The National Register.
London, England, 1812-05-10 00:00:00

N°. 228.

POLITICAL DISQ CISIIION.

No. '2ll.

STATE OF THE NATION.

It is no less true in the political than in the moral world,
that as there is no good without its concomitant alloy,
there is scarcely an instance of the occurrence of any evil
which does not bring with it, either directly or by neces-
sary derivation, the means of its own counteraction.—
This aphorism so just and general, but at the same time
so consolatory, will find a ready confirmation, as well
in the course of individual observation, as in the tide
of universal experience. In the multitude of illustra-
tions that could be drawn from the annals of private life,
cr the records of public affairs, there cannot be found a
single instance of a crisis, individual or national, better
calculated to establish the truth of this moral axiom,
than the present situation of the concerns external and do-
mestic of the British empire. Whilst its fleets and its ar-
mies have been extending its dominion and its glories, by
Cie reduction of the territories and the destruction of the
military predominance of the eneri:y, the expenditure re-
qaired for the great and gigantic efforts that have been
made, has, by a kind of re-action upon the means and
moral feelings and energies of the people, contributed not
a little to that state of internal disquietude and distrac-
tion, which has for so many months been the object of
surprise and sorrow to every true and tried friend to his
Country.
However we may lament this perhaps inevitable conse-
quence of the unparalleled efforts of the State, in the pro-
secution of this just andi necessary war, we cannot shut
our eyes to the effect which the temporary interruption of
the accustomed employment of some branches of our ma-
nufacturers, must have upon the means of continuing the
contest. If the war be to be continued, (and unless it
eau be honourably and safely terminated, we are con-
vinced that there is no true Englishman who does not
wish it to be prosecuted with vigour,) it is indispensably
necessary to keep up the effective strength of the British
army to its full establishment. At a time when scarcity
is staring the Country in the face, it must be obviously
the interest of the whole community, that the recruiting
of the army should not withdraw the numbers of men re-
glired from the class of agricultural labourer ; and if it
be indispensable that the ranks of the army should be effi-
ciently recruited, to what part of the community can we
look with more propriety or confidence for the necessary
supply, than to those, whose ordinary employment has
been cut off by the unfortunate but unavoidable effects of
the war ;--who are unfitted by the habits and propensities
VO7. V. No. ccxxvw.

PatrE f)(?;

of their past lives for the pursuit of other branches of in-
dustry, and who, whilst they remain unemployed in their
own particular line, instead of being a source of wealth
or of strength to the state, as they would in their ordinary
occupations, or in the army, must become an exhautless
mine of domestic distraction and external debility ?
It is this facility of procuring men at a time when the
crisis calls for unremitted and augmented exertions, that
constitutes the consolation, (melancholy no doubt it is)
under the pressure of the times, and the privations to
which the working manufacturers are thereby exposed.
This sentiment, we know, is not likely to be well re-
lished either by the manufacturers who have prospered by
the labours of their workmen, or by the men who are
now unhappily paying the penalty of the overstrained spe-
culations of their employers. But both the employc:-s and
the working manufacturers form but a part, and a small
part of the whole community. We feel most sensibly and
deeply for the distresses of either and the difficulties of
both ; but we can never divest ourselves of a paramount
attachment and regard to the interests of the country at
large. As men mu.: be had, it is not a mockery of their
distress or a proof of apathy in their sufferings, to consi•
der it some consolation, that, if the manufacturers cannot
be usefully employed at home, they may actively and es-
sentially serve their Country abroad ; and, as there is no
other prospect of bringing the war to a happy conclusion,
which alone can revive the flourishing condition of the
manufacturers now under a temporary discouragement,
than by vigorously following up the glorious opening of
the present campaign, we are persuaded we perform
an unaffected and important duty to our Country, in
wishing that the great mass of discharged workmen
should go rather to fill the ranks of the gallant army un-
der Lord WELLINGTON, than remain at home to swell the
lists of the riotous and refractory disturbers of the public
peace.

When we look to what has been done in the Penin-
sula—to our endless acquisitions in the East and West—to
the growing progress of independent spirit and sound na-
tional feeling amongst some of the governments and states of
the Continent—when we contemplate Sweden emancipated
from the :hackles of foreign influence, and from a base
subserviency to the interests and controul of an ambitious
and usurping all y— when we see Russia bursting her chains,
and nobly recovering her lofty bearing, after a prostration
of four years—when we perceive the arm that was ever
ready to beat down its devoted victim now for many
months paralised by the surprise of such unexpected oppo-
sition, and wavering as to the point where the blow should
be struck) lest some vital vulnerable part should be left cx-