But the confideration chiefly deferving our notice, under the head of commercial advantages, relates to the policy or impolicy of allowing other nations to thare in the trade of a settlement fo well adapted to become a depôt of Indian and European commodities. And our author particularly difcufles the effects likely to refult to England from any arrangement which should conftitute this fettlement a free port. If the foreign nations, who at prefent refort to the London market for Eaft India goods, under all the puzzling circumstances of drawbacks, &c. which arife out of the complicacy of our customhouse laws, poffeffed the power of purchafing at the Cape, our author conceives they would prefer this traffic, cæteris paribus. The Americans, we know, profit next to ourselves by the India trade, as it stands at prefent. How much more advantageous would the shorter voyage to the Cape prove to them, when it is certain that even now they can underfell us in the Weft India market for Afiatic goods? British capital, too, would be embarked in veffels trading under foreign flags, to the infinite detriment of the prefent fyftem. Upon all this we have only one remark to offerOur author's argument is addreffed to the Eaft India Company exclufively; and the only inference deducible from it is, that the Company's intereft is incompatible with the freedom of the Cape as an emporium. If that important fettlement were to become the Tyre or Alexandria of modern times, who can doubt that the whole world, and Great Britain moft, in proportion to her greater commercial itake, would benefit by fo fplendid a creation? Tyre and Alexandria!-That is not enough ;-thofe ancient marts were nothing to what the Cape might be made, open as it is to the New as well as to the Old World-to the treasures of the Antilles and Peru, as well as to all the riches of the Eaft. From fuch a profpect, what advantages do not inftantly rife before us to this country? Poffeffed of all the Indian, and fo much of the western world, we must infallibly be the chief traders with the new emporium. And can any thing be more obvious than the cafe with which we could monopolize its fupply from a large portion of Afia and America, without contracting our market for fear of interference? What mighty advantages would thus accrue to all British India, and to our extenfive poffeffions in New Holland, as well as to the continent of Africa itself?

Our author alfo ftates the comparative advantages and difadvantages of making the Cape an entrepòt for Indian produce, under the East India Company's direction. He fuppofes that this would lead to what he terms a diminution of his Majefty's cuf toms (p. 275.), and that it would deprive the London market of the fupply, at prefent furnished to foreigners, of fuch articles

(not

(not Indian) as they take from finding them' ready afforted, when they are laying in their Eaft Indian cargo. He does not think it enough to fuggeft the right anfwer to this, which is evidently; that our produce would naturally be fent to the Cape, if it did not find another vent; but he enters into a needlefs, and we think a very incorrect statement, of the full competency of the Eaft India Company's trade to fupply the Indian market, and the ina bility of private traders to interfere in it, even to the amount of the tonnage allowed by the Company's charter. This statement is taken from the reports of the directors; and we think it is more than of fufpicious authority. But an emporium, destined to thrive, like Tyre and Alexandria, under the direction of the committees in Leadenhall Street, is to our minds a contradiction in terms, as much as the idea of a fenfitive plant growing to luxuriance and beauty under the preffure of a millstone. Charters of monopoly are not fitted to aid the growth of commercial cities, in which the monopolifts do not themselves refide; and indeed the continuance of the Company in their mercantile functions, Teems to us equally incompatible with the increasing prosperity of the Cape, and with that of their prefent dominions.

In order to perceive the benefits that must refult from fuch a station as the Cape, in fubferviency to our fouthern whale fishery, we have only to recollect its relative pofition to the feas where that fishery is carried on, and the great abundance of whales which swarm in the feas round the fouth coaft of Africa itself. Without any farther statement of the facts referable to this branch of the argument, we may fafely conclude with Mr Barrow, that

-the Cape might be rendered effentially useful to the southern whale fishery, fo important to the commerce and navigation of Great Britain; but that, during war, the fame place in the poffeffion of an enemy may be the means of obstructing this valuable branch of trade, and must at all events render it forced and precarious.' p. 322.

IV. We come now, in the laft place, to view the Cape as a territorial acquifition. And here we must remark, that Mr Barrow's argument branches into a diffuse statistical and topographical detail, while the most material points of fact that bear upon the question might have been concitely enunciated; and the defcription fhould evidently have formed an introductory differtation, equally applicable to all the other heads of the argument. The population of the colony, in 1798, confiited of 21,746 Chrif tians, 25,754 flaves, and 14,447 Hottentots, fcattered over fo large a space as left only one perfon to two fquare miles. Much of the foil is fandy and barren for want of water; but in many parts the land is highly fertile. Butchers' meat and grain, as well as wine and fruits, might be had in great abundance and cheap

Ff4

nefs,

nefs, under a more liberal fyftem of police; and our author con cludes with fuggefting fome improvements, well worthy the attention of whatever mother country this important colony may be destined to belong to. We extract the following fpeculation upon a most interefting topic, and venture to pronounce it, in fpite of its apparent impracticability, equally folid and ingeni

Before any confiderable degree of improvement can be expected in those parts of the country, not very diftant from the Cape, it will be neceffary, by fome means or other, to increase the quantity and to reduce the prefent enormous price of labour. The most effectual way, perhaps, of doing this, would be the introduction of Chinefe. Were about ten thousand of this induftrious race of men distributed over the Cape district, and thofe divifions of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein which bye on the Cape fide of the mountains, the face of the country would exhibit a very different appearance in the courfe of a few years; the markets would be better and more reasonably supplied, and an abund ance of furplus produce acquired for exportation. It is not here meant that these Chinese fhould be placed under the farmers; a fituation ia which they might probably become, like the poor Hottentots, rather a load and an incumbrance on the colony, than a benefit to it. Thế pooreft peafant in China, if a free man, acquires notions of property. After paying a certain proportion of his produce to the ftate, which is limited and defined, the reft is entirely his own; and though the Emperor is confidered as the fole proprietary of the foil, the land is never taken from him fo long as he continues to pay his proportion of produce to Government,

I fhould propofe, then, that all the pieces of ground intervening between the large farms and other wafte lands fhould be granted to the Chinefe, on payment of a moderate rent after the first feven years. The British Government would find no difficulty in prevailing upon that, or a greater number of these people to leave China; nor is the Government of that country fo very strict or folicitous in preventing its subjects from leaving their native land as is ufually fuppofed. The maxims of the State forbade it at a time when it was more politie to prevent emigrations than now, when an abundant population, occafion. ally above the level of the means of fubfiftence, fubjects thoufands to perish at home for want of the neceffaries of life. Emigrations take place every year to Manilla, Batavia, Prince of Wales's land, and to other parts of the eastern world. Vol. II. p. 430. 431,

2

The abftract which we have attempted to give of the argument upon this very important queftion, will probably enable our readers to form a definite judgement on its merits. We have seldom attended to a difcuffion in which all the reafon feems to lye fo entirely upon one fide. That the Cape ought never to have been ceded that it ought as foon as poffible to be regained-and that no inducement ought to make England part with it at another

treat

treaty of peace, are pofitions proved to a demonstration in the work now before us, and recommended to our statesmen with all the force of obvious neceffity. One farther confideration, not hinted at by Mr Barrow, has great weight in our minds. If we do not make war in one point, we must in another; if we do not atrack the Cape, we fhall probably attack the Dutch and French fettlements in the Weft Indies:-And, that fuch a policy is unė wife in the extreme, who can doubt, that knows any thing of colonial affairs? The conqueft of Guiana, laft war, enriched the Dutch planters at our expence. Our capitalifts poured into their fervice above fixteen millions in loans, tempted by the profits on confignments, which, after the reftitution of the colonies, they could no longer receive; and now, in order to obtain even the trifling intereft of the Dutch money market, and to prevent their debtors from breaking, thousands after thousands of pounds must be fent over to prop the credit of the Dutch planters, while our own colonists cannot raise a fhilling on good fecurity. The enemy knows this golden rale, and allows us to take his ftarved concern off his hands;-he is fure that we fhall reftore it in the best possible condition. But we, whose fate it always is to pay the reckoning, muft continue war after war in the fame train of dupery; and, not content with paying all our allies in Europe for defending themselves, we must needs bestow donations upon our enemies in the form moft acceptable to his withes and wants. We are happy to think that there is fome chance of fuch fatal impolicy being at laft abandoned; and we rejoice in the wholefome fubftitute which the Cape furnishes for it. To the author of the prefent work, much gratitude is due. We only lament that his imperfect knowledge of political science, and his unfortunate hurry of compofition, has prevented our obligations from being fo large as his natural acuteness and happy opportunities were calculated to make them. This work, with all its imperfections, is a valuable addition to our knowledge, and must tend materially to benefit both the fpeculative and the practical part of the political world.

ART. XVI. The Synonymes of the Latin Language, alphabetically arranged; with Critical Differtations upon the fore if its Prepofitions, both in a fimple and compound flute. By John Hill, LL.D. Profeffor of Humanity in the Univerfity, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 4to. pp. 782. Printed by James Ballantyne, for Longman & Rees, London; and Manners & Miller, Edinburgh. 1804.

A QUARTO volume of Latin fynonymes, ufhered into the world by the Profeffor of Humanity at Edinburgh, could not fail

to

to excite in us the greateft poffible intereft and expectation. The fituation, fo long and fo ably filled by the learned author, made us rejoice at the opportunity thus offered to him of difplaying to the world the foundness of his erudition, and the acuteness of his criticisms. We looked forward to him for the illuftration of many doubtful paffages in those authors who have been regarded, for ages, as the ftandards of correct tafte and literary excellence; we anticipated much curious information concerning the original fignification of words, and their feveral fubfequent varieties and modifications; and we expected to be shown how terms which, at first, were appropriated to exprefs particular customs, fuperftitions, and laws, came gradually, to acquire a more extenfive fignification, and ferved at last to embellish the general declamations of the most celebrated poets, historians, and orators of ancient Rome.

We will confefs, tod, that our national vanity was flattered by the annunciation of this work; we hailed it as likely, on the one hand, to furnish the best answer to the afperfions (if those can be called afperfions which are only employed in the way of fair and honourable emulation) thrown out against us by our fouthern neighbours for our neglect of claffical learning; and, on the other hand, as a work which would well illuftrate the utility of our more favoured ftudies by an application of metaphyfical principles to the general theory of grammar. It was pleafant, at the fame time, to reflect, that the materials for fuch a work were abundant, and by no means difficult of access. Although no remains of the etymological labours of Julius Cæfar are extant, still the acuteness of a writer on this fubject would be much aided by whatever of the precious fragments of Varro have been handed down to our times, by the critical difcuffions on the force of words every where interfperfed in. the works of Cicero and Quintilian, and even of Seneca and other writers, who, towards the decline of the Roman Empire, turned their attention to philological purfuits. Much, too, might be collected from the works of the learned civilians; much from the labours of Servius, Prifcianus, Sannazarius, Scaliger, Voffius, and the innumerable host of commentators of the middle and later ages. The laft century, above all, produced the Thefaurus of Gefner and of Facciolati; works of fo comprehenfive a nature, and executed with fuch indefatigable induftry, that it may not perhaps be too much to affert, that if every other book on the fubject had perished, thefe two alone might have fupplied all the materials for an excellent treatife on Latin fynonymes.

It is not by any means our intention, however, to infinuate that the talk of compofing fuch a work would be eafy. The A difficulties