of the race. But we know of no law by which its movement can be rendered retrograde-by which, being once confirmed, it can ever be removed, unless by an abandonment of the climate which produced it.

In reply to this, it may, perhaps, be said, that as the morbific powers of climate become less and less operative on each succeeding generation, their dominion will, at length, so completely expire, and their influence become so utterly extinct, that the human frame, while still exposed to their action, will be suffered to regain its primitive size, and the system to recover its antecedent vigor.-But, on this plea, the complexion should also revert to its primitive fairness. For the causes, appertaining to climate, that darken the skin lose their influence in time, as well as those that lessen and debilitate the body.

These are considerations which, in our view, amount to insuperable objections against the hypothesis maintained by Dr. Smith. For if the Negroes of the west of Africa be nothing but white men converted into what they now are, by a burning climate, and a savage mode of life, they must have passed through the following mutations.-Lofty and vigorous in their persons at first-small and debilitated afterwards-now lofty and vigorous again-they must have been weakened and strengthened, diminished and enlarged in their frames beneath, and by the influence of, the same unfriendly causes.To admit the occurrence of such changes, from such sources, is a concession which religion does not exact, and which our reason imperatively forbids.

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[In the month of November last, a letter was addressed by the French Minister of the Interior to the Genevan Chamber of Commerce, inviting them to establish a direct commercial intercourse with Turkey, through the Illyrian Provinces. To this letter an answer was returned containing so many bold and offensive truths, that the Prefect of Geneva, through whom it was transmitted, was immediately disgraced and an additional body of French troops introduced into the city. We have lately received a copy of the answer, of which we subjoin a translation, and to which we earnestly call the attention of the public. It comes to us from a source that would leave no doubt of its authenticity, if the intrinsic evidence which it bears to this effect, were not amply sufficient. This document illustrates strikingly, the condition of the mercantile class throughout the dominions of the French Emperor, and the dispositions which are entertained towards commerce by the French government. It is moreover remarkable, from the circumstance of its being the first expression of public feeling delivered through the medium of any corporate body in the French dominions, since the establishment of the so called Continental System. We understand that the remonstrances of the merchants of Paris have been equally strong, but they have not yet transpired. Some of the principal members of that body, have sent circulars to their correspondents in Germany, informing them that they purpose suspending their commercial operations until the French government shall manifest a disposition less decidedly hostile to commerce than that which it has hitherto displayed.]

Copy of the Letter written to the Minister of the Interior in answer to that of his Excellency of November 11th, 1810, concerning the new road of the Levant through the Illyrian Provinces.

MY LORD,

THE chamber of commerce of Geneva has received with gratitude the letter which your excellency was pleased to write to them on the 11th of November last, respecting the establishment of a direct intercourse with Turkey through the Illyrian provinces. Fully sensible of the importance of the advice which it contains, they thought it their duty to communicate it to the merchants of this city who are engaged in the Levant trade, and to collect their opinions before they proceeded to give an answer. We now have the honour of laying before you the result of our consultation.

So early as the month of April last, letters were written from this city to Istria and Macedonia, in order to obtain information on the subject of a road, which it appeared was to be shorter and more economical than that now in use. The answers received did not agree with what is stated in an arti cle thereon from Trieste, inserted in the Moniteur of September 27th, which the merchants did not believe to be official.

The merchants of Trieste wrote to Geneva, that the cost of transportation of a horse load from Salonica, would amount

to two hundred florins, Austrian currency, equal at the then existing exchange, to about two hundred and ten francs. The merchants of Salonica wrote on the twelfth of June that for one hundred and fifty piastres they would transport a horse load as far as Brod, on the frontiers of Sclavonia; for, not being acquainted with any frequented road from Bosna Serai through Costaniza to Fiume or Trieste, they intended to take the road of Austria through Sclavonia. It may be calculated, however, even from these data, that if it be possible to march a caravan from Bosna Serai to Trieste, the transportation of a horse load will then cost two hundred Turkish piastres, or about two hundred and forty francs. The prices are almost double those mentioned in the Moniteur of September 27th. They nevertheless would be more advantageous to trade than those of the road through Austria, if all the letters did not agree in stating, that that road is entirely unsafe, that the provinces which it is necessary to pass through are in a most deplorable condition. It is not possible to travel in Turkey without being assured of powerful protection, and the merchants must know how it is to be obtained.

Caravans of six hundred horses cannot travel through a country which affords no resources whatever for their subsistence or for that of their conductors, and where no population is found along the road but that of the Albanese brigands. As your excellency has obtained official information respecting the new road, which it is your wish to open, we intreat you to communicate it to us, and to let us know, in all its details, the report made to your excellency, of which the note inserted in the Moniteur is probably but a very imperfect extract. We solicit you also to obtain for the cottons which will be imported by that road, a diminution, or even a complete exemption from duties at their entrance into France. The expenses and hazards of such a new undertaking in trade, are certainly at present equivalent to a tax and even to a heavy one. And lastly, we pray your excellency to make known to us in the most precise manner, what are the certificates of origin with which merchandise coming from the Levant must be accompanied, so that there may not remain any ambiguity as to the formalities to be observed, and that the packages after escaping so many dangers on their passage through Illyria, may not be sequestered on their arrival.

The merchants will readily avail themselves of such information, and endeavour in the course of the next year to import cottons by that route; it will, however, be but an experiment which will serve to direct them as to their future

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operations. The object is to trade through a country which offers no means of correspondence, but what are slow and unsafe; where there are but very few intelligent men, so that information of any kind is very difficult to be obtained. Some time therefore is absolutely required to divert trade from its ancient channel, particularly after it has experienced so many ruinous shocks, which have alarmed and discouraged specu lators of every description. When the road through Istria is practicable and well known, it will be quite unnecessary to shut up that through Vienna and Strasburgh. Merchants will not in preference make their convoys travel several hundred leagues additional, at a very great expense, to encounter foreign customhouses where they experience endless vexa tions; but at the same time they cannot on such vague infor mation as that which they now possess, despatch caravans from Salonica, to be plundered by the Albanese, or perish with hunger and fatigue in the mountains of Bosnia. The merchants further and earnestly request that they may be permitted, for one year after the complete opening of the new route, to import goods into France which may have been transported by the old one. They supplicate your excellency to extend to them your own powerful protection.

All the cottons passing through Germany on their way to France for the supply of our manufactories, have been unexpectedly stopped in every one of the states of the Confedera tion and subjected to duties equivalent to their whole value, without being on that account exempted from paying duties no less burthensome at their entrance into France. The sei zures made nevertheless on the old route, while they ruin the merchants of Salonica, or those of France who are in corres pondence with them, must absolutely prevent the opening of the new road pointed out to us by your excellency. The capitals which were employed in importing the Macedonian cotton into France through Austria, Bavaria and Suabia, will be required to import the same article next year through the Illyrian provinces. Every bankruptcy of those engaged in that trade not only reduces the amount of that capital, but fills the minds of men with discouragement and distrust, which are increased by the difficulty of the intercourse, and but too well justified by the changes which continually take place in the fiscal laws.

The exactions which the French merchants have borne in Germany, will make them lose all credit in Greece; and the trade through Illyria, however advantageous it might be, cannot possibly be carried into effect if the merchants are ruined.

Your excellency also points out maritime trade as one of the sources from which France is to be supplied with cotton. The same merchants who are endeavouring to import it through Illyria, have also for their misfortune, endeavoured to import some by way of Leghorn and Genoa. They divided. the parcels which they had purchased, and shipped them on board of several Greek and Moorish vessels, in order to lessen the risk. One house has lost four such vessels out of five which were captured by the British, and another, out of five, has lost three. It is therefore very evident that neither of them had paid the English for a license or protection; and yet the three vessels which by unexpected good fortune had reached the port of Leghorn, were sequestered under that pretence, and when they were afterwards released it was under such burthensome conditions, that the merchants preferred to abandon their merchandise rather than redeem it at such a price. Thus, to escape the enemy is considered as sufficient proof of an understanding with him, and the merchant who falls into the hands of the British is less unfortunate than he who reaches the shores of his own country; for in the first case his loss is made good to him by the underwriters, while in the second his property is entirely gone.

Nevertheless the government no doubt wishes to preserve to France a maritime commerce. Your excellency himself declares, that special licenses for navigating to the ports of the Mediterranean, shall be granted as well as permits for the cities of Genoa, Marseilles and Leghorn, in favour of Levantine vessels; but are these licenses to be exclusive privileges granted to some individuals to the prejudice of the country at large? Without repeating what is acknowledged by every body, that a monopoly would set aside the most useful and industrious merchants, to enrich a small number of intriguers, we pray your excellency to observe that the navigation of France is reduced almost to nothing, that to shackle it still more by granting exclusive privileges, is to destroy what little spirit of enterprise may yet remain, and that it is an insuperable obstacle to the resuscitation of our navy, even at a very remote period. We at the same time pray your excellency, who at this moment calls upon us to engage in a distant trade, to consider, that the financial laws of France and of all the countries under her influence have had for some time no stability whatever, that commercial speculations are bottomed on the existing order of things, whatsoever it may be, and on the expectation of its continuance, and that every sudden change or alteration, overthrows the fortunes of individuals,