The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-27 00:00:00

LAPrIARTINE'S NEW WORK.

MEMOIRS OF MY YOUTH.
de Lamartine.

By Alphonse

One of the principal attractions of the brilliant
journal of M. Emile de Girardin has recently termi-
nated. The poet of Jocelyn, the pilgrim of Holyland,
the historian of the Girondists, the hero of February,
has closed that narrative of his youth which has long
been appearing in fragments in the feuilleton of La
Presse. Now that these remarkable revelations have
been completed, we find them in a little volume*
translated into our mother tongue. The fascination
of the work is singular, and its singularity is attri-
butable more to the novelty of the theme than to the
genius of the writer. Charming as the poetical de•
lineations of scenery are throughout the twelve books,
winning as are the sentiments, inspired as is the elo-
quence, and touching as is the pervading melancholy
of the whole confession--we cannot but see at once
that the spell which binds one to the volume from the
first sentence until the end of the last chapter, from
the infant remembrance of Milly to the twilight
walk among the suburbs of Chambery, is the
knowledge that we are perusing a record of
the obscure childhood of a great man penned by
him in the midst of his greatness. We are
permitted to penetrate into the darkness and lowli-
ness of the past guided by a beam of glory from the
present. On beginning to read the introductory
passages it is impossible to conjecture that behind the
curtain of that calm and monotonous infancy there
lie so many strange and enthralling adventures. You
linger over the descriptions of the little household in
which Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine first saw
the light. You hear his sorrowing but melodious
voice chaunting the apotheosis of his mother's virtues
until you acknowledge with reverence the truth of
that beautiful phrase (p. 22) " our mother's look is a
portion of our soul which penetrates into our being
through the portals of our eyes." You pause over
the account of that parent's maiden existence—
brought up in the palace of St. Cloud with the chil-
dren of Egalite, learning the. same lessons, and en-
joying the same sports with the King Louis Philippe
—until you see the child Alix des Roys blooming
into the wife of the Chevalier de Lamartine. You
watch the career of that honourable but impoverished
gentleman from his, marriage, when thirty-eight,
to his death, when ninety. You gaze again
and again into the parlour of the little house near
Moon, until your imagination becomes familiarized
with the group formed there fifty-two years ago by
that father, and that mother, and those eight children.
You follow the eldest of those children until he
emerges from the Jesuit College at Belley, on the
frontiers of France and Savoy, where he has been
educated, and gradually, little by little, the conscious-
ness that so much fire of heart, of mind, of soul, and
of ambition, cannot remain long within the limits of
common-place boundaries dawns on you—and you
read on chapter by chapter with the curiosity of one
reading something more severe than fiction, some-
thing more surprising than romance. One by one
you obtain a glimpse into the mysterious obscurities
(p. this
19p4o)e—t (p. 95)—the " first
of this destiny—the "first love" Lucy L s' —.the first sorrow in
sthpeeec‘hlrosft
tvheLsoeras" ofto
this life of calamities—the first enterprise in this ca-
reer of vicissitudes. When the reader has gone so far
he recognises the force of that plaintive excuse
made by the author for his constitutional seriousness
(p. 34.), his life dating, like so many others, from
those gloomy days which have "imparted to French
literature a tinge of sadness and an impress of me-
lancholy." In the course of the narrative of his
youthful griefs and pleasures it is impossible but that
such a mind as that of Lamartine should scatter here
and there thoughts sparkling with the lustre of his
genius and coloured by the hues,of his imagination.
Occasionally the thoughts are odd enough, as where
he terms (p. 157) the fruit called medlars " those
grandchildren of the orange." But more frequently
the ideas are golden, stamped with the effigies of
rhetoric. Like Aladdin passing through the garden
of precious stones, some of these jewels have clung
to the trailing folds of our memory. We cull them
from those recesses of recollection and present them
to our readers :
PATHOS TRUE GENIUS.—" He who knows how to melt
the heart knows all. There is more of genius in one
tear than in all the museums and in all the libraries of
the universe. Man is like a tree which is shaken to
make it yield its fruit; he is never moved that tears do
not fall."
A HOUSEHOLD.—" Every family is a history in itself,
and even a poem, to those who know how to search its
pages."

A THUNDERBOLT FOR THE SOCIALISTS.—" I CaII un-
derstand the wish to extend the boundaries of family ;
but to destroy it !---it is a blasphemy against nature,
and an outrage on the human heart."
THE COUNT DE MAISTRE.—" His genius was only
rough hewn, but it was of mighty proportions. He was
a savage Rossuet, and an illiterate Tertullian."
PAUL AND VIRGINIA.—" That manual of artless love;
a book which seems a page borrowed from the childhood
of the world, torn from the history of the human heart,
and preserved all pure and all bathed in tears contagious
for the eyes of sixteen."
OSSIAN.—" That poet of the vague and undefined,
that mist of the imagination, that inarticulate plaint of
the northern seas, that foam of the waves, that murmur of
the shadows, that eddying of the clouds around the tem-
pest-beaten peaks of Scotland, that northern Dante, as
grand, as majestic, as supernatural as the Dante of
Florence, and more sensible than he, and who often
wrings from his phantoms cries more human and more
heartrending than those of the heroes of Homer.
Curious scholars have pretended, and still pretend, that
he never existed nor wrote, and that his poems are a
forgery of Macpherson's. I should as soon believe that
Ureter Rosa invented nature."
CRIME.—" Open depravity is the ideal reversed ; it is
the parody of physical and moral beauty; it is the crimo
of the mind ; it is the brutalizing of the imagination."
MICHAEL ANGELO--" Is the Moses of architectural
Catholicism. He has erected an imperishable ark for
future times, a Pantheon of Reason purified and rendered
divine, an apotheosis in stone, a monumental transfigu-
ration of the religion of Christ."
As a final quotation, we give a paragraph descrip-
tive of the writer's appearance when a child :
" I was permitted to grow up, to become strong and
handsome, by battling, winter and summer, with the ele-
ment?. This regimen agreed with me to a miracle, and
I was at that period one of the handsomest children who
ever trod with their naked feet the rocks of our moun-
tains, where the human race is nevertheless so healthy
and so fair. Eyes of a dark blue, like those of my mo-
ther; features pure and almost iomaa in their outline,
softened by a rather pensive expression like her own; a
dazzling ray of inward joy lighting up the whole coun-
tenance; soft, fine hair of a golden brown, like the ripe
husk of the Chesnut, falling in waves rather than curls
over my neck, ernbrewned by exposure to the sun; a fi-
gure already tsll for my age, agile, flexible, and grace-
ful in its movements; with merely an extreme delicacy
of skin, which also descended to me from my mother, and
a readiness to blush and grow pale, which displayed the
fineness of the tissues, the rapidity and the power of the
emotions of the heart on the features; in a word, the por-
trait of my mother, with the addition of a manly accent
and an expression—such was the child I was at
that age,"
Anecdotes of the most entertaining character
abound throughout the " Memoirs," from the stolen
interviews between the father and mother of the author,

when the former was a prisoner during the Reign of
Terror, to the episode of the love story of the Abbe
Dumont before he became an ecclesiastic. But the

whole charm of Hie work is concentrated in the exqui-
site narrative relating to Graziella. One portion of
this latest of the productions of M. de Lamartine we
have reserved until the last for consideration—it is
that in which he speaks of the greatest Emperor
who ever existed on this earth—Napoleon.
Upon the subject of Napoleon, M. de Lamartine
evinces a littleness of mind which is absolutely
astounding in a man of such enlarged and remarkable
genius. He not only displays upon this point a pre-
judice unworthy of so noble an intellect, but a detes-
tation unbefitting a .heart so good and generous.
When first he mentions the name of the Emperor, he
avows at once, in so many words, his profound and
inextinguishable HATRED "for the hero of the age," a
hatred, (these are his own words, page 109), " a
hatred the offspring at once of feeling and of reason,
which reflection and time have only justified, not-
withstanding the vile flatterers of his memory—a
hatred which lam proud to have preserved through
life, and which I hope to retain till death." Even
supposing this were spoken of a man still living, it
would be hideous. But when we remember that the

august remains of the imperial conqueror are reposing
in their tomb " on the banks of
.the Seine, in the

midst of the French people whom he loved so well,"
when we remember that the great heart of Napoleon
has ceased to beat, that his glorious eyes are closed
for ever, and that his anointed brow is cold in death,
we may well ask if such harsh and cruel expressions
are worthy of a believer in Christianity. Our whole
soul revolts from them, and we pass on. So
deep and virulent, however, is the animosity
of M. de Lamartine for the Giant who saved the

Revolution from being trodden into the dust by five
successive coalitions, and who raised his country from
being the opprobrium to be the arbiter and mistress
of the world, that he condescends to degrade his pen
into the miserable
_weapon of a caricaturist. After

the ignominious flight of Louis XVIII., a flight
which he absurdly attempts to gloze over as an act
little short of the chivalrous, M. de Lamartine returns
to Paris. Recollect—it is the Hundred Days. He
goes to the Place de Carrousel and witnesses a review
of the troops by the Emperor. - Here is his ignoble
caricature of Napoleon's appearance on that occasion :
" His head was buried in his shoulders. His large
and livid cheeks protruded beyond the tight collar of his
uniform. His features, which were as yellow as an
orange, seemed to perspire with anxiety. His forehead
was wrinkled with the cares of his situation."

We call this a vile caricature, and we do so not so
much because every other account of Napoleon's
appearance proves its falsity in each particular, as by
reason of the circumstance that we happen to have at
our elbow at the time we are now writing, a contra-
dictio
—in point—of every line in that caricature.

Our authority is the present Right Hon. the Presi-
dent of the Board of Control, Sir John Cam Hob-
house. In 1815, during the whole of the Hundred
Days, Sir John Cam Hobhouse was living in Paris.
He there witnessed a review of the troops before the
Emperor, in the Place de Carrousel—it may have
been the very review witnessed by M. de Lamartine.
Writing a description of this review to his friend
Lord Byron, Sir John thus sketches the portrait of
Napoleon _ _

'Two officers of the guard were kind enough to push
me forward within ten paces of him [a distance rather
calculated to afford the writer the opportunity of a severe
scrutiny]. . . . The troops were two hours passing
before him, during the whole of which time any assassin,
unless disarmed by his face of fascination [large livid
cheeks, yellow, wrinkled, and perspiring, would hardly
come within that definition; and two hours' view at
ten paces' distance would scarcely conceal such cha-
racteristics from a keen -sighted observer] might have
shot or even stabbed him
.1 saw nothing
but Napoleon—the single individual to destroy whom the
earth was rising from the Tanais to the Thames. . . .
The principal charm of the spectacle arose from
the contemplation of the great peril to be en-
countered by the one UNDAUNTED mortal before
my eyes [no mention here of any ' perspiring
from an xie ty.']
me like any of his portraits, except that one in
the saloon of the palace of the legislative body, nor did
I ever see any man just like him. His face was of a
deadly pale [not as yellow as an orange']; his jaws
overhung, but not so much as I had heard; his lips
thin, but partially curled, so as to give to his mouth an
inexpressible sweetness His hair was of
a dark, dusky, brown He was not fat
in the upper part of his body [not a syllable about his
head being ' buried in his shoulders.']
looked about him, not knitting, but joining his eyebrows,
as if to see more minutely." [After describing a
beautiful incident which occurred in the course of
the review between the Emperor and a poor
mendicant, Sir John thus concludes his letter]—
" I see Napoleon at this moment. The unruffled
calmness of his countenance at the first movement of
the soldier relaxing softly into a look of at-
tention and kindness will never be effaced from my
memory. We are not stocks, nor atones, nor Tories.
I am not ashamed to say that on recovering from my
first surprise, I found my eyes somewhat moistened; a
weakness that never fails to overpower some persons,
when alone and unrestrained by ridicule, at the perusal
of any trait of unmixed heroism, especially of that un-
daunted tranquillity of mind which formed and finished
the master-spirits of antiquity."—Hobhouse's Letters to
Lord Byron. Vol. 1., p. 33.
Now Lamartine, be it remembered, is a Frenchman,
and Hobhouse is an Englishman—Hobhouse pro-
fesses neither partiality for, nor antipathy to, Na-
poleon—Lamartine avows, as we have shown, that
he regards Napoleon with a hatred he is proud to
preserve and hopes to retain until his death. The
proportion of credit to be given to the two witnesses
is, therefore, clearly manifest. Besides what we have
already quoted, it may not be superfluous to mention
in disproof of M. de Lamartine's villanous and pitiable
caricature, that another Englishman, Captain
Basil Hall, in his voyage from Loo Choo, " men-
tions his interview with the Captive of
St. Helena, and remarks, among other phy-
sionomical traits, the marble-like smoothness
of his forehead--not a wrinkle having blurred its
serenity, even under the hell of Sir Hudson Lowes
insolence. M. de Lamartine speaks of the Emperor's
image having been, since 1815, flattered in bronze and
marble—and yet it would be rather difficult to point
out a bust of more superb beauty in feature, or of
more sublime grandeur in expression, than the colossal
statue in white marble by Canova, now preserved in
the hall at Apsley House. And Cermea was a Re-
publican in his predilections, and certainly no flatterer.
Elsewhere M. de Lamartine has the coolness, we had
almost said the effrontery, to declare that the French
people, detesting the imperial regime, had no part
whatever in the enthusiasm of the Return from Elba.
In the recent election of the representative of the
Napoleonian dynasty, by universal suffrage, through
the ballot, to the office of President over the French
Republic, six million voices have given that assertion
the lie I We lament the falsities to which we have
here referred, as being derogatory to the great
ness of mind and the goodness of heart of so great
and good a man as M. de Lamartine.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING THE

AMENDMENT OF THE LAW.

LAW OF PARTNERSHIP.
The ordinary general meeting of the society was held
last night at their rooms, 21, Regent-street,-for the pur-
pose of further considering the recommendations of the
committee as to limiting the liabilities of dormant part-
ners; Mr. Yates occupied the chair.
Mr. SYMONDS, the secretary of the society, in reopen-
ing the debate, which was adjourned from the previous
meeting, as he considered the question now before them
was one, not of principle, but of detail, proposed to sub-
mit several suggestions as to the practical means of car-
rying out with safety the recommendation of partner.
ship en commandite, as it was called in France, or the
system of limited liabilities in the case of dor-
mant, and it might be secret, partners. He re-
commended that every company based on this prin •
ciple should be registered in a public office, such as
that now existing for joint-stock companies; and
that the form of registration, differing from that adopted
in the case of joint-stock companies, should be a common
form, similar to that adopted in the advertisement of in.
surance companies, showing at a glance, where the proper
conditions were present, and where absent. Ho pro-
posed that this registration should Le published regu-
larly, as, for example, the " Law List" was, with supple-
ments if necessary, perhaps once a quarter; and that
this list, where every partnership en commandite must
appear, should be framed by the registrar in the same
manner as the certificates of attorneys for the "Law
List." All this would fall short of what was required
without a tribunal, formed on the model of the Bankruptcy
Court, to which questions arising out of this kind of
partnership might be referred; the Attorney-General
prosecuting wherever failure was the consequence of
fraud, and the expenses of the court and of the annual
list being supported by a fee charged upon the issue of
each company's certificate. Such were his suggestions
for carrying into practice the principle of partnership
en commandite, and, in making them he disclaimed any
participation in the alarm expressed by some, which he
thought entirely arose from the abuses of the present
system.

Mr. WILLIAM HAWES refused to have the principle
assumed, and contended that those who would change
the law, as it now is, must prove there was a necessity
for the change, and that the present system was in-
sufficient for the purposes of trade. The principle which
repudiated debts beyond a fixed amount, if good for
companies, must be valid in the case of individuals.
Were they prepared to carry out their principle? He
considered that the agent, or gerant, or acting partner
en commandite, was an uncontrolled trafficker, because the
moment his dormant colleagues interfered by advice or
voting, at a private meeting, they immediately became
responsible for the whole amount of liabilities contracted.
The consequences of this were, that the world would
cease to trust a concern where the managing partner was
uncontrolled; and the difficulties occasioned in law, as
French lawyers knew, by one and another of the dor-
mant partners appearing to pass the limits of non-inter-
ference in the affairs of the concern were inextricable.
He believed the proposed change would be productive of
great fraud and immense abuse.
Mr. Commissioner PANE, who supported the recom-
mendation of the committee, considered that the remarks
of Mr. Hawes went entirely to the qualifications of the
main principle, which was simply this, that a man might
give a certain amount of money to a firm but withhold
his name. Some gentlemen were confounding the pub-
lication of the names with the main principle involved.
He saw no :necessity for the name being known at all,
and if not known of course the secret partner could
neither be guilty of deceiving nor of defrauding any
one. He would have such a partner also take an active
superintendence
in h
teconduct of i
oft he concernts affairs. In ft, h
sofar as to
ac consult
e
an
counselcl
dis-
missed all the restrictions proposed by the committee as
absurd, and adopted the simple principle as expressed
in the first of the resolutions drawn up by the
committee in the followimg terms :—" That it is
advisable to allow the formation of partnerships,
in which, while the liability of the ostensible
and active partners continues unlimited, parties
who take no active share in the business, and whom
it is proposed to call limited partners, should be able
to restrict their liability to the amount of capital
agreed to be advanced by them." This was just that
principle which by the union of small means accom-
plished marvellous ends, that was required by society as
it now existed.

Mr. Alderman Salomons, Mr. A'Bcckett, Mr. Frede-
rick Hill, and Mr. Neale, afterwards addressed the so-
ciety in support of the committee's report, and Mr. Wil-
son, Mr. Goldsmid, and Mr. Elliott against it.
The CHAIRMAN then put the following questions to
the vote, namely:—That the report be received; carried
by a majority of eight to four. That the rule of English
law, by which partners are unable in any case, except by
special sanction of Government, to limit the amount of
their responsibility for engagements made in the business
of the firm requires amendment; carried by ten to fivo.
That the introduction into England of the system known
as partnership en commandite, due precaution boing taken
against any fraudulent abuse of it, would be desirable;
carried by ten. to five.
The meeting then separated.

SMITHFIELD-MARKET. Ye-sterday afternoon a
public meeting was held at the London Tavern, for the
purpose of taking into consideration the most efficient
measures to be adopted.
_for the removal of Smithfield
Cattle-market. xir. Bennoch took the chair, and
briefly addressed the: lmeeting upon the combination—a
great and growiAg monopoly, possessing much power—
which had for a series of years usurped the whole trade
of the cattle and dead meat markets of the metropolis.
In the open area of Smithfield-market the greatest in-
decencies were constantly being committed, while gross
cruelty and brutality was hourly practised towards the
cattle exposed for sale. The health of the public was
likewise materially affected, by the horrid effluvia that
arose from the filthy slaughter-houses in the vicinity.
Several gentlemen addressed the meeting, and resolu-
tions in accordance with its objects were unanimously
agreed to. A committee was then appointed to carry out
the objects of the assembly ; and after votes of thanks
had been passed to the Chairman and Hon. Secretary,
each of whom acknowledged the compliment, the meet-
ing adjourned.

N ORTH-AMERICAN RAIL WAY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE BRIGHTON GAZETTE.
Sir,—The very flattering notice you were kind enough
to give in your paper of yesterday to the contents of the
pamphlet I had the pleasure to forward a few days ago
for your perusal and consideration entails upon me the
necessity of again intruding upon your valuable time,—in
the first place, to have an opportunity of returning,
which I do most sincerely, my grateful thanks for the
highly favourable remarks you have, as an impartial
public journalist, considered it 3 our duty to make on my
perhaps rather too enthusiastic endeavours to arouse
general attention to what has long appeared to me a
question of vital importance to the British empire.
That the subjects in favour of which I have ventured
to appear before my countrymen should have enlisted
your powerfal aid did not in the least exceed my expec-
tations; but that you should at once so fairly and so
boldly stated, when alluding to the other proposed routes
across the American Continent, and more particularly to
the one of the Lake of San Juan, de Nicaragua, that—
"We think that the views developed in the able pam-
phlet of Major Carmichael Smyth. will go far towards
effscting a revolution in public opinion," is so gratifying
to my feelings, and so encouraging to my labours, that
if I am now troublesome in urging forward this great
national undertaking through the medium of your co-
lumns, I trust, with you at least, I shall meet with some
excuse, particularly for not quietly allowing the follow-
ing remark, extracted from the Morning Chronicle of the
7th instant, to pass unnoticed :
" The fact is that from various circumstances, such as
the vicinity of the United States, the manner in which
the public lands of the colony have been disposed of, and
the feelings of the present inhabitants with respect to
immigration, we have long ceased to regard Canada as a
proper field for settlement at once systematic and ex-
tensive."
Now, Sir, we have the highest authority on points of
honour to warn us that (I quote from memory) no man
has a right, by speech or in writing, to impute improper
motives to another;" and far be it from me, therfore, to
insinuate even, that the writer of the article in the
Chronicle asserts other than what he firmly believes; but
when the columns of a public journal, extensively cir-
culated (and, as we are led to believe, powerfully sup-
ported), contains opinions so highly detrimental to the
welfare and prosperity of a most important section of
this great empire, it would indeed be a neglect of duty on
the part of those holding different opinions to remain
silent.
Let the writers of the articles for the Chronicle bring
forward whatever reasons they will in favour of any sys-
tem for New Z.aland, the Cape of Good Hope, or any
of our other colonies, let them use their best endeavours
for the happiness of them all, let them point out how in
every way they may be benefited ; but let them pause
before they again lend their aid to those who wish to
induce the pulic to believe that our magnificent and
loyal colonies, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and
Canada, are unfit for the reception of our emigrants,
either from vicinity to the United States, from local
arrangements regarding land, or from auy other cause
whatsoever. The author of "The Art of Colonization"
says—
" But whatever may be the cause, I have no doubt
that the love of England is the ruling sentiment of
English colonies;" and with him on this point I most
cordially agree. By neglect, we may certainly oblige
our colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada
to look to America as their best friend, and thus drive
them from us; but we may depend upon it they will go
with a heavy heart, and England may repent with a
broken spirit. I can look forward to the continually in-
creasing greatness of our extensive empire, if we expect
ourselves to fulfil its apparent destiny; but " there is a
tide in the affair of "nations as well as in those of "men,"
and its " ebb" may carry away the landmarks of our
glory and of our prosperity not so easily hereafter to be
replaced.
In the Executive Council Chamber of Canada on the
20th Decembsr, 1848, it was resolved—" that the Com-
mittee of Council have no doubt that the Canadian
Legislature would be prepared to sanction any measure
having for its object the transcer to her Majesty's Govern-
ment of the unsettled crown lands, through which the
proposed railroad would pass, to the extent of 10 miles
in depth on each side, and that it would further under-
take to obtain, at the expense of the province, all the
private propery required for the railroad line in Canada
and for the several stations."
In the Council Chamber of Fredericton, New Bruns-
wick, on the 6th of January of this year, present his Ex
cellency the Lieutenant-Governor, it was decided that—
" The Council having considered these documents with
great attention and satisfaction, fully concur with the
opinion expressed by Major Robinson in his very able
report, that while the projected railway will be of great
advantage to provincial interests, it is at the same time
a work of imperative necessity, in a national point of
view, for the preservation and integrity of this portion of
her Majesty's dominions.
" Participating in this conviction, the Board anxiously
desire to co-operate with the adjoining colonies in a
practicable scheme for the completion of so important an
undertaking.
" No question of greater importance to British colonial
interests could be presented for the consideration of the
Government. Upon it hangs the destiny of these pro-
vinces as portions of the empire. In its favourable ter-
mination we view the only guarantee of colonial unity
and British supremacy in British North America; and so
deeply rooted do we believe to be the attachment of this
colony to British institutions, that we are of opinion no
opposition will be offered in our legislature to the pro-
position of the Canadian Government however its adop-
tion might bear on what has hitherto been the principal
staple of the province."
These resolutions of the Council have reference to the
proposed Halifax Quebec Railway, and also to the in-
crease of duty from is. to 7s 61. on colonial timber, as a
security to the :British Government for any advances
they may make for the completion of such railway. I
will now, Sir, conclude with a few observations from the
report of Major Robinson, presented to Parliament by
command of her Majesty, and just printed:—
" For any great plan of emigrating or colonization
there is not another British colony which presents such
a favourable field for the trial as New Brunswick. To
17,000,000 of productive acres, there are only 208,000
inhabitants. Of these 11,000,000 are still public pro-
perty. On the surface is an abundant stock of the
finest timber, which in the markets of England realise
large sums annually, and afford an unlimited supply of
fuel to the settlers. If these should ever be exhausted,
there are the coal fields underneath. The rivers, lakes,
and sea coasts abound with fish."
Then as to the practicability of carrying on the line of
railway to the Pacific. It can be clearly shown that a
similar description of country, and indeed in many parts
far superior for agricultural purposes, runs through the
whole length of that parallel of latitude in which would
be constructed the great British colonial railway com-
munication that has been proposed in my letter, to the
author of the Clockmaker; and as a means of affording
permanent work to our starving and unemployed popu-
laticn, as a means of enabling the country to make a per •
manent system of national colonization, and, at the same
time, of assisting the legislature to relieve the country
from the expense of what the Times so justly observed on
the 19th February, " We cannot afford to spend 50/.
a year on a convict at home." As a means, then, I say,
of materially assisting in the solution of all these im-
portant questions, now agitating public opinion, I do not
believe any better plan can be suggested; and I believe
also, if judiciously and systematically undertaken, the
ultimate consequence of this great national work, instead
of being a drain on the finances of England, will increase,
to an immense extent, both her revenue and her capital.
With many apologies for the length of this communication,
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient and much obliged servant,
ROBERT CARMICHAEL SMITH.
17, Preston-street, Brighton, March 9, 1849.