by the greatness of her destroyers; but what would have alleviated the disgrace of England, had her government been changed by Tiler or by Ket?

One part of the nation has never before contended with the other, but for some weighty and apparent interest. If the means were violent, the end was great. The civil war was fought for what each army called and believed the best religion, and the best government. The struggle in the reign of Anne, was to exclude or restore an exile king. We are now disputing, with almost equal animosity, whether Middlesex shall be represented or not by a criminal from a jail.

The only comfort left in such degeneracy is, that a lower state can be no longer possible.

In this contemptuous censure, I mean not to include every single man. In all lead, says the chemist, there is silver; and in all copper there is gold. But mingled masses are justly denominated by the greater quantity, and when the precious particles are not worth extrac tion, a faction and a pig must be melted down together to the forms and offices that chance allots them.

Fiunt urceoli, pulves, sartago, patellæ.'

A few weeks will now show whether the government can be shaken by empty noise, and whether the faction which depends upon its influence, has not deceived alike the public and itself. That it should have continued till now, is sufficiently shameful. None can indeed wonder that it has been supported by the sectaries, the natural fomenters of sedition, and confederates of the rabble, of whose religion little now remains but hatred of establishments, and who are angry to find separation now only tolerated, which

was once rewarded; but every honest man must la ment, that it has been regarded with frigid neutrality by the tories, who, being long accustomed to signalize their principles by opposition to the court, do not yet consider that they have at last a king who knows not the name of party, and who wishes to be the common father of all his people.

As a man inebriated only by vapours, soon recovers in the open air; a nation discontented to madness without any adequate cause, will return to its wits and its allegiance when a little pause has cooled it to reflection. Nothing, therefore, is necessary, at this alarming crisis, but to consider the alarm as false. To make concessions, is to encourage encroachment. Let the court despise the faction, and the disappointed people will soon deride it.

THOUGHTS

ON THE

LATE TRANSACTIONS

RESPECTING

FALKLAND'S ISLANDS.

[1771.]

To

proportion the eagerness of contest to its im portance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

Not many years have passed since the cruelties of war were filling the world with terror and with sorrow; rage was at last appeased, or strength exhausted, and to the harassed nations peace was restored, with its pleasures and its benefits. Of this state all felt the happiness, and all implored the continuance; but what continuance of happiness can be expected, when the whole system of European empire can be in danger of a new concussion, by a contention for a few spots of earth, which, in the deserts of the ocean, had almost escaped human notice, and which, if they had not

happened to make a sea mark, had perhaps never had a name?

Fortune often delights to dignify what nature has neglected, and that renown which cannot be claimed by intrinsic excellence or greatness, is sometimes derived from unexpected accidents. The Rubicon was enobled by the passage of Cesar, and the time is now come when Falkland's Islands demand their historian.

But the writer to whom this employment shall be assigned, will have few opportunities of descriptive splendour, or narrative elegance. Of other countries, it is told how often they have changed their government; these islands have hitherto changed only their name. Of heroes to conquer, or legislators to civilize, here has been no appearance; nothing has happened to them, but that they have been sometimes seen by wandering navigators, who passed by them in search of better habitations.

When the Spaniards, who, under the conduct of Columbus, discovered America, had taken possession of its most wealthy regions; they surprised and terrified Europe by a sudden and unexampled influx of riches. They were made at once insupportably insolent, and might perhaps have become irresistibly powerful, had not their mountainous treasures been scattered in the air with the ignorant profusion of unaccustomed opulence.

The greater part of the European potentates saw this stream of riches flowing into Spain, without attempting to dip their own hands in the golden fountain. France had no naval skill or power; Portugal was extending her dominions in the east over regions formed in the gaiety of nature; the Hanseatic league, being planned only for the security of traffic, had no tendency to discovery or invasion; and the commercial

states of Italy growing rich by trading between Asia and Europe, and not lying upon the ocean, did not desire to seek by great hazards, at a distance, what was almost at home to be found with safety.

The English alone were animated by the success of the Spanish navigators, to try if any thing was left that might reward adventure, or incite appropriation. They sent Cabot into the north, but in the north there was no gold or silver to be found. The best regions were preoccupied, yet they still continued their hopes and their labours. They were the second nation that ́dared the extent of the Pacific Ocean, and the second circumnavigators of the globe.

By the war between Elizabeth and Philip, the wealth of America became lawful prize, and those who were less afraid of danger than of poverty, supposed that riches might easily be obtained by plundering the Spaniards. Nothing is difficult when gain and honour unite their influence; the spirit and vigour of these expeditions enlarged our views of the new world, and made us first acquainted with its remoter coasts.

In the fatal voyage of Cavendish (1592), captain Davis, who, being sent out as his associate, was afterwards parted from him or deserted him, as he was driven by violence of weather about the straits of Magellan, is supposed to have been the first who saw the lands now called Falkland's Islands, but his disstress permitted him not to make any observation, and he left them, as he found them, without a name.

Not long afterwards (1594) sir Richard Hawkins being in the same seas with the same designs, saw these islands again, if they are indeed the same islands, and in honour of his mistress, called them Hawkins's Maiden Land.

This voyage was not of renown sufficient to procure