government to be that of a pretty pure and unincumbered Monarchy, supported by a vast revenue and a powerful army, and obeyed by a people just enlightened enough to be orderly and industrious, but noway curious as to questions of right-and never presuming to judge of the conduct of their superiors.

Now, it is quite true that this Party dislikes America, and is apt enough to decry and insult her. Its adherents never have forgiven the success of her war of independence-the loss of a nominal sovereignty, or perhaps of a real power of vexing and oppressing-her supposed rivalry in trade-and, above all, the happiness and tranquillity which she enjoys under a republican form of government. Such a spectacle of democratical prosperity is unspeakably mortifying to their high monarchical principles, and is easily imagined to be dangerous to their security. Their first wish, and, for a time, their darling hope, was, that the infant States would quarrel among themselves, and be thankful to be again received under our protection, as a refuge from military despotism. Since that hope was lost, it would have satisfied them to find that their republican institutions had made them poor and turbulent and depraved-incapable of civil wisdom, regardless of national honour, and as intractable to their own elected rulers as they had been to their hereditary sovereign. To those who were capable of such wishes and such expectations, it is easy to conceive, that the happiness and good order of the United States-the wisdom and authority of their government-and the unparalleled rapidity of their progress in wealth, population and refinement, must have been but an ungrateful spectacle; and most especially, that the splendid and steady success of the freest and most popular form of government that ever was established in the world, must have struck the most lively alarm into the hearts of all those who were anxious to have it believed that the People could never interfere in politics but to their ruin, and that the smallest addition to the democratical influence, recognised in the theory at least of the British Constitution, must lead to the immediate destruction of peace and property, morality and religion.

That there are journals in this country, and journals too of great and deserved reputation in other respects, who have spoken the language of the party we have now described, and that in a tone of singular intemperance and offence, we most readily admit. But need we tell Mr W. or any ordinarily well inform ed individual of his countrymen, that neither this party nor their journalists can be allowed to stand for the People of England?-that it is notorious that there is among that people another and a far more numerous party, whose sentiments are

at all points opposed to those of the former, and who are, by necessary consequence, friends to America, and to all that Americans most value in their character and institutions?—who, as Englishmen, are more proud to have great and glorious nations descended from them, than to have discontented colonies uselessly subjected to their caprice-who, as Freemen, rejoice to see freedom spreading itself, with giant footsteps, over the fairest regions of the earth, and nations flourishing exactly in proportion as they are free--and to know that when the drivelling advocates of hierarchy and legitimacy vent their paltry sophistries with some shadow of plausibility on the history of the Old World, they can turn with decisive triumph, to the unequivocal example of the New-and demonstrate the unspeakable advantages of free government, by the unprecedented prosperity of America? Such persons, too, can be as little suspected of entertaining any jealousy of the commercial prosperity of the Americans as of their political freedom; since it requires but a very moderate share of understanding to see, that the advantages of trade must always be mutual and reciprocal-that one great trading country is of necessity the best customer to another-and that the trade of America, consisting chiefly in the exportation of raw produce and the importation of manufactured commodities, is, of all others, the most beneficial to a country like England.

That such sentiments were naturally to be expected in a country circumstanced like England, no thinking man will deny. But Mr Walsh has been himself among us, and was, we have reason to believe, no idle or incurious observer of our men and cities; and we appeal with confidence to him, whether these were not the prevailing sentiments among the intelligent and well educated of every degree! If he thinks as we do, as to their soundness and importance, he must also believe that they will sooner or later influence the conduct even of our Court and Cabinet. But, in the mean time, the fact is certain, that the opposite sentiments are confined to a very small portion of the people of Great Britain-though now placed unfortunately in a situation to exercise a great influence in her councils-and that the course of events, as well as the force of reason, is every day bringing them more and more into discredit. Where then, we would ask, is the justice or the policy of seeking to render a quarrel National, when the cause of quarrel is only with an inconsiderable and declining party of its members?-and why labour to excite animosity against a whole people, the majority of whom must be your sincere friends, merely because some prejudiced or interested persons among them have disgusted the great body of their own countrymen, by the senselessness and scurrility of their attacks upon yours?

The Americans are extremely mistaken, if they suppose that they are the only persons who are abused by the party that does abuse them. They have merely their share, along with all the friends and the advocates of Liberty in every part of the world. The Constitutionalists of France, including the King and many of his ministers, meet with no better treatment;-and those who hold liberal opinions in this country, are assailed with still greater acrimony and fierceness. Let Mr Walsh only look to the language held by our ministerial journals, for the last twelvemonth, on the subjects of Reform and Alarm-and observe in what way not only the whole class of reformers and conciliators, but the names and persons of such men as Lords Lansdowne, Grey, Fitzwilliam, and Erskine, Sir James Mackintosh, and Messrs Brougham, Lambton, Tierney, and others, are dealt with by these national oracles, and he will be satisfied that his countrymen neither stand alone in the misfortune of which he complains so bitterly, nor are subjected to it in 'very bad company. We, too, he may probably be aware, have had our portion of the abuse which he seems to think reserved for America-and, what is a little remarkable, for being too much her advocate. For what we have said of her present power and future greatness-her wisdom in peace and her valour in war-and of all the invaluable advantages of her representative system-her freedom from taxes, sinecures, and standing armies-we have been subjected to far more virulent attacks than any of which he now complains for his countryand that from the same party scribblers, with whom we are here, somewhat absurdly, confounded and supposed to be leagued. It is really, we think, some little presumption of our fairness, that the accusations against us should be thus contradictory— and that for one and the same set of writings, we should be denounced by the ultra-royalists of England as little better than American republicans, and by the ultra-patriots of America, as the jealous defamers of her Freedom.

This, however, is of very little consequence.

What we wish

to impress on Mr W. is, that they who traduce the largest and ablest part of the English nation, cannot well speak the sense of that nation--and that their offences ought not, in reason, to be imputed to her. If there be any reliance on the principles of human nature, the friends of liberty in England must rejoice in the prosperity of America. Every selfish, concurs with every generous motive, to add strength to this sympathy; and if any thing is certain in our late internal history, it is, that the friends of liberty are rapidly increasing among us;-partly from increased intelligence-partly from increased suffering and impatiencepartly from conviction, prudence, and fear.

There is another consideration, also arising from the aspect of the times before us, which should go far, we think, at the present moment, to strengthen these bonds of affinity. It is impossible to look to the state of the Old World without seeing, or rather feeling, that there is a greater and more momentous contest impending, than ever before agitated human society. In Germany in Spain-in France-in Italy, the principles of Reform and Liberty are visibly arraying themselves for a final struggle with the principles of Established Abuse,-Legitimacy, or Tyranny, or whatever else it is called, by its friends or enemies. Even in England, the more modified elements of the same principles are stirring and heaving, around, above and be neath us, with unprecedented agitation and terror; and every thing betokens an approaching crisis in the great European commonwealth, by the result of which the future character of its governments, and the structure and condition of its society, will in all probability be determined. The ultimate result, or the course of events that are to lead to it, we have not the presumption to predict. The struggle may be long or transitorysanguinary or bloodless; and it may end in a great and signal amelioration of all existing institutions, or in the establishment of one vast federation of military despots, domineering as usual in the midst of sensuality, barbarism, and gloom. The issues of all these things are in the hand of Providence and the womb of time; and no human eye can yet foresee the fashion of their accomplishment. But great changes are evidently preparing; and in fifty years-most probably in a far shorter time -some material alterations must have taken place in most of the established governments of Europe, and the rights of the European nations been established on a surer and more durable basis. Half a century cannot pass away in growing discontents on the part of the people, and growing fears and precautions on that of their rulers. Their pretensions must at last be put in issue; and abide the settlement of force, or fear or reason.

Looking back to what has already happened in the world, both recently and in antient times, we can scarcely doubt that the cause of Liberty will be ultimately triumphant. But through what trials and sufferings-what martyrdoms and persecutions it is doomed to work out its triumph-we profess ourselves totally unable to conjecture. The disunion of the lower and the higher classes, which was gradually disappearing with the increasing intelligence of the former, but has lately been renewed by circumstances which we cannot now stop to examine, leads, we must confess, to gloomy auguries as to the character of this contest; and fills us with apprehensions, that it may neither Dd

VOL. XXXIII. No. 66.

be peaceful nor brief. But in this, and in every other respect, we conceive that much will depend on the part that is taken by America; and on the dispositions which she may have cultivated towards the different parties concerned. Her great and growing wealth and population-her universal commercial relations-her own impregnable security-and her remoteness from the scene of dissension-must give her prodigious power and influence in such a crisis, either as a mediator or umpire, or, if she take a part, as an auxiliary and ally. That she must wish well to the cause of Freedom, it would be indecent to doubt-and that she should take an active part against it, is a thing not even to be imagined:-But she may stand aloof, a cold and disdainful spectator; and, counterfeiting a prudent indifference to scenes that neither can nor ought to be in different to her, may see, unmoved, the prolongation of a lamentable contest, which her interference might either have prevented, or brought to a speedy termination. And this course she will most probably follow, if she allows herself to conceive antipathies to nations for the faults of a few calumnious individuals: And especially if, upon grounds so trivial, she shouldnourish such an animosity towards England, as to feel a repugnance to make common cause with her, even in behalf of their common inheritance of freedom.

Assuredly, there is yet no other country in Europe where the principles of liberty, and the rights and duties of nations, are so well understood as with us or in which so great a number of men, qualified to write, speak, and act with au← thority, are at all times ready to take a reasonable, liberal, and practical view of those principles and duties. The Government, indeed, has not always been either wise or generous, to its own or to other countries;-but it has partaken, or at least has been controlled by the general spirit of freedom; and we have no hesitation in saying, that the Free Constitution of England has been a blessing and protection to the remotest nations of Europe for the last 100 years. Had England not been free, the worst despotism in Europe must have been far worse than it is, at this moment. If the world had been parcelled out among arbitrary monarchs, they would have run a race of oppression, and encouraged each other in all sorts of abuses. But the existence of one powerful and flourishing State, where juster maxims were admitted, has shamed them out of their worst enormities, given countenance and encouragement to the claims of their oppressed subjects, and gradually taught their rulers to understand, that a certain measure of liberty was not only compatible with national greatness and splendour, but