M. Sismondi gives us a striking exhibition of the fatal effects of the prohibitory and anti-commercial system of Buonaparte on the national prosperity. Nothing is wanting, he adds, to complete the ruin of the nation, but to force her to expend the remainder of her funds in the establishment of colonies, which will ultimately be unable to stand against foreign competition, and which she will, therefore, be forced to abandon. He then computes the probable expease of subduing the island, and refers to the expedition under General Le Clerc, which cost the French an army. The colony, if ever it be conquered, will have cost France, he says, fifty thousand men, and three hundred millions sterling. Of the five years allowed for the continuance of trade by the treaty, two must be allotted to the conquest of the island, and each of the remaining three, will only allow of the transportation of 15,000 slaves. A colony would thus be formed, worth a tenth of its ancient value. The purchase of slaves, however, according to the calculations of all the planters, forms only three eighths of the expense of an establishment: three-eighths (as shewn in a note taken from M. de Humboldt) being required for the first breaking up of the earth, and twoeighths for buildings, manufactures, and cattle. It would be two years before any advantage could be drawn by the capitalist; and at the end of that term, if the colony prosper, and if the profits of the planters be equal to what they were in the greatest prosperity of St. Domingo, the plantations would yield about eight per cent. or hardly more than half what the same funds would produce if employed in inland commerce.

6

M. Sismondi then just glances, for curiosity's sake,' as the immorality of the action must rot be admitted into the account, at the blood and the crimes superadded to the money, which this little establishment must cost France. He estimates them thus: 400,000 individuals, the negro population of St. Domingo which inust be destroyed, 50,000 soldiers which France must lose in this butchery, through the effect of the climate still more than by arms, (and the example of Le Clerc proves this calculation not to be exaggerated.) To establish 45,000 slaves in Domingo, 60,000 must have embarked at Senegal: the miseries of the middle passage, sickness, grief, and suicide, always carry off a quarter. Two men, embarked at the coast, always cost Africa at least three. Kidnapping a free man, the most odious of offences, is not committed gratuitously. The father who has not succeeded in rescuing his children, does not so soon lose the hope of revenging them; and stealing a man is a crime which may risk the shedding of blood for many generations. Thus then, to the sixty thousand slaves who are sold, we must add thirty thousand killed on their account; and thus, to succeed in furnishing St. Domingo with 45,000 slaves, we

shall have the sum total of 540,000 deaths, 540,000 murder; !

The mind revolts from the necessity of pursuing the argument further; and yet statements as clear in point of fact, as horrible in their details, and as conclusive in their reasoning, as these, were, for a series of years, presented before a British Parliament, and in the face of Heaven, they were unblushingly resisted!

M. Sismondi, towards the close of this able pamphlet, enters into the question of the superior advantages of employing free slaves as farmers,

Le métayer travaille gaîment, parce qu'il sait qu'il partagera tous les produits; il soigne également toutes les parties de sa terre, et profite également de toutes ses journées, parce qu'il sait que ce qu'il fait est pour lui; aucun inspecteur, aucun commandeur de nègres n'est nécessaire, parce qu'il est assuré que s'il se conduit avec indolence ou mauvaise foi, le maître ou son facteur lui ôteront sa métairie et au moment du partage des récoltes le facteur se trouve sur l'aire où le blé a éte battu, comme il se trouveroit sur celle où le café se dépouille. Le cultivateur s est payé lui-même de ses sueurs, il a vécu, il a été heureux; et le propriétaire a retiré une rente nette, proportionnée à la fertilité de sa terre, comme à l'intelligence de son métayer, animée par la liberté.

Ceux qui prétendent que les nègres sont trop indolens pour remplir les conditions imposées au métayer, oublient le plantage de chaque esclave, qui est toujours soigné avec autant d industrie que de zèle. Ils ignorent que, dans ce moment même, l'île de St Domingue est cultivée par les nègres, non pas en vue seulement de leur propre subsistance, mais en vue du commerce dont ils ont senti le besoin; Les nè res indépendans d'Hayti, ont éte obligés de renoncer à la culture et à la fabrication du sucre, qui demandoit trop de capitaux, et peut-être trop de connoissances chimiques; mais ils ont soigné les plantations de café et de coton, et cette année même leur île a fourni pour l'angleterre le chargement de vingt gros vaisseaux. Les paysans de l'Italie sont peut-être également indolens, également avides de jouissances présentes, et de l'enivrement d'un beau climat, également pauvres et ignorans ; mais ils sont attachés a leur travail dans chaque métairie, par la double jouissance de la propriété et de la liberté. Selon que cette proprieté est plus ou moins garantie, que cette liberté est plus ou moins entière, on voit le paysan italien, industrieux et actif en Toscane, nonchalant et découragé en Sicile Les bonnes lois augmentent les revenus d'un pays comme les jouissances de ses habitans; mais dans le pays même où elles sont les plus mauvaises, le paysan d'grigente n'a pas besoin du fouet d'un commandeur, pour faire partager a son seigneur les riches fruits d'un beau climat et d'un sol fertile.' pp. 47-49.

He concludes his observations by reprobating commercial monopoly in the following striking language.

Si les autres Puissances luttent pour exclure les Français de toute l'Amérique et de toute l'Inde, c'est à eux à lutter pour y entrer. Lorsqu'au contraire ils s'enchaînent au monopole de leurs petites colonies, ils ressemblent à un prisonnier, qui, séparé du monde entier par les verroux de ses géoliers, s'enferme en dedans à double tour, et croit ainsi mettre l'Univers en prison, en-dehors de son donjon.' pp. 51-52.

The name of Mr. Wilberforce, affixed to the second of these pamphlets, supersedes the necessity of our being so particular in our notice of its contents. The facts and arguments, indeed, which are brought forward, cannot but be already familiar to English readers, and will interest more by their force than by their novelty. Nothing could be better adapted, however, to the purpose for which it was designed, than the general train of this letter, which is written in the conciliatory tone of a persuasive eloquence. To one passage only we hesitate to assent, and fear that the benevolent feelings of the distinguished writer have betrayed him into too sanguine an estimate of the character of our merchants.

Such has been,' he says, the progress of truth and of right; such the consequences of the development of the real nature and effects of the Slave Trade, that now, throughout these kingdoms, not an individual is to be found by whom that traffic is not condemned in terms of the strongest reprobation. There is no man whose feelings would not shrink from the shame, as well as his conscience recoil from the guilt, of being concerned in it ;-no man who would not conceive that he should thereby hand down to his descendants profits polluted with blood, and a name branded with infamy' p. 4.

It cannot, then, be truc-we will not believe that it can be, what a merchant of Rouen did not hesitate to affirm to the Rev. Mr. Shepherd, the author of the work which forms the subject of our next article-that the article in the Treaty of Paris, reviving the Slave Trade was not intended, for the be'nefit of France; the French merchants had not sufficient ca'pital to carry on the Slave Trade. It was inserted for the purpose of gratifying certain interests in England which would soon, by means of the easy intercourse between the two countries, be deeply embarked in the abominable traffic. I hope,' adds Mr. Shepherd, this is one of those refinements in speculation, in which Frenchmen are so apt to indulge themselves.' p. 151. So monstrous and aggravated a degree of wickedness would, indeed, be the consummation of all the abominations involved in that unnatural system of rapine, slavery, and murder, which was once legalized under the name of the Slave Trade.

Art. VI. Paris in Eighteen Hundred and Two, and Eighteen Hundred and Fourteen. By the Rev. William Shepherd. Second edition. cr. 8vo. pp. 284. price 7s. 6d. London. Longman and Co.

1814.

THE highly respectable Author of this amusing production, apprises his readers in the Preface, that it purports only 'to show how an individual, limited in point of time and property, may pleasantly and profitably spend a few weeks in Paris.' It is accordingly written in the unaffected style of a journal, and contains the lively observations and intelligent remarks of a man of taste and erudition, made en passant, and given as they occurred, without any attempt to exhibit himself either as a savant or un homme d'esprit. To persons who intend visiting the capital of France, this volume will supply many useful hints; and to those to whom the gratification of the epidemic curiosity which prevails, to see the other side of the channel, is denied, it may, perhaps, answer a still more valuable purpose; for it not only makes us acquainted with all that is to be seen at Paris, but it informs us also how little that all comprises, worth the trouble and expense of the expedition.

Paris, at different periods, has certainly been an object of high interest; but we are not aware that the transactions which have made it so, have been of a nature to confer any strongly attractive charms of association on its walls. Frivolity, and bloodthirsty cruelty, have alternately distinguished the manners of its inhabitants. Other cities have either some classical, or religious, or at least some historical associations connected with them, by which they speak to the feelings; some benefactor of mankind was born within its walls, or the mighty dead lie entombed within its sanctuaries. But the strong recollections which absorb the mind on entering Paris, are those of revolutionary frenzy, or of imperial tyranny; or, if the mind reverts to a former period, ideas of massacre, of irreligious fury, and of exterminating bigotry, present themselves. The sensations with which one would contemplate Paris, might seem to bear some resemblance to those with which we should explore the crater of a volcano, while the lava on its sides is yet warm, and the half smothered rumblings of internal fires is still heard beneath. And the reflections which naturally arise on seeing the childish fondness and security with which the people seem to be building up again their fragile and glittering establishments on the very site of the ruins of former erections, partake in some degree of that surprise and melancholy with which the traveller beholds the cottages of the peasants cresting the mountain in the very channel of its fiery torrents.

Paris is still, however, in some respects, an object of high cu

riosity; and chiefly from the spoils, with which rapacious vanity has enriched it, at the expense of other countries. To the man of letters, or of taste, to the author, or the artist, the opportunities and peculiar advantages it affords for study or research, render it at least a desirable temporary residence. The galleries and museums constitute its principal attraction. When to these are added, its theatre, the Louvre, and within the reach of a pleasant ride in its vicinity, the Palaces of Versailles, St. Cloud, and Trianon, we apprehend its peculiar sources of amusement are all enumerated. The climate of France is, indeed, in itself a luxury; but to the man of pleasure, all climates are much the same; and the beauties of nature are among the last objects, for which our countrymen think of visiting France.

Some of the most interesting details of Mr. Shepherd's work, relate to the sentiments which he heard from the various descriptions of persons with whom he had intercourse, and which may be considered as indicative of public feeling. Some anecdotes are given, strikingly characteristic of the people. The reason assigned by a demoiselle for her detestation of Buonaparte, is natural enough: Parcequ'il a fait tuer tous nos amans.' The mass of the people, Mr. S. deems friendly to the Bourbons. They were so oppressed by Buonaparte, he says, and the conscription in particular, made such inroads upon their domestic comforts, that though their joy is by no means extravagant, they are glad to see the throne filled by a monarch of a mild disposition, and of a pacific character. His government, however, must be that of influence: it cannot be maintained by force.

We have thought it unnecessary to give any extracts from this publication, as we have no doubt our readers will, from the account we have given of it, be desirous of examining its contents for themselves.

Art. VII. Letters from a Lady to her Sister, during a Tour to Paris, in the months of April and May, 1814. 12mo. pp. 160. price 4s. Longman and Co.

THE point of time at which this lady visited Paris gives its

interest to her simple narrative. She is anxious that it should be understood that these letters are genuine, and that they were not written with any view to publication. Of this there is sufficient evidence in the careless, unaffected style in which they are written. The manner in which the scenes are described, is that of an eye witness, writing under the first lively impressions of wonder, and agitation, and vague delight, which their almost romantic nature, and rapid succession, were calculated to excite on a mind not deeply reflective. The modest apology contained in the Preface, precludes all criticism on this hasty