oppress,

To see the laureate tribe in such distress; Vile Mævius honour'd, Maro in disgrace;

Loose Sirens seated in the Muses' place: Wise Fancy's sacred flame extinguish'd quite;

While Ignis Fatuus shew'd a cheating light: All were asham'd, and all at this did grieve!

But Heyrick only could our wrongs relieve. He broke the charm; he ended all the spell;

And now the obscener vision 's fled to Hell: Now genuine Sense, adorn'd with manly grace, [face; Doth shew to Heav'n his lov'd, majestic Now Fancy's various mantle freely flows; While curious Judgement doth her locks compose,

And braids in artfull knots those tresses fair, [snare. That will the hearts of Phoebus' sons enNow charming Wit, which few before did know, [ties show; Walks at noon day, doth all her beauHow sweet her looks, how ravishing her tongue, [song; What heav'nly treasure s' in her artfull How, while she innocently seeks to [ease, The ravish'd soul forgets her old disAnd painless joys and endless pleasures sees!

please,

But ransacks Thetis' bosom, and explores
Her inmost caverns and her utmost shores;
And strangely doth the vast abyss contain
Within the vaster ocean of his brain.
All that was ever writ, or done, or said,
Well bath he understood and welt sur-
vey'd:

Pierian Tempe, where Apollo reigns,
And spacious History's delightful plains,
And Heav'n and Earth's far distant re-
gions lie

Conspicuous to his sharp sagacious eye. Nor yet mere knowledge doth his verse bestow,

But, as we 're wiser, makes us better grow; With moral use it smooths rough Nature's face, [grace;

And human art with heavenly sense doth Vertue in ev'ry lineament doth shine, Gross the materials, but the form divine. Yet, when my Heyrick would advance a [main;

strain,

Too high for all that doth on earth re-
No female vanity, nor lordly ape,
Nor wealthy ignorance, nor witless shape,
Bespeak his Muse :-but up aloft she flies,
And views bright Virtue with undazzled
eyes;

On Vertue only she delights to gaze,
To Vertue onely gives deserved praise;
For, onely Vertue and (which is the same)"
Great Rutland, can his panegyricks
claim,

Chaste Gainsborow, and the heavenly
Bridget's name.

Nov. 24, 1690. JOSHUA BARNES. Emmanuel Coll. Cambridge. ***The above is, we believe, the only copy of English verses which are known to have been composed by this illustrious Scholar.

Mr. URBAN,

Blandford, Dec. 10. I SHALL feel myself honoured by your inserting the following extract from a Poem, which, though published, is little known, I believe, but to the Author's friends, intituled Ocean," in which, interspersed with various descriptions of Sea-scenery, it has been his endeavour to enforce certain striking moral lessons, founded on the analogy, which it has ever been his favourite object to trace, between the Natural and Moral World. Its application to the recent events in Russia, and the turn of fortune that has attended the modern Colossus of Despotism, will be easily traced; and I have the additional pleasure to assure you, in avowing myself to be the Author, that when written and published in 1801, the lines subjoined were meant to designate the character to whom they now apply. MASON CHAMBERLIN.

OCEAN! to thee I dedicate my strain, Thou "secretWorld of Wonders in thyself," (As sung the bard, whose praises ever break [deed Spontaneous from my lips); for thou inArt inexhaustibly an object, form'd For Britons to admire, who yet retain (Under the auspices of Heaven's high will) Their rank among the nations by thine aid.

* * %% * **

From some tall cliff, whose weather-beaten

brow

Stems the rude force of gathering elements, Baffling the assaults of congregated clouds, [wide,

And scattering them in divers channels To shed their milder influence o'er the land,

I love to view the fluctuating gleam That pours new radiance on thy wide-spread face, [change, And watch with care each interesting As the subsiding tempest breaks away, While the first struggling sunbeams pe[gloom, With gradual strength the formidable Alternate darting forth with power renew'd, Or yielding to the relicks of the storm, Which swiftly glide before the whistling gale.

netrate

What time the shatter'd vessel spreads
again
[more
Her Butt'ring canvass, and attempts once
To wind her course around the far-stretch'd
point,
[reef'd sail,
Beneath whose shelt'ring head, with close-
And anchor fix'd in some well-chosen spot,
She watch'd in dread suspense the tedious
night.

Oh! let me cherish in my mind a sense
Of the all-gracious providence of God,
Who oft amid the moral world displays
His saving power, protecting still the lives
Of those who place their confidence in him,
When his severest judgments are abroad.

E'en while the wicked vent their utmost rage,

scorn,)

(With inadvertent malice, working out The mighty purpose of the Power they [all He, when their passions have accomplish'd Which his high will permits, can cause their wrath

To praise him, or the remnant can restrain. He rules the tumult, and alike commands The face of Nature, when the threat'ning [lifts Scowls o'er the foaming billows, and upThe roaring waters from their deep-sunk bed;

storm

As when with placid ray, the rising moon
O'er thy unruffled surface gently sheds
A silver lustre; while the ebbing waves,
Confin'd by laws unerring, to those bounds
They first receiv'd, by slow degrees re-
tire,

And leave the stranded vessel to await
The friendly aid of a returning flood.
At such serener hours, how sweet to take
Some fav'rite station near the pebbly
shore.

And catch at intervals the solemn sound,
As the proud tide repeats its efforts vain,
And, for a time compelled to yield its place,
Recoils in murmurs towards th' abyss

:

THE PRINCE REGENT'S DECLARATION. The earnest endeavours of the Prince Regent to preserve the relations of peace and amity with the United States of America having unfortunately failed, his Royal Highness, acting in the name and on the behalf of his Majesty, deems it proper publicly to declare the causes and origin of the war, in which the Government of the United States has compelled him to engage.-No desire of conquest, or other ordinary motive of aggression, has been, or can be with any colour of reason, in this case, imputed to Great Britain that her commercial interests were on the side of peace, if war could have been avoided, without the sacrifice of her maritime rights, or without an injurious submission to France, is a truth which the American Government will not deny. His Royal Highness does not, however, mean to rest on the favourable presumption to which he is entitled. He is prepared by an exposition of the circumstances which have led to the present war, to show that Great Britain has throughout acted towards the United States of America with a spirit of amity, forbearance, and conciliation; and to demonstrate the inadmissible nature of those preteusions which have at length unhappily involved the two countries in war.It is well known to the world, that it has been the invariable object of the Ruler of France to destroy the power and independence of the British Empire, as the chief obstacle to the accomplishment of his ambitious designs.-He first contemplated the possibility of assembling such a naval force in the Channel as, combined with a numerous flotilla, should enable him to disembark in England an army sufficient, in his conception, to subjugate this country; and through the conquest of Great Britain he hoped to realize his project of universal empire.

By the adoption of an eularged and provident system of internal defence, and by the valour of His Majesty's fleets and armies, this design was entirely frustrated; and the naval force of France, after the most signal defeats, was compelled to retire from the ocean.-An attempt was then made to effectuate the same purpose by other means; a system was brought forward, by which the Ruler of France hoped to annihilate the commerce of Great Britain, to shake her public credit, and to destroy her revenue; to render CENT, MAG. January, 1813.

useless her maritime superiority, and so to avail himself of his continental ascendancy, as to constitute himself in a great measure the arbiter of the ocean, notwithstanding the destruction of his fleets. -With this view, by the Decree of Berlin, followed by that of Milan, he declared the British territories to be in a 'state of blockade ; and that all commerce, or even correspondence, with Great Bri tain was prohibited. He decreed that every vessel and cargo, which had entered, or was found proceeding to a British port, or which, under any circum stances, had been visited by a British ship of war, should be lawful prize: he declared all British goods and produce, wherever found, and however acquired, whether coming from the Mother Country or from her colonies, subject to confiscation he further declared to be denationalized, the flag of all neutral ships that should be found offending against these his Decrees: and he gave to this project of universal tyranny, the name of the Continental System-For these attempts to ruin the commerce of Great Britain, by means subversive of the clearest rights of neutral nations, France endeavoured in vain to rest her justification upon the previous conduct of his Majesty's Government.-Under circumstances of unparalleled provocation, his Majesty had abstained from any measure which the ordinary rules of the Law of Nations did not fully warrant, Never was the maritime superiority of a Belligerent over his Enemy more complete and decided. Never was the opposite Belligerent so formidably dangerous in his power, and in his policy, to the li berties of all other nations. France had already trampled so openly and systematically ou the most sacred rights of Neutral Powers, as might well have justified the placing her out of the pale of civilized nations. Yet in this extreme case, Great Britain had so used her naval ascendancy, that her Enemy could find no just cause of complaint and in order to give to these lawless decrees the appearance of retaliation, the Ruler of France was obliged to advance principles of maritime law unsanctioned by any other authority than his own arbitrary will.-The pretexts for these Decrees were, first, that Great Britain had exercised the rights of war against private persons, their ships, and goods; as if the only object of legi

timate

\timate hostility on the ocean were the public property of a State, or as if the Edicts and the Courts of France itself had not at all times enforced this right with peculiar rigour; secondly, that the British orders of blockade, instead of being confined to fortified towns, had, as France asserted, been unlawfully extended to commercial towns and ports, and to the - mouths of rivers; and thirdly, that they had been applied to places, and to coasts, which neither were, nor could be actually blockaded. The last of these charges is not founded on fact; whilst the others, even by the admission of the American Government, are utterly groundless in point of law. Against these Decrees, his Majesty protested and appealed; he called upon the United States to assert their own rights, and to vindicate their independence, thus menaced and attacked; and as France had declared, that she would confiscate every vessel which should touch in Great Britain, or be visited by British ships of war, his Majesty, having previously issued the Order of January, 1807, as an act of mitigated retaliation, was at length compelled, by the persevering violence of the Enemy, and the continued acquiescence of Neutral Powers, to revisit, upon France, in a more effectual manner, the measure of her own injustice; by declaring, in an Order in Council, bearing date the 11th of November, 1807, that no neutral vessel should proceed to France, or to any of the countries from which, in obedience to the dictates of France, British comanerce was excluded, without first touching at a port in Great Britain, or her dependencies. At the same time his Majesty intimated his readiness to repeal the Orders in Council, whenever France should rescind her Decrees, and return to the accustomed pinciples of maritime warfare; and at a subsequent period, as a proof of his Majesty's sincere desire to accommodate, as far as possible, his defensive measures to the convenience of Neutral Powers, the operation of the Orders in Council was, by an order issued in April, 1809, limited to a blockade of France, and of the countries subjected to her immediate dominion.-Systems of violence, oppression, and tyranny, can never be suppressed, or even checked, if the Power against which such injustice is exercised, be debarred from the right of full and adequate retaliation; or, if the measures of the retaliating Power are to be considered as matters of just offence to neutral nations, whilst the measures of original aggression and violence are to tolerated with indifference, submission, or complacency.-The Government of the United States did not fail to remonstrate against the Orders in Council of Great

Britain. Although they knew that these Orders would be revoked, if the Decrees of France, which had occasioned them, were repealed, they resolved at the same moment to resist the conduct of both Belligerents, instead of requiring France in the first instance to rescind her decrees. Applying most unjustly the same measure of resentment to the aggressor and to the party aggrieved, they adopted measures of commercial resistance against both-a system of resistance, which, however varied in the successive Acts of Embargo, Non-Intercourse, or Non-Importation, was evidently unequal in its operation, and principally levelled against the superior commerce and maritime power of Great Britain.-The same partiality towards France was observable in their negociations, as in their measures of alleged resistance.-Application was made to both Belligerents for a revocation of their respective edicts; but the terms in which they were made, were widely different.-Of France was required a revocation only of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, although many other edicts, grossly violating the neutral commerce of the United States, had been promulgated by that Power. No security was demanded, that the Berlin and Milan Decrees, even if revoked, should not under some other form be re-established: and a direct engagement was offered, that upon such revocation, the American Government would take part in the war against Great Britain, if Great Britain did not immediately rescind her Orders: whereas no corresponding engagement was offered to Great Britain, of whom it was required, not only that the Orders in Council should be repealed, but that no others of a similar nature should be issued, and that the blockade of May, 1906, should be also abandoned. This blockade, established and enforced according to accustomed practice, bad not been objected to by the United States at the time it was issued. Its provisions were, on the coutrary, represented by the American Minister resident in London at the time, to have been so framed, as to afford, in his judgment, a proof of the friendly disposition of the British Cabinet towards the United States. - Great Britain was thus called upon to abandon one of her most important maritime rights, by acknowledging the order of blockade in question, to be one of the edicts which violated the commerce of the United States, although it had never been so considered in the previous negociations; and although the President of the United States had recently consented to abrogate the Non-Intercourse Act, on the sole condition of the Orders in Council being revoked; thereby distinctly admitting these

orders

orders to be the only edicts which fell within the contemplation of the law under which he acted-A proposition so hostile to Great Britain could not but be proportionally encouraging to the pretensions of the Enemy; as by thus alleging that the blockade of May, 1806, was illegal, the American Government virtually justified, so far as depended on them, the French Decrees.-After this proposition had been made, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, if not in concert with that Government, at least in conformity with its views, in a dispatch, dated the 5th of August, 1810, and addressed to the American Minister resident at Paris, stated that the Berlin and Milan Decrees were revoked, and that their operation would cease from the 1st day of November following, provided his Majesty would revoke his Orders in Council, and renounce the new principles of blockade; or that the United States would cause their rights to be respected; meaning thereby, that they would resist the retaliatory measures of Great Britain.Although the repeal of the French Decrees thus announced was evidently, contingent, either on concessions to be made by Great Britain (concessions to which it was obvious Great Britain could not submit), or on measures to be adopted by the United States of America, the American President at once considered the repeal as absolute. Under that pretence the Non-Importation Act was strictly enforced against Great Britain, whilst the ships of war and merchant ships of the Enemy were received into the harbours of America. The American Government, assuming the repeal of the French Decrees to be absolute and effectual, mast unjustly required Great Britain, in conformity to her declarations, to revoke her Orders in Council. The British Government denied that the repeal, which was announced in the letter of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, was such as ought to satisfy Great Britain; and in order to ascertain the true character of the measure adopted by France, the Government of the United States was called upon to produce the Instrument, by which the alleged repeal of the French Decrees bad been effected. If these Decrees were really revoked, such an instrument must exist, and no satisfactory reason could be given for withhold.ng it. At length, on the 21st May, 1812, and not before, the American Minister in London did produce a copy, or at least what purported to be a copy, of such an instrument.-It professed to bear date the 28th of April, 1811, long subsequent to the dispatch of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs of the 5th of August, 1810, or even the day named herem, viz. the 1st November following,

when the operation of the French Decrees was to cease. This instrument expressly declared that these French Decrees were repealed in consequence of the American Legislature having, by their Act of the 1st of March, 1811, provided, that British ships and merchandise should be excluded from the ports and harbours of the United States. By this instrument, the only document produced by America as a repeal of the French Decrees, it appears beyond a possibility of doubt or cavil, that the alleged repeal of the French Decrees was conditional, as Great Britain had asserted; and not absolute or final, as had been maintained by America: that they were not repealed at the time they were stated to be repealed by the American Govern-' ment: that they were not repealed in conformity with a proposition, simultaneously made to both Belligerents, but that in consequence of a previous Act on the part of the American Government, they were repealed in favour of one Belligerent, to' the prejudice of the other: that the Ame rican Government having adopted measures restrictive upon the commerce of both Belligerents, in consequence of Edicts issued by both, rescinded these measures, as they affected that Power which was the aggressor, whilst they put them in full operation against the party aggrieved, although the Edicts of both Powers continued in force; and lastly, that they excluded the ships of war belonging to one Belligerent, whilst they admitted into their ports and harbours the ships of war belonging to the other, in violation of one of the plainest and most essential duties of a Neutral Nation.Although the Instrument thus produced was by no means that general and un qualified revocation of the Berlin and M¡lan Decrees which Great Britain had continually demanded, and had a full right to claim; and although this Instrumen', under all the circumstances of its appearance at that moment, for the first time, was open to the strongest suspicions of its authenticity; yet as the Minister of the United States produced it, as purporting to be a copy of the Instrument of revoca tion, the Government of Great Britain, desirous of reverting, if possible, to the ancient and accustomed principles of Maritime War, determined upon revoking conditionally the Orders in Council. Accordingly in the month of June last, his Royal Highness the Prince Regent was pleased to declare in Council, in the name and on the behalf of his Majesty, that the Orders in Council should be revoked, as far as respected the ships and property of the United States, from the 1st of August following. This revocation was to continue. in force, provided the Government of the United States should,