VOL. II.-No. V. CONTENTS. PROPOSALS for a FRENCH and CONTINENTAL PORTFOLIO JUDGMENT of the NESTOR of BRITISH DIPLOMACY on Lords On the Penal Intervention of Common Judicatories to Punish Murders and Robbery, commanded by the Government and executed by the Army and Navy-On the Disorder and Im- morality resulting from the modern financial System-Mr. T. Attwood's revived Doctrine of Ministerial Responsibility -The Mouths of the Danube-Literary Pursuits in India. PROGRESS of the DRAMA in GREECE and in SERBIA . CONNEXION of the ITALIAN MOVEMENTS and the GREEK RE- We would particularly direct the reader's attention to "The English Constitution." No. III. No. III. "Of the Effect of the Misuse of Words," postponed till next Number; the same train of thought is followed out in "Judgment of the Nestor of British Diplomacy on Lords Auckland and Ellenborough," as applied to the fallacy of preferring an iniquitous peace to a just war. On the PORTFOLIO:-From the CONVERSATIONS LEXICON,-and THIRD ATTEMPT of GREECE to EMANCIPATE HErself. The WORDS and ACTS of SIR R. PEEL, as influencing IRISH AGITA- On the ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.-No. II. EFFECT of the misuse of familiar WORDS on the CHARACTER of MEN, and the FATE of NATIONS.-No. II. ERASTIANISM of the CHURCH OF ENGLAND. PROGRESS of the DRAMA in SERBIA. PROPOSALS FOR A FRENCH AND CONTINENTAL PORTFOLIO. (Addressed to the Conductors of the Portfolio.) Paris, Nov. 15, 1843. HAVING resolved on undertaking the publication of a French and Continental PORTFOLIO, we desire to address, in the first instance, to the conductors of the original Work, the motives by which we are influenced, and the objects which we have in view. When, in 1835, a series of official documents appeared under this title relative to the diplomatic proceedings of Russia in the East and in Germany, the attention of the Statesmen of Europe was vividly awakened. That publication threw light upon the conduct and the objects of a Government then but imperfectly appreciated, and presented authentic testimony of its persevering march in the paths of convulsion and of invasion. Then did it first become apparent to the nations of Europe, that the respective Governments were destitute of perspicacity to comprehend Russia, of energy and strength to arrest her, of prudence and honesty to separate themselves from her. The success of the Portfolio was not limited to England. Perhaps, even, it was more considerable in France and in Germany, where there is more alacrity in seizing subjects of great international interest. The PORTFOLIO re-appears again to-day as a new publication, but conceived in its former spirit, and exercising its former functions. Its aim is however higher. You do not now content yourselves with signalizing the evil. You ascend to its cause. Not contenting yourselves with exposing, upon official documents, the evidences of the unworthy part per formed by the great Powers, and the dangers in which they thus allow themselves to be conducted,-you speak of correction, remedy, and punishment. Now passing from transactions external, you enter, taking as your guide the same spirit of justice, into the questions of home administration, that agitate and weaken the European States, and which destroy their well-being within, paralyze their force without, and afford an opening for mysterious intervention, and for perfidious counsel. In this enterprise our sympathies are with you, and we seek to give you the measure of our adhesion in presenting the reasons and the means, by which we expect to be able to co-operate in this design; and not less influential with us is the motive which has led to the undertaking of your work, than the conviction we entertain of the efficacy of the remedies which you propose. And what a lamentable picture is that presented all around. No where does there stand erect any doctrine-change after change, contradiction against contradiction-nothing majestic in its simplicity, nothing practical in its application; there is only theory against theory, speculator against speculator, all good when they denounce their antagonists, and all worthless when they speak from themselves. The further we advance the more are we bewildered, the more we progress the more are we divided. None have had the idea of returning back to find their way; and if the idea has arisen, how to effect it, has not been within their power. Thence flow the hesitations of men, making them sceptics, because smothered in theories; the embarrassments of government making them feeble, because overladen with power; and policy divorced from justice becomes a series of difficulties, by which they are only multiplied; all this comes, because the sense of justice has faded away. Justice having disappeared, Europe is delivered over to disorder, and by disorder she is delivered over to Russia! It is not only energy and elevation of mind that is wanting in great nations, or in elevated station, but it is that the very sense of duty has disappeared from men, the sense of common obligation (solidarite) has vanished from citizens of a common country. Each man lives for himself. It seem as if there were no longer citizens; and if there are a few, in whom elevation of character, or integrity of mind, makes them desirous to labour or to suffer for that which is good, their dispositions and their efforts are alike fruitless, because they are swept along by the current of false ideas, the bitter fruits of which have pained their benevolence and aroused their energy; they seek the truth without themselves, not in themselves; they seek counsel from words, not from solitude-from opinions, not from law; and thus become not more useful, and oftentimes more hurtful, than those who are consciously dishonest. Thus is the general confusion increased and deepened, even by the efforts of those who seek to cause it to cease, and there seems no term to the interior agitation which consumes every nation. The people suffer,-the governments become weak, the people complain of governors,-the governors suspect the peeple, -the evil becomes graver,-the difficulties of the interior react upon the relations of the exterior; diplomacy comes then to overshadow all people in common, and to decide for them; and in the councils of this diplomacy right is as nothing. This all-pervading influence of diplomacy which springs from discord, is directed by the art and for the advantage of one single government in Europe, and that in itself the weakest, who thus reaps a harvest from that agitation which tortures the world. As against all this world of confusion stand, and alone, the efforts of the Portfolio,-labouring to restore the sentiment of common obligations of man to man. It is not by new theories that this is proposed, but it is by simplifying, by getting rid of erroneous conclusions, by going back. Ex |