fund) enable us to maintain the contest with France without any actual augmentation of public debt. It is evident that this will be the case when the sum redeemed by the commissioners for managing the sinking fund is equal to that of the loan for the service of the year.

With respect to our dependance upon the East Indies for our existence, and to the exaltation of Calcutta into the metropolis of England, it must be observed, that M. de Montgaillard qualifies the assertion, by admitting on the other hand, "that in reality Plymouth is the citadel of Calcutta. It is therefore only necessary for Great Britain to receive an unexpected defeat on her own shores, to enable the imperial fleets to convey to the Mahrattas and the nabobs of the peninsula the news of their liberty, and the advantages of independence." (P. 91.)

We shall think it time enough to surrender to this reasoning when our existence and dependence are tottering, our metropolis and citadel in jeopardy, and the fleet and army of France are triumphantly proceeding to confirm M. de Montgaillard's predictions.

We shall begin to be seriously alarmed when we find that they are actually on their way to throw fire and discord among the nabobs and the Mahrattas; of which events we confess that we do not at present perceive any immediate prospect. Such speculations may gratify his emperor, may amuse the badauds of Paris, and may perhaps be cheered by the half-smothered acclamations of an abject people; but we do not think they will have the least effect upon any enlightened foreigner, much less give one moment's alarm to the well-informed people of England. We have no doubt, however, that we shall all agree with this ingenious gentleman, that, as France is neither oppressed with the fleeting possessions of colonies, commerce, a sinking fund, East Indian returns, or the capital of Calcutta; it remains that Paris is her metropolis, and "that in this sense the facts will shew that the French empire is the richest, and Great Britain the poorest, government in Europe." (P. 40.)

But as M. de Montgaillard well observes, what signify the teas and the muslins of the Eastern, the sugar and coffee of the Western Indies, when the products of the French soil, and industry, shall rival them in the foreign markets. When the grass of Paraguay, transplanted into France, shall be chopped into their teapots, and the juice of the grape, instead of being fermented into an intoxicating liquor, shall, with due sobriety, be evaporated and crystallized into a saccharine competitor with the produce of Jamaica; to say nothing of the French looms and beans which are to be respectively instrumental in the pro

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ductions of muslin and coffee. To this formidable array of French rivalry we really know not what resource to oppose, We fear that M. de. Montgaillard has at length driven us to the wall. We must, indeed, fall at the feet of Buonaparte, conclude a maritime peace, and permit "the liberty of the seas to be regulated;" and if it seems good to M. de Montgaillard and his emperor, it shall be upon these terms-That we shall gradually withdraw from our eastern and western possessions, and give up our marine, in proportion as their products shall be replaced by those of the same description and quality raised on the soil of France, manufactured by French industry, and imported in French ships. In the mean time, it is proposed, that we shall continue in the full and undisturbed possession of our ships and colonies and commerce, and that France shall not, of course, adopt a plan so ruinous to herself as to employ her ships and capital in cultivating, and importing from the East and West Indies, articles of commerce, for the production of which the capacities of her own soil and people are so much better adapted. Nothing can surely be more in unison with the views and objects of France, as set forth in this Exposé of her hired agent.

Having thus yielded up the palm of victory to M. de Montgaillard, we shall now withdraw from the contest, little doubting that our readers are by this time fully competent to judge of his soundness as a politician, and his prowess as a controversialist; and, we trust, that they will scarcely expect us to unravel the intricate skein which his ingenuity has woven out of the arguments of the bullion report, and its advocates. If in the hands of their original framers they were sufficiently unintelligible as to any practical or useful application; we are not ashamed to confess, that, passed through the alembic of a Frenchman's brain, they are infinitely surpassing our slender intellect. All that we can clearly perceive is, that he thinks them very conclusive himself, as to the immediate ruin of England, and seems to have no doubt that the same impression will be made upon others.

In aid of these convictions the procedure of Lord King, and its necessary consequence, the bill of Lord Stanhope, furnish him with a most triumphant postscript. We recommend the following extract to the notice of the first of those noble lords, and of the other advocates of the bullion committee; gently insinuating, that as a very large majority of the legislature and of the nation has decided their measures and arguments to be perfectly unwarrantable, de facto at least, if not de jure, in the present state of affairs, we trust that on future occasions they

will be cautious of maintaining theoretic speculations, by means which may eventually afford to the enemies of their country extensive means of injuring its interests among its friends.

"When we sketched the picture which has just been perused, we were far from supposing that the ministers would themselves expose to the whole universe the mortality of the wounds of Great Britain. This will, indeed, be an astonishing epocha in the history of nations, as such an one ought to be, wherein we see a country that pretends to command the empire of trade, in all parts of the civilized world, suddenly obliged to expose its commercial misery, and to adopt the fatal resource of paper money, because a single landholder, Lord King, wishes to put in force the rights which a legitimate contract gives him over his tenants.

"England, how deplorable is thy situation!-This extension of trade, this increase of industry, which caused a political power to rise from the midst of its navy, which have rendered a little island the rival of the greatest empires, themselves become the causes of its decline and ruin! A few months which have passed since the execution of the decrees of Berlin and Milan have been sufficient to shake, even to its foundations, that grand and majestic edifice, which philosophy, legislation, and commerce, had given to Great Britain. It is all over with the splendour of that kingdom; its greatness is extinct!"

At length this serious opera, this "sottise magnifique," ends with all due solemnity: "Le Lord King a mis le feu au temple d'Ephese, et les ministres consomment sa destruction."

ART. XIII. The Life of the Right Reverend John Hough, D.D. successively Bishop of Oxford, Lichfield and Coventry, and Worcester: formerly President of Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, in the Reign of King James II. containing many of his Letters, and Biographical Notices of several Persons with whom he was connected. By John Wilmot, Esq. F.R.S. and S.A. London, 1812. White and Cochrane, Longman and Co.

THE perusal of the work before us has given us pleasure and instruction. Bishop Hough is one of those characters which must always excite interest, and can surely give offence to none but those who hate virtue because it is virtue. The qualities with which he was most eminently gifted were of the mild and unobtrusive kind; yet in one event of his life, when the circumstances in which he was placed made political firmness a moral duty, he displayed an intrepid moderation, which neither the

best nor greatest need blush to own. We allude to the well known and memorable incident of his contention with the crown in 1687, as president of Magdalen College, when he boldly withstood the attempts of a bigotted prince to force upon his college a Roman Catholic president. The account of the whole proceeding is curious; but as our limits will not allow us to give it in detail to our readers, we shall only produce an extract or two, referring them to the book itself for the remainder. We need scarcely remind our readers, that the college petitioned against the appointment of Dr. Parker, Bishop of Oxford, as their president, on account of his being a papist.

"This petition the king repeatedly refused to accept, and they were threatened by him, in a very gross manner, with the whole weight of his displeasure, if they did not admit the Bishop of Oxford, which they intimated was not in their power. The king said,

among other things, Ye have been a turbulent college. I have known ye to be so these twenty-six years. You have affronted me in this; get you gone; know I am your king, I will be obeyed; and I command you to be gone: go and admit the Bishop of Oxford principal, what do you call it, of the college (one who stood by said, President), I mean president of the college. Let them that refuse it look to it; they shall feel the weight of their sovereign's displeasure.' This he repeated, and added, Get you gone home, I say again, and immediately repair to your chapel, and elect the Bishop of Oxford, or else you must expect to feel the weight of my hand. The fellows went immediately to their chapel, and being asked by the senior fellow whether they would elect the Bishop of Oxford their president, they all answered in their turn, that it being contrary to their statutes, and to the positive oath which they had taken, they did not apprehend it was in their power. It appears from Anthony Wood's account of this visit, that W. Penn, who attended the king to Oxford, went afterwards to Magdalen College; and although he at first hoped to persuade the fellows to comply with the king's wishes, yet when he heard the statement of their case, he was satisfied that they could not comply without a breach of their oaths."

Shortly after the fellows of Magdalen received a citation to appear at Magdalen College, before certain lords commissioners appointed specially to visit the college. These were Cartwright, bishop of Chester, Sir R. Wright, chief justice of the King's Bench, and Sir T. Jenner, baron of the exchequer. We shall give part of the conversation which passed at their visit, as being replete with characteristic features of the king and his government.

"Bishop to Dr. Hough. What is the reason you act as president, since the election was declared void and null by the lords commis

sioners sitting at Whitehall, in June last, and the fellows stand out in contempt of the king's mandate?-Dr. Hough. My lord, both myself and the fellows have taken oaths so strong and binding, that we cannot depart from them, without offering the greatest violence to our consciences. It was according to the statutes of the college that they made choice of a president, and therefore they were not capable of proceeding otherwise; and as to myself, I have been condemned at Whitehall, and turned out of my property without giving me a hearing, or so much as a citation to appear.

"Bishop. But how say you, doctor; do you now submit to our visitation?

"Dr. Hough answered in his own name and that of the greater part of the fellows, That they submitted to it as far as was consistent with the laws of the land and the statutes of the college, and no further.'

"The statutes being sent for and read, and found to be very strict and close to the purpose, the bishop said, Dr. Hough, do you ima gine that a private statute can contradict our commission, and that it is not in our power to alter any of your statutes?'

"Dr. Hough. My lord, thus far I acknowledge your power reaches: you may alter statutes in respect of persons who come after, which, when altered or made, are proposed to them before they swear to the observance of them; but not in respect of us, who have sworn to keep them as they are already made, without the least addition or diminution; for sure I am, that no power under Heaven can free me from the obligation I have taken.

"The bishop said, that the king had dispensed with the statutes, and asked the president if he thought they came there to act against law?

"Dr. Hough. My lord, it would not become me to say so; but I will be plain with your lordships. I find that your commission gives you authority to change and alter the statutes, and make new ones as you think fit. Now, my lords, we have taken an oath not only to observe these statutes (laying his hand upon the book), but to admit of no new ones or alterations in them. This must be the rule of my behaviour; I must admit of no alteration from them, and, by the grace of God, I never will. Being asked why he did not read mass then, as there was a statute for mass; Dr. Hough replied, My lord, the matter of this statute is unlawful; besides the statute is taken away by the law of the land. Besides, my lord, that statute having been abolished by the law of the land, it could never have affected me; for as long as the saying mass is malum in se, and in my conscience I know the matter of it to be unlawful, that obligation ceases, and I am in no sort of duty bound by it.'

"Chief Justice. In the king's mandamus is implied an inhibition with respect to all others, and a dispensation of private statutes. "Dr. Hough. That is past my understanding, my lord; nor since the foundation of the college has there been an instance of that nature.

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