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French colonial schemes ;-but France has now lost every thing like a colony, both in the East and in the West. Holland, too has lost her foreign settlements. Every one of those, both French and Dutch, is in possession of England and France consents to our keeping them all. Formerly, and especially in 1806, Spain was French; and Portugal was believed to be so exposed, that the best we could expect was the emigration of the Braganzas to Brazil, and the incorporation of Portugal with the French power in Spain. Yet, then, we should have made peace, if Sicily had been out of the question; though any treaty which could have been made, must have left the whole Peninsula at the nod of France, to be ruled by her in peace, to be occupied by her arms, or directed against us by her councils, the moment the treaty should be broken. Now the obstacle of Sicily is removed; and the French armies, withdrawing from the Peninsula, offer to leave Portugal to the Bragan zas, and Spain to a king wholly unpopular, with a rebellion in his country, and an armed people hating France as cordially as they love England. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies, too, the most valuable parts of their empire to us, are saved from all chance of French interference. But the new king of Spain is to be a Frenchman!--And who is the actual sovereign of Sweden?But we are bound in honour to the rightful king of Spain Indeed! The rightful king is Charles; and we have made a treaty with his son, who is only heir-apparent to the monarchy. But, to Ferdinand we are bound by this treaty ! Then, let us rear no more of objections to a Buonaparte ruling in Spain: For if we have any sense or manly wisdom left-if we argue and think like statesmen, from views of policy, and not from childish dislikes and effeminate prejudices against houses→→ we can only object to Joseph because he is influenced by France; while, in truth, Ferdinand, notoriously as weak as the weakest of princes, has in all probability been schooled into French views by a five years apprenticeship; and, even if we could trust his honour, his weakness is sure to dispose of him. Let us not; then, deceive ourselves. We are at: war for Ferdinand the Seventh. We have unwarily made a treaty; and though the very persons for whom we stipulated, as well as the circumstances under which our obligations were contracted, are totally altered, we adhere to the words of the articles; because they furnish a pretext for continuing a war, which we seem resolved only to give up when our utter ruin compels us to be wise too late.

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The truth is, then, that our engagements with Spain and Portugal are not the causes of our continuing the war, but the effects of our determination to continue it--not the substantial

obstacles to peace, but pretexts and occasions for justifying our disinclination to it. The war is continued now, partly, and we are afraid in no small degree, from feelings of rancour and animosity, and partly from an apprehension that, in the neighbourhood of such a power as France, we are safer with our arms in our hands, than without them. The only intelligible motive for our wishing to persist in hostilities, is a regard to our ultimate security. We do not mean to deny the weight of this motive; or to assert, that it is altogether absurd to connect it with this effect. The question is no doubt full of anxiety; yet we do not think that if the particular and accidental causes which actually produced the war had not existed, it would ever have occurred to any one, that this mere general danger, arising from the greatness and ambition of France, would have justified us in violating a subsisting peace; that the mere greatness of our neighbour (for ambition is inseparable from power) would have been a good cause for declaring war against her; or that this anticipation of hostility was the best way to avoid the dangers which could be produced by hostility alone. It should be remembered also, that we are not to throw away our arms, though we should cease to wield them; and that it is a very different thing to part with our means of defence, and to suspend that vehement and eager exertion of them by which they are exhausted and impaired.

...In the foregoing enumeration of the advantages of peace, if we should seem to have made a statement all on one side, and deferred the question of practicability, let it be observed, that we have cautiously abstained from perhaps the strongest view of the question. We have said nothing of the present unexampled distresses of the country. We have not availed ourselves of the prospects held out by those distresses, so unfavourable to a protracted warfare. Undoubtedly, the reconciliation with America, which has happily been forced upon the government by the people, and which the Americans will, if necessary, force on their government, alleviate, in a great degree, those dreadful sufferings. But no man who has attended to the facts of the late inquiry can doubt that much of the misery so feelingly exhibited in the course of it, is owing to the general features of the war; and we believe it is well known that the spirit of peace has risen up in the country rapidly--it may irresistibly along with the spirit of American conciliation. They who think that the country will stop short, and be satisfied with a partial pacification, are probably somewhat mistaken. The people have begun to open their eyes wider and wider, as the markets abroad shut for their wares, and the markets at home

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rise for necessaries and comforts. They come more and more to their senses, about victories and balance of power, as money grows scarce, and the tax-gatherer comes his ceaseless round. They have learnt a little of their true interests of late; and they have learnt, too, a good deal of their real strength. They have gained an unparalleled victory over the pernicious measures of their rulers a triumph over the Government itself. And they will not rest satisfied with one success, or one mark of their power: -They will look forward from conciliation with America to a General Peace.

ART. XIII. The Speech of Henry Brougham Esq. M. P. in the House of Commons, on Tuesday the 16th of June 1812, upon the present State of Commerce and Manufactures. 8vo. pp. 59. London; Longman & Co. and Ridgway. 1812.

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N some of our former Numbers, we entered into a pretty full consideration of these celebrated Orders; and endeavoured to point out the effects which were likely to arise from their adoption, and to be consequent on their being persevered in. As usual, the watchword of Government was let loose upon us; and we were accused of wishing to lower the flag of England to her former rebellious colonies; and, in conjunction with our Transatlantic brethren, to aid Bonaparte in his views of universal empire and this because we were wanting in that truly British feeling, which is ready to sacrifice every opinion to that of the Minister of the day. Notwithstanding all this-and all that has since happened-we feel it incumbent upon us once again, and we confidently trust for the last time, to call the attention of our readers to the consideration of this subject;-though certainly with no view of taking credit for the verification of our former predictions, or of expressing any exultation at a triumph attended by so many circumstances of humiliation. We hope, indeed, that it never will again fall to our lot to contemplate such a picture as is presented in the printed evidence which was given to the two Houses of Parliament, and which now lyes before us. Such a scene of unmixed and extended misery, we will venture to say, was never before exhibited to the government of any nation, as the direct result of its own infatuated policy-and the satisfaction of knowing, that this dreadful exhibition at 1st wrung from their authors the reluctant repeal of those disastres enactments, is sadly allayed, not only by the recollection of ir effects, but by the consideration, that the government fended them.

in the hands of those who projected and de

From the evidence which is now before us, it appears that there is no manufacture, or form of industry, in this industrious and manufacturing nation, which has not been affected, and that in the most melancholy manner, by these measures. The attempts of Bonaparte to injure our commerce, have indeed been successful in a degree which few could originally have imagined; -but, when compared with the exertions of our own Government in the same cause, they sink into contempt and insignificance. He has merely lopped off a few of the branches of that fair and flourishing plant ;-but we have laid the axe to the root; and shaken every limb and member of that commerce, upon which our freedom and renown, as well as our wealth and prosperity, so materially depend.

It appears in evidence, that the baneful effects of the Orders in Council equally affected the woollens of Wiltshire and York, the hardwares of Birmingham and Sheffield, the stockings of Nottingham and Leicester, the carpeting of Kidderminster, the cottons of Manchester and Glasgow, and the silk goods of Spitalfields; and, reaching even to the remote shores of Inverness, swept off in their course the coarser manufactories of Fife, Forfar, and Kincardine. The range of the evil through all the classes of society was not less fatal and comprehensive; and though the chief load and excess of misery fell upon the operative manufacturers, whose emaciated countenances, and naked and unfed children, shocked the eye of the traveller in what used to be the busiest and most cheerful districts of the country-yet the capitalist, the merchant, and the master manufacturers of all degrees, had each their share of suffering. It is pleasing, indeed, and consolatory, in the midst of such a scene as is disclosed by the evidence before us, to see in how many instances the latter description of persons continued to give employment to their workmen, long after they ceased to make any profit by their labours; and even went on for a great length of time to maintain them, at a loss to themselves. There is no national distinction so honourable, as that of breeding a race of men among whom such conduct confers no distinction.

In endeavouring to impress upon the public mind the great and useful lessons that are furnished by the subject before us, we must bring to their recollection the history of these Orders, and of the arguments by which they were supported; and then try to explain, in a very few words, the manner in which they produced the deplorable effects to which we have alluded, and the nature of the advantages that may still be expected from their recall. In contemplating such a discussion, it was impossible for us not to look to the publication, the title of which we have

put at the head of this article, as the groundwork of what we have to submit upon this subject; not merely on account of the intrinsic merit of the Speech, but from its being impossible to come to the consideration of this momentous question, without feeling, that it was to the great and splendid exertions of Mr Brougham, both at the Bar and in the Senate, that the success which has attended the case of the petitioners against these measures was mainly owing; and that it has thus fallen to his lot to confer a greater benefit on the great bulk of the community, than it was ever before in the power of an individual to bestow.

By far the most remarkable circumstance in the singular history we have to detail, is the exact and indisputable accomplish-ment of all that the opponents of the measures in question originally predicted as to their effects. It rarely happens, indeed, in the history of politics, or of political opinions, that the consequences anticipated from any event have followed in a train so unequivocal, or that the cause and effect have been so clearly traced in their connexion... The facts, however, were here too. evident to admit of denial; and no other event intervened, to which it was possible to ascribe the calamities we were suffering The period between the issue of the Orders and the distress which ensued, was so short as to strike every one with the, idea of their connexion; while the variations which took place in our trade the ebbings and flowings of our distress-tallied so exactly with the greater or less degree of strictness with whichthey were enforced, as to bring conviction to the minds even of the most bigotted. The lesson, then, which we have now been taught, is not of a dubious or inconclusive nature; and the experiment, however rashly undertaken, and however costly in its progress, has been complete, and its result unequivocal. If any one at all acquainted with the subject could entertain any doubt: of the fact, we would merely request him to compare the predictions of Mr Brougham, in his speech at the bar of the House of Commons, in April 1808, as to what was likely to be the effect of the Orders in Council, if persisted in, with his statement of the facts, established by the evidence given at that bar during the last session; when we think he must admit, that there: never was any coincidence so perfect and decisive, nor any case in which it was less possible to explain the phenomena by any variety of supposition.

It may not be quite useless to remind some of our readers that these Orders in Council took their origin in a decree promulgat ed by Bonaparte at Berlin, on the 21st November 1806 by which, in the usual style of that personage, he declared the..