interests of Europe, or with relation to our own naval and commercial interests, or with respect to its own local circumstances-absolutely singular and one, upon the surface of the globe-this island, this rock, is MALTA." If any man doubt this fact, let him attend closely to the author's reasoning, and his doubt will be dispelled. For our own part, we have ever seen it in the same point of view in which the author presents it, and have no hesitation to state, that, in the present state of Europe, it would be an act of wise policy in the British Ministers, to annex Malta, irrévocably, to this realm; securing to the natives, who have claimed our protection, and solicited our sovereignty, their own religion, laws, and form of go. vernment. The three following positions are most incontrovertibly proved, by facts that cannot be questioned, and by arguments that cannot be confuted.

1. That it is indispensably necessary that Great Britain should employ the most efficacious means that she can devise, to guard against the possibility of France ever again acquiring possession of Malta.

2. That, consistently with that object, and in necessary course to its attainment, it is indispensable that Great Britain should establish the permanent presence of her power at some secure, and insular, position, within the Mediterranean.

"3. That the most simple and convenient, and, at the same time, the only certain and effectual, mode of attaining both these ends, is, that Great Britain should remain in possession of Malta."

1

The importance attached by France to our exclusion from the Mediter. ranean would, of itself, suffice to convince us of the absolute necessity of establishing such a footing there, as Malta, and Malta alone, can afford us."When England," said the Tyrant of Europe, in his Official Gazette of Jan. 1,-1805, "shall be convinced, that France will never accept any ather conditions than those of Amieus, and will never consent to leave her the right of breaking treaties at her pleasure, by appropriating MALTA-England will then have arrived at pacific sentiments."-The answer to this insolent fanfaronade, should be-England will MAKE France accept other conditions, or will wage eternal war with her.-The Corsican's Minister, in April, 1803, giving the lie to his master, respecting the motive for insisting on the surrender of Malta, told Lord Whitworth-" that no consideration on earth would induce Buonaparte to consent to a concession in perpetuity of Malta, in any shape whatever; and that the re-establishment of the Order, was not so much the point to be discussed, as that of suffering Great Britain to acquire A POSSESSION WITHIN THE MEDITERRANEAN."

Thank Hearen, we are not reduced so low as to receive the law from such a ruffian usurper as Buonaparte the possession of a port in the Mediterranean depends not upon his sufferance-but his ability to navigate that sea with a single vessel does depend upon OUR sufferance; we have acquired, by our arms, the possession in question; we hold it by the best of all titles, the non-existence of a lawful Sovereign, and the universal consent and desire of the people ;-and, as we acquired, so will we retain it, in spite of the Imperial assassin, and all his armed banditti, by our sword.The author's observations on this language of the French Goverament are much to the purpose:

"By this explicit declaration, our eyes are opened at once to see into the depth of the question. The real object of his policy is most clearly

exposed

exposed before us. We are frankly and distinctly acquainted, that the ale leged point of honour respecting the Treaty of Amiens was but a feint, and never any thing more than an ostensible reason for insisting upon the term: of the tenth article of that treaty; that the true and substantial rea son why Buonaparte adhered so tenaciously to these terms was not any delicacy about the interests of the Order, or the success of that article, but a dread of the establishment of the British power in the Mediterranean; and an entire conviction, that if he could only effect the dislodgment of that power from Malta, its authority in the Mediterranean would not be very durable, nor very alarming to him.

"But, unless we are disposed to concede to Buonaparte his maxim, pro jure voluntas, our determination and our will are as good as his; and we may please to declare, with equal decision, though with far more right, what he declared upon his first obtaining possession of Malta-" It shall cost dear to those who shall dislodge us."

We shall conclude our account of this very able tract, with the im pressive admonitions of the Roman orator to his countrymen on the subject of peace, which ought to be engraven on the minds of every Briton, at this momentous crisis of their fate:

"Ego itaque pacis, ut ita dicam, alumnus, pacis semper auctor, semper laudator, pacem cum NAPOLEONE (M. Antonio) nolo.-Cur autem nolo? quia turpis est, quia periculosa, quia esse non potest.

"Nec ego pacem nolo, sed pacis nomine bellum involutum reformido. Quare si pace fruivolumus, bellum gerendum est; si bellum omittemus, pace numquam fruemar. Est autem vestri consilii, patres conscripti, in posterum quam longissime providere. Idcirco in hac custodia, et tanquam in specula, collocati estis, ut vacuum omni metu populum Anglicanum vestra vigilia et prospicientia redderetis. Turpe est summo concilio orbis terræ, præsertim in re tam perspicua, consilium intelligendi defuisse.

"

Nolite igitur id velle, quod fieri non potest, et CAVETE, per Deos immortales! Patres conscripti, NE SPE PRÆSENTIS PACIS PERPETUAM PACEM AMITTATIS."-CICERO, Philipp. vii. 8, 9, 19, 25.

LAW.

The Trial of Richard Patch for the Wilful Murder of Isaac Blight, at Rotherhithe, on the 23d of September, 1805, at the Session-house, Newington, Surrey, on Saturday the 5th of April, 1806. Taken in Short-hand by Joseph Gurney and W. B. Gurney. 8vo. Pr. 200. 55. M. Gurney, Holborn.. hill. 1806.

THE writer of this article having been present at the trial can speak with decision on the great accuracy of this report of it, in which it appears to be given verbatim. Indeed it is no more than was to be ex pected, from the known and long-tried abilities of Messrs. Gurney in the very useful art of brachygraphy.

Mr. Garrow, in his masterly address to the jury, took occasion to re. probate

probate a practice, the evil of which is universally acknowledged, and yet, though the remedy be obvious, no one endeavours to apply it. On this subject we have frequently delivered our sentiments; and some remarks on the practice in question will be found in a preceding article.

"We have to lament," says Mr. Garrow, "(I wish I could flatter myself that this would be the last time in my professional life that I should have to make a similar complaint), that upon this melancholy and most important subject, there have been but too many details in the public prints.

"Gentlemen, I take the liberty of saying one word more. If you have had the misfortune, as but too probably you may, to have read, before it could have entered into the imagination of any one of you that you would be to pass as a juryman upon this trial, any account of this melancholy. transaction; for God's sake do your best to dismiss it from your recollection, and bring yourselves to the pure consideration of the evidence alone. Permit me, too, to observe, that prejudice against the person accused is not the only mischief to be dreaded from these dangerous and most improper and ill-timed publications. There is another, against which I take the liberty of cautioning you there is danger that, with the best intentions, you may suspect yourselves of an improper bias, and, because you may have heard something out of doors, a distrust of yourselves might lead to a failure to do your duty; you will not, I am persuaded, fall into such a fatal impropriety."

Our readers know that this was a case to be decided, like most charges of a similar nature, by circumstantial evidence; but it differed in one respect from other cases which are supported entirely by such evidence; for here there was one witness, who was in the house at the time when the murder was committed, who was even very near the spot when the pistol was fired, and who therefore was competent to give a positive testimony to the fact itself. If her testimony had corroborated the circumstantial evidence, there would have been an end to all doubt. But did it so? We thought it did not, at the time of the trial, and we still retain the same opinion. We allude to Hester Kitchener, Mr. Blight's servant, the material part of whose evidence we will extract. Our readers will observe, that in the evening when the murder was committed, Blight and Patch had been drinking together in the parlour, while the servant remained in the kitchen, which was separated from the parlour only by a very narrow passage; that is, on one side of this passage was the kitchen, and on the other the parlour; they will observe also, that the windows of the kitchen and parlour looked into the street or road, and the doors of both opened into the passage, nearly, but not quite, opposite to each other. The only way of going to the privy was by passing along this passage, into a small paved yard behind them, through the counting-house to the right, across another yard or place of some kind, at the extremity of which the privy was situated. 'The distance from the door of the parlour in which Blight sate to the door of the privy is sixty-four feet. The privy, be it observed, was situated behind the kitchen (on the opposite side of it from the parlour in question; and towards the street, in a line with the kitchen window, a store-room intervening, and with the parlour window, still farther from it. This brief explanation was necessary to render the evidence in. telligible.

Patch came into the kitchen and asked for a candle.

"Q. Now

།

his own words?

es Q. Now give us "A.Hester, give me a candle: I have got a violent pain in my bowels. I gave him the candle; he took the key of the countinghouse off the dresser; he went out of the door; I heard him go to the counting-house; I heard the counting-house door open; and I heard him slam the counting-house door to, after him; and I heard him walk across the counting-house very quick.

"Q. Is there a lock to the counting-house door?

"A. If you fling it hard it sticks without locking. I heard him step into the privy, and I heard the privy-door slam to. "Q. Have you observed whether, if you open that do not slam it, it will stand open or fall to?

privy-door, and

"A. I never took that observation. The INSTANT I heard the privy door I heard the report of a pistol. My master came into the kitchen to me before I could get out of the kitchen; he came in; he came up to the dresser, and said (putting his hand to his side), Hester, I am a dead、

man.'

She then screamed out-ran to the door, which she shut, and had got about half-way back to the parlour-door, when Patch knocked, and she let him in, his breeches being unbuttoned.

Now it appears to us, that if this woman's evidence be correct, that if, as she says, the instant she heard the privy-door slam she heard the report of the pistol, that pistol could not have been fired by Patch. The Judge, in summing up to the jury, thus animadverts on this evidence:

"Now, Gentlemen, a great deal depends upon the sense that shall be put upon the words that this woman used with respect to the time at which these things occurred. It has been truly observed, that there is nothing we are so little in the habit of, as measuring with any degree of correctness small portions of time. I am persuaded, if any one were to examine with a watch, which marks the seconds, how much longer a space of time a few seconds or a few minutes really are than people in general conceive them to be, they would be surprised; but in general, when we speak of a minute, two minutes, or an instant, we can hardly be understood to mean more than that it was a very short space of time; how short, it is impossible for us to say; therefore we must concceive this woman to mean, that a very short space of time elapsed between the noise of the privy-door and the report of the pistol. It will be for you to judge, whether, attending to the distance marked out, observing that there are several turnings to go through, and two or three apartments, that the door of the counting-house was to be unlocked, and he was to return again from the privy to the place where the wound was given, in that space of time which the witness represents, as elapsing between the shutting the privy-door and the firing the pistol, that time was or not sufficient for the purpose."

Certainly it is true, that we are not apt to measure time with any degree of correctness; and the observation applied to the recollection of any past event is apposite and just. But here, if the woman speaks truth, no time did elapse; in the instant the door was slammed to, the pistol was fired. The woman had, no doubt, been questioned on this subject very soon after the event; the murder was committed on the Monday night, and on the Wednesday morning she was examined before the Coroner, where, of course, she told the same story. She could not then, we think, have

NO. XCV, VOL. XXIV,

H

have been mistaken; nor does it appear to us, that her words will admit of that latitude of interpretation which has been assigned to them. To state with accuracy the precise space of time which occurred between two events happening very soon after each other, is, we admit, a work of dif ficulty; but the case is widely different in respect of two sounds heard in the same instant, as it were, and impressed so strongly on the mind as the sounds in question must of necessity have been, by the dreadful circumstances attending them. Our conclusion then is, after much reflection, what it was on hearing the servant's evidence on the trial, that either she was perjured, or Patch did not fire the pistol. The circumstantial evidence was certainly very strong against him; and the Jury evidently did not give to the positive testimony of Kitchener, that weight and counter-acting influence which we ourselves attached to it; for, in ten minutes, they pronounced the verdict of-GUILTY.

MEDICINE.

2s. 6d. Highley.

1806.

The Medical Observer. No. 1. Pr. 112. THE design of the "Medical Observer is to lay open the secrets of empirical impostors, by an examination of their respective medicines, "with a view to point out the dangerous consequences that must inevi tably arise from their indiscriminate use, and also to expose the fraudulent and nefarious practices of advertising potent compositions, under ficti. tious names, indicating them to be of an innocent nature, in order to deceive the ignorant and unwary, and to tamper with the lives of their fellow-creatures for it is a well-known fact, that thousands are annually sacrificed at the shrine of fraud and empiricism.”

Such a design is highly praise-worthy; and, from the specimen of its execution now before us, we can assure our readers that the editors are extremely well-qualified for the accomplishment of the very useful object which they have in view. Indeed empiricism has reached to such an alarming height, in an age, professing, and, in many respects, justly professing, to be enlightened, as would reflect disgrace on the most credulous, most superstitious, and most uncivilized people. Quackery has become so complete a system, that the acquisition of a fortune, by the sale of a quack-medicine (no matter of what it is composed) is rendered a mat ter of as accurate calculation as any commercial enterprize whatever.— It is known, that a certain sum, expended in advertisements annually, will produce a certain revenue! There is not another nation in the known world who suffer themselves to be so miserably duped by ignorance and fraud. If the imposition were limited to the purses of the public, the injury would be but trifling; but, unhappily, many of these illegitimate objects of speculation are dreadfully pernicious in their effects upon the health of those who are so weak as to purchase them. Common sense, we should imagine, were alone sufficient to detect the impudent false. hood of a quack, who proclaims to the world that his medicine is equally good for diseases, different in their nature, their sources, and their symp

toms,