House of Bourbon, has been feverely felt by England and the Maritime Powers. By reafon of the good understanding between those two Crowns, Spain has, contrary to all treaties of commerce respecting the navigation of the Weft Indies, indulged France in every refpect, and fuffered her to make un- warrantable establishments, to the prejudice of the commercial States.

Among other omiffions, our Hiftorian has flightly paffed over the affair of the Catalans, without any particular ftate of their cafe, any representation of their diftrefs, or account of the def perate refolution they took to defend themfelves, when abandoned by us. This was a fubject which would have admitted all the colouring which he is fo fond of lavishing upon almoft every occafion; but perhaps he thought thefe particulars would reflect too feverely on the conduct of the Tory Ministry, at that time.

In the last year of King William's reign; a reign particularly distinguished by many important events, the following particulars have escaped our Author.

He has taken no notice, I. *Of Whitacre's cafe. II. Of the confinement of Boffeli in the Baftile for attempting King William's life. III. Of the refufal of Portugal to acknowlege the pretended Prince of Wales. IV. Of the Convention figned with Sweden by the Earl of Marlborough, by which a pecuniary compenfation was given to that court in lieu of the fuccours they demanded. V. Of the memorable report of the Board of Trade. VI. Of the proceedings against Fuller, for libelling the laft Houfe of Commons. VII. Of the contest

ed

This Whitacre was Solicitor of the Admiralty, and was ordered into cuftody of the Serjeant of the Houfe of Commons, for taking infufficient bail for one Bolton, who was committed for a confederacy with Kid, and made his efcape; and the houfe ordered a committee to inspect into Whitacre's conduct. The committee, in their report, Jaid before the House a prefentment of the Grand Jury of Southampton against Whitacre, for corruption. Upon the circumftances of the cafe, the House refolved, that he had been guilty of several breaches of truft; ordered the Attorney General to profecute him; and refolved, that the office of Solicitor was unneceffary, and ought to be fuppreffed.

+ The circumftances of this conteft were very particular. The petitioning burgeffes, and Colonel Park, the candidate for that borough, were all taken into cuftody. This controverty was rendered

the

ed election at Malmsbury-with others lefs remarkable. — Hiftorians, above all other Writers, fhould remember Prior's maxim,

Authors, before they write, bould read.

This Writer feems, in many places, to be inconfiftent with himself, and to argue againft his own principles. At one time he appears the fanguine friend of liberty, and applauds all oppofition against the ftretches of prerogative; and yet, at another, he cenfures the refentment which the Parliament expreffed against fuch encroachments. Speaking of the Parliament's refufal to comply with King William's meflage, by which he defired the Dutch guards to be continued in his fervice, he obferves, that fuch an oppofition in an affair of very little confequence, favoured more of clownish obftinacy, than of patriotifin.' This obfervation does not only feem inconfiftent with his former reflections, but is in itfelf extremely unjuft. It must be remembered, that King William had ventured to maintain a greater number of troops than had been voted by Parliament, and they refolved to fhew their fense of such a violation of the conftitution, by fending all foreign troops out of the kingdom; which was fo far from being a clownish obstinacy, that, on the contrary, it was a laudable refentment, and truly patriotic. Befides, they obliged him to no more than he promised to do by his own declaration; and it was high time to challenge the performance of his word, when he made fuch ftretches of prerogative against the votes of Parliament: and though the affair might be in itself of little confequence, yet it was of great moment, when confidered as a precedent to pofterity.

Sometimes he appears to have fallen into palpable contradictions: he tells us, in his account of the rebellion in 1745, that the Papifts and Jacobites gave the court of Versailles to underftand, that if the Chevalier de St. George, or his eldest fon,

the more remarkable by the cenfure which the Houfe paffed on the Earl of Peterborough. That Nobleman having fallen under the difpleafure of the Houfe, for having interfered in the election in an unwarpantable manner, he defired to be heard in his justification, which was granted. But notwithstanding his endeavours to clear his conduct, it was refolved, that it appeared to the Houfe, that the Earl was guilty of many indirect practices, in endeavouring to procure the faid Park to be elected a burgefs.

Charles Edward, fhould appear at the head of a French army in Great Britain, a revolution would inftantly follow in his favour. This intimation,' fays he, was agreeable to Cardinal de Tencin, who had fucceeded Fleury as Prime Minister of France. He was of a violent enterprizing temper. He had been warmly recommended to the purple by the Chevalier de St. George, and was WARMLY attached to the Steuart family. • His ambition was flattered with a profpect of giving a King to • Great Britain, of performing fuch eminent service to his be• nefactor, and of restoring to the throne of their ancestors, a fa⚫mily connected by the ties of blood with all the greatest Princes • in Europe. And yet a few pages after, he does not fcruple to fay, that the French Miniftry were never hearty in the Chevalier's caufe.'

But we wish he has not been guilty of fome wilful miftakes in his narrative of this rebellion. He has lavished all the powers of the Pathos, in laboured defcriptions of horror. He tells us, that after the decifive action at Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland advanced into the Highlands, and that every house, •hutt, or habitation, was plundered and burned without diftinc⚫tion. All the cattle and provifion were carried off; the men ❝ were either shot upon the mountains, like wild beafts, or put to death in cold blood, without form of trial; the women, af· ter having feen their husbands and fathers murdered, were fubjected to brutal violation, and then turned out naked, with their children, to ftarve on the barren heaths. One whole family was inclosed in a barn, and confumed to alhes. Those • minifters of vengeance were fo alert in the execution of their office, that in a few days there was neither house, cottage, man, nor beaft, to be seen in the compass of fifty miles; all was ruin, filence, and defolation."

*

It is not in our power to prove a negative, but we have at leaft a right to expect the fanction of fome authority for fuch injurious affertions; but the Reader may readily determine the Writer's country, not only from his exaggerated account of the methods used to extinguish this rebellion; but likewife from his relation of the maffacre of Glencoe, and from his remarks on the union. On this occafion we cannot but recollect the words of Martial, Nec malus eft cives, nec bonus hiftoricus.

* It is obfervable, that the Author has not thought proper to produce one fingle authority for his hiftory from the commencement of his prefent Majefty's reign; and we think it is too great a stretch of prefumption for a Writer in a private ftation, who has no particular opportunities of information, to expect credit on his own fingle teftimony.

3

In defcribing characters, which is fuppofed to be this Writer's great excellence, he appears to have taken fancy, rather than truth, for his guide. He has made quibbling diftinctions, without differences; and amufed us with a jingling of words, without any decifive meaning. Of Queen Mary he fays,

Mary was in her perfon tall, and well proportioned, with an oval vifage, lively eyes, agreeable features, a mild aspect, and an air of dignity. Her apprehenfion was clear, her memory tenacious, and her judgment folid. She was a zealous • Proteftant, fcrupulously exact in all the duties of devotion, of an even temper, of a calm and mild converfation. She was ruffled by no paffion, and feems to have been a stranger to the • emotions of natural affection; for fhe afcended, without compunction, the throne from which her father had been deposed, and treated her fifter as an alien to her blood. In a word, Mary feems to have imbibed the cold difpofition and apathy of her husband; and to have centered all her ambition in desetting the epithet of an humble and obedient wife."

It is a moft unjust and cruel reflection to affirm, that fhe was a ftranger to the emotions of natural affection; a reflection which is not warranted by any circumftance related in the course of his hiftory. That she felt these emotions, is evident from her great anxiety and folicitude for the fate of her father, at the time of her tegency, when he was obliged to make vigorous preparations against him, by the duty which fhe owed to her husband and to her country. Candor would have taught our Historian, that the wife of fuch an ambitious and refolute Sovereign as King William, muft neceffarily act by constraint, and not by choice. Her good fenfe and prudence, doubtlefs fuggefted, that obedience to the will of her husband, was the only expedient to make her life eafy; and in her behaviour towards her father and her fifter, fhe may be fuppofed to have rather followed his dictates than her own inclinations.

His character of William III. he is not lefs inaccurate and injurious.

William III. was in his perfon of the middle ftature, a thin body and delicate conftitution, fubject to an asthma and continual cough from his infancy. He had an aquiline nose, fparkling eyes, a large forehead, and a grave folemn aspect. He was very fparing of speech: his converfation was dry, and his manner difgufting, except in battle, when his deportment was free, fpirited, and animating. In courage, fortitude, and equanimity, he rivalled the most eminent warriors of antiquity; and his natural fagacity made amends for the defects

• in his education, which had not been properly fuperintended.
He was religious, temperate, generally just and fincere, a
⚫ftranger to violent tranfports of paffion, and might have paffed
⚫ for one of the best Princes of the age in which he lived, had
⚫ he never ascended the throne of Great Britain. But, the dif-
⚫tinguishing criterion of his character was ambition. To this
he facrificed the punctilios of honour and decorum, in depofing
his own father-in-law, and uncle; and this he gratified at the
⚫ expence of the nation that raised him to fovereign authority.
He afpired to the honour of acting as umpire in all the contents
of Europe; and the fecond object of his attention was, the
⚫ profperity of that country to which he owed his birth and ex-
traction. Whether he really thought the interests of the con-
tinent and Great Britain were infeparable, or fought only to
drag England into the confederacy, as a convenient ally, cer-
tain it is, he involved thefe kingdoms in foreign connections,
which, in all probability, will be productive of their ruin.
In order to establish this favourite point, he fcrupled not to
⚫ employ all the engines of corruption, by which the morals of
the nation were totally debauched. He procured a parlia-
mentary fanction for a standing army, which now feems to be
interwoven in the conftitution. He introduced the pernicious
practice of borrowing upon remote funds; an expedient that
neceffarily hatched a brood of ufurers, brokers, and flock-
jobbers, to prey upon the vitals of their country. He entailed
upon the nation a growing debt, and a fyftem of politics big
with mifery, despair, and destruction. To fum up his cha-
❝racter in a few words: William was a fatalist in religion, in-
defatigable in war, enterprizing in politics, dead to all the
warm and generous emotions of the human heart, a cold re-
lation, an indifferent husband, a difagreeable man, an ungra-
⚫cious Prince, and an imperious Sovereign.

This character is, in many refpects, falfified by the circum-
ftances of King William's life, as related by our Hiftorian, and
is an affemblage of contrarieties which scarce ever met together
but in the Author's imagination.

He allows William to have been religious, generally juft, and fincere; and yet (fpeaking of the partition treaty) he fays, Lewis knew that William was too much of a politician to be reftricted by notions of private juftice; and that he would make no fcruple to infringe the laws of particular countries, or even the rights of a fingle nation, when the balance of power was at ftake. He judged right in this particular: the King of England lent a willing ear to his propofals, and engaged in a plan for difmembering a kingdom, in defpite of the natives, and in violation of every law human or divine.'

Now