tives of Tripoly are truly blest. Their wants are few, and most liberally supplied by the beneficent hand of Nature. It is true they are deprived of the gratification we ́derive from balls, plays, and routs; yet, on the other hand, the streets of Tripoly are not crowded with objects of degrading mendicity. There are no hospitals or poor-houses; for every body is usefully employed. You see no jails filled with malefactors and debtors. The towns are not frequented by thousands of unhappy females, driven to a life of dissoluteness and dishonour by necessity: and the fatal arts of seduction never destroy the peace of an unsuspecting family. This picture, sombre as it is, of comparative happiness and misery, might be extended; but I willingly leave it to the reflection of my reader; and in revering the dispensations of Heaven, which has, with so much impartiality, divided the cup of good and evil below, shall proceed to fulfil the ulterior object in my next letter, by a description of the government, and political relations of this state. * There is no such thing as arrest for debt here, much less imprisonment: if a man chooses to lend any thing he may, but cannot throw you into a jail, and thereby annihilate your means of repaying him. However, the obligation of buying is reversed in this country; for it is the seller who thinks he confers a favour on you by disposing his property of which you are in need. LETTER IV. "Ils ne regrettent point la perte A l'homme a couté tant de soins, Huron de Rousseau. History of Tripoly-Carthaginians-RomansSaracens-British Attacks and Treaties-Government-Characters and Descriptions of the various Officers-Tripoline Policy towards the Arabs-British Connection with that Govern A LENGTHENED detail of the former history of this country would be foreign to my original purpose, and owing to 'a scantiness of materials neither calculated to instruct or amuse you. More anxious to illustrate the present state of things than dwell upon the past, it will perhaps be sufficient merely to observe, that the coasts of Tri'poly were ever objects of solicitude with the two great rival powers of antiquity. Sharing the glory and fate of Carthage, it became a most valuable acquisition to the Roman empire, and after having for many centuries experienced the benign effects of enlightened laws and good government, it sunk Since into that night of obscurity which overwhelmed the former mistress of the world-a darkness from whence it has not emerged for a period of more than one thousand years. The triumphant followers of Mahomet, under the Caliphs, subjugated the whole of this coast, in their way to Spain, during the seventh century, and obliterated, by the introduction of a new religion, nearly every trace of its former manners and customs. the above period, Tripoly, like the other states of Barbary, has been continually either a prey to despotism, or torn by intestine division. This city was occupied for a short time by the Knights of Malta, in the reign of Charles V. of Spain; they were, however, driven from it in 1551, by Sinan Bashaw and the celebrated Dragut Rais, since which period, no European power has attempted to take possession of any part of the coast. It has, however, been necessary to send a British admiral and respectable naval force, more than once, to bring these people to a proper sense of duty, and repress their disposition to plunder on the high seas. Blake, the Nelson of his day, * It generally happens, that more than a century passes before the place of such an admiral is supplied: and on comparing their respective characters, it is impossible not to be struck with the similarity between this great man and Lord Nelson. The following panegyric of an elegant writer, the Earl of Clarendon, on Blake, cannot be too often repeated or read by the naval men of Great Britain:-" He was the first man that declined the and glory of England, after his successful attack on Tunis in 1665, came here and concluded a treaty which appeared to secure the British interests on a tolerably stable foundation. With the states of Barbary there is, however, no faith, and in 1675 their outrages became so frequent, that it was resolved to send Sir John Narborough with a squadron of ships, to punish them for frequent breaches of the treaty made by Admiral Blake. The gallant and prompt manner in which the boats of his ships, under the direction of Lieutenant Shovel,* made a most successful attack on several men of war in the harbour, by which old track, and made it manifest, that the science might be attained in less time than was imagined, and despised those rules which had been long in practice, to keep his ship and men out of danger, which had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal art requisite in the captain of a ship had been to be sure to come home safe again. He was the first man who brought the ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable, and were discovered by him to make a noise only, and to fright those who could be rarely hurt by them. He was the first that infused that proportion of courage into seamen, by making them'see, by experience, what mighty things they could do if they were resolved; and taught them to fight in fire as well as upon water: and although he hath been well imitated and followed, he was the first that gave the example of that kind of naval courage, and bold and resolute achievements." It would appear that his lordship had been writing the character of our hero of Trafalgar. * Afterwards Sir Cloudesly, who was shipwrecked on the Island of Scilly in 1797.-Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, four were totally destroyed, is recorded in our naval history, together with the subsequent exploits which obliged the Tripolines to accede to Sir John's terms. These were the most memorable instances of Great Britain's hostility against Tripoly. Several commanders have been here since that time, but all contrived to renew the treaties, without making that sort of impression upon them which an exertion of force alone can produce. In pourtraying the government of Tripoly, I regret that it has not fallen to my lot to describe a more enlightened and beneficent system of legislative power; on the contrary, the most unequivocal despotism prevails throughout every department of the state, and, as already observed, has moulded the people into a degree of insensibility, from whence it is a very doubtful question whether they will ever arise, till awakened by the arm of conquest, or a more extensive intercourse with the powers of Europe, which would ultimately have the effect of removing those prejudices, engendered as much by ignorance as the baleful impression of religious dogmata. Passing over a long period, during which the Regency was subjected to the immediate sovereignty of the Porte, I find that through the talents and military prowess of Hamet Bashaw, a native of Caramania, it was in 1713 erected into a kingdom, at which time Hamet not only disowned the Grand Seignior's authority, but carried his arms into the interior, where he succeeded in making the Sultanny of |