and preferred robbery and pillage to an honest calling for their livelihood. Many of these persons left their country to join in foreign wars, and probably were the first who gave an example of this disposition, which has so long characterized the Swiss. At Zieg, during the carnival, a number of these men carousing together, when some one spoke of the unequal division of the booty which had been taken from the Burgundians in the recent great battle, and it was asserted that the best part of it had been secured for themselves by the grandees of Bern and Friburg. Hearing this they mustered themselves into a strong company, and assumed the title of the " Jovial Band," a name well known still to the Swiss. They set out with the intention of calling on all parties who had participated of the booty, and force them to give a true account of what they received. With shouts of wild merriment they started from Zieg, and marched through the towns and cantons to Geneva, taking up volunteers as they went

At Geneva, they insisted on the inhabitants paying the contribution which they had neglected to make for the Burgundian war. The" Jovial Band" on this occasion conducted itself with moderation, and payed their expenses every where. When they visited Bern, they amounted to 700; but when they reached Friburg the number amounted to 2000. They created great alarm throughout the country, and the whole population sought to conciliate them, by addresses and solicitations. But no attempts for this purpose could succeed, until Geneva and Lausanne had paid the arrears of the contribution, and when these were cleared, the "Jovial Band" broke up and never was heard of more.

In the year 1513, just 250 years after the exploit of William Tell, the confederacy of the thirteen cantons was completed. But the union was on very different terms from those on which it now rests. There was no equality of rights; Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, which were combined from the first, formed a common centre, but the other cantons were very loosely combined with these. The people, generally speaking, of the whole of the cantous were wholly indifferent to the blessings of freedom, and given up for the most part to broils and conflicts, to riot and debauchery. In fact, general demoralization and profigacy characterized the Swiss people of that day. So opposed were they to any thing like industrious habits, that they used to fly to join some foreign standard, hiring themselves out as mercenaries, and always the more eager to get employment when plunder was in prospect as a consequence of victory. In the towns, licentiousness and dissipation predominated. As the citizens and magistrates were at open war, and trades and professions were embroiled with one another. Switzerland was now longer in fear of a foreign war, and from the number of their countrymen who had enlisted in foreign armies, and from the eagerness of foreign commanders to obtain Swiss soldiers, the

no

principal families in the towns and districts of the cantons conceived the project of instituting a system connected with this practice. The various local governments actually came to the resolution of entering into treaties with different sovereigns for the formation of Swiss regiments, commanded by their own officers, subject to their own laws, but placed on regular pay, which, of course, was to be supplied by their employers. The period to which we have arrived being remarkable as the era of the establishment of a system which has since been continued, we may mention that it was towards the close of the fifth century. The following notice respecting it is curious.

"From this time the governments of the Swiss, the Grisons, and the Valais, began to hire out their subjects for foreign service. The first treaty for this purpose was concluded between the King of France and the confederates at Lucern, in 1479-1480. In 1499, the House of Austria acquired regiments on the same footing, and at a later period the Princes of Italy and several others. The Pope, even Julius II., a man of a martial character, established a body-guard composed of stipendiary Swiss (1503).

"Such a system, however, was of ruinous consequences for Switzerland: many lands lay fallow, and many a plough unworked for want of those who had bartered their country's weal for venal and foreign service, and who, if ever they lived to return, brought back with them foreign diseases and vices, for few were the virtues they acquired in war,-to contaminate the morals of the virtuous. The sons of the nobles and senators only were appointed to fill the posts of captains and superior officers, which, by enabling them to enrich themselves, procured them more consideration at home, and greater means of oppressing their fellowcountrymen. To gratify their pride and vanity, they got patents of nobility, and orders and ribbons from sovereigns; which, they thought, sufficed to raise them far above the rest of the Swiss.

"The princes, observing this contemptible folly and avarice among the confederates, skilfully converted it to their own advantage; they despatched ambassadors to reside in the country, distributed presents to gain themselves partisans, and lavished favours and pensions upon their supporters in the senate, whose members at length became their humble and subservient tools. One canton was more inclined towards France, another was favourable to Milan, others to Venice or Spain; but rarely any to the confederacy. Hence the great and merited contempt they afterwards incurred. In 1516, when the German Emperor and the King of France were vieing with each other for the favour of the cantons and the purchase of troops, the French ambassador at Bern had the shamelessness to distribute, with sound of trumpet, the royal pensions granted to certain nobles; whilst at Friburg he displayed heaps of dollars, demanding of the bystanders, as he piled them up with a shovel, whether they did not sound better than the emperor's empty word,-to such a pitch had the despicable venality of the confederates risen. The twelve cantons (for Appenzell formed an exception) were seen sometimes allied with Milan against France, at others with France against Milan. Italy, too, with equal justice, was termed the grave of the Swiss; there, in a foreign

land, it was no unfrequent occurrence to find one confederate opposed to another, and slaughtering each other for vile pay. This ignominious warfare was notoriously promoted by a spiritual lord, named Mathew Schinner, bishop of Sion, a man of a most designing and intriguing character. According to the proportion of the bribe, he alternately turned his schemes to favour the interests of the King of France, or to further those of the pope against that monarch. As a reward for his services the pope raised him to the dignity of a cardinal, and appointed him ambassador to the confederation.-pp. 176-178.

The Swiss regiments performed wonders for Francis in his Italian wars, and so pleased was he with their fidelity, or else so determined was he to retain their services, that he absolutely invited the thirteen cantons to stand sponsors for his son, and accordingly a deputy from each canton was despatched to Paris to be present at the ceremony, bringing each fifty ducats as a baptismal present.

The diffusion of the doctrines of the reformation had made great progress in Switzerland, and for the last half of the sixteenth century, it was one scene of religious contention, in which it is difficult to say on what side the greatest guilt should fall. From this period, savage wars, dissensions, and ruthless acts of revenge by fire and sword, constitute the materials of the history of Switzerland, almost until 1648, the date of the treaty of Westphalia, by which the sovereigns of Europe formally recognized the independence of the Swiss confederation, and admitted their exclusive right to legislate for themselves. But this concession made very little alteration in the disposition of the Swiss, as a succession of civil wars ensued, as well as wars of religion. Had they followed the virtuous example of their ancestors, and undertaken wars solely in defence of their rights and liberties, the Swiss nation might have risen to be a nation now powerful amongst the enlightened countries of the civilized world. But safe from foreign aggression they turned upon each other, waging hostilities against their own countrymen out of a religious hatred, envy, ambition, and party spirit. So degenerated were they that they did not scruple to hire out their soldiers as mercenaries. Hence the pride and despotism which marked the higher families, and the affectation of foreign vices which seized upon the lowliest cottage of Switzerland. Most of the cantons formed alliances with foreign princes, much more intimate than was their alliance with one another; they were so hostile mutually, that the native of one canton dare not reside in an adjoining one, and they even refused to trade with each other. Attempts were made but in vain by the rational portion of the Swiss, to remodel the general constitution.

Even up to the era of the French revolution, war, dissension, conspiracies, and acts of oppression, continued as numerous as ever amongst the Swiss, who, particularly in Geneva, re-enacted.

all the horrors of the French mob. When Napoleon started into existence as a conqueror, and as it was believed an apostle of liberty, great numbers of Swiss were living in foreign countries exiled for their principles. They gathered together and presented a remonstrance to republicans. France pleading that they were banished from their own land by the enemies of liberty, who were no less in consequence the enemies of the French nation; that those enemies usurped the government of Switzerland, imagining themselves to be kings, and aiding the power hostile to France. The exiles implored the aid of the French, and the latter was willing for many reasons to comply with the invitation, but the government of Switzerland cunningly refrained from every act which could be considered as a provocation by the French. In 1797, Bonaparte worsted the power of Austria, having driven her forces out of Italy, and having taken Lombardy out of her hands, which he afterwards converted into the Cisalpine republic. The territories of Valteline, Cleves, and Bormio, were adjacent to the Cisalpine republic, and wanted to be united with it. But they formed part of the jurisdiction of the Grisons of Switzerland, to whom Bonaparte left the question, whether they would consent or not. But the Grisons differed, and as they delayed giving an answer, the impatient conqueror settled the matter at once, and incorporated the three territories with the Cisalpine republic. The rest is well known. Napoleon abolished the confederation, and made Switzerland a republic, every Swiss without exception to have equal rights. It was called the Helvetian Republic, and a new division which produced eighteen cantons was made under French auspices. Discontent and disunion prevailed in Switzerland still, and in 1802, when the peace of Amiens withdrew the French garrisons from that country, the popular feeling sprang up once more in all its unrestrained licentiousness, and on the eve of a general civil war into which the people were about to rush, he sent an army amongst them as the only means of arresting their intention. He now dictated a new law, divided the country into nineteen cantons, and again established the equality of every Swiss.

We find, that after the mediation of Napoleon, Switzerland became a peaceable and a thriving country; they very properly took a neutra! ground in the ensuing war, but after the fall of Napoleon their dissensions were again, and were only crushed by the allied powers, who, at the congress of Vienna, established the former nineteen cantons, and added three more, Geneva, Neuchatel, and the Valais, making in all twenty-two, cantons. The conduct of the Congress was certainly generous as it was decided, for they laid the foundation of the prosperity of Switzerland on its true footing.

The only reference which appears in this volume to England, is the mention of the presence of a body of 3000 cavalry, amongst

which were nobles and knights, at a great battle in which they fought as allies of Austria against the Swiss. The historian fixes them in a wood, called the Buttisholz, where they were attacked by 600 of the men of Entlibuch, who defeated the 3000, and then inounted the horses of the vanquished. An Englishman, named Peter Dorrenberg, is then made to whine at their defeat, saying with true aristocratical spirit:-"Alas! that the armour of men descended from such noble blood, should be seen on the backs of peasants."

ART. X.-Public Expenditure apart from Taxation; or, Remarks on the Inadequate and Excessive Pay of Public Servants. By DANIEL WakeFIELD, Jun., Esq. One vol. 8vo. London: Fox. 1834.

THERE is a great deal of choice information contained in this work, which may prove useful in an especial manner to the legislator, who earnestly consults the real interests of his country. Mr. Wakefield does not enter into the consideration of the general expenditure of the State as a grievance on the people in respect of its amount, or the manner in which it is levied; but he confines himself altogether to the maintenance of a principle which he calls economy, and which consists not in this or that amount of expense, but is simply such a due and well considered, and rational expenditure, as is fitting, being neither too much on the one hand, nor too little on the other. He thus carries his views altogether above the paltry considerations of pounds, shillings, and pence, and wholly devotes his inquiry to the abstract consideration of the moral influence which the dearness or cheapness of a government may have on the condition of a community over which it presides. The author commences by pointing out the evils which arise from too small an expenditure on the part of the State, and exemplifies his assertions by instances which are in the knowledge of us all. He shows that the government of this country has uniformly disregarded the necessity of adjusting the proportion which reward should bear to services rendered, and that, consequently, it has uniformly bestowed too much, or has given a great deal too little.

Of the public servants who come under the latter category, or those who belong to the class tat has been inadequately remunerated for its services, are our pldiers and sailors, and the inferior government clerks. The clerks have been usually the persons selected in all our State establishments to stand the brunt when the people called for a reduction of expenses. The system which confined the effect of a reduction to these alone, must have been a bad one, for it was impossible that they could have ever been employed except for real service, and it follows that some motive other than a just one must have led to this partial adminiVOL. I. (1834) No. II.

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