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it there, and see that it is exercised. It is certain that the plan, if properly ar. ranged and wisely conducted, would not be expensive. And there is no doubt of its absolute irresistible necessity, if we mean to preserve either our representative principle, or our federal union.

It is not intended that every citizen should be a judge, or a general, or a legis lator. But every citizen is a voter; it is essential to your institutions that he should be a voter; and if he has not the instruction necessary to enable him to discrimiDate between the characters of men, to withstand the intrigues of the wicked, and to perceive what is right, he immediately becomes a tool for knaves to work with; he becomes both an object and an instrument of corruption; his right of voting becomes an injury to himself, and a nuisance to society. It is in this sense that the people are said to be "their own worst enemies." Their freedom itself is found to be an insupportable calamity; and the only consolation (a dreary consolation indeed) is, that it cannot last long. The time is fast approaching, when the United States will be out of debt, if no extraordinary call for money to repel foreign aggression should intervene. Our surplus revenue already affords the means of entering upon the system of public works, and beginning to discharge our duty in this respect. The report of the secretary of the treasury on these works, which is, or ought to be, in the hands of every citizen, will show their feasibility as to the funds; and it develops a part of the advantages with which the system must be attended. But neither that distinguished statesman, nor any other human being, could detail and set forth all the advantages that would arise from such a system carried to its proper extent. They are incalculably great, and unspeakably various. They would bind the States together in a band of union that every one could perceive, that every one must cherish, and nothing could destroy. This of itself is an advantage so great, if considered in all its consequences, that it seems almost useless to notice any other. It would facilitate the means of instructing the people; it would teach them to cherish the union as the source of their happiness, and to know why it was so; and this is a considerable portion of the education they require. It would greatly increase the value of property, and the wealth of individuals, and thereby enable

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them to augment the public revenue. But what is more, it would itself augment the revenue in a more direct manner by enhancing the value of the public lands; which would thus sell faster, and bring a higher price. In this manner, the first monies laid out by the government on roads and canals, would be a reproductive property; it would be constantly sending back more money into the trea. sury than was taken from it for this pur pose. So that all the advantages of every kind, public and private, present and future, commercial and economical, physical, moral, and political, would be so much clear gain. There would be nothing destroyed but errors and prejudices, nothing removed but the dangers that now threaten our invaluable institutions.

To do equal justice, and give satisfaction to the people in every state in the Union, the sums to be expended in each year should be distributed in the several States, according to their population. This is the general understanding among the friends of the system; and the se cretary has not neglected to keep it in view in his luminous report.

Our present legislators ought to consider, how much true glory would redound to them from being the first to arrange and adopt such a system. How different from the false glory commonly acquired by the governments of other countries. Louis XIV. toiled and tormented himself, and all Europe, through a long life, to acquire glory. He made unjust wars, obtained many victories, and suffered many defeats. He augmented the standing armies of France from forty thousand to two hundred thousand men; and thus obliged the other powers of Europe to augment their means of defence in that proportion; means which have drained the public treasuries, and oppressed the people of Europe ever since. And what is the glory that now remains to the name of Louis XIV? Only the canal of Languedoc. This indeed is a title to true glory; and it is almost the only subject on which his name is now mentioned in France but with opprobrium and detestation.

The government of England expended one hundred and thirty-nine millions sterling in the war undertaken to subjugate the American colonies. This sum, about six hundred millions of dollars, laid out in the construction of canals, at twenty thousand dollars a mile, would have

made

made thirty thousand miles of canal; about the same length of way as all the present post-roads in the United States and their territories; or a line that would reach once and a quarter round the globe of this earth, on the circle of the equator. Or if the same sum could be distributed in a series of progressive improvements, a part in canals, and a part in roads, bridges, and school-establishments, beginning with two millions a-year, accord ing to the proposition of the secretary of the treasury, and increasing, as the surplus revenue would increase, to ten or fifteen millions a-year, it would make a garden of the United States, and people it with a race of men worthy to enjoy it; a garden extending over a Continent-giving a glorious example to mankind of the operation of the true principles of society, the principles recognized in your government. Many persons now in being, might live to see this change effected; and most of us might live to enjoy it in anticipation, by seeing it begun.

The greatest real embarrassment we labor under at present, arises from our commercial relations; the only point of contact between us, and the unjust governments of Europe. By their various and violent aggressions, they are constantly disturbing our repose, and causing us considerable expenses. In this case what is to be done? We cannot by compact, expect to obtain justice, nor the liberty of the seas from those govern ments; it is not in the nature of their organisation. Shall we think of overpowering them in their own way, by a navy stronger than theirs; brutal force against brutal force, like the ponderous powers of Europe among themselves? This at present is impossible, and if it were possible, or whenever it should be possible, it would be extremely impolitic; it would be dangerous, if not totally destructive, to all our plans of improvement, and even to the government itself.

Has then a beneficent Providence, the God of order and justice, pointed out another mode of defence, by which the resources of this nation may be reserved for works of peace, and the advancement of human happiness? Has the genius of science and of art, raised up a new Archimedes to guide the fire of heaven against the fleets that may annoy us? I cannot but hope it has; not by the ardent mirror; but by means altogether more certain, less dependent on external Circumstances, capable of varying and MONTHLY MAG. No. 194.

accommodating their mode of attack and defence to all the variety of positions and movements common to ships of war.

I know not how far I may differ in opinion from those among you who may have turned their attention to the subject to which I now allude; or whether any person present has really investigated it. But I should not feel easy to lose the present occasion (the only one that my retired life renders it probable I shall ever have of addressing you) to express my private opinion that the means of submarine attack, invented and proposed by one of our citizens, carries in itself the eventual destruction of naval tyranny. I should hope and believe, if it were taken up and adopted by our govern ment, subjected to a rigid and regular course of experiments, open and public, so that its powers might be ascertained and its merits known to the world, it would save this nation from future foreign wars, and deliver it from all apprehension of having its commercial pursuits and its peaceful improvements ever after interrupted. It might rid the seas of all the buccaneers, both great and small, that now infest them; it might free mankind from the scourge of naval wars, one of the greatest calamities they now suffer, and to which I can see no other end.

These opinions may be thought hazardous. But I beg my fellow citizens to believe that I have examined the subject, or I should not hazard them. Several of the great arts that are now grown familiar in common life were once thought visionary. This fact should render us cautious of making up our judgment against an object like this, in the higher order of mechanical combinations, before we have well considered it. With this observation I drop the subject; or rather I resign it into abler hands; the hands of those who have the power, as well as inclination, to pursue the best good of our beloved country.

I should not have introduced it in this place were it not for its immediate con. nexion with the means of commencing and prosecuting those vast interior im provements which the state of our nation so imperiously demands, which the he roes of our revolution, the sages of our early councils, the genius of civilization, the cause of suffering humanity, have placed within our power, and confided to our charge.

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refused admission in the Edinburgh Review, and in which I proved that the writer of the Critique, in that work, on the Account of Steam Engines, in the second volume of my "Mechanics," had, in the short compass of a note of ten lines, toid four positive falsehoods. The truth of this charge is now admitted by the Edinburgh Reviewers, so far as relates to two of their assertions; they deny my charge in relation to the third assertion, by telling a new falsehood; and palliate the fourth, by admitting that their language was ambiguous. There is, therefore, (to adopt the wary language of these scientific defamers) a probability falling short of certainty by a quantity incalculably small," that the Edinburgh Reviewers will be regarded, by every attentive reader, as self-convicted liars. What right they can have to plead inadvertence, in bar of this conclusion, when deliberately and explicitly charging me with a general habit of, and particular instances of, plagiarism, I am very willing the public should determine.

66

I am sorry, Sir, to occupy your valuable pages with my personal concerns. If the Edinburgh Reviewers, who have long ago forfeited all reputation for jastice, honour, and liberality, had not renounced, that of courage also; if they had dared to admit into their own work, my refutation of their own calumnies, I should have sought no other redress. Not satisfied, however, with denying me, in the first instance, the right of vindicating my fame as an author, they have attacked my character as a man, and publicly pledged themselves to allow me no opportunity of defending it, and to make no retraction of their charges, though I should succeed in proving them fale! As far as their power extends, my reputation, it secus, is to perish. Happily, it is not within their power. Despicable vanity, to suppose it was, or that I should suffer them to escape with impunity! Though they shrink from meeting me on equal terms, they are still within my reach. There are tribunals in this enlightened country, at which literary assassins, however cowardly or ferocious, may be compelled to appear. I trust, Sir, in your liberality, for permission to bring my cause

before one of the most eminent and impartial of those tribunals, and in that of your numerous readers, for a patient hearing.

At the end of nearly eight months, from their receipt of my first letter, the Edinburgh Reviewers have honoured me with an elaborate reply ; a deviation, in my favour, from their usual and safer plan of total silence, for which I am duly grateful. In this reply of ten pages, they have distributed artful misrepresentations, and direct falsehoods, with that profusion, which may be expected from persons who have abundance of one kind of commodity at command, and very little of any other: Quo modo pyris vesci jubet Calabar hospes. A complete answer to such a letter as theirs, would be far too voluminous to appear in a miscellaneous Journal I shall only trouble you with a short statement, which I hope you can immediately insert, and which the extensive circulation of your Magazine may render as public as the slanders it refutes.

Even thus far I should have thought it needless to intrude my concerns into your work, could I depend upon the same candour, good sense, and reflection, in every reader of the Edinburgh Review, which I have met with on this occasion, among my own literary acquaintance. One of my friends, a gentleman of the highest literary and scientific reputation, so forcibly describes the impression produced upon his mind by the Edinburgh Reviewers' epistle, that I beg leave to quote part of his letter. "the

"I have just read,” says he, Edinburgh Reviewers' epistle to you; and I think you may very readily rest satisfied with the general result of the public judgment, which must necessarily be open to the following facts, even from the Reviewers' own statement.

"1. That the Edinburgh Reviewers have found the effect of your former exposure of their misrepresentations to be so powerful, as to feel and acknowledge the necessity of making a reply; and thus, to take a step they have never taken before, one which

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must have been derogatory and mortifying to their self-importance.

"2. That in their review of your article, they told at least two falsehoods, knowing them to be such; and, of course, for the mere unworthy purpose of injuring you in the eyes of the world.

"S. That it is in vain for them now to urge, tha, if you did not copy from an au thor, without acknowledgment when they asserted you did thus copy from him, they have since discovered that you have copied without acknowledgment from others. The public (and I as one of them) have a short and easy method o settling this point, without troubling ourselves with a reference, by simply observing, that the man who could wilfully lie in the first instance, is infinitely more likely to lie in the second. only betrayed the cloven foot, but avowedly exhibited it to the public and has nullified his own authority by his motive, and his own testimony by his self-conviction of falsehood.

He has not

"4. All this is confirmed and established by the Reviewers' concluding declaration, that they now " willingly take leave of a subject, which no consideration shall induce them to resume;" a declaration, by which they obviously refuse admission to any thing you may send them, as they did in the case of your fornier letter: for why should they be guilty of so palpable a piece of injustice, as that of excluding you from the only ground where you can fairly repel their attack to the satisfaction of all their readers; except it be, that they know you have the means of perfectly refuting their calumnies, and thus of still farther depreciating their moral character in the estimation of the public?"

Thus far from the communication of my learned friend. Readers of a different description, however, inay very probably pass over the self-destructive passages in the Reviewers' epistle with little concern, and admit that at least my cha racter is rendered suspicious, that there must be some ground for the charges, that they must be partly true, &c. &c. Many readers, Mr. Editor, listen with eagerness to an accusation, and half wish it true; many are prejudiced, on some account, in favour of the Edinburgh Reviewers, and think they are too honest, many more think they are too politic, to commit their character thus deliberately upon a groundless calumny. I cannot therefore agree with some of my friends, in apprehending no injury whatever from this unprincipled attack, were I to treat it with silent contempt.

Allow me, now, Sir, to quote a passage from the Preface to my Treatise of Mechanics, which alone would be held a

sufficient answer, I trust, to the charge of plagiarism.

"In the composition of the first volume of this Treatise, I have derived material assiste ance from the labours of several of my predecessors in this depar ment of science; though I have not, perhaps, so frequently cited my authorities as some readers may be apt to expect but this will not, I trust, on consideration, be thought a culpable omission; for, although I have not, for example, ascribed to Prony what I found in succession in the writings of Varignon, Belinor, Bezout, and D'Alembert, nor to Parkinson, or Atwood, what had previously appeared in the writings of Galileo, Wilkins, Wallis, Desaguliers, or Emerson, esteeming whatever I found in such circumstances, as common property to be adopted without hesitation; yet, in all cases where I could speak confidently of the original author, and particularly where the matter quoted had been but seldom published, I have not failed to make the corresponding reference. As to the second volume, it is professedly a compilation; and I have no other merit to claim respecting it, than that of having employed much labour and pains in consulting a great many volumes of jour nals, transactions, arts, encyclopædias, theatres of machines, &c. published in England, France, and Germany; and having selected from these numerous, and often voluminous, works, such particulars as were most likely to be serviceable to my countrymen, when presented to them, (separate from every thing extraneous,) in a moderate-sized single volume."

Such, Mr. Editor, was my language in December, 1805. At the end of four years, the active, indefatigable mulig uity of the Edinburgh Reviewers, (and in this I must own them superior to all other human beings, except the North American Indians,) has collected together, out of two volumes, containing more than one thousand and fifty pages, five or six instances, in which, according to their representation, I might seem to Lave infringed upon the established rules of authorship. Sir, I speak with that confidence, which a man, whose moral character is unimpeached, may be justified in using, when he confronts himself to anonymous writers, self-convicted again and again of deception, prevari cation, and falsehood; when I affirm that, in the course of a deliberate search, I have found only one place in which a reference that ought to have been made, has been even accidentally omitted. This one relates to Venturi's disquisition on the exhaustion of vessels through orifices, in their bases; which I now regret having inserted, because, however elegant

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the investigation may appear, it is de-
fective and useless. I may also affirm,
with equal confidence, and equal cer-
tainty of being believed, that the Edin-
burg. Reviewers, in their new string of
accusations, have charged me with steal-,
ing from works which I never saw; with
copying the article "Thrashing Ma.
chines," from the Encyclopædia Britan-
nica, though I never read that article,
and do not know to the present moment,
(except from their disputable testimony,)
that any such article is there; with co-
pying the account of Verrier's mill from
Brewster's Ferguson, when they must
know, because I refer expressly to the
work, that the account was taken from
Bailey's Collection of Machines in the
Repository of the Society of Arts, pub-
lished more than thirty years ago! After
all this, it cannot be necessary for me to
attend seriously to their insinuation re-
specting a new title-page, instead of a
new edition. Let them tell me how it
is possible to print a new edition of so
extensive a work, with the dispatch re-
quisite to meet a rapid demand, without
distributing the matter into the hands of
different compositors; sheets A, B, C,
D, for example, to cne; sheets E, F, G,
H, to a second; sheets I, K, L, M, to a
third, &c. and, farther, how it is pos.
sible to effect this, without contriving
every alteration, so that the quantity
in each respective sheet shall remain as
before. Let them tell me this, and I
shall then be quite ready to reply to any
thing else upon the subject, which their
consummate cunning, and mighty malice,
may devise.

I will not now, Mr. Editor, intrude farther upon the patience of your readers. At some future period, when I have more leisure than I now possess to devote to a disgusting employment, I may develope the train of motives which have led to an attack upon my character, unprecedented in the history of literature. I may probably do more. When nien combine together, not for the purpose of fair and honourable criticism, but with the design of hunting down talents and merit, wherever they appear on this side of the Tweed, besides gratifying private feelings, and pursuing pri

* Even here, however, i may r, mork, that but a few pages farther on, (viz. page 433,) I refer expressly to Venturi's work, in such terms of commendation, as would induce a reader to consult it; which I should hardly have done, had I wished to conceal my author.

vate ends, not necessary to be mentioned here; it becomes an imperious duty to expose their artifices to the public indignation. This duty, unless it soon fall into better hands, I shall not shrink from discharging: and I have long been in possession of numerous facts, which, when I can find time to prepare thein for publication, will illustrate much of the secret history of the Edinburgh Review. Such an exposure of the motives, and conduct of its proprietors and principal writers, will no doubt be called, however temperate, a "violent and abusive attack;" but the public in general will thank me for unmasking their moral character, will rejoice to hear their piteous exclamations, and "mock when their fear cometh." For my own part, anxiety for my reputation has given me but little uneasiness, compared with the pain of beholding talents which, however overrated by the multitude, I am willing to respect, associated with a depravity which I am compelled to abhor.

Your's, &c. OLINTHUS GREGORY,

Royal Military Academy,
Woolwich, Dec. 1809.

P. S. Permit me to throw into a Postscript some particulars, which, though I forgot to introduce them into the body of the letter, may perhaps be too important to be omitted entirely: viz. that Dr. Brewster, (whose name has been of such singular service to the Edinhas more than once expressed his obligations burgh Reviewers, on the present occasion,) to me, both personally and by letter, for the notice I have taken of his performances, and for referring to them; that we have communicated to each other mutually, in the most friendly manner, hints for the improvement of our respective works; that he has applied to me by letter, more than once, to prepare scientific articles in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, of which he is the editor, though he knew at the same time, that I was editor of a similar work publishing here; expatiating, in his applications, upon "The liberality which marks even the commercial part of literature;" that he has spoken to me in the highest possible terms of the utility of my Treatise of Mechanics, and has recommended it warmly in his own work, as well as in treatises he prepared for the Encyclopedia Britannica, in the formation of which, he declared my work was of essential service to him: and that, even after the Edinburgh Reviewers' first attack upon me, he said, (Mr. Telford, the civil engineer, being present,) that I could not perform a more important service to the

British

*Of this liberality, his booksellers, and his friends and companions, the Edinburgh Reviewers, have furnished noble specimens.

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