fourths were natives. In the time of her greatest profperity, the money which America raifed was trifling. She will feel the lofs of 370,000l. a year, which was the expence of the British eftablishment there, and was drawn from this country. Pennfylvania was eighteen years finking about 300,000l. fterling, granted for the expence of the war begun 1755, at the rate of 18d. in the pound on the annual value of real and perfonal property. Pennsylvania, although the never paid much above 20,000l. yearly, currency, complained greatly of her taxes.

• It will not be an easy matter to bring the American States to act as a nation; they are not to be feared as fuch by us. It must be a long time before they can engage, or will concur, in any material expence.'

His lordship obferves, that no treaty can be made with the American States fo as to bind the whole of them; and that, in fact, no treaty is at prefent neceffary.

We trade with feveral very confiderable nations, without commercial treaties. The novelty of the cafe, and the neceffity of enquiry and full confideration, make it improper for us to hurry into any engagements, that may poffibly injure our navigation. When men talk of liberality and reciprocity, in commercial matters, it is clear, either that they have no argument, or no knowledge of the fubject, that they are supporting a favourite hypothefis, or that they are interefted: it is not friendship or favour, but exactness and punctuality, that is looked for in commerce. Our great national object is to raise as many failors, and as much shipping as poffible: fo far acts of parliament may have

effect; but neither acts of parliament nor treaties, in matters merely commercial, will have any force, farther than the interests of individuals coincide; and where advantage is to be got, the individual will purfue it.'

After objecting to the fuggefted establishment of free ports at Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Weft Indies, &c. as prejudicial to our carryingtrade-and enumerating the various advantages which the Americans themfelves will derive from trading with British merchants, in preference to those of every other nation-interfperfed with fuch ftriking proofs of undoubted information, and genuine political and commercial knowledge, as render it much the most interesting performance on American affairs we have ever feen-his lordship thus concludes.

"The facts on which thefe obfervations are founded, were not by any means lightly taken up; they have been minutely and carefully enquir ed into, and ftri&tly examined, efpecially thofe which are in any degree material; but there may be mistakes, although every precaution has been taken to avoid them. The obfervations have been thrown out as they occurred, in a hurry, and without a nice attention to method or ornament. The purpofe, however, will be anfwered, if they fhould lead men to fee the neceffity of maintaining the fpirit of our navigation laws, which we seemed almost to have forgot, although to them we owe our confequence, our power, and almost every great national advantage. The Navigation Act, the basis of our great power at fea, gave us the trade of the world: if we alter that act, by permitting any state to trade with our

VOL. III.

iflands,

their books till the winter, when they will have the Preliminary Difcourfe and the Notes, which the author's engagements make it impoffible for him to prepare this feafon.

The Difcourfe will comprize obfervations on the antiquity of the Arabian language and letters; on the dialects and characters of Himyar and Koraish, with accounts of fome Himyarick poets; on the manners of the Arabs in the age immediately preceding that of Mahomed; on the temple at Mecca, and the Moâllakat, or pieces of poetry fufpended on it's walls or gate; laftly, on the lives of the Seven Poets, with a critical hiftory of their works, and the various copies or editions of them preferved in Europe, Afia, and Africa.

"The Notes will contain authorities and reafons for the tranflation of controverted paffages; will elucidate all the obfcure couplets, and exhibit or propofe amendments of the text; will direct the reader's attention to particular beauties, or point out remarkable defects; and will throw light on the images, figures, and allufions, of the Arabian poets, by citations either from writers of their own country, or from fuch of our European travellers as beft illuftrate the ideas and cuftoms of eaftern nations.'

Hiftorian, fhe has certainly fucceeded as well as could reasonably be expected, confidering the abftrufe and unfeminine nature of the fubje&t.

Our fair philofopher (for in this character alone we are at prefent to confider her) divides her treatise into five chapters. In the first, he takes a view of the prefent ftate of morals; in the fecond, gives us fome obfervations on Dr. King's Origin of Natural Evil, tending to prove the Immutability of Moral Truth; in the third, examines Lord Bolingbroke's fceptical opinions on the fubject of a future ftate; in the fourth, notices Dr. King's Origin of Moral Evil, and introduces fome obfervations on the doctrines of Liberty and Neceffity; and, in the fifth, gives us farther arguments for the belief of a future ftate, with obfervations on the ftoic philofophy.

From this general view of Mrs. Graham's defign, the philofophical reader will not expect any great degree of novelty; nor will the unphilofophical one look for much entertainment.

But perhaps the following extract from the prefent State of Morals, has fufficient merit, on the whole, to apologize for fuch defects as a nice inveftigator may discover in the conduct of this performance.

The world, I know, has been reprefented, by many diftinguished writers, as being in a rapid ftate of progreffive improvement; and commerce has been celebrated as a deity, whofe univerfal influence on the hap pinefs of man is felt in prefent enjoyment, and in a profpective ins creafing felicity; but it will be found, on an accurate furvey of thefe temporal advantages, that the enlarged knowledge of mankind has acted merely to the improvement of that fubordinate intereft mentioned in the beginning of this work: and as to commerce, in the prefent ignorant and negligent ftate of men's minds

on the fubject of their only valuable purfuit, it naturally tends, by affording the means of extending the gratifications of fenfe beyond their proper bounds, to deftroy that due balance which nature has formed between corporeal appetites and mental enjoyments: it furnishes means to delude the imagination, by an endlefs variety of fantastic objects of happiness; and though it must be allowed to foften that barbarous fiercenefs, which the want of means, or the want of incentives towards a general communication, produced in the manners of our ancestors; yet as men are much more prone to copy the vices and follies of those with whom they affociate, than their good qualities, and as vice is a much more glaring feature, in all focieties, than virtue, fo commerce has acted with a prevalence and an univerfality fuperior to every other caufe, in the spreading the contagion of a flagitious luxury: befides, the effential principles of commerce tend to increase that felfishness in man, which most powerfully militates against the qualities of honesty, integrity, frugality, moderation, fobriety, and a confcientious regard to the interefts of the community at large, and to the private good of individuals.

'Some confequences, and, indeed, fuch as, by a proper attention to our fuperior intereft, may be rendered of a very important nature, are annexed to the more general ufe of letters and the extensiveness of commerce; but, if civilization is any thing more than an alteration in the modes of vice and error, we have not yet attained to any laudable degree of civilization.

It is true, we have got rid of fome prejudices, which are found, by experience, to have a tendency to narrow our pleasures and enjoyments, and to be productive of mutual and unneceffary evil. It is on these reafons, that men have agreed to lay afide the cuftom of their ancestors, in the manner of treating the vanquished in war; and, by that uninterrupted communication, which a general fpirit of commerce has introduced, the

unfriendly prejudices which one man ufed to entertain of another, from the accidental circumstances of not being born in the fame part of the globe, in the fame city, or on the fame fpot of ground, is greatly and happily diminished. But thefe, with an almost universal abatement of that spirit of perfecution, which, used to harrafs the more religious ages of the world, are, I think, the only points on which the fo much boasted civilization and progrefs of improvement turns. How far these improvements may, in their confequen-, ces, tend to the general enlightening. the understandings of mankind towards a cultivation of their rational intereft, remains yet in the fecrets of futurity; for, furely, no real and univerfal melioration of the state of morals can reasonably be expected, whilft men are fettered with illiberal prejudices: but though thefe circumftances may, probably, lead to the attainment of that wifdom on which the excellence and happiness of man depends, yet they never can be confidered as an attainment of the principle itfelf.

It is true, that men have agreed to fpare one another, for the confiderations of mutual fecurity, when no intereft tempts them to cut one another's throats; yet are wars lefs frequent than they were of old; and does a fentiment of justice forbid the carnage of the human race, when intereft prompts and opportunity gives the word? It is true, that merchants and travellers converfe together freely, and without moleftation, in almost all the known parts of the globe: but are public trufts lefs abufed; are public offices held with greater integrity. than in former times; bas fuch an improvement in the laws, manners, and the police of modern focieties, taken place, as to fpread those advantages of opulence and plenty, which commerce furnishes in a manner as fhall be fenfibly felt by all their citizens; is the right of property in the perfons of our fellow-creatures given up; or are flaves lefs, abufed? When treachery, intereft,

and

and impunity, are found in union, are the tranfactions of private life, even among the more elevated claffes of men, more fair and honourable; have we fewer executions; have we fewer lawyers; have we fewer debauchees; are the enormities of vice decreased; or rather, as one vice decreases, does not another gain ground; does not gaming, and a fenfelefs diffipation, affume the place of a more general inebriety; have we not an increased, though perhaps a more refined fenfuality; do not the triumphs of a fenfelefs vanity often overpower all confiderations arifing from the fentiments of justice and benevolence? In fhort, have we fewer illi-. cit defires; or are illicit defires more, rarely gratified; do we feel lefs the ftings of envy, or are we lefs actuated by that paffion; or have we more charity, in the extenfive fenfe of the word, than formerly?

If thefe queries cannot be fairly answered in the negative, I think the prefent times have no reason to boast of having made any progrefs in that higher part of civilization, which affects the rational intereft of man, and conftitutes the excellence of his nature: as for that spirit of toleration, which is happily prevailing all over the world, its growth, I am afraid, arifes not from an improvement of religious principle, but from

the total lofs of it.

This is, perhaps, obviously the cafe with a neighbouring fociety, whom a temporary policy has rendered confpicuous in the ways of modern refinement; but for my countrymen, I wish there was not too much reafon to lament, that they have rather gone in a retrograde than in a progreffive courfe, as to the article of civilization, when compared with the virtue of ancient times. There has, undoubtedly, exifted in the fortune of this nation feveral unfavourable circumftances which have tended to a general depravity in its morals. The infolence which too commonly at tends fuccefs; the prodigality and diffipation which accompany riches,

with certain corruptions interwoven with its government, has produced, in the point of national reputation, the moft mortifying confequences; and, though it is proper to avoid the mixture of political reflections in a moral treatise, yet it must be acknowledged, that the annals of this age have a fhameful tale to tell of a certain people, who have incurred the most humiliating loffes and dif graces, by fcandalous deviations from all the plainest rules of justice and good policy.'

ART. IV. Some Account of the late John Fothergill, M.D. Member of the Royal College of Phyficians, and Fellow of the Royal Society of London; Fellow of the Royal College of Phyficians in Edinburgh; and Correfponding Member of the Royal Medical Society of Paris, and of the American Philofophical Society at Philadelphia. By John Coak. ley Lettfom. 8vo. 3s. Dilly.

R. Lettfom, in an advertisement

Dwhich

which he has prefixed, thus apologizes for publishing the life of Dr. Fothergill fingly, and previous to the completion of his edition of the Works of that celebrated phyfician*.

I have been under the neceffity of poftponing the publication of Dr. Fothergill's works fome time longer. than I first proposed: difficulties have arifen, which were not foreseen; and they have occafioned a delay, which could not be prevented. I have now, however, the fatisfaction to obferve, that the third and laft volume is in fuch a ftate of forwardness, that, whatever incident might happen in my life, the completion of this edition, as well as of the quarto, need not be retarded thereby.

Nevertheless, as the account of the life of Dr. Fothergill, which is to be prefixed to his works, has been requefted by many who admired his character, efpecially those abroad, to whom he was lefs perfonally known; I have published the same separately, as more convenient for fuch as do not