Like floating fire the gleamy billows burn: Far distant on the ruddy tide," A black'ning sail is seen to glide; Their hoisted signal waves on high, And life and strength and happy thoughts return.' 277-8. We do not know that these pieces are very lyrical; but they have undoubtedly very great merit, and are more uniformly good, than any passages of equal length in the blank verse of the same writer. We should guess that Miss Baillie writes slowly, and with considerable labour; and the trouble which it probably occasions her to find rhymes, may perhaps be one cause of the goodness of her rhymed poetry. It leads obviously to the great merit of brevity and condensation of sentiment, as well as to the rejection of weak or ordinary images ;-for it is only upon precious materials that a prudent artist will ever bestow his most costly and laborious workmanship. But whatever be the causes of their excellence, it affords us great pleasure to bear testimony to the fact; and it would go far to console us for the determination which Miss Baillie announces, to publish no more plays on the passions during her life, if we could be permitted to hope that she will favour us now and then with a little volume of such verses as those we have just been transcribing. ART. II. The Crisis of the Dispute with America. By a Merchant of the Old School. 8vo. London, 1811. THIS HIS is a sensible and useful pamphlet, published by a very respectable merchant, who writes on a subject in which he feels the interest of one actually engaged in the affairs he treats of, and suffering severely under the evils of which he com plains. He has inserted the very admirable letters recently ad dressed to the Prince Regent by Mr Cobbet, which contain a great variety of arguments, urged with the usual force and ef fect of that writer; and on a side of the question much more sound, in our apprehension, than that which he used formerly to espouse. Nothing can be more gratifying to those who really love truth, and seek the good of their country, than to sec such instances of able and well-informed men meetin on the same ground, after being kept separate by honest differences of opinion and they who brawl against such changes of senti ment, only show themselves equally careless of the interests of the the state and the cause of truth, and incapable of estimating the merits of that candour which acknowledges and retracts an involuntary error. We propose, on this occasion, to offer a few reflections to our readers upon the subject of the disputes with America. Not that it is at all our intention to enter fully into the question of the negotiation now pending with the government of the United States;-but, from a conviction of the ruinous consequences of an American war, and the utter worthlessness of the objects for which our rulers are contending, we feel it quite incumbent on us to say a few words on some of the points in issue between the two countries. In truth, there is but one question, in the present times, more important than the American-we meart the Irish; and it seems to be the design of the government, to exercise the patience of the nation, and rouse the alarms of all men of sense and worth, in a pretty equal degree, on both those momentous topics. The scruples under which his Majesty's conscience was said to labour, affording no longer any prerence for deferring that act which strict justice, as well as the soundest policy, has so long enjoined towards the sister kingdom,-and the Illustrious person at the head of affairs having heretofore been supposed to feel any thing rather than reluctance to grant the Catholies a participation in the constitution-his Royal Highness being in truth understood to be pledged to the cause by repeated declarations and promises-it is with incredible sorrow and disappointment, that the country now sees the question of time once more raised-the measure again deferred-and the whole influence of government of the Prince of Wales's government! -exerted to prevent the Catholic question from being carried. However little men of observation, and knowing in the discernment of human character, might have expected from the exe entive government of the Prince, in other respects-how much soever they might shut their ears to the fairy tales of a golden age, and a patriot king, wherewithal they had been flattered by more sanguine seers--still we believe the least credulous were unprepared for the strange spectacle with which the new reign has actually opened-the total abandonment of the Irish cause to its avowed enemies--and the Prince of Wales ranging himself all at once among the most decided adversaries of the Catholie body. This is disappointinent wholly unparalleled in the history of political predictions; it is change of sentiment, more sudden, and more violent, than any in the records of party conduct; it is a departure from a previous system--an exchange of feelings-a surrender of antipathies, and shifting of predilecmons- a new-moulding of political principles, of which the whole annala annals of courts and senates may in vain be searched for a pa rallel;-and they who viewed, in the Prince's former conduct' towards Ireland, only matter of regret-who saw his attachment for the rights of the Catholics with alarm for the safety of the Church, may now congratulate themselves on the most mar vellous instance of a total regeneration which the entire range of profane history can furnish. After this wondrous manifestation of the powers of what is called influence, it would be foolish to admire any longer at lesser miracles-to pause over any favour which may be shown to corrupt men and measures inconsistent with reform-or to feel any disappointment at the near prospect of a most lamentable extension of the hostilities which already press upon the resources of the country. But it is good to have our eyes at length opened-to see things, and men, in their real colours and natural proportions-and to know upon whom we can now rely for the salvation of the state, from the only remaining perils which it has yet to encounter. We now must allow, that the people themselves alone can extricate the country from its difficulties; and that it would be idle to seek for a check to the pernicious system of the court and its ministers from any other quarter than the public voice. That voice, if firmly, yet peacefully raised, is, we know, irresistible. It has awed the most undaunted-steadied the most capricious -and disconcerted the most perfidious of princes. It has been found more than a match for monarchs, whose courage, seconded by the decent regularities of their private life, and upheld by talents of no ordinary description, seemed well fitted to overpower the liberties of their subjects, and to establish a dominion in which the royal will might prevail, uncontrolled by the sentiments or wishes of the community. Even against such an influence we have no doubt that it may still make itself heard with effect; and assuredly it can have nothing to dread from a conflict (if in the course of ages such a conflict should await it) with adversaries of a different description. Let this voice but interfere, and Ireland may yet be saved to the empire; and peace with our brethren in America may still be maintained. With a view to assist the people in considering the questions relating to this last subject, we purpose at present to treat of them in a plain and intelligible shape. They are indeed such as any one may easily understand; and it would be hard to conceive a point more worthy of exercising the attention of the ecuntry, or a moment better calculated to rouse them to a view of themselves on board of neutral vessels-a right rendered still more delicate in the case of the British navy, where the men are not voluntarily enlisted, but forced into the service. When such deserters have taken refuge in neutral merchantmen, it seems as if it were no very violent extension of the right of search to allow the recovery of those men. But an attempt has been made to carry the claim a step farther, and search the vessels of the state; -an attempt so inconsistent with all sound principle, and so utterly repugnant to the law of nations, that it was abandoned, almost as soon as it was challenged; and forms the solitary instance, we believe, of a dereliction of any maritime pretension on the part of this country during the late, or the present war. Again, the neutral engages, during war, in trades from which he was excluded during peace; and each belligerent uniformly encourages this interposition of the neutral flag. Thus France opens her colonial trade to the neutral on the commencement of hostilities; and England, as regularly as she passes the Prize act, begins each war with a suspension of the branch of the Navigation act, which excludes foreigners from the carrying trade. But although each belligerent approves this in his own case, he wishes to prevent the other from benefiting rem by it; and as the party which is weak at sea benefits the most, the party preponderating in this respect most zealously attempts to check it; and hence the principle contended for by England chiefly in the war 1756, and which has from that date received its name. But the most fruitful source of discord arises from the right of blockade; and as no assumed privilege of war more largely affects the neutral, or gives rise to more plausible complaints on his part, so it seems to merit somewhat of a nearer examination. It involves the whole question of Orders in Council, and the present disputes with America. The right to blockade a strong place, as a fortress, or a city, of the enemy, that is to say, of cutting off all communication with it, for the purpose of compelling it to surrender, is as ancient and undoubted as the right of making war. This interruption of communication may, and in most cases probably will, affect peaceable subjects as well as persons bearing arms; and it may frequently affect the interests of third parties, or neutrals, by depriving them of a beneficial intercourse with the blockaded place. But the right to injure neutrals in this manner has never been denied; because the course of hostile operations absolutely required it, and the exercise of it had a tendency, by severely distressing the enemy, and producing a great change in the re lative strength of the belligerents, to shorten the period of hoss tilities, t tilities, and attain the great end of all war-the end to which every principle should bear a reference-the restoration of peace. From this clear and admitted right of blockade, it is perhaps a slight, but unquestionably a certain deviation, to allow the blockade of a place, not in its nature and position military-as a large and wealthy manufacturing town, or a convenient place of maritime trade. Here the sufferers are, in the first instance, peaceable citizens-who furnish indeed, by their wealth and their industry, the resources of war, but the protection of whom ought in general to be an object of public law. Yet the impossibility of drawing a line between those cases in which the distress of an enemy's financial resources may contribute to shorten the conflict, and on the whole to lessen the evils of war, and those where it can only make the contest more miserable, without abridging its duration,-renders it quite necessary to allow of this extension of the right of blockade; and, accordingly, no one can deny the title of a belligerent to blockade any harbour, or any city, or any moderately large district, without regard to its military character, unless he is also prepared to dispute the right of privateering by sea, and of levying contributions, and quartering troops; and, in a word, marching troops through a territory on shore. War between governments, and peace between nations, is indeed a notion beautiful to contemplate; but it was not made for human affairs; and when pursued ever so short a way, will be found wholly inconsistent with the nature of hostilities. At any rate, it never was recognized, either by the practice of nations, or by any authority whatever, on matters of public law. It can form no part then of our present consideration. If from single towns, or harbours, or small districts, we extend our view to large territories-to whole provinces-or large lines of coast-very different considerations must enter to qualify our inferences. Suppose a belligerent powerful enough to surround a whole kingdom by a cordon of troops, in such force as to prevent, by physical superiority, all ingress and egress at any part of the circle; and the question is raised, not whether the entrance or egress of troops and stores may lawfully be stopt by these means; but whether every cart, horse, and foot passenger may thus be stopt, and his goods confiscated, and his person imprisoned, for making the attempt-we acknowledge that there appears some difficulty in giving this question an affirmative answer. For here is evidently a most grievous injury inflicted upon the neighbouring neutral-so grievous indeed, that the case may well be put, in which the pressure of such a measure of hostility would all as heavily on the neutral as on the enemy-on the party not intended |