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were full of the intelligence of the peace of Tilsit; when Mr. Munroe left England, the American merchants and fund-holders were beginning to clamour, and to form their Cor- responding Societies. Thus, at every stage of their progress, they have been reckoning and acting upon what was gone by, here, without at all affecting the spirit of the country; and, at the very moment when they are supposing themselves able to awe us into compliance by commercial restrictions, we are deliberating within ourselves, whether it would not be a good thing for England, if all commercial connection with them were, for ever, put an end to. Mr. Munroe, too, who is notoriously a partizan of France, and who, for the best of all reasons, is a bitter enemy of England, would not be very likely to make representations, calculated to check the presumption of his countrymen. In short, until they heard of the affair of Copenhagen, they looked upon us as upon the eve of bending down before Napoleon and his maritime coalition; and this notion of us emboldened them to go so far, that they are now ashamed to retract. They must do something, they perceive; they must make a shew of war; but, if they are wise, they will sneak out of it as soon as possible; for woe be unto them, if once any considerable naval force be sent across the Atlantic. Their advocates here, of whom the Morning Chronicle is the trumpet, are continually reminding us of the quantity of cloth we send to America and of cotton we receive from America. We have given our reasons for believing, that this exchange is of no advantage to England. We have, I think, fully proved, that it is of no advantage. Nevertheless, without any attempt to answer oùr arguments, these advocates repeat, with rather increasing weight of emphasis, their cuckoo-like admonitions. But, again I say, supposing us to lose by a war with America, will the Morning Chronicle say, that we ought to accede to the demands of the Americans? That is the question for him to answer. The Americans make demands upon us. They begin a quarrel. They demand, first, that we should suffer them to inveigle our seamen on board their ships, merchant ships as well as others, and that we should give up our right to search for such seamen. Second, they demand, that, when once the said seamed, or any other subjects of the kings bave received from them a bit of paper Aprice nine-pence) which they call a certifi-cate of citizenship, we shall acknowledge them as Americans, and, if we take them in the act of fighting against us, shall consider them merely as prisoners of war. Third,

that we should allow them to favour our enemy by conforming to his maritime decrees hostile to us, and that we should pass no maritime decrees, or orders of council, hostile to him, or, at least, that we should not make them conform to such orders, in like manner as they had conformed to his decrees; in other words, that they shall be permitted to hold our hands behind us, while Napoleon comes in front and knocks us on the head. They demand, in short, that the king of England should put his hand and seal to a treaty, acknowledging, that America, has, under the garb of neutrality, a right to do her utmost to destroy the English navy, and to assist France in all hei hostile measures against England. But, taking the demands without any commentary, will the Morning Chronicle say, that the ministers ought to submit to those demands, rather than go to war? I want a direct answer to this question. I have long applied for, but can never obtain it. There is nothing more mean than to persevere in making representations of the evils of war; in harping upon the loss of trade, and the distress that will arise from it; in winding up always with a cant about "desperate politicians," urged on by " their blind passions;" without ever meeting the question, whether the demands of the enemy ought to be submitted to. "According," says this shuffling gentleman, in his paper of Tuesday last, "According to the apprehen"sions of the American merchants, an em"bargo will be immediately laid on the "American shipping in our harbours. In"deed, the best informed persons are con "vinced, that a war between this country "and America is certain. This opinion is "justified by the conduct of ministers." What conduct? Good or bad? Why do you not strike? Willing to wound" you are; but you want the courage to give the blow. You, perceive, perhaps, that it would recoil upon the late ministers; and thus, divided between hope and fear, you content yourself with an equivocal insinuation. When approaching war is the subject, the first question to ask is this: is our cause just? The next is: will the probable evils of war be less than the probable evils of preserving peace upon the terms demanded by the enemy as the price of a continuation of peace? If both these questions be answered in the affirmative, the conclusion necessarily is, that war ought to take place. In that case, or until these questions have been discussed, it is sheer nonsense to run on in a strain of lamentation about the evils of war; and, when the questions have been

fice ships of the line, ten or twelve frigates, a good supply of sloops, and a bundle of proclamations, will settle the matter speedily; and it is quite as well to employ our ships in this way, as to let them remain idly flapping their sails up the Mediterranean or along the iron coast of France. I do not think it would be necessary to take any one post upon land, except, perhaps, to cover an anchorage near the mouths of the Mississippi. Nova Scotia, on one side, and New Providence, on the other side, would be quite sufficient as places of rendezvous and for the speedy condemnation of prizes. There would be a bustle with privateers for a few months; and, about September next, the grass would begin to grow in the streets of the cities, all which are situated near the coast. It cannot help, thus early, to press the objection to expeditions, which must be terribly expensive, and which, against the Americans, would be, besides, worse than useless; because such enterprizes would find them employment. I would securely stop their holes, and leave them to quarrel and fight amongst themselves, which they would soon infallibly do.Accustomed, as I so long was, to live under the abuse of the English-hating faction in America, I was not at all surprised to hear, the other day, that some of them here had hired the columns of a dirty wretch, who conducts an obscure opposition paper in London, called "THE STATESMAN," wherein to publish infamous aspersions upon my character; but false and infamous as these are, they are trifling to what were, by persons of the same description, published in America, and the sole provocation of which was, my hav ing stood forward in defence of the rights and the character of my native country. As to the half-famished caitiff, who has sold himself to this work of furbishing up frequently refuted lies, I shall leave him torpine away with the faction who are so base as-to accept of his services; and, his American employers may be assured, that no abuse of theirs shall ever draw me aside from the question between the two nations. I have not suffered my personal injuries, great as they were, to intrude themselves, into my mind will not say, but certainly never juto the discussion. Besides, if I were to balance the love that I bear towards some persons in America against the hatred which I bear towards others, the former would have the decided prepondérance. I have; as far as my information would go, fairly stated all the facts relating to this dispute; I have plainly expressed my wishy that a war should take place rather

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than that my country should submit to the American demands; I have fully given the reasons upon which that wish is founded; and, my opponents, instead of attempting to shew, that my facts are false or my reasons are unfounded, resort to outrageous invective, to calumnious, and infamous personal accusations, which they know to have been preferred before, and which they know to have been unanswerably proved to be void of even the slightest foundation. I want no better proof of the badness of their

cause.

COBBETT'S PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY. The IIIrd. Volume of this Work be-" ing now published, I think it right to give, respecting it, some information more than has been yet given, and more, indeed, than it was, until now, in my power to give. In the Prospectus, and also in the Preface, it was stated, that, as to the necessity of such a Work, it was, at this day, no easy matter merely to find the several books containing an account of the Parliamentary Proceedings, some of those books being very scarce, and others excessively voluminous; that, suppo sing them all to be at hand, the price of them was no trifling consideration, seeing that it was quite improbable that any one would be able to purchase them for less than One Hundred and Fifty pounds; that, these dif ficulties overcome, others, and more formidable presented themselves to the acquiring of information; for, that the volumes were so numerous, some of them so bulky, all of them loaded, more or less with matter unauthentie, or wholly foreign from the sub❤ ject, their contents so badly arranged and, through the most bulky part of the work, they were so completely destitute of running Titles, Tables of Contents, and Indexes, that it must be the labour of many years for even the most industrious person, to come, by~' such means, at any thing like a competent knowledge of the History of the Parliament of England. With a view of removing these difficulties, which I, in common with others, had experienced, the present work was undertaken. It was desirable to have it as little expensive as possible, but without " omitting any thing authentic, really making part of the Proceedings of Parliament, and without crowding the matter so as to create, in that way, a new obstacle to perusal and research. A calculation was made; and, it was found, that, to combine economy with convenience, the form adopted for the Parliamentary Debates (which is the same as that of the Political Register), would be the best, and would have the additional recom-! mendation of causing the volumes of this``

new, Work to correspond with the volumes of the Parliamentary Debates, both works united making a complete Parliamentary History, from the earliest times down to the present day. From this calculation, it ap peared, that, by carrying each volume to the extent of 1500 pages, or thereabouts, the whole of the work would be comprized in Sixteen Volumes, which, at the price of a guinea and a half each volume, would bring it within the compass of moderate expence, To almost every one, it will, at first sight, scem incredible, that the whole work, as above described, should come into so comparatively small a space. But, when it is considered, that so large a part of the seve ral works above enumerated, is taken up with Narratives of Battles, Sieges, and of Domestic Occurrences; that whole pamphlets of the day, and very long ones, are, in many places, inserted, just as they were published and sold; that, when we come down to a later period, we, in numerous instances, find three-fourths of the volume filled up with Papers of mere momentary utility, substantially repeated in subsequent, less diffuse, and more correct statements; and that (as any one may easily verify) the Sixteen Volumes of this work will contain as much print as One Hundred and Forty common octavo volumes: when all this is considered, I shall not be thought to speak at random, when I say, that the whole of the authentic and useful records of the Proceedings of the Parliament of England, of that of Great Britain, and of that of the United Kingdom, down to the year 1803, when COBBETT'S PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES" begin, will be comprized in these sixteen volumes. To each Volume (as may be seen from those already published) there will be prefixed a full and clear Table of Contents; and, in the last Volume, there will be given a GENERAL INDEX to the whole Work,, so complete that, I hope, it will be found to leave nothing of any im;portance difficult to be referred to.--As the Work has proceeded, new sources of information have opened; the examination of one work has led to the examination of another. Official Documents, and also Speeches have been found in books, never looked upon as containing an account of the proceedings in parliament; so that, from a list which I have now made of the books which will be necessary to the completion of the work, I am satisfied, that they will cost not less than seven hundred pounds. Besides these sources, afforded by the press, several manuscripts have been received from gentlemen, anxious to have them preserved in

this permanent shape; and, I cannot let slip this opportunity of soliciting further communications of this sort, especially relating to the period from 1743 to 1774, during which the Proceedings of Parliament, were (as evidently appears from our collections already made) given, in print, in a manner so very defective and erroneous.It was resolved, at the outset, to adhere, through every stage of the proceedings, to the most strict impartiality; nothing has, hitherto, nor shall be hereafter, either omitted, or inserted, on account of its being favourable to the reputation or the doctrines of any party. Whatever appears to have been actually said or done, in either House of Parliament, that has any tendency to what ought to be the object of such a publication, has been, and shall be, as far as authentic materials will go, recorded with scrupulous fidelity.I have already observed, that the undertaking of this laborious task was suggested by the dif ficulties actually experienced by me; and, as I was desirous of coming at useful knowledge myself, so, in the planning and execu ting of the Work, practical utility has been the great object, leaving matters of antiquarian curiosity to the few persons who have leisure for such pursuits. In short, my desire was to make a book, of which, in putting it into the hands of my children, I might safely say, "Read this; herein will you

find a full and faithful account, as far as

any man living can know, of what has "been said and done in the Parliament, "from its first existence to the present day. "Herein also, and nowhere else, will you "find the true history of your country, a

knowledge of which, from this source, "will enable you to avoid the errors, which "are but too frequently imbibed from the

reading of those romances, which are dig"nified with the title of "Histories of

66

England." Here will you find all the "treaties, now upon record, ever entered "into by your country; the history of all "its connections with foreign nations; of "the various changes in its religious esta "blishments; of its manners at the several

stages of its progress; of all the national failings and national virtues of our fore"fathers. Here you will not see a descrip

tion of those forefathers, a faint, a partial, or exaggerated resemblance of them; but "you will see them rise before you, and you will hear their words from their own lips." Such a work it was my desire to make; and such a work I flatter myself I shall succeed in making. The fourth Volume comprising the Period from the Restoration in 1660 to the Death of Queen