GOVERNMENT.

awhile, would find it best to live in harmony, under certain regulations, or laws, and also to unite for their common defence; it was soon found, that a physical power was necessary to enforce the laws and afford protection. This necessity produced what may be properly termed a government. The convention, either express or implied, which fixes the original laws of civil society, constitutes the social compact; and that which determines in what manner and by whom it shall be carried into effect, is called a constitution. These for the most part are unwritten, and have no other foundation than the silent acquiescence of the governors and governed. Forms of government are numerous, and not capable of exact definition, one description running into another; forming a compound, and progressing from a pure democracy through various and almost imperceptible degrees, to absolute despotism. The great political question which has agitated the public mind for half a century, is whether all legitimate power is derived from the people, and to be exercised for their good; or whether there is a royal race having a divine, indefeasable, hereditary right to govern, independent of the people, and without accountability? It would seem that the mere propounding the question would lead to an affirmative answer to the first alternative, but nine tenths of mankind now act upon the latter.

Pure democracy, where the people exercise the powers of government in their collective capacity, however it may have existed in some ancient republics is not now to be found, except in certain small tribes of savages. A representative democracy or republic, where the people exercise all the powers of government by agents of their own choice for limited periods, affords the most perfect freedom consistent with the preservation of society, and can be successfully carried into effect only where the people possess virtue and intelligence enough to select wise and honest agents. The love of power is so universal and so innate in the human system, that it may be considered as a general principle, subject to few exceptions, that persons having once become possessed of it will retain it as long as possible. It possesses also an intoxicating quality, leading an individual to believe, however incompetent he may really be, that he can administer the government better than any others; thence have arisen aristocracies, monarchies, and despotisms, by which much the greater part of the human family are now governed. Monarchies are either constitutional or absolute; the former, where the people by their representatives have a voice in the enactment of laws, and some control over the executive authority, the latter where they have none. The absolute monarchies of Europe may again be distinguished, from the despotisms of the Ottoman Empire and Asia. In the former the monarch rules by fixed principles; in the latter, the lives and property of

GOVERNMENT.

the subject are at the disposal of the despot, without limitation or restraint.

A knowledge of the extent of the habitable globe has been constantly increasing. For the first three thousand years, Ethiopia in the south, and the Persian or Chaldean Empire in the east, was supposed to be its farthest limits. Another thousand years elapsed, and the Romans extended their knowledge and their conquests to western Europe and Africa. Fifteen hundred years afterwards, America was discovered; and at the close of the eighteenth century, improved navigation has brought into view New Holland, and such a number of other islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans as to constitute a fifth division of the world.

CHAPTER II.

Europe. Its extent and boundaries. Population. Feudal system. Principles of its government. State religion. Standing armies. Public debt, and revenue. Balance of power. Great Britain. Extent and population of the British empire. Number of ships, and seamen employed in its commerce. Imports and exports. Public debt, and revenue. Army and Navy. Government. Meaning of the term constitution, as applied to Great Britain. Parliament; how it originated. Its constituent parts. Magna charta. Bill of rights. Powers of the king, and the Parliament. Judiciary. Courts of Chancery. Trial by jury. Habeas corpus. Different ranks. Landlord and tenant. Condition of the operatives. Ecclesiastical establishments; number of clergy. Tithes. Dissenters. Universities and schools. Sunday schools. Newspapers, and periodicals. Penny Magazine. Canals; rail roads; turnpikes. Tunnel under the Thames. City of London, its extent and population. Canaille of London. Liverpool. Manchester. William IV.; his character; anecdotes of him. The succession. Victoria. Scotland; its connection with England. The presbyterian church. Literature. Face of the country. Lowlands. Highlands. Islands. Character of its inhabitants. Ireland. Its connection with England. Ecclesiastical establishment. Number of different denominations. Catholic emancipation law. Opposition to the collection of tithes. Peasantry. Claims of the Roman catholics. Irish manufacture. Bogs. Dublin. Jersey and Guernsey. Heligoland. Gibraltar. Its situation and strength. Malta. Ionian islands. Sierra Leone. St. Helena. Confinement and death of Bonaparte. Cape of Good Hope. Isle of France. East Indies. East India company; when formed. Extent of its possessions, and manner of acquiring them. Religion of Hindostan; their gods, priests, and temples. Image and car of Juggernaut. Its passage from the temple to the garden house. Self Immolation. Sutlees. Number of widows burned. Abolition of the Suttee. Other acts of self-immolation. Hindoo castes. Bramin soldiers; merchants. Sudras or servants. Burren sunkers or outcasts, their condition. Ceylon. The cinnamon tree. New Holland. Van Dieman's land. Mixed population of convicts and voluntary emigrants. Natives. British West Indies. Number and character of their inhabitants. Trade with the United States; how managed; how counteracted. Abolition of slavery in the British West Indies. British North American colonies. Their extent, population, and government. Chief towns. Canadian troubles. Disputes between the United States and Great Britain, respecting their boandaries, and the navigation of the St. Lawrence. Welland and Rideau canals. General remarks.

FEUDAL SYSTEM.

EUROPE. Europe is the smallest of the three sections into which the eastern continent is divided. It is bounded on three sides by the waters of the Arctic or Frozen ocean, by the Atlantic, and by the Mediterranean. On the east it is separated from Asia by the waters of the Caspian and Black seas, and the straits by which the latter communicates with the Mediterranean. North of the Caspian sea there are no definite boundaries between Europe and Asia; none are necessary, as the dominions of Russia extend in that region over both quarters. Geographers have, for the sake of distinction, run an imaginary line along the river Ural, from its mouth in the Caspian sea, to its source on the Ural mountains, and along these mountains to the Arctic ocean.

Its greatest extent from east to west is 3500 miles; and from north to south, 2500, between 36° and 71° north latitude. Its superficies is estimated at 3,000,000 square miles, and its number of inhabitants at something more than 230,000,000, averaging seventy-six to the square mile. Though the smallest in extent, and second in number, yet in its riches, power, improvements in the arts, and in its influence on the condition of the world, it is far the most important of any quarter of the globe.

FEUDAL SYSTEM. From whence the name of Europe is derived, or from what region it was first settled, history furnishes no authentic record. Its first inhabitants are supposed to have emigrated from Asia, the cradle of the human family, at a very early period. The first information that history affords, is that a colony of Hellenes or Greeks settled in the south of Europe, about 1400 years before the Christian era. That this colony was the source of all the learning and arts, for which Greece and Rome were afterwards celebrated. That it continued to flourish and extend its influence over the surrounding nations for upwards of a thousand years, and was finally conquered by the Roman arms.

The Roman empire, which at one time overspread the world, was in its turn overrun by hordes of barbarians from the north of Europe. Its conquest extinguished the lights of science, and brought on a period designated in history by the name of the dark ages, extending from the fourth to the fourteenth century, and noted for ignorance, barbarity, and despotism. The present governments of Europe originated in this period, and took their character, in a great measure, from the events attending the extinction and conquest of the Roman empire. In that conquest, the chief, or leader, was considered as the proprietor of the whole territory, which was parcelled out to his officers, in greater or less quantities, according to their rank, for which they were bound to serve him a certain number of days in war, with a number of men proportioned to the magnitude of the grant. The high officers parcelled out different portions of the territory

COMMON PRINCIPLES.

to their inferior officers and soldiers, on the same conditions, reserving for the support of themselves, their families, and immediate dependents, so much as they deemed necessary, under the name of demesne lands, for their own occupation. In this manner a complete military organization was formed for the purposes of defence or conquest, called the Feudal System. The grants were hereditary and indivisible, descending to the oldest heir male, and when there was none of sufficient age to perform the requisite service, the custody and use of the property reverted to the donor during the minority.

The power of the king, emperor, or under whatever name the chief was designated, was absolute, and his title as inviolable as the title to any private property. The whole constituted one system. The immediate grantees of the king were styled lords, and the different titles of nobility generally regulated by the extent of their fiefs or grants. They are considered as of a higher order, and as possessing certain rights, privileges, and immunities different from the people. One of their principal duties, that of advising the king, which in reality gave them an important influence in the government, was considered as a burdensome service. These distinctions, privileges, and duties, which constituted them an order of nobility, were also hereditary and indivisible. Below these were the common people, of little estimation, and possessing no share in the government. As wealth accumulated in the hands of private citizens, they became of more consideration, and the rigid features of the feudal system relaxed.

The history of Europe presents a constant struggle on the part of kings to maintain and enlarge their prerogatives, on the part of the nobility, or privileged orders, to preserve their immunities, and on the part of the people, to acquire consideration and influence. This struggle has resulted in a few instances in the establishment of small republics, differing from one another, and falling far short of the principle of civil liberty as understood in the American republics. In others it has resulted in estab lishing what are called constitutional monarchies, where the people by their representatives have some share in the enactment of laws. In others, the principles of absolutism have remained with little amelioration.

COMMON PRINCIPLES. Some of the doctrines common to all the European monarchies, are, that all kings, whatever may be the number of their subjects, are of equal rank or grade; that royal blood must not be mixed, or contaminated with that of any inferior order; that when one of the royal family wants a partner, he must seek one, not in the nation of which he is a prince, or sovereign, but from some foreign royal family; that the sovereigns have a right to parcel out, and dispose of particular territories, to individuals, without regard to the rights or wishes of