་ papers. It is enough, that we have pointed out that great line, the operation of that principle of re-action against the immense pressure of circumstances, which, in our humble apprehension, will direct and animate the Potentates of Europe. They will endeavour to push their productive powers to the utmost; and to render those powers available, by all possible acquisitions and exertions. Now, to regulate these desires, and to moderate these expectations, to tranquillize the over weening, and to sooth the disappointed, is no common undertaking. The perplexities included in propositions that are to be expected, will be numerous and intricate. The progress made in the equity of the case will be extremely slow, and often not apparent. The negociations will not proceed straight forward; but will repeatedly come almost to a point, and at that point will dissolve. Happily we know tha tthere is a Power presiding over all; and to that Power we bend in deep submission. Our conjectures may be mistaken: our wishes may be erroneous: HIS appointments must be right. But we turn also to our country, and if we are asked, what is the duty of Britain, as a State? we answer-her duty and her glory is the same thing: to act as moderator, as umpire; to perform the part of the flywheel in one of her steam engines; to regulate the going of the whole machine, and to keep all steady. Little can all the powers conjoined add to the extent of the British Empire; but they may honour Britain and benefit themselves, by their confidence, by their frankness, by their good will, by their good wishes. Having said this, and established these principles, as the basis of British influence, we leave the expression of them in a COMMERCIAL TREATY --the very reverse of the Continental System, to those into whose hands the deliberative and executive powers of the state, are officially committed. As a close to this speculation, we do, in the most express terms, forewarn all persons concerned in articles of export, and especially all workmen employed on our : manufactures, that they are to expect very formidable rivals in their foreign fellow craftsmen. It is to no purpose, to flatter themselves that British commodities will maintain their accustomed preference :—so they will, if well and soundly executed :and this is the proposition we wish to enforce. We insist, that the skill, the diligence, the dexterity of our countrymen be studied, be exerted with heart and soul, be conspicuous. It is not to be supposed, that the thousands of ingenious men on the Continent will not exert their ingenuity, will not penetrate our processes, will not imitate, we add improve, our machinery. They have done it, they will do it, they have a right to do it. This is no field of slaughter: it is a competition of Genius: can we deny Genius its full scope? and if we deny it, can we prevent it?— Genius is a celestial gift: mortals, like ourselves, cannot controul it. We know too, that foreigners are intent on acquiring all our knowledge, on copying all our inventions. Not a hint escapes them. Again therefore we repeat our injunction on all workmen in every branch, if they wish to maintain their character abroad, and by that the preference at this moment claimed, and not sparingly granted, to British productions, not to slacken in the exertion of their abilities: it will ultimately prove their best policy. They may think policy concerns the statesman, only: they are mistaken. We have given them notice according to the best of our judgment, that in conjunction with the natural desire of Monarchs to enlarge their dominion, there is at this moment another desire in activity, that of being relieved from their financial burdens; and this ALL may feel, can only be done, or to say the least, can be best done, by fostering COMMERCE: they | will therefore strain every nerve to render efficient to the utmost, the Commerce of their respective states; the consequences, we leave to the consideration of those whom it concerns: we have discharged our duty by this explicit and distinct declaration, of the light in which we view the probable conduct of Continental Statesmen. THE LITERARY PANORAMA, AND National Register : For OCTOBER, 1814. NATIONAL and PARLIAMENTARY | those sects into which the Christran re Notices, BRITISH and FOREIGN. REVIVAL OF POPISH DOMINION: THE JE- ligion is divided in Western Europe. Founding his pretensions on alledged ambiguities in Holy Writ, pressed without shame to serve his purpose, the bishop of Rome has, for ages, assumed the character of Universal Pastor, Leader, Guide of the Flock of Christ. He has affected to be the centre of union to Whatever be the Politics which involve the faithful of the church, scattered the Statesman, or govern the world, whe- throughout the world, and has thunrther complying with the necessities im-dered his anathemas against whoever venposed by the time, or planning the perma- tured to question the foundation of his nent welfare of a people, Religion will usurped authority, on whatever subject, always maintain a much stronger hold on trivial or essential, of doctrine or of the human mind;--a hold much stronger, discipline. This ambition in the bishop or at least more lasting, than political of a city, though confessedly imperial considerations. Whether "a religious and metropolitan, revolted the minds of animal," be an unimpeachable defini- Christians, in the east, who occupied tion of man, is more than we presume the original seats of Christianity; nor less to affirm; but, that Religion is neces- of Christians in the west, who had the sary to man, and that without it his steadiness to maintain the purity of state is so much the more miserable, we that doctrine originally delivered to the hesitate not to avow, as our conviction. It saints. Even among those most devoted must, at the same time, be acknow- to the interest of the Papal chair, arose, ledged, that the character of that system from time to time, men sufficiently to which he has been accustomed by enlightened to perceive that such prehabit, is of vital consequence, and con- tensions must eventually prove ruinous. tributes most powerfully to the forma- What they foresaw, at length happened; tion of his own character. Whether and a large part of Christendom regloomy and sanguinary, or light and fri- nounced its connexion with the Vicar of volous, whether philosophical or super- the Son of God, the Head of the Church ficial, into something resembling itself, upon Earth. This schism took place. it will transform its votary; and man notwithstanding all the protecting pow becomes an ascetic or a worldling, he ers devised by the Catholic church: sinks into mysticism, or indulges in notwithstanding numberless decrees of indifference, in conformity to the moral councils, standing armies of defendprinciples he has imbibed, and the course ers in the then existing Orders, the seof practice he has pursued. verity of Catholic rulers to their subjects, and the power, spiritual and temporal, enjoyed by the clergy and their officers. For the present we waive all reference | to those peculiar systems of Religion which have marked the æras of the world, Idolatry, Zabiism, Judaism, Mahometism, &c. to come at once to VOL. L. New Series. Lit. Pan. Oct. 1. This inefficiency of existing means was felt in various ages by the Romish A plies with the wishes of his people! whose zeal for the religion of their fathers, had anticipated his orders. Strange infatuation this, if he believed the thing possible; stranger still, if he ventured this affirmation, without believing the fact; and without fore-seeing the consequences! What a bar against liberal studies and valuable knowledge, is this Anti-christian decree! Sink, Spain, to the lowest dregs of bigotry, ignorance, and barbarism! among us, rests on the persuasion that The general feeling of the public mind of all bad things the Inquisition is the worst; and that the revival of this revives also the power of the Church of Rome, in its most odious form. This may be true, but, we are mistaken, if more extensive consequences do not flow from the re-establishment of the Monkish Orders, and especially, from that of the Jesuits. The Inquisition has no power beyond the bounds of the state that allows it: the Jesuits will be found in full activity throughout the world. The Inquisition will consume a number of victims comparatively small, in proportion to a whole nation the Jesuits will engage in the education of youth, and the springs of moral senti church, and gave occasion, among other things, to two devices of diametrically opposite kinds. The first. was-the Inquisition or Holy Office, an institution of fire and sword; the second was, the Order of the Jesuits, an institution of craft and cunning. The Inquisition may be traced to Pope Lucins, who at the council of Verona, in 1184, ordered the Bishops to procure information of all who were suspected of heresy. and if they could not effect this in person, ey were to enjoin it as a duty on their commissaries. In the beginning of the thirteenth century this disposition was re-inforced, and the poor Albigenses and Waldenses, severely felt its fury. Dominic, usually called Saint Dominic, reduced this to practice, and was, if not the first Inquisitor, yet the founder of that Order to which the management of the Inquisition was committed. In 1251 the Inquisition was established in Italy; in 1255 it was extended into France. The horrors accompanying the practices of this office, soon excited universal disgust in the best disposed Catholics. It was not fully established in Spain till 1478, but when it was established, it triumphed in all its fury. In Portugal it was received about 1536. The gradual progress of knowledgement will be poisoned in the rising gechecked the bloodshed of this tribunal; and it rarely, of late years, terrified the world by displaying ranks of heretics led to the stake. The triumph of humanity in the entire abolition of this most cruel depository of power, terrestrial and spiritual, was a prominent good arising from the evils of the French Revolution. It lingered, last of all, in the Peninsula; but the Spanish Cortes, after much discussion, passed a law for its abrogation. It is again revived by Fer-places at once,-which has access to all dinand, King of Spain: whether with all the dreadful torments which formed its original splendor, or merely as an engine of state policy, is not yet fully ascertained; but the worst is feared. The Edict, by which the king restores this abhorred tribunal, deserves notice, as implying toleration of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Religion.A strange notion of toleration, most assuredly!—and further, as affirming, that in this re-establishment, he com neration, in all its branches. The Inquisition must have some regard to the great of the earth, or the consequence would be a combination fatal to its existence; the Jesuits will sway the consicences of men of rank equally as others, by creeping into their confessionals, where they will terrify the timid by threats and injunctions, while they practise on the courageous by delusion and chicanery. That body which acts in all persons, without restriction,--which moulds the conscience to its purposes, in moments when it is most susceptible of impression-and which directs to its own interest the tender mind of youth, is more to be dreaded, in reality, than all the prisons, torturing-rooms and San Benitos of the Holy Office. Neither can any country close its of access against Jesuits, though it may ways oppose the entrance of the sons of St. Dominic. For example, to bring the |