taken place to the fullest extent, could never, it is prefumed, have equalled, or been in any degree proportionable to the fanguine expectations fome men had been led to form on this fubject. It should be confidered, first, that the Genevefe are for the most part mechanics, and that therefore they must have been but ill fuited, from their former habits of life, to the toils of agriculture; next, that they were to be fettled in a part of Ireland where their fupport must have arisen from their daily labours on the foil, and from their having but few wants of their own to gratify, more than from their ingenuity in forming and conftructing a variety of ornamental articles, which the luxury and riches of populous and trading towns can only create a market for. CHA P. II. Retrospective view of continental matters, which, through the multiplicity and importance of other foreign or domeftic affairs, were, of neceffity, paffed over in our late volumes. France. Death of the Count de Maurepas, and fome account of that celebrated minifter. Convention with Sweden, by which the French are admitted to the rights of denizenship, of establishing warehouses and factories, and of carrying on a free trade in Gottenburgh; in return for which, France cedes the Weft India island of St. Bartholomew to Sweden. Obfervations on that ceffion. Spirit of civil liberty, of enquiry, of reform and improvement, with a difpofition to the cultivation of ufeful arts, characteristics of the prefent times. Caufes.Great improvements in Spain with respect to arts, manufactures, and agriculture; measures pursued for the diffemination of useful knowledge, for improving the morals, and enlightening the minds of the people. Inquifition difarmed of its dangerous powers; numerous patriotic focieties formed, and public fchools inftituted, under the patronage of the firft nobility; canals and roads forming; fabfcriptions for conveying water to large diftricts defolate through its want. King fuccessfully refumes the project of peopling and cultivating the Sierra Morena; abolishes bull feafts; reftricts the number of borfes and mules to be used in the carriages of the nobility; procures an accurate furvey and charts of the coafts of the kingdom, as well as of the Straits of Magellan. Attention to naval force and to com merce. New Eaft India company formed. Improvements in the adminiftration of colonial government. Intermarriages with the royal line of Portugal lay the foundation for an alliance between the latter and France. Patriarchal age, eminent qualities, and death of the celebrated Cardinal de Solis, Archbishop of Seville. Important reforms in the police of Portugal. Queen forms the excellent refolution of never granting a pardon in any cafe of affaffination or deliberate murder; which has already produced the happiest effects. Excellent regulation of taking up the idle and diffolute throughout the kingdom, and of applying them, at the expence, or under the care of government, to proper labour. Improvements in agriculture attempted; climate and foil unfavourable to corn. Political obfervations on the intermarriages with Spain, and on the new alliances with the the houfe of Bourbon. Italy. Noble ad of Pious the VIth, in his generous endeavours to drain the Pontine marshes. Naples. Difpofition of the king to naval affairs, and to the forming of a marine force. Grand Duke of Tufcany. Regulation in Florence for the difpofal of the dead in a common cemetery, caufes great difcontent. T HE fruitfulness of the queen of France, which had for feveral years been a matter of much doubt and great anxiety to the king and the people, though at length eftablished by the birth of a princess in 1778, yet the failure of a fon ftill continued to excite impatience and apprehenfion, until all uneafinefs upon the fubject was at length determined by the birth of a dauphin on the 22d of October 1781, to the inexpreffible joy of a nation, who, through a long feries of ages, have been more peculiarly attached to their monarchs than perhaps any other on the face of the earth. It was a new and unexpected fpectacle to mankind upon this occafion, and one among the many grievous mortifications which Great Britain was about that period doomed to endure, that the birth of a dauphin of France fhould have occafioned the greatest public rejoicings that had ever been known in the English American colonies. The queen, in the year 1785, produced another pledge of fecurity to the reigning line in France, by the birth of a fecond fon, in whofe favour the old Norman and English title of duke of Normandy was, for the first time, revived in a French prince. The celebrated count de Maurepas died at the caftle of Verfailles in the month of November 1781, and in the 31st year of his age; holding, at that very advanced period of life, in a season of great national exertion, and of a very perilous and hard-fought foreign war, which extended its action to every quarter of the world, the great and arduous office of prime minifter of France. This great man was not more admired for his abilities as a minister, and talents as a ftatefman, than he was revered and beloved for his humanity, benevolence, and other excellent qualities of the heart. When, under the aufpices of cardinal Fleury, and in his own happier days, his great and numerous offices feemed to render him at leaft the third, if not the second in adminiftration, he was one of the few minifters who introduced fcience and philofophy into the conduct of public affairs; but was at the fame time fo regulated in their indulgence, as entirely to reject their ufelefs or frivolous parts, however fplendid or pleafing; as if he difdained to apply the public money to any other purposes than those folid ones of public utility. Though confiderably cramped in many of his public defigns and exertions under the pacific and œconomical fyftem of the cardinal, yet he not only in a great measure recovered the French marine from that proftrate ftate to which it had long feemed irretrievably condemned, but he laid, the foundations for all that greatnefs to which it has fince arrived, or which it is ftill capable of attaining. To him France is particularly indebted for that fuperiority, which fhe is faid (and it is to be feared too evidently) to pof fefs fefs in fhip-building; efpecially in the conftruction of fhips of war: for he it was who firft rescued naval architecture from mere mechanical hands, from the habitual and unexamined prejudices of vulgar error; and placing it in the rank which it deferved to hold, it foon rofe, under his influence and protection, to be confidered as a diftinct and profound fcience; and was accordingly ftudied and reduced to practice upon thofe principles by men of the first parts and learning. Such eminent and permanent national services, which in time diffufe themselves into common benefits to mankind, are frequently lit tle thought of at the moment, and the ingenious author or inventor is foon forgotten; while he who applies his genius or invention, with a vain-glorious fplendour, to the deftruction of his fellow-creatures, although not even the partial benefits of his fuccefs may furvive the year in which it takes place, fhall have his name handed down with applause and admiration to futurity. Is there then a perverfenefs inherent in mankind which difpofes them, as it were, to worship the evil principle, to defpife their real benefactors, and to adore thofe who, by becoming the confpicuous inftruments of tranfitory refentments, do in fact make war upon the permanent interefts of the race itself? May it not then be the office of hiftory, going hand in hand with philofophy, to draw away the eyes of mankind from the glaring objects which dazzle and confound them, and to teach them to rest on more fober and beneficial lights; to calculate and correct the error of popular opinion, and, by rating actions according to their intrinfic value, as it were, to graduate anew the scale of admiration ? Although cardinal Fleury poffeffed at the time the oftensible praife, it was to Maurepas only that fcience is indebted for that grand defign and arduous undertaking of afcertaining the real figure of the earth, by fending the French academicians and astronomers to measure degrees of the meridian under the equator, and in the northern polar circle. The unexpected difficulties which they experienced, and the extraordinary hardships and difficulties they encountered, are too well known to be repeated. When the cabals of the court had, in the year 1748, banished Maurepas far from its vortex (an evil of all others the most intolerable to a Frenchman) he exhibited an instance, almoft fingular in that country, of bearing his fall from a fituation of greatnefs, in which he had been nurtured from his earliest youth, with the dignity of a man, and the temper of a philofopher. He adorned his long exile, as he had done his poffeffion of power, by continued acts of beneficence, and the practice of every private virtue. When at length, in the 74th year of his age, the long-forgotten ftatefman was most honourably recalled to court, in order to become the mentor and guide of his young fovereign in the yet untrodden paths of government, neither this fudden and unexpected exaltation, nor his long abfence from the world, produced any change in the temper and character of Maurepas. In the changes which neceffarily took place at court, and in the adminiftration, none of the difmiffed minifters were (according to the established eti quette quette) fent into exile, nor did they fuffer any other degradation or inconvenience, than what proceeded merely from the lofs of their places; no mean jealousy appeared, no act of feverity or refentment took place, no ancient animofity was revived, nor prefent hatred gratified, to fully the luftre of his triumph on returning to power. A fimilar magnanimity feemed to be the principle of the enfuing adminiftration. He had the courage to burft at once through thofe narrow political fetters, which, originating partly in pride, and partly in bigotry, were now fo riveted by time, as to be confidered and received as fundamental maxims of government. The pride of the nobility confined the great offices of ftate to their own families; and the profeffion of the law, whofe credit in France is great, and perhaps exceffive, had in a manner appropriated to itself the financial department; while both leaned hard upon the commercial intereft, national and religious prejudices cooperated in the exclufion of foreigners, and of all thofe of a different perfuafion in religious matters, however eminent their abilities, from rendering any fervice to the ftate. Maurepas induced his young fovereign, in a fingle inftance, to fet at naught thefe maxims, and to violate all these prejudices, by calling in to be his affiftant, as director-general of the finances, M. Necker, a merchant, a foreigner, and a proteftant. -Such was Maurepas ! In the year 1784, a new conven-` tion was entered into between France and Sweden, tending to ftreighten fill more clofely the bands of union which have fo long fubfifted between the two nations, and which have been maintained with fo much ad vantage, and at fo fmall an expence, by the former. In virtue of this new convention, the French are admitted to the rights and privileges of natives in the city and port of Gottenburgh, (which, from the goodnefs of the harbour, its fituation without the Sound, and other adyantages, may be juftly confidered as the emporium for the foreign trade of Sweden) being permitted to build and establish warehouses for the ftoring of all manner of goods imported either from France or America, in the bottoms of either nation, without their being subject to any duties or impofitions whatever; with the farther liberty to the merchants or proprietors to export all fuch goods at pleasure, either in French or Swedish bottoms, and upon the fame free terms. In return for the advantages expected from these favourable ftipulations, France has ceded to Sweden, in perpetuity, the full propriety and fovereignty of the island of St. Bartholomew in the Weft Indies.-The king of Sweden, in order to convert this island to the beft account, of which it is capable, has fince declared it a free port. Nothing less than the present enthufiafm in favour of commerce, which is fo ftrong in every part of Europe, could render so trifling and fo remote a poffeffion in any degree. acceptable. The island in question is eftimated only at about five leagues in circumference; the quantity of its cultivable foil bears a very small proportion even to that extent; in water it is fo deficient, as to have none but what falls from the clouds, and is preferved through the year in cifterns; and though it has a good harbour, the adjoining coafts are fo dangerous, and the approaches to to it fo difficult, as to forbid its ever becoming of commercial importance. With fuch defects, the intrinfic value of the island of St. Bartholomew cannot be very highly rated. On the other hand, it feems to be an odd fort of policy, for any of the three powers who are poffeffed of the principal West India islands to draw in new states to interfere in that commerce of which they are so extremely jealous; and it feems ftill more unaccountable to make donations of fmall unproductive iflands or rocks, which are debarred by nature from answering any better purpose under a diftant government, deftitute of any neighbouring poffeffion, than that of becoming a nursery of smugglers, as they would in earlier days of pirates. It is undoubtedly become confonant with the views of France, upon other accounts than thofe of trade, or even the supply of naval ftores, to hold Sweden at all times by the hand. The common interefts in the affairs of Germany, which had formed the original bands of union between the two nations, have long ince been done away by a new state of affairs, and new arrangements of power and alliance; but the jealoufy and apprehenfion which both, though with different degrees of force, entertain of the overgrown and ftill rapidly increafing power of Ruffia, neceffarily throws them into each others arms. Under this impreffion, France thinks it behoves her to maintain an intereft in the north with a power, which in cafe of neceffity might still be rendered capable of great exertions, and which, from the immediate neceffity and danger of its own fituation, muft ever prove a watchful centinel with refpect to the movements and defigns of the power in queftion. But admitting to its utmost extent the propriety of this line of political conduct, it will not appear entirely to juftify the ceffion of this ifland; France knew by experience the means of gratifying Sweden, with little difficulty, in another man ner. Whatever the leading faults or vices of the prefent times may be, it is their great and peculiar characteristic, and it may be hoped will become their future glory, that a strong spirit of civil liberty, and of enquiry into the functions, obligations, and duties of government, are breaking forth in various places, where they were before fuppofed fcarcely to hold even the feeds of existence. Another no less laudable characteristic is, that spirit of reform and improvement, under the feveral heads of legislation, of the administration of juftice, the mitigation of penal laws, the affording fome greater attention to the ease and fecurity of the lower orders of the people, with the cultivation of thofe arts molt generally useful to mankind, and particularly the public encouragement given to agriculture as an art, which is becoming prevalent in every part of Europe. This important revolution in the difpofitions of fo great a part of mankind, may in a great measure be attributed to the peculiar kind of philofophy cultivated in the present age, by men, without doubt, confiderable, and who have given the tafte, and, as we may fay, directed the fashion in literature; though their views have certainly not been favourable to the highest and most permanent interefts of our nature. As the principles they had adopted, or |