'The character of the Japanese it was evident had been subject to the misrepresentation which the jealousy of the Dutch had industriously spread over the whole of their eastern possessions. They appeared to the commissioners to be a race remarkable for frankness of manner and disposition, for intelligence, inquiry, and freedom from prejudice. They are in an advanced state of civilization, in a climate where European manufactures are almost a necessary comfort, and where long use has accustomed them to many of its luxuries.' We know not how far the Batavian colonists may have misrepresented the Japanese to the English governor, but certainly their three countrymen whose works we have brought under notice most entirely acquiesce in the description thus given by men whose authority in itself was worth little, as they had neither a knowledge of the language nor opportunity for observation. With regard, however, to the assertion that European manufactures are almost a necessary comfort to a nation which Sir Stamford Raffles rates at twenty-four, Mr. Fischer at thirty-six millions, we must say that the Japanese have satisfied themselves with a very small allowance of such objects of necessity, and have taken very singular methods to increase the supply. The fact is, that their disposition to luxury and expense in dress, which doubtless would recommend foreign commerce if once established, is constantly checked by severe and arbitrary sumptuary laws. The trade,' says Sir Stamford in his dispatch, was just as extensive as it suited the personal interest of the Resident to make it.' We have seen that the trade was limited and rigidly defined by successive orders from Jeddo. Sir Stamford points out the advantages to be derived by both parties from British intercourse, and to us especially, as a resource in the event of any interruption in the trade with China. With respect to the article of tea the accounts both of Mr. Fischer and Mr. Doeff would lead us to doubt whether the produce of Japan would answer as a substitute for that of China. Mr. Doeff describes the decoction in common use as villanous. Mr. Fischer considers the Japanese tea as a useful sudorific, but so inferior in flavour to the Chinese as to make its success in an European market very doubtful. Nothing, indeed, can be clearer than that an interchange of commodities with Japan would be profitable to both nations. The Japanese answer to Russian proposals of a similar nature proves, however, that such advantages can be appreciated by a nation which rejects them : 'With regard to the trade in commodities of many kinds of which each may be in want, possible advantage appears, yet we have maturely considered and found, that if all our useful commodities were exchanged, we might possibly find a deficiency in such of our own production, and thus it would appear as though we knew not how to govern our country. Moreover, if trade be increased there would be more occasion for people of the lower orders to transgress the usages of our country, and thereto we therefore cannot agree. This is the imperial decision, and therefore must the navigation to Japan be no more attempted. Signed at Nangasaki-NANGO BOLUGNA (with a great red seal attached).' 1 We have said and quoted thus much in deference to an authority so justly respected as that of Sir Stamford Raffles; enough, we trust, to show that we do not lightly or irreverently venture to criticise the speculations of such a man. His reputation is one which can suffer no sensible diminution by an impeachment of his reasonings on a particular subject, treated by him with that ardour in his country's service which belonged to his character. He seems to us to have failed to perceive that the very qualities of superiority, for which he gives just credit to Japan, opposed an impenetrable obstacle to his views; that meanness, ignorance, corruption, and cowardice, may justify by the result the aggression they invite, but that courage and intelligence are not rashly to be insulted or tampered with, and that a spirit of independence may be proof against the trivial impulses of curiosity and the more degrading motives of gain. Neglecting these considerations, he argued that because the Japanese, by a fortunate accident, had forborne to close an intercourse with a nation which submitted to purchase its continuance by abject submission and humiliation, they would break through the most sacred laws and usages of their empire, sanctified by antiquity, and rigidly enforced by a strong executive, to admit one by which they had been threatened and insulted, and which was only known to them by partial and malignant statements of its power and ambition, illustrated by a calamitous example. We are as anxious as Sir Stamford Raffles could be for the ubiquity of our flag and the expansion of our commerce. For ourselves, indeed, being neither governors, merchants, nor missionaries, we have no higher motive than that which actuated the Fatima of the nursery tale, in sighing for a peep into the blue chamber of the eastern sea. That motive of curiosity is a strong one. But the key of British enterprise which has unlocked the treasure-chambers of the world has no power when applied to the steel-clenched postern of Japan. It has been shivered in the attempt, and there is blood on the fragments. We should be sorry to learn that the directors of Eastern enterprise, undeterred by former failures, or inspired by a few paltry successes on the maritime frontier of China and its corrupted dependencies, were about to renew experiments on Japan. Nothing, we are satisfied, can be more unwise than to argue from Chinese or Corean premises to Japanese conclusions; nothing nothing more wanton and unprofitable than to risk, by any attempt to force an intercourse, the disruption of the last link which yet connects that singular country with the European family. Some great and sweeping revolution must disorganize her government, and obliterate her institutions, before we can approach her coasts in any other guise than that of invaders of an unoffending, we wish we could add unoffended, nation. By ART. VII.—History of the War in the Peninsula, &c. IN our last Number we carried our observations upon Colonel Napier's History to the period when the Portuguese government was reinstated, on the expulsion of the French army under Junot. In doing so, we adverted to the following important defects in the work. First, an undue bias of partiality towards the French, and a bias of a diametrically opposite nature with respect to the Spaniards. Secondly, an infusion of bitter party prejudice against the then existing government in England. Thirdly, much distortion of facts and unfairness of colouring in the representation of events, as well as in that of the characters and motives of individuals. And, lastly, mistakes so considerable with regard to transactions in which the author's own countrymen were concerned, and British troops were engaged, as must detract greatly from the credit which can be allowed to the statements given of other details, the sources of which are much less accessible to scrutiny, although liable to no small degree of suspicion. We shall now accompany Colonel Napier in his further progress. 'Thus terminated what may be called the convulsive struggle of the Peninsular war.'—vol. i. p. 270. We cannot agree with Colonel Napier in this observation. There were two periods at least subsequent to that here mentioned, which deserve much more to be regarded as periods of convulsive struggle in the contest. The first of these is the period when Napoleon was recalled from the Peninsula in the month of January, 1809, by an impending war with Austria, which may be truly said to have dragged the lion from his prey. And the second is that of the autumn of 1810, when the foresight, the firmness of mind, and the military skill of Lord Wellington, first checked the advance of Massena at Busaco, and then closed his prospects of success by the lines of Torres Vedras. But although we must refuse to Colonel Napier the faculty of discriminating with judg ment ment the relative importance of these epochs in the war, we readily concede to him consistency in party prejudice, when he tells us The English cabinet was, indeed, sanguine, and resolute to act, yet the ministers, while anticipating success in a preposterous manner, displayed little industry, and less judgment, in their preparations for the struggle; nor does it appear that the real freedom of the Peniusula was much considered in their councils. They contemplated this astonishing insurrection as a mere military opening through which Napoleon might be assailed, and they neglected, or rather feared, to look towards the great moral consequences of such a stupendous event, consequences which were, indeed, above their reach of policy: they were neither able, nor willing, to seize such a singularly propitious occasion for conferring a benefit upon mankind. It is, however, certain that this opportunity for restoring the civil strength of a long degraded people, by a direct recurrence to first principles, was such as had seldom been granted to a sinking nation.'—p. 272. Colonel Napier appears in this passage more as a political partizan and theorist, than as an historian, and he is so entirely engrossed by his own party animosities, and his own crude speculations, that the reader may look in vain for a true account of things as they were. The Spaniards had not applied to Britain to interfere in their internal affairs. On the contrary, they had besought her to assist them in repelling the unwelcome interference of the French emperor. The ambition and the perfidy of Napoleon, although attempted to be concealed under the pretext of political regeneration, had not escaped the discernment of even the most illiterate peasant in Spain; and the indignation with which that whole people instantly resented and opposed the intrusion had obtained for them the unanimous applause and the cordial sympathy of the British nation. Yet Colonel Napier imputes to the English ministers a lack of wisdom, and a neglect of the real freedom of the Peninsula, because, satisfied with such a strong and intelligible bond of connexion between the two countries, they did not busy themselves with theoretical speculations, which must have disturbed that harmony of feeling and paralyzed that unanimity and energy of action, which it was their duty to cherish and to promote both in Britain and in the Peninsula. But it is not difficult to discover that Colonel Napier's schemes, whether for the guidance of ministers in the cabinet, or of generals in the field, partake very little of what is called practical wisdom. 6 We are at a loss, we confess, to conjecture what other opening than a military opening' could have been available against the power of Napoleon. It was his military strength which had sub dued dued and which still overawed the continent, and it was that which enabled him to assail the interests, and aim at the overthrow of Britain. Military opposition could alone contend against or exhaust that strength, and none had yet appeared so likely to do either as the spontaneous rising of the nations of the Peninsula. As for a direct recurrence to first principles,' all we need say is, that the experiments in that way which had been made in France had not yet recommended themselves by their results either to British statesmen or to the Spanish people. After giving his view of the coincidences and the diversities which exhibited themselves in the character and in the conduct of the Portuguese and of the Spaniards, Colonel Napier proceeds as follows: 'It was affirmed and believed, that from every quarter enthusiastic multitudes of the latter were pressing forward to complete the destruction of a baffled and dispirited enemy; the vigour, the courage, the unmatched spring of Spanish patriotism, was in every man's mouth; Napoleon's power and energy seemed weak in opposition. Few persons doubted the truth of such tales, and yet nothing could be more unsound, more eminently fallacious, than the generally entertained opinion of French weakness and of Spanish strength. The resources of the former were unbounded, almost untouched; those of the latter were too slender even to support the weight of victory; in Spain the whole structure of society was shaken to pieces by the violence of an effort which merely awakened the slumbering strength of France.' -vol. i. p. 271. It is painful to see how perseveringly Colonel Napier labours, by the distortion of facts, by sophistical reasoning, by cold calcu lation, by sarcasm, and by insinuation, to check any feeling in his readers in favour of the Spaniards. He cannot endure that they should have drawn the sword and flung away the scabbard, without paying any regard either to the great abilities, to the numerous armies, or to the well-supplied arsenals of their adversary. And he is nearly as much dissatisfied with his own countrymen for having united themselves without hesitation to the cause of justice, however feeble, instead of being appalled by the array of almost unbounded resources and unlimited power which appeared on the side of her opponent. As for the paradoxical statement, that the resources of a great country, and the strength of eleven millions of people, were too slender even to support the weight of victory,' it is scarcely deserving of notice. And the same remark might apply to the assertion, that the structure of society in Spain was shaken to pieces, whilst the slumbering strength of France was merely awakened, were it not that we must reproach the historian |