ページの画像
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]

us, -we

say no more, some have places of
30001. some of 6000!. others of
8000l. per annum; and I am told
the Commissioners of the Trea-
have 16,000l. per
sury
each.

annum

Mr. Speaker,—We have provi-, pany of crafty old Courtiers. To ded for the army: we have provided for the navy and now at last a new reckoning is brought upon must provide for the Lists. Truly, Mr. Speaker, it is a sad reflection, that so:ne men should wallow in wealth and places, whilst others pay away in taxes the fourth part of their revenue, for the support of the same government. We are not upon equal terms for His Majesty's service. The Courtiers and great Officers charge as it were in armour, and feel not the taxes, by reason of their places, whilst Country Gentlemen are shot through and through by them. The King is pleased to lay his wants before us, and, I am confident, expects our advice upon it. We ought, therefore, to tell him what pensions are too great, and what places may be extinguished, during the war and the public calamity. His Majesty sees nothing but coaches and six and great tables, and therefore cannot imagine the want and misery of the rest of his Subjects. He is a brave and generous Prince, but he is a young King, encompassed and hemmed in by a com

Certainly, public pensions, whatever they have been formerly, are much too great for the present want and calamity that reigns every where else; and it is a scandal, that a government, so sick at heart as our's is, should look so well in the face. We must save the King money wherever we can; for I am afraid the war is too great for our purses, if things be not managed with all imaginable thrift. When the people of England see all things are saved that can be saved, and there are no exorbitant pensions nor unnecessary salaries; and all is applied to the use for which it is given; we shall give, and they will pay, whatever His Majesty can want, to secure the Protestant religion, and the King of France, and King James too.→ I conclude, Mr. Speaker, let us save the King what we can, and then let us proceed to give him

what we are able.

* Country Gentlemen in general now pay at least one half of their revenue for the support of the Government.

TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

[Extracted from "The Public Guardian," Sunday Newspaper, of June 13.]

In the construction of the Constitution, our ancestors proved their knowledge of public right, since they left the People the greatest portion of public power, and placed it as a barrier against oppression. This power is then our birthright, our inheritance, our pledge of safe ty, our proud distinction from the world of slaves; and if this be not sufficient to enspirit us to its maintenance, let it be remembered it is a trust confided to us as Stewards for our children and posterity. -It is in vain to shrink from the responsibility or its consequence; we are born alike to its blessing and its defence, and are bound in every pledge and penalty for its furtherance and support.

This power is threefold, consisting in the Freedom of Election, the Freedom of Remonstrance, and the Freedom of Opinion. By the first we are enabled to deputize the public voice and its authority; by the next we obtain the privilege of preferring our grievances and wrongs; and by the last we claim the right to canvass those measures which carry with them in any degree the interests or the hopes of the community. Let us see how we have exercised this power, how we have acquitted ourselves of this trust, and with what faithful zeal we have performed the duties prescribed

to us.

They, whose remembrance can travel through the various grada tions of the last fifty years, will readily trace the causes with their consequences that have led us and our Country to the present crisis; and to such I would appeal for confirmation, that, to the apathy of the People, to the perverse in

VOL. III.

dolence of the public mind, and the almost total absence of that a dent spirit so necessary for the performance of our public duty and the preservation of our rights and our independence, the chief source of the present calamity and the darkened prospect of the fu ture, can alone in justice and in reason be attributable.-This is a truism which it behoves you to consider, since it is pregnant with the seeds of reformation:-you can never consent to be the tame instruments of your own destruction in the face of plain conviction and experience: prove but the error to have been your own, and who can doubt the application of the remedy?

The British Constitution, by which is meant the Liberty of the People, is said to be at once the envy and admiration of the world; that is, of Society in general, and the subject in particular:--to be slaves from neglect merely must surely, therefore, bring upon us universal contempt: the means of preservation are, within our grasp, let us not be accessary to our own destruction.-There are those among us, whose principle is a bliad reliance on authority; as though the form of power could ensure its rightful application; or that to prevent or to correct abuses should rest with those alone whose interest may lie in their continuance. -I would have every eye in the Empire turned towards the condi tion of our neighbours, at this moment, and take a lesson from the miserable fate of those, whose principle has been a blind submission to the will of despotism; with no check to ambition, no power, no control over the phantasies of pride

[ocr errors]

or imagination, we perceive them the prey of every sceptered knave, who chooses to set up his claim for their obedience, or to contend for their subjugation: we see them driven to slaughter like the cattle in our streets, and made at every bidding to stand forth and perish in behalf of tyranny, robbery, and public oppresion.-With them, indeed, all Governments, all Governors, may be the same:-like the burthened ass, their destiny is unchangeable; born to slavery, their hope is fashioned to their condition and hence we date the miseries they endure, the wretched fate to which they are subjected. -But shall Englishmen content themselves with such a destiny, or see their Constitution frittered down without a struggle to preserve it? Why are we the envy of the world, but that we differ from a race of slaves? And shall we follow still the slave's example, and cherish the rod that would destroy us?-Shall we basely desert our stand, and suffer Corruption to steal into the heart of the State, to sap and undermine the vitals of the Constitution?

In arbitrary States, the will of the Prince is the subject's law; the ready medium to oppression, tyranny, and wrong; till nature, revolting at the perversion of authority, by some desperate effort, asserts her claim, and power finds its level in the will of the people. -Happily for England, the invaJuable legacy of her Constitution precludes the necessity of such desperate remedies; we have a prescribed boundary for power, not swayed by the will, nor governed by caprice, and, were it possible for any individual, delegated with the sovereign authority of these realms, to forget that he holds such authority, not by divine right, but by virtue of a mutual covenant, wherein his name stands on a level

with the meanest of his subjects;

were it possible for an individual so to forget his office and his oath, it would be the bounden duty of his People to set him right, and prove to him the force and tenour of his obligation.-Or if a Prince, with the profession of honour in his mouth, should so far violate his trust and dignity, as to surrender his power to the worthless, his People to destruction, Himself and his reputation to infamy and disgrace; will it be doubted that, in such a case, it would become the imperious duty of those partners in the Covenant to set before him the dangerous tendency of such violation, as well as the urgent necessity of a recurrence to first principles, and the exact fulfilment of the general compact?-It might be, that under the auspices of such a Prince, the guidance of the State would be submitted to a band of incapable men, with ambition sufficient to render themselves mischievous, and an effrontery sur passing even the bounds of shame or safety-that having no guide but the gratification of his own profligate desires, he would revel away the hours in excess, regardless of the wrongs and sufferings of his People, shutting his eyes against their grievances, his heart against their distress;-that with a mind fully impressed with the ill-consequences of former systems, which had shorn his predecessor of half his glory, and split the sceptre in his hand, he would still follow the same rash course, plunging his Throne in difficulties, his People in despair!-that, notwithstanding the world's rebuke for the intemperate waste of talent, time, and riches, during a fifty years of profligacy, riot, and dishonour, the principle he would still pursue the great scandal of his office, the prejudice of public example, and the bitter outrage of private feel

to

ing-that in defiance of public opinion or the ties of nature, he would sanction the most cruel system of oppression, even against the legal partner of his bed, his honours, and his pretensions; and reckless of fame or reputation, would risk all to satiate his antipathies, or gratify those who nourished or created them ! - And, were it so, that a Prince were found so wanting to him-elf, so dangerous to his People, then would I have that People, with a respectful but determined voice, address him as the author of their wrongs, and claim alleviation from his justice; I would have them, with their Charter in their hands, approach his presence, and say, "You are our Prince, and we have obeyed you; by this instrument you command our allegiance, and we have amply fulfilled the tenour of the bond: we come to claim your part of the obligation, and to state our grievances:-Sir, it is you who have done us wrong, for, under your authority have we been aggrieved: your servants, in your name, and with your connivance, have pursued a system which has enhanced your power at the expense of your subjects, and to the utter subversion of their privilege and rights: - -an interminable and useless war has weakened your Empire, impoverished the State, and harassed and destroyed your People: the imbecility of your Councils is attributable to a want of due discrimination, or an interested perversity, and the ef fect is equal to the cause: your ill-conduct has enhanced our difficulties, your ill-example has contaminated our manners;—we ask you to restore our independence and our ease, or give us back our bath!"-Thus would I have a People so circumstanced address a Prince so depraved, if unhappily any such instances were to be

found; and thus evince the legitimate power of the People: at such a display of virtuous energy, pride and tyranny would shrink abashed, for despotism has a fearful spirit, which needs only to be met to be destroyed.—I would call on such a Prince, to rouze him from the lap of luxury and sensual ease, to conquer and subdue all private feeling when the general safety is at stake; and would say to him as Joab said to David, " "Unless you do this thing, there will not tarry one with thee this night!"

But before we rail at Princes for their power, or Ministers for their perversion, let us trace the cause of their encouragement, and shall we not find it, for the most part, in the apathy of the People?— In respect to ourselves, our safeguard is in the spirit of the Constitution, which is contained in the purity of our Representation:there rests our hope,-there also rest our fears. The Elective Franchise is the basis of our Liberty, of our existence as a Free and Independent race :-Corruption has assailed this pillar of our Freedom; the Servants of the Crown, nay the appendages of Royalty, have assailed it!- then approach the Throne, and with a constitutional boldness demand the dismission of those faithless servants that have disgraced its power and abused its trust.

With the decay of Liberty, the energies of a People fast decline.

Rome fell when public spirit shrunk before ambition.-Though Brutus strove, a single blow could not redeem a State. Corruption takes a deep and deadly root, spreading its poisoned mischief far and wide, a well-determined zeal alone can reckon to destroy it. -That zeal must spring from public principle and spirit, a single sacrifice will not avail: the

Gracchii perished even in the view of an ungrateful, a degenerate people, whose cause they had nobly ventured to espouse. Depend not, therefore, on individual exertion merely, but let the whole collected Body resolve to do themselves, their Country, justice.

Septennial Parliaments have

[ocr errors]

been our bane: the Prince can afford the means of reformation: let him dissolve the present Assembly;-tell him we wish to make a better choice;-his fate is woven with our own, they cannot separate; those who betray the one as readily will desert the other. That Throne is feebly fixt, whose best support is in Corruption. There is a dangerous faction round your Prince, haste, free him from their snare. The House of Bruns wick has been our choice, prove that it retains our solicitude and regard; and, forgetful of each minor consideration, make one bold effort to cover it from danger. We have identified its fortunes with our own, and they must flourish or decay together.

JUNIUS.

[ocr errors]

which probably neither fact nor feature warrants. But Justice presents a fit and steady course, on which the wise and liberal will ever rest, nor hazard rash suspicion, so generally unfitting and unjust.

The case of the attempted Assassination of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland by his servant Sellis, with the doubts and insinuations which have accompanied it, is still fresh in the public mind; and will readily be found to bear a striking analogy to that of the Murderer Nicholson; with this difference, that in one case the Assassination and in the other the Suicide was completed. The case of SELLIS, which has been so industriously of late brought before the public eye, with a view to establish a mystery which is now deemed never to have had a ground for existence, was rendered more singular from the fact of there appearing no inducement for an attempt so repugnant to humanity and reason. The Duke had been an indulgent Master, the culprit a faithful and obedient Servant: when the latter,

[ocr errors]

Comparative View of the Cases of with no actual or apparent incen

the Three Assassins,

SELLIS, NICHOLSON, & LORENZO.

The crime of Murder, of all offences the most enormous, the most fearful of the public gaze, and consequently the most liable to mystery and concealment,demands in a peculiar degree the scrutinizing eye of justice.-The feeling which accompanies the discovery of the slaughter of a fellowcreature is too apt to warp the judgement, and to excite premature and too generally erroneous conclusions. Where circumstances do not lead to immediate results, imagination is ever eager to supply the defect, and produce a train of cause and consequence,

tive, planned a systematic assault upon his Master's life, which ended in the sacrifice of his own.-It will readily be admitted here, that circumstances sufficiently warranted the attainder of guilt on him who had sought a refuge from the hand of justice in the infliction of selfdestruction; it was so laid, and confirmed by the deliberative verdict of a Coroner's Jury.-But the restless spirit of incredulity, or something worse, discerned, or fancied it discerned, something to revive the subject, to create doubts and conjure up suspicions: for which purpose a Tale was readily fashioned and believed, which had for its object, in the first instance, not merely the exculpa

« 前へ次へ »