Is there not fome mistake at the beginning of p. 122, where the Author fays, taking leave of this beautiful retreat, &c.' -The place he had just been describing was Buxton, with Pool's hole, &c. to which the epithet ufed, as above, cannot, furely, with any propriety be applied, Buxton is in a most dreary fituation; and the wonderful cavern in its neighbourhood, which is faid to have received its name from its having been the haunt of one Pool, a robber, is rather tremendous than beautiful. G. ART. VI. The Rife, Progress and prefent State of the Northern Govern- IN N the prefent ftate of literature, there feems to be only two ways, in which a writer of hiftory can hope, in any confiderable degree, to engage the public attention: The first is, by relating original facts, which have occurred within his own obfervation and experience, or bringing to light important hiftorical materials, which had before lain unnoticed in manufcripts, or books little read; the fecond is, by digesting facts already known in a more perfpicuous and useful method, and relating them with higher embellishments of ftyle, than had been done by former writers. When an hiftorian offers himself to public notice in the firft of thefe claffes, and is capable of fupporting his pretenfions, he is fo important a benefactor to the public in the information which he communicates, that he may justly claim indulgence for any defects which may be found in his manner of writing: and his work will continue to be read, for the fake of the matter it contains, when other productions, the chief merit of which confifts in the drefs in which they appear, fhall be forgotten.. It is on this ground that the Author of the work now before us claims the public ear, and folicits indulgence to the inaccuracies or inelegancies which critics may discover in his ftyle. Juftice therefore requires that we make our Readers acquainted with the fources from which he has drawn his materials. In his account of the prefent ftate of Holland, Mr. Williams fays, "he is not indebted to any Author, but much to the late Monfieur Meerman, whofe candour and great knowledge were equal 4. The description was meant for Matlook; atransposition happended in the copy of the Sketchose! equal to his liberal and communicative difpofition. He received Information from fome of the members of the ftates of the different provinces, and of the admiralty, refpecting the marine and finances. In the ancient history of Denmark, Norway and Iceland, his principal guides were the hiftory of the Baron de Holberg; the notes of M. Gramm upon Meurfius; the chronicles of Iceland and Norway; the works of Saxon the grammarian, and the Chronicles of the Chancellor Huitfield. He made extracts from the different codes of laws, depofited in the King's library. Refpecting the present state of Denmark, he acknowledges himfelf much indebted to the late unfortunate Count Struenfee, through whofe intereft he had access to the public records, particularly thofe which regarded the finances and internal policy. For the ancient hiftory of Sweden he read with attention many Swedish, Danish, and German hiftorians. His accounts of the public revenues, trade, and internal policy of Sweden, are extracted from the public records at Stockholm. For the hiftory of Ruffia, he is chiefly indebted to Lomonoffow's hiftory of this country, written in German, and to fome manufcripts, in the fame language, to which he had accefs in the Kremelin at Moscow. Concerning its population and internal policy, he received intelligence from the late Chancellor, from Count Offermann, General Staffeln, and other members of the fenate. The accounts of trade and the finances, are extracts from the cuftomhoufe books at Petersburgh, and thofe of the college of finances. His authorities for the antient hiftory of Poland are the hiftories of Stanislas Sarnicius, John Krafinfki, Staniflas Kamkowski, Owalkowski, Kochowski, Paul Potocki, and Andrew Maximilian Fredro. In the modern part of this hiftory, he was affifted by the letters of the Chancellor Andrew Zalufki, of the Bishop Jofeph And. Zalufki, and by private information of the family of Potocki, and feveral other proteftant families in Poland." This exhibition of authorities naturally led us to form high expectations of meeting with a great variety of new facts; but we muft acknowledge that we have been a little difappointed in find ing, in this work, fo few original articles of curious and valuable information. The Author has indeed produced an ufeful collection of the principal hiftorical, political and commercial facts refpecting the feveral countries of which he treats; but he appears to us to have made no additions to the former ftock, worthy of the apparatus which he has fo laboriously displayed in his preface. The general plan of the work is as follows: respecting each of the countries of which he treats, namely the United Provinces, Denmark, Sweden, Ruffia and Poland, he relates the rife and progrcts of its political conftitution; explains its prefent form of government; defcribes its manners, cuftoms, and reli gion; gives a view of the state of its trade, manufactures, revenues and military force; and enquires into the caufes of its political revolutions. The following account of the trade of Holland, &c. we fele& as a fpecimen of what is to be expected from our Author on the fubject of commerce. This country was never famous for her manufactures, of which the inhabitants have not the one third of what are fufficient for their own confumption. The fine cloth of Leyden and Utrecht has always fupported its character; but lately, from the high price of labour in thefe towns, this cloth is become dearer, in proportion to its breadth, than the English fuperfine cloth, and the greatest part of it is expor ted for foreign markets, whilst all the common people, and the greateft part of their troops, are cloathed with the English manufactures from Yorkshire, and thofe of Aix la Chapelle and Vervier, The manufacture of paper is in a very flourishing state in Holland, of which they export great quantities into foreign parts, and with confiderable advantage. The Delpht porcelaine manufacture is very inconfiderable at prefent; these people likewife form a confiderable commerce with the linens of Cleves and Juliers, which are bleached at Haarlem, and fold as Dutch linens: indeed before the manufactures of linen in Ireland and Scotland were brought to the great perfectios that they are in at prefent, this branch of trade was very confiderable. The madder of Zealand, and of fome other parts of these provinces, is one of their most profitable articles of commerce; and, except what has been cultivated lately in England, they furnish all the foreign markets with it upon their own terms, and thereby it becomes a certain fource of wealth to the farmers and landholders of this country. The high price of provifions and of all the neceffaries of life will prevent the people from ever fucceeding in any great and extenfive manufactures, though the country is overstocked with inhabitants; fo that, in fo fmall an extent of territory as the Seven United Provinces, it is calculated that there are full 2,000,000 of people; but then, on the other hand, there are not provifions enough raised in this country for one quarter part of thofe people, and therefore the remainder must be imported, and fometimes at a great expence, from other ftates; befides the high duties and excifes which are laid upon the confumption of all the common neceffaries of life. The confumer thuft pay between fifty and fixty per cent. upon the prime coft, by different excifes and importation duties, for all the grain which is imported into this country to make bread, before he can eat this bread; and beef and mutton cannot be eaten in any part of the Seven Provinces before the confumer pays between one penny and three half-pence per pound to the excife: every other neceffary of life is taxed in proportion. Some years ago the Magiftrates of Amfterdam had agreed to lay a confiderable fax upon the potatoes that were imported into this city for confumption, thefe being the only articles that were confumed here on which there was not a confiderable tax; but it being reprefented to that venerable body, that potatoes were chiefly confumed by the poor people, Surely munch more! people, and become a confiderable part of their nourishment, and that there were 30,coo of this clafs of people in Amfterdam, who could not get above three livers a day, and were nourished by this root, and if a tax was laid upon potatoes they must farve, the magiftrates thought proper to delift from their defign, and potatoes are not taxed. The ancient by-laws and cultoms of the particular corporations in the Seven Provinces, and the reltraint that artizans and manufacturers are laid under by thefe, are a great check in regard to drawing ingenious foreigners among them, and to the increate and improvements of fuch arts and manufactures; and hence it is, that though Holland carries on fuch an immenfe commerce, he is fo much behind many other flates in the common improvements of the ufeful arts and manufactures. Again, the trade and riches of this ftate have been confiderably augmented by the Herring and Greenland fitheries, which not only employ a multitude of feamer, but furnish them with articles of com merce which are demanded in almost all the markets of Europe: they pickle and preferve their herrings in a manner infinitely fuperior to the Danes, Swedes, or Norwegians, and they are always fure of finding a market for them, even in the North, in preference to thofe of any other state. Nor is this branch of the fishing trade more beneficial or of greater public utility than the cod and turbot fishery upon the coafts of England and Scotland; all the inhabitants upon the fea coafts of Holland and Zealand are more or less concerned in this fishery; and upon a moderate calculation the city of London alone pays these people 130 pounds flerling every year, for the turbot, cod, plaice, &c. which they furnith here; what then must the whole fishery produce to them? The exclufive commerce which this people have of the Eaft India fpicery, and the regulations which they have made both in India and Europe relating to it, must likewife be a conflant fource of treasure, to them. As a brief account of thefe regulations will not be difagreeable to many of my readers, I will here ftate them. After the inhabitants of this fate had driven the Portuguese out of their fettlements, and by a feties of wars and victories against the natives, not only forced them into treaties of commerce, exclufive of all other nations, but to the admiflion of forts to be built upon fuch freights and paffes as command the entrance into the traffic of fuch places, they proceeded to fecure a monopoly of all the fpice trade on thofe feas, and to establish a power fufficient to fupport themselves in them against any other ftate in the world. This has been atchieved by the multitudes of their people, who have furnished out every year fuch a number of great fhips, and fupplied the lofs of fo many lives as the changes of climates have deltroyed before they learnt the method of living in thofe parts; and by the conduct of the East India company, who have raised a ftate in the East Indies, governed indeed by officers appointed by the Company, but appearing to thofe little nations in their neighbourhood like a fovereign ftate, making war and peace with their kings, and able to bring twenty or thirty men of war to fea, and 20,000 men by land into the field; fo that they keep. all thofe little princes in fubjection to them. + perhaps 1300 From From a long experience in this trade they have acquired a pretty exact knowledge of the quantity of each kind of fpice that will be neceflary for the confumption of the European markets; fo that their Eaft India company give particular orders, that no more shall be imported into Europe than is fufficient for fuch confumption; and if at their common fales it appears that any part of what was imported remains unfold, at the price they fix upon it, they order it to be burnt immediately; fo that the prices of thofe commodities are kept up to whatever height they fhall think proper, and no other power can enter into a competition with them in this branch of trade, nor into the trade of Japan, of which they have likewife a monopoly, and an exclufive treaty of commerce with the emperor. Thefe articles of commerce, and the herrings, befides what they produce in England, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Germany, make them great maflers of the trade in the northern parts of Europe, as Ruffia, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Dantzic, Pomerania, and all the Baltic; where the fpices in particular, though they are an Indian drug, are efteemed a great luxury, and cominand all the commodities of thofe countries, which are as neceffary to the inhabitants of thefe provinces, as their grain, their hemp, flax, iron, pitch, tar, mafts, planks, &c. As thefe people have no great colonies and fettlements in the Weft Indies, they have wifely eltablished a free port in thofe feas; not only as a magazine to fmuggle all kinds of European goods into the English, French, and Spanith fettlements, but for receiving all the fuperfluities of the produce of thefe colonies; from whence they are imported into Europe as the produce of their own little colonies. The low priced coffee, cocoa, cotton, and in fact all the productions of the West India iflande, as well as of Surinam, find their way into Amfterdam and Rotterdam, and from thence are fent into Weftphalia, and indeed into all the weltern parts of Germany, where they are fold to a confiderable advantage." Their trade to Turkey and the Levant feems at first fight to be confiderably against them; but when we confider that they carry there a confiderable quantity of their fine Leyden cloth, and import from thence chiefly the rough materials for the European manufactures, and very little for their own confumption, it will be feen that this branch of trade turns likewife confiderably to their advantage • They have ever carried on a great trade with England, and from the great balance in fpecie which has always been against them, it might be concluded, that they had been confiderable lofers by it: in the year 1700 we find that the exports from England to Holland were for 17659511. 1s. zd. and the imports from Holland were only 5270721. 6s. 2 d. So that the balance in favour of England was immenfe even in thofe days: in the year 1722, we find thefe exports amount to 21303901. 6s. 6d. when the imports were only 5510121. 7 s. 8d. In the year 1765 we find thefe exports 20267721. and the imports 4202731. and as they confifted chiefly of the natural productions and manufactures of England, mankind may be led to conclude, that the draining this country yearly of fuch immenfe fums in balance of trade muft inevitably ruin her. But they who would reafon in this manREV. Mar. 1778. ner |