be better than the English, or Mr. Pitt lefs virtuous than Ariftides.

Are we then fo poor in refources that we can do no better with eighteen or twenty fhips of the line than to burn them? Had we fent for French Royalift naval officers, of which fome hundreds are to be had, and made them select such seamen as they could trust, and filled the reft with our own and Mediterranean seamen, which are all over Italy, to be had by thousands, and put them under judicious English commanders in chief, and with a judicious mixture of our own fubordinates, the Weft Indies would at this day have been ours. It may be faid that these French officers would take them for the King of France, and that they would not be in our power. Be it fo. The iflands would not be ours, but they would not be jacobinized. This is however a thing impoffible. They muft in effect and fubftance be ours. But all is upon that false principle of distrust, which, not confiding in strength, can never have the fuil ufe of it. They that pay, and feed, and equip, must direct. But I muft fpeak pain upon this fubject. The French iflands, if they were all our own, ought not to be all kept. A fair partition only ought to be made of thofe territories. This is a fubject of policy very serious, which has many relations and afpects. Juft here I only hint at it as anfwering an objection, whilft I ftate the mifchievous confequences which fuffer us to be furprized into a virtual breach of faith, by confounding our ally with our enemy, because they both belong to the fame geographical territory.

My clear opinion is, that Toulon ought to be made, what we fet out with, a royal French city. By the neceffity of the case, it must be under the influence, civil and military, of the allies. But the only way of keeping that jealous and difcordant mafs from tearing its component parts to pieces, and hazarding the lofs of the whole, is to put the place into the no

minal government of the Regent, his officers being approved by us. This, I fay, is abfolutely neceffary for a poife amongst ourfelves. Otherwife is it to be believed that the Spaniards, who hold that place with us in a fort of partnership contrary to our mutual intereft, will fee us abfolute masters of the Mediterranean, with Gibraltar on one fide, and Toulon on the other, with a quiet and compofed mind, whilft we do little lefs than declare that we are to take the whole Weft Indies into our hands, leaving the vaft, unwieldy, and feeble body of the Spanish dominions in that part of the world abfolutely at our mercy, without any power to balance us in the fmalleft degree.

Nothing is fo fatal to a nation as an extreme of felf-partiality, and the total want of confideration of what others will naturally hope or fear. Spain muft think the fees, that we are taking advantage of the confufions which reign in France, to disable that country, and, of courfe, every country from affording her protection, and in the end, to turn the Spanith monarchy into a province. If the faw things in a proper point of light, to be fure, fhe would not confider any other plan of politics as of the leaft moment in comparison of the extinction of jacobinifim. But her minifters (to fay the beft of them), are vulgar politicians. It is no wonder that they fhould poftpone this great point, or balance it, by confiderations of the common politics, that is, the queftions of power between ftate and ftate. If we manifeftly endeavour to deftroy the balance, especially the maritime and commercial balance, both in Europe and the Weft Indies (the latter their fore and vulnerable part) from fear of what France may do for Spain hereafter, is it to be wondered, that Spain, infinitely weaker than we are (weaker, indeed, than fuch a mafs of empire ever was) fhould feel the fame fears from our uncontroùled power, that we give way to ourfelves from a fuppofed refurrection of the ancient power of France under a

monarchy? It fignifies nothing whether we are wrong or right in the abstract; but in respect to our relation to Spain, with fuch principles followed up in practice, it is abfolutely impoffible that any cordial alliance can fubfift between the two nations. If Spain goes, Naples will fpeedily follow. Pruffia is quite certain, and thinks of nothing but making a market of the prefent confufions. Italy is broken and divided; Switzerland is jacobinized, I am afraid, completely. I have long feen with pain the progrefs of French principles in that country. Things cannot go on upon the prefent bottom. The poffeffion of Toulon, which, well managed, might be of the greatest advantage, will be the greateft misfortune that ever happened to this nation. The more we multiply troops there, the more we fhall multiply caufes and means of quarrel amongst ourfelves. I know but one way of avoiding it, which is to give a greater degree of fimplicity to our politics. Our fituation does neceffarily render them a good deal involved. And, to this evil, instead of increasing it, we ought to apply all the remedies in our power.

See what is, in that place, the confequence (to fay nothing of every other) of this complexity. Toulon has, as it were, two gates, an English and a Spanish. The English gate is, by our policy, faft barred against the entrance of any Royalifts. The Spaniards open theirs, I fear, upon no fixed principle, and with very little judgment. By means, however, of this foolish, mean, and jealous policy on our fide, all the Royalifts whom the English might felect as most practicable, and most fubfervient to honeft views, are totally excluded. Of thofe admitted, the Spaniards are masters. As to the inhabitants they are a neft of Jacobins which is delivered into our hands, not from principle, but from fear. The inhabitants of Toulon may be defcribed in few words. It is differtum nautis, cauponi bus atque malignis. The rest of the feaports are of the fame defcription.

Another thing which I cannot account for is, the fending for the bishop of Toulon, and afterwards forbidding his entrance. This is as directly contrary to the declaration, as it is to the practice of the allied powers. The king of Pruffia did better. When he took Verdun, he actually re-inftated the bishop and his chapter. When he thought he should be the mafter of Chalons, he called the bishop from Flanders, to put him into poffeffion. The Auftrians have reftored the clergy wherever they obtained poffeffion. We have proposed to restore religion as well as monarchy; and in Toulon we have reftored neither the one nor the other. It is very likely that the Jacobin Sans-Culottes, or fome of them, objected to this measure, who rather chufe to have the atheistic buffoons of clergy they have got to sport with, till they are ready to come forward, with the reft of their worthy brethren, in Paris and other places, to declare that they are a fet of impoftors, that they never believed in God, and never will preach any fort of religion. If we give way to our Jacobins in this point, it is fully and fairly putting the government, civil and ecclefiaftical, not in the king of France, to whom, as the protector and governor, and in fubftance the head of the Gallican church, the nomination to the bifhoprics belonged, and who made the bishop of Toulon; it does not leave it with him, or even in the hands of the king of England, or the king of Spain; but in the bafeft Jacobins of a low fea-port, to exercise, pro tempore, the fovereignty. If this point of religion is thus given up, the grand inftrument for reclaiming France is abandoned. Memorial on the Affairs France in 1792.

TURKEY.

WHERE the finest countries in the moft genial climates in the world are wafted by peace more than any countries have been worried by war; where arts are

unknown, where manufactures languish, where fcience is extinguifhed, where agriculture decays, where the human race itfelf melts away and perifhes under the eye of the observer.-Reflections on the Revolu

tion in France.

VARIATION, WHY BEAUTIFUL.

ANOTHER principal property of beautiful objects is, that the line of their parts is continually varying its direction; but it varies it by a very infenfible deviation; it never varies it fo quickly as to furprize, or by the fharpnefs of its angle to caufe any twitching or convulfion of the optic nerve. Nothing long continued in the fame manner, nothing very fuddenly varied, can be beautiful; because both are oppofite to that agreeable relaxation which is the characteristic effect of beauty. It is thus in all the fenfes. A motion in a right line, is that manner of moving next to a very gentle defcent, in which we meet the leaft refiftance; yet it is not that manner of moving, which, next to a descent, wearies us the leaft. Reft certainly tends to relax yet there is a species of motion which relaxes more than reft; a gentle ofcillatory motion, arifing and falling. Rocking fets children to fleep better than abfolute reft; there is, indeed, fcarce any thing at that age, which gives more pleasure than to be gently lifted up and down; the manner of playing which their nurfes ufe with children, and the weighing and swinging used afterwards by themselves as a favourite amufement, evince this very fuffici ently. Most people must have observed the fort of sense they have had, on being swiftly drawn in an eafy coach on a smooth turf, with gradual afcents and declivities. This will give a better idea of the beautiful, and point out its probable caufe better, than almost any thing elfe. On the contrary, when one is hurried over a rough, rocky, broken road, the pain felt by these fudden inequalities fhews why

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