nineteenth century of the Christian æra, have tolerated and legalized a commerce in human blood, a species of merchandize by which an immense portion of the world was devoted to desolation, or preserved in barbarism, and which, by the depravation of morals, the waste of seamen, and the drain of capital it occasioned, was scarcely less injurious to the oppressor than the victim. Difficulties at a distance, like hills upon a remote horizon, appear far inferior to their actual magnitude. But there will always exist persons capable of forming a due estimate of the merit of those who have perseveringly struggled against esta blished crimes; who will duly es timate all the weight of opposition that could be derived from opulent guilt, and mistaken patriotism, and apprehensive policy, and the difficulty of establishing in one age, by a series of arguments, principles, the truth of which is, as it were, intuitively discerned by that which succeeds. With observers of this description, the ministry who effected the abolition of the slave-trade, whatever other measures may be justly charged upon them as political errors or delinquencies, will ever be considered as deriving from this act no ordinary merit.

Under the auspices of administration an attempt was made in parliament to render freehold property liable for the discharge of simple contract debts, as well as for special securities, a measure called for by natural equity, and which could scarcely give offence to any who were not more fearful of change than they were desirous of justice. By the law of England the possessor of a freehold estate, after involving himself in debt by

boundless prodigality, may cut off all the reasonable demands of his creditors upon this estate to which they had looked up as a security, and devise it unincumbered to any individual who may be the object of his attachment or caprice. The source of the confidence of cre ditors is thus completely dried up. That property is thus permitted to be transferred to another, to which they alone have a reasonable, though not a legal, claim. It is singular that, in a nation which fairly boasts of the general conformity of its legal institutions to the suggestions of reason, this irregularity should exist; and that it should moreover be peculiar to the system of English law. It is, however, a remnant of that order of things in which all land was held of a superior liege, and the relation between the vassal and the lord rendered its alienation impracti cable. This relation has long since ceased, but the inconvenient and embarrassing consequence still continues to disgrace the national code and impede the course of substantial justice. To remedy this inconvenience and injustice, was an object well worthy of attention to all who wished that the system of national law should acquire all that purity which tends to excite admiration and dispense happiness. The tradesman who gives credit to the man of landed property, in case of the decease of his debtor without leaving provision, in property of other descriptions, for the discharge of what he owed, has no remedy for obtaining his demand. Yet the same system of law enforces the payment of the debts of the tradesman himself: his stock is sold, often for less than half its value: his person is exposed to

the

nauseous and noisome confinement of a dungeon, where he may pass the remainder of his days almost equally without pity and hope. Such flagrant inequality and injurious preference most decidedly call for regulation; and the attempts made for this purpose, but which unexpected circumstances render ed abortive, did credit to their authors, who, in this instance, endeavoured to render law what it should ever be, a transcript of reason.

The situation of the poor was another topic to which the national attention was this year strongly directed. This subject has long called for the notice of the legislature. It must be acknowledged to be pregnant with difficulty, and the most experienced and enlightened will bring forward any plans for removing existing evils only with hesitation. Few persons are more competent to suggest remedies for present abuses and distresses on this topic, so unfortunately fertile in them, than the gentleman who, with the approbation of the principal members of administration, introduced it to parliamentary attention. By an early aud national education it was proposed by Mr. Whitbread to instruct the children of the poor in the arts of reading and writing, and in the knowledge of their duties as citizens and Christians. The law of settlement was intended to be considerably modified, and to be liberated, in a great de. gree, from those restrictions which often operate most injuriously on the inferior classes of the community, by limiting the scope of their industry, the ardour of their exertions, and the chances of their relief. The distribution of rewards to those who should distinguish themselves by their diligence, was

a material object of the plan. The reform of parish rates, at present so strikingly unequal, was another point of particular attention. The measure included also a prohibition of any future erection of workhouses, or houses of industry, and all kinds of institutions for compulsory labour on the poor. The raising of cottages for the most exemplary among them, at very moderate rents; the establishment of a national bank for receiving. the savings of their income, at simple or compound interest; together with an insurance office for the security of small sums by way of annuity, were also leading features of this comprehensive and important measure. On a subject which has such a multitude of bearings as the regulation of the poor, a subject, in the complexity of which, minds of the first order have ever felt themselves, to a certain degree, bewildered, and been infinitely more prompt to deplore the disease, than to pra nounce on the remedy, it would ill become any to decide without great deliberation. It is something, and not inconsiderable, to excite the general investigation of ac knowledged evils, and thus, by concentrating upon them the reflections of many understandings, put them in the best train for removal or mitigation. It is possible. that the sanguine advocates for Mr. Whitbread's plan may expect too much from the diffusion of that degree of knowledge in soci ety, which alone can be procured by the national system of education proposed by it. The passions and violences of the well educated, the excesses of the enlightened, the ferocity of even priests and legislators, in every age, forbid the hope of that extreme advantage Q3

from

notwithstanding their extreme copiousness, might be relied upon as being equally stable, resulting from none of those precarious circumstances by which the prosperity of kingdoms is suddenly elevated and depressed, but originating in judgment and foresight, in order and industry, in the wise maxims of the government, and the unremitting energies of the people. This representation of the extent of the public' means was highly gratifying; and those who now so highly extolled them, and had but recently described them as incompetent to the urgency of the times, and likely soon to terminate in absolute failure and ruin, were easily pardoned the inconsistency with which they were so justly chargeable on presenting the nation with a plan of providing for its wants, which involved no additional burdens for the actual year, and promised so long an interval before new ones would be required.

The difficulty which had been latterly experienced in the imposition of new taxes, both by Mr. Pitt and his successors; the former of whom was compelled to resort to a tax upon agriculture, while the latter, in the preceding session, were driven from various stations, and, amidst all the suggestions of invention and experience, could scarcely adopt one which did not seem exposed to invincible objec tions, rendered the experiment of some substitute for new taxation at least highly desirable. The continuance of the war taxes, beyond the period originally limited, appears in several other respects also, independently of the above general consideration, more eligible than laying new burdens on the people. In the collection of

new taxes, considerable losses are invariably incurred, until government has had time to detect the evasions of artifice, and effectually to counteract them; and the deficiencies thus arising must be made good by further imposts. When taxes have been in operation for a number of years, evasion is practised with less facility; their produce, therefore, is, of course, greater and more ascertainable, and their pressure upon the people at large approaches more to that equality which was contemplated by the legislature, and which it is desirable they should attain as nearly as possible. With respect also to taxes which have existed for a series of years, their influence on the operations of business and the economy of private life is settled and ascertained. Men have suited their arrangements to the emergency of circumstances. The fair rise of

the article, in proportion to the impost, as it passes through all its stages between its growth and consumption, is accurately defined. The embarrassment and confusion always attendant on the introduction of a new and increased taxation of any article, its more than correspondent advance in price, the extravagant profits madė by those who happen to be large holders, and the proportionate losses to those whose stock is exhausted, derangements of method in private families until new retrenchments are adopted and incorporated into the system for the supply of new demands;-all these circumstances, which, trifling as some may deem them, involve in the mass of society a vast extent of inconvenience and confusion, are avoided by substituting the protraction of old taxes for the imQ4 position

position of new ones. And with respect to those of the war taxes, which bear particularly hard on commerce, such as the four per cent. tonnage duty, and the export duty; it cannot be doubted that these, and others which are least politic, will be first discharged. And as it will require between four and five years to absorb even one third of the war taxes upon this new system, there can be no reason to apprehend that a return of peace will not occur in full time to permit the immediate abandonment of whatever is most justly and particularly obnoxious in them. Though the excellence of any measure of finance is by no means to be judged of by the cordiality with which the public receive it, and that will always be most popular the pressure of which is least direct and immediate; in the present instance the popularity arising from the measure will beadmitted by most to have been the attendant on wisdom. The public were gratified by ministers, without any ground of imputation on the firmness and duty of the lat. ter, and the most approving complacency was a result of the most judicious policy.

The favourable impression made by the new method of supply was immediately obvious upon the funds, which advanced very considerably, and gave the minister an opportunity of negotiating a loan to far greater advantage than would have been obtained, had the old system been persevered in. The profit made, in consequence of the changes attending a negotiation, by the holders of the previous loan, the comparative smallness of the present, and the animation and elasticity produced in the

money market by the recent mea. sures of finance, contributed to excite a more than usual competition. The three strong parties which had united on the three last loans, endeavoured each, separately, to monopolize the present, but were obliged to yield to the su perior biddings of the gentlemen of the Stock-exchange. For every hundred pounds in money, these gentlemen offered to accept 701. consols, 701. reduced, and 101. 12. 5d.; terms on which the minister was justified in congratulating the country, and which rendered the contract to the holders of it, though not so lucrative as other engagements of this nature have occasionally been, by no means an affair of loss, and afforded an opportunity, for a long period, of disposing of omnium to certain advantage.

The conduct of ministers with respect to public economy was, on the whole, very far from fault. less, but, in several instances, drew down the eulogium even of their general opponents. With respect to the abolition of sinecure places, they professed themselves ready to follow up the principles of the vari ous committees on public accounts, which, at several periods since the American war, have suggested, and led to the accomplishment of valuable reforms. In the customs and excise, nearly all the sinecure places had been abolished, in consequence of the representations of, these successive committees; and in the office of the exchequer, the expensive post of great chamberlain had been annihilated. The fees of auditor and teller were extremely reduced; and so much. had been accomplished, that comparatively little remained to be

done.