own manufactures; because such an exportation would be the only way by which we could pay foreign countries for what they would send to us. Even if, from the obstinacy of France, we should be obliged to send bullion to pay for her wines, the only effect would be, that we should have to send our cottons or hardware or woollens to America to obtain this bullion; so that for every 100l. worth of wine imported from France, we should send, either to France or some other country, value to the same amount of our own produce; and our merchants who carried on this new traffic, would have the profits of it, in addition to the profits which they now make. If all these duties were diminished, so that one half should cease in three years, and the other half in five years from this time, all who are now engaged in any business which might suffer by the competition with foreign goods, would have ample time to withdraw their capital from it, and invest it in some new employment. As we were the first to begin the system of excluding foreign manufactures, we must also be the first to get rid of it, in order to induce other countries again to follow our example. Without this, we cannot reasonably expect that they should move—and it is a step which we may take, not only in safety and without loss, but one which will redound greatly to our advantage, even if it should not be the object of immediate imitation. Should trade, and the spirit of industry, be thus freed from its shackles, at home and abroad, we have no doubt that our national capital would speedily make such advances, as not only to afford a surplus of more than five millions beyond our expenditure, but, if the peace continued but a few years, to admit of our making a great effort of taxation to render the Sinking Fund equal to the liquidation of a very considerable portion of the debt. Such an effort should never be lost sight of, and ought most certainly to be made, whenever circumstances will allow it; for, let the general prosperity of the country be what it may, our present enormous debt must be very much reduced, in order to place us in a state of security from financial embarrassments, and to enable us to engage in any war which our honour or our interest may render unavoidable.

Before leaving the subject of the Public Revenue, we have a word to say on two very important matters respecting it. The expense of collection in 1818 was 4,300,000l. The gross revenue, after deducting drawbacks and allowances, was 58 millions. The expense of collecting, therefore, was, and still is, something more than 7 per cent. That this That this may be very greatly reduced, is we believe the decided opinion of all who have ever examined a revenue establishment at any of the public offices. The num

ber of persons employed in the Revenue was stated by Mr Rose to be about 8000; and to these must be added the Irish officers, probably 2000 more. Perplexed accounts; complicated processes for transacting business; a multitude of contradictory laws; numerous boards; sinecure employments; excessive salaries; extravagant incidents and expenses,-are some few of the causes of this profuse expenditure: If it were possible to reduce it to 5 per cent. on the gross receipt of the Revenue, the saving to the public would be greatly above a million.

The last topic we have to notice concerning the Public Income, is the Revenue of Ireland. At present, it yields to the Exchequer only 4,500,000l.: And the whole annual expense of Ireland, including the charge on her debt, is 6,500,000l. The two millions of deficit are paid by England-a burthen which is the natural result of the Policy which has led her to govern Ireland for the last twenty-five years by a standing army. Now, since Ireland is equal in size, and superior in fertility to half of England and Wales, and has a population exceeding six millions of inhabitants; and as her taxes are nearly the same as those of England, -if all those measures were adopted which are wanting to conciliate the people, and to establish an efficient civil power in that country, so that there might be security to persons and property, the capital of England would naturally flow out in that direction, and these taxes would give a much greater revenue than they have ever yet afforded. In Great Britain, the taxes amount to about 31. 10s. a head; in Ireland, to 15s.: But, if every thing were done that ought to be done, to attach the people to the laws, and to promote order and tranquillity in the interior, Ireland might pay 30s. a head, and be a richer and a happier country than she is at present. At this low rate, in comparison with the rate of Great Britain, Ireland would assist the general income of the United Kingdom with an additional revenue of nearly five millions a year. If, therefore, there should exist no better reason for acting justly and wisely towards her, than the profit which would be derived from such a course, this should be sufficient, in the present state of things, to induce the Cabinet to set at work, in good earnest, to render her great resources as available as they might be made to the financial interests of England.

In holding out any probability of future financial prosperity, we are anxious to have it distinctly understood upon what grounds we do so. Mr Vansittart stated, in his published Speech of last Session, that the resolutions he then proposed, contained a permanent and systematic view of what might be considered the Peace Establishment of the country. Now, we do not hesitate

to say, that, if Parliament and the country rest satisfied with this plan, bankruptcy and disaster can be at no great distance. The first war that occurs, will find the country with a capital depressed by the taxes which directly obstruct industry; with a revenue scarcely able to pay the dividends on its debt; and with its debt, not only undiminished, but in all probability augmented. To save us from such a condition, we are very firmly of opinion, that all the measures which we have suggested are absolutely indispensable. Nor would there be found any real difficulty in carrying them into execution. A government that would form its resolutions upon the plain exigencies of the public service, and not on the conveniences or the sufferings, the anticipated complaints, or the probable calumnies of individuals enjoying the emoluments or the patronage of office, would feel themselves strong in the support of all the honest part of the nation, and would soon have it in their power to confer far greater and more lasting benefits even on individuals, than any that can ever be at the disposal of those who are reduced to the miserable policy of governing by expedients. The abolition of all useless and sinecure offices; the cutting down of all salaries, pensions, and allowances; the sacrifice of patronage; the tenporary surrender even of revenue, and the resistance to old mercantile notions; are become indispensably necessary, by the probability of a want of means to pay the dividends, by the intolerable evils and sufferings that would result from such an occurrence, and by the certainty of our not being able to embark in any new war, however we may be insulted, unless we can, during peace, bring about a complete regeneration of our finances. We are placed in a situation which no longer admits of tempo-. rizing or half measures. All the old rules of finance have been set aside by the innovations of Mr Pitt, which gave to Government the unlimited command of the public purse. The effect of his innovations must now be counteracted by others of an opposite character;—and our only hopes of safety seem now to lie in those measures which will reform official extravagance, extinguish restrictive commercial legislation, and put down the every way ruinous system of governing a Free People by a Mili tary Police.

ART. III. Statistical Annals of the United States of America. By ADAM SEYBERT. 4to. Philadelphia, 1818.

THIS

HIS is a book of character, and authority; but it is a very large book; and therefore we think we shall do an accept

able service to our readers, by presenting them with a short epitome of its contents, observing the same order which has been chosen by the author. The whole, we conceive, will form a pretty complete picture of America, and teach us how to appretiate that country, either as a powerful enemy or a profitable friend. The first subject with which Mr Seybert begins, is the Population of the United States.

Population. As representatives and direct taxes are apportioned among the different States in proportion to their numbers, it is provided for in the American Constitution, that there shall be an actual enumération of the people every ten years. It is the duty of the marshals in each State to number the inhabitants of their respective districts: and a correct copy of the lists, containing the names of the persons returned, must be set up in a public place within each district, before they are transmitted to the Secretary of State :-they are then laid before Congress by the President. Under this act three census, or enumerations of the people, have been already laid before Congress-for the years 1790, 1800, and 1810. In the year 1790, the population of America was 3,921,326 persons, of whom 697,697 were sláves. In 1800, the numbers were 5,319,762, of which 896,849 were slaves. In 1810, the numbers were 7,239,903, of whom 1,191,364 were slaves; so that at the rate at which free population has proceeded between 1790 and 1810, it doubles itself, in the United States, in a very little more than 22 years. The slave population, according to its rate of proceeding in the same time, would be doubled in about 26 years. The increase of the slave population in this statement is owing to the importation of negroes between 1800 and 1808, especially in 1806 and 1807, from the expected prohibition against importation. The number of slaves was also increased by the acquisitions of territory in Louisiana, where they constituted nearly half the population. From 1801 to 1811, the inhabitants of Great Britain acquired an augmentation of 14 per cent.; the Americans, within the same period, were augmented 36 per cent.

Emigration seems to be of very little importance to the United States. In the year 1817, by far the most considerable year of emigration, there arrived in ten of the principal ports of America, from the Old World, 22,000 persons as passengers. The number of emigrants, from 1790 to 1810, is not supposed to have exceeded 6000 per annum. None of the separate States have been retrograde during these three enumerations, though some have been nearly stationary. The most remarkable increase is that of New York, which has risen from 340,120 in the year 1790, to 959,049 in the year 1810. The emigration from the Eastern to the West

In all

ern States is calculated at 60,000 persons per annum. the American enumerations, the males uniformly predominate in the proportion of about 100 to 92. We are better off in Great Britain and Ireland,-where the women were to the men, by the census of 1811, as 110 to 100. The density of population in the United States, is less than 4 persons to a square mile; that of Holland, in 1803, was 275 to the square mile; that of England and Wales, 169. So that the fifteen provinces, which formed the Union in 1810, would contain, if they were as thickly peopled as Holland, 135 millions souls.

The next head is that of Trade and Commerce.-In 1790, the Exports of the United States were above 19 millions dollars; in 1791, above 20 millions; in 1792, 26 millions; in 1793, 33 millions of dollars. Prior to 1795, there was no discrimination, in the American Treasury accounts, between the exportation of domestic, and the reexportation of foreign articles. In 1795, the aggregate value of the merchandise exported, was 67 millions dollars, of which the foreign produce reexported was 26 millions. In 1800, the total value of exports was 94 millions; in 1805, 101 millions; and in 1808, when they arrived at their maximum, 108 millions dollars. In the year 1809, from the effects of the French and English Orders in Council, the exports fell to 52 millions of dollars; in 1810, to 66 millions; in 1811, to 61 millions. In the first year of the war with England, to 38 millions; in the second to 27; in the year 1814, when peace was made, to 6 millions. So that the exports of the republic, in six years, had tumbled down from 108 to 6 millions of dollars: After the peace, in the years 1815-16-17, the exports rose to 52, 81, 87 millions dollars.

In 1817, the exportation of cotton was 85 millions pounds. In 1815, the sugar made on the banks of the Mississippi was 10 millions pounds. In 1792, when the wheat trade was at the maximum, a million and an half of bushels were exported. The proportions of the exports to Great Britain, Spain, France, Holland, and Portugal, on an average of 10 years ending 1812, are as 27, 16, 13, 12, and 7; the actual value of exports to the dominions of Great Britain, in the three years ending 1804, were consecutively, in millions of dollars, 16, 17, 13.

Imports. In 1791, the imports of the United States were 19 millions; on an average of three consecutive years, ending 1804 inclusive, they were 68 millions; in 1806-7, they were 138 millions; and in 1815, 133 millions of dollars. The annual value of the imports, on an average of three years ending 1804, was 75,000,000, of which the dominions of Great Britain furnished nearly one half. On an average of three years ending in 1804, America imported from Great Britain to the amount of about 36 mil