306 EXTINCTION OF EXTREME PARTIES. along with the gradual abandonment of all that is offensive in Tory pretensions, and the silent adoption of most of the Whig principles, even by those who continue to disclaim the name, will effect almost all that sober lovers of their country can expect, for the security of her liberties, and the final extinction of all extreme parties, in the liberal moderation of Whiggism. MISCELLANEOUS. (MAY, 1820.) An Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain respecting the United States of America. Part First. Containing an Historical Outline of their Merits and Wrongs as Colonies, and Strictures on the Calumnies of British Writers. By ROBERT WALSH, Esq. 8vo. pp. 505. Philadelphia and London: 1819.* ONE great staple of this book is a vehement, and, we really think, a singularly unjust attack, on the principles of this Journal. Yet we take part, on the whole, with the author:-and heartily wish him success in the great object of vindicating his country from unmerited aspersions, and trying to make us, in England, ashamed of the vices and defects which he has taken the trouble to point out in our national character and institutions. In this part of his design we cordially concur-and shall at all times be glad to co-operate. But there is another part of it, and we are sorry to say a principal There is no one feeling-having public concerns for its objectwith which I have been so long and so deeply impressed, as that of the vast importance of our maintaining friendly, and even cordial relations, with the free, powerful, moral, and industrious States of America: a condition upon which I cannot help thinking that not only our own freedom and prosperity, but that of the better part of the world, will ultimately be found to be more and more dependent. I give the first place, therefore, in this concluding division of the work, to an earnest and somewhat importunate exhortation to this effect-which I believe produced some impression at the time, and I trust may still help forward the good end to which it was directed. 310 and avowed part, of which we cannot speak in terms of too strong regret and reprobation-and that is, a design to excite and propagate among his countrymen, a general animosity to the British name, by way of counteracting, or rather revenging, the animosity which he very erroneously supposes to be generally entertained by the English against them. BAD SPIRIT AND OBJECT OF MR. WALSH'S BOOK. circumstances, That this is, in itself, and under any an unworthy, an unwise, and even a criminal object, we think we could demonstrate to the satisfaction of Mr. Walsh himself, and all his reasonable adherents; but it is better, perhaps, to endeavour, in the first place, to correct the misapprehensions, and dispel the delusions in which this disposition has its foundation, and, at all events, to set them the example of perfect good humour and fairness, in a discussion where the parties perhaps will never be entirely agreed; and where those who are now to be heard have the strongest conviction of having been injuriously misrepresented. If we felt any soreness, indeed, on the score of this author's imputations, or had any desire to lessen the just effect of his representations, it would have been enough for us, we believe, to have let them alone. For, without some such help as ours, the work really does not seem calculated to make any great impression in this quarter of the world. It is not only, as the author has himself ingenuously observed of it, a very "clumsy book," heavily written and abominably printed, but the only material part of it-the only part about which any body can now be supposed to care much, either here or in America-is overlaid and buried under a huge mass of historical compilation, which would have little chance of attracting readers at the present moment, even if much better digested than it is in the volume before us. The substantial question is, What has been the true character and condition of the United States since they became an independent nation, be their condition in future? question, the learned author has about two hundred very close-printed pages, upon their and what is likely to And to elucidate this thought fit to premise |