TH HE situation of the country at the commencement of the year 1820 was more tranquil, than the violent popular agitation of the preceding months would have given reason to expect. That agitation, though it had produced little actual mischief, had been in a high degree appalling. Foreign nations regarded us as on the eve of a revolution; and even the wise and experienced among ourselves were not without apprehension with respect to the possible result. The tumult was now hushed; and, in a country like VOL. LXII.

England, external tranquillity is a decisive proof, whatever discontent may exist, of the absence of any intention of breaking out into open violations of the law.

This change must be ascribed, in part, to the measures pursued by government, and, in part, to the natural course of events. The manufacturing population had been deluded into a line of conduct inconsistent with civil order; all their passions had been excited; all their wildest prejudices and caprices had been flattered; and they had been taught [B]

that they might, by their audacious proceedings, regulate the course of public events. They had followed, to a certain point, those who had presented themselves as leaders; but they found that they gained nothing by their docility. Their distress was in no respect alleviated by their disorderly conduct. Work was not thereby more easily procured; wages were not higher, nor was a greater quantity of the necessaries of life placed within their reach. Far from bettering their condition by their threats of insurrection, they felt their miseries aggravated by the very alarm which their insubordination had spread. From the state of high exaltation, therefore, into which they had been brought, and in which they had been for sometime maintained, they naturally fell back into listlessness and languor; not, perhaps, positively approving the political constitution which had been the constant theme of abuse with their demagogues, but contemplating it at least with sentiments approaching to indifference, and occupied with their own distress, and its immediate proximate causes, more than with the dreams of political speculation.

The firmness, with which the government had acted, contributed much to bring about this state of passive acquiescence. With what hope could the illdisposed prosecute machinations, which met with countenance from only the lowest orders of the people, which were regarded with abhorrence by all the respectable classes, and which the whole power of the state was arrayed to resist? The military force of the country had been augmented with the declared and exclusive

object of repressing every tendency to intestine disorder; and the displeasure of government had been strongly marked against such as, even with pure intentions, had lent the weight of their names and characters to meetings calculated to encourage the illdisposed. Our ministers, whether they acted well or ill, acted at least an open and manly part. They showed plainly that they would tolerate neither avowed disaffection, nor any thing that tended to inspire the disaffected with flattering hopes.

At the same time, the legislature removed out of the way of the people occasions of and temptations to mischief, which the law had hitherto wholly, or in part, overlooked. The six bills, which were passed towards the end of 1819, prohibited and guarded against acts, which were injurious to the state, and inconsistent with the duty of good citizens. They restrained no person from doing any thing which was in itself either praiseworthy or innocent. Was it a hardship, that men should not be allowed to prepare themselves, by military training, for resisting the government of their country; or to store up offensive arms under circumstances which give a moral assurance that they were intended for illegal purposes; or to frequent tumultuous assemblies, unknown to the constitution of the country, and composed of individuals linked together by no natural bond of connexion, except, perhaps, that of a common aptitude for being wrought upon by the inflammatory harangues of some impudent demagogue? A loathsome, corrupted stream of blasphemy and sedition had been for some time overflowing its