Chapter VIII (4)

"In the commencement of the year now about to terminate, an opinion
was very prevalent that prices of grain (more especially those of
wheat) had been somewhat unduly depressed; and it was then thought
that, even with Free Trade, the value of the article would not for
any lengthened period be kept down below the cost of production
in this country. The experience of the last twelve months has,
however, proved that this idea was erroneous; for, with a crop
very much inferior to that of 1849, quotations have, on the whole,
ruled lower, the average price for the kingdom for the year 1850
being only about 40s., whilst that for the preceding twelve months
was 44s. 4d. per quarter. This fact is, we think, sufficient _to
convince all parties that, so long as the laws of import remain
as they now stand, a higher range of prices than that we have had
since our ports have been thrown open cannot be safely reckoned
on_. The experiment has now had two years' trial; the first was
one in which a considerable failure of the potato crop took place
in England and Ireland; and this season we have had a deficient
harvest of almost all descriptions of grain over the whole of Great
Britain. If, under these circumstances, foreign growers have found
no difficulty in furnishing supplies so extensive as to keep down
prices here at a point at which farmers have been unable to obtain
a fair return for their industry and interest for the capital
employed, we can hardly calculate on more remunerating rates during
fair average seasons. Under certain combinations of circumstances
prices may, perhaps, at times be somewhat higher; but viewing the
matter on the broad principle, we feel satisfied that, with Free
Trade, the producers of wheat will rarely receive equal to 5s. per
bushel for their crop."

Accordingly, so notorious has this fact become, and so familiar have the public become with it, that it has become a common-place remark, which is making the round of all the newspapers without exciting any attention, that the food of 7,000,000 of our people has come to depend on supplies from foreign countries. In fact a much larger proportion than this, of the wheaten food of the country, comes from abroad; for the total wheat consumed in Great Britain and Ireland is under 15,000,000 quarters, and the importation of wheat is from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 quarters, which is about a third. And of the corresponding _decrease_ in our own production of grain, a decisive proof has been afforded by the decline since 1846 in wheat grown in Ireland, the only part of the empire where such returns are made, which has stood thus:--

Acres.
1848, 1,084,000
1849, 511,000
1850, 674,000[13]
---------

Now, assuming--as experience warrants us in doing--this state of matters to be permanent, and the growth of wheat in the British Islands to be progressively superseded by importations from abroad, how is the _national independence_ to be maintained, when a _fourth of our people_ have come to depend on foreign supplies for their daily food? Nearly all this grain, be it recollected, comes from two countries only--Russia, or Poland which it governs, and America. If these two powers are desirous of beating down the naval superiority, or ruining the commerce and manufactures of Great Britain, they need not fit out a ship of the line, or embark a battalion to effect their purpose; they have only to pass a _Non-Intercourse Act_, as they both did in 1811, and wheat will at once rise to 120s. the quarter in this country; and in three months we must haul down our colours, and submit to any terms they may choose to dictate.

In another respect our state of dependence is still greater, for we rest almost entirely on the supplies obtained from a _single_ state. No one need be told that five-sixths, often nine-tenths, of the supply of cotton consumed in our manufactures come from America, and that seven or eight hundred thousand persons are directly or indirectly employed in the operations which take place upon it. Suppose America wishes to bully us, to make us abandon Canada or Jamaica for example, she has no need to go to war. She has only to stop the export of cotton for six months, and the whole of our manufacturing counties are starving or in rebellion; while a _temporary_ cessation of profit is the only inconvenience they experience on the other side of the Atlantic. Can we call ourselves independent in such circumstances? We might have been independent: Jamaica, Demerara, and India, _might_ have furnished cotton enough for all our wants. Why, then, do they not do so? The mania of cheapening everything has done it all. We have ruined the West Indies by emancipating the negroes, and then admitting foreign sugar all but on the same terms as our own, and therefore cotton cannot be raised to a profit in those rich islands--for _continuous_ labour, of which the emancipated negroes are incapable, is indispensable to its production. In the East Indies, the cultivation of cotton has not been able to make any material progress, because the mania of Free Trade lets in American cotton, grown at half the expense, without protection. We have sold our independence, not like Esau, for a mess of pottage, but for a bale of cotton.

In the next place, the progressive and rapid decrease in our shipping, and increase of the foreign employed in carrying on our trade, since the Navigation Laws were repealed, is so great that from that quarter also the utmost danger to our independence may be anticipated. We need not remind our readers how often and earnestly we have predicted that this effect must take place; and we shall now proceed to show how completely, to the very letter, these prognostics have been verified:--

The shipping returns of the Board of Trade, for the month ending the 5th of November, present the following results:--

TONNAGE FOR THE MONTH ENDING NOV. 5.

Entered inwards--
1849. 1850.
British vessels, 370,393 326,058
United States vessels, 30,677 54,164
Other countries, 67,733 140,397
------- -------
468,803 520,619

--_Times_, Dec. 7, 1850.

The general results for the ten months, from January 1, 1850, when the repeal of the Navigation Laws took effect, to October 31, are as follows, and have been thus admirably stated by Mr Young:--

"In the year 1840, the total amount of tonnage entered inwards,
in the foreign trade of the United Kingdom, was 4,105,207 tons,
of which 2,307,367 were British, and 1,297,840 foreign. In 1845,
the British tonnage had advanced to 3,669,853, and the foreign to
1,353,735, making an aggregate of 5,023,588 tons. In 1849, the
British entries were 4,390,375, the foreign 1,680,894--together
6,071,269 tons. Thus, in ten years, with a growing commerce, but
under protection, British tonnage had progressively increased
1,583,008 tons, or 56-1/3 per cent.; and foreign 383,054 tons, or
29-1/2 per cent. At this point, protection was withdrawn. Free
navigation has now been ten months in operation, and the following
is the result:--

"The aggregate inward entries during the ten months ended the 5th
of November 1849, were 5,081,592 tons, of which 3,651,589 were
British, and 1,430,003 foreign. During the corresponding ten months
ending the 5th of November of the present year, the aggregate
entries are 5,114,064 tons, the British being 3,365,033, and the
foreign 1,749,031. Thus, comparing the first ten months after the
repeal of the Navigation Laws with the corresponding ten months
of the preceding year, when those laws were in operation, we find
that British tonnage _has decreased within this brief period no
less than 286,556, or 8-1/10 per cent, while foreign tonnage has
increased to the enormous extent of 319,028 tons_, or 22-3/10 per
cent, the whole entries having advanced only 32,472 tons--thus
showing that our maritime commerce has not been augmented in any
appreciable degree by the alteration, but that it has simply
changed hands. The foreigner has taken what we have madly
surrendered. I may add, that never was the state, and never were
the prospects, of shipowners so gloomy. Freights in all parts of
the world are unprecedentedly low, and, for the first time within
my recollection, ships are actually returning from the British West
Indies in ballast.

"Could I regard the whole subject with less of humiliating
apprehension for my country, I might derive satisfaction from the
confirmation of many predictions on which I have formerly ventured,
afforded by an analysis of the return from which the melancholy
result I have exhibited is taken. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia,
and Germany--countries whose rivalry you have repeatedly derided
as undeserving of attention--have increased in the ten months
from 502,454 tons to 796,200 tons, or 58-4/10 per cent. But I
forbear. While all Europe bristles with bayonets, the loom and the
spindle seem to be regarded as the chosen defences of this now
the most unwarlike nation on the face of the earth. Wellington,
and Ellesmere, and Napier have in vain essayed to arouse England
to solicitude for her national defences; and till some imminently
impending alarm shall awaken my countrymen to a sense of the
insecurity in which they are unconsciously reposing, I almost dread
they will accept the unworthy advice recently tendered to them by
the unadorned oracle of Free Trade, to run every risk rather than
incur any expense. It is thus that, under the illusory expectation
of the most infinitesimally minute reduction in the freight of
imported commodities, the hazard of leaving our navy unmanned is
overlooked or disregarded."

In the single harbour of Liverpool, the decrease of British shipping, in the year 1850, has been _no less than_ 100,000 _tons_; while the foreign has swelled from 56,400 to 126,700.[14] If such has been the result in less than one year, what may be anticipated if the system continues three or four years longer? It is quite evident that the foreign tonnage employed in conducting our trade will come to exceed the British, and then, of course, our independence and maritime superiority are alike at an end.

The Free-Traders, in answer to this appalling statement, say that the entries outward exhibit a different and less unfavourable result. Without referring to the authority of Mr Huskisson, who stated what is well-known to all men practically engaged with the subject, that the outward entries afford no correct data for judging of trade returns, it may be sufficient to remark that the difference is mainly owing, in the present instance, to the prodigious multitude of our _emigrants_ to America, the shipping employed in conveying whom is estimated at 240,000 tons. The Free-Traders first, by their final measures, drive some 300,000 of our industrious inhabitants out of the country annually, in quest of the employment which they have lost at home, and then they rest on the tonnage required to convey them away, in order to conceal the effect of Free Trade in shipping on our mercantile marine! They are welcome to the whole benefit which they can derive from the double effect of Free Trade, first on our people, and then on our shipping.

These considerations become the more forcible when it is considered, in the third place, what immediate and imminent risk there is that either our principal colonies will ere long declare themselves independent, or that they will be abandoned without a struggle by our Free-Trade rulers. Now, the tonnage between Great Britain and Canada is about 1,200,000 tons, and to the West Indies somewhat above 170,000. Fourteen hundred thousand British tons are taken up with our trade to these _two colonies alone_; and if they become independent states, that tonnage will, to the extent of more than a half, slip from our grasp--as they have the materials of shipbuilding at their door, which we have not. Eight or nine hundred thousand tons will by that change at once be severed from the British Empire and added to the foreign tonnage employed in carrying on our trade, which is now about 2,200,000 tons. That will raise it to above 3,000,000 tons, or fully a half of our whole tonnage, foreign and British--which is, in round numbers, about 6,000,000 tons. The intention of Government to abandon our colonies to themselves has been now openly announced. Earl Grey's declaration of his resolution to withdraw all our troops, except a mere handful, from Australia, is obviously the first step in the general abandonment of the colonies to their own resources, and, of course, their speedy disjunction from the British Empire. As the separation of Canada and the West Indies is an event which may ere long be looked for--not less from the universal discontents of the colonies, who have lost by Free Trade their only interest in upholding the connection with the British Empire, than from the growing disinclination of our Free Trade rulers to continue much longer the burdens and expense consequent on their government--it is evident that, the moment it happens, the foreign ships employed in carrying on our trade will outnumber the British. From that moment the nursery for our seamen, and with it the means of maintaining our maritime superiority and national independence, are at an end. And as this separation will, to all human appearance, take place the moment that we are involved in a European war--which, with the aggressive policy of our Foreign Minister, may any day be looked for--this is perhaps the most immediate and threatening danger which menaces the British Empire.

When the magnitude and variety of the perils which Free Trade and the cheapening system have brought upon the British empire are taken into consideration, it may appear extraordinary that the foreign powers, _who are perfectly aware of it all_, do not at once step forward and secure for themselves the rich prize which we so invitingly tender to their grasp. But the reason is not difficult to be discerned. They know what England once was, and they see whither, under the new system, she is tending. They anticipate our subjugation, or at least our abrogation of the rank and pretensions of an independent power, at no distant period, from our own acts, without their interfering in the matter at all. They are fearful, if they move too soon, of committing the same fault which the Pope has recently done, on the suggestion of Cardinal Wiseman. They are afraid of opening the eyes of the nation, by any overt act, to the dangers accumulating around them, before it is so thoroughly debilitated by the new system that any resistance would be hopeless, and therefore will never be attempted. They hope, and with reason, to see us ruined and cast down by our own acts, without their firing a shot. Their feeling is analogous to Napoleon's on the morning of the battle of Austerlitz, when the Allies were making their fatal cross-march in front of the heads of his columns, and exposing their flank to his attack. When urged by his generals to give the signal for an immediate advance, he replied--"Wait! when the enemy is making a false movement, which will prove fatal if continued, it is not our part to interrupt him in it."

What, then, is the advantage which the Free-Traders have to set off against these obvious and appalling dangers, past, present, and to come, with which their policy is attended? It is this, and this only--that the manufacturing towns are prosperous, and that our exports are increasing. They point with exultation to the following statement:--

"The aggregate value of our exports, during the first ten months of
the present year, has been L.55,038,206, against L.49,398,648 in
the like period of 1849, showing an increase of L.5,639,558, which
has occurred in the following order:

Increase. Decrease.
£ £
Month ending
February 5, 858,285 --
March 5, 556,746 --
April 5, 418,089 --
May 5, 1,398,232 --
June 5, 1,604,623 --
July 5, 427,090 --
August 5, -- 334,858
Sept. 5, -- 279,961
Oct. 10, 807,742 --
Nov. 5, 183,570 --

--_Times_, Nov. 10."

Now, let it be supposed that this increase, which will amount to less than L.7,000,000 in our exports in the whole year, is all to be set down to the credit of Free Trade. Let us suppose that Californian gold, which has given so unparalleled a stimulus to America, and the lowering the discounts of the Bank of England to 2-1/2 per cent--which has done so much, as it always does, to vivify industry and raise prices at home--and the pacification of Germany by Muscovite influences or bayonets, which have again, after the lapse of two years, opened the Continental markets to our produce, have had nothing at all to do with this increase in our exports,--what, after all, does it amount to, and what, on striking the balance of profit and loss of Free Trade, has the nation lost or gained by its adoption?

It has increased our exports by L.7,000,000 at the very utmost; and as the total produce of our manufactures is about L.180,000,000, this is an addition of _a twenty-fifth part_. It has made four or five hundred thousand persons employed in the export manufactures prosperous for the time, and increased, by five or six hundred thousand pounds in the last year, the incomes of some eighty or a hundred mill-owners or millionnaires.

_Per contra._ 1. It has lowered the value of agricultural produce of every kind fully twenty-five per cent, and that in the face of a harvest very deficient in the south of England. As the value of that produce, prior to the Free-Trade changes, was about L.300,000,000 a-year, it has _cut L.75,000,000 off the remuneration for agricultural industry over the two islands_.

2. It has cut as much off the funds available to the purchase of articles of our manufacture in the home market; for if the land, which pays above half the income tax, is impoverished, how are the purchasers at home to find funds to buy goods?

3. It has totally destroyed the West Indies--colonies which, before the new system began, raised produce to the value of L.22,000,000, and remitted at least L.5,000,000 annually, in the shape of rent, profits, and taxes, to this country.

4. It has induced such ruin in Ireland, that the annual emigration, which chiefly comes from that agricultural country, last year (1849) reached 300,000 souls, and this year, it is understood, will be still greater.[15] This is as great a chasm in our population as the Moscow retreat, or the Leipsic campaign, made in that of France; but it excites no sort of attention, or rather the pressure of unemployed labour is felt to be so excessive, that it is looked on rather as a blessing. The _Times_ observes, on January 1, 1851:--

"We see the population of Ireland flowing off to the United
States in one continuous and unfailing stream, at a rate that in
twenty years, if uninterrupted, _will reduce them to a third of
their present numbers_. We see at the same time an increasing
emigration from this island. England has so long been accustomed
to regard excess of population as the only danger, that she will
be slow to weigh as seriously as perhaps she ought _this rapid
subtraction of her sinew and bone, and consequent diminution of
physical strength_. It is impossible, however, that so considerable
a change should be attended with unmixed advantage, or that
human forethought should be able to compass all the results. The
census of next spring may invite attention to a subject, the very
magnitude of which may soon command our anxiety."

5. It has totally ruined the West Highlands of Scotland, which depend on two staples--kelp and black cattle--the first of which has been destroyed by free trade in barilla, and the second ruined by free trade in cattle, for the benefit of our manufacturing towns, and sent their cottars in starving bands to Glasgow, already overwhelmed by above L.100,000 a-year of poor-rates.

6. It has so seriously affected the internal resources of the country, that, with a foreign trade prosperous beyond what has been seen since 1845, the revenue is only L.165,000 more than it was in the preceding year, which was one of great depression; and the last quarter has produced L.110,000 less than the corresponding quarter of 1849.

7. It has so lowered the _incomes_ of people in the country, that although the number of travellers by railways has greatly increased, and the total receipts of the lines have been swelled by L.1,700,000 since last year, the mileage _has decreased_-proving, that the _general_ traffic of the country bears no adequate proportion to its railway lines. It stands thus,--

1849. 1850.

Mileage on 6257 miles, L.2302 L.2247

--_Times._

which is a _fall_ of L.55 a mile in the midst of our boasted prosperous export trade.

Such are the _advantages_, in consideration of which the nation has embarked on a course of policy which so evidently, and in so many ways, threatens our independence. It is class government which has done it all--the determination to make the sovereign worth two sovereigns, and a day's labour to the poor man worth one shilling to him instead of two, which has induced dangers in every quarter, which threaten the existence of Great Britain. Why is it that we are constrained--though Government are perfectly aware of the danger, and the Duke of Wellington has repeatedly pointed it out--to have a military and naval force evidently incommensurate to the wants of our vast empire, and unable to defend it from the hostility which our foreign policy does so much to provoke? Simply because we have surrendered the government of the country to a moneyed oligarchy, who are resolved, _coute qui coute_, to cheapen everything, because it enhances the value of their realised wealth, and because the measures of that oligarchy have cut down Queen Victoria's income from £100,000,000--as it might have been, and _is now, in real weight upon the country_[16]--to £50,000,000; just as they have reduced the income of the poor needlewomen from 9d. a-day to 4-1/2d. Why is it that we are constrained, openly and avowedly, to abandon our colonies to their own resources? Only because the cheapening system and Free Trade have so paralysed and weakened our resources, that, like the Romans, if we would protect at all the heart of the empire, we must forthwith abandon its extremities.

Why are we evidently and undeniably losing the empire of the seas, by the rapid and portentous increase of the foreign and decline of the English shipping, in carrying on our own trade? Only because freights must, it is thought, be cheapened as well as everything else; and the independence of the country is a trifling consideration to a fall of a farthing in the pound, in the transport of some articles, for the benefit of the Manchester trader. Why are the West Indies utterly ruined, and the annual importation of slaves into Cuba and Brazil doubled,[17] and discontent so universally spread through our colonies, that beyond all doubt, in the first reverse, they will break off from the mother country, if not previously thrown off by it? Merely to carry out the dogma of Free Trade, and lower sugar, watered by the blood of the slaves, a penny or twopence a pound to the British consumer. Why have we brought 7,000,000 of our people, in three years, to depend for their daily food on foreign supplies, and put ourselves entirely at the mercy of the _two states_ from which nearly all that food comes? Only to enrich the Manchester manufacturers, and appease the cry for cheap bread, by enabling them to beat down the wages of labour from 1s. 6d. to 1s. a-day. Why are poor-rates--measured in the true way, by quarters of grain--heavier in this year of boasted prosperity than they were in any former year of admitted adversity? Because, in every department of industry, we have beat down native by letting in a flood of foreign industry. Why are 300,000 industrious citizens annually driven into exile, and Ireland threatened with a depopulation the most rapid and extraordinary which has been witnessed in the world since the declining days of the Roman empire? Because we would lower wheat from 56s. to 39s. a quarter; and thereby we have extinguished the profits of cultivation in a portion of our empire containing 8,000,000 of inhabitants, but so exclusively agricultural that its exports of manufactures are only £230,000 a-year. It is one principle--the cheapening system--devised by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy, and calculated for their exclusive benefit, which has done the whole.

Is there, then, no remedy for these various, accumulating, and most threatening evils? Must we sit down with our hands across, supinely witnessing the progressive dangers and certain ultimate destruction of the empire, merely because the measures inducing all these perils are supported by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy who have got the command of the House of Commons? We are far from thinking that this is the case; but if we would avert, or even mitigate our dangers, we must set ourselves first to remedy the most pressing. Of these, the most serious, beyond all question, are to be found in our unprotected state,--for they may destroy us as a nation in a month, after some fresh freak of Lord Palmerston's has embroiled us with some of the great European powers. In regard to other matters, and the general commercial policy, the danger, though not the less real, is not so immediate, and experience may perhaps enlighten the country before it is too late. But it is otherwise with our external dangers: they are instant and terrible. The means of resisting them are perfectly simple--they will be felt as a burden by none; on the contrary, they are calculated, at the same time that they provide for our national defence, to mitigate the greater part of the domestic evils under which the people labour.

Government tell us that they have a surplus of L.3,000,000 this year in their hands. We hope it is so, and that it will not prove, like other surpluses, greater on paper than in reality. But let it be assumed that it is as large as is represented. _That surplus, judiciously applied, would save the country!_ It would raise our armaments to such a point as, with the advantages of our insular situation, and long-established warlike fame, would prevent all thoughts of invasion on the part of our enemies. It would give us 100,000 regular troops, with those we already have--100,000 militia, occasionally called out--and 25 ships of the line, with those already in commission, to defend the British shores. It is true, the continuance of the Income Tax cannot be relied on--nor should the country submit to it any longer; for a tax which is paid exclusively by 147,000 persons out of 28,000,000, is so obviously unjust, that its further retention is probably impossible. Additional direct taxation upon the affluent classes is obviously out of the question, for the chasms made in the incomes of those depending on land, who pay three-fourths of it, are such that it would prove totally unproductive. What, then, is to be done to uphold the public revenue at its present amount, or even prevent its sinking so as to increase instead of diminishing our helpless and unprotected state? An obvious expedient remains. Imitate the conduct of America and Prussia, France and Russia, and all countries who have any regard either to their national independence, or the social welfare of their inhabitants. Lay a moderate duty upon all importations, whether of rude or manufactured articles. In America it is 30 per cent, and constitutes nearly their sole source of revenue: in Prussia it is practically 40 or 50 per cent. By this means nearly _half the tax is paid by foreigners_--for competition forces them to sell the articles taxed cheaper than their ordinary price, with the addition of the tax. It is spread over so vast a surface among consumers, that its weight is not felt; being mixed up with the price of the article sold, its weight is not perceived. We pay in this way half the taxes of America, Germany, and all the countries to whom we chiefly export our manufactures. Let us return them the compliment, and adopt a system which will make them pay the half of ours. The whole, or nearly the whole, of the Income Tax, which now produces L.5,400,000 a-year, would by this change be spent in increased purchases in the home market, and sensibly relieve its sinking state. This change would at once obviate our external dangers--for it would enable Government, without sensibly burdening the country, to maintain the national armaments on such a scale as to bid defiance to foreign attack. We shall see in our succeeding paper whether it would not, at the same time, be an effectual remedy, and the only one that would be practicable, to the most serious part of our domestic evils.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] "We have now lying before us both the printed and manuscript copy of the petition of a valued friend (the late Rev. W. Howells, of Long Acre) against the bill for granting to Roman Catholics the privilege of paralysing the hands and obstructing the labour of Protestant statesmen. At page 92, in the Memoirs of that eminent man, published by his friend and executor, Mr Bowdler, our readers will find that petition speaking with little less than prophetic voice of the confusion and misery certain to follow a measure which every Protestant, in proportion to the clearness of his views of Divine truth, must consider a downright infraction of his allegiance to his God.

"We quote three of the clauses in the petition alluded to, and we ask whether the fears therein expressed have not been fulfilled to the very letter:--

"'That the concession of the elective franchise has not only multiplied the crimes and aggravated the miseries of Ireland, but shaken likewise the very foundation of the glorious British constitution, the majority of Irish votes being virtually at the disposal of a demoralising, disloyal, turbulent, and traitorous priesthood.

"'That the concession of the representative franchise would be productive of further and progressive evils, and enable Romanists either to prosecute a successful crusade for supremacy, or involve the country in all the horrors of a civil war.

"'That the grant of the representative franchise would soon introduce into the British Senate such an influx of members from each side the Channel, as would, by voting together on all occasions of emergency, control your honourable house and the other estates of the realm, DICTATE TO THE MINISTERS OF THE CROWN, AND FORCE THEM INTO ANY MEASURES they pleased.'"

* * * * *

"LORD ELDON'S PREDICTIONS IN 1829, ON THE THIRD READING OF THE
ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL.

"The following predictions of this venerable nobleman were at the time sneered at as the senile and effete expressions of a bigoted octogenarian. What a lesson has he left to those who now hold the rudder of the state in their hands!--

"'I know that, sooner or later, this bill will overturn the aristocracy and the monarchy. What I have stated is my notion of the danger to the Establishment. Have they not Roman Catholic archbishops for every Protestant archbishop--Roman Catholic deans for every Protestant dean? Did not the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics dispute against Henry VIII. in defence of the power of the Pope? and in Mary's time were not the laws affecting the Roman Catholics repealed, not by the authority of Parliament, but through the influence of the Pope's legate? And even though you suppress these Roman Catholics who utter these seditious, treasonable, abominable, and detestable speeches, others will arise who will utter speeches more treasonable, more abominable, and more detestable. No sincere Roman Catholic could or did look for less than a Roman Catholic king and a Roman Catholic parliament. Their lordships might flatter themselves that the dangers he had anticipated were visionary, and God forbid that he should say, that those who voted for the third reading of the bill will not have done so conscientiously, believing that no danger exists or can be apprehended from it. But in so voting, they had not that knowledge of the danger in which they were placing the great, the paramount interests of this Protestant state,--they had not that knowledge of its true interests and situation, which they ought to have. Those with whom we are dealing are too wary to apprise you by any indiscreet conduct of the danger to which you are exposed. When those dangers shall have arrived, I shall have been consigned to the urn, the sepulchre, and mortality; but that they will arrive, I have no more doubt than that I yet continue to exist.'"--_Bell's Life in London_, Dec. 21, 1850.

[4] Sidney Smith.

[5] JAMES'S _Naval History_, vol. i., Appendix.

[6] See _Saxe Gotha Almanac_, 1851, p. 415, 461.

[7] _Almanach de Gotha_, 1851, 466.

[8] ADMIRAL BOWLES' Pamphlet, 1840--_Suggestions for the more speedy Equipment and better Manning of her Majesty's Navy_.

[9] The Author is in possession of M. de Bouillé's memoir to Louis XVI., on this subject, in 1782, which is identically the same as Napoleon afterwards put in execution. He owes this valuable historical document to the kindness of his esteemed friend, Admiral Sir George Seymour, who got it in the West Indies, whither a copy of it had been sent.

[10] PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, p. 138, 2d. edition.

[11] "The official returns of the importations of grain, &c., into the United Kingdom have not yet been completed; but for the eleven months ending 5th of December 1850, the quantities were--

Wheat, 3,453,876 qrs.
Barley, 994,754 ...
Oats, 1,145,705 ...
Rye, 94,078 ...
Beans, 418,258 ...
Pease, 167,633 ...
Maize, 1,240,075 ...
Flour, 3,286,749 cwts.
---------
In 11 months 8,610,295

Which is at the rate, with prices at 39s. 9d., of 9,500,000 quarters a-year."--_Morning Post_, Jan. 7, 1851.

[12] LONDON, WEEK ENDING JULY 12, 1850.

ARRIVALS.

Wheat. Barley. Oats. Malt.
English, 1,990 50 580 ...
Irish, ... ... ... ...
Foreign, 14,810 10,040 18,110 ...
Flour, English, 3,140 sacks.

--_Times_, July 17.

[13] Captain Larcom's Report. We quote from memory; but the above figures are near the truth.

[14] _Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1851, p. 399, note.

[15]

1849. 1850.
Emigrants from Liverpool, 152,860 174,427

[16] £100,000,000 in quarters of wheat at 80s., 25,000,000 quarters; £50,000,000 in quarters of wheat at 40s., 25,000,000. So that, after all our boasted reductions, our taxes are now _thirty per cent_ heavier than they were in the heaviest year of the war, when they were only £72,000,000.

[17] See a most admirable pamphlet by Mr Stanley, the worthy inheritor of his father's genius and patriotic spirit. The slaves imported into Cuba have increased since 1847 from 23,000 to 50,000.

CURRAN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.[18]

A noble land lies in desolation. Years pass over it, leaving its aspect only more desolate; the barbarian takes possession of the soil, or the outcast makes it his place of refuge. Its palaces are in ruins, its chieftains are in the dust; its past triumphs are regarded as the exaggerations of romance, or the fond fantasies of fable. At length a man of intelligence and vigour comes, delves into the heart of the soil, breaks up the mound, throws aside the wrecks of neglect and time, opens to us the foundations of palaces, the treasure-chambers of kings, the trophies of warriors, and gives the world the memorials of a great people in the grave.

All analogy _must_ be imperfect in detail; and we have no desire to insist on the perfection of our analogy between the Golden Head of the East, and the little kingdom whose fallen honours are recorded in the volume before us. But, if Ireland is even now neither the _nominis umbra_ which the Assyrian empire has been for so many ages, nor the Irish legislature the heir of the fierce and falcon-eyed council which sleeps in the sepulchres of Nineveh, there is something of a curious relationship in the adventurous industry which has so lately exhumed the monuments of Eastern grandeur, and the patriotic reminiscence which has retrieved the true glories of the sister country, the examples of her genius, from an oblivion alike resulting from the misfortunes of the Land and the lapse of Time.

Nor are we altogether inclined to admit the inferiority of the moral catastrophe of the Island to the physical fall of the Empire. If there be an inferiority, we should place it on the side of the Oriental throne. To us, all that belongs to mind assumes the higher rank; the soil trodden by the philosopher and the patriot, the birthplace of the poet and the orator, bears a prouder aspect, is entitled to a more reverent homage, and creates richer recollections in the coming periods of mankind, than all the pomp of unintellectual power. There would be to us a stronger claim in the fragments of an Athenian tomb, or in the thicket-covered wall of a temple in the Ægean, than in all the grandeurs of Babylon.

It is now fifty years since the parliament of Ireland fell; and, in that period, there has not been a more disturbed, helpless, and hopeless country than Ireland, on the face of the earth. Nor has this calamity been confined to the lower orders; every order has been similarly convulsed. The higher professions have languished and lost their lustre; the Church has been exposed to a struggle for life; the nobility have given up the useless resistance to difficulties increasing round them from hour to hour; the landed interest is supplicating the Court of Encumbered Estates to relieve it from its burthens; the farmers are hurrying, in huge streams of fugitives, from a land in which they can no longer live; and the tillers of the ground, the serfs of the spade, are left to the dangerous teaching of an angry priesthood, or to the death of mingled famine and pestilence. A cloud, which seems to stoop lower day by day, and through which no ray can pierce, at once chills and darkens Ireland.

The author of this important and interesting volume, in a brief preface, states his object as being that of giving personal sketches of the leading Irish characters of his time, exactly as they appeared on the scenes of professional and public life--most of them being his acquaintance, some his intimates. He concludes by gracefully expressing his "hope, that the reader will rejoice in a more intimate acquaintance with them; and that, in endeavouring to _elevate the land of his birth_, he may make some return for the kindness bestowed on him by that of his adoption."

Here two objects are announced; and, whether the _first_ was the elevation of his country by the characters of its eminent men; or, whether the country was the background for the figures of the national history-piece, he has given us a work which brings the patriots and orators of Ireland with singular force before the eye.

His introduction to Curran was sufficiently characteristic. When at the Temple, he had written a poem on the honours of his country, in which the great orator of her Bar was named with due admiration. The popularity of the verses excited the attention of their object, and the young barrister received an invitation to dine with Curran, then Master of the Rolls, at the Priory, his villa, a few miles from Dublin. The appointed hour was five, and it was a matter of importance to be punctual; for beyond that hour dinner was to wait for no man. His first view of his host is graphically described. He found him in his avenue.

"There he was; as a thousand times afterwards I saw him, in a dress
which you would imagine he had borrowed from his tipstaff; his
hands in his sides, his face almost parallel with the horizon--his
under lip protruded, and the impatient step and the eternal
attitude, only varied by the pause in which his eye glanced from
his guest to his watch, and from his watch reproachfully to his
dining-room."

However, it appears that the ominous hour had not struck, and they dined.

"I had often seen Curran, often heard of him, often read him,
but no man ever _knew_ anything about him who did not see him
at his own table, with the few whom he selected.... It was said
of Swift, that his rule was, to allow a minute's pause after he
had concluded, and then if no person took up the conversation
to recommence. Curran had no conversational _rule_ whatever:
he spoke from impulse, and he had the art so to draw you into
a conversation, that, though you felt an inferiority, it was a
contented one. Indeed, nothing could exceed the urbanity of his
demeanour."

If this description _could_ be doubted, on the authority of the volume, it would be amply confirmed by the authority of his time. Curran was confessedly _the_ wit of the day, and his witticisms were the more popular from their being, in general, harmless. No man could sting more keenly where he had a public culprit of his own class to sting, or a political adversary to combat; but no man was seldomer personal.

Curran's nature was playful. His taste was also _dramatic_, and he was fond of playing harmless tricks upon his friends. Of this taste Mr Phillips had a specimen, even on the day of his introduction:--

"When the last dish had departed, Curran totally confounded me with
a proposal for which I was anything but prepared. 'Mr Phillips,'
said he, 'as this is the first of, I hope, your very many visits
to the Priory, I may as well at once initiate you into the
peculiarities of the place. You may observe that, though the board
is cleared, there are no preparations for a _symposium_; it all
depends on _you_. My friends here generally prefer a _walk_ after
dinner. It is a sweet evening, but if _you_ wish for wine, say so
without ceremony.'

"Even now I can see Curran's star-like eyes twinkling at the
disappointment no doubt visible in mine. I had heard, and heard
truly, that he never was more delightful than with half-a-dozen
friends after dinner over his bottle. The hope in which I had so
long revelled was realised at last, and here came this infernal
_walk_, and the 'sweet evening.' Oh, how I would have hailed a
thunderstorm! But, to say the truth, the sun was shining, and the
birds were singing, and the flowers were blooming and breathing so
sweetly on that autumn eve, that, wondering not at the wish of my
companions, I also voted for 'the walk.'

"We took the walk, no doubt, but it was only to the _drawing-room_;
where, over a dessert freshly culled from his gardens, and over
wines for which his board was celebrated, we passed those hours
which seemed an era in my life."

All this is very well told, and very amusing in description, and was very innocent--when all was over. But it was exposed to the chance of being differently taken, and had but one advantage--that it could not be repeated on the _individual_.

Curran was born in 1760 at Newmarket, a village in the county of Cork. His parentage was humble, his father being only the seneschal of the manor. His mother seems to have been a woman of superior faculties, and her celebrated son always spoke of her with remarkable deference.

As it was a custom, among the oddities of Ireland, to teach Greek and Latin to boys who probably were to spend the rest of their lives at the spade, Curran had what in Ireland was called a classical education, but which his natural talent turned to better account than one in a million of those half-naked classicists. It enriched his metaphors in after life, and enabled him to talk of the raptures of antiquity. In the Irish University, he shared the fate of other celebrated men. Swift, Burke, and Goldsmith made no figure in their academic course. We certainly do not mention this failure to their praise, nor would they themselves have ever so mentioned it. We can easily conceive, that in their palmiest days they regretted their waste of time, or want of industry. Still, they may have found their palliative in the ungenial nature of the collegiate studies in their day. We should observe, that those studies have since been more advantageously adapted to the national necessity, and are of a much more general and popular description.

But in the last century, the whole _bent_ of the collegiate education was mathematical: the only road to distinction was Euclid. The value of mathematics is unquestionable. As a science, it holds its head among the highest; but as a national education, it is among the most useless. The mind made for mathematical distinction is as rare as the mind made for poetic pre-eminence. One might as well make poetry a requisite, in a national education, as the mastery of mathematics. The plea that they invigorate the reason is contradicted by perpetual experience. Some of the feeblest, and even the most fanciful, and of course the silliest, managers of great principles, have been mathematicians of celebrity. Napoleon said of Laplace, the first mathematician of his day, to whom he gave a title and a seat in his Council of State, on the strength of his scientific renown, that "he could do nothing with him,--that as a public man he was useless--that his mind was full of his _infinite littles_." And this is the history of nearly all mathematical minds: beyond their diagrams, they are among the dullest, most circumscribed, and most incapable of mankind. The mind of a Newton is not to be ranged in this class of elaborate mediocrity: he was not the mole, whose merit consists in seeing his way in the dark by an organ which is blind in the broad light of nature; he was an eagle, and could dare the full effulgence of the sun. But this meagre and inapplicable acquirement was the chosen prize for the whole young mind of educated Ireland; her mathematical crutch was the only instrument of progress for all the salient spirits of a nation abounding in the most aspiring faculties of man, and the quiet drudge who burrowed his way through Cubics and Surds, or could keep himself awake over the reveries of the _Meditationes Analyticæ_, was the Coryphæus of the College; while men passed along unnoted, who were in future years to embody the national renown.

As Curran's determination was the Irish Bar, he of course made the customary visit to the English Inns of Court. Here, though his finances compelled him to live in solitude, he contrived to amuse himself by that study of which in life he was so great a master--the study of character. Some of his letters from London are curious indications of this early tendency of his mind. Curran was by nature a Tory. _All_ men of genius are Tories, until they get angry with the world, or get corrupt, and sell themselves to Whiggism; or get disgusted, and think that both parties are equally worthless.

"Here," says Curran, "every coal-porter is a politician, and vends
his maxims in public with all the importance of a man who thinks he
is exerting himself for the public service. He claims the privilege
of looking as wise as possible, and of talking as loud; of damning
the Ministry, and abusing the King, with less reserve than he
would his equal. Yet, little as those poor people _understand the
liberty_ they so warmly contend for, or of the _measures_ they rail
against, it reconciles me to their _absurdity_, by considering that
they are happy, at so small an expense as being _ridiculous_."

This feeling was too true ever to have been changed. The _language_ was changed, and no tongue could pour out more showy declamation on the multitude; but, when loosed from the handcuffs of party, no man laughed more loudly, or sneered more contemptuously, at the squalid idol to which he had so long bowed the knee.

Another fragment has its value in the illustration of his kindness of heart:--

"A portion of my time I have set apart every day for _thinking
of my absent friends_. Though this is a duty that does not give
much trouble to many, I have been obliged to confine it, or
endeavour to confine it, within proper bounds. I have therefore
made a resolution to avoid any reflections of this sort except in
their allotted season, immediately after dinner. I am then in a
tranquil, happy humour, and I increase that happiness by presenting
to my fancy those I love, in the most advantageous point of view.
So that, however severely I treat them when they intrude in the
morning, I make them ample amends in the evening. I then assure
myself that they are twice as agreeable, and as wise and as good,
as they really are."

Whether the author of _Tristram Shandy_ would have been a great orator, if he had begun his career at the Bar, may be a question; but that Curran could have written admirable _Shandian_ chapters can scarcely be doubted by those who have observed the exquisite turns of his speeches from grave to gay; or perhaps even those who now read the few words which conclude the story of Dr du Gavreau. This man was one of his casual acquaintances, a French fugitive, who ran away with a Parisian woman of a different faith. Whether they married or not is dexterously veiled. The woman died, leaving a daughter; but, whether married or not, their child would have been illegitimate by the existing laws of France. The widower had often been pressed by his friends to return to France, but he determined never to return, where his child would be stigmatised.

"I did not know the particulars," says Curran, "till a few days
since, when I breakfasted with him. He had taken his little child
on his knee, and, after trifling with her for a few moments,
burst into tears. Such an emotion could not but excite, as well
as justify, some share of curiosity. The poor Doctor looked as
if he were conscious I felt for him, and his heart was too full
to conceal his affliction. He kissed his little '_orphan_,' as
he called her, and then endeavoured to acquaint me with the
lamentable detail. It was the hardest story in the world to be
told by a man of delicacy. He felt all the difficulties of it: he
had many things to palliate, some that wanted to be justified; he
seemed fully sensible of this, yet checked himself when he slided
into anything like defence. I could perceive the conflict shifting
the colours of his cheek, and I could not but pity him, and admire
him for such an embarrassment. Yet, notwithstanding all this, he
sometimes assumed all the gaiety of a Frenchman, and is a very
entertaining fellow."

In all these breaks of the story, and touches of feeling, who but must recognise the spirit of Sterne?

The volume is a grave volume, and treats of high things with equal grace and gravity; but Curran was an eccentric being, and his true history must always be mingled with the comic.

"I have got acquainted," he says, "with a Miss Hume, who is also
an original in her way. She is a relation of the celebrated David
Hume, and, I suppose on the strength of her kindred, sets up for
a politician as well as a _sceptic_. She has heard his Essays
recommended, and shows her own discernment, by pronouncing them
_unanswerable_, and talks of the famous Burke by the familiar
appellation of _Ned_. Then she is _so_ romantic, _so_ sentimental!
Nothing for _her_ but goats and purling streams, and piping
shepherds. And, to crown all, it sings like a nightingale. As
I have not the best command of my muscles, I always propose
putting out the candles _before_ the song begins, for the greater
romanticality of the thing."

Then, as to his relaxations--

"You will perhaps be at a loss to guess what kind of amusement I
allow myself: why, I'll tell you. I spend a couple of hours every
night at a coffee-house, where I am not a little entertained with
a group of old politicians, who meet in order to debate on the
reports of the day, or to invent some for the next, _with the
other business_ of the nation! Though I don't know that society
is the characteristic of this people, yet politics are a certain
introduction to the closest intimacy of coffee-house acquaintance.
I also visit a variety of ordinaries and eating houses, and they
are equally fertile in game for a character-hunter. I think I have
found out the cellar where Roderick Random ate shin of beef for
threepence, and have actually drunk out of the identical quart
which the drummer squeezed together when poor Strap spilt the broth
on his legs."

He visited Hampton Court, and though he seems to have passed through its solemn halls and stately galleries without peculiar remark, he seized on his _game_ of living character.