power.-To 480, the firft ftep of the root preceding, add the ratio, and you have 600 for the first step; to which add 1230, and you have 1830 for the fecond ftep; to which add 2550, and you have 4380 for the third ftep; to which add 4651, and you have 9031 for the fourth ftep; to which add 7776, and you have 16807, the power required. The afterisks fhew where the full ratio commences. In the fquare power it is from the first root, in the cube from the fecond, in the biquadratic from the third, in the fifth power from the fourth. Inftead of the proper ratio, till you arrive at thofe ftations you add the following fums: Cube Rat. Biquad. I 12 6 2 55 5th Pow. Rat. I Rat. I 120 HOW popular foever it may have been to declaim upon the fallibility of human reafon, yet men have not erred fo much from weakness of understanding, as from obliquity of the heart. Their paffions have mixed with their inquiries after knowledge, and have given them a predilection of certain opinions, which their reasoning powers were afterwards employed to eftablifh, and which their pride made them impofe upon the confciences of men. The world funk very early into vice; fcience was loft, and idolatry was reared up in its place. When literature sprung up in Greece, the refinements of vain philofophy arofe with it; which, like the potent drugs of the Eaft, intoxicated mankind, and made them frantic, and at last ftupid. When Christianity came to rouse men out of their deep flumber, fome few awaked fully; but, of those, few were The following are the Ratios to the profeffors of fcience; not many wife were different Powers. 8 9 24 120 720 5040 40320 362880 There is another particular in thefe harmonic numbers; which is, that ftri king a line where you will, the addition of all the fums in the firft ftep makes the number of the second step, &c. &c. and the addition of all the fums in the laft ftep makes the power. Example. All the numbers in the first tep of the Cubic power added together make 271, the fum of the fecond fep; and all the fums of the second step make 1oco, the power. There will be found more use and beauty in this method than is at firft apprehended. I have tables prepared for the prefs, ready calculated, whereby the fquare root of any number from One to a Million, or the cube root of any number from One to a Thoufand Million, may be found by inspection, and by this method, may be continued ed infinitum, without multiplication, divifion, logarithms, or algebra.- -I am, &c. Gent. Mag. GAM. SMETHURST. cailed, but the weak, the ignorant, the little children. Still the gloom of philofophy hung over the minds of men of fcience; and when thofe proud profeffors were at length invited into the church, they brought with them its presumption, its vain reafonings, and its fubtleties; tinctured alfo with the grofs fuperftition of Heathenifm. Soon after, ignorance, vice, and fuperftition, the offspring of all thefe, affumed the name of Chriftianity, and left fcarce the trace of valuable barbarifm to deftroy: they had already feience, or of fimple morals, for Gothic till have penetrated this gloom, and perifhed more effectually. Science might true religion been established; but a crafty, luxurious, debauched priesthood, kingdom of darkness. The light was were armed to oppofe all invaders of the hateful. When literature revived, and men began once more to fearch after knowledge, the phantom Authority rofe up to dictate, in the name of Ariftotle and the Greek schools, what men should confider as philofophy, and in the name of the Fathers what they were to believe in religion; and from both, vain difputatious fchoolmen were furnished with their unmeaning fubtleties. yond endurance. The interefts of fociety But at length many were provoked bewere openly invaded; the happiness of mankind, as well as the light of truth, was overwhelmed; till refentment of prefent injury arming men against the incroachments, coachments, and indignation roufing We are not yet to be trufted, it seems, them against the vice and ignorance, of to our own guidance: we are still to be the priests, light began to fpring forth, kept in the fwaddling bands of authority: and true fcience and true religion dawn- the infpired feriptures are not allowed ed again upon the world. our fufficient direction; we must have our opinions guarded from error by the gloffes of fallible men. Alas! can truth no other way be fecured! What confidence can we place in thefe famed bulwarks? If the clergy become obfequious to authority, they will alfo be indolent and luxurious. If worldly ambition abforbs their whole attention, what honour will it be to our church that it enjoys a calm? Call it not a calm; it is not the repofe of health; it is a lethargy. Men in this ftate will fubfcribe to a thoufand articles, without afking of their hearts one fingle question, At the time of this dawn our Refor mation in England began, and made a progrefs: but ignorance was fo univerfal then amongft the clergy, and the bias was fo ftrong towards the fuperftitions of Rome, that it was tlfought neceffary to frame articles of religion and homilies, to ferve as directories to them who could not direct themselves; and who it was fuppofed, without thefe helps would have proved blind leaders of the people. It is plain that our great Reformers, although acute and learned, and, for the age they lived in, men of extenfive knowledge, were not free from the fhackles dauthority. Skilled in the fubtleties of Ichoolmen, tinctured with falfe phikophy, and deep buried in the voluminous rubbish of the fathers, although they did much for truth, were unable to the work. Two centuries more vare neceffary for men to recover themdes from their profound trance, for commen fenfe to awaken fully; and even now the eyes of fome are blinded; we ftill contend for articles and opinions which harbour upon them the precious drugs of ages past. Let us place our dependence upon a furer ground; upon the integrity and the vigilance of our ministers, and not upon difputable articles of faith. Let them be encouraged in their search after truth, let no confecrated errors be oppofed to their progrefs: the fcriptures are open; from them, duly ftudied, they can produce no opinions which can materially injure true religion or fociety. Their very fcruples to fet their hands to human articles, are evidences that they are awake, and upright in their intentions, and cautious of misleading or being mifled. Ifay it was thought neceffary by our The first commiffion to the preachers Freat Reformers to frame articles of o of the gofpel was unlimited as to perfons; paion for the direction of the priests; Go ye teach all nations: yet thofe very and many circumftances concurred to preachers accounted the Gentiles unworlead them into this error: confidering thy the gofpel, and common and unclean. the times, it would have been an almost Strange prefumption! Nor was the liimpofible thing for the human mind to mitation of its principles of faith fo narLave avoided it. Men fhuddered at the row, but that whosoever will believe, that Lame of herefy; and, not content with there is no other name under heaven given eftablishing a fenfible form of prayer and among men whereby we may be faved, but regular worship, they endeavoured to only the name of Fefus Christ our Lord, befecure by authority uniformity of opinion lieveth enough for an heavenly inheriafo. This monkish notion prevailed, and tance, and communion with the faints in even now remains; and in our own days light. Yet how has this general propowe are ftill to learn, that falvation does fition been divided, analyfed, fcrutininot depend upon the obfcure queftions zed, and refined into ten thousand oof the dark ages, but upon fuch princi- thers, by the reafoning pride, the illples only as are intimately connected judged dogmatical zeal of timid theowith the practice of morality and piety; logians, to the exclufion, at length, of and that there is nothing of evil to be many good men from earthly commuapprehended either to religious fociety nion! Let us do the will of our Father, at large, or to individuals, from thofe and then we need not fear that we shall falfe opinions, or, if you will, herefies, fall into material error. which fpring not from perverfeness of I am, &c. heart, or depravity of manners. T. L. A A catalogue of NEW BOOKS, with remarks and extracts, continued. [4r.] A view of the rife, progress, and prefent State of the English government in Bengal: including a reply to the mifreprefentations of Mr Bolts. By Harry Verelt, Efq; Late Governor of Bengal. 410. 125. boards. Nourfe. 1772. Solomon faid, indeed, a wife thing, when he obferved, that "he that is firft in his own caufe, feemeth juft; but his neighbour cometh and fearcheth him, Prov. xviii. 17." This celebrated dictum was never, perhaps, more remarkably verified than in Mr Bolts's cafe. That malcontent writer published, about a year ago [xxxiv. 82.], a very alarming invective against fome of the principal fervants of the Eaft-India company, especially against the gentle men employed in the adminiftration of the company's affairs in Bengal; taxing them with the most intolerable infolence of power, accusing them of the moft arbitrary acts of oppreffion, in fhort, reprefenting the whole tenor of their conduct as tending directly toward the total detruction of our Afiatic trade and dominions. His book was fpeciously written; he talked loudly, too, of his own perfonal injuries; and the public lent an attentive ear to his complaints. The work was generally pronounced unanswerable; and, it must be confeffed, that more regard was paid than was frictly due, to the declamations of a man who might have been fufpected to have written un der the too powerful influence of his private refentments, refentments not easily to be fmothered in the breaft of an ambitious man, who had found himself interrupted in his fchemes, and checked in his ardent purfuit of thofe immenfe advantages, by which, as a trader, in only fix years, he had gained not less than ninety thousand pounds! That there are many things which cry aloud for reformation, in the direction and management of the affairs of this great commercial company, is unque ftionably true; and it is equally inconteftable, that the evils which call for redrefs, can by none be pointed out, with that intelligence and certainty, which may be expected from thofe, alone, who have been perfonally acquainted with their fettlements and governments in the East. But if the men who are thus qualified to give evidence in a matter of fo much im portance to the nation, as well as to th likewife, of the ftricted integrity and ho company in particular, are not poffeffed nour, how can we ever depend on th information they give us, or place an confidence in thofe reprefentations which with the fairest femblance of truth, ma be chiefly calculated to promote th ends of crafty fpeculation, or to gratif the malice of difappointed ambition, o infatiable avarice?` That this has, in fome measure, bee the cafe with refpect to Mr Bolts, an his celebrated Confiderations, we have be too much reason to conclude, from th many decifive detections which Gover nor Verelft has here made, of that wr ter's crafty endeavours to mislead th public, in a great variety of particulars. Mr Verelft's publication is divided int five chapters; and to these are added, voluminous Appendix, confifting of ori ginal papers, ferving to illuftrate and co roborate the facts advanced in the pre ceding chapters; and comprehending complete detail of the select committee correfpondence with the court of direc tors, during Lord Clive's and Mr Verelft government in Bengal; together with es tracts of other authentic papers, letter committee-proceedings, &c. &c. To the above-mentioned five chapter is prefixed, a large introductory difcourf containing " A Refutation of fuch Par of Confiderations on India affairs as are no referred to in any general divifion of th work:"--and a moft complete refut: tion it appears to be, of what the auth terms Mr Bolts's Chaos of Invective. W here fee an artful man fuccessfully trace through all the intricacies and confufio in which his declamations are ftudioufl involved, with the unworthy view of be ing thereby the better enabled to perver the truth, and miflead the inquiring pu blic; we fee him, on the most unque ftionable evidence, convicted of the gro feft mifreprefentations even of the mo notorious facts; we fee his credit, as writer, totally annihilated, and his cha racter, as a man, justly expofed to th cenfure of the honeft, indignant reader. In the first chapter, intitled, A gen ral view of the affairs of Bengal, from t capture of Calcutta, in 1757, to the grant the Dewanny to the India company, in 176 we have an hiftorical deduction, whi entirely demolishes Mr Bolts's reprefent tion of political tranfactions, by proving thofe acts of the felect committee to have flowed from a fenfe of duty, and knowledge of the public intereft, which that gentleman has attributed to malignant paffions, or to yet meaner motives. Chap. 2. contains an account of the diforders in the collecticy of the revenues of Bengal, before they belonged to the company, and of the caufes which impeded a reformation. This is a very valuable part of the work, and is closed by a curious tabular view of the ftate of Bengal revenues and charges, fhowing the grofs and nett receipts of the compaay's land-revenues, and the civil and military charges, from May 1765, at the Commencement of Lord Clive's fecond government, to April 1770. Chap. 3. relates to the money and tinage of Bengal. We have here a marly inveftigation of a fubject equally nice and important, with a detection of the errors of former writers, particularly the ingenious author of Some abfervations this fubject, written for the use of the court of directors. The 4th chapter relates generally to the internal commerce of Bengal; but the principal object of the author's attention is the fociety established in 1765, for conducting the trade in falt, beetlenut, and tobacco. And here Mr Bolts is convicted in several instances of difingeenity and mifreprefentation. The contents of the 5th chapter are extremely curious, and will place the abilities of the ingenious writer in a very advantageous light. The defign of this put of the Governor's performance is, to how the impoffibility of introducing English laws into Bengal, and to offer fome hints with regard to the nature of thofe regulations which the manners and habits of the natives may admit. In the foregoing chapters, the principal objects of government are examined, fo far as the power and influence of the English have produced a change; with refpect to which, it is here juftly remarked, en paff, that the reader who is converfant with the hiftories of more fettled ftates, will not be greatly furprifed if fome ertors fhould appear; and will judge with imper (not with the afperity of a Bolts) the conduct of men who, compelled by Deceffity, have acted in a new scene, unaded by experience.” — Certainly CANDOUR will here make large and Hiberal allowances. Our author's general reVOL. XXXV. flections, in reference to the fubject of this laft chapter, will not be unacceptable to our intelligent readers: "If," fays he, “in G. Britain, where the form of our government has grown up to maturity in the courfe of feveral ages; where the power of each magiftrate has undergone frequent difcuffions from the united wifdom of fucceffive generations; where all authority is committed to the hands of men formed by education for their feveral stations, and where the effect of its exertion may be traced in our hiftory; if, in a country like this, we are perpetually alarmed with fuppofed invafions of our rights, and frightful pictures of increafing defpotifm are daily held forth to terrify the people, what a portrait might the dulleft imagination exhibit of Bengal? By minds open to fuch impreflions, little regard will be had to the different manners and habits of a people; to the enterprifiog Mahomedan or Armenian opposed to the gentle native of India; to the condition of conquerors living amidft a timid and fubmiffive race, like foldiers unrestrained by difcipline; of men clamorously demanding the protection of laws ill underftood, and worfe applied, where intereft and paffion unite to confound all order, and where lordly traders, impatient of controul, hope to gratify their own fordid avarice in the general wreck. Such confiderations will have little weight with many readers, who will eftimate our conduct in the government of Bengal by the rigid letter of thofe laws, which the more perfect polity of G. Britain can alone admit. Without examining my own condue by rules which I do not understand, and which were not formed for the fcene in which I acted, it will fully fatisfy my ambition, if to the candid and difpaffionate I fhall appear to have pursued the interefts of my employers, to have refpected the rights of others, and to have deferved the character of an honeft man.' thor intimates the neceffity of our examining the principles on which the fubfequent change was conducted, by the motives which our fituation at that time fuggefted; and he obferves, that if we would form a juft judgement, we muft attend to the whole affairs of the company, both at home and abroad. "I have here," fays he, "given a plain and artlefs narration of our tranfactions; and might now difmifs the fubject, but that, after the experience of more than twenty years, I feel myself inftigated to refift thofe wild opinions, which probably have arifen from ignorance of the country. To demonftrate the impoffibility of introducing English laws, or, indeed, any new fyftem, will not be difficult. To point out thofe alterations in government, by which it may be poffible to connect the welfare of Bengal with the intereft of G. Britain, is a more arduous task. I fhall attempt the latter part with extreme diffidence and diftruft, fince our own experience is yet very imperfect, and that of other nations can afford little affiftance." Mr Verelft proceeds to remark, that even men who are well verfed in hiftory, do not always imbibe the spirit of nations, nor trace the various means by which the minds of a people gradually unfold to civilization, and are moulded for the reception of laws. "They regard not," fays he, "the flow growth of thofe opinions, which can alone give effect to limitations of power in the magiftrate; but would tranfplant in an infant a system of laws eftablithed in this country by the progreflive experience of ages, and impofe it on a diftant people, whofe religion, whofe cuftoms, whofe habits of thinking, and manner of life, equally prohibit the attempt. Thefe are not errors of the vulgar. The philofopher here only mistakes. Ask the peasant his right to a field: his father enjoyed it before him. Let a clown be fightly beaten for a trefpafs, whom an action at law would have ruined: he understands not the trial by jury, or the relation it bears to our government; yet he complains of arbitrary violence, and his caufe is efpoufed by his neighbours, as little informed as himself. This fpirit, this opinion of right, which gives force and effect to our laws, is matured by age, and tranfmitted from father to fon, like the fubjects to which it relates. If the northern nations wh broke in upon the Roman empire coul not relish those beauties of art which at the immediate objects of sense, how ca a people receive even beneficial provifion which have no exiftence but in the min are known but by their effect, and whic experience alone can approve? Inti cate laws among a rude people may, li refinements in religion, be useful to m intrufted with the facred depofit. T more anxious the care of the legiflato the more complex the limitations power, the more occafions of abuse w occur. Lawyers, like the pricfts of ol will judge of the duties of men by the terefts of their own order, and the o preffed fubject will feel the inftitution burthen without reaping the smallest vantage. Even fuppofing men of lightened minds and tried integrity. prefide, their influence will fcarcely felt. The dread of the English nat has proved a plentiful fource of opp fion in the hands of private men: th we add a complicated fyftem of laws impofe on a timid and indolent rac Who will understand his rights? W will apply to our courts for redrel Thus to leffen the powers of governme muft we fly to anarchy, and render eve English gomaftah the interpreter of own claims? There are fome notions juftice not confined to time and pla derived from the neceffary intercourfe men, and common to every clime. The are the foundations of all governmer and from fuch fimple beginnings m our fabrick be reared. To render rights plain and fimple, to remove rath the occafion than means of oppreffi and to enforce a prompt adminiftrati of justice, according to the primary la of all nations, can alone be safely attem ed. * This fubject deferves a fuller dife fion: let us therefore defcend somewh into detail. Perfonal contracts form confiderable title in every code; and h different nations approach neareft to ca other. Our law of contracts is grea borrowed from the Civil law, which been adopted with fome little variat by all the other nations of Europe. commentaries upon the Koran, as fa they regard matters of contra&, ar am told, chiefly derived from the fa law, eftablished in the Greek empire, are received, fubject to the arbitrary • A Black agent, or factor, |