to the streets, not because they are worse than their neighbours, but merely because they are without an opportunity of doing mischief in other places. Magistrates ought therefore to begin at the fountain head, and resolve in the most decided terms not to license a single house, known to be the resort of the profligate, or in which disorderly conduct is suffered, either directly or indirectly. To go these lengths they are warranted by law; and in every case where good morals and revenue came in contact, I enter tain a higher opinion of their wisdom, than to suppose that the latter will be preferred at the expence of the former. Good morals are the strength of every nation; and from the moment they are forsaken and renounced, may be dated the ruin or at least the decline of public prosperity, as is woefully demonstrated by the annals of every country, with which we are acquainted. LUCIUS. has already been explained, that the leaders of the democratic party in America have obtained possession of the government, by choosing that set of principles, which was. most acceptable to the ruder and less refined part of the community; and it is proper to add, that they owe their ascendancy also, in some degree, to the superiority which, in one respect, they have always manifested over their political opponents; to their greater activity and zeal in propagating the princi ples, and advancing the interests, of their party. It might have been inferred a priori, from the difference between the materials of which the two parties are composed, that their conduct would be marked by the dif ference, which is here alluded to. The leading federalists are gentlemen of fortune, talents, and education, the natural rulers of the country. The leaders of the democratic party, on the other hand, are, for the most part, what may be turers, who follow politics as a procalled politicians of fortune; advenfession. With them politics are a primary, with the federalists, they are rather a secondary consideration. The democrates, being in general men of inferior birth and breeding to the federalists, can more easily mix with the rabble, and affect, in their dress and manners, practise the tribunitian arts. They beian order, and condescend to a to regard themselves as of the plefamiliarity of intercourse with the vulgar, from which gentlemen would revolt. They practise, in short, with greater activity and perseverance than the federalists, all the means by which the interests of their party can be advanced. These means, as being curious in them. selves, and totally different from any thing that is known in this country, country, are not unworthy of explanation. It is in the great towns that these means are employed with the greatest activity, and attended with the most complete success; and a statement of what is done in New York will furnish a good specimen of what is done throughout the union. This city, which contains about 80,000 inhabitants, is divided into ten wards, each of which has an alderman and officers of its own. This division has been made chiefly for the convenience of elections; which, in a country where suffrage is universal, and party spirit runs so high, could not be conducted on the same plan as in England, with out being the source of tumults and bloodshed. On occasion of elec tions, each ward has its own poll, where the votes are given in on written tickets. The federalists and fepublicans of each ward hold occasionally separate meetings, in which they discuss the state of pubfic affairs, and the present condition of their respective parties. On great occasions, general meetings of all the federalists and all the republicans in the city are separately called by their respective leaders. These general meetings, which are often very numerous, are addressed in an animated harangue by some orator, who moves a string of resofutions, that have been previously concerted. The resolutions are adopted by acclamation, and published in all the newspapers. During my stay in the country, (which happened to be at the time of the embargo, in the year 1808 and 1809,) the standing topics of déclamation, at the federal meet ings, were the errors and miscon duct of their own government in respect to the two belligerent powers, and the incalculable mischief the country was suffering from the mal-administration of its rulers. The democratic assemblies were chiefly entertained with the abuse of Eng land, whose atrocious conduct, it was alleged, had rendered neeessary all the restraints, which the government had seen fit to impose on the commerce of their country. On certain great festivals, particularly on the 4th of July, the anniversary of the declaration of American independence, an oration is delivered in one of the churches, to which all parties are invited. The avowed object of this meeting is to keep alive, in the minds of the people, the love of independence, and the memory of the great exploits by which it was achieved; but its real purpose is, to rake up the animosities of the revolutionary war, and to perpetuate that antipathy to Eng land, which the leaders of the democratic party find it for their interest to cherish. It is attended accordingly by few but those in the democratic interest. In almost all the arts, by which a political party can be benefited, the democrates or republicans are an overmatch for their adversaries. Previous to elections, they exert themselves with indefatigable zeal to secure a majority; nor are they scrupulous about the means, provided the end be attained. Dissimulation, misrepresentation, and falsehood, are alternately made use of. The press, which, in this country, is the guardian of freedom, in America, is the instrument of faetion. Newspapers are there multiplied to an extent unknown in any other country. The avidity for news creates a demand for them among all classes of the community; and the general diffusion of opulence enables all ranks to gratify this inclination. In the city of New York alone, which is not more populous than that of Edinburgh, there are published eight or nine daily papers. The most violent of these vehicles of of intelligence are, of course, in the service of democracy. They are often conducted with a spirit and animation, worthy of a better cause; and would be highly creditable to their authors, were they not disgraced by the gross and vulgar abuse, which they continually lavish on the British government and the federal party. The democratic papers, scattered over the union, propagate, to its farthest bounds, the principles and the prejudices of the faction; whose zeal for proselytism is displayed, perhaps, more remarkably in this particular, than in any other. Whenever a township, in the back settlements, appears sufficiently advanced to support a newspaper, a press is established for the dissemination of democratic tenets. Printing-présses are now at work on spots, where, twelve years ago, not a tree was cut down and thus the indefatigable zeal of this industrious party, endeavours to secure the accession of tracts of country that remain to be cleared, and of citizens yet unborn. Such, my dear Sir, are the causes of democratic ascendency which operate in every part of the Union. Other sources of the Anti-anglican spirit, as connected with the predominance of the democratic party, are to be found in the jealousies and dissentions, that prevail among the different parts of the Union them selves, owing to the different circumstances in which they are placed; and of these circumstances it will here be necessary to introduce a short explanation. It is well known, that there is a considerable difference between the habits and pursuits of the people of the northern and southern states. Agriculture is chiefly cultivated in the latter, commerce and navigation in the former. The inhabitants of New England have a near resemblance to the Dutch: the promi > nent features of their character being enterprise, parsimony, and avidity of gain. The people of Virginia, and the southern states, on the other hand, are chiefly planters and landholders; a description of persons, whose ideas are naturally more. aristocratical, and who have always regarded themselves as the noblesse of America. The effects of the commercial prosperity, which America has enjoyed, since the establishment of her independence, though they have been perceptible in every quarter of the Union, have been much more conspicuous in the northern, than in the southern states. The southern states, by sending their produce to Europe, have carried on a considerable foreign trade of consumption; but the merchants of the northern states have also, till the late interruption, of commerce, carried on almost the whole carrying trade of Europe; and enriched themselves by an employment, in which their southern brethren have, comparatively speaking, had little participation. The northern merchants have thus acquired a degree of opulence, that has enabled them to outshine, in magnificence and splendour, the southern planters. Hence has arisen a competition and rivalship,, that have destroyed the little cordiality, that once subsisted between these parts of the country. The different sections of the American Union do by no means entertain for each other those friendly sentiments, that subsist between the different provinces of the British or French empires. They regard each other with a mutual jealousy and dislike, bordering upon hatred. The inhabitants of the northern states, whose character is very similar to that of their English ancestors, dislike the arrogance and presumption of the southern slave-holders: and the southern planters, on the other hand, hand, despise the plodding industry, and commercial spirit of the northern merchants. The commercial prosperity of the northern states has of late years inflamed the jealousy of the southern, who would, therefore, look with the less regret on a war with England, by which the commerce of their nation would be almost totally annihilated. There is yet another reason to be assigned for the aversion of the Virginians to neutral traffic. Their spirit is too proud for this species of trade. A neutral power cannot be treated with the respect, which a belligerent always exacts. In submitting to the necessary search for contraband goods, or foreign seamen, its vessels are liable to many insults and indignities, which a highspirited nation cannot tamely endure. The Dutch might more easily pocket these affronts; being a people, whose territory was diminutive, and whose very existence depended upon commerce. The New Englanders are also tolerably fitted for the business, having a decided propensity to mercantile affairs; and inhabiting the territory which is the most fully peopled of any in the United States, and that, in which the channels of industry are most completely filled up. But the Virginians and Carolinians, highspirited, haughty and fierce, lords of a territory, nearly as large as the half of Europe, of which not a tenth part is yet inhabited; from the united effect of their free government, and the practice of domestic slavery, combining the turbulence of republicans with the pride of nobility, such a people cannot easily stoop to the indignities, which a neutral nation must lay its account with suffering. I have already observed, that the southern states profit much less by this neutral trade, than their northern brethren : but had they even no jealousy of that part of the - Union, they are indignant to see the flag of their country employed as a beast of burthen, and rendered alternately the slave and the victim of contending belligerents. For these reasons, Virginia, and the other southern states, are strongly impregnated with the anti-commercial, and, of course, Anti-anglican spirit: and these states are now considered the strong-hold of the antifederal, republican, or democratic party. It deserves here to be mentioned, that the southern states have, in proportion to their population, more political weight than the northern, owing to the following circumstance. By the second section of the first article of the Constitution of the United States, it is provided, that "representatives," (members of the House of Representatives,) "and direct taxes, shall be appor "tioned among the several states, "according to their respective num"bers, which shall be determined, by adding to the whole number of "free persons, including those bound "to serve for a number of years, and excluding Indians, not taxed, "three-fifths of all other persons." This clause was introduced, in order to give the southern states a representation for their slaves. There are slaves in all the states; but the proportion of those in the southern to those in the northern, is at least ten to one. The southern states, therefore, send more members to Congress, in proportion to their free population, than the northern. They have, in consequence, more political power; and the party, which they support, is the most likely to prevail. There yet remains to be considered, another subordinate circumstance, by which the ascendency of the democratic interest in America may, in part, be accounted for. This is the vast number of foreigners, who yearly land in the United States States. Of these the greater part are discontented Irish, who emigrate in swarms to a country, where the wages of labour are higher than in their own; and where they are permitted to indulge, without restraint, that hatred to the British government, which is the ruling passion of their souls. They are received with open arms by the democratical faction, whose principles are congenial to their own; and into whose scale they throw their whole political influence. The last Irish rebellion sent to the United States a vast crowd of rebels and United Irishmen; and every passing year makes additions to the number. The residence, which is necessary to entitle a foreigner to the privileges of citizenship in America, has varied according to the different principles and interests of the two parties, by which the government has at different times been administered. At first, under the federal rule, if I am not much mistaken, the residence necessary was five years: but on its being found, that the greater part of those who applied for the benefit of this law, were in the habit of joining their political adversaries, the term was prolonged, by act of Congress, to fourteen years. When the democratic party came into power, they knew it to be their interest that naturalization should be as easy as possible; and the term of residence was accordingly brought back to its old period of five years. But it is well known, that there are modes, by which persons, who have not fulfilled their statutory residence, may obtain certificates of citizenship; and that many foreigners vote at every election, who have not been five years in the United States. It is one of the chief evils, that have resulted from the independence of the American colonies, and of which the full extent was at first very far from being clearly seen, that these republican communities, sprung from our own bosom, and speaking our own language, furnish a receptacle, in which the disaffected of all descriptions may exercise their hostility to the mother country, not only with perfect impunity, but perhaps with as much efficacy, as they The could have done at home. Irish are noted, as being the most bitter democrates in America. In the city of New York alone, there are five or six thousand of them, who all vote with the democratic party, and, as is thought by many intelligent persons, have, for several years past, turned the political scale of that city in favour of the antifederalists. SCOTTISH REVIEW. An Account of the Systems of Hus bandry adopted in the more improved Districts of Scotland, with Observations on the Improvements of what they are Susceptible. By the Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair, Bart. large 8vo. 18s. W who has been the means of E know of no man living, collecting so great an account of useful information, as the author, or compiler of the present work. The Statistical Account, and the county reports, valuable, though overgrown and indigested masses, must always bear testimony to the extent of his exertions for the public service. After labours so great, and after the recent production of a voluminous compilation in a subject quite foreign to his usual pursuits, some pause or remission might have been expected. Instead of this, we are surprised by the appearance of a work, bearing the stamp of labours as great, as any of those productions which have heretofore issued from the same pen. The |