manner of preserving fish; remedies for several bodily complaints; method of making a variety of stuffs in China; the aphrodisiac virtues of Ginseng; Chinese manner of preserving oranges in sugar; a curious restorative and spermatopoeic sugarcandy of the Japanese; the dyeing substances of the Chinese; their knowlege in metallurgy, &c.

M. CoSSIGNY appears to us to be a well-informed man, and to possess a happy talent for observing, in foreign countries, those particulars which are universally interesting.

ART. VII. Annales Maritimes et Coloniales, &c. i.e. Maritime and Colonial Annals; containing Inquiries respecting the Marine, considered under its Characteristics, Navigation, Construction, and Management:-Accounts of Voyages to Asia, Africa, and America, which have never yet appeared :-Memorable Actions of the French Navy-Laws and Decrees relative to maritime and colonial Regulations :-Analysis of new Works concerning the Marine and the Colonies :-a Table of Prizes taken by the Ships of the Republic and by French Privateers, since the Commencement of the War. 8vo. pp. 415. Paris. 1799. Imported by Dulau and Co. London.

THIS volume makes its appearance as the commencement of a work which the editor, P. LABARTHE, proposes to be periodically continued: we imagine, annually, as we find no better reason for the title of annals, which he has prefixed to a miscellaneous collection of unconnected pieces, placed without order, and not limited to any particular period of time. The first piece is an introductory essay entitled General Considerations on the Marine in which it is observed that Three objects are requisite to the success of the Marine Navigation, Construction, and Organization.' These heads, which might have been otherwise arranged, are each separately considered. The first and second, however, are very distantly treated, and not in the style of old or familiar acquaintances. Extracts from voyages to the pacific ocean, describing the manner in which the islanders in those seas build their canoes, furnish the greater part of what is said on the subject of construction. After this introductory essay, the editor has given the laws of the 2d and 3d Brumaire, An. 4. on the organization of the marine: not a treatise nor reflections on them, but the laws themselves, which occupy nearly 150 pages. There are reasons sufficiently obvious against our entering into an examination of these laws; unless, which we do not perceive to be the case, the discussion afforded a prospect of benefit.-Simplicity is not their characteristic.

Next

Hutt..r.

Next follows an extract from the Journey of Dourdon to the East Indies, across the Great Desert, by Damas and Bassorah, in 1787; which contains some remarks on the route pursued by Dourdon, and advice from other travellers respecting the necessary equipment for such a journey.

Information concerning the Bread-Fruit-Tree.-From this paper it appears that, in the expedition of M. d'Entrecasteaux, undertaken in consequence of a decree of the Constituent Assembly for the purpose of searching for the unfortunate M. de la Pérouse, the bread-fruit-tree was introduced from the South Seas into the Island of Java, and some of the plants were afterward transported to the Mauritius. This account is accom panied with a memoir on the manner of transporting trees or plants by sea.

The next subject has for title Memorable Actions of French Ships. We shall not stay to discuss the truth of the actions here related, though we perceive,that some of the accounts are erroneous. It would be unreasonable in us to endeavour to lessen the share of laurels obtained by the French Navy during the present war!

The article which follows is a letter from the minister of the Marine, addressed to the commanders in the French navy, in favour of the English traveller, Mr. Spillard. This calls to our memory the former liberal conduct of the French respecting Captain Cook.

An account is then given of the return to France of M, Baudin from the Island of Trinidad, with a collection in natural history. The particulars of this collection are not added.

The remaining papers are, Privileges of the Minister of the Marine in the Colonies: Geographical Description of the Isles of France and Re-union. (formerly Bourbon).- Two Papers concern ing Judgments on captured Vessels; in which is discussed the question whether decisions in prize causes should be left to established tribunals, or whether the Directory should decide • par voie d'Administration,' on the plea that courts of law are not competent to decide on the interests of the republic, and cannot be acquainted with the secret articles in treaties. Such reasonings are wholly in favour of rapine and peculation.

Accounts of new Works respecting the Marine. - The word new is not exclusively applicable to the contents of this section. New Discoveries.Under this head, is mentioned a voyage performed by two Spanish frigates between the years 1789 and 1793; in which a part of the coast of New Guinea, not before known, is said to have been discovered..

The concluding article is a list of prizes made by the French during the war. The correctness of this large list appears

very

very questionable; many entries being made of captured vessels without name, destination, or other description than such as an English vessel, a Russian ship,' three of the enemy's ships,' 'nine vessels,' another prize,' &c. and many of the names inserted consist of words which, intended to be English, really exist in no language on earth.

Having gone through this collection, we cannot conclude by recommending it as containing much of either new or curious matter. The editor has not done any thing to convince us that he understands his subject: but he has proved to us that a book of 400 pages may be made with very little expence of labour and of thinking.

Capt.B....y.

ART. VIII. Motifs des Guerres et des Traités de Paix de la France, &c. i. e. The Motives of the Wars, and the Treaties of Peace, in which France was engaged during the Reigns of Louis XIV. XV. and XVI. from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to that of Versailles in 1783. By M. ANQUETIL, Correspondent of the ci-devant Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, and Member of the National Institute. 8vo. pp. 380. Paris. 1798. Imported in London by Dulau and Co. Price 5s. sewed.

T

HE history of wars and treaties is the history of ambition, labouring by opposite means to attain the same end; -in the one case resorting to force, and in the other to fraud and dissimulation, in order to attain its objects. There are only two points of view in which the perusal of such a detail can be useful:-the first, that which is connected with the general history of the times of which it furnishes an illustration-the other, that in which it respects morals. In this latter view, by exposing the errors of former governments; by shewing that the wars which have desolated the world, and the treaties of peace by which they have been followed, were alike unconnected with the true interests of the nations who were concerned in. them; and by manifesting that, in most cases, both were preduced by the passions of those by whom they were commenced or conducted, and that the public good was but the ostensible pretext for the gratification of private ambition, caprice, or resentiment; it tends to give mankind a juster view of their real interests, to weaken the taste for war, and to render peace, if not permanent, less frequently interrupted by the horrors of blood-shed and devastation.

It is with the intention of thus exposing the depraved policy of courts, and particularly of the court of France, that the work before us seems to have been written. Its object is to prove that, under the republican system of that country, the causes which during the last century and a half produced

the

the wars in which France engaged can no longer exist; and that, therefore, from the establishment of that system, France and the world may hope for permanent tranquillity: or at least, that public peace shall no more be sacrificed to gratify the caprice of private passion.

The reasoning which infers, from the corrupt policy of the monarchy of France in relation to war or peace, that the republican form will be pacific, seems to be rather that of a partizan than a logician.-Granting, what indeed this work is well calculated to prove, that the wars which have scourged Europe, for a century and half, were the result of ambition, resentment, or caprice, and not necessary evils incurred by the wisdom of a protecting government for the public good; does it follow that, because there ceases to be a monarch, or a sole minister*, at the head of the state, private passion shall therefore not obtrude itself into the management of national concern? Talents, success, activity, address, and sometimes the commission of crimes themselves, will raise individuals to influence and power even in the most democratic governments; and, when power (or influence, which is power,) is once possessed by the individual, what shall prevent the passions of the republican leader, any more than those of the monarch or his minister, from making war and peace an instrument of gratification +?

M. ANQUETIL confines the application of his remarks to the government of France only: but they are capable of extension; for what is directly proved on France, in relation to its policy of war, will be found to hold equally with regard to other belligerent and contracting powers;-and the monarchs and ministers of France will appear but to bear their just proportion of those errors or crimes, which all the contemporary governments have equally committed. If, then, the disclosure of the policy which governed the French monarchy could produce, in that country, the salutary effect of convincing its people of the inutility and folly of war, and could thus excite a sincere and permanent love of peace, the same effects might reasonably be expected from it on the other inhabitants of Europe-but, is it probable that the mass of mankind will ever be taught this lesson of practical wisdom, which as yet they have no where begun to practise? To those who entertain the high-flying notions of the absolute perfectibility of man, who believe that his passions may one day be rendered

The varying administration of France has undergone fresh change, since this volume appeared.

The elevation of Donarie, which has happened since this article was composed, tends to confirm this predictive supposition.

completely

completely subordinate to his reason, and that truth and virtue shall at last become the sole guides of human conduct, such an hope may appear rational: but those who hold the opinion, however comfortless it seems, that man is likely ever to continue the same animal which for so many thousand years history informs us he has been,-a creature compounded as well of feeling as of intellect, drawn by different motives in contrary directions, sometimes impelled to vice by passion, and sometimes led by reason to the practice of virtue,-such men will pronounce it as absurd to expect that war shall be made to cease, or even in a very considerable degree be rendered less frequentthan it has been, by speculative proofs that it is neither necessary nor useful, as to hope that the fixed laws of nature shall yield to the benevolent wish of him who would exclude from the material as well as from the moral world all that he deems, evil.

If M. ANQUETIL's work, however, be not likely to produce. any powerful effect on the political morality of the age, it is. yet highly useful as a valuable historic tract, on account of the able and judicious view which it exhibits of the various wars and treaties which have, in this and the last century, occupied. Europe.

The period comprised in this volume is that between 1648 and 1783. It commences in course with the celebrated treaty of Westphalia, of which it is the more necessary to know the full history, since that treaty has served as the ground work of all those which have since been formed between the European powers. Of the war which preceded it, the cause generally alledged is the religious animosity which, from the beginning of the sixteenth century, raged in Europe between the followers and the opponents of the reformation. M. ANQUETIL acknowleges that fanaticism kindled the flame: but, according to him, it was the interference of the two rivals Charles V. and Francis I. that guided and propagated its destroying power. He glances at the great events which occurred in its progress, and gives a concise and clear view of the motives, intrigues, and negociations which at length terminated in the peace of Westphalia, and in the acknowlegement of the independance of the United States by Spain, their former master.

This peace was confirmed by two treaties signed at Munster, 24th Oct. 1648, which have been not improperly called the Code of Europe, and, as we have already observed, have been made the ground of every subsequent European treaty as they ascertained and fixed the principles, according to which the relative interests of France and of the empire were to be regulated, and became the depositaries of the laws which were to govern

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