however, that the account of his travels beyond Tangulda was little else than pure invention. The Major examined him in the hulk at Sydney, in the presence of the acting governor, and was quite satisfied that he had never been beyond the Nandawar range. The Barber thenceforth conceived a deadly hatred to the man who had been the means of thus saving his life, and afterwards, in a letter, couched in the most grateful terms, offered to accompany the Major on his expedition to the interior in 1835, which offer the Major was inclined to accept, but Sir Richard Bourke, the Governor of New South Wales, who had heard from the Commandant of Norfolk Island, that a man named George Clarke, according to private information, intended some injury to Major Mitchell, appreciated the offer more judiciously, as events proved, and sent "the Barber" to Van Diemen's Land, where, as we said before, he was soon after hanged. Had he gone with the Major he had murdered him "to a moral." He was, says the Major, truly a man of remarkable character, and far before his fellows in talents and cunning; a man who, under favourable circumstances, might have organized the scattered natives into formidable bands of marauders.

Notwithstanding Major Mitchell's proofs, from experience, that the Barber was an impostor, he so persisted in his story of the "big river," that a party of mounted police, commanded by Captain Forbes, of the 30th regiment, again repaired to Nammoy, in search of a gang of bush-rangers, but not without hopes of finding the Kindur. That active and enterprising

officer reached the Gwydir, in lat. 290 27' 37", long. 150o 5'; and tracing upwards its course or a branch, arrived near the western extremity of the Nandawar range, and ascended a hill named by him Mount Albuera. He proved that any large river flowing to the north-west must be far to the northward of latitude 29o. All the rivers south of that parallel, and which had been described by "the Barber" as falling into such a river as the "Kindur," have been ascertained to belong wholly to the basin of the Darling.

The territory traversed by Major Mitchell was very eligible, on many parts, for the formation of grazing establishments; as a proof of which, flocks of sheep soon covered the plains of Walluba, and the country round the "Barber's" stock-yard has ever, since the return of the expedition, been occupied by the cattle of Sir John Jamieson. At a still greater distance from the settled districts, much valuable land will be found round the base of the Nandawar range. The region beyond these mountains, or between them and the Gwydir, is beautiful, and in the vicinity, or within sight of the high land, it is sufficiently well watered to become an important addition to the pastoral capabilities of New South Wales.

In our account of this, his first expedition, we have kept as closely as we could to Major Mitchell's own words, abridging his narrative; and we shall follow the same method in our articles on his second and third, which are even more interesting and important, especially the third, containing his description of Australia Felix.

THE progress of political events has served fully to verify those apprehensions, and to justify those warnings, which on various occasions, with all the authority to be derived from experience of the past, fortified with facts occuring every day, in respect of the foreign policy of the empire, have been stated and enforced in the columns of this publication. To dignify that policy with the name of system, would be, if not an utter prostitution, a gross misapplication of terms; its course has been erratic and undisciplined as the mind of its director. Swayed by vague impulse, by fitful caprice, by puerile antipathies, its tendency has been, and continues still to be, uncertain as the temperamental oscillations of its author, and vain would be the attempt to predicate the policy of the morrow, from the fanciful indication of that of to-day. It would in truth be as idle to look for grapes from thistles, or wheat from tares; for the Foreign Secretary, the master-mind that should be, but is not, is so purely innocent of the first and elementary lessons of his art, that it would be miraculous indeed if he could master its more abstruse problems. The man who, as we know, and have heretofore exemplified, is so entirely deficient in the ruder outlines of geographical lore, as to be unacquainted with the territorial limits or position on the map of the remarkable localities of states, can hardly be fitted

VOL. XLIV. NO. CCLXXVIII.

to comprehend, and still less to treat scientifically, subjects of far more important interest in the political and commercial sense. The treaty of Unkiar Skelessi is an imperishable monument in proof of this deplorable ignorance and absence of political forecast and geographical combination; the Prussian Customhouse league would not have been existent at this moment had one frontier, and one central State of the States composing it, however small in extent, and insignificant in their populations, been secured by treaty, and so detached, as at the time was easily to be accomplished. But Lord Palmer. ston was as unconscious of the geographical and relative bearings of the Germanic States, affected by, and now combined in the Union, as of the vast commercial interests involved in, and now sacrificed through his ignorance and rashness. To be vanquished by known and avowed rivals or foes, should be humiliation sufficient, but one wreath more bristles amidst the laurels of his Lordship-he is no less the victim of the political friends of his bosom, than of undisguised opponents. If by open foes he has been circumvented, no less has he been betrayed and overreached by artful allies in whom he trusted. The work of pillage has been proceeding on all sides, as well by direct assault and battery, as by secret sapping and mining; but of all wars, that of "war in disguise" is the most formid

2 z

able, because the least prepared for. Such is the warfare now carrying on by France against this country-a warfare singularly abetting the views, if not covertly concerted with Russia. Leaving for the present out of view other prominent features of this creeping and clandestine system of aggressive inroad, deferring to another account and the final balance sheet the gigantic strides of French plunder and usurpation in Northern and Western Africa, let us sum up here only the story of French invasion and French aggression in America, North and South. The field of encroachment is vast and various, but of the three quarters of the world where French aggrandisement has been at work, by fraud and falsehood first, and, as success emboldened, with front more hardy, throwing off the scarcely deceptive mask afterwards, and parading the resolve of force to maintain, the concerns of one quarter at once will suffice to task sufficiently the temper of our readers and our own pa tience. The scene of action even thus circumscribed, will serve to show, that however Louis Philippe may lack the lion heart and eagle eye of Napoleon the Emperor, he is noways behind hand in the craft and cunning of Bonaparte the Corsican. Ships, colonies, and commerce, was the cry of Bonaparte; ships, colonies, and conquests, the echo of the barricade Sovereign; the insidious intent of one, as of the other, being to accomplish these objects at the expense of Great Britain, and by indirectly warring on her commerce, to sap the foundations of her maritime preponderance. Hence this country is insidiously attacked through the sides of its firmest allies and most gainful alliances. The blows ostensibly aimed against Mexico, Buenos Ayres, and Brazil, are no other than sidelong stabs, really meant for the most vital points of British interest, whilst in all the underplot accessories of the same drama, the one great ruling feature of the finale is never

lost sight of. Concurring circumstances are all but too favourable for the catastrophe preparing afar off. Powerful and rival navies, created around us as if by enchantment, and proudly careering over seas where once the British ensigns floated supreme in unequalled and almost solitary grandeur, whilst the wooden walls of old England, which once attested the extent of her supremacy, and exacted homage to her dominion whereever winds could waft or oceans bear them, are now laid up and rotting in ordinary-our proudest dock-yards so wasted of stores, and unreplenished, that not one solitary spar for a lower mainmast could recently be found in them to rig out the pleasure craft of an exvice regal Whig functionary — the once well-garnished rooms of our spacious arsenals so despoiled, bargained away to France, or shamelessly made away with to Spain, that it may be truly said, scarcely a musket remains to be shouldered, or a shot left in the locker-all this with, to erown all, a Cabinet where, in its nine members, stand prominently personified indolence and ignorance consummate, solemn pedantry and petulance in petto, upstart self-conceit and high-born arrogance all-blustering, self-sufficiency all smirking, and solid acres in all their stolidity, the remnant of vigour on crutches, and of saintly talent everdozing all this is indeed prophetic of wo to the land. Rottenness and corruption are in the high places, and what hope of safety and deliverance in times coming can be hoped for from dupes and dottards, who have deceived none but their country, and served none but its foes. Such are the men wielding, or assuming to wield, with puny hands, the energies of a great nation, under whose eyes, and in contempt of whose imbecility, a series of insults have been perpetrated, and actual hostilities commenced, by the French upon Mexico, more unprovoked and flagrant than ever characterised even the most cruel

-ducted.

meanness never

and capricious outbreak of Bonaparte himself, with the single exception, perhaps, of that one act, more atrocious than all-the invasion of Spain. Let us add, that this Mexican outrage partakes largely of a chargeable upon the France Imperial of Napoleon; in the shabby style of a shabby sovereign, to whom even ambition is second to the base passion of money-getting, Louis Philippe has engrafted a pecuniary interest upon political designs has raised a question and fixed the amount of damages in the names of individuals and subjects; and should the cause be gained, he claims the repartition of the spoil, with a view to an appropriation of the lion's share to himself. The sum of damages arbitrarily laid is roundly taxed at 600,000 hard dollars, of the various items composing which, some few are furnished with a certain detail, and the Mexicans required to take the rest on trust. It is indeed true, that the system of claims to indemnities did not originate with Louis Philippe; -he only improved them at a monstrous rate of compound interest. The account commenced in 1828, and when first rendered, fell vastly short of the grand total now demanded. For nonpayment of this, the Mexican ports are now blockaded, the Mexican territory about to be invaded, and though last, not of least consideration, British commerce and property are sacrificed, or wantonly perilled, to the extent of millions. Here indeed lies the hidden and the chief, though unavowed incentive to the Mexican quarrel. To cripple as well as to humble Great Britain, whilst at the same time filling his coffers from the mines of Mexico, dragooning her into treaties of commerce on unequal terms, forcing markets for the manufactures, and aggrandising the marine of France-these form the artfully woven meshes of the policy within the toils of which the cherished Downing Street hunter of Parisian salons lies perdu-from which the less enervated Aztecs of the Cordilleras are hardily struggling to get free. In humble imitation of Louis Philippe himself, let us take the money question first in order, and then the commercial and political. On the 4th of December, 1828, an insurrection of the masses was celebrated in Mexico, and a general sack of property took place, known as the Saquee del Parian. The sovereign peo

ple of Mexico, in fact, had their glorious three days, as two years afterwards the good people of Paris had theirs; the which, if nothing else, should have created a fellow feeling in the breast of Louis Philippe. The account-current of damage then fur nished for pillage by eight French esta blishments, amounted to 122,590 dol. lars, of which to the extent of no less than 74,800 dollars was claimed by one bookseller alone. Monsieur Hypolite Seguin, the modest claimant for this moderate sum of about L.16,500 in the article of books, admitted, with edifying candour, that proofs he had none to establish the fact of the loss in detail, for the plunderers had done him the good turn of carrying off his books of account, along with his other matters in the book way. Now, taking an average of French books at four shillings the volume, which, to those who know any thing of the base qua lity of the article in general, whether as regards the wretchedness of the paper, the miserable type, or the sort of works exported from, or indeed published in France, must appear a high average. The sum quoted for this book pillage would represent a library of about 82,000 volumes; ac cording to which, the people of the city of Mexico must be admitted not only not to be the barbarians the French would now make them, but to possess a passion so extraordinary for learning, that they actually gorged themselves with literature. The difference between the mobs of Paris and Mexico was therefore immense, but the balance of civilisation and taste was all in favour of the half-clad savages of the Andes. The Parisian liberty boys, as we can testify, were solely occupied, during their three days of robbery and riot, with the sack of palace and private house trappings, and the well garnished tills of shopkeepers-with clearing out restaurateurs, iron-grated bakeries, and wine shops. Such was the lack of relish for literary plunder, that shortly afterwards, during another glorious emeute, we ourselves witnessed, with pain indescribable, the splendid and plenteously-furnished library of the Archbishop of Paris contemptuously pitched out of the windows into the Seine, whose course it choked up, although the jolly brutes, less lettered than those of Mexico, were specially

conservative, for their own use, of the Archbishop's larder and wine cellar. The book-damage case of M. Seguin, it will be seen, was preposterous enough, and he must have reconciled the estimate to his conscience by taxing the books according to weight, on the Prussian Custom-house system, his trumpery stock of stale Paris shopkeepers being placed in the scales, and weight for weight reduced into golden onzas at par. Finding in the Government a disposition to entertain the question of these exorbitant claims, subject of course to a preliminary process of examination, another smaller batch of indemnity demands was painfully got up seven months afterwards, for 30,500 dollars, followed in two months more by another list of less voracious, or more bashful bloodsuckers, for other 15,317 dollars. In this state was the indemnity question at the appearance on the scene of Baron Deffandis, the new Plenipotentiary of France, who, in a note to the Mexican Foreign Secretary, dated the 19th of January, 1836, pressing for a settlement, stated the sum total at 168,378 dollars. During eight years, therefore, the amount and the number of claims remained stationary, from which it is fair to conclude that, during the interim, French residents had no peculiar causes for complaint.

With the advent of Baron Deffandis, however, a change came over the spirit of the times; grievance monger. ing under such auspices was a traffic too gainful to be confined to the Seguins more lucky riots occurred in Mexico-a brace of French buccaneers were shot at Tampico-some French smugglers were caught in the exercise of their honest craft, and the contraband property seized at Mazatlanother timely incidents fell out at Tehuantepee, Oajaca, and Orizava, so that, upon the whole, a goodly supplement to the Seguin catalogue was in course of less than two years scraped together, and without troubling himself or annoying the government with a bill of all particulars, the Baron at once, by a process of arithmetic all his own, summed up and sent in a total demand for 600,000 dollars, to be paid down on the nail without question or demur, not to the parties complaining, but to the French treasury; for, says the agent of the crafty and money-griping Louis Philippe, the government of

the king reserves to itself the liquidadation of the 600,000 dollars, as also the division thereof amongst the Frenchmen who have been sufferers in the Mexican territory," &c. Nothing, we apprehend, could well be more conclusive of the real opinion entertained of the equity of the grossly fraudulent claims than this impudent intimation of a design to share with the robbers, if not to appropriate the whole of the spoil. It forms truly a melancholy exhibition of the degraded state of political morality in France.

It is far beyond our purpose, and would be of our limits, to examine in detail such items or pretensions as are adduced by the French envoy in part justification only of the solid mass of metalico proposed to be abstracted from the Mexican mint, and transferred to the treasury of Louis Philippe ; but the dissection of a few will suffice for the character of the whole, with scarcely more than one exception, and that is in the case of five Frenchmen cruelly murdered during some tumults at Atenzingo in 1833, the atrocious perpretators of which could not be sufficiently disentangled from out the mob, and therefore the ends of justice, notwithstanding every exertion on the part of the Mexican authorities, were defeated. In behalf of the families of the victims a pecuniary mulct of 15,000 dollars is claimed, the equity of which there is little reason to dispute. But whilst admitting this, what must be thought of another item of 20,000 dollars; at which the lives of two French pirates are charged in the same account? The sufferers at Atenzingo are represented as honest industrious artizans or mechanics, who perished during a sudden outbreak of a misled populace against foreigners; the crime is visited at the rate of 3000 dollars each honest head only; but a deodand is levied at the rate of 10,000 dollars per head of two notorious freebooters and assassins taken in the act. The facts of the case of these men were notorious to all Mexico; all the authentic documents and examinations were in the hands of the French envoy, so that not a shadow of doubt could rest upon it; yet not only are these murderous robbers and ruffians elevated into martyrs, but their lives valued at more than three times the price of really unoffending subjects, according to the moral code of Louis