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solves, observed a gospel tolera tion, as did the divine legislator with regard to the Sadduceans and the Samaritans. He used to say, "We too often lay aside charity to maintain faith, without reflecting, that, if it is not allowed to tolerate error, it is forbidden to hate and persecute those who have unfortunately embraced it."

To the above rather too general a character, it may not be amiss to add the following particulars. His death was immediately attributed to poison, as if an old man of seventy, loaded with infirmitjes and disorders, could not quit the world without violence. His proceedings against the jesuits furnished, in the minds of some people, a plausible colour for this charge, and the malevolence of their enemies embellished it with circumstances. It seems even as if the ministers of those powers who had procured their dissolution did not think it beneath them to countenance the report, as if falsehood was necessary to prevent the revival of a body which had already sunk, in its full strength, a mighty sacrifice to their combined resent

ment.

The charge was the more ridiculous, as the Pontiff had for a long time laboured under a painful disorder, which originally proceeded from a suppression of urine, to which he was subject; yet the report was propagated with the greatest industry: and, though the French and Spanish ministers were present at the opening of his botly, the most horrible circumstances were published relative to that opetation. Nay, it was confidently affirmed, that the hair dropped off from the hand, the head fell off

from the body, and that the stench poisoned and killed the operators. It availed but little that the operators shewed themselves alive and in good health, and that the surgeons and physicians proved the falshood of every part of the report.

Striking Picture of Charles V. during his Retirement in the Monastry of St. Just, where he ended his Days. From Travels through Spain, by Richard Twiss, Esq; F. R: S.

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S I have mentioned Charles V. I shall add a short quotation from the Abbé de la Porte: he says, he was in 1755 in the monastery of St. Just, which is situated between the cities of Talavera la Reyna and Placentia: and that one of the monks sliewed him the place where the emperor had lodged. "There, said he sneeringly, there is the melancholy solitude where that monarch, become imbecile and devout, passed his days in winding up clocks, in teazing the friars, in giving himself the discipline, in daubing the walls of his cell with scraps on predestination and grace, in stunning himself with reflecting on the adandonment o all his crowns, and in repenting. There he performed the farce of his, own burial, put himself in a coffin, sung for himself the de profundis, and shewed all the follies of a distempered brain. One day when he went in his turn to wake the novices, at the hour of mattins, one of them, whom he shook too violently, because he still slept, said to him, hast thou not troubled the repose of the world long enough, without coming to disturb that of peaceable men who have forsaken it?"

Political

Political Characters, by Mr. Edmund Burke, in his Speech on American Taxation, in the House of Comwons, April 19, 1774.

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GEORGE GRENVILLE.

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Person to whom on other counts (Mr. Burke excepts his new colony system) this country owes very great obligations. I do believe, that he had a very serious desire to benefit the public. But, with no small study of the detail, he did not seem to have his view, at least equally, carried to the total circuit of our affairs. He generally considered his objects in lights that were rather too detached. Whether the business of an American revenue was imposed upon him altogether; whether it was entirely the result of his own speculation; or, what is more probable, that his own ideas rather coincided with the instructions he had received; certain it is; that, with the best intentions in the world, he first brought this fatal scheme into form, and established it by act of parlia

ment.

No man can believe, that at this time of day I mean to lean on the venerable memory of a great man, whose loss we deplore in common. Our little party-differences have been long ago composed; and I have acted more with him, and certainly with more pleasure with him, than ever I acted against him. Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville was a firstrate figure in this country. With a masculine understanding, and a stout and resolute heart, he had an application undissipated and unwearied. He took public business, not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy;

and he seemed to have no delight out of this house, except in such things as some way related to the business that was to be done within it. If he was ambitious, I will say this for him, his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. It was to raise himself, not by the low pimping politics of a court, but to win his way to power, through the laborious gradations of public service; and to secure to himself a well-earned rank in parliament, by a thorough knowledge of its constitution, and a perfect practice in all its business.

Sir, if such a man fell into errors, it must be from defects not intrinsical; they must be rather sought in the particular habits of his life; which, though they do not alter the ground-work of character, yet tinge it with their own hue. He was bred in a profession. He was bred to the law, which is in my opinion, one of the first and noblest of human sciences: a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding, than all the other kinds of learning put together; but it is not apt, except in persons very happily born, to open and to liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion. Passing from that study he did not go very largely into the world; but plunged into business; I mean into the business of office; and the limited and fixed methods and forms established there. Much knowledge is to be had undoubtedly in that line; and there is no knowledge which is not valuable. But it may truly be said, that men too much conversant in office are rarely minds of remarkable enlargement. Their habits of office are apt to give them a turn to think the sub

stance

stance of business not to be much more important than the forms in which it is conducted. These forms are adapted to ordinary occasions; and therefore persons who are nur tured in office do admirably well, as long as things go on in their common order; but when the high roads are broken up, and the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things, is requisite than ever office gave, or than office can ever give. Mr. Grenville thought better of the wisdom and power of human legislation than in truth it deserves. He conceived, and many conceived along with him, that the flourishing trade of this country was greatly owing to law and in stitation, and not quite so much to liberty; for but too many are apt to believe regulation to be commerce, and taxes to be revenue. Among regulations, that which stood first in reputation was his idol. I mean the act of navigation. He has often professed it to be so. The policy of that act is, I readily admit, in many respects well under stood. But I do say, that, if the act be suffered to run the full length of its principle, and is not changed and modified according to the change of times and the fluctuation of circumstances, it must do great mischief, and frequently even de feat its own purpose.

After the war, and in the last year of it, the trade of America had increased far beyond the speculations of the most sanguine imagination. It swelled out on every side. It filled all its proper chan nels to the brim. It overflowed

with a rich redundance, and, breaking its banks on the right and on the left, it spread out upon some places, where it was indeed improper, upon others where it was only irregular. It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact; and great trade will always be attended with considerable abuses. The contraband will always keep pace in some measure with the fair tra le. It should stand as a fundamental maxim, that no vulgar precaution ought to be employed in the cure of evils, which are closely con nected with the cause of our pros perity. Perhaps this great person turned his eyes somewhat less than was just towards the incredible increase of the fair trade; and looked with something of too exquisite a jealousy towards the contrabandi He certainly felt a singular degree of anxiety on the subject; and even began to act from that passion earlier than is commonly imagined. For whilst he was first lord of the Admiralty, though not strictly called upon in his official line, he presented a very strong memorial to the lords of the treasury (my lord Bute was then at the head of the board) heavily complaining of the growth of the illicit commerce in America. Some mischief happened even at that time from this overearnest zeal. Much greater hap pened afterwards when it operated with greater power in the highest department of the finances. The bonds of the act of navigation were straitened so much, that America was on the point of having no trade, either contraband or legitimate. They found, under the construction and execution then used, the act no longer tying but actually strangling them. All this coming with new

enumerations

enumerations of commodities; with regulations which in a manner put a stop to the mutual coasting in tercourse of the colonies; with the appointment of courts of admiralty under various improper circumstances; with a sudden extinction of the paper currencies; with a compulsory provision for the quartering of soldiers; the people of America thought themselves, proceeded against as delinquents, or at best as people under suspicion of delinquency; and in such a manner as, they imagined, their recent services in the war did not at all merit. Any of these in numerable regulations, perhaps, would not have alarmed alone; some might be thought reasonable; the multitude struck them with

terror.

Marquis of ROCKINGHAM.

In the year 1765, being in a very private station, far enough from any line of business, and not having the honour of a seat in this house, it was my fortune, unknowing and unknown to the then mi nistry, by the intervention of a common friend, to become connected with a very noble person, and at the head of the treasury department. It was indeed in a situation of little rank and no consequence, suitable to the mediocrity of talents and pretensions. But a situation near enough to enable me to see, as well as others, what was going on; and I did see in that noble person such sound principles, such an enlargement of mind, such clear and sagacious sense, and such unshaken fortitude, as have bound me, as well as others much better than me, by an inviolable attach

ment to him from that time for ward. Sir, Lord Rockingham very early in that summer received a strong representation from many weighty English merchants and manufacturers, from governors of provinces and commanders of men of war, against almost the whole of the American commercial regulations: and particularly with regard to the total ruin which was threatened to the Spanish trade. I believe, Sir, the noble lord soon saw his way in this business. But he did not rashly determine against acts which it might be supposed were the result of much deliberation. However, Sir, he scarcely began to open the ground, when the whole veteran body of office took the alarm. A violent outcry of all (except those who knew and felt the mischief) was raised against any alteration. On one hand, his attempt was a direct violation of treaties and public law. On the other, the act of navigation, and all the corps of trade laws were drawn up in array against it.

The first step the noble lord took was to have the opinion of his excellent, learned, and ever-lamented friend the late Mr. York, then attorney general, on the point of law. When he knew that formally and officially, which in substance he had known before, he immediately dispatched orders to redress the grievance. But I will say it for the then minister, he is of that constitution of mind, that I know he would have issued, on the same critical occasion, the very same orders, if the acts of trade had been, as they were not, directly against him ; and would have chearfully submitted to the equity of parliament for his indemnity.

On

On the conclusion of this business of the Spanish trade, the news of the troubles, on account of the stampact, arrived in England. It was not until the end of October that these accounts were received. No sooner had the sound of that mighty tempest reached us in England, than the whole of the then opposition, instead of feeling humbled by the unhappy issue of their measures, seemed to be infinitely elated, and cried out that the ministry, from envy to the glory of their prede cessors, were prepared to repeal the stamp-act. Near nine years after, the hon. gentleman takes quite opposite ground, and now challenges me to put my hand to my heart, and say, whether the ministry had resolved on the repeal till a considerable time after the meeting of parliament. Though I do not very well know what the hon: gentle man wishes to infer from the admission, or from the denial; of this fact, on which he so earnestly adjures me; I do put my hand on my heart, and assure him that they did not come to a resolution directly to repeal. They weighed this matter as its difficulty and importance required. They considered maturely among themselves. They consulted. with all who could give advice or information. It was not determined, until a little before the meeting of parliament; but it was determined, and the main lines of their own plan marked out, before that meeting. Two questions arose (1 hope I am not going into a troublesome to the house.)

narrative

[A cry of, Go on, go on.] The first of the two consider tions was, whether the repeal should

be total, or whether only partial; taking out every thing burthensome and productive, and reserving only an empty acknowledgment, such as a stamp on cards and dice. The other question was on what prin ciple the act should be repealed? On this head also two principles were started. One, that the legislative rights of this country, with regard to America, were not entire, but had certain restrictions and li mitations. The other principle was, that taxes of this kind were contrary to the fundamental principles of commerce on which the colonies were founded; and contrary to every idea of political equity; by which equity we are bound, as much as possible, to extend the spirit and benefit of the British constisution to every part of the British dominions. The option, . both of the measure and of the principle of repeat, was made before the session; and I wonder how any one can read the king's speech at the opening of that session, without seeing in that specch both the repeal and the declaratory act very sufficiently crayoned out. Those who cannot see this, can see nothing.

Surely the hon. gentleman will not think that a great deal less time than was then employed, ought to have been spent in deliberation; when he considers that the news of the troubles did not arrive till towards the end of October. The parliament sat to fill the vacancies on the 14th day of December, and on business the 14th of the following January.

Sir, a partial repeal, or, as the bon-ton of court, then was, a modifie cation, would have satisfied a timid, unsystematic, procrastinating mi

nistry,