as it is incompatible with the system of pronunciation he has explained, and with which all his examples ought to correspond. Instead of this, we have muk for moo, sum for sin, gnee for eul, &c. It is true we are told, in a note, that much of the volume was printed off, before he had made the discovery of the alphabet in the imperial dictionary; but he also tells us that 'in numerous instances he preferred the Canton dialect, as that which would enable our countrymen to bring the Chinese words into most immediate use.' Our eighteen or twenty countrymen at Canton will scarcely thank him for this mark of predilection in their favour. For our own parts, we shall be greatly disappointed, and mortified, if the translation of Kaung-shee's dictionary, which we anticipate with feelings of much satisfaction, be not executed precisely according to the system laid down in the introductory part of that national work.. 1 ART. VIII. Essay on the Military Policy and Institutions of the British Empire. By C. W. Pasley, Captain in the Corps of Royal Engineers. Part I. 8vo. pp. 533. London. 1810. Lloyd. No O text in Cowper has been more popular than that which says, War is a game which, were their subjects wise, Kings should not play at. In Switzerland a game has lately been made of war, (Das Kriegspiel,) which is played with figures upon a map, and recommended as exceedingly instructive to military students, because the principles upon which it is constructed are applicable to real operations in the field. It is well for the Swiss if they can now amuse themselves with this game, and still better will it be if they should hereafter profit by it! Well too would it be for the world, were it restored to that state on which Cowper's text was founded; even poets will not venture to call the war of this day the game of princes. We know, with awful certainty, that we contend for the safety of our country, and that war is, and long must continue to be, our most momentous business; and an author has now come forward with the spirit of a soldier, and the heart of an Euglishman, to enforce upon us the conviction that the struggle is for our existence, and to show us how it may be carried on to a triumphant end. We do not, as it will be seen, concur in all Captain Pasley's doctrines, and the principles of some of those in which we agree are carried, we think, to an unwarranted extent; but the subject of the work is so important, the views which it takes are so enlarged, the reasonings so fairly and so candidly detailed, and the spirit that dictates dictates the whole is so pure and patriotic, that we feel we cannot better perform our duty to the public, than by laying before them a summary of this most interesting book, and endeavouring to support the general opinions of its author, by a view of the actual strength of the British Empire, so consolatory, so proud, and so unanswerable, as to put the lily-livered crew of our husbanding politicians to shame. In these days when πολεμος γαῖαν ἅπασαν ἔχει we may truly say with Tyrtæus, Ξυνον δ' εσθλον τετο πόλης τε, παντι τε δημῳ. 'The main object of this work,' as stated by the author, is to endeavour to prove, that by certain new measures, and by certain additions to our means of defence, supposing we had not a single ship on the ocean, we might still hope to maintain our independence.' In other words, he contemplates, not merely the possibility, but even the probability, and in the event of a peace the certainty, of the enemy's obtaining over us a naval superiority; and he therefore rests his whole plan and hope of our ultimate defence upon a vigorous exertion of our military power on land. He does not stop to consider whether a standing army is constitutional or not. He does not even allude to the jealousy which our ancestors entertained on this subject: all such questions, if ever they occurred to him, he has waved; he looks only to the portentous signs which Europe at this hour displays, and he wastes no time in combating the theories which a century, and the twenty years which have passed since the French revolution (more fertile in wonders than a century of the usual course of human affairs) have rendered, for the present at least, irrelevant and obsolete. It is Lord Bolingbroke, we think, who, in speaking of standing armies, says, that it is only occasionally that we should be soldiers, and, in those rare cases, only to a limited extent. Like other amphibious animals, we must, indeed, come occasionally on shore, but the water is more properly our element, and in it, like them, as we find our greatest security, so we exert our greatest_force.' We do not know that we can give a fairer summary of Captain Pasley's essay, than by saying that it is, or at least aims at being, a refutation of these tenets of Lord Bolingbroke. This work, Captain Pasley informs us, was intended to consist of two parts; the first treating of our military institutions, properly so called; and the other of the moral and political causes which operate upon a system of warfare, as it is at present, or must hereafter be conducted, on the part of this country. For reasons assigned in his preface, and to which we are disposed to accede, Captain Pasley has altered this arrangement-he has, in the volume now under consideration, treated the latter branch branch of his subject only, as being the most pressing, both in regard to its own importance, and to the exigencies of the times in which he writes, and he has postponed, to another volume, (which, however, he says, will speedily appear,) the examination of our practical military institutions. Captain Pasley begins by a comparative statement of our own means and those of the enemy, which may startle those who have been accustomed to rely implicitly on our insular situation.→ Of this statement the following will be found to be a succinct but not inaccurate abstract. "The five grand points,' he says, 'to be considered between nations at war, are, their population, their revenue, their means of rearing seamen, the energy of their executive government, and the spirit and patriotism of their people. The propor tion of population against us, (those nations which are under the tyranny of France being included in the account,) is more than five to one; of disposable revenue France upon the lowest calculation possesses two-fold means, and these means may be greatly increased by adopting our system of taxation. Whatever Buonaparte chooses to impose must be paid, if it be within the bounds of possibility; and no one will dispute his inclination or his power to push the financial resources of the continent to their utmost stretch, in order to annoy us. Our own resources,' he argues, whether upon the commercial system, or that of the economists, must meantime decline; for whether at war or at peace, the main object of France will be to injure our trade. This she has the means of doing, and the revenues of the French empire may, ere long, become superior to ours in nearly the same ratio as its superiority of population. During the war, while it continues on its present footing, France cannot form a marine capable of coping with us; but peace will immediately give her the power of training seamen to any extent. The comparison between the executive government of the two countries, as applied to the immediate purpose of war, is still more in our disfavour. All the measures of our own government, right or wrong, are sure to be so warmly attacked by the existing opposition, that a great part of the time of every ministry is wasted in self-defence against the incessant assaults of their parliamentary opponents. The enemy has no parties to manage, no declared attacks on his measures to arrest or repel, no popular clamour to silence, no jarring interests to conciliate in the appointment of his officers civil or military. In process of time despotism becomes, perhaps, the most impotent of all forms of government; but long before the process of decay can take place in France, according to all human probability, the fate of this country must be decided. The advantages of public spirit and patriotism are unquestionably on our side; but these may be too confidently relied upon. All history proves that one state conquers another not by superior freedom or virtue, but by possessing more numerous, braver, better organized, and better commanded armies, with a more vigorous system of military policy, and more constancy in repairing disasters in war. Such being the relative force, resources, and energy of the two contending empires, is it possible that we can preserve our naval superiority any number of years? That power that is likely to have most money in order to buy materials and naval stores, and to employ most shipwrights, will be able to build and equip most ships; that power that has the greatest population can put most men into its ships after they are built, and that which has the greatest extent of sea-coast, and which rears most seamen by its ordinary commercial navigation during peace, will be able most speedily to man its fleets with good sailors at the commencement of a war, and most readily to replace their loss during its continuance. But that power is or will be France. The French empire, with so decided a superiority in every point upon which naval power is founded, will be able to equip a navy more than double in force to ours, or indeed in any greater proportion that might be thought needful, manned by seamen equally or nearly as skilful as our own.' In thus opening his work, Captain Pasley seems to have thought it expedient to assume an appearance of despondency, that it might afterwards be strongly contrasted with the real scope of his argument. We venture to be of opinion that this is neither necessary nor judicious; and we feel confident that it is utterly unfounded. Without despairing of our finances or our navy, there remain, we are satisfied, motives quite sufficient to incite us to great military exertions. Captain Pasley needs not, like Cæsar, in order to inspirit us to fight ashore, destroy our fleet: indeed we feel that we shall give strength to his ultimate conclusions, if we can show that his discouraging estimate of our population and finances, and his despair of our commercial ascendency in peace, are unfounded; and, while he argues the urgent policy of the measures which he proposes, he will surely consider those to be useful auxiliaries who can show that our resources are equal to the accomplishment of his objects. The population opposed to us in our contest with the Emperor of the French, Captain Pasley estimates as five to one, and, numerically speaking, he is perhaps sufficiently accurate. But the power of producing and maintaining armies results so little from mere population, that previous to the time of Francis I. it is well known no standing army was or could be maintained in Europe, and from that time armies have only increased with increasing civilization. The cause of this is not obscure. Millions of persons may subsist in a rude state, and consume the produce of the soil, without acquiring a particle of that kind of power which contributes to the maintenance of an army, or to any other national object. object. In the feudal times, imperfect agriculture and the want of roads, scarcely permitted the cultivators to dispose of a surplus sufficient to furnish money contributions for the support of the regal and baronial courts. The progress of civilization taught a more economical and effectual application of human labour; and an increasing number of persons could be fed, besides those who cultivated the land. To procure their share, these superfluous lookers-on became manufacturers, whence arose, in the natural order of gradation, trade, money, and facility of taxation; and it is inreality from the degree in which scientific or skilful labour exists in a country, that the permanent maintenance of armies is to be calculated. In a ruder state of things nothing can be furnished beyond the raw material-untutored man. The real inquiry for our purpose therefore is, the quantity of machinery, of scientific labour, and of the means of employing both existing in England, as compared with the same resources in the dominions of Buonaparte. A difference in our favour all will allow : because if both had remained stationary since the commencement of the war, our superiority was evident from the vent of our manufactured goods on the continent, and that too in despite of the higher price paid in England for labour to each individual workman.And what has happened since the commencement of the war? Except those ornamental manufactures which are maintained, not by profit, but at the expense of government, from motives of vanity or policy, all manufacture in France is extinct, or nearly so. Over the rest of the continent war has occasioned a desolation unparalleled since the irruption of the Barbarians; and war contributions have annihilated the visible capital of the manufacturer, and therewith, of course, all his exertions. This we may conclude without fear of error from the otherwise unaccountable and incre dible avidity with which English goods are purchased, even in increased quantities, though at a price proportioned to the danger of hazarding the vengeance of the laws, if they may be so called, which have been made for their exclusion. The prosperous application of large capital we have daily opportunity of seeing. In one place, a large steam engine performs the manual labour of five hundred able men; in another place, a cotton mill works with all the delicacy of five hundred skilful artisans; and a thousand men may thus be marched to the army without national loss. In machinery less striking than these popular instances, no less progress has been made. For instance, agricultural instruments employed about a hundred and twenty persons, masters and workmen, in London, twenty years ago-now upwards of two thousand are engaged in this manufacture: but this increase in their" number is accompanied by the discharge of thousands and tens CC 4 of |