We cannot however, terminate this article, without previously adverting to the manner, in which our relations with England, must be affected by the doctrine maintained in this Imperial Manifesto, and by the more recent declarations of the French Ruler, upon which we have animadverted, in the first part of the present Number. They not only constitute a complete and mortifying refutation of all the arguments, which have been, on the part of our government, so peremptorily and laboriously urged, to prove the repeal of the French decrees, but disable us from taking this ground now, or at any time hereafter, in our demands for the abrogation of the Orders in Council. The British cannot, in the teeth of the contrary declarations of the French emperor, consent to entertain even the supposition of the repeal of his decrees, nor accept the plea of a contract between France and the United States, bottomed upon our act of congress, as the justification of our non-intercourse. They can no longer view, nor can we, even with a shadow of plausibility, represent this measure in any other light, than as the repetition of an old experiment, to coerce or intimidate them, into an abandonment of their system of blockade, or at least, as an effort on our part, independent of any proceedings on that of the French government in reference to its decrees, to place ourselves beyond the sphere of the latter, agreeably to the instructions to that effect contained in the letters of Cadore, the speeches of the emperor, and the comments of the Moniteur.

If the British regard our non-intercourse in the first point of view, they will then, in all probability, consider their honour as staked on their inflexible adherence to the present system of blockade, as long as we persist in our scheme of coercion or intimidation. Further:-whichever of the two characters may be ascribed to it by us, or by the British, they must be compelled to reject, and we to abandon, the assumption hitherto the burden of our Executive song,-that we act with perfect impartiality towards the two belligerents. If, while we are compelled to acknowledge that the "unrighteous edicts" of France have undergone no change, we should continue to maintain with her the relations of friendship, and to open our ports to her manufactures and her armed vessels, and nevertheless pursue the very opposite course with Great Britain, on the ground of her perseverance in her Orders in Council, we obviously forfeit all pretensions to impartiality:— we might almost say, to neutrality. In this case Great Britain could scarcely consider our attitude as other than hostile, and might imagine herself, on this ground alone, bound in honour,

to maintain her orders, however unjust in their origin, or evidently injurious to her present interests, lest, in the event of a change in her system, while we continued to distinguish the cause of her enemy by such unmerited favour, her conduct should be attributed, to a preference of those interests over higher considerations. Under such circumstances, there can be no hope of a repeal of the Orders in Council, but on the occurrence of one or other of the following events;—either that the British should consent to sacrifice the point of honour, and yield to the coercion of our non-intercourse; or that we should replace them on a footing of equality with France, by reviving our non-intercourse against the latter, or abolishing our commercial restrictions altogether. Either of these steps on our part, might lead to a successful negotiation with Great Britain.

The revival of the non-intercourse against France is, however, a measure which our pacific rulers will, we presume, scarcely hazard, after the lesson heretofore given them on this subject by his Imperial majesty. They will hardly fail to remember that our non-intercourse of the 1st of March 1809, applying equally to both belligerents, was the alleged ground of the terrible decree of Rambouillet, and-according to the duke of Cadore-so injurious to the honour of France, that nothing short of a declaration of war could completely efface the stain it inflicted. This topic leads to a reflection which, if the wide difference between the characters of the two belligerents were not so universally known, might be somewhat alarming to our merchants. The French emperor considered our non-intercourse of 1809, although it extended to his enemy, as good ground of war, and made it the pretext for the confiscation of all the American property within his reach. Now, it cannot be denied, on the supposition of the French decrees being neither revoked nor modified, that our present non-intercourse is still more derogatory to the honour of the British, than was the former one to that of France. What then if the British should choose to follow the example of their enemy, and confiscate at once all our property within their grasp? No person, whatever may be the strength of his anti-anglican prejudices, can deny, but that, in so doing, they would be at least fully as justifiable, as was the Emperor of France.

Would our administration, however, illustrate their vaunted impartiality, by acting in this instance, as they have acted in the former? Would they submit with as much tameness to this outrage from England, as they did to the spoliations of

Bonaparte? Would they consent to an arrangement with the British, similar to that which they conceived they had made with the French Emperor, in the month of November, without exacting a previous and full restitution of the plunder? Would they, after being formally and unequivocally told by the British cabinet, that no restitution was to be expected, send a minister to the court of St. James, there to solicit it as a boon, and in case it could not be otherwise obtained, to sign with the plunderers a convention requiring the sanction of the senate, which should bind us to the ignominious condition of previously restoring the British property, which we might have confiscated for a violation, after due notice given, of our municipal laws? We shall not ourselves answer these interrogatories, but are content to refer them to the conscience of those, who have attended to the history of our foreign relations, during any part of the last ten years.

Hereafter, and perhaps at no distant period, when reflection shall come to the aid of the public mind now confused and blinded by party collisions and false professions, there will be but one opinion on all the points we have had under discussion; but one "grand chorus of national harmony" as to the conduct of our present rulers, particularly in relation to the Rambouillet decree. It will then be a matter of astonishment how it ever could have been doubted that, to make a proceed. ing of this character, a subject of negotiation in any shape, was to surrender the national honour, and to descend from the level of national equality.

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Récherches Physico-Chimiques, faites sur la Pile; sur la Préparation Chimique et les Propriétés du Potassium et du Sodium; sur la Decomposition de l'Acide Boracique; sur les Acides Fluorique, Muriatique, et Muriatique Oxigéné; sur l'Action Chimique de la Lumière; sur l'Analyse Végétable et Animale, &c. Par M. M. Gay-Lussac et Thenard, membres de l'Institut, &c. Avec six Planches en taille-douce. Tome premièr et second. A Paris, 1811. Physico-Chemical Researches on the Pile; on the Chemical Preparations and the Properties of Potassium and Sodium; on the Decomposition of the Boracic acid; on the Fluoric, Muriatic, and Oxigenated Muriatic acids; on the Chemical Action of Light; on the Analysis of Vegetable and Animal Substances, &c. by Messrs. GayLussac and Thenard, members of the Institute, &c. With six copper plates. Two volumes. Paris, at Deterville's, 1811.

THE universal interest, which the voltaic pile had excited among the learned in Europe, began to abate, when it was suddenly revived by a very remarkable discovery. Mr. Davy, after having exposed to the action of the pile, the acids, salts, and many more substances, exposed the alkalies also, and was surprised by a new and unexpected phenomenon. Brilliant particles made their appearance round the negative pole, of a metallic lustre, yet extremely light, possessing the singular property of burning briskly, and of taking fire even on water. These were potassium and sodium. The report of the discovery soon spread, and was at first hardly credited. All doubt, however was soon dissipated, and the national Institute announced it publicly on the very day, when it crowned Mr. Davy, in consideration of his preceding meritorious labours. The loftiest ideas were then again conceived of the power of the pile, and the French emperor furnished the polytechnic school with the means of constructing one of extraordinary dimensions; consisting of six hundred plates, of nearly thirty five square inches surface each, together with several others of an inferior size, the direction and use of which were confided to Messrs. Gay-Lussac and Thenard.

While the piles were constructing, these gentlemen directed their attention to the discovery of a chemical process, by which potassium and sodium might be procured in larger quantities, than could be obtained by means of the voltaic apparatus. In this they succeeded completely; and thus, sure of being able to command with ease a sufficient supply of the new metals, they commenced, on the 8th of March 1808, a course of experiments on the pile, and on the nature and properties of potassium and sodium, which they continued with unabated

ardor, till the middle of this year. They published their observations and discoveries from time to time in the scientific journals of the day, and have collected and arranged them in the above work, which has just been received in this country. We were intending to review it, when we discovered, that the report of M. Berthollet respecting it, made to the class of mathematical and physical sciences of the Institute, and annexed to the second volume, not only contains a perfect and masterly analysis of the work itself, but is also enriched with some critical and original observations of that celebrated chemist. We have therefore thought it best to confine ourselves to a simple translation of that report, taking care only to correct a few slight inaccuracies, into which M. Berthollet appears to have fallen.

Considering the novelty of the subjects, treated of in the work itself, and consequently, in the report; the general interest which they have awakened, and the full view, given in the performance before us, of the late important discoveries in this branch of science; we are induced to think that the translation of the report will be read with avidity, by a considerable proportion of our readers. It is gratifying to remark, whilst we have to deplore the ravages, which military France spreads over some of the finest parts of the globe, and the paralyzed condition almost every where, of the pursuits of industry and commerce, that science seems as yet to rise superior to the general calamity, and to bid defiance to the broils and troubles of the times.

Report made to the class of mathematical and physical sciences of the Institute, by M. Berthollet, in the name of a committee, consisting of Messieurs Laplace, Monge, Chaptal, Haüy, and Berthollet.

The physico-chemical researches with which we are going to occupy the class, agreeably to its orders, have for their object, new substances, new properties, and new phenomena, which seem to constitute a separate science, superadded to ancient natural philosophy and ancient chemistry.

This spring of the science originated in the observations of Messieurs Hisinger and Berzelius, who showed that the voltaic electricity, when passing through a liquid, causes the component principles of the liquid, and of the substances which may be dissolved in it to separate, so that some collect round the positive, others round the negative pole-viz. the inflam