devoted to a view of " Cape Town," observations on the manners and customs of "the inhabitants," and the condition and employ ment of " the slaves." In the pedestrian rambles to the "Lion Hill"-"Table Mountain"-" Reed Valley”—and the "Road to Si mons Town"-detailed in the four subsequent ones, our author was accompanied by an esteemed and intelligent companion; indeed they were primarily projected with a view to his entertainment, and the reader, as well as the friend, is indebted to this circumstance for a proportionate accession of pleasure.

Every trait in so engaging a picture of virtuous attachment, abounding in strokes of the sweetest simplicity and pathos, will charm the admirer of sentiment and feeling; nor while following their footsteps up the Table Mountain, can he fail to glow with kindred fervour at the noble and truly dignified sensations of benevolence and devotion which its wonders awakened in their susceptible bosoms. The influences of friendship, perhaps, gave a zest to Mr. S.'s composition, that vanished with the stimulus: for his " journey from Cape Town to Blettenberg's Bay," performed with a mercantile party, after the departure of his beloved Charles, retains no traces of his former spirit and animation. The description of the African mode of hunting, &c. is amusing; but the remainder of the journal is chiefly occupied by the difficulties encountered in their daily progress and occasional remarks on the face of the country.

A thin sprinkling of negligent expressions have crept into the work, but there is so much to admire, we feel no inclination to enumerate them.

Historical Outlines of the Rise and Establishment of the Papal

Power; addressed to the Roman Catholic Priests of Ireland. By Henry Card, of Pembroke College, Oxford. 8vo. Longman and Rees. 1804.

THIS production, in which the rise and establishment of the Papal power are traced with great ability and discrimination to the earliest sources, displays, in a most conspicuous point of view, the talents of Mr. Card, who had already distinguished himself in no common way by his history of the Revolutions of Russia. It appears to have been caused by the publication of the correspondence which passed in the beginning of the present year between the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and the Earl of Fingall, and it may be justly consi→ dered as a masterly vindication of the position laid down by the former, who, speaking of addresses of a loyal tendency presented by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, says, They are given to the

winds as long as the priests of the See of Rome shall think fit to hold up to their flocks, that all who do not yield obedience to that See, are guilty of rebellion against it, are not to be considered as members of the church of Christ, and, therefore, are not (in the eyes of the vulgar at least) to be considered as christians." Mr. Card, aware of the pernicious consequences to which a doctrine so very subversive of the true principles of christianity, and so essentially dangerous to the safety of the state might lead, satisfactorily shews the absurdity of the precedents, and the futility of the arguments by which it is attempted to be supported. He exposes, by a mass of the most irresistible evidence, the weakness of the foundations on which the pretensions of the self-created successors of St. Peter depend, and the paltry arts and vile intrigues with which they practised upon the ignorance, credulity, and superstition of early ages, for the gratification of their ambition and the triumph of their temporal power. We should not

treat the author with that justice to which he is entitled, were we not to remark, that he cannot be supposed, by the most distant allusion, to insinuate that the Roman Catholic priests are, in their hearts, hostile to the laws and constitution of this country. He addresses them as christians only, and as ministers of that religion whose striking characteristic is universal charity; and he describes, in glowing colours, the ruin with which all that is liberal and patriotic is threatened from the admission of a doctrine which teaches them and their flocks, that they are to be considered as exclusively members of the church of Christ.

Strictures on the Necessity of inviolably maintaining the Navigation and Colonial System of Great Britain. By Lord Sheffield. Debrett. 1804.

Ar a period like the present, when men are so apt to reject the old for the new, doctrines confirmed by the adoption of ages, for those which have been fostered by the innovating spirit of the hour, it is a matter of serious moment, that we have yet to boast of some few individuals, who want not independence to resist, nor powers to confute, the rash principles and outrageous systems of innovation. Much, it is true, injurious to all sound politics and rational religion, has been already accomplished by the friends and authors of the new philosophy. But we do not fear the result of the conflict between that which is novel and that which is just. The pastors of religion are at their post. And we cannot think that the foreign and domestic trade of the nation wants a defender, while it is supported by the able author of the pamphlet before us.

Lord Sheffield, in a manner that has entitled him to the gratitude, and has already obtained the thanks of the nation, has long and laboriously contended for the system from which all our commercial prosperity has arisen, and more than once checked the designs of ministerial theory, or ministerial compromise. The navigation act, however, has suffered from the innovating temper of the times; and the violations which it has experienced, and the apprehension of new and fatal infringements, have called forth the present most seasonable work.

"The navigation laws of Great Britain," says the noble author, "afford topics of discussion equally important to the statesman and the merchant. Other subjects, the fashion of the day, may claim the speculation of the hour; but laws which embrace principles of wide extent and national concern, and which experience has learned to regard as the support and stay of the naval strength of this nation, and as essentially interwoven with its commercial superiority, merit attention and discussions of a very different nature. Foreign countries, conceiving themselves to be injured in proportion as we prosper, have often borne unwilling testimony to the wisdom with which they were formed, and the good consequences which they produce; for they have often struggled, by the artifice of negotiation, or by the insolence of menace, to induce us to relax or to renounce them. Citizen Hautervie, after having shewn that they are the original cause of the fatal preponderancy of the English marine,' exercised all his powers of sophistry and misrepresentation, to render them objects of general jealousy and hostility. America has endeavoured, by every species of management, to procure the suspension or renunciation of a most essential part of them. And the north of Europe has supplied opponents also who have tried their strength and diplomatic skill in the same field. But the very reason which has induced ail these to oppose and condemn, should induce us to guard and protect the system. The object of attack on one side, should obviously become that of defence on the other; and every syllable of reprobation, on this point, which is heard from abroad, should be regarded by us at home as virtual applause.

*

That there should be any cause for apprehending the further infringement of a system of which his Lordship speaks with such energy and truth, is seriously to be lamented. The author, however, is not accustomed to advance unfounded assertions; and we therefore read the following passage with considerable regret.

"I foresee, as I conceive, some occurrences which may incline a false and hasty policy to suspend the principle of those navigation laws, on which, indisputably, our trade and our navý depend. The public difficulties may encourage injurious claims and requisitions: the same cause may induce men, in a temporising moment, and for the sake of conciliation, to accede to demands which require the most patient and careful consideration; and as, in the

L'Etat de la France a la fin de l'An. 8.

midst of as full occupation as that of any other volunteer*, I have found leisure to state this rational question in writing, I hope others may find leisure to read what I have stated."

From this honourable and explicit exposition of his motives, Lord Sheffield proceeds, calmly, clearly, and cogently, to enumerate the suspensions of the navigation act which have lately taken place, the pretended or futile principles on which they were allowed, and the injurious consequences into which they issued.

"The mischiefs," says he, in the concluding paragraph of this statement, "which were foreseen, arising from these measures, were soon felt. The most respectable meetings of merchants were held from time to time, and very proper representations have been laid before the minister and the public, in which it is strongly stated, that many ship owners, no longer being able to freight their vessels, were obliged to charter them to any foreigners that would take them, at a low price; and that many ships, of great value, and to the amount of an immense quantity of tonnage, and some of which cost their owners from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds each, were left unoccupied, and decaying in harbour. It is no wonder, therefore, that property in shipping experienced great depreciation. Not a few who embarked their capitals in that property have suffered severe losses. And we, who have been invidiously termed the carriers of Europe, have no longer the means of keeping in employment a large quantity of shipping now on hand, and which will soon rot in the ports where they are laid up!"

Not on these reasons alone does the excellent writer found his objections to all suspensions of the navigation system. He shews, incontrovertibly, that such suspensions are peculiarly injurious to every branch of our marine, and decidedly adverse to the prompt equipment of a great naval force; and he adds, with equal force, "That as the quantity of British tonnage occupied in the American trade has diminished, under the system which has been pursued, that of America has uniformly and proportionably increased."+

In proof of the fact, we insert a portion of the statement which his Lordship has brought forward from the admission of the Americans themselves.

* Commanding a Legion of 1260 Volunteers.

+ See Case of the Owners of British Ships, published 3 December, 1803.

After confirming this statement, in the most decisive manner, and commenting on it with warmth and spirit, his Lordship thus emphatically closes this part of his work.

"This is a splendid view of the rapidly progressive prosperity of America. But it was in this very period of ten years, that our carrying trade with that country most rapidly declined; that the suspension of our navigation laws operated principally in favour of the United States; and that we even opened to them a free trade with our settlements in the East. Shall it then any longer be said, that Britain has not cherished this thriving branch of American prosperity, at the expence of her own welfare! Or can we deny that we have given, but not received, and that they have received but not given !"

During this discussion, we are led through a variety of details equally interesting and curious, and are struck with several observations on American avarice, ambition, and artifice, of great vivacity and strength. But the author soon advances from more particular to more general doctrines. The right of England to frame colonial and navigation laws is examined and stated; the opinions of Mr. Gentz are, but with great urbanity, reviewed and refuted; the navigation system of Great Britain, in all the extent of its colonial restrictions, is proved to be in perfect consistence with the great object of founding colonies; and it is further maintained, that the same system is rendered necessary by the systems of other countries, and by the peculiar circumstances of England and of Eu

rope.

"It is not England alone," we are told," that is concerned in these views. -The interests of England involve those of almost all the surrounding states. Of the leading powers of the Continent, some have been enfeebled by past exertion, and others, from whatever motive, repose in a dangerous and ill-judged neutrality. In the mean time, France advances in ambition and strength, adds territory to territory, crushes the feeble, enslaves cowardly, alarms the strong. Her councils are incomparably more violent and ferocious, and her powers are greater than those of Lewis XIV. or probably of any other despot, and every day some new menace is uttered or realized. In this situation of things, what is to become the bulwark of Europe, but the navy of England; and what the foundation of that navy but navigation and trade? The very powers which decry our navigation laws are concerned to support them, and this country derives new arguments for maintaining the code, on which, even in the consequence of her enemies, its greatness rests, as well from a regard to her own conveyance, as from the occurrences of the times, and the gloomy circumstances of the greatest part of Europe."

"Not long since, Great Britain had to sustain her right of visiting neutral bottoms, and she sustained it with firmness and vigour. But that right, however incumbent it might have been to maintain it, is of secondary consideration, compared with the necessity of preserving inviolate the principles which have hither

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