pistol with its new stock, lock, and barrel, will bear a close resemblance to what is ultimately produced."-Duncan's Travels, II. 335, 336.

In the Excursion there is a list of the American navy, which, in conjunction with the navy of France, will one day or another, we fear, settle the Catholic question in a way not quite agreeable to the Earl of Liverpool for the time being, nor very creditable to the wisdom of those ancestors of whom we hear, and from whom we suffer so much. The regulations of the American navy seem to be admirable. The States are making great exertions to increase this navy; and since the capture of so many English ships, it has become the favourite science of the people at large. Their flotillas on the lakes completely defeated ours during the last war.

Fanaticism of every description seems to rage and flourish in America, which has no Establishment, in about the same degree which it does here, under the nose of an Established Church;-they have their prophets and prophetesses, their preaching encampments, female preachers, and every variety of noise, folly, and nonsense, like ourselves. Among the most singular of these fanatics are the Harmonites. Rapp, their founder, was a dissenter from the Lutheran Church, and therefore, of course, the Lutheran clergy of Stutgard (near to which he lived) began to put Mr. Rapp in white sheets, to prove him guilty of theft, parricide, treason, and all the usual crimes of which men dissenting from established churches are so often guilty,—and delicate hints were given respecting faggots! Stutgard abounds with underwood and clergy; and-away went Mr. Rapp to the United States, and, with a great multitude of followers, settled about twenty-four miles from our countryman, Mr. Birkbeck. His people have here built a large town, and planted a vineyard, where they make very agreeable wine. They carry on also a very extensive system of husbandry, and are the masters of many flocks and herds. They have a distillery, brewery, tannery; make hats, shoes, cotton and woollen cloth, and everything necessary to the comfort of life. Everyone belongs to some particular trade. But in bad weather, when there is danger of losing their crops, Rapp blows a horn, and calls them all together. Over every trade there is a head man, who receives the money and gives a receipt, signed by Rapp, to whom all the money collected is transmitted. When any of these workmen wants a hat or a coat, Rapp signs him an order for the garment, for which he goes to the store, and is fitted. They have one large store where these manufactures are deposited. This store is much resorted to by the neighbourhood, on account of the goodness and cheapness of the articles. They have built an excellent house for their founder, Rapp,-as it might have been predicted they would have done. The Harmonites profess equality, community of goods, and celibacy; for the men and women (let Mr. Malthus hear this) live separately, and are not allowed the slightest intercourse. order to keep up their numbers, they have once or twice sent over for a supply of Germans, as they admit no Americans, of any intercourse with whom they are very jealous. The Harmonites dress and live plainly. It is a part of their creed that they should do so. Rapp, however, and the head men have no such particular creed for themselves; and indulge in wine, beer, grocery, and other irreligious diet. Rapp is both governor and priest,-preaches to them in church, and directs all their proceedings in their working hours. In short, Rapp seems to have made use of the religious propensities of mankind, to persuade one or two thousand fools to dedicate their lives to his service; and if they do not get tired, and fling their prophet into a horse-pond, they will in all probability disperse as soon as he dies.

In

Unitarians are increasing very fast in the United States, not being kept down by charges from bishops and archdeacons, their natural enemies.

The author of the Excursion remarks upon the total absence of all games in America. No cricket, foot-ball, nor leap-frog-all seems solid and profitable. "One thing that I could not help remarking with regard to the Americans in general is the total want of all those games and sports that obtained for our country the appellation of 'Merry England.' Although children usually transmit stories and sports from one generation to another, and although many of our nursery games and tales are supposed to have been imported into England in the vessels of Hengist and Horsa, yet our brethren in the United States seem entirely to have forgotten the childish amusements of our common ancestors. In America I never saw even the school boys playing at any game whatsoever. Cricket, foot-ball, quoits, &c., appear to be utterly unknown; and I believe that if an American were to see grown-up men playing at cricket, he would express as much astonishment as the Italians did when some Englishmen played at this finest of all games in the Cascina at Florence. Indeed, that joyous spirit which, in our country, animates not only childhood, but also maturer age, can rarely or never be seen among the inhabitants of the United States." -Excursion, pp. 502, 503.

These are a few of the leading and prominent circumstances respecting America, mentioned in the various works before us: of which works we can recommend the Letters of Mr. Hodgson, and the Excursion into Canada, as sensible, agreeable books, written in a very fair spirit.

America seems, on the whole, to be a country possessing vast advantages, and little inconveniences; they have a cheap government, and bad roads; they pay no tithes, and have stage coaches without springs. They have no poor laws and no monopolies-but their inns are inconvenient, and travellers are teased with questions. They have no collections in the fine arts; but they have no Lord Chancellor, and they can go to law without absolute ruin. They cannot make Latin verses, but they expend immense sums in the education of the poor. In all this the balance is prodigiously in their favour. But then comes the great disgrace and danger of America-the existence of slavery, which, if not timeously corrected, will one day entail (and ought to entail) a bloody servile war upon the Americans-which will separate America into slave states and states disclaiming slavery, and which remains at present as the foulest blot in the moral character of that people. A highspirited nation, who cannot endure the slightest act of foreign aggression, and who revolt at the very shadow of domestic tyranny, beat with cart-whips, and bind with chains, and murder for the merest trifles, wretched human beings who are of a more dusky colour than themselves; and have recently admitted into their Union a new State, with the express permission of ingrafting this atrocious wickedness into their constitution! No one can admire the simple wisdom and manly firmness of the Americans more than we do, or more despise the pitiful propensity which exists among Government runners to vent their small spite at their character; but on the subject of slavery, the conduct of America is, and has been, most reprehensible. It is impossible to speak of it with too much indignation and contempt; but for it we should look forward with unqualified pleasure to such a land of freedom and such a magnificent spectacle of human happiness.

tors.

MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROCK. (E. REVIEW, October, 1824.) Memoirs of Captain Rock, the celebrated Irish Chieftain; with some Account of his AncesWritten by Himself. Fourth Edition. 12mo, pp. 376. London. 1824. THIS agreeable and witty book is generally supposed to have been written by Mr. Thomas Moore, a gentleman of small stature-but full of genius, and a steady friend of all that is honourable and just. He has here borrowed the name of a celebrated Irish leader, to typify that spirit of violence and insurrection

which is necessarily generated by systematic oppression,-and rudely avenges its crimes. And the picture he has drawn of its prevalence in that unhappy country is at once piteous and frightful. Its effect in exciting our horror and indignation is in the long run increased, we think,-though at first it may seem counteracted, by the tone of levity, and even jocularity, under which he has chosen to veil the deep sarcasm and substantial terrors of his story. We smile at first, and are amused-and wonder as we proceed, that the humorous narrative should produce conviction and pity-shame, abhorrence, and despair! England seems to have treated Ireland much in the same way as Mrs. Brownrigg treated her apprentice-for which Mrs. Brownrigg is hanged in the first volume of the Newgate Calendar. Upon the whole, we think the apprentice is better off than the Irishman: as Mrs. Brownrigg merely starves and beats her, without any attempt to prohibit her from going to any shop, or praying at any church her apprentice might select; and once or twice, if we remember rightly, Brownrigg appears to have felt some compassion. Not so Old England,—who indulges rather in a steady baseness, uniform brutality, and unrelenting oppression.

Let us select from this entertaining little book a short history of dear Ireland, such as even some profligate idle member of the House of Commons, voting as his master bids him, may perchance throw his eye upon, and reflect for a moment upon the iniquity to which he lends his support.

For some centuries after the reign of Henry II. the Irish were killed like game, by persons qualified or unqualified. Whether dogs were used does not appear quite certain, though it is probable they were, spaniels as well as pointers; and that, after a regular point by Basto, well backed by Ponto and Cæsar, Mr. O'Donnel or Mr. O'Leary bolted from the thicket, and were bagged by the English sportsman. With Henry II. came in tithes, to which, in all probability, about one million of lives may have been sacrificed in Ireland. In the reign of Edward I. the Irish who were settled near the English requested that the benefit of the English laws might be extended to them; but the remonstrance of the barons with the hesitating king was in substance this:-"You have made us a present of these wild gentlemen,— and we particularly request that no measures may be adopted to check us in that full range of tyranny and oppression in which we consider the value of such a gift to consist. You may as well give us sheep, and prevent us from shearing the wool, or roasting the meat." This reasoning prevailed, and the Irish were kept to their barbarism, and the barons preserved their live stock. "Read Orange faction' (says Captain Rock) here and you have the wisdom of our rulers, at the end of near six centuries, in statu quo.-The Grand Periodic Year of the Stoics, at the close of which everything was to begin again, and the same events to be all reacted in the same order, is, on a miniature scale, represented in the history of the English government in Ireland-every succeeding century being but a new revolution of the same follies, the same crimes, and the same turbulence that disgraced the former. But 'Vive l'ennemi!' say I: whoever may suffer by such measures, Captain Rock, at least, will prosper.

"And such was the result at the period of which I am speaking. The rejection of a petition, so humble and so reasonable, was followed, as a matter of course, by one of those daring rebellions into which the revenge of an insulted people naturally breaks forth. The M'Cartys, the O'Briens, and all the other Macs and O's, who have been kept on the alert by similar causes ever since, flew to arms under the command of a chieftain of my family; and, as the proffered handle of the sword had been rejected, made their inexorable masters at least feel its edge."-Pp. 23-25.

Fifty years afterwards the same request was renewed and refused. Up again rose Mac and O,—a just and necessary war ensued; and after the usual murders, the usual chains were replaced upon the Irishry. All Irishmen were excluded from every species of office. It was high treason to marry with the Irish blood, and highly penal to receive the Irish into religious houses. War

was waged also against their Thomas Moores, Samuel Rogerses, and Walter Scotts, who went about the country harping and singing against English oppression. No such turbulent guests were to be received. The plan of making them poets-laureate, or converting them to loyalty by pensions of £100 per annum, had not then been thought of. They debarred the Irish even from the pleasure of running away, and fixed them to the soil like Negroes. "I have thus selected," says the historian of Rock, "cursorily and at random, a few features of the reigns preceding the Reformation, in order to show what good use was made of those three or four hundred years in attaching the Irish people to their English governors; and by what a gentle course of alternatives they were prepared for the inoculation of a new religion, which was now about to be attempted upon them by the same skilful and friendly

hands.

"Henry the Seventh appears to have been the first monarch to whom it occurred that matters were not managed exactly as they ought in this part of his dominions; and we find him-with a simplicity which is still fresh and youthful among our rulers-expressing his surprise that his subjects of this land should be so prone to faction and rebellion, and that so little advantage had been hitherto derived from the acquisitions of his predecessor, notwithstanding the fruitfulness and natural advantages of Ireland.'-Surprising, indeed, that a policy, such as we have been describing, should not have converted the whole country into a perfect Atlantis of happiness-should not have made it like the imaginary island of Sir Thomas More, where tota insula velut una familia est !'- most stubborn, truly, and ungrateful must that people be upon whom, up to the very hour in which I write, such a long and unvarying course of penal laws, confiscations, and Insurrection Acts has been tried, without making them in the least degree in love with their rulers.

"Heloise tells her tutor Abelard that the correction which he inflicted upon her only served to increase the ardour of her affection for him. But bayonets and hemp are no such 'amoris stimuli.'-One more characteristic anecdote of those times and I have done. At the battle of Knocktow, in the reign of Henry VII., when that remarkable man, the Earl of Kildare, assisted by the great O'Neal and other Irish chiefs, gained a victory over Clanricard of Connaught, most important to the English Government, Lord Gormanstown, after the battle, in the first insolence of success, said, turning to the Earl of Kildare, 'We have now slaughtered our enemies, but, to complete the good deed, we must proceed yet further, and— cut the throats of those Irish of our own party! Who can wonder that the Rock family were active in those times?"-(Pp. 33-35.)

Henry the 8th persisted in all these outrages, and aggravated them by insulting the prejudices of the people. England is almost the only country in the world (even at present), where there is not some favourite religious spot, where absurd lies, little bits of cloth, feathers, rusty nails, splinters, and other invaluable relics, are treasured up, and in defence of which the whole population are willing to turn out and perish as one man. Such was the shrine of St. Kieran, the whole treasures of which the satellites of that corpulent tyrant turned out into the street, pillaged the sacred church of Clonmacnoise, scattered the holy nonsense of the priests to the winds, and burnt the real and venerable crosier of St. Patrick, fresh from the silversmith's shop, and formed of the most costly materials. Modern princes change the uniform of regiments: Henry changed the religion of kingdoms, and was determined that the belief of the Irish should undergo a radical and Protestant conversion. With what success this attempt was made the present state of Ireland is sufficient evidence.

"Be not dismayed," said Elizabeth, on hearing that O'Neal meditated some designs against her government; "tell my friends, if he arise, it will turn to their advantage-there will be estates for those who want." Soon after this prophetic speech, Munster was destroyed by famine and the sword, and near 600,000 acres forfeited to the Crown, and distributed among Englishmen. Sir Walter Raleigh (the virtuous and good) butchered the garrison of Limerick in cold blood, after Lord Deputy Gray had selected 700 to be hanged. There were, during the reign of Elizabeth, three invasions of Ireland by the Spaniards, produced principally by the absurd measures of this Princess for the reforma.

Leland gives this anecdote on the authority of an Englishman.

tion of its religion. The Catholic clergy, in consequence of these measures, abandoned their cures, the churches fell to ruin, and the people were left without any means of instruction. Add to these circumstances the murder of M'Mahon, the imprisonment of M'Toole* and O'Dogherty, and the kidnapping of O'Donnel-all truly Anglo-Hibernian proceedings. The execution of the laws was rendered detestable and intolerable by the queen's officers of justice. The spirit raised by these transactions, besides innumerable smaller insurrections, gave rise to the great wars of Desmond and Hugh O'Neal; which, after they had worn out the ablest generals, discomfited the choicest troops, exhausted the treasure, and embarrassed the operations of Elizabeth, were determined by the destruction of these two ancient families, and by the confiscation of more than half the territorial surface of the island. The two last years of O'Neal's wars cost Elizabeth £140,000 per annum, though the whole revenue of England at that period fell considerably short of £500,000. Essex, after the destruction of Norris, led into Ireland an army of above 20,000 men, which was totaly baffled and destroyed by Tyrone, within two years of their landing. Such was the importance of Irish rebellions two centuries before the time in which we live. Sir G. Carew attempted to assassinate the Lugan Earl-Mountjoy compelled the Irish rebels to massacre each other. In the course of a few months, 3,000 men were starved to death in Tyrone. Sir Arthur Chichester, Sir Richard Manson, and other commanders, saw three children feeding on the flesh of their dead mother. Such were the golden days of good Queen Bess!

By the rebellions of Dogherty in the reign of James I., six northern counties were confiscated, amounting to 500,000 acres. In the same manner, 64,000 acres were confiscated in Athlone. The whole of his confiscations amount to nearly a million acres ; and if Leland means plantation acres, they constitute a twelfth of the whole kingdom according to Newenham, and a tenth according to Sir W. Petty. The most shocking and scandalous action in the reign of James, was his attack upon the whole property of the province of Connaught, which he would have effected, if he had not been bought off by a sum greater than he hoped to gain by his iniquity, besides the luxury of confiscation. Irish, during the reign of James I., suffered under the double evils of a licentious soldiery, and a religious persecution.

The

Charles the First took a bribe of £120,000 from his Irish subjects, to grant them what in those days were called Graces, but in these days would be denominated the Elements of Justice. The money was paid, but the graces were never granted. One of these graces is curious enough: "That the clergy were not to be permitted to keep henceforward any private prisons of their own, but delinquents were to be committed to the public jails.' The idea of a rector, with his own private jail full of dissenters, is the most ludicrous piece of tyranny we ever heard of. The troops in the beginning of Charles's reign were supported by the weekly fines levied upon the Catholics for non-attendance upon established worship. The Archbishop of Dublin went himself, at the head of a file of musketeers, to disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin, -which object he effected after a considerable skirmish with the priests. "The favourite object" (says Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish Church) "of the Irish Government and the English Parliament, was, the utter extermination of all the Catholic inhabitants of

*There are not a few of the best and most humane Englishmen of the present day, who, when under the influence of fear or anger, would think it no great crime to put to death people whose names begin with O or Mac. The violent death of Smith, Green, or Thomson, would throw the neighbourhood into convulsions, and the regular forms would be adhered to-tu little would be really thought of the death of anybody called O'Dogherty or O'Toole.

FF