The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-04-03 00:00:00

THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

We know not how we can render a more acceptable ser-
vice to the public, than by making some extracts from an
article in the Monthly Renew under this title. The occa-
sion for it arose from the puillication of a work printed at
Paris, Revue l'olitique de l'Eurupe en 1823. The vast sub-
ject on which it so ably awl eloquently treats, must be our
apology to those readers who have already seen the article
in question, and who will probably think with us that
the sentiments it contains and the inferences the writer
draws cannot be too extensively promulgated.
" The immense magnitude of the Roman empire might well have
justified the Roman pride. It coveted a million and a half of
square miles of the finest portion of the globe. Stretching three
thousand miles from west to east, from the Atlantic to the Eu-
phrates, and two thousand miles from the northern borders of Dada
to the tropic of Cancer, it was the sett of all the choicest fertility,
beauty. and wealth of earth. imagiea•ion sinks under the idea of
this prodigious power, in the hands of a single nation, and that na-
tion in the handif of one man.
• It might be difficult to penetrate the ultimate causes of this
mighty donative of supremacy to an Italian peninsula. But in
the °imminent of the Great Disposer of events nothing is done
without a reason, and that the wisest reason. The reduction of so
vast a portion of the earth under one sceptre has been presumed to
be among the providential means of extending Christianity. The
easier intercourse, the similarity of law, the more complete security
of individual life and property, the general pacification of nations,
who under separate authority would have filled each other's borders
with blood, all results of melting down the scattered diadems of
Europe and Asia into one, intlaabiy corresponded with the purpose
of propagating the last and greatest Revelation.
▪ Thu purpose Of the immensity of the Roman empire may ac-
count for the sudden breaking up of that empire, and the absence of
all probai•ility that it will ever have a successor. When Christian-
ity was once firmly fixed, the use of this superb accumulation was
et an end. None like itself 'Mall follow it, because its use cannot
return. Society Is reduced into fragments ; and the peaceful
ri-
entry of nations in arts and civilisation is to accomplish that illus-
trious progress, which, under the pressure of a vast uniform domi-
aloe, must have been looked for in vain.
,• But another paramount dominion was yet to be born, of a
totally different nature: less solid, yet perhaps not less permanent ;
and less directly wearing the shape of authority, yet perhaps still
more irresistible, and in extent throwing the power of Rome ode of
ail comparison—the British empire. Its sceptre is Influence. The
old policy brought force into the field against force : it tore down
the opposing bulwarks by main strength ; it chained down the
neck of the barbarian whom it had drat discomfited by the sword.
This was the rude discipline of times, when tht sternness of asvage
human nature was to be tamed only by the dexterous mud resolute
sternness of civilization. But a nobler and more softened state of
our being has followed, and for it a more lofty and humane disci-
pline has been providentially given. England is now the ac:ual
governor of the earth, if true dominion is to be found in being
the common source of appeal in all the injuries and conflicts of
rival nations, the onmmon succour against the calamities of nature,
tbe great ally which every power threatened with war labours first
to secure or to appease, the centre on which is suspended the pate
of all nations, the defender of the wronged, the acknowledged
origin and example to which every rising nation looks for laws and
a constitution. For whose opulence and enjoyment are the ends of
the earth labouring at this hour ? For whom does the Polish pea-
sant run his plough through the ground ? For whom does the
American, with half a world between, hunt down his cattle or
plant his cotton ? For whom does the Chinese gather in his teas,
or the Brazilian his gold and precious stones ? England is befote
the eyes of them all. To whose market does every meithent of
the remotest corners of the world look ? To whose cabinet does
every power, from America to India, turn with interest surpassing
all other ? Whose public titling does every people struggling to
raise itself in the tank of nations supplicate ? The answer is sug-
gested at once. At this hour England stands, holding her shield
between the anxious and angry powers of Europe, and the young
independence of South America. At this hour a British cannon
fired, would be the signal for every kingdom of Europe to plunge
Into war. . . _ . . . .

This supremacy contains 41 the essentials of the old dominion
without its evils. It is empire without the charges, the hoards,
the profligacy, and the tyranny of empire. Nothing but despotism
could have kept together the mass of the Roman state. The na-
ture of its parts was repulsion, and the common band a chain of
iron. The supremacy of Eng!anti is of a more elevated kind, the
supremacy of a magnificent central luminary round which all the
rest revolve, urged by impulses suitable to their various frames,
and fallowing their common course, with a feeling that it is the
course of nature.

........
• The strength of the British empire at home, its close popula-
tion. its manufacturing and general commerce, are familiar to our
readers. On these points we shall here make no further observa-
tion, than that the late shocks to public credit seem to have been
altogether superficial and transitory. A hazardous system of trade
seceived a blow, which must have cane at some time or other, and
which could have come at no time with less national injury than in
peace. Some misconceptions of the financial interests of the
country have been put on their trill. But no permanent nor deep
results are to be dreaded. If the tempest came over us • like a
summer cloud. to wake our special wonder,' the bolt fell feebly,
scarzely left its vestige upon the ground.
If we glance at our empire in India, we shall find it the most
important toreign possession ever ruled by an European power.
The Spanish dominions in South America were more extensive, but
they were nineteen.twentieths wilderness, or desert, regions of
forest, swamp, or sand. In the peninsula of India. England
governs an immense realm of extraordinary fertility, for the chief
part crowded with population, and the ancient seat of wealth to the
world. By a gradual progress of combined policy and conquest,
she has advanced from a factory to an empire.
. . .

•• Of all the revolutions of power this was the happiest for India.
!Co country on earth had been, from the earliest periods of authentic
history, so habitually the object of invasion and plunder. Its
wealth, its diversity' of government, the harmless and nnwarlike
habits of its people, at once excited the cupidity and encouraged
the violence of' all the barbarian tribes of Asia. From the days of
Alexander, India was overflowed by the resistless depredations of
Tartar and Torroman from the east, the north, and the south, the
early Fenian. the Mogul under Zingia and Tamerlane, the Per-
sian again under Nadir Shah, the Saracens under 3lahomet's
generals and successors. While the Roman western empire was
sinking tinder the perpetual influx of northern invaders, the same
scene was going on in the east, but with the distinction, that the
Italian invader became a settler on the soil, and, gradually, a but.
wark against invasion. The Indian invadercame like the locust,
and went like the locust, to return at the moment when the first
vegetation sprang out of the withered and °tinkered soil. Tile
dynasties that arose in India from the blood of the 31ahornetan
conquerors inherited the savage and predatory spirit of their race,
and every throne was exposed to perpetual violence. The power
or England came like a mighty ailment of good Into the midst of
this chaos ; the system of mediation assuaged the wrath of the
barbarians, who bad till then never thought of delaying vengeance.
The fear of the irresistible English arms coerces the evil, and pro-
tected the peaceable, even where an English soldier never had
planted his foot. The territory in actual possession of the English
was proverbial for tranquillity. The land which had peen an in.
railer regularly, every desen years, and had been turned into a
lording wilderness by those most merciless of all marauders, has
Wye seen a hostile face Niti.:e the days of Ilyder Ali.
" Cavils are easily mate against all things human. There must
be weaknesses and deficiencies in all great establishments; but it
would be ungenerous and untrue to deity that the principles of our
Creezmeat in the East are conformable to the manliness, benevo-
and integrity of our national chancier. Our labours hare
been directed to the security of property, to the inculcation of
honesty and public fettling in the public functionaries, to the sanc-
tity of moral obligation, to the introduction of a purer judicial
rude."

Various details respecting the British territories in India
follow these remarks. Our foreign possessions are subse-
quently noticed, and their relative advantages to the mo-
ther country accurately defined. In speaking of our con-
nection with Continental polities, the reviewer proceeds:—
" The European politica of England are at once too diversified,
and too familiarly known,"to be detailed here. She is at this hour
the bond that keeps Europe in amity. The succession of the Em-
peror Nicholas has made it necessary that she should ascertain the
bearings of the Russian policy. She has sent the most distinguish.
ed general of Eurm a to explain her principles, and to receive the
Pledges of the Russian cabinet. Ills progress through the Conti-
nent has been like a continued triumph, a train of honouta paid to
the great soldier himself, and through him to his country. The
airtirs of Greece are probably among the objects of his mission ;
and humanity, anti the generous feeling that binds itself with the
glorious recollections of that most memorable of all lands, will
equally rejoice in the extinction of the bloody and useless war that
now exhausts her.
" But as a portion of the power of England, the prwsession of the
Seven Ides. and Malta, give her a right to a decided interference
in all that disturbs the tranquility of the Mediterranean. If great
European changes are to take place, the first will probably occur in
this quarter; and whenever England shall be forced to the stem
necessity of war, she will stand on an height from which her than.
derbalts wilt not be launched in vain."
The cencluaion of the article is short, and therefore
we will give it entire.
We have not al:uded to Ireland or Scotland in separate de-
pendencies; they are constantly assimilating more closely to Eng-
land, by the abolition of fi.cal restrictions, by similarity of man-
nem, and by identity of laws. 'I he unhappy dissensions which
throw Ireland bark in the general progress will gradeally yield to
melioration of law, of local government, and of personal feeling.
St e are cot among those prophets of evil who exhibit their as.
gazity in seeing the seeds of ruin in the moat palmy state of its.
tinn.t! good fortune. All the leading commercial powers hove
f dlen. But England stands in a condition distinct from them all.
.111 those states were exclusively commercial ; they had no real
fmndation in the land. Tyre, Carthage, Venice. Genoa, Hol-
land, had no territory extensive enough to give them a national ex-
istence independently of the sea : they were strips of territory, in.
h:onted by men whose natural dwelling was on chipboard ; they
had no population that could meet the attack of the military potters
hat pressed them by land : their armour was In front, their backs
were naked. All the maritime states were thus compelled to the
Perilous expedient of employing foreign mercenaries. The titer.
cantile Jealousy that uniformly refused the rights of citizenship to
the neighbouring statea. left the merchant naked in his day of
danger. The French c..ralty insulted the gates of Amsterdam at

pleasure; the Austrians seized Genoa, and besieged Venice. when
au Austrian cock-boat dared not appear on the Adriatic. In older
times. the mountaineers of Macedon tore down the defences of the
Phamician cities, when their ships were masters of all from Syria to
the Pillars of Hercules. Scipio found but a solitary force of mer-
cenaries between the shore and the walls of Carthage.
" From the catastrophe of those jealous, narrow, and feeble
states, what argument can be drawn to the fate of the generous, the
extensive, the powerful, and, above all, the free.
" The population of the British isles is washy of • great domi-
nion. It probably amounts to twenty millions; and that vast num-
ber is generally placed under ouch fortunate circumstances of rapid
communication and easy concentration, as to be equal to perhaps
half as many more in any other kingdom. This facility of inter-
course is one of the great elements of civilised strength. The ra-
pid returns of merchandise are nut more indicative of prosperous
trade thee the rapid intercourse of human kind is essential to na-
tional vigour. For whatever purpose united strength can be de.
mended, it Is forwarded to the spot at once. If England were
threatened with invasion, • hundred thousand men could be con.
veyed to the defence of any of her coasts within four-and-twenty
' hours !
"Some common yet curious calculations evince the singular faci-
lity and frequency of this intercourse. The mail coaches of England
non over twelve thousand miles in a single night—half the circum-
ference of the globe! A newspaper published in the morning in
London is, by the Mlle night, read a hundred anti twenty miles
off I The twopenny-post revenue of London alone is said to equal
the whole postmlfice revenue of Frcace ! The traveller going at
night from London, Sleeps, on the second night, tour hundred
miles off / The length of canal navigation in the vicinage of hon.
don is computed to equal the whole canal navigation of France !
" But the most important distinction between the materiel of
Bridal) strength and that of the commercial republics is not merely
in the extent but in the diversity of its population. The laud is
net all a dock-yard, nor a manufactory, nor a barrack, nor a
ploughed field : oar national ship does not sweep on by • single
sail. With a manufacturing population of three millions, we have
a professional population, a naval population, and a most powerful,
healthy, and superabundant agricultural population, which supplies
the drain of them all. Of this last and most essential class to
permanent power, the famous commercial republics were wholly
destitute, and they therefore fell. England has been an indepen.
dent and ruling itinpliotn since the invasion in lOW, a period al.
ready longer that the duration of the Roman empire from Cesar,
and equal to its wholeduration from the Consulate, the time of its
emerging into nat;ortal importance.
" But if the moment of arriving at pre-eminent prosperity should
always be the destined moment of a nation's descent. England
would be, beyond all existing nations, in peril. Her king at this
hour commands a population more numerous than that of any
other sceptre on the globe, (excepting the probably exaggerated,
and the certainly ineffective, multitudes of China), lie is monarch
over nearly one hundred and twenty millions of men. With him
the old Spanish boast is true :—' (In his dominions the min never
sets.' But the most illustrious attribute of this unexampled away
is, that its principle is benevolence! that knowledge goes forth
with it, that tyranny sinks before it, that in its magnificent progress
it abates the calamities of nature, that it plants the desert, that it
civilises the savage, that it strikes off the fetters of the slave !"