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THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

OR

CRITICAL JOURNAL:

FOR

APRIL 1810.... AUGUST 1810.

TO BE CONTINUED QUARTERLY.

JUDEX DAMNATUR CUM NOCENS ABSOLVITUR.

PUBLIUS SYRUS,

VOL. XVI.

Edinburah:

Printed by David Willison,

FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH; AND

CONSTABLE, HUNTER, PARK, AND HUNTER,

LONDON.

1810.

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THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

APRIL, 1810.

No. XXXI.

ART. I. A Letter on the Genius and Dispositions of the French Government, including a view of the Taxation of the French Empire. By an American recently returned from Europe. Printed at Philadelphia. Reprinted in London. Longman & Co.

WE E must all learn to love the Americans, if they send us ma ny such pamphlets as the present. Here is a stout republican, who praises England, and declaims against France, with more zeal and intelligence than any of our own politicians,-who writes better, and shows more good learning, than most of our men of letters;-displays the characteristic keenness of his countrymen, without any of their coarseness,-and has all their patriotic prejudices, without their illiberality.

A work of this political character was pretty sure of succeeding among us, whatever might have been its defects as a composition. It is so long since any body has praised us but ourselves, or since any one has even ventured to second our unwearied abuse of the enemy, that a warm eulogium on England, and a powerful invective against France, must have come with all the delight of surprise, from a native of that country which we have done all in our power to alienate and offend. The present publication, however, has other claims to attention. Independent of its good writing, it contains a great mass of facts, very important to be known, and very difficult to be procured; and though the author's antipathy to France is so strong, as to breed an instinctive distrust of his accuracy, in matters where there was room for the operation of an unsuspected bias, yet this is in a great measure corrected by a constant uprightness of principle, and a general habit of careful reasoning.

The scope of the work is to persuade the people of America, that their true interest lies in cultivating a cordial alliance with England, and in avoiding all close relations with her enemy. With this view, the author enters into several copious and interesting deails, to show that France feels nothing but contempt and hatred for America;

VOL. XVI. NO. 31.

A

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