entirely free from idolatrous prejudices, would be ready to embrace the benevolent doctrines of Christianity; and this field will perhaps be occupied by the Moravians, though we much fear that Methodists of a less useful character have already got the start of them. These enthusiastic ranters have spread themselves over the colony and gone beyond its limits, encouraging idleness by instructing the natives in their own peculiar doctrines, and in nothing else, as is but too apparent in their filthy and wretched establishments, swarming with Hottentots still in a state of nakedness, or in their ancient sheep-skin clothing. Instead of expressing their gratitude to their Creator in hymns and songs, the Methodist Hottentots do nothing but whimper, whine, and groan, which, one of their teachers told Mr. Latrobe, was considered as a sign of conviction by the power of the word,'' though I don't think,' said a Hottentot to this gentleman, that there is any great good in our groaning so much.' Should the Caffres however, contrary to our expectation, continue to commit depredations on the new settlers, their certain expulsion from the plains of the coast and behind the mountains will necessarily be the consequence. The possession of the country intervening between the Great Fish river and Delagoa bay, skirted by a sea-coast of about six hundred miles, has always tempted the cupidity of the Dutch boors. A party of these people, who went in search of the shipwrecked crew of the Grosve nor Indiaman, travelled about 500 miles beyond the limits of the colony. They crossed upwards of thirty considerable rivers intersecting the plains in their way to the sea, passed through several magnificent forests, and traversed an undulating surface of hill and dale, finely clothed with grass, and abounding in every description of game, from the elephant to the hare, but so destitute of the human species, that for twelve days together they did not meet with a single straggler. At length however, after travelling about 400 miles, they fell in with an interesting party dwelling in villages, on the banks of the Mogasie river, under a chief of the name of Camboosa. These people called themselves Hamboonas. They had fair complexions, inclining to a yellowish tint, and their long black coarse hair was frizzled out so as to give the appearance of a turban. Their European and Hindoo features made it probable that they were the mixed descendants of some unfortunate people who had been wrecked on the coast; which seemed afterwards to be put out of doubt by the appearance of three old white women, who, however, could give no account of themselves, having in all probability been children when wrecked. The number consisted of about four hundred; they had extensive gardens of millet, maize, sugar-cane plantations, sweet potatoes, and other fruits and vegetables, with some cattle, and appeared to be living in quiet and comfort; which furnishes no slight proof of the inoffensive conduct and character of the Caffres. The Dutch pretend (but we are sure the English will set up no such claims) that this beautiful country belongs, by purchase, to the colony. Their historian Kolbe, we recollect, asserts the same thing, and says, that their High Mightinesses gave 30,000 guilders (1,8007.) worth of toys for the whole country, from Mossel bay to Mozambique, that is to say, about 500,000 square miles! They might just as well have extended their purchase to the straits of Babelmandel. But it is not the Dutch only who have coveted the Caffre country. The same Benjamin Stout, whom we mentioned above, strongly recommended to Mr. President Adams the formation of a settlement in a country which, he says, abounds in timber of the best quality; possesses many excellent harbours; is blessed with the richest pasturage; that feed's innumerable herds of the finest cattle; whose lands, during the season favourable to vegetation, are carpetted with flowers that perfume the surrounding atmosphere; and whose shores are frequented by fish of every quality and decription.' At that time, however, the American government had not extended its ambitious views beyond its own continent; but now, when they appear to be prowling about in search of foreign establishments, in the West Indies, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and on the western coast of Africa, we should not be greatly surprized if they discovered the Portugueze settlement of Delagoa bay to be convenient for their commercial intercourse with India and China. Dî meliora! Though we do not much admire the Portugueze system of colonization, we yet prefer it to that of America, as exemplified by David Porter, Esq.' (the only specimen with which we are acquainted) at Nooaheevah, where that redoubted commander put to death one part of the inhabitants in order to obtain a plea for plundering the rest. See p. 250. Benjamin has been rather scurvily dealt with by our critics.-Not satisfied with pronouncing his Narrative a mere fable, they have even denied the existence of the poor man, as well as of the good ship Hercules. Now we know something of Captain Stout. He was, to be sure, very illiterate, not to say ignorant, and wonderfully apt to wander into those beautiful obliquities' in point of fact, for which the mercantile marine of his country is so justly celebrated; but he certainly did not deserve to be altogether annihilated. We can assure our sceptical brethren, that we not only witnessed the appearance of Captain Stout and some of his crew at the Cape, but that we saw, with our own eyes, the wreck of the Hercules on the coast of Caffraria, and on the precise spot indicated by the Captain: his testimony, therefore, to the general appearance of the country, and to the humanity of the Caffres, is beyond the possibility of question. ART. ART. XII.-De l'Administration de la Justice Criminelle en Angleterre et de l'Esprit du Gouvernement Anglais. Par M. Cottu, Conseiller à la Cour Royale de Paris. à Paris. 1820.* pp. 317. IT Tis not a little remarkable that, at the very moment when the mischievous and the ignorant amongst us are industriously employed in slandering the Institutions under which England has attained so large a share of individual happiness and national glory, the other nations, not so blest as she,' should look upon them with wonder, respect, and emulation; and that, after thirty years of revolution in which every theory and mode of government have been tried in turn, the French themselves should begin to direct their serious attention to the sober and practical convenience of the British constitution. It is true that at the very beginning of the revolution they professed this principle of imitation, and, in their anglomane ardour for freedom, eagerly applauded and demanded the three great principles upon which the liberties of England are built-a representative legislature, the freedom of the press, and the trial by jury. They hastened, therefore, to establish these names as parts of their constitution; but they had not patience, nor leisure if they had had patience, nor the means if they had had leisure, to introduce the indispensable preliminary qualifications into their social and political habits. To have good juries and a satisfactory representative assembly, the manners and principles of the class which are to compose the former and to elect the latter, must be previously imbued with the spirit of the institutions themselves. The result was what might have been expected-they had the names, but not the things-their freedom of the press from 1790 to 1818 only meant that the strongest party might publish what it pleased, and its antagonists nothing. Their representative chambers have been all elected at the will of the government, and have all (with the exception of the chamber of 1815) implicitly and basely obeyed the nod of their creators. Their juries have been something worse than nullities, they have been the tools of the predominant party, and have done infinite mischief by screening, under their respectable name, the judicial enormities which have been committed. There is, however, in the essence of those noble institutions themselves a power which would make its own way, and create, as it were, men fit to carry them into execution-why then have they not yet had this effect in France?-why were they still, in the be • Such is the date in the title-page. 24 ginning ginning of 1819, as imperfect and inefficient as they were in 1789?— Simply because France, from 1789 to 1814, was enslaved by the reign of terror, which paralyzed every action and benumbed every thought and feeling. The respectable classes of her people never had fair play; the sword, the guillotine, and the dungeon were the only lawgivers of France; and juries were sworn only to sanction-and deputies assembled only to approve and the press was tolerated only while it applauded-the system of the dungeon, the guillotine, and the sword. The bursting of the Buonaparte-bubble restored to France the use of her eyes, her ears, and her tongue, but, like the patient couched for cataract, she did not quite comprehend the nature of her new-born senses, and for the last four years she has been tottering, aud groping her way. At every step indeed she seems to acquire an increase of strength and light, and whatever may be her future destiny, and through whatever troubles she may have yet to struggle, it may be confidently expected that any future reign of terror can be but momentary, and that, finally, the representative system, and the trial by jury, will be inseparably interwoven with the national system, and, in good time, amalgamate themselves with the national character. A ministry such as we now see in France,* without public weight or private fortune, without services, talents, or friends, trimming and shuffling, and kept only on its legs by mere favouritism, is not, we think, unlikely to bring the French to a sense of national dignity, as the drunken Helots were exhibited before the youth of Sparta to teach them, by the contrast, the dignity of sobriety and freedom. Malheur (as their own proverb says) est bon à quelque chose; and this good, at least, will be derived from the weakness and folly of the present ministry, that a more bold and, at the same time, temperate discussion of their political and moral interests becomes every hour more necessary and more easy. An ultra-royalist administration might move too slow, and an ultraliberal administration too fast; but those who, like the Sieur de Caze and his creatures, have no authority but what their places give them, and who are only anxious to keep those places, are obliged to flatter and to conciliate both parties, and to balance them one against the other; but while they are doing this, they are teaching these Even while we write, the account reaches us of a new change in the ministry, which affords additional proof and weight to what we have said above. About thirteen months ago, the king's favourite, M. Caze, had power to turn out the Prime Minister, the secretary of State for the Home Department, and the Minister of Finance, because they desired a change in the election law, which he opposed; and now he has had power to turn out their three successors, for opposing the same change in the same. law, which he now desires! What a mockery of a representative constitution! conflicting conflicting parties and the nation how to turn them out. The great lesson which the French have yet to learn is,-that the system of choosing ministers by personal favour is absolutely incompatible with a representative government, and that, to have sufficient weight and authority, an administration must have a large party in the country, and, consequently, a respectable portion of what is called public opinion. Convinced as we are that whenever the nation shall really be freed from the thraldom of fear and favouritism, it will show itself more and more attached to a legitimate monarch and a representative constitution, and finding that M. Cottu unites a spirit of rational freedom with a strong attachment to monarchy, and believing that his work is likely to give weight to these principles, we enter upon the examination of it with pleasure. M. Cottu, one of the judges of the Royal Court of Paris, was directed, it would seem, by the government to make himself acquainted with the criminal jurisprudence of England, and more especially with all that relates to the trial by jury. It matters little by whom and with what intention this mission was sped. Its execution is creditable to M. Cottu, and cannot, we think, fail to be useful to France. At first sight it will seem that M. Cottu's task was not very difficult-we are ourselves, from the nature of our law, so individually mixed up with the whole administration of justice, that we are too apt to consider that which we know, as it were by intuition, as very easily to be learned by others. But when we call to mind the volumes of monstrous absurdities which people, not otherwise deficient in acuteness and accuracy, publish daily in France relative to England, and in England relative to France-and when we recollect the difficulties which every one must have found in making himself acquainted with even the commonest customs, and the most ordinary habits of a foreign country which he visits for the first time, it will appear that the task which M. Cottu undertook of informing himself upon a subject of such complexity and extent as the whole of our jury system, was one of extreme difficulty, and from which we confess we should not, a priori, have thought it possible that he could have extricated himself so well as he has done. He was fortunate in bringing letters of introduction to some of our eminent counsel, and amongst others, to Mr. Scarlett, who very judiciously advised him, as not only the easiest, but indeed the only effectual way of making himself acquainted with the subject, to attend one of the circuits then about to commence, and to study at once the principles and the practice. This advice M. Cottu very wisely took, and gratefully acknowledges; he also returns very ample thanks to the gentlemen of the northern circuit, |