esent ills, its action must evidently be too slow and restricted;
and even though it should be impelled to a geometrical ratio of
progression, still would the prospect of effectual relief be discernible
only through a vista of years. Meanwhile, time presses, and the patient
might perish if condemned alone to the homoeopathic process of
infinitesimal doses of relief.

The statesman who entered upon the Government with his scheme of policy,
reflected and silently matured as a whole, (as we may take for granted,)
with principles determined, and his course chalked out in a right line,
was not, assuredly, tardy, whilst engaged with the work of fiscal
revision, in proceeding practically to the enlargement of the basis of
the commercial system of the empire. An advantageous treaty of commerce
with the young but rising republic of Monte Video, rewarded his first
exertions, and is there to attest also the zealous co-operation of his
able and accomplished colleague, Lord Aberdeen. This treaty is not
important only in reference to the greater facilities and increase of
trade, conceded with the provinces on the right bank of the river Plate,
and of the Uruguay and Parana, but inasmuch also as, in the possible
failure of the negotiations for the renewal of the commercial treaty
with Brazil, now approaching its term, it cannot fail to secure easy
access for British wares in the territory of Rio Grande, lying on the
borders of the republic of the Uruguay, and far the most extensive,
though not the most populous, of Brazilian provinces; and this in
despite of the Government of Brazil, which does not, and cannot, possess
the means for repressing its intercourse with Monte Video, even though
its possession and authority were as absolute and acknowledged in Rio
Grande as they are decidedly the reverse. The next, and the more
difficult, achievement of Conservative diplomacy resulted in the
ratification of a supplementary commercial convention with Russia. We
say difficult, because the iron-bound exclusiveness and isolation of the
commercial, as well as of the political, system of St Petersburg, is
sufficiently notorious; and it must have required no small exercise of
sagacity and address to overcome the known disinclination of that
Cabinet to any relaxation of the restrictive policy which, as the
Autocrat lately observed to a distinguished personage, "had been handed
down to him from his ancestors, and was found to work well for the
intere