while he was taking praise to himself for having given peace to the world, he began to announce in the Moniteur, that GreatBritain was excluded from the affairs of the Continent, that she could have, or claim nothing, but what was specially permitted by that treaty; and in order to shew, that in his views, no limits were placed by that treaty to his own encroachments, he assumed the office of President of the now stiled Italian Republic; acquired by treaty with Spain, the reversion of Parma and Elba, and the cession of Louisiana; obtained from Portugal the cession of Portuguese Guiana; and to settle some petty feuds in Switzerland, which he, himself, may have created, marched an army into the country, and accepted the supreme power, under the title of Mediator of the Helvetian Republic; offending by these usurpations of dominion, Austria and Prussia, as well as GreatBritain. Again, as soon as he assumed the imperial crown, an act, in some points of view, gratifying to the other sovereigns of Europe, as it arrayed Napoleon himself on the side of authority, and took from his grasp that revolutionary weapon which had created so much terror, and, in truth, endangered, so much, the feudal aristocracy of that Continent; as if this peace-offering might too far conciliate his brother monarchs, he assumed also the title and authority of king of Italy, and to shew that this was not to be an empty pageant, he annexed Genoa to his empire, as if Italy could already be apportioned according to his sovereign will. After the peace of Presburgh, he gave the thrones of Holland and Naples to his brothers Louis and Joseph, and formed the Confederation of the Rhine, creating by this means dependent States, even in the heart of Germany. In forming these States, however, it was found convenient to obtain some districts belonging to Prussia, and Napoleon immediately offered in exchange Hanover, the hereditary dominions of the king of Great-Britain. This kind offer was readily accepted by Prussia, then at peace and in alliance with England; but two or three months afterwards, when Napoleon commenced a new negociation with this latter power, he offered, at once, to restore Hanover, appearing to think provinces or kingdoms as mere gew-gaws, which he could give and resume at pleasure. At Schoenbrunn, in the interval between the battles of Essling and Wagram, he issued the decree which deprived the Pope of his temporal dominions and power, and between the battle of Wagram and the peace of Schoenbrunn, while negociating a family alliance with Austria, the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, to whom the Court of Austria was peculiarly and zealously attached, was carried a prisoner to France, and treated with much personal disrespect, if not indignity. In the same manner,

while at peace with Russia, he seized the Duchy of Oldenburg, belonging to the brother-in-law of Alexander,with as little hesitation as if it had been the territory of the most dependent of his vassals. He never permitted the fears of the crowned heads of Europe to slumber, hence coalition after coalition was formed against him, and frequently in wars, which were provoked by his own unrestrained ambition, he would, apparently, be acting altogether on the defensive.

In France, itself, he was continually trespassing on all the principles of freedom; nominally remodelling, but virtually destroying every liberal institution which the Revolution had created, until, at length, not only the genuine Republicans, but even the advocates of a constitutional monarchy became secretly hostile to his government.

By these means, even amidst his great exploits, he was insensibly alienating the affections of multitudes; and when his fortunes changed, he found, that even in France, even in that country he so dearly prized, he had wearied, by his perpetual wars and encroachments, and by the sacrifices his systems required, the efforts and even the admiration of its citizens. He was abandoned, though with regret; he was lamented as soon as lost; and in the countries that he governed, the monuments of his glory, and the public benefactions and improvements with which his name must be inseparably united, will perpetuate his memory, even though history should be silent in his praise

Our observations on the character and policy of this extraordinary man, have been extended beyond our expectations, and the subject is by no means exhausted. The remarks which we intended to make on the narrative, and on some of the opinions of Sir Walter Scott, must be reserved for a future occasion.

ART. VII.-Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy. By THOMAS COOPER, M. D. President of the South-Carolina College, and Professor of Chemistry and Political Economy. Svo. Columbia, S. C. Sweeny. 1826.

WHILE Political Economy has been thoroughly investigated in many of its parts and divisions, its fundamental principles are still far from being satisfactorily elucidated. Whether the

period has not arrived for a comprehensive examination of the phenomena, in consequence of the imperfect manner they have been observed, recorded and arranged; or, whether there is an inherent uncertainty in all such investigations, remains to be determined by results, more positive, than any yet furnished by the labours of economists. We have reasons for doubt, were the elements of a comprehensive and complete system and theory at hand, whether the fulness and force of evidence, by which they must be accompanied, to command general assent, are attainable. And such must be the state of every recent science, whose leading truths do not admit of the tests of direct experiment or precise calculation. The satisfactory demonstration of fundamental principles, must, under such circumstances, await the slow accumulation of materials proper for the construction of a system generally applicable, and a theory fully explanatory.

It is but very recently that statistical inquiries have been made available in those more limited investigations which profess to explain particular phenomena. The materials of national comparison must be supplied, in at least equal copiousness, for advantage in all general reasonings which profess to develope the real foundations of wealth, and the invariable causes of its increase. We know that the riches of countries augment from circumstances widely contrasted. For example, experience assures us, that on that division of the globe on which our lot is cast, a high degree of wealth results from involuntary services, accompanied by a greater share of enjoyment to the labourer, than on many of those sections of the earth where the relation between the employer and the employed is totally different. How does this state of things agree with the explanation of economists, that the relation which anciently subsisted between the master and the slave, was an impediment to the increase of riches? How can it be shown that the payment of wages is an essential ingredient in a modern system of wealth? We might multiply illustrations of this kind, if necessary. They are calculated to rebuke the presumption that would construct systems of general application from only one point of observation.

It has been deemed not a little remarkable, in economical science, that discussions should have arisen as to the causes of certain phenomena before the real character of the phenomena themselves had been ascertained; that theory should succeed to theory, and system supplant system, in an examination into the sources of wealth, before the problem had been satisfactorily solved what wealth is? It would appear as if the first proper step was to agree in the sense we should affix to certain essenVOL. I.-NO. 1

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tial terms. We believe, however, the influence of this circumstance on the progress of economical discovery, has been stated in terms much too broad. We do not know, that the determination of the fundamental question, what are the sources of wealth? has been at all assisted by those controversies (that even, at this late day, so frequently cross the path of investigation) which profess to resolve the points, what is wealth, and what productive labour? We all have a sufficiently distinct perception of the character and constituents of riches, and of the instruments by which they are increased, without the aid of any shadowy and metaphysical distinctions between wealth composed of products that perish in the instant of production, and products of a durable character-between quantities evanescent and quantities permanent and palpable. We all know what objects contribute to our comfort, accommodation and luxury, and are, at the same time, susceptible of valuation. What more is requisite to conduct us in the true path of inquiry? It is the real foundation of those products of labour which constitute the sources of our enjoyments, both mental and bodily, that we feel desirous to develope, and not whether, in a system of wealth, the artist is to be classed with the artizan, and the magistrate with the merchant, under a common denomination.

The complete accuracy of our classifications may be a subject of speculative curiosity; but the detection of some anomalies in the arrangement of the phenomena, or a few examples that may not exactly square with the rule laid down, is far from helping forward the investigation of leading principles. We consider many of the recent discussions in regard to definitions, as embracing questions of arrangement too refined to be useful, and as involving the propriety of classifications, meant merely as aids to investigation, and never urged as differences founded in the nature of things. We, of course, do not mean to deny the utility of some brief description at the outset of an inquiry of the sense we affix to certain words of leading signification and frequent employment, but there can be no difficulty in collecting the sense from the reasonings in the context, whilst, in many instances, the definition is far from corresponding with the doctrine laid down. How frequently do we see definitions which are either too circumscribed or too comprehensive, as compared with the theory to which they are introductory. Whilst, therefore, pages are filled with ingenious refinements, to show the incompleteness of the definition, the theory to which it is the mere formal appendage, receives much the smallest share of attention.

It is, also, not unworthy of remark, that the order of investigation never having been properly defined, the results of economical investigation have reached us in disjointed parts, and insulated by long intervals of time. This sufficiently explains why its discoveries have multiplied so slowly. In scientific investigation, in general, the development of one principle or general fact promotes the elucidation of another. Each point gained is a farther step in the ascending series of discoveries. There is, in such cases, a certain continuity in the succession of principles. In political economy, however, the different branches having been investigated in a detached and desultory order, there has not been that concatenation and dependence of parts which so greatly promotes investigation, and its discoveries have consequently been effected, not only more slowly, but more laboriously.

It is also to be observed, that in many instances men must be made to feel before they can be brought to investigate. This applies, generally, in the science of politics, and with peculiar force in the science of political economy. Truth, in these cases, follows, and rarely precedes individual and national suffering. It is after countries, classes and persons have been greatly oppressed by some external or internal cause, that the attempt is made to establish general rules of conduct, founded on the immutable distinctions of right and wrong, truth and error. It has been in this order that the principles of economical science have been elucidated and developed.

The extreme abuses which accompanied that tampering with the currency which characterized the public authorities of the Italian States, between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, gave the first impulse to political economy, and led their distinguished writers in this branch of science, at that period, to an investigation, in several admirable treatises, of the true doctrine of money. In this manner, we may trace almost every truth of the science to its source in some public disorder or abuse of the times. The ruin of thousands of individuals, connected with the South-Sea and Mississippi schemes, was followed by the discussion and clearer comprehension of the laws and limits of paper currency: and down to a very recent period, the principles applicable to paper issues, in connection with payments in gold and silver, had not attained that certainty and general assent in England, which the state of the science, in the nineteenth century, might have led us to expect, until the utmost violence had been offered to the relations between debtor and creditor, and landlord and tenant, in the native country, as it has been called, of political economy.