The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-10 00:00:00

POLICE BILL.

The consideration in committee of this bill irai
resumed, and the remaining clauses passed, after a
discussion prolonged for some hours.
On resuming, the remaining business on the paper
was disposed of, and the bolsi rase fir tad re 10133,

,56

A. Mills, Esq.
urray.

given a brief but
ling Constitution
of each British
this sketch he has
ineil, Acts of Par-
ports, and Papers
adopting the five
as the most con-
classification of
titr Mr. Mills' work
but he has pre-
tful essay on our
rorthy of attention
colonial govern-
when the actual
)m is in a state of
re rightly under-
le general princi-
-7 in his work on
that it by no
rersal maxim that
)ny is the form of
its welfare. As

be derived from

.bond is discussed
rather calculated to
Ade the question
.e rather inquires

,ws that Eniland

colonial depen-
Itages which have
reasons for maintain
that there may be
ldvantages result-
Our dependencies
to this country of
gut if they were
might in time of
commerce, and we
those advantages
He writes:—

argument, that Eng-
yet the advocates for
hare gained not one step
object by this concession,
ttenance of a colonial empire
as it is in very many, to
-being of Great Britain. It

_.e value of dependencies
iplating for a moment the
abandonment.

if fairly argued

conclusions.

ty fair in his state-
;hen he adopts Lord
present condition of
West Indian posses-
'le theory of self-
:ys in his " Colo-

I regret to sty, is far
the possession of the
tnst complete security
for the good manage-
seem to suppose.
e of argument

British colony in which
disastrously coexisted with social
-Tarnaica is in this respect but
dependencies which were
tropical products, and are
- physical, political, and
. In the

intelligence, and in-
strength and comeliness to the
withered ; the skeletons of the
May we not ask with-
ve

of Mr. Mills, is it
[eplorable state of
r-government ? Is
'r-ruling action of
Would the colo-

.holished slavery,
trade with slave-pro-
ruin of those colo-
argument at all, it
resulting from the
Had slavery not
itish Legislature in
'amaica at this time
Cuba? Is the en-
commonly interior
Or why should

.~ f

THE PRESS.

self-government (so-called) in Jamaica be of
itself more injurious than in Canada?
We call attention to this point only because
we think Mr. Mills has not treated it with the
fairness he usually displays. Little is said in
this book upon India, though the question is
becoming of overwhelming magnitude. It
cannot be supposed that this country will will-
ingly consent to be taxed to the extent of two
or three millions sterling for the maintenance
of that empire, when under a different system
it might unquestionably be made to contri-
bute largely (and with infinite advantage to
the people) to meet the expenses of the Impe-
rial Government.

Richard Cromwell and the Restoration of the
Stuarts. By M. Guizot. London : Bentley.
EVERY Englishman must fuel grateful to M.
Guizot for setting before us in so lucid and
temperate a manner the events of that turbu-
lent era which he has undertaken to delineate.

The two volumes now published embrace
that brief period which intervened between
the death of Oliver Cromwell and the inevit-
able return to power of the Royal dynasty.
The first of the two is occupied in narrating
the squabbles of the two groat parties into
which the revolutionary leaders had all along
been divided—the Parliamentarians and the
Cromwellians. Compressed by the heavy
hand of Oliver, the Republican and Presby-
terian factions had remained quiet during
his lifetime, but they seem to have con-
sidered his reign as a mere interlude, and as
soon as he was removed from the helm they
reasserted their claims with undiminished
energy. Besides, the party of Republicans, was
also the party of the army. Brought up to regard
their late successful general with a veneration
approaching to idolatry, the soldiers of Naseby
and Worcester could not endure the rule of a
young coxcomb, as they called him, who had
never seen war, and who had given no evidence
of the fanatic and enthusiastic courage which
would doubtless be required of the warriors of
Heaven in the Vale of Armageddon. Before
this formidable opposition the partisans of an
hereditary despotism were unable to hold
their ground; yet it cannot be said that the
advice which was given to the young Protector
by the friends of his family was deficient in
either spirit or sagacity. The Republicans, or
Parliamentarians, hated him because he was
the representative of a tyrannical Govern-
ment; the army despised him because he was
not a soldier. Richard's counsellors saw
clearly enough that the army was the most
dangerous of the two, and they advised him to
make it evident to the former that their only
safeguard against a military despotism lay in
himself. Now, from whatever cause it arose—
whether from simple weakness, whether be-
cause at heart he was a Cavalier, or whether '
from a native epicureanism, which prompted
him, not indeed to throw power from him, but
to hold it only as long as he could hold it
without a struggle—however this might be,
Richard steadily refused to adopt any decisive
measure ; and Faulconbridge, Howard, and
Broghill, who saw that monarchy of some sort
—that is to say, the rule of one man—was in-
dispensable, at once turned their thoughts
towards the restoration of the Stuarts.

Monk was the man upon whom the eyes of
all moderate politicians were now turned ; and
M. Guizot's second volume is almost entirely
taken up with a narrative of his proceedings.
We venture to think that in this portion of his
work the historian is a little tedious. All
Monk's sinuous course of conduct is followed
out with laborious minuteness, till we come at
length fully to share in the disgust and des-
pondency of the Royalists, and learn to doubt
his intentions even at the eleventh hour. Nor
has M. Guizot offered us any solution of this
singular behaviour. The revolutionary party
in Britain was exhausted ; the whole country
was in a state of anarchy and incipient law-
lessness, from which the people would have
hailed the advent of King Charles IL as their
natural deliverer. The intentions of the
Court of France were not dubious ; they would
side with the most promising party. Holland
and Spain were both devotedly attached to
the Stuarts. And it is difficult to account fur
Monk's conduct Lin auy other way than by

447

supposing he was determined to enhance his
own importance as much, and retain the thread
of affairs iu his own hands as long, as pos-
sible.
Of Richard Cromwell s foreign policy M.
Guizot says but little; and, in so far as he
had no definite policy ut his own, but merely
followed in the road which his father had laid
down, doubtless our author is iu the right.
Yet a few words on the Peace of the Pyrenees
would not have been out of place. That was
the culminating point of his father's policy,
and interesting as the foundation of French
ascendancy in Europe, and also as affording a
direct contradiction to those laudations which
it is the fashion to bestow upon Oliver's pa-
triotism and foresight. In allying himself
with France against Spain. he sacrificed the
balance of power to his own private animosity.
Had he exercised a cool and unbiassed judg
went, he must have seen that the days of
Spanish dominion were over, and that it was
the part of a wise statesman to fortify that
kingdom against France, rather than France
against her. But the Court of Madrid had
protected the Stuarts, and given employment
to their followers, and that was an unpardon-
able offence to which all considerations of
policy must bend.
The illustrative letters published at the end
of each volume will be found a valuable
accessory to M. Guizot's work. They are
principally from M. de Bordeaux, the French
Ambassador at London, to Cardinal Mazarin,
and show that France was watching the course
of events, and prepared, as above stated, to
side with whichever party promised best for
herself.

At Home and Abroad ; or, Things and Thoughts
in America and Europe. By Margaret
Fuller Ossoli. London : Sampson Low
and Co.

A WEAKMINDED woman trying to pass for a
strong one is a type of character too often met
with in American society. The absence of a
leisure class amongst the men, and their
devotion to " almighty dollars," casts the
cultivation of the softer sex into exaggerated
relief; and hence amongst clever American
women there is an aiming after the style which
a De Stael or a Roland might have affected,
supposing them to have been born and bred
in the States. The authoress of this thick
book of travels is a fair specimen of the lite-
rary American woman, prone to transcendental
rhetoric and to gushing effusions of sympathy
with the universid wrongs of Christendom.
Her book has in some parts such ridiculous
exaggerations as almost to justify severe treat-
ment ; but the knowledge of her melancholy
death by shipwreck, when in sight of her
native shore, blunts a critical pen.
The character of Mme. Ossoli seems to us to
have been well discerned by Cooper, the
American novelist, in some elegiac verses on
her lamentable end :

High hopes and bright thine early path bedecked,
And aspirations beautiful though wild—
A heart too strong, a powerful will unchecked,
A dream that earth things could be undefiled.
But soon around thee grew a golden chain,
That bound the woman to more human things,
And taaght with joy—and it may be with paint—
That there are limits e'en to spirit's wings.
Extravagant enthusiasm is not a crime, though
the world often treats it as such ; but Mme.
Fuller Ossoli only reminds us of the philan-
thropic platitudes of the platform. We cannot
discern any real originality in her writings.
Her sensibility is of the wordy kind, and her
powers of description were scarcely second
rate. Here is her description of Niagara :

We have been here eight days, and I am quite willing to
go away. So great a sight soon satisfies, making ns con-
tent with itself. and with what is less than itself. Oar
desires once realised haunt us again less readily. Having
lived one day," we would depart, and become worthy to
live another.
We have not been fortunate in weather, for there cannot
be too mach or too warm sunlight for this scene, and the
skies have been louring with cold unkind winds. My
nerves, too much braced up by such an atmosphere, do not
well boar the continual stress of sight anl sound. For
here there is no escape from the weight of a perpetual
creation ; all other forms and motions come and go, the
tide rises and recedes, the wind at its mightiest moves in
gales and gusts, but here is really an incessant, an inde-
fatigible motion. Awake or asleep there is no escape, still
this rushing round you and through you. It is in this way

MAy 10, 1856.
$ Ituaturt
Colonial Constitutions. By A.
London : Murray.
IN this volume Mr. Mills has (riv(
sufficient sketch of the existing
and form of Government of
Dependency. To illustrate this
collected the Orders in Council,
liament, Parliamentary Reports,
relating to each Dependency, ado
great divisions of the world as t
ventent arrangement for the chi
these Dependencies. So far M
is little more than routine, but
fixed to his details a thoughtful
colonial empire, peculiarly worth,
at a time when principles of col
ment are very unsettled, and wht
working of our colonial system it
transition. Mr. Mills, if we ri
stand him, rather leans to the gl
plea enunciated by Earl Grey in
colonial policy, and argues th
means holds good as a universal
the self-government of a colony i
government best suited to its
regards the advantages to be
colonies, the question of cui bone
by Mr. Mills in a manner rather
stimulate thought than to settle
by his own conclusions. He ra
than determines. He shows
does not derive from her col,
denies one of those advantage:
generally been urged as reasons
ng them, but he indicates that t
negative as well as positive advat
ing from colonial empire. Our
are maintained at a cost to tl
three millions annually ; but
severed from us their ports migl
war be closed against our coma
might be excluded from thos,
which we at present possess. H
Let it be conceded, for the sake of argu
land receives nothing in return, and yet
the abandonment of colonies will have ga
towards the attainment of their object by
if it shall appear that the maintenance of
is essential in any one respect, as it is it
the national influence and well-being of C
is impossible fair') to appreciate the value
to a parent State without contemplating fi
inevitable consequences of their abandon
This is a logical view, and if
out would lead to important con(
Mr. Mills, who is usually fair
meats, does not seem so when h(
Grey's argument that the presen
Jamaica, and our other West It
sions, is unfavorable to the t.l
government. Lord Grey says i
nial Policy " :
The actual condition of Jamaica, I rev
from being such as to show that the
powers of self-government affords tnat
for the welfare of a community and for tl
runt of affairs which many persons seem
Mr. Mills follows up this line of
Bat Jamaica is not the only British
seltgovernment " has disastrously coez
and political retrogression. Jamaica is it
too accurate a type of all those dependen
once the flourishing fields of tropical p
now fast relapsing into a state of physic
moral wilderness. . • •
West Indian colonies, the wealth, into'
dastry which once gave strength and c
body politic, are shrunk and withered ; th,
ancient Constitutions only remain. May
oat irreverence, Can thew cones live ?"
We appeal to the candour of Al
fair to refer the present depict
the West Indies to their self-gov(
it not the result of the over-rul
the Imperial Government? We
vies themselves have first aboli
and then sanctioned free trade v
d
ueing countries. If the ruin 4
nies is to be used as an argon
must be to show the evils result
want of self-government. Had
been abolished by the British I
!males, why might not Jamaica
have been as flourishing as Cuba
tepnse of English settlers comn
to that of Spanish settlers? a
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