jectionable matter which I find in many other parts of Mr. Spence's pamphlet, particularly that which relates to our foreign commerce in both its branches of export and import.- G.-Jan. 23, 1803.

PERISH COMMERCE." SIR,You observe in your strictures on commerce, that foreign commerce does not produce wealth, and that the manufacturers of Birmingham and Manchester might be better employed in cultivating the land. I am not a merchant, nor am I connected with manufacturers; but I have travelled through some of the mining and manufacturing parts of England, and the following observations have occurred to me. If I am wrong I shall be happy to be corrected by your better judgment. I believe I am pretty near the truth when I state that as much iron ore, at the mine, as would make a pound of iron, would hardly cost a half-penny, and the coals and lime-store to flux it perhaps a halfpenny more, or thereabouts.. The materials therefore to make six pounds of iron we will say cost about six-pence, at the mine. After it has been fluxed, and gone through the process necessary to render it malleable, it is sent to Birmingham; then it is made into steel, and of this steel the ingenious manafacturers of that place make articles of the value of £500 and upwards; I know dress swords have been made there of that value. But for the illustration of my argument, we will take the more moderate sum of £50. This sword, or whatever other article of the value of £50, is exported and sold for that amount in a country producing cotton. With this sum we will assume that 1000lbs. of cotton may be purchased. This cotton is imported into England and carried to Manchester, where, we will say, each pound is manufactured into articles of the value of 10s.; and it will be admitted that it may be fabricated into goods of much greater value. The 1000lbs of cotton will therefore, when re-exported in a manufactured state, produce £500. With this £500. 10,000lbs. of cotton may be purchased and again imported into England. Now we have 10,000 lbs. of cotton, which may be manufactured into a thousand different things for the convenience and comfort of the rich as well as the poor of this country. Is not this real wealth? And more truly so than either gold or silver? And what is it that has produced this wealth? why the labour and ingenuity of our countrymen employed upon sixpence worth of iron ore and coals, What is it that has produced this ingenuity? Is it not commerce, and were commerce to perish

would not this ingenuity perish along with it, and would not the towns of Birmingham, and Manchester, where this ingenuity is exerted to the greatest extent, be deserted and perish also? And how could you employ their inhabitants in any other way so productively as this? We now acquire the productions of the very best lands and the fruits of the labour of other countries by their industry at the forge and loom instead of the scanty crops which their labour would furnish if employed upon the sterile waste lands of England.-In your lucubrations on this subjeet. I perceive that money, as a circulating medium, is excluded, and food sub-, stituted, in order, as it is said, to simplify the question. But is this fair? Is not the labour of the Englishmen employedon the iron of England as much the production of our country as the corn raised by the cultivation of the soil? And is not clothing a necessary of life as well as food? Or take it in your way, and call food the only national wealth. Will not hard-ware, will not manufactured cotton, instead of wine and tobacco which no doubt are superfiuities, purchase grain in foreign countries? I con. fess I cannot answer these questions in suca manner as to enable me to accede entirely to the opinion which you have supporteh with your usual ability; and I therefore propose them not as a disputant, but from a real wish to have my doubts resolved.—I am aware that my story of the sixpenny worth of iron ore and coals, may bear some resemblance to that of the girl and her bas. ket of eggs; but my iron ore is not as perishable an article; and, as I insure my goods, I go upon better grounds than that unlucky personage.-P. -24th Jan.

1803.

OFFICIAL PAPERS, WESTPHALIA. King Jerome's Proclamation, dated Cassel, 17th Dec. 1807. ›

We Jerome Napoleon, by the grace of God and the Constitution, King of Westphalia, French Prince, &c. &c to our good and faithful subjects, and inhabitants of our kingdom of Westphalia, greeting-Westphalians, Divine Providence has pointed this cera in order to re-unite your scattered provinces under one august institution, together. with neighbouring families though strangers to each other.-I come to occupy this throne, prepared by victory, raised by the assent of the greatest powers of Europe, founded on a title no less sacred, by your real interest.

Too long has your country suffered from the pretensions of families and the intrigues of cabinets: you were exposed to all the

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ΤΟ

WILLIAM ROSCOE, Esq. LETTER I.

SIR,

Your pamphlet, published within these few days, under the title of "Considerations on the Causes, Objects, "and Consequences of the present War, "and on the Expediency, or the Danger, "of a Peace with France," having fallen into my hands, and appearing to me to express sentiments and opinions, which, if generally adopted, would be greatly mischievous to the country, I think it my duty to make some observations thereon; and, as you have evidently pointed at me, in several parts of the pamphlet, no apology will, I presume, be thought necessary for my addressing myself, in this case, more immediately to you.

When one is told of the publication of a book, or paper, the first question which invariably presents itself is: "What is it "about" Your pamphlet is, to be sure, about war and peace, but, Sir, it is about so many other things as well as war and peace; it enters upon so many different subjects; it contains so many opinions unsupported by reasoning, and so many assertions unsupported by proof, that, to answer you upon every point would require a volume of no moderate size. If I were asked, however, what appears to me to be the object, which you have had in view, in writing and publishing this pamphlet, I should answer, that your main practical object evidently is, to induce tite people, especially those of the manufac turing districts, to unite in petitions for peace; and, that your reason for this is, that the war, if continued much longer, will produce financial embarrassments, such as those which led to the overthrow of the mo narchy of France, while, on the other hand, there exists, in reality, none of those dangers, which I, amongst other persons, apprehend from a peace, made at this time, and leaving Napoleon in full possession of All the ports and naval arsenals of the continent of Europe.

If you had confined yourself to this one subject, to have answered you would have been plain, straight-forward work; but, un

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der the pretence of showing, that the war has now no rational object, you have gone into a history (a very partial one indeed) of the alledged objects of both the last and the present war, not only at their outset, but also at the several stages of their progress. Not content with this, which has nothing at all to do with the question of peace or war now; you have given us a history of the warlike operations, interspersed with discussions upon points of public law and of political economy; with descriptions of the characters of public men; and with a delineation of the views and motives of political parties. To follow you through all these topics, a sentence of statement demanding, in general, a page of answer, is a task too serious to be thought of; and yet it is, on the other hand, by no means pleasant to suffer any part of your pamphlet, from the sentiments or assertions of which I dissent, to pass off under a silence, which might very reasonably be interpreted into an assent. In this dilemma the course, which appears to me the best to be pursued is this: to reserve, for a future letter, all the digressive topics of your pamphlet, and to examine now into the nature of your statements and opinions, I. With respect to the real original cause of the present war between England and France: II. With respect to the breaking off of the negociation in 1806, and the views then manifested by Napoleon: II. With respect to the relative situation of the two countries, supposing peace to be now made, leaving all the ports and naval arsenals upon the continent of Europe in the hands, or under the acknowledged controul, of our enemy.

But, first of all, I think it necessary to state to you my reasons for differing very widely indeed from you, as to the tendency of war in general, which I perceive you to consider as a pure, unmixed evil; and which I consider as being, not only necessary, as it notoriously is, in niany cases, in the present state of the world, but also as conducive to the elevation of human nature, to the gene ral happiness of mankind, and, of course, as being a good, though, like the greater part of other good things, not unmixed with evil. I am aware of the force of habit, and men are

H

in the habit of talking, as you do, of the "horrors of war;" but, I can safely defy you, and all the " philanthropists" now in existence, to prove, that there is, as the consequence of war, any thing a millionth part so horrid as a sight of the interior of those receptacles of disease and of infamy, which are tenanted through the influence of that luxury, which it is the natural tendency of war to abridge, and which can be completely destroyed only by war. That war makes a part of the great scheme of the Creator is abundantly obvious from the universal propensity of his creatures; who, from man himself down to the lowest reptile, discover, the moment they have the powers of motion and perception, that to war makes a part of their nature as much as to love, Look, Sir, at all the natural sports of children, and of young animals of every kind; you will find, that they are only so many sorts of shamfights. And, if you see, that all God's creatures, in the moments of their greatest enjoyment of life; in those moments when they are free from all pain of mind and of body; when they are full of health and of spirits; when they are perfectly unrestrained, and bidden, as it were, to be as happy as their natures will permit: if you perceive, that, in such a state; they all, without a single exception, discover a propensity for war, will you still say, that war is, in itself, and for its own sake, a thing horrid to contemplate? But, not only is to war, to fight (which is the same thing) a passion natural to all the creation; but, it appears to me to be necessary to the elevation of human nature, and to the happiness of mankind; for, if we suppose a state of the world, from which war is completely and for ever banished, not only is there no longer any use for courage, fortitude, emulation, magnanimity, and many other ennobling qualities, but the very words describing those qualities have no longer any meaning; and, if you strip man of those qualities, what is he, as to this world at least, better than a brute? In giving to the different classes of men, which compose the different nations of the earth, languages so different, that the sounds used by the one are utterly unintelligible to any of the other, the Creator seems to have said, "be you for ever separate," and, herein is implied the necessity of war; for, without war it is, I think, evident, that to preserve that separation would, unless the nature of man were previously changed, be quite impossible. As to wisdom and science, too, where would be the use of them, if war were banished from the earth? The object of the warned as well as the brave is distinction.

The source of distinction is public utility. Public utility, after a very little tracing, is found to rest at the point of public safety; and were it not for the occasional existence of wars, and for the continual possibility of their recurrence, public safety would be a mere sound without sense. In like manner patriotism, loyalty, fidelity under all its different appearances and in all its different degrees, would be obliterated from the catalogue of virtues; and, in short, man would, and must, become a stupid, unimpassioned animal, having no care but that of obtaining his food, and no enjoyment but that of devouring it. I am not, observe, contending, that war, may not, as well as love, be, in some cases, and even in many cases, productive of mischievous effects; but, if I look back into history, or, if I look around me at the present moment, I am compelled to conclude, that its effects are, in general, the reverse. The Greeks and Romans were renowned for their science and their freedom, but not less renowned for those than for their wars; and, which is well worthy of remark, with their martial spirit they lost their love of liberty. The two nations of modern Europe the most famed for science, and, in fact, for freedom, are France and England; and that they have been the most frequently engaged in wars is a fact too notorious to be stated. China offers us an example of a nation living in perpetual peace; and, I believe you will not deny, that, as compared with an European, a Chinese is hardly worthy of the name of man. Nearly the same may be said of all the inhabitants of Asia; whereunto may be added, that the internal government of those unwarlike states and empires is uniformly a pure des potism, the life of every subject being at the mere mercy of the prince, whose very pleasures do not unfrequently consist of what we should call acts of deliberate murder, attended with a refinement in cruelty. You, Sir, make a pathetic appeal to your readers upon the horrors of war. "Were we," say you, "to divest ourselves for a moment of

that irritation of mind and inflexibility of "heart, which blinds us to all the evils and "horrors of war, it would be impossible

that we should not acknowledge the cala "mities it introduces, and feel a most sincere disposition to terminate them. If we turn our eyes to the continent of Eu

rope, what devastation and slaughter has "it occasioned, from the confines of Russia "to the Southern extremity of Italy. If we look to Egypt or South America, we "still find the same cause for sorrow and "regret. At no period of society have the

" contests of the field been more obstinate, " or attended with such a profuse destruc"tion of human life. To the sufferings and "the death of the thousands who have fallen, we are to add the misery and the ruin " of the tens of thousands that survive "them, who have to lament the death of "their relatives, their protectors, and their "friends: and who amidst grief and hunger and wretchedness, pour forth their curses on the unsparing sword of war, and "on those who call it into action." The principle, upon which you here proceed applies to all wars, under whatever circumstances; for, it is because human misery and a destruction of human life have been produced by the war, in which we are now engaged, that, according to your doctrine, we ought to feel a sincere disposition to terminate that war. But, Sir, though war is certainly the immediate cause of the death of many persons, it does not follow, that it is, for that reason alone, to be held in such ab. horrence, seeing, that first or last, all those persons must meet with death in some shape or other. As to the wretchedness produced by war, you will find it very difficult, I believe, to show, by the use of dispassionate reason, that there is much want which arises, or which can arise, to any persons remaining at home, from the death of other persons, who are killed in war, it being pretty evident, I think, that of those who are personally engaged in war, very few indeed have been, previous to their being so engaged, the protectors of their kindred and friends. That war does, in no very sensible degree, tend to enhance the dearth of provisions has been amply proved by reasoning as well as by experience; and, though, in some countries, the suddenly withdrawing of a great number of hands from the field may have the effect of causing a scarcity of grain; yet, in this country, no such effect is to be apprehended; because, if a youth be taken, by war, from the plough to day, another, who was just quitting the plough for the side-board, takes his place to morrow, and that, too, from causes arising out of the war. A thousand men are called from the plough, by the war, to garrison the forts at Portsmouth; a thousand others supply their place, coming, through various channels, from the manufactories, which have been destroyed by the war. The same quantity of food is raised; the same number of persons are fed; but, as the same quantity of manufactures are not exported or made, there is a diminufion in the importation and creation of luxuries, and a diminution also in the vices which invariably accompany the enjoyment of those

luxuries. This is one of the general effects of war; and, hence it is, that war, in some cases, operates to the good of nations. Hence it is, that the comparatively barren lands of England are covered with rich crops, while the rich lands of Italy scarcely afforded bread to its enervated inhabitants. The state of England and France, compared with that of Germany and Italy, is a quite sufficient proof, that the general and permanent effect of war is not to destroy, or even to check, the prosperity of nations; while the history of Holland pretty clearly evinces, that the moment a nation ceases to be warlike, that moment she commences her decline, and has already made some degree of progress on her way to subjugation.

But, Sir, notwithstanding what has here been said, I am not, as you seem to insinuate, and as the Morning Chronicle scruples not to assert, so much in love with war as to think it a pity that there ever should be a cessation of hostilities. To speak of war as being, in all possible cases, a good, would be as absurd, as it is to speak of it as an evil, in all possible cases. I wished to enter upon the discussion with you, relative to the expediency of a peace, at this time, with France, without having against me, from the beginning to the end, the weight of that prejudice, which you have so carefully che-, rished, that war is, in itself a pure, unmixed evil; a thing, in all cases, to be held in abhorrence, and, of course, to be, at all times, gotten rid of as soon as possible, without much, or, perhaps, any, consideration as to the terms. And, if I have been so fortunate as to remove this prejudice from the minds of my readers, I have not much apprehension as to their decision upon the points to be discussed.

I With respect to the real original cause of the present war between England and. France, you allow, Sir, that there were certain " impediments" relating to the evacua tion of Holland by the French troops, and of the island of Malta by the English; but, that the chief cause of the war, was, the writings and publications of certain unprincipled" individuals in England, who found an interest in the revival of the war. You complain of the conduct of the French emigrants, in this respect, and then you tell us, that "another, and still more formida"ble party" [of these enemies to peace] "consisted of the innumerable bands of journalists and hireling writers, who feed upon the credulity and fatten upon the "calamities of a nation; men who flourish most in the midst of tumult; to whom "the disasters of the country are as valua