1824. ] 
various acts-prohibiting the importation 
of extraneous materials, &c. 
With respect to the Greeks, British 
ministers may be judged infameus, who, 
in defiance of shame, in contempt of all 
generous practice, have acted towards 
them with a degree of presumption and 
unbridled licence unpardonable at any 
time. This author believes them 
the champions of public virtue, when 
threatening the very existence of liberty 
abroad and at home, and when they 
have become, in the eyes of the world, 
most dangerous examples of vice. 
To what he says on the subject of 
English population, a repulsive power 
may also may be ap, lied. “It has aug- 
mented one-fifth from 1792 to 1822, an 
increase not to be found elsewhere in 
Europe.” But France has increased from 
24 to 30,000,000 during the same period; 
the population of Upper Italy, Bel- 
gium, and great part of Germany, has 
advanced at nearly the same rate. It 
is in Russia that life is reproduced in 
the most multiplied forms. Of those 
professing the Greek religion only, the 
annual births are more than 1,500,000, 
and the deaths not 90,000. 
M. de Pradt’s want of attention, 
chiefly appears in what concerns our 
finances; he makes the reduction of our 
taxes, from 1819 to 1822, amount to 
3,000,000,000 of francs, which, in fact, 
are only about 110,000,000, or 4,407,472 
pounds sterling. In our deteriorated 
and dreadful condition, when, from the 
naked state of our resources, a war 
would be evidently repugnant to the true 
interests of the country, he deems us 
capable of carrying it on where. and 
how we please. 
He goes on with an epitome of our 
commerce, into some parts of which he 
enters minutely : “ In the wool of Bo- 
tany Bay, we have a treasure; it excels 
the finest wools of Saxony and Spain.” 
This account is imperfect ; the wool of 
Botany Bay is of the common kind, and 
the colony unable to furnish much. In 
1819, the quantity imported amounted 
only to 71,290 pounds. 
Many of his observations on our ex- 
ports, colonies, naval and military force, 
&e., are not perfectly just. He rates 
our Indian army at 22,000 Europeans 
and 120,000 natives; whereas, from 
papers laid before the House of Com- 
mons in March 1819, we find the Eu- 
ropeans 30,253 and 183,201 Indians. 
There is, however, a variety of judi- 
cious remarks on the commercial inte- 
rests and military power of the two 
Russia and Britain compared. 
133 
empires, he is particularly noticing in 
proportion to the means which other 
states possess; also how strength may 
be acquired and exerted by the smaller 
ones,and made subservient to each other 
in case of war. And, how necessary 
it is for their governments to have such 
resources as to be able to call forth and 
employ their strength, &c. France; 
Austria, Prussia, &c., pass in review; 
the proportion of their power in war is 
compared to that of Great-Britain and 
Russia. He makes Austria and Prussia 
inaccessible to our fleets, forgetting that 
the latter has many ports on the Baltic, 
and that the former possesses the coast 
of the Adriatic from Ancona to the 
mouths of the Cottaro. He admits that 
Great-Britain and Russia, whatever 
prosperity they have attained to, are 
become invincible to each other—that 
our naval strength and skill, be it ever 
so great, would be useless or mispent 
against Russia, and vice versa. Here 
the influence of Great-Britain on the 
Black Sea and in the Baltic seems di- 
minished in an undue proportion. 
On the whole, with regard to the 
au‘hor’s reflexions and proposals, many 
should be admitted with caution, The 
objects which engage our statesmen are 
not territorial acquisitions on the conti- 
nent, though they are ever bustling in 
the miserable contests that disturb it. 
They have, indeed, in their manner an 
air of moderation that softens and qua- 
lifies the asperity of their intentions, 
These are unquestionably pernicious, 
totally subverting the system of political 
liberty wherever they can produce this 
reverse. “ It may afford satisfaction, 
therefore, to the European public, that 
a whole legion of such rulers as ours 
will have no inducement to invade their 
independence. 
Concerning the judgment to be passed 
on the pecular character and spirit of 
the Russian nation and government, as 
menacing others, the reader will best 
determine for himself, However regu- 
lated by the same laws, the people of 
Poland, Finland, Courland, will not 
easily connect in the bands of a kindred 
relation. Natural boundaries separate 
these states or communities from the 
Moscovites, who will, perhaps, hereafter 
be confined to much narrower limits. 
As to their acquisitions in Asia, the 
tendency of this circumstance has been 
to reform the savage inhabitants, to unite 
families split and divided ever breaking 
out into acts of violence and devas- 
tation, into one people. Other good 
consequences 
