religion have to fear, have or had to fear, from about half a dozen" illiterate pamphlets," the most able of which contains, according to the opinion of the BISHOP OF LANDAFF, "nothing like argument?" What danger could a religion, "founded on the word of God, and breathing truth in every line," have to fear from such miserable assailants? And, was it possible, that, as a defence against such "dead dogs" of enemies, religion stood in need of the Six Acts, for the necessity of which you were so strenuously contending? ture to speak freely even in private; but, is this a sign of general content or of lasting internal peace? Tranquil as the country is, it is not yet so tranquil as Spain was only in that very month of November last of which you speak. What has been stated as the immediate cause of the discontents, and of the progress of what you call sedition and blasphemy? What have you and your colleagues, in your own speeches and in speeches from the throne, declared the cause to be? Why, the misery of the people. This miI wonder, that, when you were sery, you have said, and you making this representation of the have truly said, disposed the dangers you had no misgivings in people to listen to those, who your mind as to the efficacy of the traced the misery to the want. remedy; since you had only to of a Reform in the Parlialook back to the days of Bowles ment. and Rose to see, that the former remedy, for the very same alledged evil, had not succeeded. If a five and twenty years' war against republicans and irreligion, including seven years of unlimited power of imprisonment; if these had not effected a lasting cure, how could you hope, that the banishment Bill and its associates would produce such cure? True, the country is tranquil; but, does that argue that it is contented? Men are silent indeed, they hardly ven Nothing can be more true than this. It was in vaio, that I, during the years from 1804 to 1816, laboured to convince the people, that misery must, at last, fall upon them, unless a total change of the system took place. I could obtain no believers, though I had many readers. When I anticipated the consequences of the war, so unnecessarily and so un. justly waged against the United States, even the Reformers scouted what I said. My forebodings, when the peace took place, were, Y not unpopular; that is not scheme of paying off the debt b enough; they were despised. But, a confiscation of real and personin 1816, with the shameful defeats al property to the amount of one of our armies and fleets by the sixth; but, the scheme is afloat; Americans fresh in récollection, it has been mentioned, as a fit and with a diminished quantity of proposition, in parliament; the paper-money afloat, with ruin and Ministers expressed no disappromisery stalking all over the land, bation; and I am persauded, that 1, at once obtained a patient and a vast majority of the persons attentive hearing. Our heads are most attached to the government, clear, when our stomachs are emp- and approving most decidedly of ty; and those, who, with fall bel- the Six Acts, approve of this lies, turned a deaf ear to every scheme. And yet, it is in this warning, listened with both ears state of things, and when every and stared with both eyes, in 1816. man you meet says, that someNow, granting, for argument's thing of this sort must be done, sake, all you say about the dan- that you congratulate your Livergers existing in November to be pool friends on the complete true, it is, as stated by yourselves, restoration of order, confidence, a not less true, that those dangers reverence for the laws, and a just arose out of the miseries of the sense of the parliament's legilicountry. Are those miseries re- mate authority! moved? Are they in the way of romoval? Can they be removed, without a great change of system?" between the two periods? A if they cannot, what have your "meeting of that degraded ParSix Acts done? The manufactu- liament, a meeting of that scofrers say that they must be ruined;" fed at and derided House of so say the merchants and traders; "Commons, a concurrence of and the farmers, when you meet," those three branches of an imare ready to tell you, that they "perfect constitution, not one are ruined? Who, then, can "of which, if we are to believe say, that he thinks his property the Radical Reformers, lived in safer than he thought it in No-"the hearts, or swayed the feelvember last? I do not say, or 67 ings, or commanded the respect suppose, that you and your col-" of the nation; but which, desleagues have yet adopted the "pised as they were while in a * Well Gentlemen,” you exclaim," and what has intervened "state of separation and inaction, "did, by a co-operation of four "short weeks, restore order, con"fidence, a reverence for the laws, "and a just sense of their own legitimate authority." the passing of acts, which produce stillness, and then you congratulate your hearers on the excellent disposition of the people to be still! You compel us to hold our tongues; and then you boast of the power of your persuasion to produce silence. You pass laws, under the existence of which, nobody, not on your side, can attend at a public meeting but at the hazard of his life; and, then, you exclaim: "See how quiet all " is; see what a reverence for the "laws, the parliament has in You might have said as much for Ferdinand, when he returned to Spain; or, he might, as indeed he did, say as much, or more for himself. He, in less than two short months, annulled the Constitution, re-established the Inquisition, and plunged into dungeons, or banished, all those who had distinguished themselves inspired!" You boast of having asserting the right of the people to assisted in making a law to punish be represented. Having done this with fine, imprisonment, and bahe congratulated the nation on nishment, any man, who shall the complete" restoration of or- write, or publish, any thing "der, of confidence, of reverence TENDING to bring the parlia"for the laws, and a just sense of ment into contempt; and, when "his legitimate authority." He this law has made men afraid to made use of the word paternal in- speak of the parliament at all, stead of legitimate: otherwise his you congratulate your hearers, on proclamation was almost in the "the just sense of the parliament's very words of this part of your "legitimate authority" that now Manifesto. If men had the cou- prevails, and cite the silence of the rage to write or speak against his trembling press as a proof, that deeds, he laid them by the heels in the Reformers were slanderers, dungeons, he banished them, or put when they said, that the parliathem to death; and having by these ment" did not live in the hearts means reduced the discontented" of the people!" Harry the to silence, he assumed that silence Eighth, "in his princely grace," was content. This is precisely the condescended to bring LAMBERT into process that you have adopted in to a public controversy with him; your Manifesto. You assist in but, the king was both disputant and judge. LAMBERT was burnt, "power;-whose active virtues, and the king cited his condemna-" and the memory of whose virtues, tion and punishment as an indu-" when it pleased Divine Provibitable proof of his having been in"dence that they should be acerror; and, which is curious" tive no more, have been the enough, the tyrant congratulated "guide and guardian of his peohis people, and put up public "ple through many a weary and thanksgiving to God, that the na-" many a stormy pilgrimage ;-. tion rejected with abhorrence the heresy of Lambert! "scarce less a guide, and quite as “much a guardian, in the cloud "of his evening darkness as in the "That such a loss, and the re collections and reflections natu"rally arising from it, must have I now come to a part of your Manifesto, which is perfectly thea-"brightness of his meridian day. trical. What would I give to have seen you, while you were delivering it, and to have seen the looks of your empty.skulled audience!"had a tendency to revive and I allude to your eulogy on the "refresh the attachment to Molate king, in the following words: "narchy, and to root that attach"Another event, indeed, has ment deeper in the hearts of the "intervened, in itself of a most" people might easily be shown by 66 painful nature, but powerful in "resoning; but a feeling truer "aiding and confirming the im-" than all reasoning anticipates "pressions which the assembling" the result, and renders the pro"and the proceedings of Parlia❝cess of argument unnecessary. "ment were calculated to pro- "So far, therefore, has this great "duce. I mean the loss which" calamity brought with it its own "the nation has sustained by the "compensation, and conspired, "death of a Sovereign, with "to the restoration of peace "whose person all that is vener- "throughout the country, with "able in Monarchy has been iden." the measures adopted by Parlia "tified in the eyes of successive "ment." 66 generations of his subjects; a " Sovereign whose goodness, "whose years, whose sorrows, "and sufferings, must have sof"tened the hearts of the most fe"rocious enemies of the kingly This is a strong instance of shame having no weight on a man's conduct, when he has a great point to carry, and when he knows, that detection and exposure are not near at hand, and especially when he is speaking to persons, for whose understandings he has the most hearty contempt. To descant in praise of any thing, which the party knows, that no one will dare to condemn, or even to criticise, is always mean. It is giving a challenge to fight, to one who has his hands tied. In a case like this, it is an insult to the whole of the people. But, what impudent trash, to say, that the age, the sorrows and the sufferings of the king were calculated to change the opinions of any one with regard to the nature and tendency of kingly power! What had that age or those sufferings to do with the general question? What, then, does it make part of the feelings of loyalty to be in love with age and bodily affliction? Must we, who would have no confidence in a Judge or a General, under such circumstances, be enámoured with these circumstances, when they meet in the person of a king? We are compelled to hear, in silence, now-a-days, many monstrous propositions, but to be told thus impudently, that the late king afflicted as he, unhappily was, was, even in his last years, a guide and a guardian of his people, is an affront to our understandings, to express a due degree of resent ment at which it is impossible to find words. One of the arguments, and, indeed, one of the best, against hereditary power, whether in the Chief or in any inferior Personages of a government, is, and always has beeu, the possibility of the power falling into incompetent hands, and even falling into the hands of persons afflicted with the peculiar malady, with which the late king was afflicted, and which malady, according to the laws and practice of all nations, reduces the afflicted party to a state of complete nothingness in the eye of the law, every thing that he does being considered as if not done at all. This objection to hereditary power may, perhaps, be successfully combatted by argument: it may, perhaps, be proved to the satisfaction of some, that there are benefits in the hereditary system, which outweigh this evil; but, I venture to say, that you, Sir, are the first man that ever dáred openly to contend, that the thing was not an evil, but was in itself a benefit; and, that the knowledge, amongst the people, of its long actual existence, had a natural tendency, on the termination of the calamity by death, to revive |