The youths now returned to breakfast; soon after they accompanied the ladies to the Steyne, and the sun being very warm, they retired into the library, where they found a tall corpulent divine, with his bib and apron, and a large bushy wig, expounding the operations of the Austrians upon the Danube, and describing, as well as he could, the siege of Belgrade; the Emperor Joseph, he instructed the company, was a profound politician, and a consummate general: he was also, he firmly believed, a zealous friend to the protestant religion; witness his efforts for suppressing monasteries, and other repositories of popery.--Captain Mortimer said, “he could not perceive much of his wisdom there; his innovations were rash and precipitate, and appeared to be more for the sake of plunder than conversion; that the effect was revolt among his most industrious and flourishing subjects.” “They are insolent and audacious,” repeated the dignitary, in a pompous and sonorous tone, which with many served to fill up the chasm of argument; “subjects ought not to question the will of their rulers. A prince is responsible for his conduct only to that being from whom he derives his power,” “Pretty doctrine that in a free country,” (said the captain, somewhat iritated by the dictatorial manner of the self-sufficient priest,) “God forbid it should ever prevail in Britain. But Britain out of the question, it is totally erroneous in its application to the people of the Netherlands, whose first executive magistrate, Joseph, was on specified terms. Joseph has broken the conditions, therefore his subjects have a right to be off the bargain.” “That is an irreverend and seditious way of speaking.” “Irreverend and seditious,” said the captain, “who are you that dare use such language to a gentleman, merely because he won’t take your solemn sounding nonsense, for sense and argument.” Hamilton seeing the choler of his naval friend, found means, by sliding into the conversation, to soften matters; and though no friend to public argumentation, yet, desirous of gratifying Maria’s uncle, he took a comprehensive survey of the conduct of Joseph, proved him to be the mere creature of imitation, who totally misunderstood his models: that to follow Frederick in the fashion of the times, he was an infidel; but contrary to the wise caution of his Prussian neighbour, manifested his infidelity in practical policy, and wished to destroy ecclesiastical establishments, the best preservers of civil and social order. In his present war with Turkey, he was the mere tool of Catherine, and was exhausting the resources of his country, to promote projects totally useless to his own dominions, and merely instrumental to the ambition of the Empress. But if the war had been wise in its origin, it was feeble and inefficient in its execution. “In short,” said Hamilton, “in the internal administration that drove subjects to revolt, and in the external policy that engaged without provocation in