sembles that exuding from the snake, the crocodile, and the beetle. Whenever the black slaves shall acquire knowledge, and the power of consecutive thinking, it is certain that they will not submit to remain slaves. They will either acquire their freedom by concession or force, or they will cut the throats of the whites as they did in Haiti, or lose their own lives in the attempt. The question is, how shall this be prevented? In the case of the American continent, by exportation to Africa. In the case of the West India Islands, by the abdication of the whites, whose claim to compensation should meet with liberal consideration. Possibly the slaves would be willing to work out their own freedom if the matter were fairly put to them. Some persons have speculated on the possibility of the negro race being absorbed by intermarriage with the whites. But even could this be accomplished, we should be loth to see it take place, because it would much deteriorate a race which is greatly superior to the other. It would be a long stride backwards in civilization. Were the racehorse intermingled with the cart horse, the produce would imperfectly possess the qualities of both. The world is wide enough to hold both black and white nations on its surface, and when there shall be no causes of collision between them, they will cease to inflict mutual injury. Oh that a man of black blood might arise, to work out the regeneration of his race in Africa, to undo the work of which the protector of the Red Indians, the philanthropic but unwise, and consequently unjust, Las Casas, was the original projector,-the horrible and atrocious slave trade, and its results! The fifth letter gives an account by no means flattering of the state of religion in the Union. On this subject, however, we must observe, that the author's ideas are entirely those of the continental ultra-liberal school, of men with whom "religion" and "superstition" are synonimous terms-who regard all outward forms of religion as a mere farce, and all who practise them as bigots, knaves, or hypocrites. Such opinions will not be received with much favour or respect, either in America or this country. The sum total of his conclusions, very complacently stated, is, that "the great current of opinions, of literature, and the philosophy of the age," will sweep away the church, and "finally destroy the Christian religion;" and that this " destruction" has, " perhaps," made greater progress in the United States than is generally supposed. As an active but insidious co-operator in this work of "destruction," he enumerates the sect of Unitarians, which, by his account, has made great progress lately at Boston, and now includes almost every man of eminence in that city among its con verts. The Unitarians, we may remark, whatever M. Murat may think, are a Christian sect, and would disclaim, we doubt not, as indignantly as every other sect of Christians, the idea of being associated in any such design as is here imputed to them. The sixth letter is on the subject of the administration of justice, and the rapturous mode in which the author speaks of his profession of an advocate, or what we should call a practising barrister, gives sufficient evidence that he has a strong family liking for that species of justice which the longest sword or the shrewdest wit can procure. He, evidently, neither understands jurisprudence nor legislation, and cares nothing for laws except as they open to him a field for the exercise of that species of chicanery which enables the man of ready wit to take advantage of his duller opponent. No man of a rightly constituted mind could have deliberately published the following remarks. They might have served for an after-dinner jest, but as a digested opinion, they mark the utterer for one unfitted to be trusted with authority over his fellows. "To me, in fact, nothing is at all comparable to the interior of a tribunal. I could pass my whole life with pleasure there, even if I were forced to be but a silent spectator. People talk of the theatre! it is but a feeble and blundering copy of a court of justice. Here we have the reality. Tragedy, comedy, farce and melo-drama, are all to be found here, and the actors are much better than those on the stage, because what they represent are the passions which they really feel; I speak of the suitors and the witnesses. It requires one to have practised to know the pleasure arising from following up an idea,-of hunting out a law which seems to evade your search through twenty volumes,-to drive it from one entrenchment to another. When you have got hold of it at last, after verifying a thousand quotations, what a triumph! A very different one, indeed, from that of catching a red-fox after a chase of twenty miles! You arrive at the court; with what pleasure you enjoy the surprise which your discovery causes to the adverse party. He wishes to postpone the trial-you will not consent to it: it must immediately proceed. The examination of the witnesses commences-all are on his side-until you cross-examine them. I know nothing more amusing than to cross-examine a witness, half rogue, half fool, who has been well tutored by the adverse party, before a good jury. What art it requires to make him contradict himself, and after that, how easy it is to destroy the fabric of reasoning of one's adversary! The pleadings follow then the advocate becomes an actor; it is the finest part of the whole business and when he has played his part well, whether the cause is won or lost, he carries home the consciousness of having done all that was possible to do, and his client, even if he is the loser, joins in the unanimous applause bestowed on his exertions by the court and the auditory. So that whatever may be the fate of the cause, it always furnishes the advocate with the means of triumph. I cannot speak of : : the profession otherwise than con amore, for the happiest hours of my life are those which I have devoted to it." What a base kind of ambition is developed through the whole of this passage! How strongly marked is the self-same spirit which made of the elder Murat a soldier of fortune! What a disregard of every thing but intensely selfish objects, which would lead him to sacrifice the whole human race for the gratification of individual ambition. Elsewhere he praises the laws of the United States, but what a libel is it on them, that he should have been enabled to extract from them so much tyrannous delight, hunting their meaning through twenty volumes, to secure a cause right or wrong, perchance to crush the helpless or aid the guilty, playing the part of an actor in real scenes, either of tragedy or comedy, and then describing it all with infinite gusto, as a thing far preferable to hunting a red fox twenty miles! Are human beings only made for sport to such men as this? We fear that these feelings are by no means uncommon, even in England. At a meeting of barristers, at which we were present, the conversation happening to turn upon a member who was expected to retire from practice, an Irish barrister of some eminence, a liberal man on all public subjects, remarked: "Retire! Who ever heard of such a thing? What can he do if he retires? Can any amusement of fox-hunting be so full of sport as man-hunting? Making ducks and drakes of other people's property, without personal risk, and being paid for it in addition! No, no! No lawyer likes to retire after he has once got into practice." If M. Murat was so delighted with the practice of "man-hunting," as an advocate in the United States, why did he leave it and his postmaster's situation? We suspect that he preferred the shorter process of " man-hunting" by means of musquet and sabre in Europe. We hope, sincerely, that he may not have the means of gratifying his wishes. From the seventh letter, which gives a good general account of the existing laws in the Union, we extract the following sentence, in which there would be much good sense, supposing that all lawyers were philosophers. “In a theocracy, the government is in the hands of priests; under a military despotism, in those of generals; in a country governed by laws, it is just that their interpreters and their ministers should be the governAnd we are well governed, and I look upon this influence of lawyers upon the government as the strongest guarantee of our liberties. And it is to that consummation that Europe will come, in proportion as liberty shall be better understood in that part of the world." ors. The eighth letter treats of the army, navy, and Indian population. Six thousand men is the total amount of the army, which VOL. XI. NO. XXI. C is not maintained for the purpose of keeping the populace in order, as is the fashion of most other countries, but for the purpose, principally, of garrisoning a frontier line of some thousand leagues, all round the Union. The artillery occupies the coasts of the Atlantic; the infantry those of the Gulf of Mexico, the frontiers of Missouri, and the Arkansas territory, chiefly as a security against the Indian tribes. The following is a very correct statement. "The present army can only be considered as the skeleton or the nursery of a much larger one; it is destined, so to speak, to preserve the tradition of military usages and regulations. The officers of whom it is composed are, in general, very good, and in the event of a war, would be immediately promoted to superior grades, and distributed among the new regiments that would be raised. What would be most wanted would be good non-commissioned officers, which make the basis and the nerves of every good army. "The real military strength of the United States consists, not in its army, but in its militia. Every citizen forms part of it up to an age which varies in the different states; for if the army belongs to the federal government, the militia depends entirely on the several states." Whoever has travelled in the Union will instantly recognize the fidelity of the following picture. see. "But it is the militia of the west and of the south which you should A regiment of mounted riflemen, that is to say, of men inured to all the fatigues and privations of the almost savage life of a first establishment, each of them mounted on a horse which he knows perfectly, armed with his trusty rifle, to which both he and his family have been indebted for many a dinner in time of need. These people laugh at every sort of fatigue; to them a campaign is a real party of pleasure. They are perfectly acquainted with the woods, and know how to find their way by the sun and the bark of the trees, following an enemy or a stag by the scent; in this they are aided by their dogs, for each of them has a dog with him. They wear no uniform; every one comes in the dress he wears in his daily occupation, which has been spun and woven by his wife, from the cotton which he has himself planted. A hat, made of palm-leaves plaited, covers face which has been blackened by the smoke of the bivouac. An otter's skin, neatly folded and sewed together, contains his ammunition, his materials for kindling a fire, and his small allowance of tobacco. A knapsack behind the saddle carries provisions for himself and his horse. The animal is not more nice on that head than his master. A few handfuls of Indian corn per day content him; but in the evening, on arriving at the camp, he is unsaddled, unbridled, and with two of his feet tied together, is turned loose into the woods, where a rich grass quickly provides him with a frugal supper. Discipline is not very rigid with such a troop. No regular movements; every man makes war for himself, and as it were, instinctively. It is a hunting-party on a great scale; and yet these are the troops which most distinguished themselves in the last war, and who repulsed the English at the battle of New-Orleans." The philosopher who contemplates the result of this battle will rejoice over the result, not because those who won happened to be Americans or republicans, but because those who lost were invaders.* After a just eulogium on the high state of maritime science and skill in the United States, the author states that in case of a war it might be difficult for them to find sailors. We have not much patience with the pugnacious disposition which leads M. Murat, like Captain Basil Hall, always to be calculating on wars, even when we recollect that it is their métier; but, notwithstanding, we pause to extract the following accurate remark: Notwithstanding, there is one consideration which consoles me; and that is, that no war can be undertaken that is not sanctioned by the will of the majority. An unpopular war can never be undertaken by the United States, and if the people wish for war they will know how to carry it on." With regard to the race of Red Indians, the author talks much good sense, and also some absurdities. We agree with him that it is not desirable that they should disappear by intermarriage. with the whites, because the white race, being decidedly the finest, should be preserved free from an inferior intermixture. But the idea that a people who take little or no thought for the morrow should overpower the calculating and far-sighted whites, -should "come like clouds of Huns guided by another Attila to fall upon Washington as the Gauls did upon ancient Rome," is about as probable as that of the sapient politicians who prophesy that the whole western world must ultimately fall under the yoke of Russia. Natural causes are operating upon the Indians, and gradually they must disappear from the face of the earth, as many wild animals have done, who obstinately refuse to bend to the sway of civilization. The wolf was a savage, and the wolf disappeared from England. The dog being something more of a reasoner, accommodated himself to the new order of things, and he has remained. A remark has been made by those The following are two stanzas from a popular song, entitled "The Hunters of Kentucky." "We raised a bank to hide our heads, not that we thought of dying, For every man was half a horse, and half an alligator. "They did'nt let our patience tire, before they showed their faces, c |