again been observed, that she has for ages come to an understanding with war. She has greatly mitigated its horrors. Some of her most eminent and exemplary professors have defined its province and traced its laws. Search Christendom,-Only one small sect condemns all war. Accordingly we saw the other day a dignitary of the English Church consecrating the flags of a regiment; and the friends and patrons of the protestant Christian missionaries in Tahiti, if not preaching the necessity of war, at least taunting the government of the day for its forbearing and pacific conduct.

Shall we turn to modern philosophy? Who has ever inveighed more eloquently against war than Voltaire? Yet it has again been truly said, that his disciples, his successors, as it were his executors, saturated the earth with blood.

Shall we look to education? At the first 'silver snarling' of the trumpet, mark the kindling eye and beating heart of that educated English youth. Cressy and Poictiers are parcel of his English nature. Modern accomplishments are straw to the fire in the blood.

Railways and steam-ships may do much to promote peace among nations. But to the thoughtful mind, the new power of nature, subjugated to human uses since the last general war, has other, but sinister and portentous aspects. It affords such means of offence by land and sea, such facility of concentrating aggressive as well as defensive forces, of over-leaping ancient boundaries, and holding new conquests, that its effects

in remodelling the earth, may turn out to be as unexpected and marvellous in war as in peace. The very possession of a novel and untried means of offence, will add a double intensity to the passions of cupidity, vengeance, and fear. What living flesh can foresee either the venture or the stakes, when the awful game of war comes to be played again with the power steam! What territorial changes may a convulsion among the nations, by the help of that new agency, permanently effect! In the meantime the principles of human nature, which from the commencement of authentic history, have periodically and invariably produced wars, remain the same. National pride and resentment, the scrupulosity of national honour, the love of novelty and excitement in the public, the domestic difficulties of statesmen, the undue preponderance in other nations of the democratic element, knowing little and acting intemperately, are a dormant but fulminating compound, which may at any moment explode in an unexpected and universal war.

War is of all calamities the greatest. But seeing that it has been so long and so often permitted, we may reverently suppose that it is not without its permanent uses in the economy of Divine Providence, and therefore may be permitted again. It does not, after all, cause a single death that would not otherwise have happened. Which, on an average, is the worst, death in the field, or the dying strife of the natural death-bed? War is the theatre of great talents

and great virtues. The vain theories, the Epicurean principles, the luxurious and enervating habits of peace, perish together. The storm clears the atmosphere, and the moral health of nations is renovated.

But if war be the greatest of calamities even to a nation well prepared, what will it be when the storm bursts suddenly on a nation unprepared? The answer lies in a word, "DESTRUCTION."

"Cuique creditur in arte suâ," is a maxim no less of common prudence, than of common law. Address then the question to your military and naval authorities. They tell you that steam has now thrown a bridge across the English channel. The greatest military authority now living, if not the greatest that ever lived, tells you that an undisciplined multitude, even of Englishmen, in the presence of modern military science, is just so much gun-carrion. One of your greatest naval authorities, Lord Dundonald, tells you, that supposed dangers of landing, and even fortified coasts, are no defence at all: That your true and only external defence is the old-fashioned one-the overwhelming and ubiquitous offensive efficacy of a military marine, which shall again sweep, as it has before swept, your enemies off the seas.

These are the solemn warnings of England's most illustrious sons. But we prefer prophets that prophecy smooth things. On military and naval affairs, we have the happiness to possess much greater authorities, than naval or military men!

CHAPTER XXXII.

"The Navigation Laws were useless and injurious."

To appreciate the real magnitude of the Andes or the Cordilleras, you must view them from a distance. Near their base the eye is obstructed by meaner elevations; but seen from a distance of fifty miles, Chimborazo pierces the sky.

So, as we fall down the stream of time, and recede from the administration of Oliver Cromwell, its real grandeur gradually breaks upon the mental vision. Cromwell and the Long Parliament devised the Navigation Laws, and founded the British Empire.

From that hour the maritime greatness of England dates. From that hour it steadily and uninterruptedly advanced for more than a hundred and fifty years, till at the close of the last war England's meteor flag floated in every clime, and rode on every sea, undisputed and universal victor.

This splendid success did not flow from the let-alone policy, but from a wise and highly artificial system of law. The great and original legislators of that day, proposed to themselves as a national object, the increase of British shipping. They saw that sailors and

ships were the true army and omnipresent artillery of the British Islands. Their sagacity prefigured at once the safest and cheapest defence, and the most irresistible means of aggression and aggrandisement. They thought that the high seas might be made to compensate England for the narrow extent of her ploughed lands,—might be made to yield wealth as great, sons as warlike and hardy, and power much greater. Their sure instinct taught them that a great national object, like this, was not to be trusted to the natural course of events-to the chapter of accidents. They did not hesitate at once to realize their grand conceptions in direct and stringent legislation. They confined the whole coasting trade, and the whole trade with the British Colonies and Plantations, to British subjects.

They secured the importation of most articles, the produce of Asia, Africa and America, to British ships. And foreseeing that this wholesome provision might be evaded by a previous importation into other parts of Europe in foreign bottoms, they prohibited the importation of Asiatic, African, and American produce from Europe, not only in foreign, but even in British ships. In a word, they took the most effectual measures that British ships should supply the British markets.

But with the discrimination which distinguishes the legislation of true wisdom from the headlong legislation of mere theory, they were not unmindful of the foreign