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which without such authority could not be reconciled as the transaction of a Public Board, was strongly reprobated by the Admiralty, at which Earl St. Vincent then presided, who stated, that "the execution of a plan which may have in view any further dependence on the timber-merchants, cannot fail in the end to increase your difficulties in procuring timber, and to put the supplies entirely into the hands of the contractors, who will thereby have the publick completely at their mercy."

However, the Navy Board having, notwithstanding this remonstrance, and the pointed directions of the Lord High Admiral in 1661 *, thought it expedient to confine the supply of timber for the Navy to two timber merchants only, to the exclusion of all others, and to furnish advances of the public money; it becomes a public question, without any intention whatever of reflecting upon the individual members of that Board (for many of whom I have great personal respect), or upon the timber merchants who happen to be particularly employed. My object is to examine the principle as to a home supply of timber, and effective good ships for the support of our Navy, without any regard to persons.

Home Supply of Timber.

This measure, by doing away competitors, will certainly keep down the price of the present stock of timber; but it will be the means of preventing future supplies, as the price of the production will be forced below its real value. But, though the immediate demand be answered, we may be in danger of future want,

and not feel our necessties till it is too late.

From Private Property.

The supply to be expected from the profit arising from plantations of private property must depend upon oak trees being greater than the profit to be derived from the produce of the land in cultivation, or the annual rent added to the accumulated interest

thereon, from the time of planting viduals, planting with a view to profit, until the trees are felled; which indiincrease in the value of a tree by its will naturally do, when the annual growth is less than the annual interest of the money it would sell for. And as trees, like animals, are thrifty in youth, healthy and vigorous; young oaks, until they contain about a quarter of a load of timber, will pay 71. per cent. per annum by their growth, and some may pay 51. per cent. until they arrive at half a load but if left growing till they arrive at increase will not be equal to 31. per a load of 50 cubical feet per tree, the cent.; and if allowed to stand till they reach 80 feet, the most thriving oak will only pay 36s. per cent. for standing, at the price hitherto given for timber. To yield a profit equal to the annual rent of land during the last century, taking 8s. 3d. for the average rate in the year 1700, and progressively increasing to 20s. 6d. in 1800, amounting, with the accumulated interest in that period, to 1410l. for one acre, the price of naval oak timber requires to be upwards of 207. per load. And if the average value of the rent of land taken at present at 33s. per acre per annum should only increase from the year 1800

*"As to the management of affairs among yourselves, that which I shall principally recommend to you is, that there be due and timely information gotten of the quantity of each sort of goods needful in the Navy, which are to be bought, and of the prices; in both which I desire you not to rely wholly on the information of Purveyors, or any person; but to use all means to be fully informed, to make your contracts at your public meetings in the Navy-office; and in contracts of great value, to give yourselves some days for enquiring, before concluding the contracts; that so you may not be misguided by a supposed necessity of buying of any one merchant, when possibly others might furnish cheaper and better; and by this method, as the King's contracts may probably be made with better husbandry, so will it be no small advantage to his Majesty, in that it will take away all occasion of calumniating his officers, it being impossible but the least reproach, however unjust, upon officers so highly intrusted as yourselves, should, by the diminution of your authority towards your inferiors, redound very much to the disservice of his Majesty. JAMES.

"Whitehall, January 14, 1661.

To the Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy"

to

to 1900 in the proportion it did from 1700 to 1800, the profit of one acre from rent and accumulated interest will amount to 53177. in the next 100

years; to equal which, if an adjoining acre was planted with oaks, and produced 50 loads of naval oak timber at the end of that period, it would require to be sold for upwards of 661. per load. Such is the prospect of a future supply of large oak timber from private property, when the present scanty stock is exhausted; which from demi-official information (for there never has been any regular survey) was admitted in 1802 to be only equal to 18 years' consumption for our Navy.

From the Royal Forests.

With respect to the Royal Forests, of which 115,504 acres are withheld from the Royal Family and the publick for the ostensible purpose of supporting the Navy, it appears from the elaborate Report of the Commissioners, &c. appointed by Parliament in 1788, that for 57 years preceding, the supply of timber to his Majesty's Dock-yards from these dignified wastes averaged only 1356 loads annually; which, in the proportion of timber then consumed in the construction of ships in the King's Dock-yards, is only equal to the building of a ship of 642 tons, being less than the smallest frigate of 32 guns in his Majesty's service, and is little more than half a cubic foot from an acre, which, at the average rent of what the land would have let for, cost the publick at the rate of upwards of 681. per load, without the carriage, when the highest price given to individuals for similar timber at that period was only 47. 58. per load. And in 1802, from a greater supply being demanded, the Surveyorgeneral of Woods stated to the Navy Board, that "the quantity of improving timber in his Majesty's Forests is by far too inconsiderable to afford the smallest expectation of the continuance of even the annual supplies the Yards have lately had." Indeed, from the survey made in 1783 it appears, that in four forests the quantity of decayed timber exceeded the sound, and that the whole quantity of sound oak timber fit for naval purposes then standing in six of the forests out of ten, and containing

83,738 acres, was only 50,456 loads, being not equal to one year's consump tion, even at that time, as stated by the Commissioners appointed by Parliament, although in 1788 the whole tonnage of the Navy consisted of only 413,667 tons; which in 1810 amounted to nearly 800,900 tons, and the consumption of timber was stated at 100,000 loads per annum, and in 1812, at110,000 loads for hull timber, without including ordnance or masts, &c. which, at the average produce on private property of 50 loads of oak timber per acre, in 100 years would require 220,000 acres, of which 2,200 must be felled and planted every year to yield a supply equal to such consumption. But it is a melancholy fact, as shewn in an account laid before the House of Commons, dated November 26, 1803, that in the New Forest, of 66,942 acres, "the number of oak trees in an improving state, which may be considered fit for naval purposes, were only 8,012, containing but 8,322 loads" of timber; which, from Parliamentary records, appear not to be equal to three months' consumption in the King's Dock-yard only.

It is true, that, owing to the energy and remonstrances of the late Lord Melville, more attention has of late been paid to this subject, and an attempt made to improve these dignified wastes by planting 32,000 acres, as stated in the House of Commons last Session. But admitting that quantity to be properly fenced and planted with oaks producing the best ship timber, and to be as carefully managed as on private property, such plantations cannot be expected to produce 16,000 loads of oak timber annually during the present century; nor can the whole 115,000 acres, after great expence, and under the best possible care, be made equal to supply the present and increasing consumption for the Navy. It were delusion to hold out such expectation, and the extreme of credulity to credit it (of which the late distinguished Statesman, who was most zealous in the establishing of supplies for the support of the Navy, seemed fully aware); as in his Letter to the late Mr. Perceval his Lordship says: "Having, I trust, satisfactorily shewn, that the consumption of timber for the support of the Royal Navy, as well as for other uses, is immensely in

creased.

creased *, since the Commissioners of Land Revenue presented their Reports to Parliament; and that there cannot be any well-grounded expectation of as much being obtained as formerly from individual proprietors; it is evident 'that the means which it was then proper to recommend to Government for providing a permament supply for the Navy, even if they had all been carried into effect, would now be inadequate to the increased demand."

The preceding statements are not made with the most distant intent to create alarm or despondency; but to prevent the supine policy of concealment, which is only applicable to a state conscious of its own weakness, to which, God be praised, this Nation is not yet reduced. But, if such system is suffered to continue, the country might be lulled into fatal security, and be left destitute of the means of supporting her naval power. The more closely this long-neglected but most important subject is inquired into, the more accurately will our deficiencies and wants be understood, and the greater exertions used to effect a remedy before it is too late.

With a view to this great national object, it is necessary to examine the present mode of construction and expenditure; in order to ascertain whether any, and what methods can be devised, to render our naval force more efficient, and decrease the consumption of materials; thereby reducing the demand for timber to our own means of future supply. [To be continued.]

Mr. URBAN,

A

Jan. 4. REGARD for the sacred cause of Truth induces me to request the insertion of the following observatious in your valuable Magazine.

I have lately been engaged in reading a Life of Milton, written by the Rev. Dr. Symmons; and I have risen from the perusal of it with mingled sensations of pleasure and disgust. But the points to which I would at

*The consumption of timber for the whole shipping of Great Britain was stated in the before-mentioned Report to have been in 1788 equal to 208,000 Joads; and in 1808 Lord Melville has stated it at 349,900 loads annually.

GENT. MAC. January, 1813.

present call the attention of your Readers are, the glaring inconsistency, the flagrant partiality, and the palpable injustice, which appear in this Work of the learned Doctor.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum seems to be the rule which he has laid down for the regulation of his conduct when he has to speak of the hero of his piece. De mortuis nil nisi verum is, I think, a much better reading; and I think so for the very good reason which Le Clerc has given, “ Nec nocet veritas mortuis, et multum prodest vivis." Epistolæ Crit. p. 80.The supposition of the learned Doctor's ignorance of the existence of a passage, such as I shall produce from a Treatise of his favourite and favoured Author, whose character as a scholar, as a writer, as a man, and as a Christian, he has so earnestly la boured to defend, this supposition is precluded by the minute attention paid to the several charges, verbal, syllabical, and literal,preferred against this celebrated Genius, and by the anxiety displayed in the endeavour to refute those charges.

When the learned Doctor was censuring in such severe, though perhaps merited terms, the malignity of Salmasius, of Lauder, and of Johnson, a feeling of consistency, impartiality, and justice, should have prompted him to produce the passage alluded to; in which is exhibited as much fanatic malignity as ever flowed from the pen, as ever rankled in the heart of man. Was Milton's difference of opinion about modes of government civil and ecclesiastical, -was his aversion from regal rule and prela tieal authority,-was the conduct of the Government under which he lived, however harsh, however tyrannical he might have felt or fancied it to be, -was all this sufficient to justify his involving an entire Hierarchy in one sweeping clause of indiscriminate damnation? Did this become a being stamped with the image of humanity ? Did this accord with his profession as a Christian? Was this to walk in the steps of his blessed Master, who, after having suffered all the evil, and done all the good of which his life was capable, closed that invaluable life with a pious fervent prayer for his enemies and his murderers? But, blessed be God! damnation dwells not on the

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breath of mortal. Even a Milton, with all his intellectual endowments, like the despised objects of his illassumed anathema, must pass to his account. And may that God, whose darling attribute is mercy, forgive him the gall of his bitterness, release him from the bond of his iniquity!

I shall now produce the passage (the necessity for doing which a candid writer would have prevented, but the production of which is absolutely requisite to enable us to form a fair and correct estimate of the manners and the mind of Milton);-then let the Reader judge between the Poet and his Persecutors, between his Biographer and the Publick-then let him say, whether he be ready to subscribe to the language and the sentiment which the learned Doctor has employed in giving the finishing touch to the golden image which he has set up-whether he be prepared to conceive of Milton, as of a man, who, if he had been delegated as the representative of his species to one of the superior worlds, would have suggested a grand idea of the human race, as of beings affluent with moral and intellectual treasures, who were raised and distinguished in the universe as the favourites and heirs of heaven." See the Life of Millon, 2d Ed. p. 593.--The passage (1 blush for poor degraded human nature as I transcribe it) is as follows: "But they (the Bishops of the Church of ́England) that, by the impairing and diminution of the true faith, the distresses and servitude of their country, aspire to high dignity, rule, and promotion here, after a shameful end in this life (which God grant them!) shall be thrown down eternally into the darkest and deepest gulph of hell; where under the despiteful controul, the trample and spurn of the other damned, who, in the anguish of their torture, shall have no other ease than to exercise a raving and beastial tyranny over them, as their slaves and negroes; they shall remain in that plight for ever, the basest, the lowermost, the most dejected, most underfoot, and down-trodden vassals of perdition."--Conclusion of “ Milton's Treatise on Reformation," vol. I, p. 274.

I will only add, in the words of a Jate learned and pious Author, that,

"if it were put to my option, whether I would be an idiot, without a single faculty of mind, or a single sense of the body; or whether I would have Milton's imagination, attended with this fiery spirit of fanaticism, I should not hesitate one moment to determine.”—Jones's Essay on the Church. Yours, &c. PHILALETHES.

Mr. URBAN,

Yove

Dec. 19.

YOU sometimes admit a few miscellaneous strictures; and indeed I have seldom any thing better to offer for your acceptance.

Courayer's "Tract upon the Divinity of Jesus Christ" has not fallen in my way, nor the Quarterly Review in which it is noticed; but the reaSoning of Justitia, in your Supplement to Part I. of Vol. LXXXII. p. 622. in justification of the publication of that posthumous work, is very extraordinary.

"The Reviewer himself," your Correspondent says, "will allow, that the Church of England acquires additional strength by the number of victories gained by its defenders; and, allowing this, he will allow that Dr. Bell has deserved well of the Church by the publication of Mr. Le Courayer's Treatise."

The inference here rests on this position, that because attacks upon the Church may, eventually, tend to strengthen the Church, therefore such attacks are in themselves meritorious. Which is just as true as the following: "There must be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest ;" therefore heresies are in themselves good: The Providence of God brings good out of evil; therefore evil is itself good; and we may do evil that good may come.

Mr. Courayer, as it appears, had given a sort of negative consent, that the work should be "made public, after his death;" but if he had left an express injunction for its publication, how any one, believing the doctrine of the tract not to be true, especially on the momentous subject of our Lord's Divinity, could innocently make himself the instrument of its publication (at least without pubfishing an antidote with the poison), exceeds my comprehension, though I have carefully and repeatedly read what Justitia has remarked on the

subject

subject. Whether, in the edition of Courayer, the errors of the deceased author are accompanied with a refutation by the Editor, not having scen the book, I cannot tell.

Partii. p.203. 328. It has often been matter of surprise to me, that Soame Jenyns, fanciful as he was, or any one else, should find a serious difficulty in Luke xvi. 9. where a reasonable and just sense is so obvious: "Make a good use of that which is so often used otherwise;" or, as the general monition is, "use this world as not abusing it," 1 Cor. vii. 31. It is evident from verse 11, "If ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon," that a portion, whether more or less, of the "unrighteous mammon," that is, of this world's goods, is supposed to be entrusted to each of us; and we are blameable, if we do not use it as faithful stewards. It is therefore vain to inquire whethere may perhaps once in a hundred times signity away from" (p. 328.) since to take it so in the passage before us, is only to give it a sense, which is plainly repugnant to the context.

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It is sometimes doubted, whether "the lord," verse 8, is our Lord, or the steward's master; but the sense, either is in effect the same, the way, wisdom of the steward, not the manner in which he employed it, being the thing commended. I understand it, however, as your Correspondent, p. 328, does, of the master, thus:

This fellow is more knave than fool; he has sense enough, if he had but integrity to make a good use of it." And then our Lord, having nade a general remark on the wisdom of the men of this generation, takes up the discourse in his own person: "And I say unto you." And this, not the "adversative" construction, "But I," is, I think, the obvious meaning of xxyw in every one of the sixty-nine instances, where, according to my Concordance, it occurs in the New Testament.

Sela, without a nominative, is to be understood passively, "that ye - may be received;" as araton, in this same Gospel, xii. 20, translated literally in the margin, "Do they require," is rendered in the text,

* shall be required.”

"Fill ye up the measure of your fathers," Matt. xxiii. 32. and "Full well we reject the commandment of God," Mark vii. 9. are, I presume, two incontestable instances of the use of irony by our blessed Lord.

P. 427. Your two Correspondents have, no doubt, determined very properly, that the service, cailed the Churching of Women, is not to be refused to an unmarried woman, who has been delivered of a child, if it is desired. The point of casuistry seems to be, whether, in such a case, supposing (what is always to be hoped) there be real humility and contrition, private penitence and secret thanks are not more suitable than a public acknowledgement of mercy, which, under the circumstances of the case, would be, at the same time, an avowal of past guilt, with something like a braving of the public eye; and, as far as I have observed, custom seems to concur with general feelings indeciding the question in the affirmative. For 1 never knew nor heard of an instance, when the service was required for an unmarried woman: except that I was once asked by a young Clergyman, what he should do, if he was called upon to perform the service in such à case, as it was rumoured he would be; but I think he afterwards told me, it was not desired. R. C.

P. S. In a translation of Dulce Lo

mum, current among schoolboys, and equal perhaps to any of those preserved in your former pages (vol. LXVI. 203. LXXXI. Part ii, 461.) is the following line:

"Sing Old Rose, and burn libellos," where some, I am told, read, “burn the bellows;" on which I have no remark to offer; but wish to learn the origin of the other expression, "Sing Old Rose," which occurs also in Walton's Complete Angler: "And now let's go to an honest ale-house, where we may have a cup of good barley-wine, and sing Old Rose, and all of us rejoice together." Ed. 1760. p. 50.

Cape Town, Cape of Mr. URBAN, Good Hope, Sept. 10. AFTER the lapse of seven or eight

years, permit a Correspondent once more to address you.

The

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