of the British people and their Government. The time is now, I trust, arrived, when this, and other subjects of a like nature, 1 allude particularly to them all the clever combinations which can be made out of the "slight underprops," the "vacillating progress." and thecreaking sound" to which the preacher was subjected. These, if they" the revisal of the penal code," and think fit, they may apply to the preacher and his discourse, by whatever witty turn they may be able to give them. I console myself, under all the deductions that may be drawn to my disadvantage, with this single consequence; that I am spared the mortification of speak. ing of myself and my own doings. As the result of my first metropolitan efforts, and the cause which it was employed to support, are more important in themselves than to be referred to my own (of course) partial description, I shall open my next chapter with the opinions of my Reverend Probationer upon both; for as these opinions are not only clerical but critical, and as they may hereafter be of some service to the subordinates of the National Church, who, for want of interest in it, are compelled to seek "a piece of bread" from the proprietors of those chapels which supply affluence to many an ordained eccentric, who has activity enough to jump in at the window while they have scarcely ingenuity enough to open the door. I shall appropriate the pages of my next chapter to this particular discussion. (To be continued.) ON IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT. To the Editor of the European Magazine. 4th Dec. 1818. Etruly wonderful exertions which SIR, Thave been lately made by that ini mitable ornament of her sex (Mrs. Fry), in the cause of virtue and humanity, so eminently displayed in her successful labours of reformation amongst the female prisoners in Newgate, together with the anxious and zealous endeavours of Messrs. Bennet, Buxton, and other philanthropic gentlemen, to lessen the sum of human misery and wretcheaness in our jaits, deserve, and will eventually receive, the applause of all good men, as well as the blessings of thousands of their unfortunate fellow creatures. I rejoice to observe, that this most important, this truly national subject (for England is the Jand of humanity), is now about to receive the serious consideration, and to engage the earnest attention, both "Imprisonment for Debt," will be earnestly, but dispassionately, submitted to the deliberative wisdom of the Bri tish legislature. Allow me, at present, to make a few observations and sugges tions on the latter subject; viz. **imprisoment for Deht," as the New Insol vent Debtor's Bill comes before Par liament (as I understand) so soon as it meets. The dreadful and wide-spreading evils which it inflicts, not only on individuals, but families and friends, innocent of all save the crime of being a wife or child, sister or brother, to the unfortunate debtor, are, I believe, not sufficiently regarded or reflected on by the public in general, nor the evils and benefits of the system contrasted and balanced as they ought to be. From sources of the best information it has, I believe, been ascertained, that there are at present upwards of thirty thousand debtors under confinement in England and Scotland. We often look with indifference on the successive part of that, which if seen together would shake us with emotion, and fill us with astonishment. An unhappy debtor is dragged to jail, pitied for a moment, and then forgotten-another follows him, and is lost alike in the caverns of oblivion; but when the whole mass of calamity rises up at once; when thirty thousand reasonable beings are contemplated, all groaning in unnecessary misery, not from the infirmity of nature, but the mistakes of human judgment, or the negligence of human policy, who cat forbear to pity and lament, to wonder and abhor! We live in an age of commerce and computation; let us therefore coolly inquire, what is really the sum of evil which the imprisonment of debtors occasions to the country. The misfortunes of an individual often extend their influence to many; and if we consider the effects of consangui nity and friendship, and the general reciprocation of wants and benefits which make one man dear or necessary to another, it may be reasonably sup posed, that every man languishing in prison gives trouble and distress of mind to four others who love or need him. By this multiplication of misery we see distress extended to the hun dredth part of the whole British popu lation. If again we estimate at 2s. per day what is lost by the inaction, and consumed in the support of each man, #thus chained down to involuntary idleness, the public loss will rise in one year to above a million of money. Those also who are best acquainted with the present state of our prisons will confess, that the annual loss of human lives is very considerable from the corrosion of disappointment, the heaviness of sorrow, the want of exercise, and sometimes of food, the corruption of confined air, and the contagion of disease; for all these are the portion, or may become so, of the unhappy prisoner, and form the complicated horrors of a prison, where many of our fellow-men confined for debt, continue miserably to lose their lives, leaving their families to beggary and wretchedness; a burden or a prey on the country. It is thus, many prisoners for debt annually sink amidst the acumulation of misfortune; and others, if they survive, live only from day to day, hoping and wishing for a release from all their troubles; for life, without liberty, is scarcely desirable. And what, sir, let us now inquire, does the creditor in general obtain by throwing his unfortunate debtor into jail? does he not injure the interest both of himself and of his debtor, perhaps irreparably? for every spur to exertion is then removed, and the mind of the captive becomes in general 100 much enfeebled by misery, shame, and disappointment, ever again to become fit for business, even if relieved or discharged. I believe, sir, that the number of creditors who receive payment from their debtors after throwing them into jail is small indeed, compared to the number of the unfortunate debtors who miserably perish, or become utterly useles to their families in consequence of their confinement. Surely he whose debtor has perished in jail, although he may acquit himself of deliberate murder, must at least have his mind clouded with melancholy (if all sympathy and feeliug be not dead within him), when he considers how much another has suffered from him; when he thinks on the wife bewailing her husband, on the children begging the bread which their father, but for him, would have earned; but we know that there are men thus obdurate, who, impelled by avarice or cruelty, can revolve even these consequences unmoved, either by dread or pity. Would I to God, then, we might indulge the hope, that our legislature will in their wisdom at length see fit, to deprive us of the power of thus destroying each other's lives and families, for the sake, often, of a very small sum of money, In this age of enlightened policy, far beyond any former time, surely there can be no adequate reasons for the continuance of a system of law, sanctioned, no doubt, by age, but clearly destruc tive of the lives and happiness of thousands and tens of thousands. Surely it is time that this sore evil was removed from our happy isles, and our prisons thus emptied of one half of their miserable and unfortunate inmates. The age of improvement, and moderate and judicious reform of what is found amiss in our glorious constitution, is, I trust, arrived (I speak only of what would so incontrovertibly lessen human misery and wretchedness); and I would fain hope, that these noble undertakings may now be safely proceeded in. advert to the revisal of our poor laws, the education of the poor, and the penal code, and imprisonment for debt. With respect to the latter, I am decidedly of opinion, that some wiser and better, some more advantageous plan for all parties both for the buyer and the seller, might be easily devised; far better would it surely be to deny a man credit, except on proper security, than to sell him goods, and put him in jail for payment at a time when he could not raise the money; indiscriminate credit proves ruinous to both parties; and was imprisonment for debt disal lowed, I am convinced it would contribute most essentially to the advantage, as it unquestionably would to the happiness of mankind. Its miseries are dreadful, its victims many, and although it has long been part of the law of England, and of other countries, it has always been considered as a necessary evil, which could not be dispensed with without, as was supposed, hazarding the whole fabric of law and justice; but although the matter requires solemn consideration, the danger is, I apprehend, chimerical, and the necessity imaginary; laws ought to prevent, if possible, as well as punish crimes in this case. Misfortunes are visited very often (for it depends on the person's disposition) with equal severity, and with equal injury to life, health, and reputation, as crimes. I trust this truly immotant inquiry, involving the best interests of hum aity, will soon be entered on by the British legislature, whose labours, of late years, have tended so essentially to the happiness and welfare of the people, and whose labours and luminous reports on the great question of political improvement which engaged their attention during the last parliament, do them such great and lasting honour. If it shall be found, on dispassionate investigation and calm inquiry, that this sore, this wide-spreading evil, can be removed without difficulty or danger, as I think it may, and with the greatest and most permanent benefit and advantage to the public, I shall ever feel the greatest satisfaction in having been the feeble, but zealous, advocate of HUMANITY. in the military line of the service, pracured a purser's warrant for him; the change was unpleasant to him, and at the peace of 1763, finding himself, in consequence of the death of his uncle, completely his own master in his nineteenth year, he quitted the naval service. To the Earl of Sandwich, afterwards First Lord of the Admiralty, he was not then known, nor was he at any subsequent period honoured with that noble lord's acquaintance. Soon after he quitted the naval service, he was, through private friend. ship, appointed one of the clerks in the Record Office; and in 1767, when it was resolved by the House of Lords to print the Rolls of Parliament, be was chosen as a person well qualified to direct the work. His talents, informa tion, and industry, attracted the atten To the Editor of the European Magazine. tion of the Peers who superintended it, That I may not unnecessarily encroach on you, I shall only mention such facts in Mr. Rose's early life, as the writer of the Memoir, who has so feelingly done justice to his memory, has been misinformed on. I am, Sir, Your humble servant, P. T. THE uncle by whom Mr. Rose was adopted and educated, was his mother's brother of the same name, but not Dr. Rose of Chiswick; he became acquainted with that respectable man, to whom he was related, at a much later period. He was for a short time at Westminster school, but he must have entered the navy at a very early age, for his first voyage was to the West Indies as a younker, and in 1758 he served in the Channel as a midshipman, and steered one of the boats from which the troops commanded by the Duke of Marlborough were landed in Coucalle Bay. Early in 1759, he was again in the West Indies, and during the naval cam paign there, was twice severely wounded; his last service was in the North Sca, in the winter of 1763; previous to that, a naval friend of his uncle, discouraged in the hope of advancing him gained to him valuable friends, and the end obtained for him the re in mote reversion, after the lives of Mr. Ashley Cowper and Mr. Strutt, of the office of Clerk of Parliament, in consequence of an address of the House of Lords to the King, moved by the Earl of Marchmont, 1788. About the year 1777, while engaged in this work, he was appointed by Lord North, Keeper of the Records in the Chapter House at Westminster, and Secretary for the Board of Taxes, where he remained till 1782, when Lord Shelburne offered him, through a mutual friend, the office of Secretary of the Treasury; several considerations led him at first to decline the offer, and to hesitate long before be accepted it. Oa the Earl of Shelburne's resignation in 1783. Mr. Rose quitted the othce of Secretary of the Treasury, without any compensation for the permanent one he resigned to accept it, and imme diately after went abroad with Lord Thurlow. At Paris, in the following Autume, he met Mr. Pitt to whom he had become known during the time that he beid the Office of Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Shelburne's administra tion, and of whose talents and character Mr. Rose had formed a just estimate. Similar views of the important occurrences then passing in England, and of the best means of relieving the country from the financial embarrassments that oppressed it, made them more fully known to each other; and Mr. Rose formed that attachment to Mr. Pitt, which ended but with life. FUNERAL OF Her late Most Gracious Majesty,! Queen Charlotte. Ο SEAL UP THE TOMB!-THE SPIRIT'S FLIGHT NO MORTAL ARM CAN STAY ; NO SUN RELUME THOSE LOOKS OF LIGHT, NOR QUEENLY POMP, NOR ROYAL POWER, ONE MOMENT CAN DELAY, WHEN, LIKE THE NIGHT-FALL, FATE SHALL SPREAD, Thomson. VER the Tomb of MAJESTY We may be permitted to pause and medi. tate, for with the good and wise, loyalty is ever considered as a virtue, and the soul of the nation looks proudly back upon its noblest KINGS, for those illustrious examples, which give a consecration to our homage, and which render such a duty sacred. So feel we now towards HER who is departed; and though the hearts of some, perchance, were kept at a distance from her, when in apparent happiness, and splendour, and enjoyment, she walked through the abodes of her greatness as our QUEEN,-yet we may hope, all are her friends now !—The distinctions of birth, and the privileges of state, and the exemptions of Royalty, are all broken down by Death, and we are entitled by nature to embrace her in the grave. But there is ONE, to whom her loss will indeed come, if it ever comes, in all the dreariness of bereavement, and in all the bitterness of deprivation. He is not in oblivion, for the affectionate and bleeding hearts of his subjects have followed their aged KING into his solitude, and though shut out from our world of life, and love, and pleasure, yet a purer light breaks in upon him, and a consolation, more than earthly, lessens the load upon his hoary temples. But she who watched over him, and tended him, and soothed his troubled spirit, is no more! and though a death-cold power may have frozen up the living fountain of his mind, though the darkness of old age, and of insensibility, may have veiled his mental vision in its eclipsing clouds, yet there are moments when he will anxiously expect her, who is removed for ever, and when, in that gloominess of soul which only the eye of GoD can penetrate, he will indeed require all those tender Europ. Mag. Vol. LXXIV. Dec. 1818. 3 T alleviations of connubial sympathy, which in this world can return to him no more!-But it is the consolatory happiness of our Christian Faith to know, that they shall meet again, never to separate, where all the afflictive trials of this lower sphere shall be forgotten, and where the perishing and thorny coronet of earth will be exchanged for the enduring splendours of a diadem in Heaven !-And, oh! until then, "Peace be with thee, afflicted Sire! May Heaven still lend its pillar'd fire, Disperse old age's wintry gloom, Smooth thy rough passage to the tomb, Before returning to the mournful task of recording the last testimonials of respect to her late MAJESTY's remains, we cannot omit noticing one striking difference from that similar calamity, which eighty-one years since called forth the affectionate sympathies of a loyal nation.-The filial love with which the PRINCE REGENT watched beside the pillow of his dying Parent, had no parallel in 1737; but the palace and the cottage are alike adorned by so distinguished an exercise of virtuous feeling, and his Royal Highness, and those few illustrious Relatives, who shared with him this pious duty, have endeared themselves to millions of English hearts, by their exemplary affection, and devoted attachment to their departed Mother. During the last moments of her expiring agony, her late MAJESTY'S death-bed was, as we have before stated, surrounded by her affectionate offspring; and in this situation of agonizing suspense, the Princesses continued supporting their beloved Mother for some minutes after she had ceased to breathe, too much absorbed in grief to observe that the dreaded event was past; and when Sir HENRY HALFORD announced the mortal existence of his Royal Patient to be at an end, the effect upon his auditors may be imagined, but we cannot describe it. After the first burst of anguish and lamentation, the PRINCE REGENT, exerting himself to calm his own feelings, withdrew his Sisters from the mournful scene, who in the course of the evening retired to Cambridge House, on Kew Green, the filial affection of their Royal Highnesses not permitting them to remove farther from the remains of their lamented Parent. Immediately after her MAJESTY's death, the Royal Standard was lowered half staff, and a detachment of the first regiment of guards, under Colonel BARROW, arrived on duty at the temporary barracks in the vicinity of the Palace. The Standards at Windsor Castle and the Tower, flags at the various sea-ports, &c. &c. were also lowered in a similar manner; and Carlton House, the Palaces, and the Mansion House, were entirely closed. A Council having been likewise immediately called, agreeable to the precedent on the decease of her MAJESTY, Queen CaroLINE, the following |