a eovers (p. 41.) to have risen in pricê exactly as bánk-notes have risen in quantity ; and malt, had it not been for the additional duty, would probably have been forced into the list of examples of this happy coincidence. After such a formidable array of facts and arguments, Mr. Hoare considers himself as intitled to credit for moderation in saying (p. 50.) that only two-fifths of our present currency need be withdrawn, in order to restore it to its due amount. In the same conciliatory spirit, he forbears to call (page 54.) for any immediate reduction of our bank-paper. It is the prohibition of farther increase, the diminution of the Bank-advances to government, and a gradual lessening of the amount in circulation, that form the sum of his demands. He departs, however, from this temperate language, in terming (p. 58.) the diminished value of our public dividends manifest and decided bankruptcy of the state;' an expression which could not fail to remind us of the whimsical title prefixed to his pamphlet. He is hence led to the recommendation of a singular proposal,the imposition of fresh; taxes, to make good the injury accruing to the public: creditor in consequence of the fall of money. So long,' he says, (page 61.) as there is taxable property in the nation, it is liable, in justice, to satisfy the claims of the public creditor. Look around, and see whether the country is so destitute of resources as to be incapable of supplying a fund for that purpose. Has the land ceased to yield its harvests, its accustomed rents, its tithes, and its profits. Be not alarmed, my countrymen,' he adds, for no vast or intolerable sacrifice is required; the deficiency to be raised by fresh taxes is 13,800,000l. only.' Moderate as this may appear to Mr. Hoare's imagination, we much suspect that all his oratory will be unavailing to persuade the land-holders, and others on whom the burden would fall, to see it in the same light. They will have difficulty in comprehending by what means the mode of reimbursement proposed (page 65.) is to bring back the value into their pockets. Equally little success is likely to attend the author's suggestion of diverting the income of the sinking fund from its original purpose, and applying it to the indemnity of the public ereditor. We are now to take leave of Mr. Hoare for the third time, and with little desire, we confess, of meeting soon again. On looking back to our criticisms on his former pamphlets, we find that, although unapprized of the identity of the author, we gave him, in both cases, a caution to digest and compress his thoughts. We cannot, however, flatter ourselves with receiving much attention at his hands, since this his third performance yields not in verbosity and declamation to the former two. Of the quaintness of his style, the use of such a word as violatory' (page 4) may serve for an example; of the prolixity of his mode of arguing, it would be endless to exhibit proofs. MILITARY AFFAIRS. Art. 21. A Letter to a General Officer, on the Recruiting Service; to which is added, another on the Establishment of Rifle Corps in H 3 in the British Army. By Colonel F. P. Robinson, Inspecting Field-officer of the London District. 4to. 2. Egerton. 1811. In the first of these letters, the Colonel begins with stating the importance of the recruiting service, and the inadequate attention which has been paid to it and to the encouragement of its staff. He considers the subject, with which he seems to be well acquainted, under the following heads: The Recruiting Staff. Slop-Clothing. Bringing-Money. Surgical Inspection. Standard and Age. Substitutes. General-service Recruiting. Boy ditto. Pauper-children. Desertion. With regard to the first, Col. R. would carry on recruiting for general service only by means of staff-Serjeants, and a few staff Captains at 125 per diem, with the usual emoluments, instead of regimental recruiting, which he regards as not only unnecessary, but replete with destruction to all the non-commissioned officers and privates who are employed in it. As to the second, he tells us that the regulation which has since been adopted by the Adjutant-general, though by whose recommendation he knows not, was suggested in the following extract from a letter written by him in October 1807, to a Noble Lord then in office. "At the time of Intermediate Approval, each Recruit should be provided with a Slop Dress, consisting of a plain close red or white jacket, Russia duck trowsers, cloth foraging cap, black stock, one shirt, and a pair of shoes, which would not cost more than five shillings beyond the present allowance for necessaries; as the coloured clothes ought to be sold on the spot, for the benefit of the Recruit. Every article to be marked with the name of the District, as well as the Regiment, or General Service. This would not only be an excellent Drill Dress, but much more convenient than any other on board ship, and prove the greatest possible check to desertion."' Respecting the third topic, or the Bringing-money, as it is called, (that is, the money paid to persons who bring recruits,) Colonel R. sensibly observes that, though it has been augmented, the beneficial effects which might otherwise arise from the augmentation are totally destroyed by tedious and unnecessary delays in paying it. He is of opinion that no recruit who is five feet three inches high ought to be rejected; nor any man who does not exceed forty years of age, provided that he be healthy, and of a good personal appearance. As to the fourth point, the Colonel highly disapproves the present mode of inspection, and the rejection of recruits by district-surgeons who, he says, are so hampered by their instructions that they cannot freely exercise their own judgment in performing their duty, and great numbers of actually serviceable men are in consequence entirely lost to the army. On the fifth point, or the procuring of Substitutes, which the author calls a monstrous military abortion,' he remarks that desertion has been greatly encouraged by it: as a proof of which, he states it to be a well-known fact that, in the London district, the same men have inlisted as substitutes upwards of twenty times.Sixthly, as to recruiting for general Service, Colonel R. says that this is the most useful of all, but that it is by no means carried to the extent which it might and ought to reach. In the body of this letter, Colonel R. introduces Substitutes as the fifth head, General-service Recruiting as the sixth, and the subject of Standard and Age as the seventh; though at the beginning he places them in this order inverted. With regard to the last, he asks this question: Why should not a man of the United Kingdom, of five-feet three, and forty years of age, make as good a soldier as a French conscript of that description?" He thinks that our popu lation should not, as to these two particulars, undergo too much military sifting. The eighth head refers to the recruiting of Boys, for which the writer is a strenuous advocate ;-the ninth, to the receiving of Pauper-boys into the army, which also he highly approves; obserying that the adoption of it would ease their parishes by lessening the poor-rates; and the tenth, to Desertion, in respect to which he makes the few following sensible observations: - Proclamations hold out a free pardon to all such deserters as shall surrender themselves, by such a period, to persons appointed to receive them. But they have been uniformly accompanied with instruc tions, that all such surrendered deserters were to be put in confinement and sent under escort to the army depôt, or regiment, and subsisted at 10d. per diem. ་ Now, surely all idea of a free pardon is completely done away, if,' after a man has made every reparation in his power to his country for his former ill-conduct, he is to be disgracefully escorted from the very place where he so joyfully came forward to express contrition for his fault, to be looked upon, through the course of a long march, exactly in the same light as if he had been apprehended as a deserter. This is repugnant to common sense and policy; I feel myself authorized to say, that the best effect would be produced in London, by giving surrendered deserters the satisfaction of knowing that their voluntary return to their duty would meet with the highest approbation and encouragement. Such men, it is not unreasonable to suppose, would become more trust-worthy than many who may not yet have deserted. Desertion is a crime by which the country suffers much more materially than is commonly known; it is not merely the loss of so many men, and the consequent heavy expence in any given period, but that it becomes more and more a system, encouraged by impunity for although a deserter is severely punished when he is taken, how few are apprehended. Who will run the risk of apprehending men of such desperate characters, for the insignificant reward now established? • In London, the number of deserters would form a small army; yet, whenever one is taken, it is owing, to some accidental circumstance, and not to the vigilance of the military, the police being totally out of the question; as it cannot be supposed the under Constables would destroy the hopes of a better harvest, by apprehending a man as a deserter, who in all probability would in a short time commit some act of felony, from which much greater profit would arise. When a deserter is apprehended by the military in London, it is at the risk of their lives; they must put him in a coach, and consent to a deduction of three shillings out of the twenty allowed by the act for swearing him in, which, added to coach-hire, generally reduces the reward to ten or twelve; besides which, it rarely happens that a Soldier escapes without having his clothes torn, and Serjeants fre quently have their swords broken. I understand the present reward of Twenty-Shillings for apprehending a deserter was established in King William's reign; if so, there can be no doubt that it ought to be at least three times as much now, and clear of all deductions, which are at present, two shillings to the clerk of the Police Office, where the deserter is sworn in ; and one to the Provost Marshal, on receiving the prisoner. You will probably ask what all this latter paragraph has to do with the Recruiting Service; in answer to which I beg to inform you, that at least one-half of the recruits passed in the London district are deserters, consequently, it becomes an interesting point to the I. F. O. and he has a better right than any other individual, to offer his opinions and suggestions upon it. Desertion is no longer to be considered as an accidental crime, owing to intoxication, or to avoid punishment for some trifling breach of discipline; it is now systematic fraud; it is done for the sake of the high bounties; and instead of imputing it to caprice or dissipation, we must attribute it solely to a greedy desire for money, to defray the expences of every vile gratification; introducing, thereby, vicious principles of the worst and most incurable nature. Desertion, considered in itself, is a heinous crime, but its consequences aggravate it many degrees.' Colonel R. concludes this letter with a few remarks on Bread-andmeat-money, which he would either abolish altogether as unnecessary, or make an allowance of money in lieu of it. This mode, he says, would both put a stop to the tricking and jobbing which at present subsist between recruiting-parties and innkeepers, and would simplify the district-accounts, which are now unavoidably voluminous and troublesome. The author's second letter, which treats on Rifle-corps, is short; and more than one-half of it is taken up with observations on our infantry in general, and in extolling the prowess and superiority of our troops over those of the enemy, with a predilection for his own country which, when not carried to excess, is natural and excusable. The Colonel seems to think that light-infantry companies are not absolutely necessary for regiments, but that, if they should be deemed so, there ought to be one on each flank of every regiment; and that the grenadier companies should be formed into battalions by themselves, with the title of Royal British Grenadiers. He advises the instructing of all our infantry in light manoeuvres, the increase of our effective riflemen to the number of ten thousand, (exclusive of accidental foreign auxiliaries,) and the teaching of the bayonet-exercise. No raw recruit, in his opinion, should be admitted into a rifle-corps; nor any soldier become a sharp-shooter till after he has acquired a knowlege of every other part of his duty. In order to establish establish this system, he would allow ten men from each regiment of the line, who are stout, healthy, and active, not under five feet four in height, nor above thirty years of age, to volunteer annually into the rife-corps, in addition to the number that might be obtained from the militia. AGRICULTURE. Art. 22. On the Husbandry of three celebrated British Farmers, Messrs. Bakewell, Arbuthnot, and Ducket: being a Lecture read to the Board of Agriculture, June 6, 1811. By the Secretary to the Board, 8vo. 38. 6d. Nicol and Son. This retrospect on the husbandry of England for the last forty years is calculated to answer a good purpose: it is designed to stimulate farmers of the present day to a less tardy adoption of improvements than that which was manifested by their predecessors; for Mr. Young is of opinion that, if practices really excellent had on their first discovery been generally followed, British agriculture would have arrived at its present state forty years ago, and the kingdom would have been a garden. High praise is in the first place bestowed on Mr. Bakewell of Dishley, in the county of Leicester, for his judicious experiments and important improvements in the breeding of cattle. "The principles he began upon were fine forms, small bones, and a disposition to make readily fat." He found the various stocks throughout the island managed on no enlightened system: but, by his visits to various parts of the country, he occasioned an activity in the farming mind, which was unknown before; and the Secretary adds, It is, in my opinion, unquestionable, from a multitude of facts within my personal knowledge, that the admirable spirit of enquiry, comparison, and experiment, which has for the last fifteen or twenty years made such a progress, in every part of the Empire, was excited by this extraordinary character; and that there is not at present a breed of any sort of live stock in the island, that does not derive its improvement from the skill, knowledge, and the principles which we owe to him, and which would not in any probability have existed, if Bakewell had not laid the foundation.' In the notice next taken of John Arbuthnot, Esq., of Mitcham, in Surrey, our attention is directed to his principles and practice in the cultivation of strong loams, or clay-soils. This gentleman's first rule was, lay your land dry before you attempt any thing else:'a most excellent maxim. With respect to the mode of tillage, course of crops, the exclusion of fallows, and the management of manure, &c., Mr.Arbuthnot's practice offered an instructive example, while his skill in agricultural mechanics gave to the world many useful farming implements. Two sand-farms, one at Petersham and the other at Esher, both in Surrey, were the theatres of Mr. Ducket's experiments. His management of a light soil was eminently judicious, and he made several discoveries of importance. The advantages of trench-ploughing, and of giving as little tillage as possible to sandy soils, were fully ascertained by this intelligent cultivator. He condemned (says Mr. Y.) the ideas which governed the Norfolk farmers, in leaving what they called |