of London and Edinburgh, the details and descriptions of which are given in the accounts of the several voyages that have been published, have greatly extended our physical knowledge of the arctic regions, on the side of America; from the largest of the mammalia class, through all the orders of this and the other classes, down to the invertebrate animals of the sea and land. The scanty and dwarfish flora has been ransacked for such treasures as the soil will afford in these thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice*.' Nor has the geological structure of the continent and islands been neglected, as will appear by the geological notices in the various appendices to Captain Parry's journals, and particularly in the clear and comprehensive remarks by Professor Jameson annexed to the narrative of the third voyage. The moral condition of a diminutive race of men, hitherto but little known, has been observed and described, with many interesting details. And lastly, if we compare the map of these countries but ten years ago with that which now exists, we shall see at one glance how much geography has benefited from these arctic voyages. We now, for the first time, have obtained undeniable proof that the great continent of America is insulated, and that the idea of its being joined to that of Asia by a slip across Behring's Strait, like the bridge of a pair of spectacles, as some Germans, and our countryman, Admiral Burney, would have it, is destitute of all foundation. We now know, that, from Behring's Strait to the Strait of the Fury and Hecla, this northern coast of America presents an undulating line, whose extreme latitudes extend from about 67 to 71°; and that it is indented by many good harbours and large rivers whereas, before Franklin's expeditions, the maps had no line of coast, but only two points, one of which was erroneously laid down, and the other doubtful; the rivers and lakes were drawn ad libitum, which are now placed, the former in their proper directions, and the latter in their true shapes and dimen sions. We think, too, we may conclude with Parry and Franklin, that though the object for which these voyages were undertaken has not been fully accomplished, yet a north-west passage is feasible, and that it will one day be made, if not by us, by our rival Brother Jonathan, who, we are inclined to think, will not find it very difficult, with a wind and current in his favour, to run, in *For some account of the scientific observations and discoveries, we must refer our readers to Nos. XLIX, LIX, and LXVIII of the Quarterly Review; and for a detailed account of them to the First, Second and Third Voyages of Captain Parry; where the scientific inquirer cannot fail to be highly gratified with the copious information which is there given on subjects of natural history and philosophy. one one season, from Icy Cape, through Prince Regent's Inlet and Lancaster Sound, into Hudson's Bay. In conclusion, we think, from all we have heard, that neither the country, nor the naval service, will ever believe they have any cause to regret voyages which, in the eyes of foreigners and posterity, must confer lasting honour on both; which have been the means of training up and accustoming a set of young officers to the most arduous and perilous situations in which a ship can be placed; of teaching them how to take care of, and to preserve the health of a ship's company; of instructing them in the higher branches of nautical science, and the treatment of chronometers, by which the long sought-for problem of finding the longitude at sea may be said to be discovered; and in the use of the various instruments which art, aided by science, has, in modern times, brought to a degree of perfection that, but a few years ago, could not have been contemplated; and, in short, of fitting them for the most gallant enterprises, or the most important commands with which they may one day be intrusted. ART. XII.-Reports of the Select Committee on Emigration from the United Kingdom. WHEN Naaman the Syrian complained to Elisha of his leprosy, he was bid to wash himself in Jordan seven times. He looked for other miraculous courses to be taken by the prophet, and could hardly be persuaded thereto, because Abana aud Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, were better. Naaman was a heathen, and had never any experience of God's Jordan; yet he was in the end persuaded. To supply our wants, to satisfy our hunger, to heal our diseases, there is, not a river, but the sea shown us.' These are the words of an old and intelligent writer, who thought that, in the facilities which our insular position afforded for the extension of our trade and of our fisheries, a remedy might be found for all the necessities of the commonwealth in his time. For the far more pressing necessities of the present time -necessities which have arisen, in a great degree, from an overgrown trade-we are now told that the sea offers, not indeed the speedy and certain cure which this projector promised for a less inveterate disease, but the prospect of immediate hope, sure relief, and ultimately of permanent benefit, by affording an easy outlet for a redundant population. Is our population redundant? and is the relief which is proposed attainable at a cost not disproportionately exceeding the expected advantage? These are questions concerning concerning which the Committee on Emigration has collected and laid before the public a large body of evidence.* We need not look beyond the poor-rates for an answer to the first of these questions. Let it not, however, be supposed that we assent in any degree to Mr. Malthus's philosophy, and ascribe this redundancy to some necessary evil in the system of nature. It has arisen wholly from our system of society. It is an evil incident to the present stage of our progress, which might have been well prevented if it had been duly foreseen; and which will be found remediable, if the proper and obvious remedies are judiciously and perseveringly applied. As little would we be supposed to agree with Mr. Malthus in his reprobation of the poorlaws. That gentleman, in his examination before the committee, prescribes an enactment,† declaring that those who are born after a certain time should not be allowed to have any parish assistance;' such an enactment, depriving the pauper of a right to claim assistance, under the circumstances of his not being able to find employment, he considers absolutely necessary,' and pronounces 'that no essential improvement can take place without the denial of a legal claim.' Far gone, indeed, must those persons be in our modern mania of political economy, who recommend a measure impracticable, if, in other respects, it were wise; and abominable, if it could, by possibility, be carried into practice! The mischief which the poor-laws produce has arisen wholly from their mal-administration or perversion; the system itself is humane, just, necessary, befitting a Christian state, and honourable to the English nation. So it was regarded by Blackstone, when he said, not more emphatically than truly, that charity is interwoven with the very constitution of this country. So by Mr. Spence, when he observed with pride, as an Englishman, that this country is the only one in the world where every poor man is born, not only to the inheritance of freedom, but of a contingent patrimony; and can marry, and practise the virtues, and enjoy the happiness resulting from early marriage, without anxiety for the future; knowing, that if employment cannot be had, or sickness assail him and exhaust his little savings, (which no poor-laws would deter a well-educated poor from aiming to lay up,) he can by law claim from the rich a portion of their good things, and need, in no event, dread that he or his children should perish with hunger; for, though the laws of nature, and the good of society, require that the many should be poor, and the few rich, the poor have a * But why all that part of the evidence which is annexed to the Second Report (more than two hundred parliamentary pages) should have been reprinted in the third, we are at a loss to guess. Third Report, p. 315. Third Report, p. 323. just just claim on their more fortunate brethren for such a share of their wealth as will at least ensure their existence when their own efforts fail.' 6 Thus, too, the poor-laws were regarded by Defoe, when he affirmed, that infirmities merely providential, such as sickness of families, loss of limbs or sight, and any other natural or accidental impotence to labour, ever were, will, and ought to be, the charge and care of the respective parishes wherein the unhappy persons who may be thus disabled chance to dwell.' In Defoe's days the country was burdened with a crowd of clamouring, unemployed, unprovided-for poor people, who made the nation uneasy, burdened the rich, clogged the parishes, and made themselves worthy of laws and peculiar management how to dispose of and direct them.' He imputed the evil wholly to the want of good husbandry, which, he said, was no English virtue, a profuse, extravagant humour,' keeping the labourers always poor, although wages were then so high, that any man who exercised a just frugality in the days of his strength might lay by a comfortable provision for his old age. No man in England,' he affirmed, of sound limbs and senses could be poor merely for want of work; for there was more labour than hands to perform it, and consequently a want of people, not of employment.' Few men have been more accurate observers of life and manners and of the mechanism of society than Defoe; yet, in the very treatise wherein these assertions are contained, he touches upon certain circumstances which might have led him to distrust the opinion thus confidently advanced. He lived at a time when the enterprising spirit of trade, which had, in former ages, chiefly taken the direction of foreign adventure, was beginning eagerly to engage in speculations at home; and this he saw had disturbed our inland trade, which, he said, 'perhaps was, or had been, in the Of this settled trade, a greatest regularity of any in the world.' settled prosperity in those parts of the country where it was carBut it is a strange ried on, had been the sure consequence. thing,' says a writer in the British Merchant, to observe how trade runs in channels and eddies, and will sometimes, like the tide, shift its course, change the streams, and remove or fix banks and sands here and there, and on a sudden return to them again.' Such changes perplex the most experienced master; and many a good ship, notwithstanding careful pilotage, has at such times grounded and been cast away. A change of this kind, brought about during one of the great political hurricanes which have shaken Christendom, transferred the manufactory of woollen cloth from the Low Countries to England. Another such Defoe himself witnessed, when the persecuting spirit of the Roman Catholic. church, church, directed by such prelates as Bossuet, and under such a monarch as Louis XIV., introduced into this country as many of what he calls true-born English families with foreign names,' as the earlier, and,—if there be shades of criminality in such deep-dyed guilt, the less flagitious persecution in the Netherlands. Wherever the refugees from that French persecution fled, a blessing followed them. They sacrificed everything for the sake of conscience, and in no instance has righteousness ever more visibly received its temporal reward. * Before the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the balance of trade between France and England was greatly against this country, even without taking the wines of France (then in as general use as those of Portugal were afterwards) into the account. The French had as much the advantage over us in the lower rate of living, and of wages, at that time, as they have now. single article of linen, the imports from France were nearly equal in value to that of all our exports thither of all kinds; it amounted almost to thrice that of all the woollen goods which the French received from us in return. And their paper, though charged with a duty exceeding a hundred per cent., undersold that of our own making. The refugees, who, with their own knowledge of business and habits of frugal industry, brought with them that ingenuity and hopefulness, and fertility of resources, which never fail a Frenchman in distress, (such is the peculiar and happy characteristic of the nation,) began immediately, instead of engaging in manufactures which they did not understand, to set up such as they were masters of, which had not before been known in this country, and to introduce improvements in others. The war against Louis XIV., which, with little intermission, lasted about as long as that against the French under their democratic and military tyrannies, procured for them all the protection they could desire; and it is one among the many observable parallels which these wars present, (the most arduous in which Great Britain has ever been engaged, the most necessary, and the most glorious,) that the former gave as great an impulse to the manufactures of these kingdoms as the latter did to its agriculture. But, as even healthful changes in the human system are not brought about in their due season without occasioning some disorder during their progress, the impulse which was thus given disturbed the regularity of our inland trade. 'The manufactures of England,' says Defoe, in describing this regularity, are happily settled in different corners of the kingdom, from whence they are mutually conveyed by a circulation of trade to London by whole In Charles the Second's reign as much as 800,000l. per annum; in those days a very considerable sum. sale, |