Total £1,196,546. Beaver and Felt Hats Iron and Steel 110,383 38,452 depending upon England for manufactured articles, India should, as is not impossible, become herself to a great ex13,282,185 tent a manufacturing country, still, that state of things, if 3,975,019 it shall ever come to pass, remains to be brought about by 461,090 the capital and talent of Englishmen. In either case, a 429,624 vast field, and one which promises to remunerate them 1,622,429 richly, is opened to the enterprise of our countrymen. Un170,188 doubtedly, there is still much to be done before things shall 1,123,372 be brought to a state perfectly favourable for any experi96,333 ment of the kind to which we allude, on a grand scale; but the primary obstacle to its institution, at least, has been removed, and the foundation has been laid of those reforms in the government and laws of the country which may be necessary for its perfect success. 188,144 179,216 5,232,013 There were also small quantities exported in 1831 of the following articles of foreign produce; pearl and potashes, cinnamon, cloves, wheat, barley, oats, pease, and beans, wheat-meal and flour, mace, nutmegs, pepper, pimento, rice, raw and waste silk, European manufactured silk, bandannoes, &c., taffaties, &c., sugar, tobacco, and snuff. Of coffee, there were exported 23,950 lbs., and of tea, 26,091 lbs. And of the following articles of home produce, in addition to those we have enumerated, there were exported inconsiderable quantities, namely, beef and pork, butter and cheese, coals, culm and cinders, herrings, leather, wrought and unwrought, saddlery and harness, linen manufactures, machinery, and mill work, painters' colours, salt, silk manufactures, soap, candles, sugar, tin and pewter wares, woollen and worsted yarn, and sundry other articles the names of which are not given. The total declared value of British and Irish produce and manufactures exported from the United Kingdom having been 37,164,372., the value of the exports of that description to the East India Company's territories, Ceylon, and China, was 3,377,4127. The value of the home produce exported from this country to Russia the same year, was 1,191,565., to Brazil, 1,238,371, to the Netherlands, 2,082,5367., to the British colonies in North America, 2,089,3277., to Italy, 2,490,3767., to the West Indies, 2,581,9497., to Germany (exclusive of Prussia), 3,642,9527., and to the United States of America, 9,053,5837. These facts are sufficient to convey a general conception of the actual state of the trade carried on by this country with India and China. Let us next consider its prospects under the change of circumstances which has now taken place. In the meantime, the mere distribution of a number of zealous mercantile agents throughout India may be expected to operate in the same manner as the exertions of the British residents at Canton, in extending the market for the manufactures of this country. It is also to be observed, that the private trader is now relieved from the competition of the Company, which is asserted to have sometimes, while acting in its commercial capacity, applied its extraordinary resources in such a way, as seriously to interfere with the efforts of individual enterprise. The profits of the tea trade alone, as carried on by the Company, are stated by themselves to have usually exceeded 800,000l. per annum. The rate of profit appears to have been really about 25 per cent. As this is a rate that could not be maintained under a system of free competition, it follows, that if individual traders shall be able to bring the article to market only at the same cost as the Company have been wont to do, its price to the consumer must be very considerably diminished. But the Company's manner of trading was, in truth, an extravagantly expensive one. The vessels which they fitted out were of a tonnage greatly exceeding that of those ever employed in any other commercial service; and the establishment of residents which they maintained in China, cost them annually not less than 100,000. There can be no doubt that the private trade will be conducted upon a much more economical system. But tea is not the only article which will now probably be brought from China. The Company themselves have been in the habit of importing from that country considerable quantities of raw silk and nankeen cloth; and the imports in what is called the privilege trade consist of a long list of British subjects, it is to be observed, are permitted, by the articles, among which we find the following enumerated :new law, not only to trade to both India and China, but to silk piece goods, aniseed, cambogium, canes, cassia lignea, take up their residence in these countries. It is needless cassia buds, China roots, cloves, dragon's blood, mace, to point out the vast importance of the latter of these privi- mother-of-pearl shells, nutmegs, oil of cassia, oil of cinnaleges to the former. Even in the case of China, where the mon, rhubarb, sago, sugar, tin, tortoiseshell, tutenague, jealousy of the government interposes such formidable turmeric, vermilion, and woods. Some of these articles obstacles in the way of the attempts of foreigners to pene- may, no doubt, be brought home with advantage by the trate into the interior of the country, it is probable that a private trader. On the other hand, there are many articles number of active agents residing at Macao, or Canton, and which British ships may carry out to China either from the occasionally proceeding on excursions along the coast to United Kingdom, from India, or from ports in other parts of the north, may have it in their power to be of material the world at which they fit out or touch. The following service, both in procuring at the cheapest rate supplies of descriptions of goods have been of late years exported from Chinese produce for export to Europe, and in pushing the Great Britain to China by the Company:-broad cloth, sale of English manufactured goods among the natives. long ells, camblets, stuffs, &c., lead, British iron, tin, British It is in India, however, that we are to expect the greatest calicoes, cotton twist, factory stores, foreign cotton wool, advantages to result from numbers of British subjects foreign skins, and worsted yarn. The privilege export fixing their residence in the country. From the nature of trade has comprehended a much longer list of articles, the case, the colonization of India by Englishmen cannot namely, apparel, drugs, beer, blue, boots and shoes, books take place at a rapid rate; nor is there, indeed, any reason and charts, candles, carriages, cloth cuttings, clocks and to apprehend that the races by whom the country is at clock-work, coach-furniture, confectionery and compounds, present inhabited will ever be displaced, or even disturbed cordage, copper, corks, cottons, cotton piece goods, cotton in their occupation of the soil, by any influx of their Euro- thread, cotton twist, cotton yarn, cudbear, cutlery, firepean conquerors. From the low rate of wages in India, engines, flints, fowling-pieces, glass and earthenware, gold no considerable emigration thither of the labouring classes and silver lace and thread, haberdashery, hats, hosiery, can ever take place. What India wants, and what England ironmongery and iron, jewellery, lead and lead shot, wrought will send, is not labour, but capital, together with the leather, linen, looking-glasses, mathematical and optical skill and enterprise necessary for its effective application. instruments, millinery, musical instruments and music, oilThe resources of the country, which have hitherto lain in man's stores, painters' colours, perfumery, pewter, pictures, great part dormant, will thus be called up into activity. The plate-glass, plate and plated ware, playing-cards, printing soil will be cultivated, and the people will be employed. materials and apparatus, provisions, saddlery, ship-chanThe general wealth of the country, and its capacity of dlery, skins, snuff, steel and spring-steel, stationery, sta absorbing foreign commodities, may in this way be im-tuary, tin ware and tin plates, tobacco-pipes, toys, turnery, mensely increased, without any addition to the numbers of upholstery and cabinet ware, watches, woollens, amber, the people. What busy occupation for the spinning ma- bugles, cloves, cochineal, coral beads, coral and coral frag chines and the workshops of England might not be given ments, cotton wool, elephants' teeth, furs, ginseng, mace, by the hundred millions who inhabit India, if they were manna, musical boxes, and cages, nutmegs, orsidue, pearls, thus put in a condition to exert the full effect of their num-printed cottons, quicksilver, coral seed and beads, smalts, bers. Or take it another way; suppose that, instead of spelter, spirits, stockfish, tar, wine ebony-wood, rose-wood, in a matter with which toe oest and most lasting interests of the country are connected; and we hail it as the commencement of a series of legislative enactments which, having for their foundation the great principle, that national security and happiness cannot co-exist with the ignorance of large masses of the population, will provide for the removal of that ignorance in no timid or sectarian spirit, but with a broad and liberal enforcement of the protective and remedial power of the state. The enactment to which we allude is contained in the 20th, 21st, 22d, and 23d sections of the "Act to regulate the labour of children and young persons in the mills and factories of the United Kingdom." We give the clauses at length: and sandal-wood. Many of the articles in this list have been, no doubt, carried out exclusively for the use of the European residents at Canton; but these, it is to be remembered, will now form a larger community than ever. Others, however, have been sold to the Chinese themselves, among whom there can be no doubt that the consumption of some of them might be greatly extended. The private trade, which, by permission of the Company, has arisen since 1813 between China and India may, now that it will be perfectly free, be, in all probability, much increased in amount. The imports to China in this trade have hitherto consisted principally in cotton, of which there was imported in 1831-32 to the value of 4,929,775 dollars, and in opium, of which there were imported the same year 13,946 chests, valued at "20. And be it further enacted, that from and after the expira 11,304,018 dollars. The opium trade is entirely an illicit one, tion of six months from the passing of this act, every child herein but still we see the extent to which it is carried on in spite before restricted to the performance of forty-eight hours of labour of all the efforts of the Chinese authorities. So sensible, in any one week, shall, so long as such child shall be within the said indeed, has the government become of its inability to pre-restricted age (eleven, twelve, and thirteen), attend some school to vent the introduction of the article into the country, that the be chosen by the parents or guardians of such child, or such school propriety of legalizing the trade and subjecting it to a duty as may be appointed by any inspector, in case the parents or has been lately taken into consideration, and that plan, guardians of such child shall omit to appoint any school, or in case there can be little doubt, will ere long be adopted. The such child shall be without parents or guardians; and it shall and payment of the duty, unless it be of immoderate amount, order the employer of any such child to make a deduction from the may be lawful, in such last-mentioned case, for any inspector to (and if so, its purpose will be defeated,) will be an advan-weekly wages of such child as the same shall become due, not extageous change to the importer, whom it will relieve from ceeding the rate of one penny in every shilling, to pay for the the hazards and expenses of smuggling. The Company schooling of such child; and such employer is hereby required to have never taken any part in this illicit trade; but they pay the sum so deducted, according to the order and direction of grow the opium for the use of the importers, and derive the such inspector. largest part of the profits on its consumption. Among other articles not already mentioned that enter into the imports from British India to China are pepper, spices, rattans, beetle-nuts, putchuck, shark's fins, fish-maws, and stockfish, black and red wood, saltpetre, ivory, cornelians, Indian piece goods, myrrh, olibanum, Prussian blue, cutch, camphor, sticklac, gum gogal, birds' nests, bêche de mer, teak, and rice. Of the whole trade between India and China in 1828-29, the share carried on by private individuals amounted (taking imports and exports together) to 3,795,9667., while that carried on by the Company amounted only to 433,3887. In the preceding year, the exports and imports of the private trade made together 4,951,6781. Cotton goods, as may be perceived from the table in p. 158, are those of which by far the largest quantities are exported from Great Britain to India. There are various other articles, however, of which the export is also already very considerable, and the consumption of which may, no doubt, be greatly extended among the natives under the advantages of the new order of things. Among the principal of these is salt, both the sale and manufacture of which commodity in India has been hitherto monopolized by the government. Mr. Wilbraham, the member for Cheshire, in a speech which he made in the last session of parliament, showed, that while the very bad salt sold by the Company in India sometimes costs the natives 15s. or 16s. the bushel, the best salt from England might be sold in Calcutta for 1s, the bushel, exclusive of duty. For the salt sent to India from England, a return might be obtained in the exportation to England of sugar from India. The sugar at present manufactured in the latter country is certainly inferior to that which is produced in the West Indies. But there is no reason to suppose that that grown in the east might not be made to rival in quality that grown in the west. The cultivation of the latter has hitherto been encouraged, and that of the former depressed, by the inequality of the rates of duty at which they are severally admitted to the home market; the produce of the West Indies paying at present a duty of only 278. per cwt., while that of the East Indies pays 37s. The consequence has been, that the latter is almost excluded from this country. The total quantity of sugar imported into the United Kingdom in 1832 was 4,867,748 cwt., of which only 175,252 cwt. were the produce of the East Indies. An equalization of the duties would in no long time bring the imports from the two points nearer to the same level. GENERAL EDUCATION. Ir is not the least important amongst the proceedings of the first Reformed Parliament that a law has been passed, by which the education of the children of a very large body of the people is rendered compulsory. We believe that this is the first example of the interference of the British Government "21. And be it further enacted, that after the expiration of six months from the passing of this act, it shall not be lawful to employ, or continue to employ, in any factory or mill, any child restricted by this act to the performance of forty-eight hours of labour in any one week, unless such child shall, on Monday in every week next, after the commencement of such employment, and during every succeeding Monday or other day appointed for that purpose by an inspector, give to the factory-master or proprietor, or to his agent, a schoolmaster's ticket or voucher, certifying that such child has for two hours at least, for six out of seven days of the week next preceding, attended his school, excepting in cases of sickness, to be certified in such manner as such inspector may appoint; and in case of any holiday, and in case of absence, from any other cause allowed by such inspector, or by any justice of the peace in the absence of the inspector; and the said last-mentioned ticket shall be in such form as may be settled by any inspector. "22. And be it further enacted, that wherever it shall appear to any inspector that a new or additional school is necessary or de sirable, to enable the children employed in any factory to obtain the education required by this act, such inspector is hereby authorized to establish, or procure the establishment of, such school. "23. And be it further enacted, that if, upon any examination or inquiry, any inspector shall be of opinion that any schoolmaster or schoolmistress is incompetent, or in any way unfit for the per formance of the duties of that office, it shall and may be lawful for such inspector to disallow and withhold the order for any payment, or any salary to such schoolmaster or schoolmistress as hereinbefore provided." This is, indeed, only a beginning in the recognition of the principle that the state is responsible for the education of its youth; but it is a most important beginning. The children who will come within the compass of this enactment are a very numerous body; and, perhaps, all circumstances considered, they are the most influential body, for good or for evil, in the country. A prudent, intelligent, and moral manufacturing population,-alive to their own interests, but just towards the interests of others,-impatient of oppression, but obedient to the laws, these furnish the thews and sinews of our national strength: but with a rash, ignorant, and depraved manufacturing population-selfish and blind in their attempts to dictate to their employers-tumultuous and desperate at one time, crouching and sullen at another— it may be truly said that the nation sleeps upon gunpowder." To call forth the real strength, which consists in the virtue and intelligence of these millions congregated in large towns, the education of their children must be general, it must be well directed,-it must be subject to uniform regulations. The enactments which we have recited prescribe its general application, and they also make some provision against incompetent instructors. Upon this point, however, we fear that little can be done, until a system involving the nurture of the youth of the whole nation be called into action. The state of education in a particular district will vary as the diligence of the inspectors may differ, and according to the notions which each inspector may form of the sort of education which ought to be given. We have sufficient examples of these differences in the modes in which education is carried on in parish workhouses. The Poor-Law Commissioners have just published some further extracts from their Reports, which wholly relate to the subject of education. These will furnish the examples to which we allude. Our limits will not allow us to quote them; but we refer to the evidence of the clerk of St. Clement's Danes, and that of the assistant overseer of St. Sepulchre's, as to the effects of a bad education. On the other hand, in the testimony of the assistant overseer of St. George's, Southwark, we have evidence of the effects of a good education upon workhouse children, as opposed to the effects of a bad education upon a similar class. With regard to that large portion of the population, the children of the agricultural labourers, there appears to us to be a greater necessity for the enforcement of a general plan of education amongst them, even than in the manufacturing districts. There is a general impression that the very lowest sort of instruction is quite sufficient to make a ploughman. It may be so; but that lowest sort of instruction, or complete ignorance, (and there is not much to choose between the two,) makes him also a rick-burner. success is principally owing. But I shall endeavour to give the committee some idea of the mode of treatment pursued. "The first principle of the system is to show the children gentleness and kindness, so as to win their affections, and always to treat them as rational creatures, cultivating their reason, and appealing to it. It is equally essential to impress upon their happiness, and the inevitable effects of the opposite behaviour, minds the necessity of industrious and virtuous conduct to their in reducing them from the comfort in which they now live to the state of misery from which they were rescued. A constant and even minute superintendence at every instant of their lives, forms of course part of the system; and, as may easily be supposed, the elder boys, who have already profited by It is quite clear, as it appears to us, that what is impera- the care of the master, aid him in extending it to the tively required, is a plan of education comprehensive enough new comers, who for this purpose are judiciously distributed to embrace all the children of the country, and so well de- among them. These are, I am aware, very general principles, fined as to leave no doubt as to what is proper to be taught and upon their judicions application to practice in each particular and what is not. It might seem that amongst a compara-whole virtue depends. To this everything else is made subordiinstance, according to the diversities of individual character, their tively small number of children, such as the inmates of nate; but with this are judiciously connected a variety of intelworkhouses, there could be no difficulty in the enforcement lectual pursuits. At their hours of relaxation, their amusements of a scheme of education which should eradicate the horrible have an instructive tendency; certain hours are set apart for the evils complained of in St. Clement's Danes and St. Sepul-purposes of learning; and while at work in the fields, the converchre's;-but we see the contrary. We fear that it will be sation, without interrupting for a moment the necessary business the same with the factory children: some will be well of their lives, is always directed towards those branches of knowtaught, others will learn worse than nothing. ledge in which they are improving themselves during the intervals of labour. Besides writing and ciphering (at which they are very expert), they apply themselves to geography and history, and to the different branches of natural history, particularly mineralogy and botany, in which they take singular delight, and are considerable proficients. The connexion of these with agriculture renders them most appropriate studies for those poor children; and objects of those sciences, a double relish is thus afforded at once as their daily labour brings them constantly into contact with the to the science and the labour. You may see one of them every now and then stepping aside from the furrow where several of them have been working, to deposit a specimen, or a plant, for his little hortus siccus, or cabinet; and Mr. Fellenberg rarely goes into the field where any of them are labouring, without being called upon to decide some controversy that has arisen upon matters relating to mineralogy or botany, or the parts of chemical science which have most immediate relation to agriculture. There is one other subject which is ever present to their minds; I mean a pure and rational theology. Mr. F. is deeply imbued himself with the sense of religion, and it enters into all his schemes for the improvement of live, as rather calculated (if I may use his own expression) to make society. Regarding the state of misery in which the poorest classes them believe in the agency of a devil than of a God, his first care, upon rescuing those children from that wretchedness, is to inspire them with the feelings of devotion which he himself warmly entertains, and which he regards as natural to the human heart, when misery has not chilled nor vice hardened it. Accordingly, the conversation as well as the habits of the poor at Hofwyl partake The evidences of design observable largely of religious influence. in the operations of nature, and the benevolent tendency of those of discourse in their studies, and during the labours of the day; operations in the great majority of instances, form constant topics and though no one has ever observed the slightest appearance of fanaticism or superstition, (against which, in truth, the course of instruction pursued is the surest safeguard,) yet ample testimony is borne by all travellers to the prevailing piety of the place. One of them has noted an affecting instance of it, when the harvest once required the labourers to work for an hour or two after nightfall and the full moon rose in extraordinary beauty over the magnificent mountains that surround the plain of Hofwyl. Suddenly, as if with one accord, the poor children began to chant a hymn, which they had learnt among many others, but in which the Supreme Being is adored as having lighted up the great lamp of the night, and projected it in the firmament." On the general subject of the education of the working classes upon a liberal and comprehensive plan, we have had great pleasure in referring to the interesting account given by Mr. Brougham (now the Lord Chancellor) of the establishment of Mr. Fellenberg, in his evidence before the Committee on Education, in 1818. Our space prevents us selecting more from this evidence than the description of Mr. Fellenberg's seminary for the poor. It is fifteen years since the narrative was given, and during that time the institution at Hofwyl has gone on prosperously. Beginning with a single pupil, Mr. Fellenberg has rescued several hundreds of wretched and depraved children from the circumstances which appeared to condemn them to hopeless misery, and has elevated them into useful and happy citizens : "The branch of this establishment," says Mr. Brougham, "which is more particularly deserving of attention, and with which all the others are more or less connected, is the seminary for the poor. Mr. F. having long remarked the extreme profligacy of the lowest orders in the Swiss towns, and the habits of ignorance and vice in which their children were brought up, formed many years ago the design of attempting their reformation, upon principles equally sound and benevolent. His leading doctrine was, that to make those poor people better, it was necessary to make them more comfortable; and that this end would be best attained by forming in their earliest years habits of industry, which might contribute to their subsistence, and by joining with them a greater degree of intellectual cultivation than has ever yet been extended to the labouring classes of the community, or been imagined to be compatible with their humble pursuits. He began his experiments upon a small number of children, which he has now increased to between thirty and forty; and this may be reckoned the utmost limit upon a farm of so moderate an extent. Those children were taken from the very worst description of society-the most degraded of the mendicant poor in Berne and other Swiss towns. With hardly any exception, they were sunk in the vicious and idle habits of their parents, a class of dissolute vagrants, resembling the worst kind of gipsies. The complete change that has been effected in them all, is one of the most extraordinary and affecting sights that can be imagined. When I saw them, there were some who had been there for several years, and had grown up towards manhood; but the reformation in almost all took place in from one to two years, or a very little more, according as they were taken at an earlier or more advanced age. The remark which I make, is that which immediately strikes all who visit Hofwyl;-the appearance of the children alone, their countenance and manner, impress you with a conviction of their excellent dispositions. To describe all the steps of the process by which this reformation has been effected, would be impossible, as much depends on minute circumstances, and upon the great skill and judgment of Vehrli, a young man who has devoted his life, under Mr. Fellenberg, to the superintendence of this part of the establishment, and to whose extraordinary virtue and ability its Affairs of Spain'. Slave Trade Tea Permits and Surveys CONTENTS. NOVEMBER 1, 1833. PAGE 161 Savings Banks Annuities 164 165 Proposed New House of Commons 168 Public Petitions turns AFFAIRS OF SPAIN. PAGE 171 172 172 THE long anticipated event which took place on the 29th of September, the death of Ferdinand VII. of Spain, has turned anew the public attention of Europe to the state and prospects of that interesting country. In this article, however, we do not intend to indulge in much speculation respecting the future, for which, as yet, materials are almost entirely wanting; but rather to throw together a few notices in explanation of certain matters likely to be prominently brought forward, and frequently referred to, in the discussions to which Spanish affairs may now be expected to give rise. The late king, as our readers are aware, although four times married, has left no issue, except two daughters by his last wife, the present queen-dowager, the eldest of whom, having been born on the 10th of October, 1830, is of course only a child of three years of age. The first question which will fall to be decided is that of the succession to the throne, the question whether Ferdinand's heir is his daughter, or his brother, the Infant, Charles Maria Isidore, commonly called Don Carlos. The latter rests his claim to succeed, in preference to the young princess, upon what is commonly called the Salic law. As this is a subject with regard to which much misconception prevails, we will begin by explaining what the Salic law really is. The rule of royal succession which goes by this name used to be peculiar to the kingdom of France. Nobody at this time of day will think of denying or attempting to dispute the force of the regulation or custom, which excludes females from the inheritance of the crown in that country. On whatever foundation this assumed principle of the monarchy may have formerly stood, or in whatever manner it may have been originally established, it has in recent times been repeatedly adopted and consecrated as the law of the country, with every form and solemnity necessary to give it validity. The constitution drawn up in 1791 by the National Assembly, the Senatus Consultum of 1804, by which the dignity of Emperor was conferred on Napoleon, and, finally, the settlement of 1830, transferring the crown to the house of Orleans, have all recognized in express terms the restriction of the royal succession to the male line. About what the law is on this head now, therefore, there can be no question. Indeed, the matter may be considered to have been decided from a much older date than the earliest of those to which we have just referred-from the year 1316, namely, when on the accession of Philip V., who was the brother of Louis X., the former king, the states of the kingdom met and passed a solemn decree, both excluding from the throne a daughter whom Louis had left, and declaring all females for ever incapable of reigning in France. The principle thus laid down, accordingly, was again acted upon when Philip, who left daughters, was himself succeeded, not by one of them, but by his brother Charles IV.; and again, when the latter, who also left daughters, was succeeded by his cousin, Philip of Valois. From this period, at least, whatever may have been the case before, the rule has been distinctly recognized as a fundamental law of the monarchy. The origin of this rule, however, and the propriety of the name by which it is commonly referred to, admit of more doubt. Whatever may be the import of the term Salic, about which there has been much difference of opinion, the Salic VOL. I. Price 2d. Law, or Compact, is really a code or body of statutes, consisting of above seventy chapters, which, so far from relating in any part of it to the order of regal succession, was in all probability drawn up before ever the nation for whose use it was intended had passed under the government of a king. There is merely a single clause at the end of one of the chapters, (the 62d,) which provides that a certain description of inheritances, called Salic, shall not descend to females. These Salic inheritances appear to have been the military fiefs or freeholds, held in return for certain services rendered in war, and thus distinguished from the allodial estates, the possessors of which were exempted from, or, to speak more correctly, were not deemed worthy of, being called upon to perform such services. This difference of tenure sufficiently explains the difference between the laws of succession for these two kinds of property. It was natural enough that females should be excluded from an inheritance to which the duty of military service was attached as its especial distinction. It is in the highest degree improbable, however, that this exclusion was originally established by the clause which has been so often quoted from the Salic code. That clause is attached to the end of a statute or chapter, which refers throughout, not to Salic, but to Allodial estates, and which is even expressly described in its title to be the law respecting the latter. This circumstance has been made matter of much perplexity; but it seems to admit of a very easy and natural explanation. The clause, introduced as it is, is evidently not to be considered as one of the positive enactments of the code; but simply, as set down to guard the previous provisions of the chapter to which it is appended, from being carried beyond their proper application, which was to allodial lands merely. The ancient, and well-understood law of the nation, with regard to landed tenures generally, appears to have been, for the reason just noticed, that they could only be held by males. In laying down, therefore, as is done in this chapter, a new principle to comprehend the case of the new kind of estates called allodial, (which were probably those left in possession of the original inhabitants, when the Franks conquered Gaul,) it was natural to conclude the statute by the restricting proviso, that, nevertheless, no part of any Salic inheritance should ever pass to any female, which are exactly the words used. We constantly find the same thing done in our own acts of Parliament, as when, for instance, it is added at the end of the enacting paragraphs, that none of them shall apply to Scotland or to Ireland, or, as the case may be, to any description of persons or things, except that to which the statute specially refers. So here we have merely the law for allodial inheritances expressly restricted to these, and the old law left to operate as before in regard to all others. In course of time, however, in regard to estates of every description in France, this old law, excluding females from the succession, came to be entirely laid aside. All properties, by whatsoever tenure held, had, long before any controversy arose about the succession to the throne, come to be considered as descendible to heirs general, and many had been actually possessed by females, or by holders to whom the right had passed through female ancestors. In this circumstance, we have a curious illustration of the gradual relaxation, as the country became settled, of the ferocity of the military system under which it was at first managed. The change was brought about in the first instance by express permissions being granted in the case of individual Salic inheritances, that they should be held by females. When this was allowed, they were said, by an expression which no doubt in its original application conveyed a touch of the contemptuous, tomber de lance en quenouille,-to fall from the lance to the distaff. But all this while the situation of the crown happened to be such, as quite to preserve it from being affected by the [WILLIAM CLOWES, Printer, Duke Street, Lambeth.] M process that was going on. Not only might there have been, for obvious reasons, a difficulty in obtaining in this peculiar case the special permission which was at first necessary in other cases. The crown itself in France appears to have been at first merely the chief military freehold, or Salic inheritance; and, accordingly, in the early ages of the monarchy, several cases occurred, in which the daughter of the deceased king was actually set aside in favour of his brother, or other more distant male relative. For nearly three centuries and a half, however, after the accession of Hugh Capel, the founder of the third dynasty, in 987, no opportunity had been afforded for this principle to come into play; every king down to the death of Louis X., in 1316, having left a son to succeed him. In this manner, the period during which the change of practice as to other inheritances was gradually taking place, passed away without having witnessed any breach of the ancient rule, in so far as the succession to the crown was concerned. It still, accordingly, continued to be the general understanding, that no female could reign in France; and when Philip, the brother of Louis, assumed the sovereignty without regard to the daughter whom the deceased king had left, he was, as already mentioned, supported by the estates, or assembled nobility of the realm, the only authority which then existed besides the crown. But did he or they ever think of alleging the clause in the Salic law as the ground on which his right rested? That clause never was so much as referred to, either then or throughout the whole course of the subsequent dispute which arose between Philip VI. and our Edward III., and the wars protracted for more than a century which it occasioned. The official documents relating to the claims of the two rivals, and the contemporary historians merely speak of females being excluded from the succession to the crown by the common law or custom of the country. The code called the Salic Law or Compact, was never cited in reference to this matter till towards the close of the fifteenth century, a hundred and fifty years after the controversy had arisen. plans would seem to be the necessary consequence of the introduction of such a principle of succession as that which Edward proposed. Some French writers have expressed themselves in a very extraordinary style as to the foundations of the custom by which females are in France excluded from the crown. Froissart tells us that on occasion of the dispute between Philip VI. and Edward III., the twelve peers and the barons of the kingdom having assembled at Paris, unanimously decided in favour of the claims of the former, on the ground, as they alleged, that the kingdom of France was of too great nobleness for the succession of it to pass to a female. In later times, Jerome Bignon, a most learned lawyer, has treated the prohibition which forbids females to wear a crown as almost a law of nature. In this spirit the Scotch reformer, John Knox, published two tracts against Queen Elizabeth, which he entitled the First and Second Blasts of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regimen of Women. But the severest thing that ever was uttered against female sovereignty is the expression of Tacitus, when in mentioning one of the German tribes who lived under the government of a queen, he adds, to such a degree have they degenerated, not only from liberty, but from slavery. But however repugnant to French and Roman ideas, this order of things has not seemed to the other nations of modern Europe to involve anything unsuitable. Up to the beginning of the last century, indeed, in no European country, except France, were females precluded from reigning. In Spain, as elsewhere, the crown might be worn by a king as well as by a queen; and females had actually, at different times, inherited the throne in most, if not all, of the separate Gothic kingdoms into which that peninsula had formerly been divided. The foundation of the existing monarchy had been laid, in the fifteenth century, by the marriage of Ferdinand, King of Arragon, with Isabella, Queen of Castile; and it was through their daughter Joanna, by whom they were succeeded, that the kingdom afterwards passed to her son, the celebrated Emperor Charles V., of the House of Austria. It remained with his descendants till the death of Charles II., in 1700, without issue, either male or female. It was the will of the last-mentioned sovereign which transferred the crown of Spain to the founder of the present House, the Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin of France, who accordingly succeeded under the title of Philip V. If Philip had any claim independently of the will of his predecessor, he derived it from his mother, who had been the eldest sister of Charles II. Upon that relationship he would have inherited as of right, if he had not had an elder brother, and if his mother upon marrying the heir to the French crown had not renounced for herself and her posterity all pretensions to that of Spain. This renunciation, indeed, was held to be so conclusive an act that it was asserted to incapacitate the Duke of Anjou from inheriting in any circumstances; and the dispute gave rise to a European war, which, however, after lasting nearly a dozen years, was terminated by a general acquiescence in Philip's title. Here, then, we have an instance of a king of Spain appointing his successor by will; nor does it appear that Charles II., in exercising this power, was considered to have overstepped his prerogative. His nomination was objected to only because the person in whose favour it was made was alleged to have been, by a previous constitutional decree, expressly debarred from, and rendered incapable of, reigning in Spain. And here we may stop to notice another common misapprehension connected with this subject. It is very generally conceived that, in the conflict of pretensions to which we have just alluded, while Philip stood upon the principle that females were excluded from the succession to the crown of France, the English king founded his claim upon the denial of that principle. But this is quite a mistake. The law, or custom excluding females, in fact, so far from being disputed either by Philip or by Edward, afforded the sole foundation for the claim of the one as well as for that of the other. Had it not been for this law, the daughters of any of the last three kings, all of whom had left female issue still alive, would obviously have come in before both. Neither accordingly was absurd enough ever to call that rule of succession in question-although many of the supporters of Edward's pretensions in later times have done so. The point in dispute was altogether different. The English king admitted that the constitution of France would have excluded his mother (through whom he claimed) from the crown of that kingdom, but he denied that it therefore excluded himself. It prevented a female from reigning, but it did not, he contended, destroy the right of her descendant to succeed, if he happened to be the nearest male relation of the deceased king. He, therefore, the nephew of Charles IV., had, he argued, a preferable right to that of Philip, who was only his cousin. It is true, that even on this showing, there was another claimant entitled to come in before both the present competitors, the young king of Navarre, who was, through his mother, It was Philip V. who, in the year 1714, as soon as he the grandson of Louis X. The principle of succession, too, found himself left by the cessation of hostilities in peaceable it may be added, which Edward wished to establish, besides possession of his throne, abrogated the antient fundamental being altogether new, and unheard of before in any part of law of the Spanish monarchy, and substituted in place of Europe, was obviously fraught with the grossest absurdity it the law of royal succession, which prevailed in France. and inconvenience. Had Edward, for instance, not been born A more despotic act it is impossible to conceive. It went till after the accession of Philip, would it be contended that far beyond the testamentary disposition of Charles II.; for as soon as he made his appearance in the world Philip ought that only regulated one step of the succession, but this went to descend from the throne, and allow him, as the nearer to direct its course for ever after. It was accordingly exheir, to mount it? or, at least, that after Philip's death, the claimed against at the time as unwarranted by the constisuccession should revert to him or his line, to the exclusion tution of the country; and, indeed, if it was not, it is diffiof any son or other male descendant whom Philip might cult to imagine what else could be; but the power of the leave? or, to avoid both these awkward results, was the rule king eventually prevailed, and the innovation was subto be that whenever the throne became vacant a regency mitted to. The new law, however, has hitherto been pracshould be appointed, to subsist as long as there was a possi-tically inoperate. Philip V. was succeeded, in 1746, by his bility that any female, although excluded herself, might son Ferdinand VI., who, dying in 1759, left the throne to produce a male heir? The adoption of some one of these his brother, Charles III. The latter was succeeded, in 1788, |