can be blown to fragments by the first breath of a man of sense, that we are induced to make the following extract from the pages of Mr. Rush:

It is to me an unaccountable anomaly, that a nation in which individual rights are guarded by barriers such as no other ever raised up, except the nation in the New World that springs from her; who would wade through blood sooner than part with her Habeas Corpus, or Trial by Jury, should yet sit calmly down under this unjust and tyrannical practice. It is said that her navy cannot otherwise be manned. Poor excuse! as if it were not universally true, that labour of any kind can be commanded by paying for it, and of course labour upon the ocean, with the risk of battle and death; and as if, supposing it to cost ten times over what would ever be asked, it ought not to be paid, sooner than such an outrage be committed! The statesmen, the philanthropists of England, will at last awake from the dream of supposed necessity for the pressgang. It will cease, and the wonder be, that any arguments for sustaining it could have been made current so long. There have, it is true, been states, ancient and modern, that have resorted to force for obtaining military service; but it has generally been for temporary purposes. Where this has not been the case, the states have been those in which personal rights have been imperfectly protected. The precedents are to be shunned, not copied; especially by a nation whose fundamental code looks to the inviolability of personal liberty in a degree far above that of the civil law of Rome, or any of the codes of Continental Europe engrafted upon it. I did not volunteer my thoughts upon my English companion; but if I had, I scarcely think that dissent would have come from his liberal mind, accustomed as it was to analyze and reason.-pp. 143, 144.

Amongst other observations made by Mr. Rush on the manners of the great, he informs us, that the preference at English, as well as at foreign tables, is for the light wines, Sherry being little used, and Madeira still less. The remarks on this subject are elicited from the author in reference to a dinner-party given by the Prince Esterhazy, who, he says, told him a pretty little anecdote about a relation of the prince's own. This was an officer high in rank, who was amongst the Austrians at the time when, in alliance with the Russians, they took Berlin from Frederick. The officer alluded to was observed, when the soldiers gave themselves up to plunder, to protect the palace at Potsdam: he suffered nothing to be touched, and merely asked, as a favour, that he should be allowed to take away a small portrait of the Prussian king, and also one of his flutes, as memorials of so great a monarch, and so valiant a warrior.

It was not, however, merely in a round of entertainments that the whole of the time of Mr. Rush was employed; he had at intervals, from the moment of his landing, interviews with Lord Castlereagh upon various points of policy in which the two countries were interested. Amongst these, there was none of greater importance than the power exercised by England, as a measure of state policy, of impressing her seamen to serve on board her ships of war.

The American Government certainly could have no business in interfering with this right, provided that the oppressive system was confined to British seamen, to the British dominions, and to British vessels exclusively. But this cannot be said to be the case, inasmuch as she has claimed the right of searching the vessels of other nations for her seamen at her own good-will. Suppose a British frigate, in time of war, meets an American trader, and stops and boards the latter; the English lieutenant can select from the crew any Englishman he may find, or thinks he finds, on board, and may compel him to enter the frigate. Now what the Americans complain of is this, that there is no appeal from the decision of the said lieutenant, but that any ruffian, assuming the badge of one, may thus attack an American vessel, and take out any of the men, under the pretence that the man selected is an Englishman; and that no redress is to be had, though the whole transaction could be proved to be founded on a villainous deception. The existence of so great an evil formed a constant subject of remonstrance from Mr. Rush to Lord Castlereagh, and at last a formal plan was submitted by the former for remedying it thoroughly. The principle of the plan, which originated with Mr. Rush himself, was, that a mode should be devised whereby British seamen should be previously excluded altogether from the American navy, because, if such a measure was effectual, there could be no motive for the right of search on the part of England. Mr. Rush was able ultimately to succeed in obtaining from Lord Castlereagh a pledge that the matter should be fully submitted to the Cabinet.

Upon one occasion, Mr. Rush tells us that he received a very particular visit from a certain Count, whose name he suppresses. The whole object of the visitor was, to let the minister into the secret that he was carefully watched by the spies of the English ministers, notwithstanding all their plausible show of consideration towards him. The honest American, in the absence of any sort of fact to justify the slightest confidence in his informant, fairly told him that he had no mysteries to be betrayed; and that, besides, such a practice as espionage was inconsistent with the genius of a government and a people who debated every thing in the open day, and whose press penetrated into the most sacred precincts of society. Speaking of the press, Mr. Rush joins every sensible foreign critic who has examined the subject in praising the power which it exercises in this country. To those who, in a spirit of wantonness, complain of the tyranny of the newspaper press, the following judicious remarks of Mr. Rush are cordially recommended:

Some will suppose that the newspapers govern the country. Nothing would be more unfounded. There is a power not only in the Government, but in the country itself, far above them. It lies in the educated classes. True, the daily press is of the educated class. Its conductors hold the

pens of scholars, often of statesmen. Hence you see no editorial personalities; which, moreover, the public would not bear. But what goes into the columns of newspapers, no matter from what sources, comes into contact with equals at least in mind among readers, and a thousand to one in number. The bulk of these are unmoved by what newspapers say, if opposite to their own opinions; which, passing quickly from one to another in a society where population is dense, make head against the daily press, after its first efforts are spent upon classes less enlightened. Half the people of England live in towns. This augments moral as physical power; the last, by strengthening rural parts through demand for their products— the first by sharpening intellect through opportunities of collision. The daily press could master opposing mental forces, if scattered; but not when they can combine. Then, the general literature of the country, reacts against newspapers. The permanent press, as distinct from the daily, teems with productions of a commanding character. There is a great class of authors always existent in England, whose sway exceeds that of the newspapers, as the main body the pioneers. Periodical literature is also effective. It is a match at least for the newspapers, when its time arrives. It is more elementary; less hasty. In a word, the daily press in England, with its floating capital in talents, zeal, and money, can do much at an onset. It is an organized corps, full of spirit and always ready; but there is a higher power of mind and influence behind, that can rally and defeat it. From the latter source it may also be presumed, that a more deliberate judgment will in the end be formed on difficult questions, than from the first impulses and more premature discussions of the daily journals. The latter move in their orbit by reflecting also, in the end, the higher judgment by which they have been controlled. Such are some of the considerations that strike the stranger, reading their daily newspapers. They make a wonderful part of the social system in England. Far more might be said by those having inclination and opportunity to pursue the subject.— pp. 201-203.

The sights of London, and the great men of the day, particularly the distinguished senators, are subjects to which Mr. Rush frequently recurs as if from preference; and on one occasion we were exceedingly struck with the justice of a comparison which he institutes between Canning and Mackintosh as rival orators. Mr. Rush fairly taxed the memory of Lord Erskine with respect to some of the great men whom his lordship knew, and obtained a good deal of information, particularly respecting Edmund Burke. "What a prodigy, (exclaimed the ex-Chancellor) was Burke! He came to see me not long before he died. I then lived on Hampstead-hill. Come, Erskine,' said he, holding out his hand, let us forget all; I shall soon quit this stage, and wish to die in peace with every body, especially you.' I reciprocated the sentiment, and we took a turn round the grounds. Suddenly he stopped. An extensive prospect broke upon him. He stood, wrapt in thought. Gazing on the sky, as the sun was setting, Ah! Erskine,' he said, pointing towards it, you cannot spoil that, because you cannot reach it; it would otherwise go; yes, the firmament itself

you and your reformers would tear it all down.' I was pleased with his friendly familiarity, and we went into the house, where kind feelings between us were further improved. A short time afterwards he wrote that attack upon the Duke of Devonshire, Fox, and myself, which flew all over England, and perhaps the United States.'

Mr. Rush fears that his version of the story does injustice to the real one of Lord Erskine; but, for our parts, we think the characteristic force and energy of Erskine are in excellent keeping, and we were glad to find that the interest which he found in interrogating Lord Erskine on the interesting topic of Mr. Burke induced him to request of the noble lord some account of that great man's mode of delivery. Lord Erskine replied, that it was execrable. "I was in the House of Commons," he continued, "when he made his great speech on American conciliation, the greatest he ever made. He drove every body away. I wanted to go out with the rest, but was near him and afraid to get up; so I squeezed myself down, and crawled under the benches like a dog, until I got to the door without his seeing me, rejoicing in my escape. Next day I went to the Isle of Wight. When the speech followed me there, I read it over and over again; I could hardly think of any thing else; I carried it about me, thumbed it, until it got like wadding for my gun." Here he broke out with a quotation from the passage beginning, "But what, says the financier, is peace without money?" which he gave with a fervour, showing how he felt it. He said that he was in the House when he threw a dagger on the floor, in his speech on the French Revolution, and it "had liked to have hit my foot." "It was a sad failure, he added, but Burke could bear it."

Of the remaining portion of Mr. Rush's volume, a considerable space is devoted to the progress of a general negociation for the settlement of commercial matters. This negociation, which was carried on chiefly by Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Rush, and Mr. Gallatin, terminated at last in a Convention, dated the 20th of October, 1818, which settled the points of difference existing between the United States and this country on the following subjects:-The Fisheries; the Boundary Line from the Lake to the Woods in the forty-ninth degree of north latitude; the claims of territory beyond the Rocky Mountains, and to Columbia River. The above questions were settled in the three first articles of the Convention; the fourth prolonged for ten years the existing commercial convention, by the provisions of which a reciprocal liberty of commerce is established between America and Great Britain. The fifth article embraced slavery, and the manner in which that question was treated deserves attention.

It appears, that during the war of 1812, a great number of slaves, belonging to proprietors in the southern districts of the Union, had found their way to the British ships stationed in the Chesapeake. Some of these came voluntarily, others by inducements held out to

them on the part of the British naval commanders, whilst a third class consisted of those who were captured during the war. When peace was established by the treaty of Ghent, the whole of what had been taken by either party was ordered to be restored without delay. In the very first article slaves were expressly mentioned as forming part of the property which should be returned to the former owners. Now, the slaves, at the time of the signing of the treaty, were either in British ships, in forts, or other places on shore, under British protection; and it was a point of dispute as to the extent of the application of the treaty to these slaves. England contended, that those slaves only were to get the benefit of the treaty who, at the time of the exchange of ratifications, were in the forts, or other places in which they had been originally taken-whilst the United States held the meaning of the article to be, that the British were to carry off no slaves who were within the American limits, although in the possession of the British at the time of the exchange of ratifications of the treaty, no matter whether such slaves were on board or on shore. The dispute on this question lasted a long time; and on the occasion of the proposal of the new convention, it was again brought on. But all attempts to settle it were fruitless; for it was a mere contention about words, each giving to them what they mutually considered to be arbitrary meanings. They agreed at last to leave the matter to an umpire; and of all the men living, whom did they choose?—the emperor, Alexander, of all the Russias! His decision was,

"That the United States were entitled to claim from Great Britain a just indemnification for all slaves that the British forces had carried away from places and territories of which the treaty stipulated the restitution; and that the United States were entitled to consider as having been so carried away, all slaves who had been transported from the above-mentioned territories to British ships. within their waters, and who for that reason might not have been restored."

The emperor, it seems, made known, in an official form, that he had devoted all his attention to the examination of the grammatical question, and that his decision was founded on the signification of the words in the text of the article. But, although the emperor decided in favour of the United States, the possibility of acting up to the measure of restoration required by the treaty was altogether out of the question, so many complications and difficulties had arisen during the period of delay.

Here, however, we are now under the necessity of taking leave of our highly interesting and instructive guide. We feel much more intensely than we can express, the whole magnitude of the value of such a work, at such a time as the present. It is the production of an American on the manners and character of Englishmen, written at an era when the works of Englishmen, and English women, too, on America, teem with the manifestations of the most