squeezed out of the leaves, though they continue soft and pliable, they are taken down. The leaves are stripped off the stem, each of them are neatly rolled up into a bundle, and they are all piled up above each other in a heap. In this situation they become hot, and sweat, and seem to undergo a kind of fermentation. After this, they are squeezed into hogsheads. The hogsheads are so very well packed, that each of them contains 1000lbs. weight of tobacco, and often more. These hogsheads are then conveyed to the public warehouses, where all tobacco, before it can be exposed to sale, must undergo the inspection of certain men appointed for the purpose. If the tobacco be found good, a note is delivered to the proprietor specifying its quantity and quality. This note he consigns over to the merchant who purchases the tobacco, who has only to show it at the public warehouse in order to get the goods. These notes, indeed, go current in Virginia just as our bank notes do here. For tobacco, in that country, is often used as a medium of exchange instead of money. If the tobacco is of a bad quality, it is publicly burnt, by order of the inspector. If it be partly good and partly bad, the good is carefully separated and re-packed, but the bad is burnt. The skill which those negroes, who have been accustomed to the business, display in managing the tobacco-casks, and in hoisting them on board the vessels destined to carry them to Europe, is very great.

The tobacco is usually carried down the great rivers in flat-bottomed boats, called skids, and from them shipped on board the European vessels. The whole of the tobacco exported pays a certain duty to the American states. By the present laws, no tobacco can be imported into Britain, except from the British colonies in America, the United States of America, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. It can be imported only in British vessels, and three-fourths of the crew at least must be subjects of Britain, or of the United States. Each cask of tobacco imported cannot weigh less than 450lbs. Tobacco can only be brought into the ports of London, Bristol, Liverpool Lancaster, Cowes, Falmouth, Whitehaven, Hull, Port Glasgow, Greenock, Leith, and Newcastle upon Tyne. The regulations respecting the importers of tobacco are, doubtless, interesting to those concerned, but they are too numerous to be inserted here, and do not, from their nature, admit of abridgement. We must, therefore, refer the reader to the book itself.

The quantity of tobacco imported annually into Britain is very great; in the year 1798, for instance, it amounted to above forty millions of pounds weight. The number of ships, laden with to bacco, which arrived that year in the port of London, amounted to seventy-two. A great part of this quantity, however, is again exported; for instance, the quantity of tobacco imported, in 1796, 23,608,775lbs. the quantity of this delivered out for home consump tion, was only 11,490,446lbs. the duty paid for which, to government, amounted to 287,2521. !Is. Such is a short abstract of the contents of this publication, but sufficient, we hope, to enable the reader to form some tolerable judgement of its nature and impor

tance

tance.

As a book, containing accurate information, collected with care and industry, it undoubtedly ranks high; but when we consider it as a literary production, it is by no means entitled to the same praises. The author has not been sufficiently accustomed to the art of writing, to be able to arrange his materials in their proper order, or to express himself with ease and perspicuity. His descriptions are in general, too tedious and minute, while those characterestic circumstances are often omitted, which serve to communicate precise ideas better than the most prolix narrative. Mistakes in grammar too, and extraordinary words and phrases, to which British ears are not accustomed, and probably of American growth, are not infrequent. * These faults ought to be attended to and corrected, in case of a second edition. In a work of this nature, intended solely for instruction, they may, perhaps, be more readily pardoned, but they ought never to be neglected by any person who wishes to procure readers.

A Maximum; or the Rife and Progress of Famine. Addreffed to the British People. By the Author of " A Refidence in France," during the Years 1792, 3, 4, 5, &c. &c. 8vo. Pr. 66. 15. 6d. Wright. London. 1801.

the

THOSE perfons who have recommended a maximum as the only cure for the Ipirit of extortion which, to the difgrace of the country, is daily encreafing in the article of corn, and spreading from that to almost all other articles of primary neceffity, are accufed by the author of this tract of being either thoughtless or evilminded. Our readers cannot have forgotten that we are among number; and we have found nothing in the book before us, after a very attentive perufal of it, to induce an alteration of our fentiments on the fubject. We were fully aware that the example of France would, in this inftance, be adduced as a warning to England, and therefore we were careful to anticipate the objection, and to fhew that the Maximum proposed in this country bore no kind of analogy whatever to the Maximum adopted in France, either in its motive, its object, or its effect. We were fully acquainted with all the fafts here ftated by the author relative to the calamities produced in France by the Maximum. But we fhewed that the grand object of that Maximum was not, in fact, to reduce the price of corn, but to reduce the value of, or, rather to give a forced currency to, the affignats. And it was this compulfion upon the farmer to take paper which he knew to be of no value whatever in exchange for his corn that urged him to deftroy that corn rather than expofe it to fale; and produced all the calamities which this

* Take the following instances. "Otherwise have impeded very troublesome obstacles," page 214.-" As follow."--" To con sider it a staple commodity."" Lands will succeed in any branch of culture," p. 5. Moreover than," p. 213." Luxuriant commodity."- Sillage," p. 210. Wastage," p. 7,--" Antecedent crop," p. 9.- Grubbing the Ground,” p. 9.

author

cauthor fo ftrongly and fo juftly defcribes. Previous to the adoption of this measure, corn, if paid for in fpecie, was comparatively cheap, but if paid for in affignats exorbitantly dear; and it is very well known to her to have been a common practice with tradefinen, at that time, when a customer cheapened any article, to afk whether he meant to pay for it in paper or in coin, and to fix the price accordingly. But how can any perfon of common feule compare a maximum adopted under thefe circumftances, with the maximum proposed to be adopted in England, where paper is upon a par with pecie? And where would be the hardship impofed on the farmer, if it were fixed, as it certainly would be, at fuch a price, as would afford him a very high profit, and an ample compensation for all his labour, expence, and rifk? To draw a comparison between cafes, fo radically different, is to trifle with the understanding of the public; and betrays much more thoughtleffness than is to be difcovered in the remarks of thofe who do not accord in fentiment with the author.

66

"The modern innovator"-fhe fays-whofe fobereft fpeculations are not lefs rafh, than a madman's actions, may prove on paper, by line and rule, that a maximum will remedy a bad harvest.” It was furely beneath a lady, who is capable of better things, thus to raise up a phantom for the mere pleasure of deftroying it. She must have known that no innovator, either fober or drunk, had ever advanced fo prepofterous a propofition. We need no ghoft come from the grave" to tell us that a maximum will not convert a fcarcity into plenty; but it will prevent avarice from aggravating the evils of fcarcity, by extorting from the conlumer an exorbitant and unwarrantable price. Taking the deficiency of corn, at the rate specified in the report of the Houfe of Commous, as equal to two fevenths of an ordinary crop, which is certainly not under-rated, will this writer align any reason why the encreased price fhould be double the ordinary price? If the cannot, will fhe fay that no measure fhould be taken by the legiflature to restrain this inordinate avarice? She feems totally to have forgotten that the fariner is a distinct being from every other species of trader, who have all an abfolute property on the articles in which they deal, while he can only have a qualified and conditional property in the fruits of the earth, which are neceffary to the existence of man, and were exprefsly given by the creator for his fupport. If this were not the cafe, and he had a right, as the enemies of a maximum contend, to afk any price he chole for his corn, either to bring it to market or to withhold it, he would have a right to deftroy it, and, confequently, to ftarve the public. This dedustic ad abfurdum, as the logicians term it, is the best mode of proving the extreme weakness and folly of fuch an argument. So clearly do we perceive the incalculable evils which will refult to the country from the increafed and increafing price of provifions, evils of a permanent and most extensive nature, that we are fully impreffed with the conviction, that, without the adoption of fome fpeedy means for checking it, the confequences will be most ruinous. And we con

Jeis

fels, in the prefent fpirit and temper of the times, we can fee no means that will be effectual but a maximum.

The fpirit of extortion which pervades almoft every description of traders, at this moment, is moft difgraceful to the nation; and it appears never to have occurred to our author, that we have the authority of Scripture for pronouncing extortion to be a fin, and extortioners to be finners in the eyes of the Lord. To reprefs the one and to to punish the others, then, feems to be a religious, as well as a political, duty.

It is not to be wondered at that, proceeding upon a falfe principle, all the author's arguments fhould be not only defective but irrelevant. Two or three fhort extracts will fuffice to demonstrate their irrelevance, and, at the fame time, to prove the juftice of our affertion refpecting the diffimilarity of the two cafes which are stated to be parallel. Distrust of the affignats, and fcarcity of bread, have occafioned a law to oblige the farmers to fell their corn at a certain price, &c." (P. 5.) "Before the decree of the maximum if the lower claffes of people in France could procure money, they often had bread" when others went without. (P. 7.) "In France, these monopolies were real-people thought any thing better than affignats; fo they purchafed and hoarded whatever came in their way-the whole country was playing at Jack's alive' with the national paper, and every one got rid of it, as fast as he could, to his neighbour, for fear it fhould expire while he held it." (p. 8.) "The farmers, wherever they had the opportunity, concealed their grain, fed hogs and poultry with it, or fold it privately." (p. 6.) In thele few lines we have the caufe and confequence of the French maximum clearly defined; and a complete proof of the author's fundamental mistake and unwarrantable inferences.

The panegyric on the farmers, towards the clofe of the pamphlet, is moft fullome and unjust; and favours much more ftrongly of prejudice than any clamour which has been excited against them. We have had as much experience of their difpofition and character, as the author can poffibly have had, and probably more; and the refult of our obfervation is, that, with many honourable exceptions, they are, as a body, the most difcontented, growling, and rapacious fet of men in his Majefty's dominions. The oblervations which accompany this ftrange panegyric afe most reprehenfible; but the author's apprehenfions are groundless, for the may reft affured that, in the mind of an English farmer, malice will never prevail over intereft; putting religious motives entirely out of the question.

. The tract is dedicated to Mr. Reeves to whom fome well-deferved compliments are paid; but it is rather too much to be told that his "name will be a pledge for the motives and veracity of the writer.” Not that we mean to queftion either the one or the other; but it furely would be not more unreasonable than unufual to expect that the perfon to whom a book is dedicated, is to be responsible for its

contents.

Reflections

Reflections on the Justice, Advantage, and Neceffity of limiting, within a certain Compafs, the Price of Wheat, by Legislative Authority, addreffed to both Houses of Parliament. By the Author of Dearnefs of Provifions, &c. 8vo. Pr. 32. 1s. Jones. Oxford, Stockdale. London, 1800.

THIS writer is decidedly of opinion, that the ftock of wheat in the country fhould be first ascertained, and then its price, and if neceffary, its confumption limited, by law. The firft of these objects has been attained, by the fixth report of the committee of the House of Commons, which fixes the annual confumption of wheat at feven millions of quarters, and the last year's produce at five; what reliance is to be placed on the documents on which this calculation was founded, we fhall not prefume to fay; though it certainly appears to us, that both the confumption and produce are under-rated. As to the limitation of the confumption by law, it is a measure unquestionably defireable, though its adoption would be attended with great difficulty. On the limitation of the price, we have already given our opinion; and every day's experience ferves to strengthen our conviction, that nothing fhort of a maximum will fuffice to check that diabolical fpirit of avarice and extortion which gives to a limited deficiency one, at least, of the worst ef fects of an abfolute scarcity, and derives individual advantage from general diftrefs. The author would have the maximum of wheat in London ten fhillings (little more than one half of its prefent price!) and in the country nine fhillings per bufhel. His fuggeftions are advanced with fairness and candour, and evidently prove him to be a man of sense and benevolence.

Farther Thoughts on the prefent State of public Opinion; being a Continuation of a timely Appeal to the Common Senfe of the People of Great-Britain in general, and of the Inbabitants of Buckinghamfbire in particular, on the prefent Situation of Afairs. By J. Penn, Efq. 8vo. Pr. 204. 5s. Hatchard. London. 1800. THOUGH Mr. Penn's intentions are unquestionably very good in publishing this work, yet the work itfelf appears very defective both in plan and execution. We freely confefs, indeed, that the plan is to us inexplicable: and the execution is open to a variety of objections. But the author is fo truly refpectable, his principles are fo found, and his religious and moral character ftand fo defervedly high in the world, that we fhall not perform the ungrateful task of enumerating his literary defects.

Corn Trade. An Examination of certain Commercial Principles in their Application to Agriculture and the Corn Trade, as laid down in the Fourth Book of Mr. Adam Smith's Treatife on the Wealth of Nations; with Proposals for Revival of the Statutes against Forestalling, Sc. 8vo. Pr. 38. 1s. Stockdale. London. 1801.

THE object of this tract is to fhew that the general principles laid down by Adam Smith in respect of the freedom of commerce can.

not