Nothing can be more wretched than the fituation of the French army, as defcribed in feveral of thefe letters; and, if we had had any doubt before, as to its ultimate deftruction, the defcription there given would have fufficed to difpel it. PISTRE fpeaks truth when he fays, "Although victorious, it will terminate its career by perishing miferably, if our govern ment perfifts in its ambitious projects." (P. 152.) And another officer, Rozis, corroborates his statement. "We are exceedingly reduced in our numbers. Befides all this, there. exifts a general difcontent in the army. Defpondency was never at fuch a height before; we have had feveral foldiers who blew out their brains in the prefence of the Commander in Chief, exclaiming to him, Viola ton ouvrage' This is your work.' I can go no farther; time will acquaint you with the reft." (P. 220.) We could extract many other paffages to the fame effect.

The number of land forces, employed in this expedition, appears to have been 42,000, and of feamen about 20,000. Of these very few, in all probability, will ever return to their native country.

The profligacy of the Jacobin prints in this country is ably expofed in the notes; and if thefe do not raise a blush on the cheeks of those who patronize or encourage thofe deteftable vehicles of difaffection, they must be callous to fhame.

The editor's obfervations on the prefent ftate of Egypt we fhall extract, as a fpecimen of his ftyle:

"The government of Egypt, fays Niebuhr, (who, in one page, has conveyed more real information on the subject than is to be found in fome extenfive volumes,) is vefted in a Bafhaw, reprefentative of the Grand Seignior; fometimes, indeed, neglected, but whom the invafion of the French will certainly reftore to all his influence, and in eighteen Beys-for to this number they have now been reduced for many years. Thefe Beys are not, as is commonly fupposed, all of Chriftian origin, purchafed in their childhood, and brought, as flaves, to Grand Cairo; fo long fince as 1762, (many years before Savary was in Egypt,) five of them were already of Mahometan families; and as the importation of flaves from Mingrelia and Georgia has been conftantly diminishing, it is very probable that the greater num. ber of the prefent Beys are of the fame defcription.

"It has been alfo thought, that the military ftrength of Egypt confifts merely of 8,000 Mameloucs: this, too, is a mistake. Travellers may have been led into it, because the troops are not affembled, exercifed, and uniformly clothed, after the European manner; but every Bey has his particular troops, which confift principally of his vaffals: fome of them have as many as 2,000; difperfed, indeed, about the country, but capable of being colleged at the first fignal.

There

There are, befides, many regiments (fuch as thofe of Affab, Motd: farraka, Tejumlan, Teffèkefchan, &c.) maintained by the ftate. The number of Janiffaries too, in the pay of the Porte, is confiderable; and as most of the officers have poffeffions in the country, they are all exceedingly attached to the government. If to all these are added the hordes of Bedouins, whofe affittance may be easily purchased against a foreign enemy, we fhall find that Buonaparte will have to contend not only with more troops, but with far more formidable ones, than he had probably reckoned on.

"We could enlarge, with pleafure, on the obfervations of this well-informed traveller-but we forbear, as this note is already long, and as we have a point to fettle with the French reviewers of this correfpondence.

6

"In the first part we took the liberty of expreffing our furprizé at the general ignorance of the Army of England, or, of the Eaft,' refpecting Egypt. This appears to have given great offence. How, fay the writers of the Decade Philofophique, Literaire and Politique, how' (we omit their paffionate preamble,) can people, who have never been in a distant country, know any thing of it, but from the accounts of travellers? This, as a general remark, may be very well; but, unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the point in difpute. Our furprize was occafioned, as the critics muft have feen, by obferving, that in a cafe where it imported them fo greatly to collect the beft information, not a man in the army, nor in the long train of Savans which followed it, fhould, as far as appears, have extended his enquiries beyond the jejune pages of Volney and Savary-when, befides the earlier and fuller works of their own countrymen, the judicious hiftories of Sandys, Shaw, Pocock, Norden, Niebuhr, (himself an hoft,) and a number of others, lay, as it were, immediately under their hands!"

Does not this confirm our fuppofition that the Directory were themselves deceived refpecting the state of Europe, and the inference which we drew from that circumstance?

Prefixed to this volume is a fac-fimile of Buonaparte's hand-writing, given, as we suppose, (for we are not told fo,) for the purpofe of establishing the authenticity of a letter, which fome French critics were difpofed to question. The reafon fhould certainly have been affigned, for, on no other account, would it be excufable to make this leader of a banditti, this modern Cartouche, of fo much confequence. We do not recollect that Fielding deemed it neceffary to pay a fimilar compliment to his hero, Jonathan Wild. It proves, however, that Buonaparte fights better than he writes, for a more miferable fcrawl we never beheld. Why a fac-fimile of M. Berthier's fignature is given we cannot devife. It excites no intereft, and anfwers no purpose.

ART.

385

ART. V. A Brief Examination into the Increase of the Revenue, Commerce, and Manufactures of Great Britain, from 1792 to 1799. By George Rofe, Efq. Pp. 88. Price 25. Wright, Piccadilly. 1799.

THE

8vo.

HE friends of their country muft receive these authentic and official communications on the revenue, commerce, and manufactures of Great Britain with exulting fatisfaction. However prior adminiftrations may be applauded by pretended patriots, there never before was a period in the annals of any nation when the finances, fupplies, and expenditure of a government were fo fimplified as to be rendered intelligible to every common apprehenfion. The fidelity of thefe ftatements cannot but be admitted; and the periods felected by Mr. Rofe for the comparative estimate of the resources and credit of this country are the most unfavourable that could be felected; and, for the year 1792, the year of peace, is the precife time a Jacobin would have fixed upon for depreciating our prefent fituation; yet this is the æra which Mr. Rofe parallels with the year 1799, after the kingdom has been engaged in a fix years war; yet

"If a comparison, inftituted on fuch terms, fhall exhibit the country, in its prefent ftate, powerful in exertion, and more flourifhing in revenue, commerce, and manufactures than in those days of tranquillity and ease, and ftill profperous in point of credit and fertile in refource, we may certainly indulge, without being deemed extravagantly fanguine, the confcioufnefs of native vigour and inherent energy, which difficulties and danger rather awaken than impair." P. 6.

If a statesman wishes to estimate, with precifion, the me rits of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the exertions of a government, or an adminiftration, he ought to institute his enquiry at their introduction into office, and examine the state of the veffel when she was entrusted to a new captain, pilot, and mariners. For fuch reafons he would view, in retrofpect, the posture of affairs in the year 1783, when the war had left us in a depreffed ftate, when public credit was reduced, and when our finances were prefumed to be exhaufted; he would then trace the steps by which we had rifen from that abyfs, and regained the fummit of profperity. From fuch investigation he would find, that the revenue of this kingdom was increased upwards of 4,000,000l. of which 1,000,000l. was not raised by new taxes, from the year 1783 to 1792. Since that period we have unavoidably experienced

NO. X. VOL. II.

S$

"A wat

A war the moft eventful, and neceffarily the moft expenfive, in which the nation was ever engaged, yet she has been able to preferve her credit unimpaired, to provide for the exigencies of that war, and to look forward, with confidence, to a provifion for future contingencies." P. 5.

To analyze a brief examination" with clearness and accuracy is almoft impracticable, but we will felect a few statements, which will fully prove the general prosperity of the kingdom, its increase of exports and imports, the amplitude of its revenues, and the magnanimous fpirit of its inhabitants. In the year 1783 the taxes produced 10,194,2591.: in the year 1798 the total of all taxes produced 25,425,000l.; difference, 15,230,7411. In the year 1791 the estimated peace establishment was 16,000,000l.; the annual charge incurred in the war is 7,931,2151.: total, 23,931,2151. Confequently, the furplus applicable to a future increased peace eftablishment will be 1,493,7851. In the year 1783 the amount of British manufactures, according to cuftom houfe valuation, exported, was 10,314,000l.; but as, according to the Infpector-general's estimate, the real value was 40 per cent. more than the entry, we rate the exportation at 14,441,600l. In the year 1798 the amount of British manufactures exported, according to custom-house valuation, was 19,771,000l.; but as it is now proved, by the convoy-bill, that the real value of the manufactures is zol. per cent. more than the entered valuation, the real value of British manufactures exported is 33,610,700l.; of imports into Great Britain, 46,963,000l.; of foreign goods exported, 14,387,000l.: the amount of which imports and exports of 1798, above the average of the four most flourishing years of peace, gives an excess of 22,273,000l. fterling. The difference, in value of British goods exported fince the present administration, is 19,169,100l.

From fuch calculations, the bafis of which is founded on incontrovertible authorities, authorities admitted by oppofition and select committees, the reader that wishes to be more particularly informed will neceffarily perufe the work itself. A true Englishman will find equal caufe for national exultation, in the means adopted for the liquidation of the national debt. But we will here give an extract as a specimen of the language and reafoning of the author:

"In attributing merit to the adoption of fuch meafures, we must not lofe fight of the firm adherence to them under circumstances of the greatest difficulty. One of the chief arguments against the plan of the annual million, on the first propofal of it in 1786, was, the uncertainty of its duration; it was urged, that in the first hour of

neceffity

neceffity this finking fund (as had happened to other finking funds) would be applied, by the Minifter of the time, to the exigency which might immediately prefs upon him: every precaution, as before obferved, was, however, taken to prevent this. But we have now fomething more than a truft in legiflative regulation and restriction, for our confidence in the ftability of the measure, how ever fafely we might have relied on thefe. We have already feen times as trying to the refources of the country as the warmest opponent of the mode of attaining the object foreboded; we have feen a war, in which the moft vigorous, the most extenfive, and the moft rapid exertions were neceffary to the immediate fafety and prefervation of the empire; we have feen this war unavoidably protracted, by the overbearing infolence and the extravagant pretentions of the enemy, and enlarged in its objects beyond any former conteft in which this country had ever been engaged :—the expence has been proportionate; but, in a contest in which every thing valuable is at flake, we were to grapple with the necefiity at any expence. Yet the means for fuftaining it have been provided, without trenching, in the finallest degree, upon this fund allotted for the extinction of the national debt, and with an inflexible perfeverance in the mafure of providing in every new loan a furplus for the redemption. of it." Pp. 20—23.

The total of capital a&tually redeemed, and debentures paid off by the finking fund, from 1786 to Feb. 1, 1799, amount to 42,003,040l. in addition to 119,880l. a year of annuities. expired.

Mr. Rofe then proceeds to fhew the meliorated fyftem adopted by the prefent adminiftration in the collection of the ftamp-revenue, excife, falt-duties, and cuftoms. He afferts, that there are now 747 fewer perfons, for the management of a revenue of 12,100,000l. a year, than there were, when the prefent Minifter came into office, for a revenue of 6,000,000l." (P. 47, note.) He then traces the application of the money granted to the various branches of the public fervice; the navy, the transport-board, the army, &c. where the most œconomical arrangements are stated to have been adopted. He then fhews the flourishing ftate of the Bank of England, the great quantity of fpecie circulating in his Majefty's dominions, about 44,000,000l. ; and the whole is concluded with feven Appendixes, as vouchers of such statements.

To fuch official publications as Mr. Rofe's and Lord Auckland's, founded on facts and experience, Lord Lauderdale, Meffrs. Morgan and Payne, will not, we believe, attempt to reply.