Under the head of professional schools we ought perhaps to class the military and naval school establishments of the country. Of the latter, indeed, we should have little to say, as they have not yet come into being, except in the form of casual arrangements for teaching on board the national vessels and at some of the naval stations.

The military academy at West Point is the only establishment of that description for the service of the army. Its usefulness and eminence are justly deemed the pride of the nation. It sends forth annually about 30 or 40 graduates, and the whole number of cadets in 1831 was two hundred and twenty-two.

6. Societies for the improvement of education. The thoughts and reflections of American citizens have for the last twenty years been frequently call ed to every branch of the subject both of education and instruction. The claims of education, moral, intellectual, and physical, have been urged with a zeal worthy of the cause, and with a devotedness which makes ultimate success the certain reward of all human effort. The divisions and subdivisions of the subject have claimed each the labours of many vigorous minds, and though much, very much, yet remains to be done in order to realize the wishes of the wise and good in this particular, the cause is unquestionably making advancement at a speed far more encouraging than at any former period. It may be mentioned as a curious coincidence, illustrative of the rising interest of the subject, that in the year 1825, on one topic in education, the formation of schools for teachers, which had previously been hardly mentioned in public, no less than four distinct publications appeared simultaneously in as many different and distant states, without concert or co-operation on the part of their authors.

These pamphlets were read with attention, became the subjects of frequent comment, and the matters of which they treated have already (1832) been presented in the messages of several governors of states, and acted on by colleges, academies, and private institutions. The fact just stated proves, that reflecting men perceive a capital defect in the system heretofore pursued, to have been the want of a distinct recognition of the business of education as a permanent and honourable pursuit, and the absence of all regular preparation for the duties of instruction. This evil has not been confined to any one class of institutions, but has proved as detrimental to the true interests of the colleges as of the common schools. In the former it has frequently happened that a man of some other profession has been taken from the ranks of his own calling and set up at once with the title, dignity, and emoluments of a commander in chief in a totally different service; where of course he had every thing to learn, and where his previous habits had done any thing but qualify him for the arduous duties of instruction. The folly of those who select is only equalled, in such cases, by the "modest assurance" of those who accept their appointment. As a means of advancing the interests of general education, recourse has been had to conventions

and associations among the teachers and other friends of the cause, who, by deliberation and the free interchange of opinions, have done much to rouse attention to the various topics connected with the subject, have diffused much useful light and information, and created a more liberal and worthy spirit in regard to the public provisions for education. To the city of Boston is due the credit of having called the first literary convention for the promotion of this honourable cause. This step was to have been expected from a city which may be styled not more emphatically the cradle of liberty than that of universal education.

Other convocations for similar purposes have since been held, and have doubtless conferred much benefit on the parties concerned, as well as on those over whom they exercise a control. If they have done no more in some instances, than prove how discordant were the previous opinions of their members and how far the systems and methods pursued in many seminaries are removed from the perfection of which they are susceptible, they will have overcome at least one of the pre-existing obstacles to improvement. The convention at Boston resulted in the establishment of a society termed the "American Institute of Instruction," the members of which, "pledging their zealous efforts to promere the cause of popular education," proceeded to adopt a constitution liberal in its nature and admirably calculated to insure the harmony and co-operation of all ingenuous minds.

While similar associations shall continue to be actuated by equally enlarged and patriotic views, and shall keep clear of all questions and discussions on which, from their very nature, no satisfactory decision can be had, they will doubtless contribute in the most effectual manner to the success of a cause which cannot but be regarded as of the highest individual and national importance.-W. R. JOHNSON.

COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.

The first settlers of Virginia encountered many difficulties: but such were their industry and per severance, that by the year 1619, only twelve years after the commencement of the building of Jamestown, they not only stocked the English market with their staple, tobacco, but opened a trade for it with Holland, and established warehouses in Middleburgh and Flushing. As there was a duty of five per cent payable on this article when imported into England, king James did not see with indifference the diversion of a part of his revenue to foreign states: and though the colonists remonstrated against the injustice of the proceeding, they were ordered to bring all their tobacco to England, in despite of their privileges as Englishmen, and of the plain letter of their charter. The injustice did not end here: for tobacco was made a royal monopoly; and the king, "out of pity to the country" as he declared, "commanded that the planters should not make more than one hundred weight of tobacco per man; for the market was so low that he could not afford to give them more than three shillings a pound for it.” He, however, sold it out at much higher prices.

The order to bring all their tobacco to England the Virginians evaded; and to their trade with Europe, they added a profitable trade with the Indians for peltry. To these branches of trade was added, in 1620, a trade in slaves, in which year a Dutch ship bound homeward from the coast of Guinea, sold twenty of this wretched race to the colonists.

The order to bring all tobacco to England, appears to have been the only commercial restriction the mother country imposed on the colonies, till the year 1646: for the proclamation issued by king Charles in 1658, prohibiting the sailing of ships with passengers or provisions to New England, without special license, was strictly of a political nature. No duty was charged on goods exported from England to the colonies, and the produce of the colonies when imported into England paid a duty of only five per cent. Foreign vessels were permitted to trade to the colonies, and foreign merchants to settle in them as agents and factors. Under this system, notwithstanding their frequent wars with the Indians, and many faults in their internal policy, the progress of the colonists in wealth was not inconsiderable. To agriculture and to a trade with the Indians for peltries, the New England men soon added fisheries: and a trade with the West Indies. The introduction of the culture of sugar into Barbadoes, which took place about the year 1641, rendered the last mentioned trade very profitable.

In the year 1646, an ordinance was passed declaring that "whereas the several plantations of Virginia, Bermuda, Barbadoes, and other places, have been much beneficial to this kingdom by the increase of navigation and of the customs arising from the commodities of the growth of these plantations imported into this kingdom. And as goods and necessaries carried thither from hence have not hitherto paid any custom: for the better carrying on of said plantations, it is now ordered by the lords and commons in parliament, that all merchandise, goods, and necessaries for the supportation, use, and expense of said plantations, shall pay no custom nor duty for the same, the duty of excise only excepted, for three years to come, except to the plantations in Newfoundland; security being given here, and certificate from thence, that the said goods be really exported thither, and for the only use of the said plantations.-Provided always, that none in any of the said plantations do suffer any ship or vessel to lade any goods of the growth of the plantations, and carry them to foreign parts, except in English bottoms: under forfeiture of the before named exemption from custom.

A jealousy of the Dutch, partly political and partly commercial, led to the enaction of this, the first of the British navigation acts, touching the colonies. It left the colonists at liberty to export their produce whither they chose, provided it was exported in English bottoms: and it did not prevent foreign ships from making sales of cargoes in the colonies, but only from taking in lading there. Such was the letter of the law. The penalty imposed for a breach of it, or rather the favour offered for the observance of it, a continuance for three years VOL. XVIII.-PART I.

only of an exemption from customs on goods exported from England to the colonies, was so inconsiderable, that it was probably little regarded. Without understanding the philosophy of free trade, the colonists had practical experience of its benefits: and the Virginians were little disposed to obey the ordinances of a parliament which had set the royal power at defiance.

Against this parliament, indeed, the Virginians openly raised the standard of opposition, whereupon an ordinance was issued in 1650 prohibiting all correspondence with them except by leave of the council of state, authorising the capture of their ships and merchandise, and prohibiting, under forfeiture of ships and goods, any foreigner from resorting to Virginia, or trading thither, without a license, on any pretext whatever.

This ordinance did not affect the New England provinces or Maryland, but in the following year it was enacted that no merchandise either of Africa, Asia, or America, including our plantations there, should be imported into England, in an but English built ships, and belonging either to English or English plantation subjects."

This ordinance of the rump parliament was the basis of the celebrated British navigation act, passed in 1660, after the restoration of Charles the second. The latter act made it illegal to trade with the colonies except in British and British plantation ships, and forbid foreign merchants to settle there. It prohibited the Americans from. carrying tobacco, sugar, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, fustic, and other dying woods, to any places but England, Ireland, and his majesty's plantations: but left them at liberty to carry other articles of their produce to foreign countries, and there to purchase such merchandise as they might want. But this last mentioned privilege was confined within very narrow limits by another act, passed in 1663, by which it was declared that no merchandise of European growth, production, or manufacture, should be imported into the colonies, except it were laden or shipped in England, with the exception of "salt for the fisheries, wines from Madeira and the Azores, and servants, victuals, and horses from Scotland or Ireland."

The restrictions the British government imposed on its plantations, were similar to those adopted by other European powers. The design of each was to monopolise the trade of its own colonies, and in their acts of pacification in regard to America, it was usual to insert an article binding the subjects of each contracting power, mutually to abstain from sailing to or trading in any of the harbours, or places, possessed by the other party in the western hemisphere. While the laws of England, therefore, restricted the North Americans to purchasing European commodities in the markets of England, a few articles only excepted, the laws of France and Spain restricted their commerce in America to the British colonies. But the North Americans were not very strict in their observance of any of these regulations. In defiance of the Spanish monarch, they appear to have entered into a contraband trade with the Spanish colonies before the year 1660. They be

This duty on rum was afterwards reduced to sixpence, and that on molasses to three-pence a gallon. It was always very odious to the northern colonists; being justly considered by them as sacrificing their interests to those of the sugar planter. And it is well known, says Mr Pitkin, that although this duty was attempted to be collected in the colonies, by officers appointed by the crown, and by severe legal penalties, yet by smuggling, or some other way, the payment of it was generally evaded.

Under regulations of this kind, modified from time to time in the details, and observed by the Americans with no great strictness, when regarded by them as injurious, the trade of the colonists continued till the year 1763; grain, salted provisions, and other of their most valuable products, being among the non-enumerated articles, they could carry to any part of Europe. In 1705, molasses was added to the list of articles which could be legally exported only to England or British possessions. In 1722, beaver, and peltry, and copper ore, were included in the list, which was further extended in 1729, by the addition of tar, turpentine, masts, yards and bowsprits, and in other years, by the addition of pig and bar iron, pot and pearl ashes, whale fins, hides, and some other commodities.

In 1730, among the new articles of import from the colonies into England, were fifty hundred weight of hemp, raised in New England and Carolina, and forty tons of iron, thirty hundred weight of copper ore, one hundred and fifty-six quintals of beeswax, three hundred weight of hemp, and three hundred weight of raw silk, produced in Virginia.

About the year 1741, the Carolinians being deprived of a market for their rice by the wars in Europe, began to cultivate indigo.

In 1749, the bounty granted to British whaling ships was extended to American whaling ships under certain limitations. In the same year permission was given to import American raw silk into England, free of duty: and in the following year the privilege was extended to pig and bar iron. In 1764, acts were passed to prohibit the importation of sugar and rum from the foreign colonies into the American colonies, to lay a duty of one pound two shillings per cent on all foreign clayed sugars imported into the colonies, instead of the old duty of five shillings and six-pence, to lay a duty of six-pence a pound on foreign indigo, instead of the old duty of two-pence, on foreign coffee a duty of two pounds nineteen shillings and nine-pence, on Madeira wine a duty of seven pounds per ton, on Port and Spanish wines imported into the colonies from Great Britain ten shillings per ton, on Asiatic silks and silk stuffs two shillings sterling a pound, on Asiatic calicoes two shillings six-pence a piece, on foreign cambrics and French lawns three shillings sterling a piece, on coffee exported from the British West Indies to any place but Great Britain seven shillings sterling per hundred weight, on pimento one half-penny sterling per pound. These provisions for imposing duties on various articles when imported into America, were accompanied with others for withdrawing the drawback which had usually been allowed on the exportation from

England to the colonies, of different articles of European growth and manufacture. It was enacted "that there be not any drawback allowed of any part of the rate or duty of the old subsidy on any foreign goods, (except wines), of the growth, product, or manufacture of Europe, or the East Indies, exported from this kingdom to the British colonies in America. That no drawback be allowed of any part of any rate or duty upon white calicoes or foreign linens."

As the duties imposed by the act of 1733 were seldom paid, it was resolved to support the new commercial regulations by a naval force on the coast. The consequences of these measures were so important, that we feel we cannot render a more acceptable service to our readers, than by tran scribing the statement of Mr Coombe, the continuer of Anderson's History of Commerce, a work which has not been republished in the United States.

After mentioning the necessity the British minister, Mr Granville, found himself under of increasing the public revenue, on account of the increase of the public debt, he says, "The methods which were now adopted to prevent smuggling, might not have been attended with any unpleasant consequences, if they had been confined to the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland; but by extending them to the shores of America, they interrupted a commerce, which, though not strictly legal, was extremely advantageous to the colonies. They were, therefore, in a state of no common discontent on account of the acts of the British parliament, which added to their restraints, when the stamp act appeared to heighten their resentment, and raise a kind of private displeasure into public remonstrance and general opposition.

"A number of armed cutters were stationed around the coasts of Great Britain, and the most rigid orders were issued to the commanders of them to act in the capacity of revenue officers. They were enjoined to take the usual customhouse oaths, and to observe the regulations prescribed by them. Thus was the distinguished character of a British naval officer degraded by the employment of a tide waiter, and that active, zealous courage which had been accustomed to the conquests of an enemy, was now to be exerted in opposing a contraband trade, and to find a reward in the seizure of prohibited commodities.

"The clamour against these measures was loud in England: but in America the discontent on the occasion was little short of outrage. As naval gentlemen, the commanders of these vessels were not conversant in the duties of revenue collection; they were, therefore, oftentimes guilty of oppression: remedies were indeed at hand in England; but as the lords of the admiralty or the treasury could alone rectify any errors, check any violence, punish any injustice, or restore any violated property, it was always extremely difficult, and in many cases almost impracticable, for the Americans to obtain redress.

"But bad as this evil was, there arose one from the same source which was still worse. A trade

had been carried on for more than a century between the British and Spanish colonies in the new world, to the great advantage of both, but especially the former, as well as of the mother country: the chief materials of it being on the side of the British colonies, British manufactures, or such of their own produce as enabled them to purchase British manufactures for their own consumption; and on the part of the Spaniards, gold and silver in bullion and coin, cochineal, and medicinal drugs, besides live stock and mules; which, in the West India plantations, to which places alone these articles were carried, from their great utility justly deserved to be considered of equal importance with the most precious metals. "This trade did not clash with the spirit of any act of parliament made for the regulation of the British plantation trade; or, at least with that spirit of trade which universally prevails in our commercial acts: but it was found to vary sufficiently from the letter of the former, to give the new revenue officers a plea for doing that from principles of duty, which there were no small temptations to do from the more powerful motives of interest. Accordingly, they seized, indiscriminately, all the ships upon that trade, both of subjects and foreigners, which the customhouse officers stationed on shore, either through fear of the inhabitants, a more just way of thinking, or a happy ignorance, had always permitted to pass unnoticed.

"As the advantage of this commerce was very much in favour of Great Britain, the Spanish monarchy had always opposed it: guarda costas were commissioned to scour the coasts of her American dominions, and to seize every vessel that approached too near them; a duty which they had exercised with such general license, as to provoke the war which broke out in 1739. The British cruizers seemed to act at this time with the same spirit in destroying this commerce, so that in a short space of time it was almost wholly annihilated.

"This circumstance was to the northern colonies a deprivation of the most serious nature. This traffic had long proved the mine from whence they drew those supplies of gold and silver that enabled them to make copious remittances to England, and to provide a sufficiency of current specie at home. A sudden stop being thus put to such a source of advantage, the Americans expressed the injury they sustained in the harshest terms that a sense of injury could inspire. But in spite of all complaints, the ministry continued to proceed in their unfortunate career, and measures equally offensive to the inhabitants of the North American colonies continued to be successively adopted.

"Besides this trade, carried on between the British colonies in general, especially those in the West Indies, and the Spanish, there had for a long time subsisted one equally extensive between the British North American colonies in particular, and those of the French West Indies, to the great advantage of both, as it consisted chiefly in such goods as must otherwise have remained upon the hands of the possessors; so that it united, in the strictest sense, all those benefits which liberal minds included in the idea of a well regulated commerce, as tending, in

the highest degree to the welfare of those concerned in it.

"In these benefits the respective mother countries had, without doubt, a very large share, though it may be impossible to determine which, on the whole, had the most. We had enough to engage those in power to think it worth connivance, for it certainly was not strictly according to law, in consideration of the vast quantity of manufactures it enabled our American colonies to take from us; and this also, in spite of all the clamours which those concerned in our West India trade and possessions could raise against it, as enabling the French to undersell them in West India produce at the foreign markets. This outcry might, indeed, be found to arise, in a great measure, from another consideration, which it was not proper for these gentlemen to avow, that of their not getting so good a price as otherwise they might expect, for such part of their produce as they sold in the markets of their mother country: and which, considering the vast demand for it, even to the poor, to whom, from long habit, it has become one of the chief necessaries of life, it would have savoured of oppression if it had been permitted to advance in price. But, be that as it may, this trade was suffered to be carried on in the late war between Great Britain and France; directly by means of flags of truce, and indirectly through the Dutch and Danish islands; and afterwards through the Spanish port of Monte Christe, in the island of Hispaniola; till, at last, the vast advantages the French received from it above what the English could expect, in consequence of our having, in a manner, laid siege to their West India islands, determined government to put a stop to it.

"In doing this, however, they did not think proper to consider it so much in the light of a contraband trade, as in that of a treasonable practice, by supplying the enemy with necessaries, without which it would have been impossible for these valuable islands to hold out so long against our attempt to reduce them. Accordingly, as soon as the conclusion of the war had taken the appellation of treason from this trade, it returned again to its pristine flourishing condition; and thus it remained, till it sunk beneath the same blow with the trade between us and the Spaniards, whose history we have already related.

"This trade not only prevented our North American colonies from being drained of their current cash, by calls of the mother country, but added greatly to it, so as to make it in some measure keep pace with their domestic trade, which could not but greatly increase in proportion to the remarkable increase of mankind in that part of the world, where the cheapness of the lands determines so great a part of the inhabitants to the exercise of the rural arts, which are known to be favourable to population.

"Though the suppression of that trade which we have just been relating, instead of barely interrupting these supplies of the necessaries and conveniences of life, which the North American colonies were before accustomed to receive in return for their superfluities and incumbrances, tended visibly,