Soucis, to the town of Eftampes. Her account of this journey is ufhered in by fix pages of reflections; and for what, good reader? Merely to inform us, that in company with her coufin, Madame Trude, the difguifed herself as a country girl, in order that the might be able to run about the town by herfelf, inftead of being moped up for three hours with perfons that he had never before feen; and thus fhe commences her hiftory of the journey.

“The ftill and ferene sky as yet fhewed, towards the east, only an orange colour shade; the wakeful lark foared ftraining her tuneful throat; the humid plants exhaled an enchanting perfume; presently the horizon feemed to be in flames; the fhining luminary burst forth like a blazing fire, his brilliant face rofe, and his growing rays coloured the pearly drops of dew, fpread on the opening calyx of the flowers."

The above filted defcription, one would conclude could only ferve to precede the appearance of fome triumphant hero, or palfried princefs, inftead of Madame Roland, mounted on an afs, and dreft like a peafant. Rifum teneatis, amici! The refult of this doughty expedition is equally interesting. Madame R. walked about the streets of Eftampes, with one arm a-kimbo, and the other fwinging by her fide, till the worked herself into a violent perfpiration. She was then admitted into the kitchen, and had the honour of dining with Dame Julie, who, in the courfe of five minutes, by dint of goffiping, laid her afleep.

M. de Champagneux, in his note on this production, fpeaks of the graceful details that it contains! We cannot do otherwife than applaud him for his penetration. Madame R. concludes her account with the fenfations that the experienced on her return to Paris.

"The air of Paris fuffocates me; yesterday I experienced the uneafy fenfations that I had left behind me on fetting off; friendship reffores me to the full enjoyment of health; friendship is my faviour, my fupport, my delight, my joy, my all, fince it is one, with virtue itfelf."

Friendship has certainly been all these to many; but we never before knew that friendship had the property of puritying the atmosphere. If Madame R.'s words do not fignify this, fhe ought to have written more diftinctly.

Her excurfion to England, and tour through Switzerland, form the most unexceptionable part of this volume. If there is not much to praife, there is at the fame time not much to blame. Nothing feems to have been aimed at, but a mere journal-like ftafement of what the faw or remarked; confequently it is but fuperficial. Her observations on the country

and people of England and Switzerland are by no means new, though fometimes just and well-founded, and generally favourable. We fhall therefore wave any remarks on this fcore, for where there is no pretenfion, it would be in fome degree unfair to criticize. The anecdotes, however, which the gives of Lavater, do not feem altogether original; at least one of them is certainly not totally confined to him. The Abbé de Lille, in his notes to L'homme des Champs, tells a fimilar one of Juffieu, the celebrated naturalift, who, when fome of his fcholars intended to deceive him with the fragments of many heterogeneous plants, which they had joined together in a very specious manner, at the first glance detected the impofition, and pointed out the particular parts, of which the whole had been compofed.

We have now to notice the ftyle of the tranflation; where the original was bad, what could be expected from the tranflated copy? There are, however, here and there fome Gallicilms, which might have been avoided. But in our admiration of the tranflator's patience and pity for the task which he impofed upon himself, we fhall drop the fubject. Had his faults been more numerous, he would ftill have been excufable,

ART. IV. A Treatife of the relative Rights and Duties of Belligerent and Neutral Powers in Maritime Affairs: in which the Principles of armed Neutralities, and the Opinions of Hubner and Schlegel, are fully difcuffed. By Robert Ward, Efq. Barrister at Law, Author of the Inquiry into the Hiftory and Foundation of the Law of Nations in Europe to the Age of Grotius. 8vo. 172 pp. 5s., Butterworth. 1801.

HAVING fo recently and fo fully ftated the arguments of

Profeffor Schlegel on this fubject*, with the able answers of Dr. Croke, and the difpute between the principal powers concerned having fince been brought to a conclufion, a particular examination of the Treatife before us is rendered the less neceffary; fince the writer unavoidably enforces nearly the fame reafonings, and exposes the fame mifreprefentations which have already been difcuffed.

In a perfpicuous and fenfible Introduction, Mr. W. fets forth the claims of the northern powers, as brought forward

+ See Brit, Crit, for July, 1801, pp. 67 and 71,

in the year 1780, on the occafion of the well-known treaty called the armed neutrality." Thefe pretenfions he divides into four principal articles. The firf, which is an affertion of the right which neutral thips ought to enjoy, of navigating from port to port, and on the coafts of nations at war," cannot, as a general principle, be denied. In the fecond article, which declares," that the effects of the faid warring powers fhall be free in all neutral veffels," except contraband merchandize, lies the chief point of the controverfy. This queftion Mr. Ward undertakes to examiné, reserving the other propofitions, which have been adduced on this occafion, for a feparate difcuffion. In this propofition, he includes the corollary from it, that neutrals have a right to coast from port to port, and to trade from colony to colony, and from the colonies to the mother country, of belligerents, without being liable to fearch or detention, except for contraband of war.' He confiders the fubject, firit, as to the reafoning drawn from mere common fenfe, and the principles of general equity;" fecondly, as fo the reafoning drawn from authority and cuftom;" thirdly, as it may be collected from treaties." Each -of these confiderations is difcuffed in a separate fection of the work.

In the first of thefe, the writer begins by clearing the queftion from the mystery in which it has been (we have no doubt defignedly) involved; he ftates it to be,

not whether the belligerent has a right to interfere with the néetral, but merely whether he cannot prevent the neutral from interfering with him? In other words, whether when the former extends his trade, not with but for a belligerent, not only purchases what is wanting for his own confumption, or fells his ufual peace fupply of articles, but fells to him articles which may be easily converted into the means of annoyance, or even turns carrier for his friend, who uses the furplus ftrength which is thus afforded him against his opponent; whether in fuch cafe the other belligerent has no reason to be offended, and to reclaim thofe rights which the pretended neutral is difpofed to deny

him?"

Upon this ftate of the cafe, Mr. Ward purfues the argument with ingenuity and fuccefs, though perhaps more at length than was neceffary, to clear away the mifreprefentations of his adverfaries.

"It is not true," he obferves," because the rights of commerce are founded in Nature, because the fea is free to all, and because men have a right to profit of their industry, that thefe rights are to extend to fuch an unqualified height, as never to be modified on any occafion, and even fo as to encounter and defeat the rights of others. Let us rather liften to the rational and liberal Vattel, who, fpeaking of the illegality of con

traband.

traband, and at the fame time of the rights of trade, fays, "the nations who renounce it in war foffer, it is true, but fuffer from neceffity: the Belligerent does not oppofe their rights, but fimply afferts his own; and if the two rights are incompatible, it is the effect alone of inevitable neceffity," After all, then, this is a common cafe, met with under every order of fociety, beyond the control of man, as he is, and founded in the nature of things. It cannot be illuftrated better than by directing our attention to a celebrated maxim of our municipal law: "Cujus eft folum ejus eft ufque ad cœlum" is, for example, founded in very true principles of juftice; but as it is palpable how easily, if carried to its utmost extent, it might work the greatest injuftice, it is modified and rendered perfect by the addition of that other part of it, ** ita ut alienum non Ledat." P. 7.

"In granting, therefore, the fair and reasonable enjoyment of their privileges to Neutral Nations, there muft always be added the fair and reafonable caution, that they use them fo as not to hurt the Belligerent; and that I may not feem to entrench myself in generals ubi fæpe verfatur error,' I would add, that they have certainly no right to use them in any one, the fmalleft degree of proportion, more than they did in times of peace, nor even in fo great a degree, if fuch augmented, or ordinary use of them bears immediate mifchief to either Belligerent,

"For example, they may increase their purchases to any amount in the Belligerent countries, provided their own confumption require it, and provided they remain domiciled in their own country. But if they perfift in carrying, much more, if they extend their faculty of carrying for the Belligerent, where the latter was in the habit of carrying before; and if, in confequence, he is enabled to come to the battle, and to ftand the shock of war with augmented ftrength, which he never would, nor could have poffeffed without it, I fee little or no difference between this and an actual loan of military affistance. All the diftinction is, that he fubftitures his own people in the place of taking foreigners; for every man, which the Neutral lends to his trade, enables him to furnish a man to his own hoftile fleets. In other words, it enables him to meet his enemy with undiminished forces, and yet preferve entire his fources of revenue; when, if it was not for this conduct of the Neutral, either the forces or the revenue of the Belligerent muft inevitably be diminished!". P. 8,

The remainder of this fection confits of clear and fatisfactory answers to the reafonings (or rather the fophifms) of Hubner and Schlegel. The definition of neutrality by the former, and his statement of its duties, are justly applied against the doctrines he has laboured to eftablith, and fhown to be directly adverse to the carrying trade claimed by the northern powers. The fpecions argument, that the neutral does not depart from that character while he is ready to afford aflistance to both parties, is properly anfwered by the remark, that the complaint of the belligerent is not fo much of a preference thown, as of an injury done; that, at the time of the act complained of, 5

the

the affiftance is not wanted by the fuperior ;" and, that" if this were fo, it would hold equally good, if the indirect afflift, ance complained of was extended to a more direct interpofition; in the cafe, for inftance, of actual military aid."

Mr. W. alfo juftly remarks, that if this right of naviga tion is really fo facred and fo extenfive, that we are quietly to fee our enemy's trade (the fund and finews of maritime war) carried on under our eyes, pafs, as it were, through our hands, and be lodged perhaps for a time in our very ports," no reason can be affigned "why it should not extend to contraband, provided there is no treaty. If," fays he, "the claim is fo facred a privilege that no circumstances can modify it, if it is founded upon the abfolute freedom of the fea, and the intire want of dominion" in the Belligerent, if I cannot take a bale of enemy's goods from a neutral fhip, merely because the has a right to traverse the fea, where I have no authority, as little authority have I to ftop and feize her, becaufe fhe is load d with cannon for the ufe of my enemy. Either then," he contends, "the reafon of the principle in queftion is faife, or contraband of war (which Hubner admits is always feizable) must pass free." He purfues the fame train of reafoning as to a blockaded port; which, as he obferves, is another inftance of conflicting rights, which never can be enjoyed by both claimants together." He adds a cafe, in which a neutral unavoidably fuffers fome inconvenience, namely, where his property is taken on board the fhip of a Belligerent; and yet the party who feizes the fhip is justified. The contempiible fophifm of Hubner and Schlegel, that a "neutral ship is to all intents and purposes to be confidered as neutral territory," is very fully expofed and refuted; and the fection concludes with a reply to Schlegel's obfervation, that "neutral rights are more refpected in a continental than a maritime war." Mr. W. in anfwer, fhows that "the obfervation is falfe in point of fact, but that, if true, it would not bear the conclufion built upon it."

In the next divifion of this Treatife, the author reafons from authority and cuftom, and of courfe begins with the celebrated code of maritime law called Confolato Del Mare, the terms of which he cites; and they are exprefs, that the property of enemies may be feized on board a neutral veffel. This authority he fupports by thofe of Grotius, Bynkershoch, and Heineccius; and he goes into ample hiftorical details, which prove that this rule of the Confolato has never been altered by any general agreement of maritime nations; that it has been generally enforced and admitted; and that the only direct oppofition to it by any power previously to the armed neutrality