless they are the same thing, so far as the whole world is

concerned; but are they the same thing so far as that portion of

the world in which we are interested, viz., the British Islands,

is concerned? Unquestionably they are not. What the Protectionists

say is, not that no British industry is encouraged when importation

takes place: they know perfectly it is encouraged at _their end_ of

the line; what they say is, that it is not encouraged at the _other

end_, because that other end rests in foreign states; and that it is

unwise to encourage industry at _one end_ only, when it is possible

to do so at _both_. Adam Smith saw this perfectly when he so well

explained the difference between the home trade and foreign trade,

and said the former was "worth all foreign trade put together." But

his observations on this head are as much forgotten by the majority

of our legislators as those he made on the great wisdom of our

Navigation Laws, as the only security for our national independence.

Mr M'Gregor said in debate on the same subject, that "he admitted

our naval strength had co-existed with the Navigation Laws, but he

denied that they were cause and effect. They had about as much to do

with each other as the height of the Pyramids had with the floods

of the Nile."[9] We agree with the honourable member for Glasgow in

one part of this observation. The Navigation Laws have had as much

to do with our maritime prosperity as the Pyramids had with the

floods of the Nile; and we will tell the ex-secretary of the board

of trade what the relation was--it was that of cause and effect.

Mr M'Gregor is too well informed not to know that there exists in

Cairo a _Nilometer_, and that, during the period of the inundation,

the spirits of the people and the animation of commerce rise and

fall with the rise or fall of the prolific stream. It is no wonder

they do so, for it is the source of life and prosperity to the whole

community. Raised by the power of the Pharaohs from the riches

produced by the inundations of former times, the Pyramids are the

Nilometer of antiquity, as much as the tower of Babel and the ruins

of Babylon were the monument of the opulence of the plain of Shinar;

or as Waterloo Bridge is of the wealth produced by the favourable

maritime situation of London, or York Cathedral of the agricultural

riches of the plains of Yorkshire. In all these causes there is a

relation between the natural advantages which produce the riches

and the durable monument to the construction of which they lead,

and that relation is that of cause and effect. We entirely concur

with the member for Glasgow in thinking that the same connexion,

and no other, subsists between the Navigation Laws and the maritime

greatness of England as existed formerly between the Pyramids of

Egypt and the fertilising floods which encircle their base.

[9] _Times_, June 9, 1848.

To prove that these remarks are not made at random, but that the

Navigation Laws really are the foundation of the maritime greatness

of England, and that, when they are repealed, it must of necessity

languish and ultimately expire, we subjoin three tables: one showing

the progress of British as compared with foreign shipping, from

1801 to 1823, when the protection of the Navigation Laws was first

infringed upon by the adoption of the reciprocity system with the

Baltic powers; and another showing the comparative progress of our

foreign and home shipping with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Prussia,

the countries with whom reciprocity treaties were first concluded,

from 1823 to the end of 1847, when the reciprocity system had been a

quarter of a century in operation.

TABLE showing the comparative progress of British and Foreign

Tonnage inwards, from 1821 to 1847, both inclusive, with Sweden,

Norway, Denmark, and Prussia.

[Transcriber's note: Column headings: Y=Year. Bt=Brit. tons. Ft=For. tons.]

| | | | | |

| Y | Bt | Ft | Bt | Ft | Bt | Ft | Bt | Ft |

+------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------+--------+

| 1821 | 23,005| 8,508| 13,855| 61,342| 5,312| 3,969| 79,590| 37,720|

| 1822 | 20,799| 13,692| 13,377| 87,974| 7,096| 3,910| 102,847| 58,270|

| 1823 | 20,986| 22,529| 13,122| 117,015| 4,413| 4,795| 81,202| 86,013|

| 1824 | 17,074| 40,092| 11,419| 135,272| 6,738| 23,689| 94,664| 151,621|

| 1825 | 15,906| 53,141| 14,825| 157,916| 15,158| 50,943| 189,214| 182,752|

| 1826 | 11,829| 16,939| 13,603| 90,726| 22,000| 56,544| 119,060| 120,589|

| 1827 | 11,719| 21,822| 13,945| 96,420| 10,825| 52,456| 150,718| 109,184|

| 1828 | 14,877| 24,700| 10,826| 85,771| 17,464| 49,293| 133,753| 99,195|

| 1829 | 16,536| 25,046| 9,985| 86,205| 24,576| 53,390| 125,918| 127,861|

| 1830 | 12,116| 23,158| 6,459| 84,585| 12,210| 51,420| 102,758| 139,646|

| 1831 | 11,450| 38,689| 4,518| 114,865| 6,552| 62,190| 83,908| 140,532|

| 1832 | 8,335| 25,755| 3,789| 82,155| 7,268| 35,772| 62,079| 89,187|

| 1833 | 10,009| 29,454| 5,901| 98,931| 6,840| 38,620| 41,735| 108,753|

| 1834 | 15,353| 35,911| 6,403| 98,303| 5,691| 53,282| 32,021| 118,711|

| 1835 | 12,036| 35,061| 2,592| 95,049| 6,007| 49,008| 25,514| 124,144|

| 1836 | 10,865| 42,439| 1,573| 125,875| 2,152| 51,907| 42,567| 174,439|

| 1837 | 7,608| 42,602| 1,035| 88,004| 5,357| 55,961| 67,566| 145,742|

| 1838 | 10,425| 38,991| 1,364| 110,817| 3,466| 57,554| 86,734| 175,643|

| 1839 | 8,359| 49,270| 2,582| 109,228| 5,535| 106,960| 111,470| 229,208|

| 1840 | 11,953| 53,337| 3,161| 114,241| 6,327| 103,067| 112,709| 237,984|

| 1841 | 13,170| 46,795| 977| 113,045| 3,368| 83,009| 88,198| 210,254|

| 1842 | 15,296| 37,218| 1,385| 98,979| 5,499| 59,837| 87,202| 145,499|

| 1843 | 6,435| 44,184| 1,814| 97,248| 4,148| 82,940| 70,164| 163,745|

| 1844 | 12,806| 59,835| 1,315| 125,011| 7,423| 123,674| 108,626| 220,202|

| 1845 | 15,157| 89,923| 1,215| 129,897| 4,528| 84,566| 49,334| 256,711|

| 1846 | 12,625| 80,649| 3,313| 113,738| 9,531| 105,973| 63,425| 270,801|

| 1847 | 7,037| 117,918| 2,318| 128,075| 20,462| 116,382| 88,390| 303,225|

--PORTER'S _Parliamentary Tables_; and _Parliamentary Report, 3d

April 1848_.

Thus, while our shipping with the whole world _quadrupled_, as

compared with the foreign employed in the same trade, under the

protective system, from 1801 to 1823; it declined under the

reciprocity system of equal duties, in the countries to which that

system was applied in the next twenty years, till it had dwindled

to a perfect fraction;--our tonnage with Sweden being, in 1847,

not more than a _sixteenth_ part of the foreign; with Norway, a

_fiftieth_ part; with Denmark somewhat above a _sixth_; with Prussia

somewhat under a _fourth_.

But then it is said these are _selected_ states which do not give

a fair average of the reciprocity system, or afford a correct

criterion of its probable effects when applied, as it is about to

be by a general repeal of the Navigation Laws, to the whole world.

If they are "selected states," we can only say they were selected

by Mr Huskisson and the Free-traders themselves as likely to afford

the best specimen of the effect of their principles, and therefore

as the first on which the experiment was to be made. But we are

quite willing to take the general tonnage of the empire as the test;

and we shall commence with a quotation from the tables of the great

statistical apostle of free trade, Mr Porter, to show the effect

of free trade in shipping on the comparative growth of our whole

tonnage, as compared with that of foreign states, from 1801 to 1823,

when the reciprocity system began; and again from thence lo 1847,

when free trade in shipping was in full operation by the temporary

suspension of the Navigation Laws, from the effect of the Orders

in Council in March 1847 suspending the Navigation Laws under the

pressure of the Irish famine:--

+-------+--------------+-------------+------------+

| 1801 | 922,594 | 780,155 | 1,702,749 |

| 1802 | 1,333,005 | 480,251 | 1,813,256 |

| 1803 | 1,115,702 | 638,104 | 1,753,806 |

| 1804 | 904,932 | 607,299 | 1,512,231 |

| 1805 | 953,250 | 691,883 | 1,645,138 |

| 1806 | 904,367 | 612,904 | 1,517,271 |

| 1807 | Records lost | | |

| 1808 | Records lost | | |

| 1809 | 938,675 | 759,287 | 1,697,692 |

| 1810 | 896,001 | 1,176,243 | 2,072,244 |

| 1811 | | | |

| 1812 | Records destroyed by fire. |

| 1813 | | | |

| 1814 | 1,290,248 | 599,287 | 1,889,535 |

| 1815 | 1,372,108 | 746,985 | 2,119,093 |

| 1816 | 1,415,723 | 379,465 | 1,795,188 |

| 1817 | 1,625,121 | 445,011 | 2,070,132 |

| 1818 | 1,886,394 | 762,457 | 2,648,851 |

| 1819 | 1,809,128 | 542,684 | 2,351,812 |

| 1820 | 1,668,060 | 447,611 | 2,115,671 |

| 1821 | 1,599,274 | 396,256 | 1,995,530 |

| 1822 | 1,664,186 | 469,151 | 2,133,337 |

--PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, 407.

It appears from this most instructive table that, under the

protection system, from 1801 to 1823, the British shipping employed

in conducting our commerce had gained so decisively on the foreign

employed in the same commerce, that it had increased, from having

been on an average of five years, at the commencement of the second,

about two British tons to one foreign, to be, on the last five

years, about _four_ British tons to one foreign: in other words,

during these twenty-two years, the proportion of British to foreign

shipping had _doubled_.

Turn now to the contrast afforded by the comparative progress of

British and foreign shipping from 1823, when the reciprocity system

was introduced with certain states, to 1847, when it was made

universal by the suspension of the Navigation Laws in March of that

year:--

+-------+--------------+--------------+------------+

| 1823 | 1,740,859 | 582,996 | 2,323,855 |

| 1824 | 1,797,320 | 759,441 | 2,556,761 |

| 1825 | 2,144,598 | 958,132 | 3,102,730 |

| 1826 | 1,950,630 | 694,116 | 2,644,746 |

| 1827 | 2,086,898 | 751,864 | 2,839,762 |

| 1828 | 2,094,357 | 634,620 | 2,728,977 |

| 1829 | 2,184,525 | 710,303 | 2,894,828 |

| 1830 | 2,180,042 | 758,828 | 2,938,870 |

| 1831 | 2,367,322 | 874,605 | 3,241,927 |

| 1832 | 2,185,980 | 639,979 | 2,825,959 |

| 1833 | 2,183,814 | 762,085 | 2,945,899 |

| 1834 | 2,298,263 | 833,905 | 3,132,168 |

| 1835 | 2,442,734 | 866,990 | 3,309,724 |

| 1836 | 2,505,473 | 988,899 | 3,494,372 |

| 1837 | 2,617,166 | 1,005,940 | 3,623,106 |

| 1838 | 2,785,387 | 1,211,666 | 3,997,053 |

| 1839 | 3,101,650 | 1,331,365 | 4,433,015 |

| 1840 | 3,197,501 | 1,460,294 | 4,657,795 |

| 1841 | 3,361,211 | 1,291,165 | 4,652,376 |

| 1842 | 3,294,725 | 1,205,303 | 4,500,028 |

| 1843 | 3,545,346 | 1,301,950 | 4,847,296 |

| 1844 | 3,647,463 | 1,402,138 | 5,049,601 |

| 1845 | 4,310,639 | 1,735,079 | 6,045,718 |

| 1846 | 4,294,733 | 1,806,282 | 6,101,015 |

| 1847 | 4,942,094 | 2,253,939 | 7,196,033 |

--PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, 407, 2d edition;

and _Parliamentary Paper, 3d April 1848_.

Thus it appears that under the reciprocity system with some

countries since 1823, and free trade in shipping with all in 1847,

the foreign shipping employed in carrying on the British trade had

so rapidly grown upon the British, that, while at the commencement

of the period the British stood to the foreign as 174 to 58, or _3

to 1_ exactly, at the close they stood as 49 to 22, or _somewhat

above 2 to 1 only_. And observe the vast start of foreign shipping

as compared with British, since free trade was introduced by Sir R.

Peel in 1846. For while the British tonnage was to the foreign in

1845 as 43 to 17, or as 2-1/2 to 1; in the year 1847 it was as 49

to 229, or 2-1/3 to 1 only. So rapid has been the growth of foreign

shipping over British in eighteen months of general free trade.

In ten years of such a system, it is easy to see that the foreign

tonnage employed in carrying on our trade will be equal to the

British; and then our national independence is gone for ever, for we

have nursed up in our harbours a body of foreign seamen equal to our

own.

But we have not yet done with the parliamentary returns. From the

return 3d April 1848, it appears that the total tonnage, British and

foreign, employed in carrying on our trade was--

British Islands. Foreign. Total.

4,942,094 2,253,939 7,196,033 tons.

Deduct British and foreign tons employed in the colonial trade,

viz.--

Tons Brit. Tons For.

inward. inward.

Brit. N. Amer. colonies 953,466 3,274

West Indies 243,388

Channel islands 131,899 3,049

Gibraltar 11,623

Malta 33,554 3,789

Ionian islands 13,101

Africa 203,812 6,983

Asia and Australia 379,529 2,774

Total to colonies 1,970,372 19,847

Thus the British trade to our colonial settlements is about _a

hundred times_ the foreign, and constitutes nearly a _third_

of the whole tonnage employed in carrying on our commerce, and

about two-fifths of the total British tonnage,--(1,970,372 out of

4,942,094.)

But it is important to discover what proportion the British tonnage

employed in conducting our trade with all the world, _except our

colonies_, bears to the foreign tonnage employed in the same work.

That is easily found:--

Tons Brit. Tons For.

1847. Total British Tonnage, 4,942,094 Total For. ton. 2,253,939

Deduct British

colonial tonnage, 1,970,372 Foreign do. 19,847

Remains in trade with all --------- ---------

the world except colonies, 2,971,722 2,233,092

So that, setting aside our colonial trade, the British tonnage is to

the tonnage with all the rest of the world as 29 to 22, or as 4 to

3 only! Considering the rapid strides which, under the reciprocity

system established only with a limited number of countries in 1823,

the foreign shipping is making in encroachment upon the British,

this fact affords room for the most serious reflections. It is

clear, from the great advance of foreign over British shipping in

the single year of temporary suspension of the Navigation Laws,

under the pressure of famine in 1847--viz. from 1,735,679, to

2,253,979; while the British in the same period advanced only from

4,310,639, to 4,942,094,--that two or three years of free trade in

shipping will bring the foreign vessels employed in conducting our

trade, exclusive of those engaged in the colonial, to an _equality

with the British_. The moment that period arrives, our maritime

superiority, and with it our national independence, hang entirely on

our colonial trade, which, and which alone, strikes the balance at

present in our favour. And yet, the colonial trade is the precise

thing which it is the object of the repeal of the Navigation Laws

to throw open to foreign nations! In their anxiety to cheapen every

thing, the Free-traders would gladly expose our shipping interest

engaged in the colonial trade to the same competition, which has

already proved so disastrous to that part of it which is engaged in

the traffic with foreign nations.

Observe how one false step in policy by nations, like one deviation

from virtue in private life, leads by natural consequences to a

repetition of errors and crimes, till irreparable ruin ensues.

The agricultural interest at home was first attacked; and by the

cry of cheap bread, and the weight of class legislation, its

protection was taken away. The West India islands were the next

victims; because, if the farmer in England raises his wheat with

nothing but a nominal protection, it was plausible to say the West

India planter must raise his sugar on the same terms. The ruinous

competition to which this exposed the West India planters naturally

produced in them a desire to be liberated from any burdens to which

they were subjected for the benefit of the mother country; and in

this demand the Canadians, exposed to the competition of American

grain, for a similar reason concurred. Thus the cry for cheap

freights, originating in free-trade principles in England, came to

be responded to from the British colonies on the other side of the

Atlantic; and the Navigation Laws began to be repudiated by the

colonies--the very thing which formerly it was their most anxious

desire to uphold. The firm though unseen bond of mutual interest,

founded on protective principles, which has hitherto held together

the vast and widely separated dominions of the British empire, is

dissolved. Being deprived of the benefit of protection, they very

naturally wished to be relieved of its burdens. Such is the maze

of error and danger into which we have been led by the sophistry

of free trade; and such the way in which the greatest and best

consolidated empires are first loosened, and then destroyed, by the

delusions of those entrusted with their guidance.

The manner in which foreign shipping has encroached upon British,

since the reciprocity system began in 1823, is clearly proved by the

centesimal proportions of each, published by Mr Porter, from 1820 to

1844, both inclusive.

It will be seen from the following table, that, since 1820, the

centesimal proportion of British shipping employed in conducting our

trade has _declined_ from 78 to 72, while that of foreign nations

has _increased_ from 21 to 27. But this proportion, such as it is,

is solely upheld by our colonial trade, which, as already shown,

employs nearly 2,000,000 tons of our shipping. But for it, the

encroachment of foreign on British shipping would appear in such

alarming colours as to strike the most inconsiderate. It is the

rapid growth of our colonial trade under the protective system which

has alone concealed the ravages effected on it by free trade under

the reciprocity.

Centesimal Proportions of the British and Foreign Tonnage employed

in the Import Trade of the United Kingdom from 1820 to 1844.

+--------+-------------+------------+-----+-------------+------------+

| 1820 | 78·84 | 21·16 | 1834| 73·37 | 26·63 |

| 1821 | 80·14 | 19·86 | 1835| 73·85 | 26·15 |

| 1822 | 78·00 | 22·00 | 1836| 71·41 | 28·59 |

| 1823[10] 74·91 | 25·09 | 1837| 72·23 | 27·77 |

| 1824 | 70·29 | 29·71 | 1838| 69·68 | 30·32 |

| 1825 | 69·12 | 30·88 | 1839| 69·96 | 30·04 |

| 1826 | 73·75 | 26·25 | 1840| 68·64 | 31·36 |

| 1827 | 73·51 | 26·49 | 1841| 72·24 | 27·76 |

| 1828 | 76·74 | 23·26 | 1842| 73·21 | 26·79 |

| 1829 | 75·46 | 25·54 | 1843| 73·14 | 26·86 |

| 1830 | 74·18 | 25·82 | 1844| 72·23 | 27·77 |

| 1831 | 73·02 | 26·98 | 1845| ... | ... |

| 1832 | 77·35 | 22·65 | 1846| ... | ... |

| 1833 | 74·13 | 25·87 | 1847| ... | ... |

--PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, 416, 2d edition.

[10] Reciprocity System introduced.

Mr Porter himself tells us that the centesimal proportion of our

trade with the European powers has _declined_ (p. 410) from 65 to

52·38, while that of our colonies has increased thus,--

| | 1802. | 1814. | 1835. | 1844. |

| +-------+-----+-------+-----+---------+-----+---------+-----+

|America |336,344|18·54|343,658|19·32| 886,524|26·21| 984,850|19·50|

|Africa | 7,270| 0·40| 13,514| 0·76| 40,131| 1·21| 157,364| 3·12|

|India, &c.| 67,627| 3·72| 74,117| 4·16| 161,473| 4·88| 264,978| 5·25|

|Australia | ... | ... | 488| ·02| 16,019| 0·48| 36,454| 0·74|

| +-------+-----+-------+-----+---------+-----+---------+-----+

| |411,241|19·66|431,727|24·26|1,104,147|32·78|1,443,646|28·61|

Such has been the working of the reciprocity system, as compared

with the protective and colonial--in other words, free trade in

shipping with some particular nations--in twenty years. And it is

from this experience of the effects of the partial adoption of these

principles that the Free-traders now propose to make it universal!

America is the country to which, in comparison with Great Britain,

the Free-traders constantly refer for a demonstration of the

justice and beneficial operation of their principles. We accept the

instance, and proceed to inquire into the comparative value of the

American protected trade with our own colonies, and the American

free trade with the United States, both at this time and in the

respective progress of each for the last twenty-five years.

The foreign and British tonnage with the United States, Canada, and

the West Indies, in the year 1847, stood thus, viz.:--

| +-------------+-------------+---------+

|British North American Colonies | 953,466 | 3,724 | 954,190|

|British West Indies | 243,388 | ... | 243,388|

| +-------------+-------------+---------+

| Total protected | 1,196,854 | ... |1,197,578|

| (unprotected) | 437,095 | 651,189 |1,088,284|

--_Parliamentary Paper, 3d April 1848._

So that, while our West India and North American colonies, under

this Protective system, support 1,196,854 tons of British shipping

against 3,724 of foreign, or 300 to 1 nearly; the American trade

with the United States only maintains 437,095 of British against

651,189 of foreign; in other words, about 2 to 3 nearly! But the

Free-traders think it better to adopt the system which makes the

foreign shipping to the British as 3 to 2, than uphold the one which

has brought the foreign shipping to the British, in the colonial

trade, as 1 to 300!

Observe, too, the decisive proof which the same return affords of

the vast superiority, in every point of view, of our colonial trade

to our foreign, even in the hands of our best free-trade customers,

the Americans. For while less than 3,000,000 of souls between the

West India and North American colonies furnished employment to

1,197,000 tons of British and foreign shipping, of which 1,193,000

was British; twenty millions of Americans in the United States only

furnished employment to 1,088,284 tons of shipping, in all of which

no more than 437,095 were British! And this is the pet instance

of the Free-traders--their favourite _cheval de bataille_--to

demonstrate the great superiority of free and foreign over protected

and colonial trade!

Again, if we take the comparative progress of British and American

tonnage in conducting the trade of the United States, since the

reciprocity system was begun in 1823, the same conclusion is forced

upon the mind. Not only is the American shipping, throughout the

whole period, superior to the British in the proportion generally of

3 to 1, but this superiority in their favour remains undiminished in

any material degree. We take the following returns from Mr Porter:--

Year. British American

tons inwards. tons inwards.

1823 63,606 165,699

1826 47,711 151,765

1829 64,343 162,367

1832 95,203 167,359

1835 86,383 226,483

1838 83,203 357,467

1841 121,777 294,170

1844 206,183 338,737

1845 224,089 444,609

1846 205,123 435,399

It is easy to see how it has happened that, in competition with the

shipowners of every country, the British shipowners have suffered

so much under the partial operation of the free-trade principles

which the reciprocity system has afforded. It is the inevitable fate

of the old and the rich state, in shipbuilding and agriculture, to

be undersold by the young and the poor one. The reason is, that

the old state, by the very magnitude of its wealth, the amount of

its transactions, the number of its inhabitants, the multitude

of its fabrics, is obliged to pay much higher for labour and

materials of all sorts than the young and the poor one. Machinery

and the steam-engine compensate, and more than compensate, this

superiority in regard to manufactured articles. England undersells

Hindostan, where wages are a penny or twopence a day, by the work

of steam-power looms working on cotton raised on the banks of the

Ganges. But there is no steam-power loom in shipbuilding any more

than in agriculture. Great things in nautical affairs, as in rural

economy, can be effected only by the labour of man's hands and the

sweat of his brow, in the last ages of civilisation, as in the

first. It would appear to be a permanent law of nature, to which

there is no exception in any age of the world, or any stage of

human progress, that the chief branches of industry on which the

subsistence and defence of nations rest--agriculture, and the naval

and military arts--are pursued more cheaply, and with more success

by young and rising than old and opulent states. History is full of

examples in which the manufactures of rich and ancient nations have

obtained an undisputed supremacy over the fabrics of poor and rising

ones; but it presents still more examples of the encroachments

made on the industry and power of old nations by the agricultural

produce, or naval and military efforts, of young ones. It is this

law of nature which provides for the decay and ruin of nations when

they are approaching the limit of their allotted space of existence,

and should give place to others entering on the career which they

have terminated. No efforts of human energy or virtue can prolong,

for any considerable period, this allotted space. But it is the

peculiar reproach of free trade, whether applied to agriculture or

nautical affairs, that it tends to shorten, instead of prolonging,

the life of the nation to which it is applied, by oppressing instead

of relieving those vital branches of industry on which its existence

depends, and thus both aggravates the natural evils incident to old

age, and accelerates the approach of the political society to the

tomb.

When Mr Huskisson, in 1823, introduced the Reciprocity System, he

did not dispute that it would injure our maritime interests; but he

contended that it would open a new field for our manufactures,--that

the time had now arrived when the Protective System could no longer

be maintained, and it had become indispensable to sacrifice to a

certain extent our maritime interests, in order to preserve the

chief vents on Continental Europe for the industry of our artisans.

The sacrifice was made, and the tables already given show with what

fatal effect to our shipping interest. Has it extended the market

for our manufactures, or diminished the jealousy with which they are

regarded by the states of Continental Europe? Let the Zollverein

league, at the head of which Prussia has placed herself, and which

has imposed duties to an amount, in practical operation, of fifty

per cent on our manufactures, give the answer. The exports which

we send to the states of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Prussia, are

still, after a quarter of a century's experience of the immense

impulse it has given to their maritime interests, and corresponding

depression to ours, a perfect trifle.[11] Our exports to America

are less than they were fifteen years ago, despite the boasted

conciliatory effect of twenty years' reciprocity.[12] What can be

more injudicious, therefore, than to persist in, and even extend,

a system which, without diminishing in the slightest degree the

jealousy of Continental nations at our manufacturing superiority,

has inflicted a serious and gratuitous wound on the naval resources

by which alone that superiority can be maintained?

[11]

Exports from Great Britain--to

1844 Sweden £108,475

Norway 152,824

Denmark 286,679

Prussia 505,384

PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, p. 366, 2d edition.

[12]

Exports to United States of America:--

1836 £12,425,605

1844 7,938,079

PORTER, _ibid._

We have recently made a very great stride in free-trade principles,

by the sacrifice of our agricultural protection, and the throwing

open the English markets to cultivators of all nations. In the

three last months of 1846 and even of 1847, in consequence of the

import duties being removed, above £30,000,000 sterling was sent

out of the country to purchase foreign grain; and the moderate

duty of eight shillings a quarter has since been reimposed on

wheat,--yet it terminates in February next, and corn from all

quarters will then be admitted for the nominal duty of one shilling

a quarter. We have abandoned the protection of our colonies to

conciliate the slave-growing states, and augment the market for

Manchester goods in Cuba and Brazil. With what disastrous effects

these changes have been attended, upon the best interests of the

empire, need be told to none who are familiar with the total ruin

which has in consequence overtaken our West India colonies, and the

unprecedented distress which prevails in all the great seats of

our manufacturing industry. The loss of half the realised wealth

of Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow, and the creation of nearly

a hundred thousand persons, including dependants, in a state of

pauperism, in each of those once rich and prosperous cities, is the

price which, in a year and a half, we have paid for the adoption by

Sir R. Peel of Mr Cobden's principles of free trade, and Mr Jones

Loyd's principles of a fettered currency. Have we, in consequence,

reaped any countervailing advantage, or does the increase of our

export and import trade show any benefit derived to the nation,

to compensate such dreadful wounds inflicted on its internal

prosperity, in the attempt to disarm the jealousy of foreign

manufacturers? So far from it, our exports and imports have steadily

_declined_ since free-trade principles were introduced. All the main

sources of our strength have diminished since Sir R. Peel abandoned

protection in July 1846.[13] In adopting these principles, we have

gratuitously inflicted a grievous wound on our own people, without

having obtained for them the shadow even of a benefit to compensate

the evil.

[13]

+------+ | | |

| 1845 | £53,227,451 | £85,281,958 | £52,009,324 |

| 1846 | 51,227,060 | 75,953,579 | 54,473,762 |

| 1847 | 50,897,790 |Not yet made up,| 52,082,757 |

--_Porter's Parl. Tables_; and _Parl. Paper, 3d April 1848_.

Such have been the effects of free-trade principles on the

comparative prosperity of British and foreign shipping, on the

showing of the Free-traders themselves, and according to the

figures which their great statistician, Mr Porter, has prepared

and published at the Board of Trade. We were unwilling to mix up a

great national question, such as the repeal of the Navigation Laws,

with any subordinate examination as to the accuracy or inaccuracy

of the view of our maritime affairs which these figures exhibit.

Such is the strength of the case, that it will admit of almost any

concession; and the opponents of their repeal have no occasion to

go farther than to the statistics of their adversaries for the

most decisive refutation of their principles. But there are two

observations on the tables published by the Board of Trade, so

important that they cannot be passed over in silence. The first is,

that in 1834, when Mr Poulett Thomson was president of the Board of

Trade, a regulation was made by the Board as to the measurement of

vessels, which had the effect of adding _a fifth_ to the apparent

tonnage of all British vessels, subsequent to that date. This

change was clearly proved by the witnesses examined before the

Commons' committee; but though Mr Porter, in his last edition of

the _Progress of the Nation_, mentions the change, (p. 368,) he

makes no allusion to it in comparing the amount of British and

foreign tonnage since 1834. Of course a fifth must be deducted from

British tonnage, as compared with foreign, since that time; and what

overwhelming force does this give to the facts, already strong,

in regard to the effect of the reciprocity system on our maritime

interests!

The second is, that the tonnage with countries near Great Britain,

such as France, Belgium, and Holland, _includes steam vessels_

carrying passengers, and their repeated voyages. In this way a boat,

measuring 148 tons, and carrying passengers chiefly, comes to figure

in the returns for 24,000 tons! It is evident that this important

circumstance deprives the returns of such near states of all value

in the estimate of the comparative amount of tonnage engaged in

the trade with different countries. That with France will appear

greatest in spring 1848, in consequence of the number of large

vessels then employed in bringing back English residents expelled

by, or terrified at, the Revolution--though that circumstance was

putting a stop to nearly all the commercial intercourse between

the two countries. As steam navigation has so immensely increased

since 1834, when the changes in the measurement was introduced--and

Great Britain, from its store of coal and iron, enjoys more of that

traffic than all Europe put together--this is another circumstance

which militates against the returns as exhibiting a fair view of our

trade, compared with that of foreign nations, especially with near

countries, and fully justifies Mr Porter's admission, when examined

before the Lords' committee, that "considerable fallacy is to be

found in the returns." Unfortunately for the Free-traders, however,

who had the preparation of them in their hands, these fallacies all

point one way--viz. to augment the apparent advantages of free trade

in shipping.

Such as free-trade principles are, they are evidently not likely to

remain, if these islands are excepted, long in the ascendant either

in the Old or the New World. The American tariff shows us how little

we have to expect from Transatlantic favour to our manufactures:

the savage expulsion of English labourers from France, how far the

principles of "Liberty, Equality, and _Fraternity_," are likely

to be acted upon by our enthusiastic and democratic neighbours

on the Continent of Europe. It is clear from the communist and

socialist principles now in the ascendant, both at Paris, Berlin,

and Vienna, that the interests of _labour_ will above all things

be considered by their governments in future times, and that the

most rigorous measures, in the form of fiscal regulations, if not

_absolute prohibition_, may shortly be expected in France, Italy,

and Germany, against manufactures of any sort which interfere, or

seem to interfere, with the interests of the dominant multitude of

operatives. Why does our government adhere so strongly, in the face

of the clearest evidence of their ruinous tendency, to the present

system of free trade and a fettered currency? Because it works well

for the great capitalists, who desire to have money dear, and the

great manufacturers, who wish to have labour cheap, and because

a majority of the House of Commons has been placed by the Reform

Bill under their influence. Give the operatives the majority,

and the opposite interest will instantly prevail. A successful

Chartist revolt would at once send the whole free trade and fettered

currency measures by the board in three months. In truth, it is

the disasters they have produced which has revived Chartism, and

rendered it so menacing in the land. We should like to see how

long a legislature, elected by universal suffrage, would allow

Spitalfields and Macclesfield to be pauperised by Lyons silks, and

Manchester invaded by Rouen cottons, and the shipwrights of Hull and

Sunderland to be ruined by Baltic shipbuilders. As the operative

classes have obtained the ascendency in the principal Continental

states, a similar jealousy of foreign interference with industry may

with certainty be looked for in Continental Europe. Can any thing

be more insane, therefore, than to persist in a policy fraught, as

every thing around us demonstrates, with such ruinous social injury

to ourselves, and which the progress of political change on the

Continent renders incapable of producing the ultimate benefits,

in exchange for those evils which their authors hold out as the

inducing causes of the measures which have produced them?

While the political changes which have recently occurred on the

Continent of Europe have rendered any reciprocity of advantages

utterly hopeless from the most violent adoption of free-trade

principles, they have augmented in a proportional degree the

dangers to this country of foreign aggression, and the risk to

be apprehended from any diminution of our naval resources. The

days have gone by when the dream of a free-trade millenium, in

which a reciprocity of advantages is to extinguish all feelings

of hostility, and war is to be looked back to as a relic of the

pre-Adamite world, can with safety be indulged. It is rather too

late to think of the termination of the angry passions of men, when

Europe, in its length and breadth, is devastated alike by civil

dissension and foreign warfare; when barricades have so recently

been erected in all its chief capitals; when bloodshed is hourly

expected in Paris and Berlin; when the Emperor of Austria has fled

to Innspruck; when every station in London was, only a few days

ago, occupied by armed battalions; and when a furious war, rousing

the passions of whole races of men, is raging on the Mincio and the

Elbe. Threatened by a raging fire in all the countries by which

we are surrounded, uncertain whether we are not slumbering on the

embers of a conflagration in our own, is this the time to relax

in our warlike preparations, and, by crippling the nursery of our

seamen, expose ourselves, without the means of resistance, to the

assaults of hostile nations, envious of our fame, jealous of our

manufactures, covetous of our wealth, desirous of our ruin?

While Western Europe is torn by revolutionary passions, and the

seeds of a dreadful, because a popular and general war, are rapidly

springing to maturity from the Seine to the Vistula, Russia is

silently but unceasingly gathering up its giant strength, and

the Czar has already 300,000 men, and 800 pieces of cannon,

ready to take the field against the revolutionary enthusiasts of

France and Germany. Sooner or later the conflict must arrive. It

is not unlikely that either a second Napoleon will lead another

crusade of the western nations across the Niemen, or a second

Alexander will conduct the forces of the desert to the banks of the

Seine. Whichever proves victorious, England has equal cause for

apprehension. If the balance of power is subverted on Continental

Europe, how is the independence of this country to be maintained?

How are our manufactures or revenue to be supported, if one

prevailing power has subjugated all the other states of Europe

to its sway? It is hard to say whether, in such circumstances,

we should have most to dread from French fraternity or Russian

hostility. But how is the balance of power to be preserved in

Europe amidst the wreck of its principal states? when Prussia is

revolutionised, and has passed over to the other side; when Austria

is shattered and broken in pieces, and Italy has fallen under the

dominion of a faction, distinguished beyond any thing else by its

relentless hatred of the aristocracy, and jealousy of the fabrics

of England? What has Great Britain to rely on in such a crisis but

the energy of its seamen and the might of its navy, which might at

least enable it to preserve its connexion with its own colonies,

and maintain, as during the Continental blockade, its commerce

with Transatlantic nations? And yet this is the moment which our

rulers have selected for destroying the Navigation Laws, so long

the bulwark of our mercantile marine, and permitting all the world

to make those inroads on our shipping, which have already been

partially effected by the nations with whom we have concluded

reciprocity treaties!

The defence of Great Britain must always mainly rest on our navy,

and our navy is almost entirely dependent on the maintenance of

our colonies. It is in the trade with the colonies that we can

alone look for the means of resisting the general coalition of the

European powers, which is certain, sooner or later, to arise against

our maritime superiority, and the advent of which the spread of

democratic principles, and the sway of operative jealousy on the

Continent, is so evidently calculated to accelerate. But how are our

colonies to be preserved, even for a few years, if free-trade severs

the strong bond of interest which has hitherto attached them to the

mother country, and the repeal of the Navigation Laws accustoms them

to look to foreigners for the means of conducting their mercantile

transactions? Charged with the defence of a colonial empire which

encircles the earth, and has brought such countless treasures and

boundless strength to the parent state, Great Britain at land is

only a fourth-rate power, at least for Continental strife. At

Waterloo, even, she could only array forty-five thousand men to

contend with the conqueror of Europe for her existence. It is in

our ships we must look for the means of maintaining our commerce,

and asserting our independence against manufacturing jealousy,

national rivalry, and foreign aggression. Is our navy, then, to

be surrendered to the ceaseless encroachments of foreigners, in

order to effect a saving of a few millions a-year on freights, reft

from our own people, and sapping the foundations of our national

independence?

How can human wisdom or foresight, the energy of the Anglo-Saxons,

or the courage of the Normans, maintain, for any length of time,

our independence in the perilous position into which free-trade

policy has, during the short period it has been in operation,

brought us? The repeal of the Corn Laws has already brought an

importation of eight or ten millions of foreign quarters annually

upon our people--a full sixth of the national subsistence, and

which will soon become indispensable to their existence. A simple

non-intercourse act will alone enable Russia or America, without

firing a shot, to compel us to lower the flag of Blake and Nelson.

Stern famine will "guard the solitary coast," and famished

multitudes demand national submission as the price of life. The

repeal of the Navigation Laws will ere long bring the foreign seamen

engaged in carrying on our trade to a superiority over our own,

as has already taken place in so woful a manner with the Baltic

powers. Hostile fleets will moor their ships of the line across our

harbours, and throw back our starving multitudes on their own island

for food, and their own market for employment. What will then avail

our manufacturers and our fabrics,--the forges of Birmingham, the

power-looms of Manchester, the iron-works of Lanarkshire,--if the

enemies' squadrons blockade the Thames, the Mersey, and the Clyde,

and famished millions are deprived alike of food and employment,

by the suicidal policy of preceding rulers? Our present strength

will then be the measure of our weakness; our vast population, as

in a beleaguered town, the useless multitude which must be fed, and

cannot fight,--our wealth, the glittering prize which will attract

the rapacity of the spoiler. With indignant feelings, but caustic

truth, our people will then curse the infatuated policy which

abandoned the national defences, and handed them over, bound hand

and foot, to the enemy, only the more the object of rapacity because

such boundless wealth had accumulated in a few hands amongst them.

Then will be seen, that with our own hands, as into the ancient

city, we have admitted the enemies' bands; we have drawn the horse

pregnant with armed men through our ramparts, and our weeping and

dispersed descendants will exclaim with the Trojans of old--

"Fuimus Troës, fuit Ilium, et ingens

Gloria Teucrorum."

_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.

Irregularities and inconsistencies in the ext have been retained as

printed.

Mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear where

the missing quote should be placed.

The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the

transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Page 11: There is a closing parenthesis missing in the following--(the

blank left for the number was filled up with the word "three" in

committee of the House of Commons. Nothing said about the issue in

tail, as before ...

Page 22: The transcriber has inserted "the" ... rope up to the spot

where he ...

"In the bedding season the does retire into the most secret