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light courts of enquiry must be deemed useful, even by those who animadvert on their legality; as few or none ever escape punishment, that are brought to trial at a court martial, in consequence of charges grounded on the previous report or opinion of a court of enquiry.' pp. 105. 106.

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Among the many reasons, that have been at different times urged, against trials by courts martial, there is no one which, upon a slight consideration, appears more cogent and constitutional than that of the inferior officers, seamen, and soldiers, not having the privilege of being tried by their peers or equals.

• But, upon a closer review of the subject, it will appear impracticable to introduce this right, so strongly contended for, respecting the formation of courts martial, without at once altering the whole fabric of the institution; for, if the inferior officer be admitted on the trial of an inferior officer, why not a seaman or soldier on the trial of his brother seamen or soldiers? And it is obvious to every person, acquainted with the practical parts of a naval and military life, that this measure would defeat the end of its formation, and, by a confederacy between the parties, that the power of punishment would be annihilated, and, subordination, the very soul of discipline, be destroyed.

We must recollect too, that a jury so formed, would be in direct opposition to the principle of impannelling juries in our courts of law, where impartiality and disunion of interest are the leading features.

In the present mode of forming courts martial, a powerful objection is raised as to the admittance of seamen or soldiers, since their education and subordinate situations would be incompatible with the dignity and solemnity of a court, where the characters of judge and jurors are nececsarily blended.

It has been urged likewise, that officers, below the rank of captains in the navy, have not the same privileges as their brother officers in the army, who sometimes sit as members of a general court martial, provided a sufficient number of field officers and captains cannot be conveniently assembled; since, conformably to the practice in the army, a captain and four, or even two, subalterns, may constitute a regimental court martial. But whether any innovations, by adopting speculative meliorations of this nature in the navy, would be more efficacious than the present mode estab ished, is problematical.' pp. 129. 131.

There is a power which is exercised by captains and commanders, by their own authority, and inerely resulting from usage, that has often been a topic of animadversion in the service, that is, the power of degrading a petty or non-commissioned officer, to the situation of an ordinary seaman, or swabber of decks, after he may have been rated on the books, master's mate, midshipman, quarter-master, corporal, gunner's mate, or boatswain's mate, &c. Although this power be not specially recognized by the articles of war, or general printed instructions, yet it having been the usage time immemorially for captains to exercise it, on proper occasions, with due discretion, the justice and policy of the authority may perhaps be admitted. The captain being authorized to rate his ship's company, according to their capacities and merits, and for whose discipline he is responsible, it is but just, that, on conferring on any one a rank, which by bad conduct or demerits, the non-commissioned officer afterwards forfeits, he that gave such rank should have the power of taking it away. This authority, how

ever, if abused, or made subservient to the arbitrary will and pleasure of a commanding officer, will bear most peculiarly hard, on young gentlemen, who may have been rated midshipmen, and who, for some trivial offence, may be disrated by their captain, and ordered to do duty in the waist or forecastle, as common seamen. There was one instance of this nature, that fell within the author's own observation on the Jamaica station, December 1782. A young gentleman (whose father now stands high on the list of vice admirals), was rated midshipman of a frigate, and had nearly served his time; and, on a complaint of a trivial nature having been made against him by a messmate, he was called before the captain, and, in his own justification, happened to answer rather pertly. The captain immediately degraded him, and ordered him to do duty with the seamen on the forecastle, in which station he continued several months. He was afterwards made a lieutenant by admiral Digby in North America, and at present stands high on the list of post captains; an excellent officer, and an ornament to his profession.' pp. 151. 152.

The style is in general correct, easy, and unaffected. The book will be found extremely useful to those for whom it is chiefly intended; though it might be considerably improved by a more precise and methodical distribution of the several topics which it discusses. We hope the author will not neglect this hint, should he be called upon for a third edition. The Appendix contains a number of precedents, and a chronological table of trials before Naval Courts Martial since 1750; the work is terminated by a copious and well arranged Index.

Art. V. Recollections of Paris, in the Years 1802, 3, 4, 5. By John Pinkerton. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 1025. Price 18s. Longman and Co. Cadell and Co. 1806.

THE title of Recollections Mr. P. has prefixed to his volume, because he took no notes on the spot, long experience having convinced him that his memory deserved to be trusted. Some parts of the work, however, have spared his memory the fatigue of travelling; for they relate to the French capital, as much as the Georgium Sidus relates to Great Britain. If Rousseau must be 'recollected in the city which his dreams have awakened to so many horrors, still we see no reason why many of these pages should be employed to lay the ghost of his politics, which no longer walks. Yet this is more excusable than the insertion of letters on the ancient injuries, the literature, and the partition of Poland. Was it a sufficient introduction and apology for this wide ramble, that there are Poles at Paris? Upon this ground, Mr. P. might have introduced all his "Modern Geography." becomes us, as far as our protest and censures avail, to resist the prevailing practice of increasing the size and price of a

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work by irrelevant matter, introduced for no better reason than because the author found it in his common place book, was afraid he should not enjoy another opportunity of publishing it, or could not, without it, spin his work to a convenieut length. We shall abandon all these dissertations, which, whether ingenious or not, we conceive to be impertinent; and shall make a few extracts which at least possess a temporary

interest.

While the population of London amounts to about 860,000 souls, that of Paris is supposed to fall under 600,000. Yet the concourse of people, and carriages, in the more crowded streets, does not yield to that of London. The chief difference is observable in the environs, for at the distance of a league or two from Paris, the highways to an Englishman appear deserted, and it is rare to meet a solitary carriage.' p. 9.

There are in Paris three objects, which may safely be pronounced to be unrivalled throughout the globe; the vast and beautiful library, formerly styled Royal, afterwards National, and lastly Imperial; the botanical garden founded by the munificence of the French monarchs, formerly styled the king's garden, and now the garden of plants; and lastly the wonderful gallery of the Louvre, with its innumerable collection of paintings of the greatest masters, and beneath, the hall of antiquities, or Museum Napoleon, where may be seen at one glance the Venus de Medici, the Laocoon, and Apollo of Belvidere, not to mention other statues, which in any other company would be regarded as excellent. The number of printed volumes in the library is 350,000, and the MSS. are between 70 and 80,000. p. 49.

Mr. P. strangely expresses his surprize that literature suffered so little by the Revolution: afterwards he remarks,

Though the French be a most ingenious people, and endued with a singular aptitude for the arts and sciences, it is to be feared that fatal consequences may arise if the military despotism continue. For by theconscription the young men, from eighteen to twenty-two years of age, are all liable to be torn from their pursuits and occupations, and thrown. into the army, certainly neither a school of morals nor science. Hence, in the opinion of learned Frenchmen, erudition has already begun to lose one generation of its cultivators.' p. 99.

We were a little mortified to learn that

St. Pierre was not much valued in society, for like many other sentiment-mongers, dramatic and novelistic, he shewed little feeling in common life; and his conduct to his deceased wife afforded matter of general condemnation.' p. 110.

Mr. P. speaks of the manners of French women, with a ridiculous rapture. The source and nature of their enchantment will be pretty evident from the following extract.

It is generally in the half hour of the desert, when the rosy or white champaign sparkles in the glass, that the French ladies display their most fascinating powers. Assuming as it were the character of actresses, they attack the men, or defend themselves, with the most brilliant corruscations of wit and humour, of affected simplicity, or the most refined shrewdness and discernment of character. Their eyes also become so expressive and impassioned, that they seem to wield, like Circe, the rod of enchantment.

Diderot has somewhere imputed to the British fair, an apparent pride, coldness and disdain; nor can it be wondered that such impressions are made by some English women upon Frenchmen, for the French ladies may certainly be said to form a perfect contrast, being warm, humble, and alluring. A French woman always looks upon even a stranger as if she would be happy to converse with him. Her eyes never fail to say, "Pray, my good sir, talk to me." Perpetually and intensely conscious of her sex, she regards the society of men as the summit of her felicity. Disinterested in her prepossessions, she follows the bent of nature, and not the dictates of avarice. And it not rarely happens that they are as steady in maintaining an attachment as they are warm in its formation, &c. &c.' pp. 25-27.

We were at first disposed to stifle our resentment at the indelicacy of some of Mr. P.'s phrases and descriptions, and, charitably transferring the blame to his subject, to hope that his love of the arts had induced him to wander amidst voluptuous scenes, till their contaminating air had, for a moment, sullied the purity of his ideas. We looked to see the injuri ous effects pass off, as smoke from a polished diamond. But the frequent commission of the same sin, where he has evidently stepped aside to hunt after it, has forbidden us to become his apologists, and thus forced upon us the task of severe reprobation for in the war between virtue and vice, we abhor neutrality. We entertain too high a sense of the value and dignity of the other sex, silently to see it degraded, by being introduced as the fuel for lust. Nor will our jealousy for the honour of literature suffer us to let an author pass unimpeached, who is guilty of treason against its purity and majesty, by debasing this handmaid of virtue into the pander of vice. Are letters and morals divorced? Why must we hesitate to furnish the minds of our youth with general knowledge, for fear of initiating them into the obscene mysteries of Paphos ? Or, what gain can an author derive from seasoning his works to the vitiated taste of one class, when by the same means he renders them nauseous to another. Can any sufficient reason be assigned why it should be allowed to print for all, what the author would not be allowed to say in the company of wellbred females, and what he would resent as an insult, if spoken to his sister or daughter? In the same censurable spirit, Mr. P. has observed, that moral liberty, i. e. liberty for sensual sin, flourishes in French air, though civil freedom pines. We sparn at this gross perversion of terms; for the chains of

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sin are not the less real because the name of liberty is branded on the links. The converse of Mr. P.'s sentiments is, that it is slavery to refrain from a promiscuous intercourse, which our sublimest bard has blasted with a flash of holy indignation.

"Hail wedded love!

By thee adult'rous lust was driv'n from men
Among the bestial herds to range!"

But this Parisian liberty reminds us of a sentence, dictated by an inspiration more truly divine. "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage*." The virtue of the Parisians seems scarcely less despicable than their vice; Mr. P. mentions with evident approbation, the speech of a Parisian lady, who resisted the solicitation of a youthful admirer, because" it would be the death of her husband." This is French delicacy and feeling. We should think lightly of the woman whom any man would dare to address with such a solicitation; but that such solicitation should be long and repeated, would be in our estimation an indelible stain of infamy on her character. The smallest real regard to virtue would, at his first insult, have expelled the profligate from her presence ignominiously, and for ever.

The mineralogy of the environs of Paris, will interest the lovers of natural science: but for this we must refer them to the work.

A chapter is devoted to the new improvements of Paris, the principal of which are, the formation of a grand hall for the reception of ambassadors at the Thuilleries, the opening of some new streets, the building of new squares, the construction of bridges and quays, and the junction of the river Ourq, with the Seine.

The present system of education in France occupies a considerable space in this work, but this needed no apology; for on what can the genius and fate of a people more immediately depend? We are sorry to see that it is far more likely to make soldiers than saints.

Our readers will, we doubt not, peruse the following passage with interest. Having mentioned the public unconcern for the fate of Pichegru, Mr. P. observes,

The name of Moreau is of a very different description, and France was indignant to see his glory blended with a list of conspirators. The impression made by his trial was prodigious, and the most prudent were alarmed at the prospect of popular commotion. An account of his conferences with Pichegru had been published by the government, tending to

*2 Peter ii. 19.

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