PREFACE.
To those, who are accustomed to look with an observant eye upon the causes which lead to the fall and destruction of nations, the present epoch offers materials for their most weighty consideration. They have seen their country involved in one of the most destructive and arduous contests ever recorded in its annals; they have seen the combined force of the civilized world directed against its very existence; they have witnessed its unexampled and glorious struggle; the loyalty and patriotism of the people, and finally they have beheld it, rising at the close of the contest, not subdued nor conquered, but towering with renovated fame and lustre, and scattering to their loathsome dens the dark demons of anarchy and ruin; they beheld the industrious artisan returning to the shuttle—the laborious peasant to the plough—the war-worn soldier was seated at his native hearth telling the story of his battles, and the weather-beaten sailor, in the fulness of his pride, was glorying in the wounds obtained in the defence of his country. Peace gave to the nation its blessings, and round the consecrated altars of our fathers knelt the children of this favoured land in grateful prayer to that God, who had gone forth with them in the day of battle; and who, in the wreck of surrounding kingdoms, had vouchsafed to spread over this his protecting hand. But, in the midst of these cheering prospects, the pestilential air of Atheism and Infidelity was raging abroad like the blasting heat of the Simoon in the desert, and throwing its sickening hue over the beautiful forms of Religion and Virtue. Men, if such an exalted name can be given them, who have openly thrown off all submission—all reverence—all duty and love to their God; who, in the most blasphemous manner, had reviled and denied their divine Redeemer, considered themselves enfranchised from every moral and religious duty, from allegiance to their earthly Sovereign and obedience to the laws of the country. In the latter they beheld an irksome, and disagreeable restraint upon the exercise of their degenerate passions, they tore themselves away from the great human Society, despised its relations and its duties, and in their midnight assemblies traitorously plotted the massacre of some of the most exalted individuals of the country. In themselves they united the dreadful characters of traitor, incendiary, and murderer. Apostates from their religion, a spirit of horrible infidelity hardened their hearts against all the tender feelings of humanity and virtue, blinded their understandings to the dictates of truth, and rendered them capable of the vilest crimes. But the eye of Providence watched over their victims in the dark recesses where their hellish plots were engendered; the Omnipresent Being marked their actions, and, at the very moment of their expected accomplishment, dragged them forth to the execration and vengeance of their injured country.
We live in times teeming with events of such uncommon magnitude, that they seem to laugh to scorn all that we used to call important in our former history. Let us not deceive ourselves. It is no petty danger that threatens us; we are not anxious about some dubious point of honour, nor are we contending for any secondary interest; but for the very body and substance of our Island: not for the foliage, nor even the branches, but for the trunk of the British Oak; that Oak so different in all respects from the Tree of Liberty, intended to be reared in the Country by certain pretended Patriots; that Oak beneath which a grateful and a happy people had so long sheltered; and under which the distressed of other countries have often found a refuge, when driven to seek protection from the stormy blasts in their own less happy land.
But to what are the temporal evils which now afflict the country to be traced? Undoubtedly to apostacy in religion, and to the alarming growth of infidelity and deism. Conspirators never found an asylum in the habitations of Christians. The roll of turbulent revolters that History has recorded and transmitted to us, as the assertors of the Rights of Men, exhibits not one disciple of the meek and lowly Jesus. The true believer in the doctrines of Christ feels himself, in the view of the picture exhibited of the real Christian, grounded still stronger upon the sure foundation of his faith upon the solid rock of this heavenly dispensation. His soul catches new fire from the host of examples which Christian History records: he shudders at the attempts which are made proud and factious men to withdraw subjects from their allegiance, to plunge them into the horrors of anarchy and civil war; he trembles with astonishment and indignation, when men rejoice over the mangled remains of Princes and of statesmen, and over the bloody corpses of Sovereigns butchered by the hands of their own rebellious subjects. It is to the progress of irreligion and the decay of morals, that the increase of crime which now stigmatises the country, is to be attributed. It is to the fatal neglect of their religious duties, and to the renunciation of the blessings which Christianity offers them, that the miserable men, whose dreadful acts are recorded in the following pages, have been doomed to expiate their crimes on the scaffold. Religion does not leave the interests of mankind within the contracted circle of his social duties: its influence is extended in its protection to the utmost possible degree. The Christian is not only obliged by his profession to be a good man, but also to be a good citizen. He must be obedient to the governing powers under which he is born and placed. No subtilty of reasoning, nor any perversion of language or texts of Scripture will countenance him in acts of rebellion against his lawful Sovereign. Whenever, indeed, the standard of rebellion is unfortunately lifted up against our Prince, it is the duty of the Christian to be active in his allegiance, and to defend the Government to which he belongs, with all possible energy.
It has, however, pleased an Almighty Providence to protect the Rulers of this Country from the diabolical machinations of a set of lawless wretches who sought to erect their own interest on murder, rapine, and treason. Their names are transmitted to posterity, branded with the most horrible crimes that disfigure human nature; their lives are forfeited to the injured Laws of their Country: and, although they may have attempted to console themselves with the vain belief that the punishment for their deeds ends in this world, the dread reality has now flashed upon them that there is also another world in which the hardened and unrepentant sinner will meet his everlasting doom.
To the Atheist and the Infidel let the blood of these men speak with the most solemn admonition. The time is fast approaching when the veil of earthly things will be removed from their sight; when the cobweb texture of their fancied theories will be torn asunder; and truth, with its radiant light, burst upon them. Then let them pause, ere it be too late: a dreadful example has been set before them of the effect of irreligion and immorality. If the Atheist bear the holy name of father, let him ponder well ere he resign his soul to everlasting perdition: let him, as his babes cling around him, picture to himself the horrors of that grave on which no morning breaks; and the excruciating horrors of that death-bed which is not blessed with the hope of a future state. Let him, in his dispassionate moments, visit the grave of the murderer Thistlewood; let him there reflect upon the end of a life of infidelity and irreligion; and then may that Almighty Being, who looks with a benignant eye upon the weaknesses of his creatures, guard him from the error of his ways, and teach him that real and substantial happiness on earth is only to be found in Religion, Virtue, and Morality.