splendor. (Emérigon, Des Assurances, préf. p. 15; Sea-Laws, p. 190-194; Peters' Adm. Decis. i, ap. p. 93-95; Schomberg's Obs. Rhod. Laws, p. 106; Park's Syst. of Insurance, int. p. 50, 51; Azuni's Maritime Law, i, 388 et seqq.) They are found in German and Latin, together with a learned commentary, in the Jus Maritimum Hanseaticum.

Beside these principal ancient marine regulations, Philip II, in 1593, enacted an Ordinance for the Insurances of the Exchange of Antwerp, and in 1598 the city of Amsterdam compiled a Custumary of Insurances, both of which are printed in the Us et Coutumes de la Mer. (Emérigon, Des Assurances, préf. p. 14; Cieirac, Us et Coutumes de la Mer, pt. ii; Verwer's Nederlandts See Rechten.)

The last code of old maritime laws deserving attention is the Marine Ordinance of Louis XIV. Superseding all former laws on the subject, and incorporating into itself all that was most admirable in other ordinances, it merits a more detailed notice in this place, from the constant reference to it in the preceding treatise by Pothier. Among the numerous projects of national aggrandisement entertained by Louis XIV, that for extending the commerce of his kingdom was early conceived and assiduously promoted by every means in his power. Colonial establishments were increased and regulated by him, navigation was encouraged, manufactories were established, the administration of justice and of the finances was reformed, and, as a certain method of attaining his object, a new code of marine rules and decisions was promulgated. (Ordon. de la Marine, préamb.) The design of it is attributed to the genius of Colbert. (Sea-Laws, p. 250.) This enterprising minister caused all the marine laws of his own and of other countries to be drawn together, carefully collated, explained by citations from all the writers on the subject, and illustrated by the annotations of those learned men employed in the work. In the mean time the Marquis of Thibouville (Henri Lambert) received a commission authorizing and requiring of him to visit all the harbors and maritime towns of the kingdom, to inquire into the laws, rules and usages there prevailing, and to examine the registries and collect the decisions of admiralty courts. The materials obtained by this laborious process were next digested and abridged, then submitted to the perusal of merchants and advocates, and, when improved by the addition of new regulations adapted to the state of the country and the views of the king, promulgated in 1681 as the sole authentic marine laws of the kingdom of France. (Valin Nouveau Commentaire, préf.; Emérigon, Des Assurances, préf.; Peters' Adm. Decis. ii, ap.)

Who was the able writer of this Ordinance it is impossible to determine with certainty; for, although several persons have been named as such, Valin confidently denies that there is any evidence to prove either of them entitled to the honor. Whosoever he may have been, every author of every nation allows, that he collected all that was most wise, most useful and most important in the maritime usages of Europe. The indisputable justice of the general principles of this Ordinance, the precision and comprehensiveness of its language, and the methodical nature of its arrangement, gave it the greatest authority, not merely in France, where it was so long the law of the land, but in every country which esteemed sound laws or aspired after superiority on the seas. (Marshall on Insurance, p. 18; Abbott on Shipping, pref.; North Am. Rev. vii, 340; Park, Sys. of Insurance, int. p. 33.)

& Everett.

ART. II.-On the complaints in America against the British Press. An Essay in the New London Monthly Magazine for February, 1821.

THE laws of reviewing, like the laws of war, seem to have provided some small alleviations for the inherent cruelty of the pursuit. In war, it is considered honorable and lawful, to storm a town and put man, woman, and child to the sword; and to turn armies into a defenceless district and subsist them on the plunder of a ruined peasantry is a practice, if not formally authorized by the international code, far too common to be thought strange. But to poison wells and massacre unarmed prisoners are held highly inhuman and barbarous; and it takes a good deal of patient reasoning on the one hand to reconcile a person of timid nerves to an unrestrained use of Congreve rockets, charged with tartarean sulphur and strange fire,' or to bring him wholly to feel delight, on the other hand, in the torpedo that floats unsuspiciously down beneath the surface of the waters, and blows up a frigate in the dark. reviewing, and we may say periodical and anonymous writing in general, to judge from the most respectable precedents on both sides of the water, a pretty wide range is authorized by the common law of the literary republic; and it is permitted under the names of remark, stricture, observation, and reply, to mix up a good share of heterogeneous materials, and to make tolerably free use of that particular figure of speech,

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which the gods call misrepresentation, but for which the plain spoken men have invented a shorter name. All this, however, is thought to fall within the limits of authorized literary warfare; while a kind of sullen courtesy dictates an abstinence from gross personalities, and has especially made it a part of etiquette, in the various critical journals of a respectable class, to abstain from direct controversy with each other. We have no disposition to break through this usage, as regards our brethren beyond the sea; if indeed we be not too humble to have a right to avail ourselves of it. We have accordingly confined ourselves, in general, to those passing allusions and references, which cannot well be spared in a journal, that would keep the current of the literature of the day; and in a single instance only have ever undertaken a formal reply to any thing, which has appeared in the English periodical works. We are led to wish to continue in this course, not the more from considerations of propriety, than of convenience. A half anonymous controversy is a game too unequal to be wisely. played; and in engaging in it one is never sure that he may not find himself involved in a contest with those who, however weak their cause, possess the advantage of having nothing at stake; whom it is impossible to silence, and no credit to refute.

The essay at the head of this article has appeared to us to justify a departure from the general practice, and to form an exception to the maxims to which we have alluded. It comes before the world, under the sanction of a journal, for which has been industriously claimed the recommendation of a name, to which none would pay a more cordial deference than ourselves. We have strong reasons, which will appear in the course of our remarks, for hoping, as well as believing, that no sanction is due from that quarter, to the statements made and sentiments expressed in the essay in question. We are willing, however, to testify our regard to the distinguished person who has been represented as the conductor of the New Monthly Magazine, by a more particular notice than we should otherwise permit ourselves of remarks, which we are compelled to think not to be throughout deserving of his patronage. We do this the rather as the essay in question furnishes us with a convenient opportunity of illustrating the mode of speaking and writing, with regard to this country, which still finds favor in England; of which, being itself expressly occupied in treating the subject, it must be allowed to be a fair example.

The essay in question professes to speak of the complaints in America against the British press;' and the immediate topics of it are suggested by Mr Walsh's Appeal, and the review of that work in our own journal for April 1820. The spirit, in which this production is written may be estimated from the motives ascribed, in its first paragraph, to those American writers, who defend their country against the alleged injuries done her, by the English press. These are compendiously assumed to be the ambition of a self-sufficient and irritable author to create a bustle about himself,' or if not that, a more expanded fretfulness in behalf of his country. We think that the imputation of such motives and feelings would come better at the end, than at the beginning of an article; and we see nothing to exempt it from the operation of the common law of construction, that promptly to ascribe mean and unworthy springs of action, proves nothing so certainly, as that he who makes the charge is himself obnoxious to it. This holds in all cases. But when one looks at the present case, and considers how much has been said to the disparagement of this country in England, in all quarters alike the low and the high; the number of low bred persons who have fled, some of them from the clutches of justice in their own country, to traverse and vilify ours, and whose slanders, by being incorporated into the most respectable literary journals, have acquired an importance, to which even the strongest complaisance in them would not otherwise have raised them; when one considers that from the correspondence of a minister of state down to the schoolboy's declamation, the English public has shown itself a too willing patron of abuse of America, we do think it somewhat unfair to speak of any reply on our part, however passionate in itself, as irritable and fretful. Our press was long, very long silent; and did little but meekly reprint the calumnies, which were sent over to us, as our brethren at Edinburgh justly state, in another connexion, by the bale and the ship load.' And now that Mr Walsh has thought proper to lay before the public a most ample refutation of most of these aspersions, and what probably constitutes the main indication of irritability and fretfulness,' an alarming offset and parallel to most of the dark shades, with which the English pencil has saddened the portrait of America; and now that we, in our humble capacity, have reviewed that work, in a style sinning, we are quite sure, far more by its temperance than its warmth, we

6

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