class of political opinions. It is not written with the view of aiding or of opposing any party in the state. It is a simple analysis of our financial system, in which its various elements are tested by those rules which the author's experience and observation have taught him to be the best adapted to the good of the community. No one who is acquainted with Mr. Buchanan's literary and political history will suspect him of an inclination to express his political opinions in strong language: but indignatio facit versum, and as the iniquities which his philosophical analysis has brought to light, have risen up before him, they have extorted from him a strong expressive dignity of language befitting the importance of the occasion for its use. Can any commodity be found better entitled to the benevolent statesman's favour than those herbs which, by the universal experience of the civilised world, give their consumers the greatest quantity of pleasure that is unaccompanied by a reaction! Let us see how our financial statesmen have dealt with these blessings of nature:

lightly on the rich, who use the finer teas, and on whom the burden ought chiefly to lie. Considering, besides, objectionable; and it encroaches deeply on the comforts the nature of the article, the exorbitant duty is most of the community. The tax on salt, on pepper, or on tobacco, though greatly exceeding the original cost, does not impose any great additional expense on the consumers, and does not materially restrain the consumption. But a lighter tax on so expensive a luxury as tea is more heavily felt, and enforces economy in its use, though it conduces, more than any other article, to comfort as well as to morality. In every view it is an impolitic and an oppressive tax. The new duty of 2s. 1d. former ad calorem duty of 100 per cent; and the price on the finer teas is, however, less in amount than the has been still farther reduced about 20 per cent by the large importations of the free-trader. The consequence has been a great increase in the consumption of tea, which amounted in the year 1841 to 36,675,667 lbs. ; a clear proof that it is by the high price that it has been all along restrained.

Coffee, like tea, is an expensive article of consumption, which will not bear a heavy tax. Yet it has been heavily and very unequally taxed in this country. The duty has varied from 6d., its present amount, to ls. 7d., and even 2s. per lb. ; or from about 60 to 150, or 200 per cent. Though possessing all the valuable qualities of tea, those high imposts nearly interdicted its use in this country. Nothing more clearly exemplifies the bad effects of exorbitant duties. On an article in such great demand, and so expensive, the duty should never have exceeded 20 or 30 per cent; and it appears from experience, that a higher duty will not yield a larger revenue. The tax was raised from 6d. to 104d.; in 1796, it was raised to 1s. 5d.; and in 1804, to 1s. 7 d. Under the pressure of those heavy duties, the consumption remained stationary while the population was increasing. It amounted, in 1789, to 930,141 lbs. ; and in 1807, the year before the duty was reduced to 7d. it had only increased to 1,176,164 lbs. The moment this depressing load was taken off, the consumption bounded up as with an elastic spring to 9,251,837 lbs. its amount in 1808. The duty was again raised to 1s. in 1819; but was finally reduced to 6d. in 1825, when the annual consumption rapidly increasing, amounted, in 1840, to 28,723,735 lbs; and the duty of 6d. produced, in 1837, £675,120; and, in 1842, £740,053; a clear proof of the impolicy of the former duty of 1s. 7d. which only produced, in 1807, £161,245. The effect of the reduced duty on coffee, in increasing the consumption, was aided by a falling price; especially for about fifteen years after it took place, as well as by the prevailing taste of the community, which gave immediate effect to the lower duty. Tea and coffee possess nearly the same qualities, and appear equally acceptable to the public taste. The heavy duty, however, on coffee, and its high price, turned the scale in favour of tea, which accord

Of all the British taxes on consumption that on tea is perhaps the most objectionable: First, Because it is a great article of family expense, costly in its use, on which a light tax is more oppressive than a heavier tax on other articles. Second, The extensive use of tea conduces both to the health and morals of the people: it is the peculiar distinction of tea that it refreshes without intoxicating. It is not a filthy luxury like tobacco. On the contrary, it is commended by the Roman historian, when he is enumerating its importation into Europe among the other advantages of the trade to the East, as affording " an elegant repast." In supplanting the use of beer and other beverages in the morning and afternoon meal, its introduction has aided in the improvement of domestic manners; and if its price were lower, it would rival even more effectually the use of ardent spirits, that fruitful source of moral debasement. In every view, therefore, this article ought to find especial favour with the rulers of the land, and to be lightly | taxed. It has, however, been very heavily taxed in this country, at the rate of 100 per cent.; to which 20 per cent. has been added by the tax on sugar, and formerly other 20 per cent. by the monopoly of the East India Company. So heavy a tax was calculated to check the demand for so expensive an article; and accordingly its consumption does not appear, any more than that of sugar, to have kept pace with the wealth and population of the country. In 1803, when the duty was raised on the finer teas to 95 per cent, the consumption remained stationary for seventeen years after, at between 20,000,000 and 21,000,000 lbs. In 1817,it amount-ingly had the monopoly of the market. The consumers ed to 20,619,455 lbs.

lower duty on coffee, could be used indifferently, the one at no greater expense than the other.

would almost as soon have given different prices for the When the monopoly of tea by the East India Com- same qualities of tea, as a higher price for coffee. By pany was abolished in 1834, the tax of 100 per cent, the reduction of the duty and the price, coffee was, for was repealed; and new duties were imposed on Bohea the first time, placed on an equality with tea in the a duty of 1s. 6d. per lb. ; on Congo and the finer teas, British market; and the consequence was a sudden and 2s. 2d.; and on the finest, such as Souchong, Gunpow- extraordinary demand for this formerly forbidden arder, &c. 3s. The difficulty of classifying teas according ticle. The consumption of tea was also increasing at to this new scale gave rise, as was alleged, to frauds on the same time; so that the falling price was diffusing a the revenue by the importers of tea; and the discriminat-growing taste for both these luxuries: which, with the ing duty was relinquished for a duty of 2s. 1d. per lb on all teas. The great objection to this tax, as to all indiscriminate taxes, except they are extremely moderate, is, that it presses heavily, where it ought to press lightly; and lightly where a heavier tax might be imposed. On the low-priced teas, such as bohea, it is equal to 150 or When he has tasted it in the 200 per cent; while on the finer teas it does not amount to above 50 or 75 per cent. The duty is regulated by the condition in which its powers are developed, the high-priced, when it should be regulated by the lower-coffee-shop will be a formidable rival of the ginpriced teas. It is thus the reverse of being just and equal. By raising the price of the coarser teas, it lays the burden on the poorer or the middling classes, the chief consumers of those teas; while it presses more

Coffee is a beverage, with the refreshing and stimulating qualities of which the working man of this country has scarcely had an opportunity of being acquainted.

palace. Its high price has made it be so amply diluted, that it has been generally viewed as an herb to be diluted like tea, instead of being pre

We are convinced that their introduction, under a reasonable duty, would be favourable to temper ance. Wherever gentility and sensual indulgence come into competition on fair terms, the latter will

pared, as every true lover of the bean knows it should be, in such a manner that its chief characteristic is its strength. There are many wise prescriptions for preparing coffee; but the wisest of all is the simplest, yet often the least attainable-be found making some sacrifices to the former. Is abundance of the material. Nearly an ounce of coffee is required to make a drinkable cup of the beverage; and, even at the present reduced price of the article, this, if accompanied by sugar, will cost between 14d. and 2d. Admitting a fractional profit to the keeper of a coffee-shop, or to the perambulatory vender of hot coffee, 2d. per cup must be charged, a sum which the working man cannot readily part with.

We will venture, at the risk of losing whatever character we possess for sobriety, to say a word for the reduction of the duty on wines-we mean those wines on which it presses most heavily. If we want a few bottles of the most ordinary wine of the Moselle or the Neckar, to quaff soberly with a friend in a hot summer day-such wine as we have taken choice goblets of, at fourpence a bottle, in the student's way-side wine-house, when weary of long walking on the dusty German roads-behold the duty is just the same as that which our aristocratic neighbour pays on his Bourdeaux, at seventy shillings a dozen, or on his Madeira, at a guinea a bottle-in all cases it is eleven shillings a dozen. This is favourable to the excellence of the wines of our aristocracy; for the higher the price paid, the smaller is the proportional incidence of the duty; and the grower being charged 5 per cent of duty on his best wines, and nearly 500 per cent on his worst, has an inducement to send none but a choice article to such a market. We remember a young Frenchman, who had good opportunities of being well feasted at home, remarking, that he never knew what first-rate Bourdeaux was till he tasted it in Edinburgh.* This is a very pleasant circumstance, so far as it goes; but it might not be altogether beneath the notice of a financial statesman to think of the respectable foreman, or clerk, or small shop-keeper, who might, with a decent pride that would for ever banish ardent spirits from his door, set before his guest his bottle of Moselle or Roussillon, purchased for a shilling. The use of the lighter wines is an antidote to intemperance. The inhabitant of northern France, or of the German wine districts, refreshes himself with wine at any time, from morning to evening, when the inclination occurs to him; but he never becomes grossly drunken. Mercier, in his Tableau de Paris, mentions, among the elements of the degradation of the Parisian people, before the outbreak of the revolution, the heavy endroit duties on wine, which gave an impulse to the consumption of ardent spirits. Even in the adjustment of the duties on this same article of ardent spirits, something might be done for temperance. Why should brandy and Hollands be charged the enormous duty of 22s. 6d. a gallon? * The new Athens is illustrious for this peculiar liquor. It is a legacy of our old treaties with France, and the reservation of the right to import French commodities at low duties. The taste has lingered on our lips, notwithstanding the stringent duties of "the British statesman." Every reader will remember John Home's congenial lines on this subject.

the landlords' determination to have the liquor of the people extracted from British grain alone, as their bread must be made of no other, in reality at the foundation of the enormous duties on foreign spirits and inferior wines? We suspect it is.

We have moral (or immoral) courage enough to be the champion of another article, which is not very popular at this moment in the mouths of the tribunes of the people, but has long been, and will for some time continue to be popular in the mouths of the people themselves-tobacco. Its filth and its costliness may be admirable subjects of denunciation by the spruce declaimer, who needs no other stimulant but his own vanity; but it is a hard thing to drive the last lingering luxury out of the working man's cheerless home. It may be that he should not smoke tobacco-that he should betake himself to music, and attend soirées to hear about the degradation of his class from the prophets who are deigning to regenerate it. We shall not dispute the general question of morals and manners, we simply maintain, that it is no heavy crime for the working man to smoke his pipe,-that he should not be put beyond the pale of rational legislation for doing so,-that he smokes it now, and will do so for some length of time, and that it is, therefore, worth while considering whether the three and ahalf millions annually paid to the revenue for permission to consume the weed be a burden rightfully laid on. The German or Belgian artisan, in his moments of greatest destitution, would scorn to employ either the tobacco consumed by the British labourer, or the tube through which it is inhaled. Our continental neighbour smokes tobacco worthy of a gentleman at sixpence a pound, while our own artisan pays 4s. a pound for his semi-poisonous compound. When the Prussian's pipe is extinguished, he tosses out the half-consumed ashes, Poor as he is that is not worth a thought. But the free born Briton must hoard the filthy refuse of the substance for which he pays a duty of 1500 per cent, and the tube through which he inhales it is reduced to the smallest possible length that he may not lose any of its stimulating influences,— we were going to call them virtues, but whatever they may be through the cherry stick, they are vices through the cutty. The duty on unmanufactured tobacco is 3s. a pound; on manufactured tobacco it is 9s. No person who has tasted the fragrant weed abroad, will condescend to use British mannfactured tobacco, if he can get that of any other land. Negrohead and Cavendish are the best tobaccos of foreign manufacture, and the extent to which smug gling prevails in the tobacco trade is illustrated in the comparative abundance of these articles in the market, at a price below the duty. The "know ing ones can obtain the genuine article from almost any tobacconist's shop in the kingdom. If the tobacconist is asked how he can sell it at a price below the duty, he answers that he buys it at the sales of Custom-house seizures; but the

He believes that from 20 to 25 millions of pounds of tobacco are smuggled in one year; and he states at length the grounds of that opinion.

Board of Customs cannot sell a seizure unless it | The loss to the revenue was about £1,100. After this bring at least the duty. The public sale of the transaction was concluded, A fancied that Leigh was a commodity must proceed from the inability of the capital place to run a cargo of tobacco into at any excise officers to distinguish it from the home-five times. Ultimately he lost part of a cargo near there future time, and he repeatedly did so, say for four or made imitations. Of the extent to which the after it was landed, consequently he abandoned that smuggling of tobacco prevails, an abundance of place; the loss to the revenue of course I do not know. curious information has been provided by a select The next case is a case of which I am informed by B. committee of inquiry on the subject, presided over One party of three principals has three boats, one good by Mr. Hume. We give the following specimen: three or four voyages are made per month. seaman, and two strong boys, hatch-boats, with which These The evidence of Mr. Horatio Nelson Davis, a tobacco principals are very seldom seen in any transactions here, broker of the firm of Davis & Co. in the city of London, one is generally abroad as buyer or packer, and the and paying, through his connexions, about 1 millions others as lookers out and storers here. They can go of the duty in a year, proves the varied and extensive over to Rotterdam and buy 20 tons, all ready packed in manner in which smuggling is carried on. bales of 50 lbs., and seldom bring less than 70 cwt. It will not do to bring tobacco only, they must bring fish or something else to cover it. These boats, when not on a smuggling trip, appear to be regularly engaged in the fish trade of Margate, or elsewhere. The names of the boats are constantly changed, and so also are the boats; these boats always make more sail when they have no tobacco on board, and near the Custom stations. When they have tobacco they have only a mainsail set, to excite less suspicion. This company very often land their tobacco at Barking and Deptford Creek. This party attempted to run the following quantity, in which they succeeded, as described below, namely, 200 packages per month, weighing 50 lbs. each, were run in 1843, say 10 voyages during the year, instead of 12; that makes 2,000 packages, 50 lbs. each, 100,000 lbs; 15,000 lbs. were seized or lost; 85,000 lbs. were saved, delivered, and paid for in London; loss to the revenue about £13,400. Informant was told this result by one of the smugglers interested, and informant says he has no doubt more was done, as they offered to sell him 5,000 lbs. per week; informant believes that the 85,000 was sold to as few as four or five persons."

There are many of the facts stated by Mr. Davis, in proof of the decided opinion he has given to the committee, as of his own knowledge, of the extent of smuggling, that might be selected; but a few may be stated, as they must tell powerfully with those who are most unwilling to believe in the extent of the evil: the greater number of these instances having been confirmed, as far as it was possible, by parties who had been engaged in those transactions.

"Are there any absolute facts of smuggling which you can prove in evidence ?—Yes; the names that I mention will, I trust, be kept from the public; parties shall be sent for to confirm it. There was one person of Belfast: He was in the habit of making one voyage regularly from Holland every two months, and each time he brought 40,000 lbs. weight.'

"At what time was this?" He has done this for the last four years, during which period he only lost three cargoes, which were seized in consequence of information. The loss to the revenue, by this one party, per annum, was about £65,000, or in the four years, £260,000. Those transactions were confined to Ireland and Scotland. For services rendered to this party by a person in the north of England, the boat was occasionally lent to him, and he made many successful runs into Newcastle and Sunderland.' I will give the chairman the address of the party who was conversant with all the transactions of this person. And I know a party also who pays duty under 12,000 lbs. or 10 hogshead per annum; the party whose address I have given knows this fact also; and he sells more than any person in the place; and yet his neighbour pays on 70,000 lbs. weight per annum; and he is also supposed to smuggle to a great extent."

"Will you proceed and state any other instances you can adduce to show the extent of smuggling ?—I believe it is understood that I am to omit the names. A called on B, and offered his services and boat to bring to London any quantity from two to five tons of leaf tobacco, from any port in Holland or Belgium, for the sum of £100, taking all risk upon himself; B immediately shipped to Holland four hogshead of tobacco, weighing 46 cwt. and two serons of tobacco, weighing 3 cwt. which A followed with his boat, and brought back the 49 cwt. in small bales concealed under fish, and the bales were landed in Deptford Creek, and put into a covered or tilted cart, and brought into the city and delivered quite safe.

"What is the date of that ?-It is of recent date: all these transactions are within a twelvemonth; that was a loss to the revenue of about £800. The next case is with regard to the same parties, A and B again: A on his return from Ostend, on one of his voyages (for £100,) was overtaken by a gale of wind, lost a man overboard, and in distress put into Leigh, Essex; in the night, and with the assistance of the fishermen there, landed the whole of his cargo, about 60 cwt. which was taken from there to Rochford on the fishermen's backs, who gave every assistance to the smuggler. At Rochford it was repacked into casks, containing about 3 cwt. each, and brought by the regular carriers to London, and all delivered safe. The carriers were ignorant of the contents.

To return to Mr. Buchanan's book, we extract the following illustrations of taxes, the incidence of which is unequal and unjust, or injurious to the public, without producing a countervailing advantage to the revenue :

THE GLASS DUTIES.

It is not so much the amount of the glass duties, more especially since they have been reduced on plate, flint, and bottle glass, that can be justly complained of, as the complicated restraints which they impose, and which are always found to stand in the way of improvement. The inequality of duties on the several branches of the glass manufacture is a standing inconvenience; as it renders it necessary to protect one branch of the manufacture against the competition of the other. Flint glass, for example, has always been subjected to a higher duty than green or bottle glass, being of a finer quality. It was provided that all articles of green glass should weigh at least six ounces, in order to prevent any interference with the smaller articles of the flint glass. This restriction was injurious to the manufacture of bottle glass. But the inequality of duty produced still greater inconveniencies. It was found that, by the application of chemical skill, green glass could be so far improved as to rival the finer articles of flint glass. Under the existing law, however, no experiments for this purpose could be made. To improve the manufacture of this inferior glass, and to bring it into a competition with flint glass, so long as the great inequality of duty continued, would have been unjust to the manufacturer of the latter, who would have complained, with reason, that he was rivalled in the market by articles equal in fineness to his own, and yet paying a lower duty. But green glass could never have been improved if it would thereby have become liable to a duty of £4, 18s. or even of £2, 18s. per cwt. It could not have borne the burden of so heavy a tax; the reduction of which was therefore essential to the progress of the manufacture. The restrictions of the Excise, which prescribed the size of the melting-pots,

LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF NIEBUHR, THE HISTORIAN OF ROME.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.

BY GEORGE VALENTINE COX, M.A., NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.

WE claim some merit for introducing to English an important part in public affairs at a momenreaders a few selected specimens from a forthcoming translation of the Memoirs of Niebuhr. The standing and reputation of Mr. Cox, are sufficient warrant for the execution of a work which we long to see added to the biographical treasures of our literature. It is not because Niebuhr was a gifted, learned, and very amiable man, who acted