And cried, Repent! repent ye sons of men! A flood of wrath, sent plague and famine forth; With earthquake rocked the world beneath, with storms To barrenness, and with the sword of war In tury marched, and gave them blood to drink. Angels remonstrated, Mercy beseeched, Heaven smiled and frowned, Hell groaned, Time fled, Death shook His dart, and threatened to make repentance vain." Yes it is sublime! We leave the harmless-not unhappy wretch-and refreshed by the fowl, pursue our journey down the glen. There ought to be a kirk not far off, but perhaps it has been pulled down -yet we hope not-let kirks that need repairing be repaired-but tis a sin to pull one down-at all events let the new be always built on the old foundations. There it is-and the PlaneTrees. Why should we know it again even to the very size of the slates! They are the same slates-their colour is the same-the roof neither more nor less weather-stained than it was forty years ago. After a time old buildings undergo no perceptible change-any more than old trees. And when they have begun to feel the touch of decay, it is long before they look melancholy while they still continue to be used, they cannot help looking cheerfuland even dilapidation itself is painful only when felt to be lifeless! But there we Three sat on the Church-yard wall! The wittiest of the witty-the wildest of the wild-the brightest of the bright-and the boldest of the bold-he was, within a month, drowned at sea.-How genius shone o'er thy fine features, yet how pale thou ever wast! thou who satest then by the Sailor's side, and listened to his sallies with a mournful smile friend! dearest to our soul! loving us far better than we deserved; for though faultless thou, yet tolerant of all our frailties—and in those days of hope from thy lips how elevating was praise! Yet seldom do we think of thee! For months-years-not at all-not once-sometimes not even when by some chance we hear your name-it meets our eyes written on books that once belonged to you and that you gave us and of you it recalls no image. Yet we sank down to the floor on hearing thou wast dead-ungrateful to thy memory for many years we were not-but it faded away till we forgot thee utterly, and we have never visited thy grave! It would seem that many men desire to doubt the Immortality of the Soul. Why-why? Argue the question as low as you choose-yet you cannot be brought to a conviction of its mortality. Let the natural persuasion of a man's mind be that in this world he perishes, then this world is all to him, his Reason gives him over to sense and passion. Let the persuasion, the hope, the mere desire of his mind be to the belief in worlds of future life, and all his higher mind becomes moral together. We are not to conceive of it merely as a belief to be deliberately and with calculation acted upon; but as a belief infusing itself into all our thoughts and feelings. How different are my affections if they are towards flowers, which the blast of death will wither, or towards spirits which are but beginning to live in my sight, but are gathering good and evil here, for a life I cannot measure. urge the morality of the question not as if we spoke to men who held vice to be their interest, and who are to be dragged back from it by violence; but to men as beings holding virtue to be their highest interest, but feeling how weak their nobler moods are against the force of their passions, and wishing We for every assistance to the pursuit of their higher destination. To those who wish to feel their nature rise, not to feel it sink, this belief, in any degree in which they can find reason to embrace it, is an immense blessing. In all morality the disposition to believe is half the belief, and the strong inducements of opinion, to all good men, arise out of their own life. It is much to be able to say to the sceptic, "The great reason of your disbelief is not the force of the arguments on which you seem to yourself to rest your convictions, but the inaptitude of your mind for a better belief; and that inaptitude arises from habits and states of mind, which, when they are distinctly exposed to you, you yourself acknowledge to be condemnable." Take first out of the mind every thing that is an actual obstruction to the belief-obtain perfect suspense and let then the arguments weigh. Surely, if morality means any thing, it is much to say in favour of any belief, that the state of morality necessarily produces it. Singular that we have not heard a shot the whole day. The Duke must have given them a jubilee. But we have traversed the dominions of more Dukes than one-since seven in the morning-it is now, we should say, seven in the evening-yet not a single sportsman have we seen. Birds enough-along our Pole we occasionally took a vizy at an old cock-and our Wallet would have been crammed had it all the pouts we covered-but we have had the day and the desert all to ourselves and only once imagined -but did not mention it-that we saw a Deer. Not a human being, indeed, of any sort, but poor Dugald, has crossed our way-so not a soul had we to talk to but our own shadow. On some occasions it was not easy to look at him without laughing leaping side by side with us on his Pole -in a style beyond the grotesque sometimes suddenly shrinking into a droich of a broad-backed bandy-and then as suddenly dwindling himself out into a Daddy-Long-Legs, striding as if he had discovered the longitude. You may not believe it, but we saw him on the top of a mountain, when we were walking in the glen. How he got there it is not for us to saybut there he was-and he took his stance with such an air of independence, that it was some time before we could believe our eyes that it was he but our suspicions having been awakened by a Lord Burleigh shake of the head-an unconscious practice of ours -as we believe on the authority of friends who have seen us in earnest conversation with ourselves-we detected him by waving our hat round our head-when, taken off his guard and relapsing into his servitude, the magnanimous hero performed the same evolution with a dexterity equal to any inhabitant of the Brocken. There is a disturbance! Bang they go, barrel after barrel, to the tune of ten or twenty-and then what a burst of bagpipes! A Shooting Lodge so near the Old Kirk! And pray why not? We hope it is a Shooting-Lodge—or, at any rate, a Tent. A Tent-and of the most magnificent description-fit to hold a troop. We like to see things done in style and this is bang up to the mark. Ay there he is-in his native dress-his name "Well do we know, but may not tell;" but tis that of a warlike clan-and he is their Chieftain. Those noble looking men around him are Southronsthey have too much fine sense to mount the tartan-and we think we see One on whom Victoria is thought to have looked sweet at her Coronation. 66 “Our honoured Mr. North, have you dropt from heaven in among us?" "We have." "How did you travel, our dear Christopher?" "In a balloon." Where's your ballast-our beloved Kit ?" "On our back." "God bless you are you well?" "Tollloll." "You must stay with us a week?" "Two." "Give us your hand on that?" "You have not dined?" "No." "Stir your stumps, ye villains-and let the table be spread for "Both." OUR GUIDE, PHILOSOPHER, AND FRIEND.'"' THE RECIPROCITY AND COLONIAL SYSTEMS. Two different principles have governed this country in their foreign and colonial relations, from the earliest time when it became a considerable maritime power, down to these days. The first originated with the Long Parliament and the bold sagacious policy of the Protector Cromwell; the last took its rise amidst the liberal ideas and enlarged philanthropy which arose in this country after the glorious termination of the French Revolutionary war. The first system, which endured for 170 years, reared up the greatest, the most extensive, and the most powerful maritime and colonial empire that ever existed on the face of the earth. The last has been in operation only for fifteen years, and it has already not only brought imminent danger upon the extremities of our colonial dominion, but weakened to an alarming degree the maritime resources by which the authority of the parent state is to be supported and maintain ed. The two systems have now at length fairly come into collision. The interest of our foreign trade and our colonial possessions have long been decidedly at variance, and the mongrel system of policy generated between them cannot much longer be maintained. We must make our election between the two systems. Either we must trust to our colonies, and consider them as the main stay of our national strength, or we must throw them overboard, and rely on the reciprocity system to maintain an extensive commercial intercourse with foreign and independent nations. It is quite impossible we can maintain the advantages of both systems. Either we must give up our colonies and trust to the good-will and interests of foreign nations for our trade, or we must adhere to our colonies, and relying on the efficient protection, equitable rule, and mutual interchange of good deeds which they receive from us, become comparitively indifferent to the competition, the jealousy, or the hostility of the rest of the world. It is utterly impossible, we repeat, to enjoy at once the advantages of both systems. The colonial system is founded upon the principle, that our own industry, whether at home or abroad is to obtain a decided preference over that of other nations; and that in the benefits arising from the mutual interchange of productions from distant parts of our own empire with each other, we shall find a sufficient compensation for the commercial rivalry or jealous hostility of other states. The reciprocity system is founded on the principle, that the great thing to be considered is, where the commodities which we require can be purchased cheapest; that if they can be got at a lower rate from other states than our trans-marine possessions, no hesitation whatever should be felt in preferring the cheap merchant in foreign states; and that there is in reality no danger in such a proceeding, inasmuch as the principle common to all nations of buying wherever they can cheapest, and selling dearest, will necessarily lead all states to the great commercial emporium of the world, if no undue restrictions are imposed upon its foreign trade; and that foreign hostility or jealousy need not be apprehended as long as we can attract the ships of all nations to our harbours by the durable bond of their common interests. We shall consider in the sequel which of these two systems is the better founded. At present the material point to observe is, that the policy of the state must in the main be founded on the preference given to your own people, or the free admission of strangers, but that it is impossible to reconcile both; for no great colonial empire will continue its allegiance to the parent state, unless in return for their subjection to the rule of a distant power, its members receive substantial advantages which would be lost by its overthrow. The The vital point which separates these two systems is, whether the ruling power in the dominant state be the producers or the consumers. producers, whether of grain, of butcher meat, of manufactures, or of shipping, strenuously maintain that the great object of Government should be to give encouragement to your own industry, and prevent the rivalry or competi tion of foreign states from encroach- attention to the support of our mariing upon or injuring your domestic time power, they not only at all times farmers and manufacturers. Under devoted a large portion of the public this system and by these ideas, the resources to the maintenance and incommercial policy of this country had crease of the royal navy, but by a been conducted for 170 years before steady system of policy, endeavoured 1820. The object of legislation in to give our own seamen an advantage all its branches was to secure to their over those of foreign nations in the own subjects the benefit of their own supply of the home market. It was trade and manufactures and con- on this principle that the celebrated sumption, and to shut out as much as Navigation Laws of England were possible the competition of foreign founded, the leading objects of which states. As it was evident however, were to secure to our own ships and that the inhabitants of the British is- seamen exclusively the trade with our lands, taken by themselves, could not colonies, and between our colonies keep pace with the necessity for a and foreign states; and to give greater vent arising from the extension of advantages to our own sailors than our manufactures, it became a leading those of other nations enjoyed, by imobject with Government to plant col- posing a heavier duty on goods brought onies in many different parts of the in foreign vessels than in those which world, and to bend all the national ef- were built in our own harbours and forts towards the increase of that col- navigated by our own seamen. And onial empire, and the conquest of also in many instances to allow smallthose similar establishments of our er drawbacks upon articles exported enemies which might interfere with in foreign than those exported in Brittheir progress. The leading efforts ish ships. Whatever objections may of the British Cabinet during all the be stated on theory to this system, wars of the last century were to en- there can be no question that experilarge and protect our colonial empire. ence has demonstrated its practical Towards this object the bulk both of expediency, as it had raised the Britthe naval and military resources of the ish naval and colonial power in no nation was constantly directed, and very long period, from inconsiderable for this end continental operations beginnings to an unparalleled state were almost uniformly starved and neg- of grandeur and power, and laid the lected. Lord Chatham successfully foundation for the inevitable spread of prosecuted this system through all the British race and language through the glories of the Seven Years' War; every quarter of the habitable Lord North strove under darker aus- globe. pices to prevent it from being subverted during the disastrous contest against American independence; and Mr. Pitt re-asserted the same principles during the Revolutionary war, and reared up the greatest colonial empire that was ever witnessed upon earth. To cement and secure this immense dominion, two principles were early adopted and steadily acted upon by the British Government. The first of these was to maintain by the utmost exertions of the national resources a great and powerful navy, capable at all times of striking terror into our enemies, and affording a permanent and effectual protection to the most distant possessions of our colonial empire. Being well aware that this indispensable object could not be gained without the greatest possible The reciprocity system is founded upon principles diametrically the reverse of these. The principle on which it rests is, that however advantageous such a restrictive system might have been when the other nations chose to submit to it, it nccssarily became detrimental as soon as foreign states resolved to assert their independence and threatened us with measures of retaliation; and that the moment the resolution to adopt such measures was seriously entertained and acted upon by other states, there was no alternative but to embrace a genuine fair reciprocity system, or to submit to see ourselves excluded from the commerce of the greater part of the civiliz ed world. Mr. Porter, in his late valuable statistical publication, thus explains * Porter's Progress of the Nation, II. p. 162. the Reciprocity Acts, 4 Geo. IV. c. 77, and 5 Geo. IV. c. 1. "These acts authorised his Majesty, by Order in Council, to permit the importation and exportation of goods in foreign vessels, on payment of the same duties as were chargeable when imported in British vessels, in favour of all such countries as should not levy discriminating duties upon goods imported into those countries in British vessels; and further, to levy upon the vessels of such countries when frequenting British ports, the same tonnage-duties as are chargeable on British vessels. A power was on the other hand given to the Crown by these Acts of Parliament, to impose additional duties upon goods and ship ping against any countries which should levy higher duties in the case of the employment of British vessels in the trade with those countries. The concessions thus made met with only a feeble opposition, the principal act having passed the Commons by a majority of 5 to 1. "Under the authority of those Acts of Parliament, reciprocity treaties have been concluded with the following countries: under the name of the Navigation Act. The foundation of this act was laid during the Protectorate, and the system was perfected by the 12th Charles II. chap. 18. This act provided that no merchandise of either Asia, Africa, or America should be imported into Great Britain in any but English built ships, navigated by an English commander, and having at least threefourths of their crew English. Besides this exclusive right imparted to British shipping, discriminating duties were imposed, so that goods which might still be imported in foreign ships from Europe were in that case more highly taxed than if imported under the English flag. The system here described continued to be steadily and pertinaciously maintained during more than 160 years, and was looked upon as a monument of wisdom and prudence, to which was mainly attributable the degree of commercial greatness to which we had attained."66 The earliest deviation from the Navigation Act that was sanctioned by Parliament, arose out of the treaty with the United States of America in 1815. The States, soon after the establishment of their independence, had passed a navigation law in favour of their shipping, similar in all its main provisions to the English law; and it affords an instructive lesson, that the practical carrying out of this restrictive system to its fullest extent by the two nations was found to be so unproductive of all good effect as to call for its abandonment. By this treaty the ships of the two countries were placed reciprocally upon the same footing in the ports of England and the United States, and all discriminating duties chargeable upon the goods which they conveyed were mutually repealed. It adds greatly to the value of this concession, that it was made by no disciple of free-trade doctrines, but was forced by the very consequence of the system itself, from a Government opposed to all change in the direction of relaxation. From that moment it was easy to foretell the abandonment of all the most effective parts of our long-cherished system of protection, since every country that desired to remove the disadvantages under which we had placed its ship * Porter's Progress of the Nation, II. p. 163. |