took place, on the ground of an alleged scarcity, advanced the price of building from £24 10s.* to £36 per ton, being a rise of £47 per cent. or £20,700 on every 74-gun ship of the ordinary size. As tradesmen they may, for aught we know to the contrary, claim the right of taking advantage of the state of the market; but, having made a good bargain with the public, it is not very decorous to turn short round on their customers and tell them, after completing no less than forty-two sail of the line at the advanced price, that the idea of a scarcity is ridiculous, and that the introduction of fourteen India-built ships into the general commerce of the country in the course of nineteen years, is likely to annihilate the principal market for British timber.'

The advocates for the Thames builders adduce neither proof nor argument against the alleged scarcity of oak timber. What however they seem to consider as equivalent to both, is a statement of the secretary of the admiralty, in the House of Commons, of there being three years consumption of oak timber in the dock-yards :just before, the member for Westminster had asserted that in one of the principal of them there was not enough to build a 74gun ship. We mean not to question the correctness of either of these statements,-there may be as many loads of all kinds of timber as are required for three years consumption, but not as much of that particular kind as would complete a single line-of-battle ship, without having recourse to the expedients mentioned in a former article (to make small timber available where large was once considered indispensable.) But these advocates either do not or will not understand the difference between the consumption of the dock yards and the consumption of the navy,—the former having, of late years, been only about one half of the latter.

The sixth and last Resolution seems to have very little connection with the subject of ship-building. It is, in fact, a sop thrown out to those directors of the East India Company who are affected with the dread of colonization. The admission of a few black ships will'estrange (they say) the affections of the parties engaged in it from the mother-country, make India the commencement and termination of their voyages, and render more equivocal and precarious the continuance of British influence and British power in that quarter of the globe;'-how it will produce these effects they do not condescend to tell us. Whether the ship of a merchant in India be English or India-built, her voyage will naturally commence where the owner resides; if in India, she returns there, and the owner, being on the spot, is better able to form a judgment of what will answer for the return voyage, than an owner residing in England, *The Victorious was contracted for at 24l. 10s. in December, 1803;-a little more than twelve months afterwards, ten ships of the line were contracted for at 361. per ton.

whe

who would look entirely to the merchandize required for the homeward voyage. The merchant in this country has the advantage of knowing what produce of India is most likely to be profitable for him to import, whilst the merchant in India has a similar advantage in the return cargo. The nation has therefore an equal interest in both one is calculated to supply the wants, the other to take off the surplus of the United Kingdom..

With all the difficulties which have hitherto opposed the remittances of fortunes made in India, we do not find that the affections of the parties engaged in the Indian trade have been estranged from the mother-country.' However unwilling men may be to leave the place where the bulk of their property is situated, the natives of Great Britain ultimately return to the country where they first drew breath.

In conclusion, it is paying an ill compliment to the good sense of the nation to hold forth, as the shipping interest pretend to do, 'the advantages likely to ensue from a free intercourse with the countries to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope,' and, in the same breath, to apply to the legislature to impose restraints and arbitrary laws on a class of His Majesty's subjects entitled by their birth-right to the same privileges as themselves, and without whom the advantages to be derived from a free trade' would be confined to a few London merchants, ship-builders, and ship-owners, frequently united in the same persons. Whether we view the subject as a matter of right or of expediency, we cannot but conceive that the builders and owners of India-built ships have a just and legal claim to participate in the commerce of the United Kingdom -a claim which, instead of being narrowed, ought, by all possible means, to be encouraged and enlarged, on the ground of carrying on a valuable branch of commerce in the best ships that are procurable, and thus giving to the British merchant an advantage over rival nations, into whose hands those ships and that commerce must otherwise inevitably fall.

ART. X.-Dépêches et Lettres interceptées, &c. Copies of the Original Letters and Dispatches of the Generals, Ministers, Grand Officers of State, &c. at Paris, to the Emperor Napoleon, at Dresden; intercepted by the advanced Troops of the Allies in the North of Germany. 8vo. pp. 382. London. 1814. THIS publication has, we must confess, disappointed us. We had

understood that many public and private communications of great importance and interest had been intercepted in their way to and from the French head-quarters, by the light troops of the allies,

and we had been taught to expect that the volume now under observation would contain some of these valuable documents. The editor, who is, we believe, one of the suite of the Crown Prince of Sweden, appears by his preface to think that he has fulfilled this expectation. We cannot be of this opinion-there is, we admit, some curious and some entertaining matter in the collection, but nothing that is very important, and not much that we might not, without any great degree of sagacity, have anticipated,

It is stated, indeed, that the majority of these papers were found on a single courier, and it is not surprising, that considering the circumstances of the times, no very important matter should have been entrusted to such a conveyance; yet we cannot help suspecting that something more valuable must have been obtained by the interception of any single courier than is here published, especially when we observe that the editor confesses he has suppressed much of the correspondence; and that these papers have been selected from a great quantity of others less interesting?

Now really we cannot well conceive what can have been thrown aside as uninteresting, when we look at the majority of pieces that compose this volume. We observe too, that almost all the private letters are mere extracts, and that almost all these extracts are without the slightest public interest; we do not therefore quite understand how the intelligent author of the preface, which is otherwise very well drawn up, could assert that the harvest' of the interception' was rich,' and that he thinks he does not go too far in affirming, that these pieces form a tolerably complete picture of the present state of France, and of the countries subject to her system of government at the period they were written."

This sentence indeed, and the whole tone of the preface, induce us to believe that the author had, when he wrote it, a much larger and more important publication in view; he had prepared the canvass of a much more magnificent picture than he was afterwards permitted to paint, or to use another metaphor, the vestibule in which he first receives his reader, was planned for a greater edifice than he had afterwards will or power to erect.

The collection, as it now appears, is divided into several heads. 1st. The papers which relate to the Napoleon family and the greater affairs of state. 2. Diplomacy. 3. Military service. 4. The ministry of the interior and finances. 5. Extracts from private letters; and lastly, the Reports of the Police.

In the first section we find a blustering public dispatch, and a whining private note of his late Royal Majesty Jerome Napoleon, descriptive of his situation, at that luckless time when General Chernicheff and his Cossacks penetrated into the kingdom of Westphalia, and drove Jerome from his capital: these letters are not

worth

worth much-they corroborate indeed what was before well known, the extraordinary activity and enterprize of the allied light troops, the miserable confusion of the French partizans in Germany, and the absolute nullity of character of poor Jerome. Amidst the mingled emotions, the hopes and the horrors excited by the Saxon campaign, we are not much inclined to derive entertainment from events merely ludicrous, but we cannot help being amused at the impotent activity which Jerome ascribes to his regiment of French hussars, which conducted itself with great valour, but of which his Majesty was so unlucky as to lose the greatest part, because' malheureusement, n'ayant pas l'habitude du cheval,' they tumbled off when they attempted to charge the enemy.

Some letters from Madame Murat to her husband are creditable to her good sense and to her conjugal feelings—she takes a great deal of trouble to furnish his Neapolitan Majesty with a pair of felt boots, which will, she assures him, be 'commode pour la voiture:' nor is her Majesty less attentive to the comforts of her august brother: she begs her husband to present him 'her respects and a box of refined liquorice.' She is a little disturbed at the affair' of General Vandamme; but she consoles herself with a consideration (which probably did not long continue to console her) that the Emperor knows how to repair all, and that nothing can resist him.' We fear, however, that neither these sweet words nor the box of refined liquorice restored that affectionate cordiality between the brother and sister which we had heard had been before interrupted.

We shall select a passage, as it does credit to the tender feelings of this illustrious lady. She went, it seems, a-boating in the bay of Naples, and was so sea-sick, that but for the assistance of the minister of finance (M. de Mosbourg) she verily believes she should have died.' One death however the occasion produced-

'Poor Monchelet fell a sacrifice to it; for, seeing me so weak, and having been able to find neither horses nor carriage, he determined to mount the hill a-foot, in the midst of a tremendous storm of rain, to procure me some broth, of which I stood greatly in need. Here the poor fellow got a defluxion of the chest, followed by a putrid malignant fever, and, in short, was carried off by it in two days, before one knew, as it were, that he was ill. This has agitated me; he had been so long attached to our service, and was so distinguished for his zeal and fidelity, that I could not preserve myself from a certain impression of melancholy.'-p. 30, 31.

Kind-hearted lady! for this old and attached friend, who perishes in consequence of his personal attentions to her-elle ne peut se défendre d'une certaine impression de tristesse. Who would not die

for such a mistress?

Her Majesty gives us, in a confidential postscript, a little insight

into

into the manufacture of French victories, and the composition of official bulletins; she complains that one of his Majesty's couriers kept back her letters one night, which produced the worst consequences,' because

'For instance, Julian wrote that they had taken so many colours, so many pieces of cannon, so many prisoners, and he did not make them amount to the quarter part of what you told me; so that, next day, when they read the Moniteur, they falsified, by Julian's letters, what I had caused to be inserted in it according to yours. This has a bad effect, and destroys confidence. If these gentlemen choose to announce victories, let them-nothing better-but let them not give the details; let them not specify numbers, either for more or less, so as to contradict those I receive from you. Look to this.'-p. 32, 33.

We beseech our readers to observe that Julian's rhodomontade -colours, cannon, prisoners-is censured only because it did not amount to one-fourth of the modest report of his Majesty the King of Naples !

The minister of finance, who had been found so useful at the awful moment of her Majesty's qualms at sea, next addresses the king-the king, it seems, was displeased with M. de Mosbourg for suffering three emigrant Neapolitan families to return from Sicily. M. de Mosbourg defends himself at great length, and with the vilest adulation; but we have nothing to do with his intrigue, we only advert to his letter for the account which (flatterer as he is) he cannot help rendering to his angry master of the state of the Neapolitan public mind.

Just about this time the public opinion appeared to have taken a formidable direction. Your departure had been the signal of alarm to all the friends of government, and of hope to its enemies.

Affairs are somewhat changed since. The news of the victories obtained by the grand army-the splendour of your personal exploits, which swell the pride of the Neapolitans-some vague hope of peace; -all this seems to have revived and set right the public opinion. But we must not be deceived: your Majesty knows your subjects: the impressions to which they abandon themselves are equally lively and transient. They are easily raised to a pitch of enthusiasm, and as easily depressed. Your presence inspires them with so much confidence, that your Majesty, when in your own kingdom, may depend upon them under all circumstances; your absence discourages them to such a degree, that they dare not even depend upon themselves. You must therefore expect, that, if any change takes place on the theatre of war, your Majesty's kingdom will experience it, as well as the rest of Italy. A great number of good people would remain faithful to you; but they would be so, possibly, with less energy, finding themselves deprived of the support which constitutes their strength. The ill-intentioned would, on the contrary, be full of presumption.

'What