penditure; of bad cultivation, exhausted soils, mortgaged estates, bankruptcy, beggary. After all, the moral law would have been the safest guide.

When Philip of Valois swore the officers of his mint to conceal the debasement of the coinage, and to endeavour to make the merchants believe that the gold and silver pieces were of full value, he thought that although perhaps unprincipled, such a measure would be vastly profitable. And so no doubt believed the other kings, who, in the "good old times," almost universally did the like. They overreached themselves, however, as all such schemers do. It is true that their debts were diminished "in proportion to the reduction in the value of the currency; but their revenues were at the same time reduced in the like ratio. Moreover, the loss of their reputation for honesty made them afterwards unable to borrow money, except at proportionately high rates of interest, to cover the risk ran by the lender." So that they not only lost on the creditor side of their accounts what they gained on the debtor side, but put themselves at a great disadvantage for the future. After centuries of dearlybought experience, the practice was reluctantly abandoned, and is now universally exploded as essentially suicidal-just as suicidal in fact as all other infringements of the rule of right.

Let us remember also, the failure of those attempts to profit at the expense of our American colonies; and the disastrous results to which they led. Our governors thought it would be highly beneficial to the mother country, if the colonies were constrained to become her cus tomers; and in pursuance of this conclusion, not only prohibited the settlers from purchasing certain goods from any other country than England, but actually denied them the right to make those goods for themselves! As usual the manœuvre proved worse than abortive. The

CASE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.

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autlay required to keep open this national truck-shop was greater than the receipts. Nay, indeed, that outlay was wholly thrown away, and worse than thrown away; for it turns out that artificial trades so obtained entail loss upon both parties. Then too came the punishment, the resistance of the settlers, the war of independence, and the hundred and odd millions added to our national burdens!

What an astounding illustration of the defeat of dishonesty by the eternal laws of things we have in the history of the East India Company! Selfish, unscrupulous, worldly-wise in policy, and with unlimited force to back it, this oligarchy, year by year, perseveringly carried out its schemes of aggrandisement. It subjugated province upon province; it laid one prince after another under tribute; it made exorbitant demands upon adjacent rulers, and construed refusal into a pretext for aggression; it became sole proprietor of the land, claiming nearly onehalf the produce as rent; and it entirely monopolized commerce: thus uniting in itself the character of conqueror, ruler, landowner, and merchant. With all these resources, what could it be but prosperous? From the spoils of victorious war, the rent of millions of acres, the tribute of dependent monarchs, the profits of an exclusive trade, what untold wealth must have poured in upon it! what revenues! what a bursting exchequer! Alas! the Company is some 50,000,000l. in debt.

Protected trades, too, have afforded many proofs of the impolicy of injustice. The history of the wool business some centuries ago might be quoted as one; but let us take the more recent case of silk. Under the now happily exploded plea of protection to native industry, the silk manufacturers were freed from all foreign competition. Their prices were thus artificially raised, and all the nation was compelled to buy of them. And so, having a large

market and profits, they thought their prosperity ensured. They were doomed to disappointment, however. Instead of a brisk and extensive trade, they obtained a languishing and confined one; and that branch of manufacture, which was to have been a pattern of commercial greatness, became a by-word for whining poverty. How utterly absurd, under such a lamentable state of things, must have appeared the proposal to return toward equitable dealing by lowering the duties! What "impracticables" must those men have been thought, who, because monopoly was unjust, wished to expose the almost ruined manufacturers to the additional difficulty of foreign competition! Could any thing be more contrary to common sense? Here surely was a case in which "abstract principles" must give way to "policy." No: even here, too, obedience to the moral law proved to be the best. Rebellion against it had been punished by accumulated distresses a partial submission was rewarded by an increase of prosperity. Within fourteen years from the date at which the duties were lowered, the trade had more than doubled itself had increased more within that period than during the preceding century. And those who, but a short time before, were unable to meet their French compeers in the home-markets, not only began to compete with them in the marts of other nations, but to send large quantities of goods to France itself.

These are but a few samples from a universal experi ence. If diligently traced, the results of abandoning the right to pursue the politic will uniformly be found to end thus. Men who are insane enough to think that they may safely violate the fundamental laws of right conduct, may read in such defeats and disasters their own fate. Let them but inquire, and they will find that each petty evil, each great catastrophe, is in some way or other a sequence of injustice. Monetary panics, South-Sea bubbles, Rail

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way manias, Irish rebellions, French revolutions,--these, and the miseries flowing from them, are but the cumulative effects of dishonesty. A bitter experience teaches all men when it is too late, that, alike in national and individual affairs, entire submission is the wisest course. Even Napoleon, after his seeming success, his triumphs, his profound statesmanship, his far-seeing "policy," ended in the belief that "There is no power without justice."

Yet this commentary on the moral code-this History as we call it-men forever read in vain! Poring with microscopic eye over the symbols in which it is written, they are heedless of the great facts expressed by them. Instead of collecting evidence bearing upon the all-impor tant question, What are the laws that determine national success or failure, stability or revolution?-they gossip about state intrigues, sieges and battles, court scandal, the crimes of nobles, the quarrels of parties, the births, deaths, and marriages of kings, and other like trifles. Minutiæ, pettifogging details, the vanity and frippery of bygone times, the mere decorations of the web of existence, they examine, analyze, and learnedly descant upon; yet are blind to those stern realities which each age shrouds in its superficial tissue of events-those terrible truths which glare out upon us from the gloom of the past. From the successive strata of our historical deposits, they diligently gather all the highly-coloured fragments, pounce upon every thing that is curious and sparkling, and chuckle like children over their glittering acquisitions; meanwhile the rich veins of wisdom that ramify amidst this worthless debris, lie utterly neglected. Cumbrous volumes of rubbish are greedily accumulated, whilst those masses of rich ore, that should have been dug out, and from which golden truths might have been smelted, are left unthought of and unsought.

§ 6. But why all this laboured examination into the propriety, or impropriety, of making exceptions to an ascertained ethical law? The very question is absurd. For what does a man really mean by saying of a thing that it is "theoretically just," or "true in principle," or "abstractedly right"? Simply that it accords with what he, in some way or other, perceives to be the established arrangements of Divine rule. When he admits that an act is "theoretically just," he admits it to be that which, in strict duty, should be done. By "true in principle,” he means in harmony with the conduct decreed for us. The course which he calls "abstractedly right," he believes to be the appointed way to human happiness. There is no escape. The expressions mean this, or they mean nothing. Practically, therefore, when he proposes to disobey, he does so in the hope of improving on this guidance! Though told that such and such are the true roads to happiness, he opines that he knows shorter ones! To the Creator's silent command-"Do this;" he replies that, all things considered, he thinks he can do better! This is the real Infidelity; the true Atheism: to doubt the foresight and efficiency of the Divine arrangements, and with infinite presumption to suppose a human judgment less fallible! When will man cease his frantic pretension of scanning this great God's World in his small. fraction of a brain; and know that it has verily, though deep beyond his soundings, a Just Law; that the soul of it is good; that his part in it is to conform to the Law. of the Whole, and in devout silence follow that, not questioning it, obeying it as unquestionable."*

§ 7.

Briefly reviewing the argument, we mark first,

Advice, by the way, which in these latter days the giver might prop erly enough take home to himself.