to some less objectionable constitution of mankind. It is the ⚫ business of the wise and enlightened statesman to determine the laws by which these principles are regulated, and the ends to which they tend; and by accommodating his measures to their results, to link the greatness of his country with a process which must succeed.

Restrictions of every kind, wherever they exist, are to us a disadvantage; they are a certain deduction from our prosperity. Give us but a free and open market for the produce of our industry, and we need fear no approach to our pre-eminence among mercantile nations; we possess a command of capital,-a commercial credit,—a manufacturing skill,-a knowlege of machinery, a navy, such as never before existed ;-a fund of advantages which, if rightly used, may enable us to keep possession of the market to as distant a period as the human eye can stretch into futurity. If then abandoning a system of colonial aggrandizement, which can no longer be pursued with advantage, we would build our greatness on the foundations which we ourselves may lay, and bend our endeavors to stretch our dominion over the wants of the universe, the attempt may now be made with every prospect of success. In this respect India holds out immense advantages; not only may she become a customer, to the extent of the wants of eighty millions of people, blessed with the most genial climate and the most prolific soil of the globe, but she may be made the centre of improvement to the surrounding countries, and the day-spring of a better science, and a purer religion, sent forth from her again to illuminate the eastern world.

If nations may be supposed to be the objects of the moral dispensations of Providence, and to be accountable for the use of the power which they possess, a heavy responsibility must attach to us for the fate we are to mark out for a people whose government we have usurped. I would intreat those who determine the measures applied to this portion of the empire to think of the importance, not only to the interests of this country, but to the future history of the earth, of the views which they adopt, and that it depends on them to confer on the world the greatest benefit it has ever received at the hands of man.-These are magnificent objects,-objects worthy the ambition of a nation; and if we would steadily pursue them, they are completely within our power; not, indeed, in the course of a lifetime; but those who would benefit the world, must be contented to sow what others are to reap, and to trust to the slow and safe innovation of time for maturing the harvest for which they have labored. But even in our own time we might hope to see the progress of improvement in India sensibly advanced, and every step that it makes is replete VOL. XXVI. NO. LI.

Pam.

R

with advantages. We might hope to see useful knowlege making its way among the rising generations-we might hope to see some more definite connexion established between the landed interest and our government-we might hope to see a body of European gentry transplanted to the country, creating at once active wants for our commodities, and rendering its capital available for the legitimate objects of commerce, we might hope to see the native states convinced, by experience, of our pacific and friendly views, imitating our improvements, and valuing our alliance; and whatever may be the fate of our political connexion, we might hope, to see the foundation laid of an imperishable influence over the country, in the indelible impression we had stamped on the people. "Hæc nova sit ratio vincendi; ut liberalitate, et misericordia nos muniamus. Id quemadmodum fieri possit, nonnulla mihi in mentem veniunt, et multa reperiri possunt.-Sed de his rebus rogo vos ut cogitationem suscipiatis.""

Cæs. ad Bal. et Opp. Frag,

OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS

IN

THE LIFE

OF

GENERAL LAFAYETTE.

FROM THE

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

LONDON :-1825

OUTLINES.

THE family of General Lafayette has long been distinguished in the history of France. As early as 1422, the Marshal de Lafayette defeated and killed the Duke of Clarence at Beaugé, and thus saved his country from falling entirely into the power of Henry Fifth, of England. Another of his ancestors, though not in the direct line, Madame de Lafayette, the intimate friend and correspondent of Madame de Sevigné, and one of the most brilliant ornaments of the court of Louis Fourteenth, was the first person who ever wrote a romance, relying for its success on domestic character, and thus became the founder of the most popular department in modern literature. His father fell in the battle of Münden, and therefore survived the birth of his son only two years. These, with many more memorials of his family, scattered through the different portions of French history for nearly five centuries, are titles to distinction, which it is particularly pleasant to recollect when they fall, as they now do, on one so singularly fitted to receive and increase them.

General Lafayette himself was born in Auvergne, in the south of France, on the 6th of September, 1757. When quite young, he was sent to the College of Du Plessis at Paris, where he received that classical education, of which, when recently at Cambridge, he twice gave remarkable proof in uncommonly happy quotations from Cicero, suited to circumstances that could not have been foreseen. Somewhat later, he was sent to Versailles, where the court constantly resided; and there his education was still further continued, and he was made, in common with most of the young noblemen, an officer in the army. When only between 16 and 17, he was married to the daughter of the Duke d'Ayen, son of the Duke de Noailles, and grandson to the great and good Chancellor d'Aguesseau; and thus his condition in life seemed to be assured to him among the most splendid and powerful in the empire. His fortune, which had been accumulating

during a long minority, was vast; his rank was with the first in Europe; his connexions brought him the support of the chief persons in France; and his individual character, the warm, open, and sincere manners which have distinguished him ever since, and given him such singular control over the minds of men, made him powerful in the confidence of society wherever he went. It seemed, indeed, as if life had nothing further to offer him, than he could surely obtain by walking in the path that was so bright before him.

It was at this period, however, that his thoughts and feelings were first turned towards these thirteen colonies, then in the darkest and most doubtful passage of their struggle for independence. He made himself acquainted with our agents at Paris, and learned from them the state of our affairs. Nothing could be less tempt. ing to him, whether he sought military reputation or military instruction; for our army, at that moment retreating through New Jersey, and leaving its traces in blood from the naked and torn feet of the soldiery as it hastened onward, was in a state too humble to offer either. Our credit, too, in Europe was entirely gone, so that the commissioners, as they were called, without having any commission, to whom Lafayette still persisted in offering his services, were obliged, at last, to acknowlege that they could not even give him decent means for his conveyance. "Then," said he, "I shall purchase and fit out a vessel for myself." He did so. The vessel was prepared at Bordeaux, and sent round to one of the nearest ports in Spain, that it might be beyond the reach of the French government. In order more effectually to conceal his purposes, he made, just before his embarkation, a visit of a few weeks in England, the only time he was ever there, and was much sought in English society. On his return to France, he did not stop at all in the capital, even to see his own family, but hastened with all speed and secrecy to make good his escape from the country. It was not until he was thus on his way to embark, that his romantic undertaking began to be known.

The effect produced in the capital and at court by its publication, was greater than we should now, perhaps, imagine. Lord Stormont, the English ambassador, required the French ministry to dispatch an order for his arrest not only to Bordeaux, but to the French commanders on the West India station; a requisition with which the ministry readily complied, for they were, at that time, anxious to preserve a good understanding with England, and were seriously angry with a young man, who had thus put in jeopardy the relations of the two countries. In fact, at Passage, on the very borders of France and Spain, a lettre de cachet overtook him, and he was arrested and carried back to Bordeaux There, of course, his enterprise was near being finally stopped;