political sceptics do not hesitate to doubt the existence of its former splendour. In this manner the spirit of the nation is depressed, the vigour of its efforts is relaxed; its enemies exult over it, and it seems ready to crouch under the fury of their attacks."

"It is difficult on any other principle to account for an idea which has been lately spread abroad, and has found its way into the great council of the nation : the tendency of which is to depreciate the former strength and character of the British navy. In the days of conquest and of triumph we have always ventured to consider ourselves as the natural sovereigns of the ocean; and even foreigners, however partial they may have been to the maritime honour of their respective countries, have in general acknowledged the justice of our claim to the dominion of the sea." How much, therefore, must we feel ourselves humbled, when we are told, in the days of our adversity, by one who, considering his office, his profession, and character, ought not to have been misinformed, that the navy of France alone always was, and always must be, superior to that of England, when the French bent their whole attention to that particular department!'"

After this introduction, the author institutes a comparison between Great Britain and France, with respect to all the circumstances on which naval strength could be supposed to depend; such as extent of coast, number and position of harbours, capabilities for anchorage, geographical position, fisheries, commerce, materials for ship-building, naval architecture, provisions, nautical skill, national character, and form of government. He shows that Great Britain enjoyed, in all these respects, an incontestable superiority over her rival; and to establish his conclusion, appeals to the authority of the most eminent historians and naval writers of France, including Deslandes, Millot, Du Tot, Voltaire, Raynal, De Real, and especially the Count de Boulainvilliers, whose work was designed to reanimate his countrymen, depressed in the preceding war by their calamities at sea. Mr. Sinclair goes on to prove that England had availed herself of the advantages he had enumerated, having gained an almost uninterrupted series of triumphs, from the times of Elizabeth to the peace of Paris. The only period, during which the rival nations were nearly matched at sea, was the reign of William III.; when the French, off Beachy Head, gained a transient superiority, followed by a decisive defeat off La Hogue, which their navy was never able to recover. He subjoins some curious tables, enumerating the ships of war taken or destroyed by each nation during different seasons of hostility. -Vol. i. pp. 61-63.

This astonishing success of England, he observes, led the Abbé Raynal to acknowledge that "Great Britain, by her maritime force, could balance the navy of the universe." My father, after remarking that the character of the war had changed, and must from that time become exclusively naval, urges upon the Admiralty the necessity of greater diligence and activity in their department: he exhorts the King and Parliament to give some marked and unequivocal demonstration that the naval service is the surest road to fame, to fortune, and to glory; and he reminds British seamen of all ranks, that on their hardihood, intrepidity, and patriotism, not only the honour of their profession, but the existence of their country must depend. "These," he concludes, “are the grounds which induce me to hope better for the future; for though our enemies are numerous, and unfortunately united in the great object of humbling the British flag, yet the success of their scheme must depend fully as much upon our inactivity as upon their strength. Let us bend our whole attention to the naval department; let us be firm, steady, and united; and it is still possible that the war, which at present seems to threaten our own coasts, may yet be carried into the very havens of our enemies."

These expressions of confidence in our naval strength were justified within the short period of eight days after the publication of the pamphlet, by news from the West Indies of the great victory gained by Admiral Rodney over De Grasse on the 12th of April.-Vol. i. pp. 65, 66.

Mr. Sinclair's attention was now directed to the subject of parliamentary reform.

During the short recess subsequent to Lord North's resignation, Mr. Sinclair employed his pen in "Lucubrations on Reform." He begins by showing how imperatively the new Ministers were bound to effect those improvements in the legislature, to which, while in opposition, they had pledged themselves. He remarks that three schemes of Parliamentary reformation had been suggested. One was to increase the county members by a hundred; another to diminish the borough members by the same number; and the third to transfer a hundred members from boroughs to counties. He approves of the last plan, and proceeds to vindicate it from objections. Anticipating the objection that disfranchisement was an act of injustice, he insists that the privileges of individuals must give way to the general good, provided only that a compensation be made to them by the public. "How many rights," he asks, "were our Sovereigns legally possessed of, which were gradually taken away as opportunities for that purpose occurred? nay, have not the privileges which were enjoyed by the members of both Houses of Parliament been diminished, and shall the unconstitutional claims of a few petty villages be regarded?" He quotes the abolition of heritable jurisdictions in Scotland as a case in point, in which the proprietors were obliged to accept a compensation for their rights as decreed by a court of justice. He then gives a table stating the number of electors in all the cities and boroughs of England, showing that the aggregate amounted only to about 95,000. He proposes that fifteen boroughs, containing in all only 700 voters, should be totally disfranchised; and that seventy boroughs, which in ali had only 6000, should lose one member each. To dispose of the hundred seats thus rendered vacant, he suggests that thirty-eight English counties should have two additional members each; Warwickshire three; Yorkshire and Middlesex four. He allows two additional members to the city of London; the same to Westminster; and one to the borough of Southwark. "It is the opinion of some," he continues, "that London and Middlesex ought to have a much larger share in the representation of the people, from the taxes they pay, and the number of their inhabitants. The claim is not without foundation; but such is the natural weight which the capital has in every country, and such, indeed, are the privileges and advantages which London has already received (even as it has been inadequately represented), that in prudence it ought not to claim such a number of representatives as would probably excite the envy, suspicion, and jealousy of the rest of the kingdom." Adopting Dr. Price's calculation, he considers eight as the proper quota of addition to the representation of Scotland, and grants two to Wales. By this arrangement, the proposed augmentation of county members to the extent of a hundred would be completed.

In estimating the amount of compensation to the disfranchised boroughs, he values each seat at £500 per annum, and, consequently, a hundred seats at £50,000. In the case of such boroughs as were private property, the compensation, he thought, should be made to the owner; but in the case of larger boroughs, should be expended in improving the town, rather than enriching the constituency. Finally, he recommends that disfranchised burghers should have votes in their respective counties. The chief recommendation of this plan was, that it avoided intermeddling with the variety of franchise by which, in those days, the constitution was distinguished, and by virtue of which all interests were substantially represented.

Several replies to this pamphlet came out, and one in particular by Mr. Thomas Pitt (afterwards Lord Camelford), member for Old Sarum. The quarter from which this answer proceeded was a source of triumph and amusement to the Reformers, one of whom, Lord Surrey, sarcastically remarked, that Mr. Sinclair's lucubrations had "the merit of rousing the dragon of Old Sarum to defend his golden fleece from the attacks of innovators.' In the present day

my father's tract would be looked upon as Conservative, but it gave unbounded satisfaction to the most noted liberals of that period.-Vol. i. pp. 93–95.

Whilst the Shelburne ministry were arranging the preliminaries of the general peace of 1783, the subject of the retention of Gibraltar was warmly discussed. With strange inconclusiveness Mr. Sinclair recommended that the fortress should be given up, because it excited in an especial manner the jealousy and ill-will of the house of Bourbon. It would appear to us that this very jealousy and ill-will formed in themselves a presumption, that the possession of the rock was a prize worth contending for. "What," asked Mr. Sinclair," would England say to a treaty of peace that surrendered Portsmouth to the Spaniards?" The more analogous question would have been, "What would the Spaniards say?" For England must have sunk indeed very low, when such a treaty could ever be proposed, or when Portsmouth could be in the possession of an enemy. Whilst the Shelburne administration were in office, Mr. Sinclair published his first work on Finance, shortly followed by another. In this last he remarks, quoting an important observation of Baron Masenes, "that the sum of one million, invariably applied for the purpose of diminishing the debt of the nation, would discharge in sixty years a capital of nearly 317 millions of Three per Cents., at the price of 75 per cent." Mr. Sinclair soon afterwards, at the commencement of Mr. Pitt's administration, undertook his "History of the Public Revenue of the British Empire," which he most ably completed. The revered biographer cites one passage from this work which the statemalady devisers of our times would do well to remark.

"

1689.

66

Very different were my father's anticipations with respect to the prospects of his own country. In his appendix he introduces an amusing article, entitled, an antidote to despondency, or progressive opinions from respectable authority, tending to prove that the nation was actually undone prior to the Revolution in 1688, and that it has remained in a continued state of ruin or decay ever since that memorable era." There are twenty-one authorities, each, as a prophet of plagues, rivalling or surpassing his predecessor. "A kind of common consumption hath crowded upon us," says the author of Britannia Languens in 1680. "No new improving manufacture is to be heard of in England, but that of periwigs," says the writer of a discourse on the growth of England in By this revolution we have brought on the utter beggary of ourselves, by the decay of traffick, and unsupportable taxes. England must pay the piper," says Sir R. W. in 1694. "We have upon us all the visible marks of a declining people," says Dr. Davenant in 1699. "We are almost driven to the very brink of destruction," says the writer of a letter touching the embezzlement of the kingdom's treasure in 1710. "By mismanagement or villany we are reduced to a terrible ebb," says J. Gordon in 1722. "Infinite swarms of locusts and caterpillars in office not only prey on the vitals of industry, but render even our liberties precarious," says the Craftsman in 1736. "We have now reached the goal of national ruin," says David Hume in 1776. "The state is a bankrupt, and those who have trusted their all to the national faith are in danger of becoming (I die pronouncing it) beggars," says John Earl of Stair in 1783. I am unwilling to overwhelm the reader with the equally doleful views and anticipations of Smith, Kames, Price, and others on the list of mourners. Great

Britain, however, survived; and my father was convinced that similar predictions made by his cotemporaries of her prospective decay would be similarly falsified by her future prosperity.-Vol. i. pp. 122-124.

Mr. Sinclair obtained, through the interest of Mr. Pitt, the honour of a baronetcy in 1786. We must pass over the details of Mr. Sinclair's visit to the continent in the last-named year, with the exception of one observation.

Sir John conceived that the advantages of our union with Hanover had never been effectually improved by Great Britain. The Electorate commanded the mouths of two great rivers, forming important channels for our commercial intercourse with the interior of Europe. The Elector, he conceived, might agree to charge no transit duty on the productions of Prussia and Saxony exported, provided no transit duty was charged on British goods imported through Hanover into those countries. Thus, British and East India produce might reach Leipsic, the great entrepôt of Germany.-Vol. i. p. 173.

Sir John Sinclair, for some time, gave to Mr. Pitt his warm general support. One exception to this line of conduct is highly to his honour,-his vote against the impeachment of Mr. Hastings. But he gradually became estranged from the measures and the person of that great minister, and at the period of the Regency Question, in 1788, decidedly opposed his views. His political conduct for some years subsequently was, no doubt, most conscientious, but in some instances whimsical. He formed a third, or neutral party; a measure of which he himself afterwards saw reason to question the expediency, and the majority of which in the end united with the Pitt cabinet. We will cite the subject of the Loyalty Loan as a point wherein Sir John Sinclair's opposition would scarcely appear justifiable.

Leaving Wimbledon after breakfast, Mr. Pitt offered Sir John a seat in his carriage to London. On the way, the Minister introduced a conversation upon the financial difficulties of the country, and expressed much apprehension that a new loan could not be raised without serious injury to public credit. He added, that, as the Baronet had attended much to these subjects, and had written a 66 History of the Public Revenue," he would be happy, at such a crisis, to have his opinion on the measures to be pursued. In answer to this appeal, my father stated his whole views of finance, and suggested various measures to relieve the treasury from its embarrassments. In particular, he proposed an appeal to the loyalty of the nation, calling upon each individual to lend, in proportion to his income, a sum of money to the government, on fair terms, regulated by the rate of interest at the time. Mr. Pitt at once entered into the idea, which, after undergoing various modifications, was matured into the scheme known by the name of "the Loyalty Loan," and produced eighteen millions to the Exchequer; without that injury to public credit which Mr. Pitt had apprehended from a loan contracted at the time in the ordinary way.— Vol. i. p. 276.

Compare this statement with the following:

The terms of this loan were of necessity disadvantageous to the lenders, being by its very name rather an appeal to their patriotism than their interest. They were to pay 100l. for every 1127. 10s. of stock, which stock would, at the market price, have produced only 971. 10s.; consequently they sustained an

immediate loss of 2 per cent, or 25007. on every hundred thousand pounds advanced to the public. The necessities of the State, however, required that a considerable additional loan should be made soon after the agreement. The price of stocks, consequently, fell, and the subscribers were subjected to a greater loss than they had anticipated. As Mr. Pitt had intimated to them that no additional loan would be required, he conceived that they were entitled, not in law but in equity, to a remuneration. Several members of opposition unsuccessfully opposed this grant in the committee, but Sir John, when the report was brought up, stated various objections, and in particular, that the subscribers ought to have prayed for relief in a petition recommended by the Crown, and had less claim to compensation, as they had expected advantage from a favourable turn of affairs. On the renewal of the discussion, he put the question to the Speaker, whether members personally interested in the grant should be allowed to vote? His decision against them was fatal to the measure; and the Baronet thus saved half a million to the country, though not without incurring the displeasure of the Minister and of many powerful individuals.-Pp. 278, 279.

Surely it was to be lamented that a chill should be thrown upon loyalty at such a time, so critical and hazardous.

The untoward opposition of Sir John Sinclair upon the subject of the Loyalty Loan, in all probability neutralized in some measure the claim which he had justly acquired with the Ministry for his zealous exertions in obtaining, shortly before, an issue of exchequer bills for the relief of a commercial pressure, arising from a sudden deficiency in the circulating medium. Sir John, being appointed one of the Commissioners for the distribution of these bills, exerted himself to obtain an advance upon the issues, the delay of a few days being dangerous, in which he succeeded. The relief thus afforded proved most effectual in averting a dreaded crisis, and in restoring public confidence. And when Mr. Pitt, having sent for the baronet to Downing-street, expressed, in the warmest terms, his sense of obligation, and expressed his willingness to forward, with pleasure, any object which the latter might have in view, Sir John, with noble disinterestedness and true generosity, asked, as his reward, the means of doing greater good, and obtained the Minister's sanction to his useful project of a Board of Agriculture.

Sir John, about this time, entered into a kind of private negotiation for peace with the French Directory, through the intervention of M. Barthelemy. We almost suspect that this transaction was but an attempt, on the part of the Directors, to excite a popular clamour for peace in England, of which they might avail themselves to extort advantageous terms. The next event which engaged the Baronet's attention was the suspension of cash payments by the Bank of England. We can only give the remarks which close the narration of his conduct on this momentous occasion.

From this period the circulation of gold coin nearly ceased throughout the British empire. A paper currency in small notes became the general medium of circulation. This currency was, from year to year, indefinitely increased. It consequently sunk in value, and the monied price of all commodities pro