fpe&t to the means of carrying on their trade, which they had never experienced in any other war. Foreign veffels were used for the conveyance of their goods; and the protection of foreign flags, for the firft time, fought by Englishmen. In a word, no fhift that ingenuity could hit upon was left untried, in order to evade the peril of the feas.

From the operation of all these caufes, Oftend became a general mart to all the neutral, as well as the belligerent states; and such an influx of trade was carried into that, city and port, that it arrived, even early in the war, at a degree of opulence and commercial importance, which it never before enjoyed, or was expected to attain. The imperial flag, fo little thought of before among maritime nations, was now confpicuous in every part of the world, and the feas covered with hips under its protection; thus giving an example, how great power on land might command refpect at fea, without any naval force for its fupport. Independent of the foreigners who had benefited by this protection, the fhipping really imperial became numerons in a degree, that could before have been little expected: one mercantile houfe was faid to have fixty fhips at fea. The fpirit of commercial adventure spread with the utmost rapidity through every part of the Auftrian Netherlands. The defire and hope of acquiring great and fudden wealth, feemed to operate more or lefs upon every body. Even the city of Brutiels, notwithitandi g the habitual cafe and love of pleafure incident to its fituation, and the long refidence of a court, could not efcape the infection; and many of its inhabitants, who had never

before engaged in, or thought of commerce or trade of any kind, now laid out all their ready money in the building of fhips. It is not then to be wondered at, that the citizens of Antwerp fhould look back with a figh to their former commercial opulence and fplendour; or that they fhould even form hopes of being able, in fome degree, to recover them. Indeed, the spirit now excited was fo prevalent, that the ftates of the Netherlands prefented a memorial to the emperor, requesting that he would take measures for the opening and re-establishment of that port.

In the mean time, the growing opulence of Oftend exceeded all belief. The limits of the city became too narrow for its inhabitants, and the buildings were not fufficient to cover the immenfe quantities of merchandize, of which it was become the temporary depofitory.Commercial adventurers and fpeculators were continually arriving from different countries, to partake of benefits fo unexpectedly held out. The rage for building ran high, while there was any ground left to build on. In this tide of good for tune,the fingular circumftances that produced it were not much confidered; and it feemed to be forgotten, that as the caufe was tranfitory, the effect was not very likely to be permanent.

It was little to be fuppofed, that fo novel and pleafing a ftate of things could have escaped the notice of the emperor; who, inde. pendent of thefe circumftances, was known to entertain fuch an eager defire for maritime and foreign commerce (ill calculated, tho' his dominions were for that purpose) as feemed to carry more the appear

ançe

ance of a paffion, than even of a frong predilection.

Upon his arrival at Oftend, in the beginning of June 1781, this prince thewed every mark of the greateft poffible attention to the people and place, and every degree of favour and regard to the merchants. He fummoned a committee of thofe who were esteemed among the principal, and the best informed of the latter. Of thefe were fome English gentle men of high confideration for their mercantile knowledge and abilities; and after holding a conference with them, he defired their feparate opinions in writing, as to the best means which could be devifed and adopted for the improvement, enlargement, and benefit of commerce, not only with refpect to that port in particular, but to the Low Countries in general.

Every moment of the emperor's fhort refidence at Oftend was diftinguifhed by particular favours and benefits; nor were these discontinued during his ftay in the Netherlands. He declared their port to be free: and in order to fupply the defect of nature, by enlarging their accommodation for fhipping, he gave directions for the conftruction of a confiderable bason, at his own expence. To render thefe favours more complete, and to gratify the wants or wishes of the inhabitants in every respect, as the fituation of Oftend, in a deep morafs, cramped them no lefs on the land fide for room to answer the purposes of building, than they were on the other, through the narrownefs of their harbour, for those of trade, the emperor determined to obviate that difficulty likewife. He accordingly granted them liberty to cover the old ramparts and works

of the town with buildings; which afforded an enlargement fufficient at leaft to fupply their prefent wants.-At the fame time, his encouragement to foreign fettlers, in the commercial line, was highly munificent and liberal. He allowed the free exercise of their religion, and places of public worship to the proteftants of all denominations at Oftend. He invited people of all countries and perfuafions thither to fettle, to erect warehouses, and to carry on merchandize. He granted them the land on which they built in perpetuity, fubject only to a nominal fmall rent, as an acknowledgment that it was held from him. The erection of several new ftreets, and a fquare, was accordingly carried on with great rapidity; the hurry of building interfered with that of commerce, and crowds of people thronged in from every quarter.

Short though the ftay was which this prince made in the Low Countries, it was fufficient to excite the admiration, and, in the highest degree, to acquire the affection of bisfubjects. The free audience, without ftate, difficulty in the approach, guards, or witneffes, which he afforded to all manner of perfons who defired it, gained equally the hearts of those who applied, and of all who heard of their reception; while the patience with which he heard, examined, and fifted into, their often tedious complaints and involved relations, was no lefs aftonishing than his affability was captivating to the people.

It did not escape obfervation, either in Holland or Flanders, that when this prince was at Antwerp, he went down the Schelde in a boat, as far as to the first of thofe Dutch

forts,

forts, which have been erected to guard the paffage, and to fecure to the ftates the exclufive navigation of that river; that he had the depth of the channel taken in feveral places; and that he ftrictly examined all those obstructions of art and nature which tended to impede its navigation, and to fhut up the port of that city. From thence he paffed into Holland, and, among other places, particularly vifited Kotterdam.

An opinion bad for fome time prevailed, with feveral perfons in England, that means might have been fuccessfully ufed for renewing the ancient ties of friendship with the house of Auftria, and for drawing this prince into fuch a fyfte maric league of alliance (founded as well upon general political principles, as upon immediate and mutual interests, and calculated to extend to future contingencies) as might be fufficient effectually to counteract that moft dangerous combination of the houfe of Bourbon, fupported by Holland and America; which, though confined in its direct object to the ruin or total annihilation of the British empire, would, if fuccefsful in that, prove no lefs dangerous to the reft of Europe. The near approach of the emperor, at this time, to England, along with the particular favour which he fhewed to the English, induced the warm partizans of this notion to imagine, that it was among the principal objects of his journey But when the duke of Gloucefter was feen to depart fuddenly for Ottend, in order to visit this prince, that, and the long conference which took place between them at Bruges, occafioned numbers, who had paid but little r gard to the or ginal opinion, to imagine, that fomething

of the fort was now really in agita tion. The event, however, did not juttify any of thefe expectations; and, as no fruits of the conference have appeared, and that the duke of Gloucefter returned immediately afterwards to England, it may well be fuppofed that the meeting between these princes was merely a matter of perfonal attention and courtefy. It was, indeed, not the leaft among the many heavy miffortunes which, thro' that period, hung fo heavily over England, that her government, whether it proceeded from an overweening confidence in native ftrength, or from whatever other fatal error of policy, feemed for feveral years to have totally turned its back upon the reft of Europe; and, lofing the due national weight and influence in the general political fyftem, moft unaccountably neglected all useful continental friendthips, connections and alliances.

The emperor did not return to Vienna until about the middle of Auguft, 1781. He foon after refued his ecclefiaftical reforms; but as that year and the following were likewife the great feason for civil regulation, we thall, before we enter upon that fubje&t, bring together, in one point of view, fuch of thofe measures as tended moft to the benefit of different claffes, orders, or communi ies of the people, or were remarkable for their liberality and munificence.

Of thefe, the firft in order of time, as well as in importance, was the toleration granted to the protestants. A general outline of the nature and extent of this plan, with a promife of its being speedily perfected and promulgated, was publithed, by authority, in the Vienna

papers,

papers, before the clofe of the year 1781. This was foon followed by letters patent in form, by which the free exercise of their religion was granted and confirmed to them, in every part of the Auftrian dominions. A notification was alfo published in the Vienna Gazette, recalling all the emperor's fubjects who had quitted their respective countries on the account of religion, difcharging them from the effect of all former profecutions, and reftoring them to the full poffeffion of their rights and immunities.

This measure of religious, was followed by a fignal enlargement of perfonal liberty. The pealants in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silefia, had long languifhed in a state of vaffalage and flavery to their lords; the cruelty of whofe oppreffions had frequently driven these unhappy pec ple into the madnefs of infurrection, without the hope or poflibility of fuc.efs; a thort career of fury and revenge (in which the country was defolated, much blood thed, and great barbarities committed) on their fide, being always terminated by nearly their total destruction -Several attempts had been made in the late reign (and they were pro bably the firft endeavours of the fort that had ever been used) to reftrain the oppreffion of the lords, and to better the condition of thele people. Yet much remained to be done, and the glory of their entire emancipation was referved for Jofeph the Second. He, confident in the fecure greatnefs of his power, and confirmed in all his defigns, as well by his intimate connection and friendship with Ruffia, as by the general flate of affairs in Europe, publifhed two edicts towards the clofe of the year 1781, by which flavery is for

ever abolished in those three countries. A measure, though exceedingly grievous to the nobles at prefent, and perhaps attended with fome immediate detraction of their revenue, as well as their power, which will, no doubt, in its confequences, be found not more beneficial to the peasants, than to their own pofterity, and even to many of themfelves.

The fame fpirit of humanity and true policy directed its operation, a few months after, to the relief of the peafantry in Auftrian Poland.

Thefe were glorious and lafting monuments of humanity and wifdom; the merits of which, and their benefits to mankind, are too confpicuous and felf-evident to be detracted from by too minute a difquifition, relative to motives, policy, or collateral effects.

This prince had the high fatisfaction, within a very few months after it had taken place, of perceiving the happy refalt of one of his meafures, that of religious toleration and indulgence to the proteftants in his dominions. The elector of Saxony, ftruck with foilluftrious an example, and that proteftantifm might not be outdone in liberality, about the middle of the fummer of 1782 iffited an ordinance, by which he not only granted to the Roman catholics throughout the electorate the free exercife of their religion, but admitted them to the purchafing of houfes in the towns and cities, to a right of acquiring the freedom of commercial andmanufacturing companies, and to feveral other valuable privileges, from all which they had hitherto been fecluded on account of their religion. Such an opening to the removal of bigotry and prejudice, and to the efiablith

i

ng of mutual forbearance and brotherly love between Chriftians of all denominations, was a blefling, which, within a very few years, it would have been deemed too fanguine to hope could, at least within our times, have been brought to maturity. It is remarkable, that the reprefentatives of the two great houfes, one of which was the powerful oppugner and perfecutor, and the other the fupporter and defender, of the reformation in Germany, fhould themselves have fet this laudable example. The fame liberal difpofition with refpect to religious affairs appeared likewife in Italy, where the grand duke of Tuscany, about the fame time, entirely abolished the inquifition in his dominions.

As the emperor had before fhewn his regard to the interefts of literature, by enlarging the liberties of the prefs, fo, in the year 1782, he entered upon fome reform of the univerfities: we are not informed of the particulars. It however appears, that he reduced their number to feven; and that he placed that of Loyburg upon the fame footing with the proteftant univerfity of Gottingen in Hanover; the members of it being not only permitted to think and debate freely upon all fubjects, but to publish their opinions to all the world.

It would have appeared strange, among fo great a number of regula tions, if he had entirely overlooked the interefts of the military part of his fubjects. Of 50 regiments of infantry, which were difperfed in Germany and flungary, he allotted the annual fum of 2,000 florins to each, which was to be expended in the education of 48 boys, the fons of foldiers in the regiment. The object

of this measure, befides the encou ragement which it afforded to the foldiery, was to breed and train up a brave and hardy fucceffion of fubalterns for the Auftrian service, and thefe fo confiderable in number, as not to be easily exhaufted. The education of the boys was to be very fimple; including nothing more than what was neceffary for the military life (and poffibly rank) to which they are deftined. We can not help expreffing our furprize at the fmallness of the fum allotted to this useful purpose; which, at this diftance, feems fo very inadequate to its object. Perhaps the cheapness of living, the high value of money in those remote inland countries, with the peculiar advantages poffeffed by the foldiers in quarters, may folve this difficulty.

We have already taken notice of the emperor's eager 'defire to reftore the commerce of his poffeffions in the Low Countries. There, nature and ancient experience concurred in admitting at leaft the poffibility of fuccefs to the project.But the fame paffion was no lefs directed to the only other maritime nook and extremity of his dominions, which lies fequefiered in the bottom of the Adriatic.

The ancient city of Trieste, after having been, for feveral hundred years, a neft of pirates, and afterwards funk almoft into oblivion, was firft brought into political notice, and confidered as an object of importance, by the late emperor Charles the Sixth. That prince having, in the courfe of his adventures, voyages, expeditions, and wars, feen the great effects of maritime power and commerce, and having no other fea port in all his dominions, until the event of the fucceffion