HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
quainted with the government, 
finances, trade, and the other cir- 
cumstances of those distant posses- 
sions, have often proved an object 
of surprize to those who think, 
that unless the foreign settlements 
of any nation are not unquestion- 
able, and beyond all dispute or 
{175 
doubt. beneficial, they cannot be 
worth possessing. 
After issuing, on the 7th of June, 
orders respecting the navigable ca- 
nals, aqueducts, and navigation of 
rivers, the King on the 15th came 
to the House, and put an end to 
the session. 
Cd A Poi XL 
Observations on his Majesty’s 
i on the Prorogation of Parliament, 
On the Main Subject on which it turned, the National Dedbt-Bill.. Im- 
policy of the British Government, in not availing itself of its Novel and 
Military Preparations to mediate in Time, in the Questions at Issue:be- 
tween the Rulers of France and of Germany. The Minister wisely 
marking the Spirit of the Age, and the Current of Affairs, seeks Popu- 
larity, by Endeavours to protect Public Credit, and opens new Channels 
of Commerce, Embassy to Uhina. 
© wars prospect of a general’ 
peace, announced in his Ma- 
jesty’s speech from the throne, on 
the Ist of January, was supposed to 
justify military reductions, andthose 
other measures of relief to public’ 
credit, that were brought under the 
attention of the British parliament. 
As a strong opposition, both in and 
out of parliament, had been made 
to the expensive armaments to 
which the disputes with the courts 
of Petersburg and Madrid had 
_— birth, in the preceding year, 
ministry were disposed to dwell 
om the pacific aspect of affairs with 
apparent confidence. These ar- 
maments had cost the nation a sum 
not less than 2,000,000). and though 
the Spaniards had been obliged to 
relinquish their pretensions to an 
exclusive right of making scttle- 
ments in Nootkar Sound, Ogzakow, 
which the British government had 
threatened to secure by force to 
the Porte, was left in possession of 
the imperious Empress of Russia. 
Mr. Pitt, therefore, in his state- 
ment of the finances for the cur- 
rent year, very ingeniously endea- 
voured to divert the public mind 
from such unpleasing retrospects, 
by displaying the prosperous state 
of the revenue, and the grounds on 
which he hoped to lighten, and 
finally to remove the heavy incum- 
brance of the national debt. He 
declared, in the House of Com- 
mons, that the intricacy and mys- 
tery of finance no longer existed ;: 
and enforced, with the most splen-' 
did eloquence, the circumstances 
from which he concluded, that there 
would be a permanent surplus over 
the expenditure in the public re- 
venue. Those reasons would have 
been satisfactory, if the peaceable 
and happy millenium had actually 
commenced, as was in reality sup- 
posed by a very ingenious divine 
and philosopher, as we have already 
noticed ; who is generally under- 
stved to have-assisted the minister 
in his arithmetical calculations. 
But, while the blessings of peace 
were thus announced, the political 
atmosphere foreboded astorm:—the 
ruins of the ancient government of 
France 
