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ers to interpose as a shield between her and the property of ber enemy? Would she suffer them to protect the trade of England, and to render nugatory her own maritime superiority? Would she consent to let the trade of England be carried on in neutral bottoms, without fear of capture, while the trade of France, notwithstanding her naval superiority, was exposed to innumerable risques? Surely not. France would not be so blind to her own advantage, nor so lenient to her enemies. From the ravage and oppression which France has practised by land, and from the little respect which she has shewn to the rights of independent nations, we may readily conjecture what havoc she would make upon the ocean, what piratical depredations she would perpetrate on the property both of friends and foes, if her superiority were as great and decided by sea as it is by land. The ocean would soon be covered with the wrecks which her squadrons, as ferocious and unprincipled as her armies, had made.

Let nations beware how they are misled by the insidious cant and treacherous sophistry of France to unite in any confederacy for the destruction of England: for England is the only power which can prevent the insatiable ambition of the Emperor of the French from spreading his devastations over the four quarters of the globe.-We hope that these remarks, which humanity as much as policy dictates, will find their way to those whom they most concern; and help to check that mischievous error which is spreading far and wide, that the maritime supremacy of England is adverse to the interests of mankind.

ART. II.-Voyages de Guibert, &c.

Guibert's Travels in different Parts of France and Switzerland, in the Years 1775, 1778, 1784, and 1785. Published after his Death by his Widow. 8vo. Paris. 1806. Imported by Deconchy.

THE father of the author of this work, was governor of the invalids under the old government of France. Great numbers of persons of this description, whom the fortune of war had spared, but who were no longer fit for active service, were distributed over the whole extent of France. Some of them languished in fortresses situated on the Alps or Pyrenees, on the sea coast and other places. Various abuses had crept into these establishments, which the French ministry either did not know, or which they wanted the inclination or the courage to reform.-The inspection of the detached companies of invalids was entrusted to Guibert the son, who seems to have performed the office

with a degree of zeal, of probity, and humanity, which did him great credit; and the present volume is the fruit of the various excursions which his appointment caused him to undertake. The remarks which Guibert made during his several journeys, both on men and things, are often interesting he seems to have possessed no inconsiderable talent for observation; and he often displays both depth and acuteness in his reflections. His descriptions, unlike those of most modern tourists, are perspicuous and brief; they are not merely a volume of sounds which vibrate only on the ear, without exciting any thing like a clear and well defined image in the mind. At the time when Guibert made his several journeys of inspection, France was infested with numerous state prisons, which were almost all guarded by the invalids. The remarks of Guibert, therefore, often give us an insight into the abuses of the old government of France. In these prisons he beheld the manifold evils of arbitrary power; he saw the cruelties that were committed in secret, without either a power of complaint or hope of redress. His heart was often touched, and his sympathy excited, by these moving scenes. In the various abodes of terror and despair which he visited, the son was often found imprisoned by the father, the father by the son, the husband by the wife, or the wife by the husband; the weak by the strong, and the simple by the artful;-and all this by lettres de cachet, obtained under false pretexts from the ministers of the crown, or which those ministers got issued merely to serve their own sinister, vindictive, or interested ends.

As such a work as the present must necessarily be very desultory, and as the reader could derive neither pleasure nor instruction from a dry analysis of the contents, or a barren recapitulation of the author's motions from one place to another, we shall translate a few extracts which may interest and

amuse.

The author gives the following description of the situation of Brest, and of the deplorable state of the marine in that harbour under the old government:

The road of Brest is not visible till we get close to the town, and then not completely; that of Toulon offers beyond comparison a more beautiful expanse; it has the appearance of a fine lake; and the mountains which surround it, seem to render it more secure. The port of Brest is formed by the Perfel; at first sight it has a majestywhich is imposing from the beauty of its quays and the immensity of the establishments of all kinds which surround it; but it appears to have many inconveniences on a closer examination. It is too narrow to contain such a marine as it includes. The ships are laid up in ordinary in three rows which almost touch each

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other. Hence there is no circulation of air between the vessels, which causes them to rot in a little time. The middle row is parti cularly liable to this inconvenience; for some time past they have been at the pains to change the situation of the ships from time, to time in order that they may by turns be more equally exposed to the current of external air. But this operation is not performed with sufficient frequency; nor, if it were, would it completely remedy the evil, either because the water of the port has some qualities not favourable to the preservation of ships, or because it abounds with worms which eat into the wood; or lastly, because the wood which we employ in the construction is not chosen with sufficient care, It is certain that ships do not last at Brest more than eight or nine years at most, an effect ruinous to the marine and to the finances of the king. A number of vessels have accordingly rotted without ever leaving the port. The Britannia has been rebuilt since its first construction. The Citizen is actually on the stocks. The Ville de Paris, which made its first appearance in the last engagement (off Ushant,) is returned to the port and will be entirely rebuilt. All its timbers were rotten; and many cannon-balls had penetrated from one side of the hull to the other. On my asking whether the other ports in the kingdom would be as unfavourable as Brest to the preservation of the ships, I was uniformly told that they decay more rapidly at Brest. At Toulon, a ship commonly lasts fifteen or sixteen years; at Rochfort, ten or twelve. The water of the Charente, which is extremely muddy, is said to be better adapted to the preservation of the wood than that of Brest. I was also told that the tide contributed to the rapid deterioration of the ships, because, as it rose and fell, it exposed them to the alternations of humidity and dryness which accelerate the decay of the wood. The ports in the Mediterranean are not subject to this inconvenience. The extreme compression of the port of Brest occasions all the shops and establishments to be crowded too close together; in the bustle of a great armament the workmen are heaped one upon another. This inconvenience of want of space is still more injurious to the materials, as it necessarily occasions many mistakes, much fruitless search,much loss of labour and of time. The port of Brest presents four stocks for building, and four forms for covering and refitting. These last are too confined; those which are at the back ofthe mountain of the Capucins are too much exposed to the sun one way, and are as much in the shade another. Here the ships decay as they are built.-The forms are beautiful: the water is easily introduced to the necessary height by means of sluices; only one is covered in; it would perhaps be better if they all were. There are magazines of all kinds of prodigious extent; that for cordage is particularly remarkable; traces of the magnificence and grandeur of Louis XIV. appear at every step. But is this magnificence necessary? Does not the simplicity of the English establishments deserve the preference? Instead of superb buildings of free stone, with architectural embellishments, and having within fine staircases ornamented with busts of Louis XIV. in stone and in bronze, we see among them only simple edifices without any species of decoration. There every thing

seems made for use only, while among us too much is sacrificed to ostentation.'

'The great defect of the port of Brest is the want of air; every thing is compressed and jumbled together, and presents a picture of confusion and embarrassment.'

On all sides there are enormous abuses, depredations of materials, and defalcation of labour; the workmen are under no controul; a necessary effect of the new arrangements, which have committed all the labour of superintendance to the officers, without foreseeing that in the greatest exigencies all the officers would be at sea. This is the case at present; they are almost all away. Thus five or six thousand workmen in the shops and yards are subject to the inspection of only five or six officers of the port; who, even when an armament is going on, perform their part without any scrupulosity or vigilance. The French officers are in general but little fitted for the patience which these details exact; and particularly officers of the navy, whose education, habitual service, whose insubordination on land, and whose prejudices against every species of order and of discipline, render them quite unqualified for attending with punctilious exactness to things which they regard as frivolous, which are to them indifferent, and which most disdain. These officers will at best attend only when the particular armament of their own ships is going on; but the yards for preparation and construction will be always abandoned to themselves. They are so at present in a mostdeplorable manner.'

Thus we find that the abuses, the neglect, the pillage, and the fraud, which prevailed in the dock yards of France under the monarchy, appear to have been even greater than those which the patriotic industry of the commissioners of Naval Inquiry have lately discovered in our own.

Great insubordination seems according to this author to have prevailed even on board the old French marine. All the officers appear to have been on a sort of convivial equality. When the chiefs gave any offence they were put under qua rantine; or, as we should say, sent to Coventry. The captains were thus treated by the officers of their own ship. This abuse was necessarily produced by the mode in which the officers of each ship were chosen. In time of war the captain of each ship had the choice of his officers; hence he was obliged to treat them with a sort of obsequious complai sance, to study their humour and promote their pleasures. Thus many captains were obliged to go from port to port, to solicit officers to serve on board their ship; when they of ten experienced humiliations and rebuffs, and were obliged to put up with the refuse of the other captains. Hence the

whole body of the marine was divided into little factions; every captain had his friends, his creatures; hatred, jealousy, · and animosity, became general; no subordination could subsist; the captain who was not liked, was deserted by his officers, who passed into the opposite faction.

The following remarks on the Duke d'A--will be found applicable to many other persons. He has read much, knows many things, has some wit, but far below what he pretends to have, and there is nothing worse than a little wit and a great desire of shewing it.' At Pirmsentz, the residence of the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, M. Guibert saw a large building in which there was an immense hall, heated in winter by twenty-five stoves, where the Landgrave exercised his troops. There was space enough for a whole battalion to manœuvre at once; and more than two in detail and by companies. The ground-floor of this building was destined for a riding school; above was an immense granary. Such structures might be advantageously employed in other countries. The ground-floors might serve for the exercise of the cavalry, the hall for the infantry, and the granaries for oats and stores. We have heard of parsimony recommended in cheese-parings and candle-ends; but we never before heard that the Emperor Joseph ordered his soldiers to collect the parings of their old shoes, and send them in hampers to the committee of economy in the province, who were to turn them to account; nor did we recollect that this same emperor ordered the shirts of his troops to be reduced the breadth of two fingers in length, and that he made a calculation how much cloth he should thus save in shirting his whole army. Might not a reduction be thus made not only in our own military but our domestic expences, by cutting off the flaps of our shirts, or, what might be still more economical, wearing no shirt at all?

Guibert, who was well acquainted with the art of war, intersperses his work with some military remarks which are always just. He says, (p. 158) speaking of the conduct of Turenne at the battle of Turckheim, that he set a good example to generals, who often err in not attending and directing in person the movements of the wing with which they make the attack, under the pretext of wishing to superintend the whole. It is incredible how many battles have been lost by this mistake. The general officer to whom we entrust an attack, never conducts it with the same decision. He is often restrained by a wavering timidity; he meets with obstacles, with changes in the disposition of the enemy, which were not foreseen; and while he is sending an account of

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