we have seen that it existed in 1510, eight years (not 13, as some authors have said,) after the discovery of this hemisphere.

Secondly, it cannot even be asserted that Las Casas encouraged the traffic, because he did no more than demand for the Spanish residents in India the liberty of employing Negroes in their farms and in their mines; and that they might procure them by purchasing them directly from the Portuguese, in order that the Spaniards of the Peninsula need not be forced to go themselves to seek them in Africa. The abuse in question ought to be imputed to the government, which had made a grant to the major domo that nothing could legitimatize. Moreover, the King did not content himself with this first act of favor: but new concessions rapidly succeeded each other during the year 1518 and the following year, notwithstanding the clause in the privilege of the Commander of Bresa, in which the exclusive enjoyment of it was secured to him for eight years.

The object of my third remark is to shew that the proposal of Las Casas had been suggested to him by the conduct of the government itself, which, since the year 1510, had always permitted the use of Negro-slaves; without any person thinking of stigmatizing, as contrary to humanity, the example that the Portuguese had set from the year 1443 of this species of traffic: which was besides known to, and as some say approved by, the head of the church. I would above all observe that the King had just received from the monks of St. Jerome, whose reputation had caused them to be appointed administrators of the West Indies, dispatches in which a demand for the slave-trade was formally expressed.

Las Casas, informed of the proposal made by the monkish governors, was too wary not to perceive that an inexperienced court, governed by strangers quite ignorant of what could promote the public good, would not fail to enter into the views of the American administration; in the first place, because, at that time, there was nothing to shock the mind in the moral view of the project; and, secondly, because the declaration of the late Cardinal Ximenes of Cisneros, regent of the kingdom, had raised hopes of a great accession of wealth to the treasury by means of the duty which was to be imposed on the slave-trade.

'These are the reasons which induced Las Casas, in order to ameliorate the condition of the Indians, to profit by the proposal of the monkish governors to the King, which their political views had alone suggested. In fact, having found all his direct attempts to improve the state of the Indians overthrown, although their justice could not be doubted, and foreseeing that this new plan would meet with no obstacle, he adroitly took advantage of his influence with the Chancellor to support a resolution which would be favorable to his unfortunate clients, without increasing the hardships of the Africans.

Bishop Grégoire justly remarks that the fact being established, it can only be regarded as a sort of compromise with existing circumstances, not as inconsistent with the system of liberty which

Las

Las Casas had formed in favor of the Americans. He never would have desired the slavery of the Negroes, but it already existed; and neither he nor any other man of that period saw any thing contrary to humanity in it, because the ideas, which then prevailed in all Europe with regard to the Blacks, were quite different from those which are now entertained, when our knowlege of the rights of mankind is so much extended.

M. Funes has fully proved the virtue and charity of Las Casas, even supposing the alleged fact to be really true, that his petition to government and his example had great influence in extending this trade: but this author would have been much bolder in his testimony to the venerable priest, if he had read the letter from the monkish governors to the King.

But, I ask, what influence could an individual priest be sup posed to have in the council of the King, supposing that he really was the author of the proposal in question? It is proved that his great intimacy with the Chancellor was of no use to him in the principal object of his visit to Spain; and it is equally true that the time was not better employed which he spent in soliciting Cardinal Adrian for a decree to insure the freedom of the Indians. I conclude from all this that, if the monks of St. Jerome had written nothing and demanded nothing of the King, Las Casas would never have proposed a slave-trade with the Africans; or that, if he had spoken of it, he would have failed, as in his other projects.

"I likewise believe, with M. Funes, that the historian Herrera agreed in opinion with Las Casas and his contemporaries, respecting the right of carrying on the slave-trade. This is proved, I conceive, by the specific passages of his book, in which he says that if the King had put his decree in execution, without gratifying his major domo, or even for the express purpose of gaining 25,000 ducats for his treasury, great advantages would have resulted from it, both to his finances and to his subjects, but that, not taking this into consideration, they were deprived of this benefit.

Herrera, therefore, did not relate the fact as an accuser of Las Casas, but merely as an historian; and I confess that, having read with attention all that he has said on the subject, it now appears to me that M. Grégoire has fallen into error on this point, being carried away by his zeal to defend the venerable Barthélémi.' ·

This appears to us the most just view which has yet been taken of the conduct of Las Casas. His design was throughout benevolent: but the means which he adopted were most erroneous, though he erred only in common with the age in which he lived. Nothing but malignity itself could impute any mischievous purpose to the exertions of this amiable and pious ecclesiastic, who was in truth one of the noblest characters of which Spain has to boast; and if he pushed too far the right of spiritual dominion in many points, as he doubtless did, let it be remembered that he never inter

posed

posed except on behalf of the oppressed; that his contest was with violent and sanguinary tyrants; and that it was his endeavor to advance the cause of humanity, and to promote the ascendancy not of particular dogmas but of Christian morality.

This publication is dedicated to Count Las Cases, the devoted companion of Napoleon in his exile at St. Helena, the model of hereditary virtue.'

ART. XIV. Voyages dans la Grande Bretagne, &c.; i. e. Travels in Great Britain, undertaken relative to the Public Services of War, Naval Power, &c. By CHARLES DUPIN, Member of the Institute, &c. Third Part. Of the Commercial Force. 4to. 2 Vols. and Folio Atlas. Paris. 1823. Imported by Treuttel and Co.

IN

N our notice of the second part of M. DUPIN's Travels, (vol. xcv. p. 490. M. R.) we announced that the author was engaged in printing his third part, which was intended to treat of the Commercial Force of England; in the same way as in his first and second he had examined and illustrated our Military and Naval Force. This latter portion has not followed its predecessors so quickly as we had anticipated; and, as it was devoted to a subject which promised very considerable interest, we have been for some time rather impatiently waiting its arrival. We have very recently received a copy of it, and lose no time in laying an analysis of it before our readers.

On various occasions, we have had to commend the happy talent which M. DUPIN possesses for that species of description, which is requisite to render popular and interesting the results of a scientific and political examination of the great sources of national independence, power, and splendor; and we have had pleasure in remarking the impartiality of his representations on many points, respecting which the usual national prejudices are too apt to warp the judgment. Some few exceptions to this prevailing characteristic have perhaps been noticed but they are rare, and by no means such as to lead us to withhold from the author the reputation which he has acquired, of being a correct observer and candid delineator of our political institutions, our public constructions, and the military and naval character of this country.

The part at present before us examines what the author denominates the Commercial Force (or Strength) of Great Britain; viz. the power derivable from commerce, civil associations, the construction of roads, canals, railways, bridges, ports, harbours,

harbours, &c. It may possibly appear to many persons that, living as we do in the midst of all these associations and constructions, and from our infancy having become familiar with our different institutions both civil and political, a mere detail of such matters, however interesting they may be to foreigners, cannot be rendered equally attractive to Englishmen: but, so far from this being the case, we are not sure that the whole of this elaborate work is not even more calculated to interest the English than the foreign reader. The very circumstance, that we are so intimately connected with such institutions, is the reason that we lose sight of their peculiar beauties and advantages; as, in philosophy, we find some of the most important natural phænomena escape observation, merely because they are perpetually before our eyes. No person, however, can read either the present or the two preceding parts of this great work, without having his attention strongly drawn towards objects which perhaps before possessed but little interest; for here we not only see that we have this or that institution, but we are also taught the advantages and peculiarities of it, as compared with the measures adopted to produce the same end in another country, or the misfortune attending the want of any means directed to such an object. We are thus insensibly led to set a higher value on our civil rights and political and commercial privileges; and to feel still more proud of being born in a country where the arts and laws of civilization have already made, and are still making, such amazing progress, and where the most perfect models are to be found for similar institutions in every other nation on the globe.

Perhaps M. DUPIN's picture is too highly colored: but we cannot refrain from attempting to convey to our readers an idea of the first part of his Introduction, which a French critic has acknowleged to be equally remarkable for depth of thought, elevation of sentiment, and dignity of style.

To analyze in proper order the elements which constitute the British power, I have first examined the institutions and works connected with its military and naval force: I have described the offensive and defensive means of a country which nature has separated from the rest of the world, by the obstacles of a sea which the nautical art has filled with ramparts that are at present impregnable ramparts that serve either for attack or to transport armies from one hemisphere to another, where, on the most distant shores, we find provinces of England. Ambitious and yet prudent, England maintains on the coasts of all continents advanced posts, which, according to circumstances, serve either as points d'appui for conquest, or as rallying points and places of re

fuge

fuge in cases of retreat; and always as foci of enterprize for a commerce which braves every peril, and knows no repose.

Let us, for a moment, contemplate this spectacle, which is without example in the history of nations. In Europe, the British empire touches at the same time, towards the north, Denmark, Germany, Holland, and France; towards the south, Spain, Sicily, Italy, and western Turkey: it possesses the keys of the Adriatic and of the Mediterranean; and it commands at the entrance of the Black Sea and the Baltic. One instant, its navy, arbitrator: in the Archipelago, has ceased to be adverse to the cause of the Greeks, and immediately the Peloponnesians have found their liberators in the posterity of the Heraclida; and, from Corinth to Tenedos, the sea which leads to the Bosphorus is become for the children of the Argonauts the road to victory, and of another golden fleece, national independence!

In America, the British empire bounds Russia towards the pole, and the United States towards the temperate regions. At the torrid zone, it reigns in the midst of the Antilles, encircling the Gulf of Mexico; where it finds itself in the presence of new states, which are withdrawn from dependence on the mothercountry, in order to be placed more absolutely under the dependence of its mercantile industry. At the same time, in order to terrify, in both the Old and the New World, every one who should dare to deprive it of the light of its greatness and the secret of its conquests, it maintains a guard between Africa and America on the road from Europe to Asia, on the rock where it held prisoner the modern Prometheus.

• In Africa, from the bosom of the island formerly consecrated, under the symbol of the Cross, to the safety of the flags of all Christian states, the British empire imposes on the barbarians respect to its power alone. From the foot of the columns of Hercules, it carries terror to the heart of the states of the Morea. On the west of the Atlantic, it has built forts on the coast of Guinea, and on the Mountain of the Lion (Sierra Leone). It is here that the foundation of empire is laid with the spoil which the black nations have delivered to the European nations; and it is here that it attaches to the soil the freeman whom it has delivered from the yoke. On the same continent, below the tropics, and in the part most advanced towards the southern pole, it has seized a port under the Cape of Tempests. At places where the Spaniards and the Portuguese had found only a mere harbour for repose, and the Dutch a plantation, it has colonized a new British people; where the activity of the English, combined with the patience of the Batavians, is at this moment, all round the Cape of Good Hope, extending the bounds of an establishment which will, in the south of Africa, become equal to the states that it has founded in North America.. From this new focus of action and of conquest, it looks towards India; it discovers and invades every station convenient for its commercial progress; and thus it renders itself exclusive lord of the Levant of another hemisphere.

As formidable in the Persian Gulph and in the Arabian Sea as in the Pacific Ocean and the Archipelago of India, the British empire,