ART. I.-Voyages dans La Grande Bretagne, Entrepris relativement aux Services Publics de la Guerre, de la Marine, et des Ponts et Chaussées, en 1816-17-18-19, et 1820. Deuxième Partie, Force Navale. Par Charles Dupin, Membre de l'Institut de France, &c. &c. Paris. 1821.
MR R. Dupin may be well assured, from the early notice we are disposed to take of his labours, that we have no mean opinion of his abilities. Of his principles we are not prepared to say quite so much; and, perhaps, it will be thought that we have no business with them. Nor should we indeed have troubled ourselves about his political opinions or connections, had he confined his observations to the avowed objects of his inquiryour public works and public institutions, civil, naval, and military: we should, in that case, have deemed it sufficient to applaud his accuracy, or to point out his errors; but when he proceeds to mix up political hostility in a work which professes to be purely didactic and descriptive; to assail the national character on grounds that are utterly false; and to hold us up to Europe and to the world, as totally destitute of humanity to a class of beings, of all others, the most entitled to it, namely, prisoners of war; we conceive that we have a right to inquire into his motives. Acquitting him, as we frankly do, of every feeling of hatred towards England, the only explanation we can suggest for his conduct, in this instance, is the desire of gratifying his associates, by the repetition of an accusation so calumnious; and it was with this view solely that, in a recent Article on the Military Establishments of this Country, (which, we are happy to find, has not been without its effect,) we noticed his connection with the Avocat Dupin and the herd of politicians who modestly assume to themselves the exclusive name of libéraux, as accounting for the embarrassment under which he evidently laboured in consequence of it. We repeat, however, (in justice to M. Dupin,) that, considering his education under the auspices of Buonaparte, in the new school of morality, and his near relationship to a notorious jacobin, he entertains fewer prejudices against England, than any other French author that we have yet met with since the revolutionary war. In com