of his, who was in the fhop at the time, was inftantly difpatched for his master, who foon after arrived; and this trio, attended by Tamira and the youth, continued at table perhaps fifty times as long as the Arabian Physician to the Grand Lama, who wrote the golden book in praife of abftinence, would have allowed. In this hour of conviviality, the minds of all the parties expanded: Nadir difcerned that his young friend had genius and learning fufficient to qualify him for any fituation; Abud wondered what could induce him to appear as a Faquir, and agreed that he fhould become his inmate; Tamira, while he was amazed at his temper ance with all thofe good things before him, admired him for his beauty and generofity; and the young Slave, who had bufied himself with the fruit and fweetmeats, thought that he had never feen a fet fo truly agreeable. In this difpotition were all the partics, when the deities that prefide over darkness let fall their fable curtains before the towers of Ifpahan; a hint to our company, in common with the other inhabitants of this populous city, to retire to their repofe. (To be continued.) To the Editor of the European Magazine. SIR, A FEW days fince, I happened, at a bookfeller's, to look into your Magazine for February, and was furprifed to find in it what is called a Metrical Epittle from the Poet Chatterton to a Lady. I am ferry to have to tell you that it is a forgery. The lines are almost all taken from a quantity written by me two years and a half fince, and left, at the beginning of the laft year, with an eccentric young man for perufal. He has, with very little skill, made a felection (in which he has injudiciously included a great many lines I held forth to ridicule) from them, and impofed them on you as a production of the prodigious Chatterton. I have my reafons for not expofing the name of the perfon who has thus played the fool. I will thank you to take notice of this communication in your next Magazine; it may, perhaps, fave me fome trouble in vindicating my claim, fhould they ever he published in their proper place. Your humble fervant, Aylefham, Norfolk, June 22, 1804. E. G. ABOLITION of PIRACY. Extract of a Letter from Haffan Kafem to bis Brother Ifbmael Kafem, in London, dated Algiers, the 3d Day of the 8th Month, 1181. AGAIN the found of Humanity and Abolition echoes from the walls of the Douwan Again the hoftile powers of Avarice and Justice fummon their adherents to the conflit. May the event prove creditable to our country, and glorious to the religion of the Prophet. Creditable, did I fay, to our country? No; never-never can the foul blot be wiped from this city of blood. Piracy and Algiers will remain united until the fun and the moon, the witneffes of our shame, withdraw their light from a guilty world. Worfe than Chriftian infamy has blafted our name to the latest generations; and all that remains for us now is repentance for the paft, and amendment for the future. Who knows but fincerity in the only duty now in our power, may avert the vengeance of Allah, manifested in the bloody fcenes attending the deliverance of the flaves in Ognimod from the iron yoke of a neighbouring state, our partners, but not our equals, in this fpecies of iniquity. May Allah timely difpole our countrymen in the Weft to profit by this tremendous example! and fave them from the freggad fo egnever won gnicreip ekt flativ fo their near neighbours. This awful event has added another irrefiftible argument to thofe which were urged by the Abolitionists when thou walt in this place. They now conjure the Douwan to prohibit a practice, attended with no benefit, which may not be obtained by honest means; a practice which deftroys and brutalizes our brave failors, hardens our hearts, ftupifies our intellects, confounds our moral ideas, difqualifies us for every duty of good Muffulmen, and (which is peculiarly ferious in the prefent conjuncture) fills our Western Districts with hordes of bloody-minded Chriftians, always difpofed or od fis ecituj. The opponents of this meafure, the men of hard hearts and inacceffible underfandings, fill croak over their old pretences. Like the mountebanks whom thou and I faw exhibiting to the mob at Al Cairo, they promise great feats and furprifing exuberances; but, in fat, they only play off a few fiale tricks, tricks, and recount the virtues of their fophifticated talifmans, without variety, without genius, (I do not fay invention,) and, I may add, without effect; for the dulleft fagiard of the Douwan now regards this vile ftuff as one of thofe cloaks which low cunning fo often fabricates to hide the deformity of villainy. They pretend, for example, that they make captives of the Chriftians, in order to convert them to the faith. Beard of the Prophet! Are whips and chains the proper inftruments of converfion? Force, or ftrong worldly motives, may indeed produce the profeffion of religion, but never the reality. Chrif tian fycophants, who fludy us, for their own ends, well know how to gain our favour by externally adopting our faith. But as a mean of general converfion, the Spanish Inquifition was wisdom and mercy, compared to this piratical mode of making profelytes to Ilamifm. Befides, we all know this pretence to be as falfe as it is abfurd. Do Muley Moloch, Achinet Hirradan, and other fellows of that ftamp, fit out galleys, prowl through the feas, and fight bloody battles, in order to propagate our holy faith? Fools may believe this if they pleafe; but thou knoweft, that when rogues turn apostles, it behooveth honelt men to be on their guard. These fame bloody battles remind me of another pretext, which is, That the Christians are better off on our Weftern plantations than in their own country, where they are continually cutting each other's throats. And what right, I afk, have we to interrupt them in this Christian work? But thofe who urge this argument, and the poor creatures (if any fuch there be in the Douwan) who listen to it, do not feem to know that the Christians themselves are the only proper judges of what makes them comfortable; that it is not in the power of our slave-drivers to force human creatures to be happy; in short, that Paradife itself would have no joys for beings who fhould abhor it. And that our Chriftian captives, in general, do most cordially abhor our pretended earthly paradifes, is evinced by Though Mahomet first established his religion by the fword, the right of propagating it by force is not generally held to belong to ordinary men.-See Martin's Hiftory of Algiers. their continual attempts to escape from them, always at the riik, and too often with the lofs, of their own lives, and thofe of their oppreffors. Thele are rather equivocal marks of a paradifaical fate. Another pretext of the defenders of Piracy is, that if we abandon it, the Tripolitans and the Tunifines will immediately feize our fhare of the trade. By the flipper of Mevelavah ! this argument would difgrace any man but a Pirate. What! Are we never to lay down our iniquities, left our neighbours fhould take them, up? At this rate, the receivers of ftolen goods will not be in hafte to retire from bunefs. Yet if their trade were abolithed in any particular province, it is plain that the total demand for ftolen goods throughout the kingdom would be le fened by the whole demand of that province. But fome men do not choose to understand this appofite, plain, and humiliating parallel. I know not how it is, brother, but feveral perfons, who are not pirates, betray a strange liking to piracy, or at least an unaccountable fear that their country may be rivalled in this bleffed trade. The Boluc Bathaw, Ouellem Ouendemi, is fadly troubled with this kind of commercial jealoufy. I think it is but charitable to look upon it as a fymptom of his cafe. Pray, my good Ishmael-pray for this poor man, that the light of the Prophet may restore him to his right mind; for at prefent he feems to be at enmity with every creature which has life. From the mice and rats which nibble at the candles + and other eatables in the Dey's pantry, to the defenceless Chriftian traders, who never hurt a hair of his beard, he would have all killed off. In full Douwan, amidit ail the grave Senators, he has not fcrupled to defend the practice of bull-worrying, which may be a proper entertainment for our ferocious natural enemies, the Chriftian Spaniards, but utterly dif graces generous Muffulmans and Alge. rines. Perith Commerce! Prosper Piracy! Does this language befit the dignity of a man who is, or rather has been, a Boluc Bashaw, and who possesses + Our tranflator fays, that the original word, being a diminutive, will bear to be rendered candle-ends. He has also muttered fomething about cheee-parings; but we have ordered him to keep strictly to the original. abilities, D 2 abilities, and, when in his right mind, difpofitions, which might render him an ornament to his country? I should tire both thee and myself, were I to follow our piratical fpeechmakers into all their vile fubterfuges. But I must not omit their grand pretext-the want of flaves to cultivate our Western territory. Well, I do believe this fame thing called Slavery very much resembles the horfe-leech, which never favs, It is enough. For feveral generations have Algerines been plundering, murdering, and enflaving the weaker Chriftian tribes; yet our Weitern Colonists ftill cry out, Give, Give Give us slaves !" and this as eagerly as if human flesh were the raw material of their manufacture. Is this favage, cannibal, hell-hound cry for Chriftian blood never to be fatiated? Again and again have they been afked, calmly and courteously, How it comes to pafs, that their Chritian Alaves do not propagate their kind, like all other human creatures-yea, like all other living cicatures, from the crickets on our hearths, to the very lions and wild affes on our mountains, whofe fubfittence is to peculiarly feanty and precarious? But never could we hear a rational, inteliig.ble answer to this fair and plain question. Is it not natural, then, and neceffary for us to refer to the authentic documents before the Douwan, which account for all the referve, evalion, and abfurdity which have distinguished this most important head of enquiry, by afcribing the deCreafe, or rather non increase of the flaves, to the mifimanagement, parli mony, and oppreffion, of our colonial farmers and their drivers? for, not to mention down i. ht famine, brutality, and murder, it is inconteftibly eitab lied, that the poor Chriftians, male and female, are univerfally and literally DRIVEN to their ordinary work, with heavy thong whips, like the horfes and affes in the town and vicinity of Algiers. Is it to be expected, that human beings, thus treated, (for I do openly aver and maintain that the Chriftians are human beings,) fhould increase rapidly?-Yet fuch is the uncontroulable power of the univerfal law of animal life, that their decrease is now trifling; fo trifling, that a fingle thong taken out of the cart-whip, and an additional trip of horfe-beans in the week, would turn the balance. If Piracy be abolished, the cart whip and the chain will be lightened, the weekly thip of beans, and perhaps a hearing to feafon them, will be furnished; the Christians will increafe; and thus our Weltern Farmers will get rich by their own humane liberality. We are told, indeed, that our West. ern ditricts are not fuficiently flocked with the Christians. But this cannot be true, being incompatible with the fmall decreate juit mentioned. That decreafe could not have been imall, unlefs the the-Chriftians had been in or near the due proportion to the he ones. That this proportion actually exils, farther appears from the well known fact, that the far greater part (perhaps feven eighths) of the Chrif tian flaves were born on the foil they cultivate, in the fame proportion of fexes in which people come into the world in all other countries. Befides, our Western Farmers have had near twenty years' warning to provide themfelves with the-flock, and to fet about rearing young Christians in good earnet. And, moreover, be this want of breeding wenches real, or be it pretended, what right have thole men to expect the Douwan to tolerate Piracy, because it happens to be thought convenient for a lyftem of agriculture, the moft abfurd and oppreffive in the whole world; not excepting that which is practifed in the colonics of our natural enemies the Spaniards? Yea, I will go farther, and maintain, that no one argument, from religion, morality, or found policy, can be offered either for the flavery or the piracy of the Algerines, which may not as well be employed to justify the English Slave Trade ittelf. Let us not deceive our *Our tranflator humbly asks cur leave to oblerve, that "the word here renderedfound policy is a compound, which figrifies literally wife just government, for they have no word to expreis what we call policy. It feems, indeed, that the Algerines, and the Turks in general, labour under a firange contufion of ideas about what we call policy, politics, politicians. When they fpeak of European policy, they uie a word which ignites the art of auraffing it up."-See that excellent, but very icarce bock, Martin's Hiftory of Algiers. felves: felves: Not our foolish prejudices and blind felf-love, but the laws of Allah, are the standards of righteoufnefs; and fooner or later, his vengeance will overtake all hardened oppreffors, Christians or Muffulmans, English or Algerines. Adieu, my dear Ifhmael! I hope thy ftay will not be long in the wicked city wherein thou fojourneft. Hatten to elcape out of that fink of iniquity, by quickly winding up thy affairs, which, I truft, are all transacted, Be ijme Allab. IT of friendship, "fmiling in tears" at the recollection of the pait, could fo affectingly delineate the pious and patriotic fentiment, the inflexible and unfubied honour, the focial and privatė virtues, of the noble Keppel: of the incomparable orator, from whofe chalte and glowing defcription the most highly diniaguifhed, and excellent in character, feemed, on various occations, to borrow new luftre, who, alas! can there be now found competent to speak? who qualified to proclaim his worth and tell his fame? Gifted, by the bounty of Nature, with a capaCHARACTER of EDMUND BURKE, city the most comprehensive, the mind of Edmund Burke was early enriched (From an American Publication.) by all the claffical luxuriance of antiis, perhaps, fcarcely more prefump-quity. In a country which knows how tuous to clay, a sketch of the departed glories of this great man, than it is idle to expect, at this day, a due remuneration of honour and regard for his memory, which even this weftern world ought to feel a grateful interet in beftowing. Peradventure, when the infectious fpirit of bafe obfequioufnefs to plebeian infolence and domination hall have been reprefied; when the crude and incoherent dreams of Utopian mania have fled; when the triple league of infidel blafphemy, of defperate and facrilegious rebellion, and of upitart and ufurping tyranny, fhall have been broken and driven back, then, and not till then, may the labours of the illuftrious crufader against defpotifm, impiety, and crime, be duly remembered, and estimated in the public fentiment; while the affectionate admiration of the good and the wife fhall be encouraged, with virtuous confidence, to direct their requiems from every quarter, in thankful barmony, to his tomb; and to fpread, with generous enthufia in, increasing and immortal laurels on "the grave in which their druid lies." To peak appropriately and adequate ly of Edmund Burke, it will, perhaps, readily be contelled, is unattainable; fince to the task there should be brought an eloquence no le's diffufive, choice, animated. Toby, and pathetic, than that which marked the genius of the efful gent luminary, between whofe beams and a perverte ad devious age the da nefs of death is i zably interpoled. Of hun, who pay to admirably celebrated cotemporary greituets, in his faithful, yet splendid, eulo, y of Chatham, who, with a malter-hand to cherish and appreciate fcholaftic learning, he was educated into an intimate acquaintance with Greek and Koman literature, which familiarized to him all that is exquifite and valuable in their poets, and orators, and hiftorians. Such was the knowledge which ferved as the first and fure foundation whereon the magnificent edifice of his future eminence was erected-a knowledge which he ever afterwards delighted to cultivate and educe-aknowledge now more than ever fanctioned by the railings of that defpicable equality which would deflroy whatever is calculated to add dignity to man, or to exalt him above the fphere of its own villainous level. On this rich and venerable stock, Mr. Burke engrafted the most felect fruit in the elegant and variegated walks of the literary garden of England, added to the most precious productions of foreign foils. Nor were his mental poffefiions confined only to the more polite and facile embelahments; but, incited by a vehement thirt for erudite acquirements, commenfurate with his lively and unconquerable force of apprehenfion, he fuccessfully penetrated to the most hidden ores in the various improved branches of modern fcience. With native talents, thus aided and fortified, Mr. Burke could not fail to bring into public life an irretitible claim to the notice of a wife and generous nation. Accordingly, on the grand theatre of political exhibition, in "the chofen temple and favourite habitation of British fame," the House of Commons, he foon commenced his career; and, for a long progreis of years, until the feafon of his rethement, he continued to aftonith and illumine, illumine, and to fhine confpicucus among the primary orbs in the fyltem of that illuftrious body. During the whole period in which he fided with the oppofition, in the many warm and vigorous productions of his pen, and the most impaffioned efforts of his tranf cendent elocution, it thould be recollected, to the honour of Mr. Burke, that while maintaining a fpirited contest against the ministerial policy, he has left no traces of aberration by which he can be accused of having, in the most unguarded moment of irrita tion, afferted the doctrines of licentious diforder of having intentionally affilt ed to confound, mifguide, or delude or of ever facrificing, for an intant, the rights and dignity of his ftation to the audacity of inobbith pretenfion, or the veering breath of popular applaufe. But the period in his hiftory wherein he thould now more particularly be held up to contemplative admiration, is from the epoch when, on the event of the tentific and ex crable revolution in France, he burit, with honest magnanimity, the trammels of party, and indignantly fevered every tainted connexion, by boldly unfurling a radiant flag of warfare against the demoniac enemy of focial being. With the ken of prophetic wisdom, Mr. Burke was the first to forefee, and predict, the devouring and defolating effects of that tremendous explosion, on morals, religion, and law. At a moment of general infatuation, he had the hardy refolution to ftem the tempeftuous current from French infanity, and, with a warning voice, to expofe to mankind the rocks, and quickfands, and firen perils of that deftructive fea. From that inftant he continued to be affaulted by an hoftile array of profane philofophy, enraged jacobicim, feditious nobility, profligate ambition, and gro. velling democracy; all conjoined under one motley banner, by the fame infamous unity of end. But the arrows of pigmy malevolence reached not, or fell harmless from the firm front of the mighty Coloffus. "the hero role, Her ægis Fallas o'er his fhoulders throws." Inceffantly was he accufed of wantonly exciting the most chimerical alarm, and of fabricating fictitious confequences on the change in France, alike injurious to the purity of her designs, and the caufe of political re formation. By a fingular fatality, France herfelf anfwered his accufers, and juftified him. Her conduct realized" to the uttermoft" every dread. ful anticipation he had made; and, with a melancholy co-incidence, moft of her deeds of darkness and iniquity have been perpetrated in the exact order, and by the very means, which he had anxiously foretold. What was once treated as the extravagant ravings of a prolific imagination, appears now to be fcarcely any thing more than a fimple reprefentation of the obvious connexions of caufe and effect-an authentic history, written on the scene of action, of what had already occurred, instead of a profpective view of that which was likely to happen. As a ftatefman, he might have enjoyed this remarkable teftimony in favour of his fagacity, if, as a man, he had not poffelled a heart fenfibly alive to the miferies and future dangers of fuffering and perfecuted humanity, To fay that the exalted charader of Mr. Burke was unalloyed by failings, would be to arrogate for him what can never be the lot of imperfect man, Malice has pleafed itfelf with dwelling on his haughty contumely, his intemperate hyperbole, and imprudent precipitance; but, in this refpect, even the exaggerated picture fhe has drawn imputes to him no weakneffes but thofe of an ardent and towering mind, retrieving every error by an hundred-fold weight of ferling merit. To the charge of corrupt apoftacy in his latter years, which, without believing, his fees are obliged to ufe as a weapon of protection to their own depravity, it would be infulting to his memory to deign a reply. To them, the difference between honeft independence and venal verfatility, is as unintelligible as that which feparates rational freedom from the faturnalian uproar of anarchy. Nor can they comprehend, from their own feelings, why a man, of undisguised and ingenuous nature, fhould renounce the ties of former aflociates, when their principles of conduct ceafed to accord, without being actuated by the mercenary motives of prostitute cupidity. But to America it will remain a proud monument of honour on record, that the fame Edmund Burke who, in the hour of her diftrefs, fignalized himself as the able champion of her caufe, should have been the first to oppofe the ruins and convulfions of Gallic tumult. |