Secret History of the Court of England, from the Accession of George the Third to the Death of George the Fourth, Volume 2 (of 2) / Including, Among Other Important Matters, Full Particulars of the Mysterious Death of the Princess Charlotte

by Lady Anne Hamilton

1830,

the king's health materially declined, though the greatest secrecy prevailed at Windsor upon the subject. His disease, however, progressively increased, and in the latter end of March, he became unable to take his usual exercise in the park. From time to time, the organs of the court pronounced his majesty again in tolerable health, and announced his intention to hold a drawing room at St. James'; but at the same time they well knew there was no probability that such an event could take place.

On the 15th of April, the first bulletin was issued, and this official document regularly appeared till the announcement of the royal demise, which was as follows:

"His majesty expired at a quarter past three o'clock this morning, in the 68th year of his age, and in the eleventh of his reign.—June 26th, 1830, Windsor Castle."

The death was lingering and painful, which is not to be wondered at when we consider what an artificial system of body there was to break up, and to what a magnitude it had grown. The wonder is, considering the life which the king had led in his youth, and the ease and luxury in which he indulged afterwards, that he lasted so long. After the usual

[[222]]ceremony of lying in state had been observed, his majesty was consigned to the royal vault at Windsor, on Thursday, the 15th of July. Immediately after which, the greatest bustle was observed in the apartments occupied at Windsor by the Marchioness of Conyngham, and a general scramble and a rapid packing up of valuables took place.

We have so often had occasion to speak of the actions of George the Fourth, that little remains to be said of his general character. That he was handsome, dressed and lived extravagantly, put on fascinating manners when he wished to gain his point, and had an extraordinary good opinion of himself, are accomplishments which we believe he possessed in an eminent degree. But what were such insignificant matters to the country in general, when their possessor owned the basest and most vindictive heart that ever disgraced the human bosom? Would his handsome person atone, in the eyes of doting parents, for the seduction of their daughters? Would his splendid habiliments afford a recompense to his ruined creditors? Would his fascinating manners compensate his injured and cruelly-oppressed wife for the brutal, unmanly, and infamous treatment she received from him? Or would his self-love satisfy the heavily-taxed people, who were compelled to administer to his extravagant demands for finery and baubles? Assuredly not; and such "accomplishments," therefore, only tended to render the actions of his majesty more disgusting in the eyes of the better part of the community. In truth, George the

[[223]]Fourth thought of nothing but his personal ease and comforts. When his mistresses or his friends became troublesome, they were instantly and unceremoniously dismissed, without causing the "first gentleman in the world" the least uneasiness as to their future good or ill fortune. In politics, he leagued himself with the Whigs as long as they served his purpose; but, directly they gave him the least trouble, he disowned their acquaintance. He indulged the follies and vices of his chosen companions, till indulging them longer became irksome. He supported the principles of his family as long as supporting them answered his ends. He consented to the passing of the Catholic Relief Bill on the same principle as he had shaken off poor Mrs. Robinson. Protestantism and Perdita were voted bores, and he therefore took the easiest course to rid himself of both. In the latter years of his life, he disliked public exhibitions, because they gave him trouble, and kept him a few hours from indulging his private passions, which he considered as so much time lost. This is the true character of George the Fourth, whatever his minions may say to the contrary.

Passing over many circumstances of dubious import, relative to the departed monarch, we proceed to notice some transactions of an unhappy complexion, and which reflect no small portion of dishonour upon his memory. When the late Duke of York returned from his military education in Prussia, he unfortunately brought with him the prevailing vice of the

[[224]]principal courts of Germany,—that of GAMBLING; and to his inordinate attachment to that ruinous propensity may be attributed the frequent loss of property and personal disgrace he endured. The late monarch, also, was equally addicted to a love of play, and the sum allowed him when he attained his majority soon proved insufficient to supply the natural consequences of that uncontrolled passion and his very lavish expenditure in finery of all kinds.

In consequence of the mutual embarrassments of these royal brothers, they found themselves under the absolute necessity of raising money to discharge some of their most pressing accounts. The prince, in conjunction with the Dukes of York and Clarence, tried every imaginable source in this country, from which it was thought a supply could be raised, sufficient to avert the impending storm that hung over their heads; but all their endeavours failed. As a last resource, the late monarch was advised to attempt a loan in Holland; and Messrs. Bonney and Sunderland, then of George-yard, Lombard-street, were appointed notarial agents for the verification of the bonds; and the late Mr. Thomas Hammersley, of Pall-mall, banker, was to receive the subscriptions, and to pay the dividends thereon to the holders on the joint bonds of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence. The sum intended to be raised was about one million sterling, the greater part of which was subscribed for by foreign houses only, at a price

[[225]]which would have proved very satisfactory if the contract had been faithfully performed. The negotiation for this loan commenced in 1788; but an interruption to its completion was occasioned by the death of Mr. Bonney, the notary. It was ultimately confirmed, to the great loss of those who had so rashly speculated in such a questionable security. The loan was to bear six per cent. interest, and the revenues of their royal highnesses were to be invested in the hands of the late Dukes of Northumberland and Portland, in order to ensure the due payment of interest and principal. A large portion of the money, to the amount of nearly half a million, had been received by the princes when the revolution in France, in 1793, presented an opportunity to resist the payment of those bonds which had been circulated, and even the interest due upon them was refused. During the revolution, some of the holders of these bonds escaped, and arrived in England; and, as their last resource, they made numerous applications to the princes for the interest due to them, if it were not quite convenient to discharge the bonds in full. But the law-advisers of the princes pretended that the present holders were not entitled to the interest, as they presumed the bonâ-fide holders had perished during the troubles in France and Holland; and that, consequently, other claims were not legal. On the part of the claimants, the bonds were produced which they had bought, and their right asserted to claim interest and

[[226]]principal equally as if they had been the original subscribers.

This evasive attempt to resist the just discharge of loans, raised at such great hazards, must ever be considered as an indelible stain upon the characters of the princes concerned. We, however, would acquit the Duke of Clarence from any participation in the profits of these bonds; his natural affection for his two elder brothers induced him to add his name to the bonds merely as a further security to their holders; and we doubt not that his present majesty will, if he have not already done so, make all the reparation in his power to the heirs of the original sufferers in these very dishonourable transactions.

The holders of these bonds finding themselves so unjustly treated, M. Martignac, one of the original subscribers to them, made an application to the Court of Chancery, and the affair came on by way of motion. Sir Arthur Pigott, who was then Attorney-General to the Duchy of Cornwall, replied, "that he had never heard of the existence of such bonds; but his own opinion was, that the unhappy condition of France and Holland rendered the identification of the bonâ-fide holders almost impossible, even presuming they ever had existed; but the inquiry should be made in the proper quarter!" That inquiry, however, never benefitted the distressed refugees. Sir Arthur Pigott, the legal adviser of the Prince of Wales, might, to please his

[[227]]master, attempt to deny the existence of these nominal securities; yet positive proof against such denial was, that they were actually floating in the "money market," as common as any other security, AT THAT VERY TIME! There was, indeed, scarcely a broker on the Exchange who had not some portion of them for sale; and it was an indisputable truth that means, of a disreputable nature, were used to depreciate their value in the money market.

We must not here pass over the suspicious conduct (relative to these bonds) of the then secretary of state for the home department. Under the specious pretext of enforcing the Alien Act, this gentleman caused the whole of these injured claimants to be taken and put on board a vessel in the Thames, which was stated to be ready to sail for Holland. This vessel, however, cast anchor at the Nore, for the professed purpose of waiting to receive the necessary papers from the office of the secretary of state. The heart-rending destiny of the unfortunate victims now only remains to be told. Although no charge was preferred against them, they were thus unceremoniously sent out of the kingdom by the decree of arbitrary power. From the list of twenty-six unfortunate creditors of the princes, fourteen of them were traced to the guillotine. The other twelve perished by another concocted plan. The two principal money-lenders, M. Abraham and M. Simeon Boas, of the Hague, were endeavouring to maintain their shattered credit, and actually paid the interest themselves due

[[228]]upon these bonds for two years; but they were finally ruined, and one of the brothers put an end to his existence by a pistol,—the other by poison!

Similar tragical scenes were attendant upon another loan, raised for the princes by M. John James de Beaume, and prepared by Mr. Becknel. The signed acknowledgment of the princes was for one hundred thousand pounds, payable to the said De Beaume, and vesting in him the power to divide this bond into shares of one thousand pounds each, by printed copies of the bond, &c. The original bond was deposited, for safety, in the bank of Ransom, Morland, and Hammersley, while an attested copy, as well as the bankers' acknowledgment of their holding such security, were given to De Beaume as a proof of his authority in being the agent of the three English princes. They also gave him a letter of introduction to their correspondent in Paris, M. Perregaux. After considerable difficulty, and after having remitted and paid to the princes two hundred thousand pounds, in money and jewels, M. de Beaume and his associates were apprehended, and charged with treason, for asserting that George the Third of England was King of France!!! These unfortunate men were tried, condemned, and actually executed upon this paltry charge within twenty-four hours after their mock trial! So perished Richard Chaudot, Mestrirer Niette, De Beaume, and Aubert, either for purchasing the shares of the princes' securities, or for

[[229]]negotiating them. Such also was the fate of Viette, a rich jeweller, who had bought largely of the shares from De Beaume.

Would that we could here close the catalogue of black offences against certain individuals; but we are obliged, as honest historians, to refer to the cruel death of Charles Vaucher, a banker in Paris. This gentleman quitted France in 1793, and fixed his residence in England, where he married an English lady. He had been the purchaser of twenty shares of the princes' bond, and, as was naturally to be expected, made application for the interest due thereon. The claim being refused, the injured gentleman applied for legal assistance; but the interest was still rejected, because the bond had not been named in the schedule laid before the commissioners appointed to examine into the extent of the debts of the Prince George! Further application was made; though, instead of obtaining justice, this unfortunate gentleman received an official order to quit England within the space of four days! Having other affairs to arrange, M. Vaucher petitioned the Duke of Portland (then prime minister) to allow him to remain until his affairs could be arranged; but his petition was refused, and a warrant issued, signed by the duke, directing William Ross and George Higgins, two of his majesty's messengers, to take M. Vaucher into custody till he should be sent out of the country, which was immediately put in force! He was conveyed to Rotterdam, and from thence to Paris, where he was imprisoned. On the 22nd of

[[230]]December, 1795, his trial took place upon similar charges to those of M. de Beaume, and he was soon found guilty, and guillotined!

We could recite many other crimes relative to these bonds; but we think we hear the shocked reader exclaim, "Hold! enough!" Indeed such sickening details can hardly obtain credence in the minds of men, possessed of even the common feelings of our nature. To offer any palliation of such monstrous atrocities would only be an insult to the understandings of all unprejudiced observers of royalty!

At the time of the Prince of Wales' greatest embarrassments, an attempt was made to divert the country into a belief of the honourable intentions of his royal highness by the sale of his racing stud, and some other property. But no sooner had parliament voted sufficient money to relieve the prince from his debts than the turf-establishment was revived in a more ruinous style than ever, the field of dissipation and extravagance enlarged, and fresh debts contracted to an enormous amount, which were not either in his or the nation's power to discharge. Strong doubts were also entertained that the money voted by parliament to this "prodigal son" was not applied to the purpose for which it was granted. Had a private individual so committed himself, he would have become the outcast of his family, while all the virtuous part of the community had instantly avoided him; but in the case of this prince, where the example was ten thousand times more

[[231]]contagious, such a flagrant breach of faith and such base ingratitude hardly received the slightest animadversion! Why should more indulgence have been shewn to this man, whose peculiar duty it was to respect popular favour, and to act in such a manner as to deserve it, and from whose exalted station the public had a right to expect lessons of morality and virtue, than to a private person, whose deviation from their rules only produces partial effects, and can be of no detriment to the community at large. How unjust it is, what an inversion of every fair and honourable principle, to suffer the bauble rank to afford a veil to moral depravity! To protect genius, to reward merit, and to relieve distress, is what ought to be the duty of a prince; but when the nation was called on to liquidate immense debts, without a single instance of this kind on record to justify such a perversion of their money, it was perfidy to the public, and not a warranted liberality towards the prince, for any parliament to do so. Such conduct, indeed, would not have been tolerated had not the professed representatives of England (who were the nominees of a haughty and unfeeling aristocracy) put it beyond the remedy of the majority of the people. At the periods to which we now refer, the most disgraceful sums were also voted for the repairs and embellishments of Brighton Pavilion, Windsor Castle, Windsor Cottage, (so called) the Palace at Pimlico, and other fanciful buildings of royalty. The money required for these purposes, be it remembered, was drained from a heavily-oppressed

[[232]]people, whose industry, economy, and honesty were, in the aggregate, without a parallel. But it is a serious fact, that, from the accession of George the Third to the death of George the Fourth, the royal expenditure was ninety-two millions, ninety thousand, eight hundred, and seven pounds! Yet, in this amount, the salaries and official emoluments of the royal dukes are not included from the year 1815. We cannot help contrasting the evil done with the benefits that might have been bestowed by this money. What a fund it had made to lessen the hardships imposed upon the poor!—to mitigate the sufferings of the mechanic!—and to lighten the burdens of the honest citizen! Instead of which, it was expended merely to gratify pride and vice. The delight of doing good was the last sentiment for consideration; and though a vast field was open for the exercise of benevolence, yet the offices of real greatness were always neglected by George the Fourth and the greater part of his family.

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Having now brought our history down to the providential release of England by the death of George the Fourth, we cannot part company with our readers before taking a general survey of the lamentable truths it contains. Authors have too often demeaned themselves by concealing facts, and, instead of being historians of an action, have proved themselves the mere lawyers of a party; they are retained by their principles, and bribed by their interests; their narrations are an opening of their case, and in front of their histories, therefore, ought to be written—"I am for the defendant," or "I am for the plaintiff." With such unworthy writers, we should be ashamed to claim affinity. Our unflinching exposures have been made with no sinister motives; for we have dared to brave prosecutions and persecutions, despising the bribes and defying the hate of the minions of power! Our's is the cause, the righteous cause, of the insulted and harassed classes,—the real productors of the national wealth,—who have so long endured the galling yoke of oppression. The time, however, is now fast approaching when fallacious speeches must yield precedence to solid reasoning, when honest governments must supersede systems of despotism, when vice must be recognized and punished in the case of the prince as well as in that of the peasant; when superior talents must be permitted to occupy superior stations; when individuals, most

[[234]]suited to serve the real interests of the kingdom, will be solicited to guide the helm of state; when all policy, opposed to freedom, will be annihilated; when interested men will be compelled to quit their seats in the councils, and weak men be afraid to venture another trial; when he who has the heart of a coward, or the spirit of a sycophant, will not dare to present himself for the suffrages of a free people! Yes, we repeat, such an era is at hand, and "the people" of England are about to enjoy that liberty and happiness, from which they have unjustly been debarred by the cruel and haughty hand of tyranny. An unjust government, whether professing Whig or Tory principles, will vainly attempt to stop this march of liberty by raising the old bugbear cry of—"Anarchy and confusion will be the consequences of entrusting the people with their political rights and privileges!" Such an unnatural doctrine has been held far too long by the titled and wealthy mortality of our land, who are not contented with enjoying the great advantages of rank and property, whether hereditary or acquired, but seem, by their behaviour, determined to prevent their less-fortunate brethren from tasting the happiness which would arise from a possession of their political rights. The tyrannical nature of such characters, unsatisfied with the elevation which their birth or fortune has given them, wish to trample on their "inferiors," and to force them still lower in the scale of intelligent beings. Contemptible proud men, thus to insult those who

[[235]]minister to their luxuries and their wealth! Such vain conduct, however, will never fail to excite the honest indignation of all who can think and feel, and who are remote from the sphere of corrupting influence. It is not only most highly culpable in a moral view, but extremely dangerous in a political. It arises from the hateful spirit of despotism, and, if not timely checked by the people, must soon become universal. A spirit of this nature would allow no rights to the poor but those which cannot be taken away,—the rights of mere animal nature. Such a spirit hates "the people," and would gladly annihilate all of them but those who administer to pride and luxury, either as menial servants, dependent tradesmen, or mechanics,—or common soldiers, ready to shed the blood of those who might render themselves obnoxious to their lordly tyrants. Notwithstanding such contempt of "the people," however, these mighty of the land think they are entitled to represent them in parliament; yet what can be expected from such proud men but that they should be as servilely mean and obsequious to a minister as they are cruel and unfeeling in their behaviour to the poor of their vicinity? By such behaviour, the ARISTOCRATS attempt to form a little world of their own, where Folly and Vanity reign supreme, but where Virtue, Learning, and Usefulness are alike unknown. The grand secret of its constitution is to claim dignity, distinction, power, and place, exclusively, without the painful labour of deserving either by personal merit, or by services

[[236]]to the commonwealth. They talk and laugh loud, applauding each other's self-complacency, and would not be supposed to cast an eye on the "inferior crowd," whose admiration, nevertheless, they are at the same time courting by every silly effort of pragmatical vanity! Men of this cast pay no more, and frequently not so much, as other people; yet they strangely conceive themselves privileged to treat tradesmen,—certainly respectable when honest, sober, and industrious,—as if they were not of the same flesh and blood with "gentlemen," but to be ranked with the ass and the swine. Such proud pretenders to superiority consider the world was only made for them, while their families and their houses must studiously be kept from plebeian contamination. This aristocratical insolence is also visible even at church,—in the immediate presence of Him who made high and low, rich and poor, and where the gilded and painted ornaments on the walls seem to mock the folly of all human pride. The pew of "the great man" is raised above the others, and furnished with curtains, adorned with linings, and accommodated with cushions. Even those who do not bow at the name of Jesus are yet expected to make their lowly obeisance to the lord in the gallery! However indifferent such mighty persons may feel towards religion, they are still zealous for the church; for this is useful, not only in providing genteely for their poorer relations and dependants, but as an engine to KEEP DOWN THE PEOPLE! The temporalities and splendours of the

[[237]]"established" church endear it to them; but, if it had continued in its primitive state, when poor fishermen were its bishops, how differently would they have viewed it!

Against principles so dangerous and hostile to liberty, every friend of his country will not hesitate to shew a determined opposition. The poorer part of mankind,—that is, "the people,"—when they are not blinded by ignorance, in which the "great ones" have always endeavoured to keep them, may safely be entrusted with political power. "The people" have lately been presented with a proof of the selfish motives of these "great ones," which have done wonders in opening their eyes to the degraded condition in which they have so long been held, and the natural consequences of such enlightenment are rapidly being made known in language not to be misunderstood. They begin to view themselves as essential parts of one great body; they are therefore determined to possess an equal portion of political rights, and peaceably possess them; for they are too sensible not to be aware that all violence is not only wrong, but totally unnecessary to accomplish this end. If our exposition of the long-hidden things of darkness, as well as of the characters of their oppressors, should assist in producing this happy consummation, our reward will be ample; we desire no more.

In taking a review of our past pages, the intelligent reader will hardly wonder at the awful complexion the present times have assumed. Every

[[238]]evil has its origin, and, however remote it may be, will ultimately produce its effects. What, then, it may be asked, is the cause of the present unhappy state of England,—of its political struggles and divisions? Have they not been mainly produced by the long-concealed secrets of state, which have, alas! led to the commission of crimes—of murders—that must force the tear of pity from the eye of compassionating humanity?

According to the pure fabric of the British constitution, no nation on the surface of the globe ought to have been more happy, more consolidated in friendly intercourse and good understanding, nor more prosperous and contented, than this country. But, from the time of Queen Anne, the state has been gradually retrograding and divided into two aristocratical parties,—Whigs and Tories,—whose watch-words were principles, (which might be said to be constitutionally attached to opposition or place) but whose struggles have ever been for power. The spirit of party has been said to furnish aliment to the spirit of liberty; and so perhaps it does, but in this way: by first creating the despotism which it is the office of the spirit of liberty to counteract, and, if possible, to overthrow. If there had never been the party of the usurpers and abusers of power, there would have been no occasion for that of the leaguers and reformers. It is of necessity that party spirit must, on the whole, have done more harm than good, since assuredly it has raised more giants than it has yet slain. All

[[239]]party spirit, generally speaking, is injurious. It has been truly denounced by one of the greatest friends of freedom the world has ever seen,—the illustrious Washington,—as "the very worst enemy of popular governments." In his farewell address to the American people, he earnestly warns them against it as the thing from which, of all others, they had most to fear. "It serves always," he tells them, "to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one class against another; foments, occasionally, riots and insurrections; it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself, through the channels of party passions." All party ascendencies have this character in common: that they serve to make the interests of the country subordinate to private ends. It is the established mode with dominant factions to distribute the loaves and fishes among their own adherents exclusively,—they could not, in fact, exist as factions otherwise. Worth and talent are no farther regarded than is necessary for the saving of appearances. The sort of followers whom your party minister delights to honour are those who will stick at nothing, who will stand by a leader through thick and thin, who will never consider the right or wrong of any thing, but support whatever their patron supports, and resist to the utmost whenever he gives the word,—men, in short, who are prepared to look only to

[[240]]their own and their party's advantage, without at all caring how the interests of the community at large may be affected by their conduct. Ever since the revolution of 1688, England has never been free from the trammels of some such dominant faction or other; and what have been the consequences? One long course of misgovernment, one unceasing heaping of burdens on the people, and of pensions and sinecures on the aristocracy,—one unvarying round of oppression, plunder, murder, corruption, and extravagance. Whether it was Tory or whether it was Whig that was in power, the result to the people was almost always the same. If the Whigs have, on the whole, been less to blame than their rivals, it is to be remembered, on the other hand, that their opportunities of doing evil have been fewer. However the two parties may differ, or affect to differ, on general principles of government, they have always agreed marvellously on one point, namely: the perfect propriety of making the most of their time while in office, to enrich themselves, their relations, and dependants, at the expense of the nation[240:A]. Thus, public opinion has long been the opinion of certain coteries, and public men, generally speaking, men neither brought forward by the public, nor for the sake of the public! It has been thought necessary that some one should make such a speech

[[241]]as would "tell well," and procure a round of cheers from the House. If such an individual could be found with a large landed estate and a coronet entailed upon him, so much the better; if not, why he must be sought for elsewhere. A school or college reputation, an able pamphlet, a club or county-meeting oration, pointed him out. The minister, or the great man who wished to be the minister, brought him into parliament: if he failed, he sank into insignificance; if he succeeded, he worked for his master during a certain time, and then became a minister or a great man himself. As for the people, he had nothing whatever to do with them; they returned some jolly 'squire, who feasted them well, or some nabob who purchased their votes. Under such a state of things, cheerfully acquiesced in, we say, it is hardly to be wondered at that what are called "the people" should have been very much plundered and very much despised. Were this base party spirit only banished from among us, were all party badges, watchwords, and distinctions, only discarded for ever, were superior talent and tried integrity but once to become the sole passports to preferment, our social system would then be placed on the very best possible footing. The time of so desirable a consummation, we hope and trust, is not far distant; though we are still in the midst of the manifold evils of which the so-much-lauded party spirit has been the source, and we must necessarily deal with matters as they are. Tory is again

[[242]]contending against Whig for the mastery, and with both the real interests of the people seem, as usual, to form only a secondary consideration. A greater proof of this cannot possibly be offered than in the following extract from a late parliamentary report:

"Mr. Dawson, in reference to the appointment of Lord Durham to be lord privy seal, asked whether any portion of the salary due to the noble lord from the time of his appointment to this period had been paid, or whether he had made any application for the payment of this salary. He wished to know the same with respect to the post-master-general.

"Sir George Warrender said, that when the noble lord had found that his was an efficient public office, he had determined to take the salary. When the duke stated his determination not to take the salary, there was upon the part of the committee the general expression of an opinion that the noble duke, in so doing, would be unfair to the office. The committee communicated to him that he would be doing great injustice to the office.

"Mr. J. Wood corroborated the statement of the honourable baronet, both with respect to the Duke of Richmond and of Lord Durham.

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that Lord Durham had received a regular salary. The Duke of Richmond intended also to receive the whole of his salary. He was sure that every honourable member would agree with him in thinking that it was not proper, because an individual had a large income, that he should refuse his salary. Under these circumstances, he thought that both his noble friends did not judge right."

We can readily anticipate the surprise the public must have felt at the nonsensical and unjust doctrine here broached by the Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer. A man in the possession of a large income was doing injustice to an office if he refused to take the salary pertaining to it, though such salary was

[[243]]drained from a heavily-taxed people! But it is really wonderful how much a little acquaintance with office will alter the liberal and patriotic opinions of a man,—even of that boaster of economy and retrenchment, the honest-looking Lord Althorpe! When Lord Durham and the Duke of Richmond first accepted place, the public heard much of their high-minded contempt for gain, and were told how purely disinterested were their views on entering the public service. Time, however, proved that money was not altogether so offensive to these patriotic peers, and to avoid doing injustice to their offices, they at length consented (amazing condescension!) to receive their salaries. Such an act of justice to an office, which cannot be appreciated by the object, is in very bad taste, considering it is detrimental to the public, who would have felt grateful for a similar regard to its own interests. But the Duke of Richmond's conduct by no means surprised us: he who is only a Tory in disguise was just the man to pretend a contempt for salary before he was in place, and to clutch at it ravenously the moment he got into power. Some persons, when he first spoke of taking no pay, laughed at his unfitness for office, and he was strongly advised to resign, as he got nothing but ridicule for his pains. His grace heeded not this rebuke, but appears to have been actuated by the same feeling as the blind fiddler, who was recommended to begone, as every one laughed at him. "Hold thy peace," said the fiddler, "we

[[244]]shall have their money presently, and then we will laugh at them."

Thus it will be seen that the interests of the people have never been considered by any ministry, however great its pretensions to honesty and patriotism. Added to this lamentable fact, an all-opposing and insuperable obstacle has, for many years, been obtruding itself on the energies of the country,—the embarrassing and overwhelming STATE SECRETS. These have ever formed a paramount consideration with royalty; and, in order to prevent them being made public, the constitution has been openly and shamelessly infringed, morality and honesty set at defiance, and the order of society reversed! The enormous charges entailed on this country, by bribing the parties in possession of these secrets, have been made fully manifest in our preceding pages. Still it had been utterly impossible for ministers to carry on such a ruinous system of peculation and crime, if they had not contrived the corruption of the people's representatives. This was so effectually accomplished by Pitt, Liverpool, Castlereagh, and Sidmouth, that every law they thought proper to propose, and every supply of money they demanded, for whatever iniquitous purpose it might be required, was sure to meet with the ready acquiescence of the House of Commons. Hence the crown became a mighty host of power, perpetually acquiring an accession of purchased adherents, who ever exhibited the greatest readiness to accomplish

[[245]]the unconstitutional purposes of their abandoned employers.

It may here not be improper succinctly to explain of what materials this "host of power" consisted at the death of George the Fourth. Out of the six hundred and fifty-eight who composed the House of Commons, four hundred and eighty-eight, or nearly three-fourths, were returned by the influence or nomination of one hundred and forty-four peers, and one hundred and twenty-three commoners. These patrons, by themselves or their nominees, necessarily determined the decisions of both houses of parliament; and, consequently, engrossed the whole power of the state! In the exercise of this overgrown influence, however, they were happily a little restrained by the operation of public opinion, as prompted by the liberty of the press, and sustained by the trial by jury,—both of which they, in vain, attempted to destroy. This body of boroughmongers, as we have shewn, consisted of two hundred and sixty-seven individuals,—including lords, ladies, commoners, lunatics, and minors! They constituted the oligarchy,—that selfish faction so unhappily familiar to the public of the present day by the name of the "Conservatives," or the "Cumberland Club." Of this faction, so long the keepers of the now-explained secrets of state, the nominal ministers of the crown were, in effect, necessarily the tools or agents. Under such a monstrous system of government, carried on for the exclusive interest of the prevailing faction, the blackest deeds

[[246]]were countenanced by men in power, of the truth of which our volumes will furnish future generations with abundant proof. This usurpation of the whole power of the state by two hundred and sixty-seven persons, however, was not effected suddenly; it was the result of gradual encroachments on the right of suffrage by a succession of the votes of a corrupt and venal House of Commons, commencing with the septennial act, a little more than a century ago. As these two hundred and sixty-seven individuals returned nearly three-fourths of the Lower House, and constituted a majority in the Upper, their influence was supreme in both. To the one hundred and forty-four peers who influenced the House of Commons was added the whole tribe of the unchristianlike and ostentatious bishops, who, almost to a man, voted with the oligarchial members, in hopes of coming in for a share of the "loaves and fishes." From this, it is almost impossible to say which house of parliament was most corrupt of the two. Hence arose the incessant attempts to abridge the rights and liberties of the people, through the forms of the constitution. The independence of parliament became words of contempt to all who knew the secret spring of their automaton movements. But, independent of corruption, another grievous cause of complaint exists in the Upper House. It has been frequently proved that both IDIOTS and LUNATICS have exercised their "hereditary" right of assisting in the making of British laws!!! We also lately observed, in the farewell

[[247]]address of Lord Stanley, who is heir to a peerage, the reason assigned to his constituents for withdrawing from the House of Commons was, "the rapid growth of an infirmity under which he has long laboured." That infirmity is deafness; and here arises a curious question: if his lordship's infirmity disqualify him from sitting in a house whose functions are legislatorial, how can he be qualified for a seat in a house which is both legislatorial and judicial? If his lordship's deafness unfit him to be a maker of laws, how can he, when he becomes a member of the Upper House, be fit for the discharge of the duties both of legislator and judge,—HEARING, in the latter case, being more indispensable than in the former? How injurious is the doctrine of the legitimate descent of wisdom! A member of the Lower House becomes deaf, like Lord Stanley, or an idiot, like some scores of members who shall be nameless, and therefore unfit for the duties of legislation there; but if he happen to be the heir to a peerage, the death of a father makes the deaf to hear, and imbues the idiot with intellect; and he is in a moment fitted not only for legislatorial but for judicial functions! How much longer will the people tolerate such "hereditary" privileges? But, even from the dawn of the French revolution, and the lesson which Napoleon gave to tyrants, the oligarchy and the people have maintained a constant and increasing struggle; and the year 1832 has plainly proclaimed to which party the victory will be ultimately awarded.

[[248]]From such an unconstitutional state of things as we have here briefly described, Englishmen may account for the unjust wars which have overwhelmed them with debt, poverty, and taxes, in order to retard the progress of liberty, and stultify the human intellect. In what a miserable plight did such wars leave this vast island, covered as she once was with the gorgeous mantle of successful agriculture! They left her "with Industry in rags, and Patience in despair: the merchant without a ledger, the shops without a customer, the Exchange deserted, and the Gazette crowded." Let us inquire for what purposes these wars were so obstinately maintained. Were they for the benefit of Europe?—for the happiness of mankind?—for the strengthening of liberty?—for the improvement of politics and philosophy? Alas! no. But, by these long and bloody wars, England has compelled the millions in America to manufacture for themselves, and the greater part of the Continent to do the same, to the manifest injury of our own artizans. Besides this impolicy, the American war, from 1776 to 1782, cost this country two thousand, two hundred, and seventy millions, and a half. The fleet alone, in 1779, created an expense of one hundred and eighty millions. During the crusade against French liberty, our national debt was increased from two hundred millions to nine hundred millions, and the interest from nine to forty-five millions per annum. And what was the object to be obtained by this war? To save Louis the Sixteenth, and to check that

[[249]]spirit of propagandism, announced in the French Chamber, from being formidably maintained and spread by the troops of France. To effect this, England took up arms when Louis the Sixteenth had gone to his ancestors, and when the Republican armies, flushed with victory, and threatened with the guillotine in the event of defeat, were become, from raw recruits, desperate and veteran soldiers. We reserved our defence of the monarch till he had perished on the scaffold,—our defence of the monarchy till the French Republic was declared "a besieged city, and France a vast camp!" Then we commenced a war with allies who were become anxious for peace, and who, in taking our money, reserved it to pay the expense of the campaign they had finished, without any consideration for the violent inclination for fighting which we had just been seized with. This was the policy which Mr. Pitt asked Mr. Canning if he approved of; this was the policy which Mr. Canning came into parliament to defend, and which he did defend on every occasion, and which he always boasted having defended to his dying day! But it is only a person well acquainted with the House of Commons at this period who could believe that Mr. Canning's defence of such ministerial imbecility received enthusiastic applause! There never was a collection of more glaring contradictions, more gaudy sophisms, than the youthful orator's declamatory harangue. The war was to be pursued because we were victorious; peace was to be refused on account of the successes of the enemy;

[[250]]France was too weak to be respected,—too formidable not to be opposed! As for the sums we were expending, they were insignificant when compared with the objects we had in view. Our ancestors, whose immaculate wisdom Mr. Canning was at that time so fond of citing, would certainly have been astonished to find that those objects were the re-establishment of Spain in its ancient power, and the subjugation of Rome to the authority of the Pope! The heart of any reflecting man must burn within him when he thinks that a sanguinary war was undertaken for the purpose of forcing France out of her undoubted right of choosing her own monarch,—a war which uprooted the very foundation of the English constitution, which declared tyranny eternal, and announced to the people, amidst the thunder of artillery, that, no matter how aggrieved, their only allowable attitude was that of supplication, which, when it told the French reformer of 1793 that his defeat was just, told the British reformer of 1688 his triumphal revolution was treason, forgetting that OUR KING HIMSELF WAS THE CREATURE OF THAT REVOLUTION! After an immense loss of life and treasure, the Bourbons were, for a time, restored to the throne of France, contrary to the wishes of at least nine-tenths of the French people; for the Bourbons had proved themselves incapable of learning Mercy from Misfortune, or Wisdom from Experience. Vindictive in prosperity, servile in defeat, timid in the field, vacillating in the cabinet, their very name had become odious to the

[[251]]ears of a Frenchman, and Napoleon had only to present himself to ensure their precipitate flight. The downfall of that great man, who shed a splendour around royalty unknown to it before, will ever be regretted by the majority of the French people, though British ministers have classed the unhallowed act in the list of their achievements! By the same tyrannical means, a prince was restored to Portugal, who, when his dominions were invaded, his people distracted, his crown in danger, and all that could interest the highest energies of man at issue, left his cause to be combatted by foreigners, and fled, with cowardly precipitation, to claim the shameful protection of Lord Castlereagh and his junta! A wretch was also restored to unhappy Spain, in the person of the "beloved" Ferdinand, who filled his dungeons and fed his rack with the heroic remnant that had braved war, famine, and massacre beneath his banners,—who rewarded Patriotism with a prison, Fidelity with torture, Heroism with the scaffold, and Piety with the inquisition! The royal monster proclaimed his humanity by the number of his death-warrants, and his religious zeal by embroidering petticoats for the blessed virgin! Such were the three dynasties restored by these cruel wars. As to the rest of Europe, how has it been ameliorated?—what solitary benefit have the "deliverers" conferred? If we look back to Lord Castlereagh's treaties of 1814 and 1815, we shall there find that the states of the feeble were given to the powerful, and guarantees made to preserve the institutions of

[[252]]every former tyranny. Saxony, Genoa, Norway, and, above all, unhappy Poland,—that speaking monument of regal murder and "legitimate" robbery, furnish a lamentable illustration of the cruel injustice of these treaties. Italy was also parcelled out to temporizing Austria, and Prussia, after fruitless toil and wreathless triumphs, was mocked with the promise of a visionary constitution; while England was left, eaten by the cancer of an incurable debt, exhausted by poor rates, supporting a "civil" list of near a million and a half annually, guarded by an unconstitutional standing army, misrepresented by the House of Commons, mocked with a military peace, and girt with the fortifications of a war establishment!!! This, frightful as the picture may appear, is but an outline of the miseries that have been produced by our long and sanguinary wars, undertaken to protect the monster of legitimacy, and to crush the rising liberties of an enlightened people! These are the "ACHIEVEMENTS" for which the Duke of Wellington received his title and his enormous wealth, and for which he unblushingly claims the gratitude of Englishmen!!!

While all this misery was being accomplished abroad, how were our ministers employed at home? Why, in feeding the bloated mammoth of sinecure, in weighing the farthings of some poor clerk's salary, in preparing Ireland for a garrison, and England for a poor-house,—in furnishing means for their spendthrift master to erect Chinese palaces, to decorate dragoons with his "tasteful" inventions, to purchase

[[253]]gold and silver baubles, and to load his mistresses and his minions with the produce of the people's industry! We had also, at this period, a "saint" in the Exchequer, who studied Scripture for some purpose: the famishing people cried out for bread, and the pious Vansittart gave them stones! But the idea that a man like Vansittart should entail a debt of above four hundred millions of pounds on the country; the idea that "the least, the meanest" of the Pitt tribe should make the House of Commons vote that the Bank note, worth twenty worn shillings, was as valuable as the guinea worth twenty-seven good ones, will hardly be credited by future generations. The weakest man that ever held office under a crown may well boast that he reduced the parliament of England to the lowest degradation, to the most abject servility, that a public assembly of gentlemen was ever trodden to. Yet, strange as it must appear, it was for such services that this same Vansittart was created—a lord!! Lord Bexley was consequently sent to the "Upper House," as a proof of the high approbation in which his talents were held by his admiring master! In that situation, he has since zealously exerted himself to preserve every existing abuse, and his ill-acquired title has ever figured in the list of those who vote against the people.

To keep up such an iniquitous state of affairs, it was deemed necessary to persecute those who struggled to bring back the constitution to its original principles. Hence the employment of spies and

[[254]]informers; hence systematic massacre, imprisonment, and cruelty; hence the regular manufacture of forged seditious placards for the purpose of affording a pretext for the military execution against the reformers at Manchester and elsewhere; and hence, for such atrocities could happen under no other system upon earth, the murders, the cold-blooded murders, recorded in our preceding pages.

Even the most superficial observer must be convinced that our country has long been gradually degenerating from its greatness, that the most fictitious and speculative means have uniformly been devised to prop her exchequer, and that the most plausible, though, to many, unintelligible, pleas advanced for introducing new taxes and new laws of an arbitrary description, tending to abridge the civil liberties and paralyze the energies of the people. These, however, have eventually failed of producing their desired end. Despotism, and the total thraldom of the mind, Providence will never allow to be the destiny of generous and noble-minded Englishmen,—at least for any length of time. An arbitrary use of power naturally leads to extremes, and these extremes eventually to a crisis, opening the door of dissatisfaction and inquiry, where a stand must be made, rescinding every possibility either of proceeding or of retreating. Is not such our present political situation? And whence, let us again inquire, arises this state of affairs? Surely not to be ascribed to a turbulent disposition or a moral degeneracy of the working classes. It is the grossest

[[255]]deceit and hypocrisy, not to say the most audacious and ungrateful calumny, to stigmatize them with such opprobrium; for never were any people more injured, more oppressed, nor more insulted, than were the tax-payers of England during the last two reigns! Ministers have too long imposed upon the credulity of the timid, by describing every riotous proceeding as the natural consequence of the progress of liberal opinions. The excesses of a few rioters, who most probably knew not the extent of the mischief they were doing, ought not to be attributed to the people generally. Such accusations are a gross libel on the peaceable spirit of Englishmen, and are only used by corrupt and designing men to raise an alarm against liberty; for mischief of this kind may be attributed, with more certainty, to the cowardice, folly, and wickedness of certain public functionaries, liberally paid to prevent such disgraceful exhibitions. But the "church and state" men have never failed to turn riots to the illustration of their own injurious theory. "See!" cry they, exulting over the scene, "the effects of power in the hands of the people!" Yet the people,—that is, the grand mass of the community,—were not at all concerned in effecting the mischief, for who beside such libellers would call an assemblage of all the refuse of society—the people? The first irregularities at Bristol, for instance, might have been suppressed by the slightest exertion of manly spirit; or, indeed, that destructive riot had never commenced but for the headstrong or cowardly, (we

[[256]]hardly know which to call it) conduct of Sir Charles Wetherell, who openly declared that he would insult the Bristol people with his detested person, "if a cannon forced his entrance!" Did not the Tories, then, we ask, both create and feed the riots at Bristol, for the purpose of frightening the people from reform? The people at large, we say, ought not to be blamed for such events; the whole of the culpability belongs to the aiders and abettors of them, and the appointed ministers of the law, in whom the people trust, but have mostly been deceived. This blame, however, has always been laid to the people, while all men of arbitrary principles rejoice at the calamity, as an auspicious event, confirming all their theories, and justifying their practice! But these have been some of the murderous means employed to augment and continue the political torpor of the people of England for the last sixty years. When any appeal to the people was in agitation on the subject of liberty, it was sufficient for Pitt, Liverpool, Castlereagh, Canning, Sidmouth, or any of their minions, to exclaim, "Remember the riots!" and the intended measure was sure to be relinquished immediately, when these despotic ministers chuckled over the success of their scheme, as though they had gained the most splendid victory. The excesses of the French revolution in 1793 were peculiarly grateful to the friends of tyranny in England. While the patriot wept, the factor of despotism triumphantly shouted, "Here is another instance of the people's unfitness to possess power, and the

[[257]]mischievous effects of excessive liberty!" Every art which ingenuity could practise, and influence assist in its operation, was exerted to vilify and misrepresent the real design of the French revolution. From this moment, persecutions were vigorously commenced against patriotism, and it became sedition to hint at parliamentary reform,—the root of the people's grievances. Never, since the expulsion of the Stuarts, were such vigorous laws enforced,—never before did Pitt so exult in the downfall of liberty. He and his followers no longer skulked, no longer walked in masquerade. They boasted of their principles, and claimed the honour of being the only friends to law, order, and religion! They talked of the English laws being too lenient for the punishment of sedition, and the acts consequently introduced for its more effectual suppression were made agreeable to the most refined notions of despotism. The clergy now stood forward in their pulpits, and preached, not the word of God, but that doctrine which led the nearest way to promotion, while many other needy and avaricious men wrote in favour of an arbitrary government. Thus fear in the well-meaning, self-interest in the knavish, and systematic subtlety among the state-secret keepers, caused a general uproar in favour of principles and practices at variance with constitutional liberty, and invested the reigning prince and his mother with all but absolute power. How zealously they took advantage of this state of alarm, our volumes fully explain. The friends of humanity, however, have now cause

[[258]]to rejoice that the film of deception is rapidly disappearing from before the eyes of the people, and that such panic fears, servile sycophantism, and artful bigotry, can no longer prevail over cool reason and liberal philanthropy. Such a feverish delirium has passed away, and sober sense perceives the necessity of destroying the destructive power which held so baneful a sway over English liberty during the last two reigns.

Let our readers also not forget the part which the "established church" acted during this long period of misrule. How many of its ministers sacrificed principle and honesty for the pleasure of basking in the sunshine of the vicious court! Gold was the only god they worshipped, and the political creed of tyrants the only testament they read. Ministerial imbecility could always reckon upon their "holy" services, and, in proportion to the callousness and hypocrisy displayed, they were rewarded with bishopricks, deaneries, and other such well-paid offices,—the duties of which they allowed their poorer brethren to perform at wages something less than a common labourer. It is indeed hardly to be credited that in haughty England, who held up her episcopal head so pompously during the reigns of which we are speaking,—in this very country which groaned, and is still groaning, beneath the overwhelming expenses of keeping up a church establishment,—that the real "labourers in the vineyard" were paid so scantily, that their wages, in thousands of instances, did not amount to those of a journeyman

[[259]]mechanic! Yes, in the very heart of this metropolis were to be found men, on whom the fond and foolish ambition of their parents had been exhausted in bringing them up in this profession, who possessed learning and intellectual refinement, starving in back attics, in filthy courts and alleys. This miserable state of the working clergy was not confined to London alone. In many parts of this country (Wales in particular) it was no uncommon thing for a clergyman, with seven children, to do duty for two parishes, at only ten pounds a year each! And we ourselves are acquainted with a gentleman, sixty-four years of age, who was in the church more than forty years, receiving no sort of promotion during the whole of that long period, because he entertained what are termed "liberal principles," and who has lately been obliged to retire from his scanty pittance, and throw himself on the generosity of his friends for a living in his old age.

Let us now take a glance at the drones of the hive,—the men who have ever shewn a peculiar readiness to make themselves a promotion-ladder out of the wreck of their country's liberties. The income of an Archbishop of Canterbury, exclusive of patronage and other valuable emoluments, is thirty thousand pounds. Most of the bishops are also paid, if not quite so extravagantly, in a degree amply sufficient to keep his grace in countenance. Many beneficed clergymen, particularly the younger sons and brothers of our aristocracy, who are not

[[260]]dignitaries of the church, by holding a plurality of livings, drain the country of incomes, varying from five thousand to twelve thousand pounds a year each. And yet these men neither distinguish themselves (although, as in every large class of society, there are honourable and favourable exceptions) either for their grace, learning, or piety,—the only qualification which they possess being the son, brother, nephew, or cousin of a peer, or commoner possessed of parliamentary influence.

A very able article lately appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine," setting forth the abuses here alluded to in such a clear and bold manner, that we cannot refrain from making the following extract from it:

"The trusts of the church are admitted to be, and used as, patronage in the most vulgar and corrupt sense of the term; and the minister of state who bestows them regularly does it to enrich his connexions, reward his adherents, or bribe his opponents. Why is this man made a bishop? He has been tutor in one noble family or is connected by blood with another, or he enjoys the patronage of some polluted female favourite of royalty, or he is the near relative of a minister, or at the nod of the premier, or he has been a traitor to the church in a matter affecting her existence. Why is this man made a dean? He has married a relative of the home secretary, or he is a turn-coat, who has joined the enemies of the church in the

[[261]]destruction of her securities, or it is necessary to preserve some powerful family from going into the opposition. Why is this stripling invested with an important dignity in the church? He is an illegitimate son of a member of the royal family, or he is the same to some nobleman, or he belongs to a family, which in consideration of it will give the ministry a certain number of votes in parliament. And why is this man endowed with a valuable benefice? He has potent interest, or it will prevent him from giving farther opposition to measures for injuring the church, or he has voted at an election for a ministerial candidate, or his connexions have much electioneering influence, or he is a political tool of the ministry. At the contest for the university of Oxford, which expelled Sir Robert Peel, it was generally asserted, that certain members of the ministry used every effort to gain votes for him by offers of church preferment; or, in other words, they used the property of the church as bribes to induce the clergy to support the assailant of her securities against the defender of them. After the carrying of the catholic question, the preferments, which fell into the hands of some of the apostate bishops or their connexions, proved that these men had been bought with their own property to turn their sacrilegious hands upon her. The disposal of what is called church patronage in this manner is not the exception, but the rule; it is not a matter of secrecy, or one that escapes public observation; it is looked on as a thing of course; and so far has

[[262]]this monstrous abuse been sanctified by custom, that while no one expects to see a vacancy in the church filled according to its merit, the filling of it in the most profligate way scarcely provokes reprobation.

"Let us now look at those appointments in the church which are not in the hands of government. A great number of livings are private property. On what principle are they disposed of? The owners fill them without the least regard for qualification; they practically give them to their relations while yet in the womb or the cradle, and these relatives enter into orders from no other reason than to enjoy them as private fortunes; or clergymen and others buy such livings solely for private benefit. In the appointment of curates, those are chosen who are cheapest, the least formidable as rivals, and, in consequence, the most disqualified; care for the interests of the church is out of the question.

"Then in the general appointment of the functionaries of the church, whether it rest with the government or individuals, qualification is disregarded. These are some of the inevitable consequences:—1st. The office of clergyman is sought by the very last people who ought to receive it. However brainless or profligate a youth may be, he still must enter into holy orders, because his friends have property or interest in the church; perhaps they select him for it in preference to his brothers, because he happens to be the dunce of the family. 2ndly. The system directly operates, not only to keep ability and piety

[[263]]at the lowest point amidst the clergy, but to render that portion of them which may be forced into orders useless to the church. 3rdly. The clergy and laity are separated from and arranged against each other. The minister has no interest in conciliating, preserving, and increasing the flock; its favour cannot benefit, and its hostility cannot injure, him. To give all this the most comprehensive powers of mischief, almost any man may, so far as concerns ability and character, gain admission into holy orders. A clergyman may be destitute of religious feelings, he may be grossly immoral, he may discharge his duties in the most incompetent manner, and lose his flock; he may do almost any thing short of legal crime, and still he will neither forfeit his living, nor draw on himself any punishment."

All unbiassed individuals must acknowledge the likeness of the picture here drawn, notwithstanding the high Tory quarter from which it is painted. We are willing to acknowledge that these abuses have been practised ever since the unholy alliance between church and state; but they were certainly carried to a greater extent in the last two reigns than previously known. The whole church-system, indeed, presented this anomalous, inconsistent, but distinguishing feature: while the country was drained for its support, the actual working clergy, as we have shewn, were paid as the most degraded parish hacks; when the enormous revenue which the system produced, and which was amply sufficient

[[264]]to support the whole, by a proper equalization, in comfort and respectability, was swallowed up by a few court-sycophants, who were pampered by the very excess produced by the starvation and degradation of their less fortunate (or more conscientious?) brethren! Little serious amendment in the particulars here complained of, however, can be reasonably expected, till this all-corrupting and derogatory alliance of God and mammon shall be severed; for never have we so much cause for fear as when the enemies of public freedom are concealed under the garb of sanctity. The spiritual peers themselves seem fully determined to hasten this "consummation so devoutly to be wished;" for they must have but little foresight if they cannot see that their mad opposition to the wishes of a united and determined people will, ere long, bring their already dilapidated building about their own ears.

Every person who will not abjectly resign his common understanding, and will bend his mind to investigate, IMPARTIALLY, what has been passing ever since the landing of Queen Charlotte upon our shores, must be satisfied of the bitter provocations which the British public have received,—the indignation arising from which has now burst forth, never to subside till some reparation be made. There are appointed limits to every evil; there are periods when things must reach their utmost boundary; when even forbearance becomes a crime. Such has been the issue of the long-concealed mysteries of

[[265]]state. Englishmen, we trust, will no more tolerate tyrannous power, murderous injustice, and oppressive enactments. The march of intellect has proclaimed her inquisitorial privileges; the enlightened understanding of the people of 1832 have discovered, to the utter dismay of tyranny, that no satisfactory reason can be assigned for the enormous load of taxation with which they have so long been oppressed. The discovery is now made, that there is no justice for the poor man, or man of inferior grade; but that all enactments have been scrupulously made in favour of the rich and the great. Impunity has been their privilege, while the mass of the community were forced to subscribe to the bitter penalty. Times have been, we are sorry to say, when even MURDER, if committed by rank, might be glossed over by a privy council, while the poor man, agonized by the reflections of his own accusing mind, was coldly, and even with asperity, consigned to the gallows! The lady of rank,—even of the highest,—might have an illegitimate offspring, and secretly hide her shame by consigning it to an asylum; but the poor woman, who had strayed from the path of virtue, through poverty, must be confronted with the moralizing, austere, brow-beating, clerical magistrate, reproached for her unfortunate lapse from rectitude, and be committed to the treadmill! Such an unequal administration of justice, we repeat, has been; but God grant that it may never occur again!

The present emancipation of the human mind

[[266]]from ignorance and vassalage, through the medium of dauntless and cheap publications, has discovered to all classes of the community that the administration of our national affairs have never been satisfactorily explained; that all has been artifice and delusion; that the rulers of the country have assumed to themselves an extraordinary stretch of power,—a power above law,—employing the country's revenues in enriching themselves, corrupting the sources of justice, and plotting schemes against the happiness of mankind generally. Hence, the people, weary of their burdens, with no prospect presented to them of having their condition ameliorated by their rulers, and disgusted with those who have so constantly deluded and insulted them, have at last been goaded into the exhibition of a determined spirit no longer to submit their privileges and their liberties to such a state of misrule. They have, indeed, as if with one accord, protested against all further fraud, imposition, and slavery. They are determined to have a parliament of their own selecting, and to demand that the principles and legitimate rights of the British constitution be restored to their pristine vigour.

It may here be proper to inquire, "Who and what are they that have so long opposed the just rights of the people?" Is there a member of the House of Lords who has been elevated to the peerage for the last sixty years and upwards, excepting some few individuals in the army and navy, who does not owe his wealth and title to his weight,

[[267]]interest, and exertions to further and perpetuate the corruption of the House of Commons, or for some courtly servility or secret crime committed to pamper the self-love, or to gratify the vindictive feelings, of their royal patrons? Let the facts recorded in our volumes supply the answer. The PEOPLE, however, are not now to be blinded with the glitter of nobility, or their ears startled by the pompous-sounding title of "My lord." They will rather view such ennobled characters in the light of enemies to their country, and pensioners on their industry. They have exhibited themselves as a proud, arbitrary, and selfish faction, leagued against the spirit of liberty, and anxious for nothing but their own individual aggrandizement. But as all unconstitutional power, sooner or later, is sure to over-reach itself, they have, by their exactions, frauds, and galling oppressions, sown the seeds of their own destruction. The people of England are naturally of an easy and contented disposition; but even their inherent generosity will not brook being treated exactly like the subjects of Russian Nicholas,—the assassin of the gallant Poles!

In recurring to the period of Queen Charlotte's tyranny, the enlightened mind must feel petrified at the callous delinquency displayed by her ministers. It is indeed hardly to be credited, that she should have found men,—we will not say English-men, because some were of another country,—so congenial to her own views and sentiments. To paint this German princess and her adherents in their proper

[[268]]colours would be impossible; but every crime and enormity was sanctioned in her reign (for George the Third was a mere cypher in the affairs of state) that crime and enormity can be supposed to comprehend; spoliation, murder, incest, espionage, sanguinary plottings, the most inhuman outrages, persecution, and oppression were of common occurrence. Who, we ask, was the secret contriver, aider, and abettor of most of the ills Queen Caroline endured? Who pocketted enormous sums from the illegal sale of cadetships? Who made unfair use of government information to speculate in the funds for the sake of "filthy lucre?" Who indulged in improper intimacies with that wholesale inventor of taxes, William Pitt? Who conceived some of the diabolical plots, executed, too fatally executed, against the holders of her favourite prince's bonds? And who wrote, as well as commanded to be written, such tender, comforting, and promising letters to the late Dr. Croft, just before and immediately after the execution of that cold-blooded deed,—the murder of Princess Charlotte? The answers will easily be supplied by the intelligent reader. But let us hope the day of retribution is fast approaching, when Justice will preside at the examination of all the circumstances attending that most unnatural act,—the foulest, blackest crime "that ever yet this land was guilty of." Had the secret actions of Queen Charlotte been generally known in her life, she would have appeared the basest and most abandoned of women; but the

[[269]]deception and shew of virtue which she so artfully practised made people think her the most amiable of queens. Had she not have shielded her myrmidons from exposure, they would, long ago, have appeared to the public eye as a class of beings of the basest and most odious description. Impeachment had followed impeachment, and the law would have denounced them as men who had violated every principle of honour, of humanity, and of Christianity!

Some of our readers may probably view these reproaches as unmerited aspersions, or hateful invectives, proceeding from a vindictive, malignant, and democratic spirit, and their author deserving to be anathematized as the most execrable of the human race. But Truth, irrefragable Truth, is our defence; she has now burst her bonds, and will no longer be prevented, by the threats of power, from boldly speaking out! Common observation, indeed, might have ascertained that the unnatural and usurped power, which so long controlled the destinies of this country, was of a foreign character, and totally at variance with the constitution and chartered rights of Englishmen! Did not Junius expose the illegality of this power? and did not the noble-minded Chatham remonstrate against it? But though Tyranny and Corruption trembled to their very centres at the attacks of these champions of liberty, the base fabricks remained unimpaired till the death of their mistress,—the puissant Charlotte of Mecklenburgh Strelitz!

[[270]]We come now more immediately to the consideration of those political transactions that ensued when the final incapacity of George the Third to discharge the duties of his sovereignty was made known. At this period, Queen Charlotte, in collusion with her hopeful son, the Prince of Wales, came into full power, which she exercised with a spirit truly in accordance with her restless ambition and mercenary desires. A system of despotism, veiled under the specious garb of piety and the country's safety, was immediately put in force; and new taxes levied under various pretences, but in reality for the purpose of bestowing wealth on her zealous adherents. Indeed, in every proposition of the "devourers of the public wealth," for increasing the amount of "SECRET-SERVICE MONEY," a zealous abettor was always found in the queen. German craft is never at a loss for deceptive plans, nor is German prejudice easily pacified. No machinations were too hideous, nor too infamous, when suggested by the one to gratify the other. If the queen and her son had gained what they strenuously endeavoured to obtain—ABSOLUTE POWER—who would not have justly felt alarm, not merely for the liberties of his country, but for his own individual safety? The proscriptions of the Roman Decemviri and the more recent and horrible cruelties of the French Robespierre are appalling instances of what people CAN DO when armed with absolute power. Had these guardians of the British public, therefore, but succeeded in obtaining such power,

[[271]]to what lengths they would have gone may be estimated by the crimes they actually did commit and countenance without it! Where would the voice of mercy have prevailed on them to sheath the sword of persecution? Their ministers, by distorting the constitution from its original meaning, presumed to tear Englishmen from the bosom of their families, without any assigned cause, loading them with irons, and immolating them in damp and dreary dungeons! Some actually died, horrible as the fact may appear, under this treatment, while the survivers were released without any investigation, without any trial whatever,—nay, without their even being made acquainted with the nature of the suspected offence,—and denied the slightest redress for their cruel injuries! Considering, we say, that such monstrous injustice was practised, it is not too much to suppose that, with absolute power, the same parties would have erected the triangle at the Royal Exchange and at the Mews! We might then have expected to see Englishmen running naked through the streets of London, with caps of burning pitch upon their heads, and blood streaming from their lacerated bodies, or observed them hanging on the lamp-posts, or before their burning dwellings! Did not these horrors actually take place in Ireland in the years 1797 and 1798, when the tyrannical Castlereagh held a public situation in that betrayed, forlorn, and persecuted country? At the very time these atrocities were committed in Ireland, spies,

[[272]]informers, executioners, and all the refuse of society, were employed as the principal instruments of Castlereagh's government; and when Queen Charlotte and her son made that Hibernian monster minister of this country, Castle, Oliver, and Edwards, with many other such wretches, shared the smiles and favours of himself and his colleagues.

The history of Caroline of Brunswick, in whose unhappy fate every person possessed of Christian feeling and principle must be interested, also fully evinces the hateful passions of Queen Charlotte's heart. That victim of a detestable conspiracy was the object of a sanguinary determination from the moment she so unhappily came over to this kingdom. Queen Charlotte, finding herself then defeated in the ambitious desire she had always cherished, that one of her own relations should be the future queen of England, became this noble-minded woman's most uncompromising and inveterate enemy. Into the highest favour and most unlimited confidence, her majesty now received the abandoned Lady Jersey, though she pretended, with so much austerity, to preserve the unsullied PURITY OF HER COURT; but this pretension was only made the better to impose upon the country, and to effect the destruction of the guiltless and unoffending niece of the king her husband! Her majesty, however, did not live to see such a wicked scheme accomplished.

[[273]]When the husband of the unfortunate Caroline attained, by the death of his father, to regal authority, surrounded by the titled hirelings of his own creation and the dependants on his bounty, he judged the opportunity peculiarly favourable to the final ruin of his long-persecuted consort. Every plot, therefore, that could be devised by a servile ministry and a corrupt parliament, was put into active operation for the purpose of depriving her of those constitutional rights which the demise of George the Third had entitled her to expect. The Duke of York stipulated with the king that, in the event of a divorce being granted, his majesty should not marry again,—otherwise, he threatened to take part with Queen Caroline! So much for the consistency, love of duty, and purity of motive, which the duke boasted in the House of Lords as solely actuating him in the line of conduct he had followed in opposing the queen!

The injurious reports which ministers circulated regarding Queen Caroline's conduct rendered it impossible for her majesty to remain abroad, even if she had so wished; for they presumed to treat her as the most abandoned of the human race, and therefore it became necessary for any virtuous woman, thus publicly accused, to appear in person, and assert her innocence. In the whole management of the ensuing "trial" against this ill-fated queen, justice, feeling, honour, and common sense were all equally outraged! What was the tribunal

[[274]]before which her majesty was called? How was it constituted? Who sat there "to administer evenhanded justice?" The ministers who brought forward the charges against their queen, the officers of the king's household, two of the king's brothers, with many other noble persons closely connected with the court, who held places and pensions at its will, and looked up to it for new honours, for patronage, for wealth, and for power! Were such people, then, calculated to administer justice? Justice, indeed! Was the refusing a list even of the names of the witnesses impartial justice? Was it impartial British justice, when the ministers of the king sat as judges, jurors, and accusers? Like triple-headed monsters, did they not, in that joint capacity, most profligately bribe, clothe, feed, house, and amuse a horde of discarded miscreant Italian servants? Was the instructing, drilling, marshalling, living, and conversing all together of these wretches, who were watched and kept under lock and key by these Cerberi, an example of the impartiality of British justice? Was the permitting the witnesses instantly to return to their den and communicate all their evidence to those who had not been before the House of Lords another proof of the impartiality of what is commonly termed "the highest court of judicature of the first nation in Europe?" Was the treating her majesty as guilty before her trial a fair specimen of the beauty of this court? Monstrous profanation of terms! Was ever

[[275]]common sense so insulted? Was justice ever so outraged? Were those iniquitous proceedings an evidence of that

"Justice, by nothing biassed or inclined,
Deaf to persuasion, to temptation blind;
Determined without favour, and the laws
O'erlook the parties to decide the cause?"

When the law-officers of the crown declared, that "there existed no grounds upon which legal proceedings could be instituted," two obvious and distinct paths were open to ministers. They had their election to advise, either that her majesty should return to this country with all the honours and constitutional privileges belonging to her high station, or else that she should be prevailed upon to establish her court abroad. Yet ministers determined to deviate into a dark and crooked path. They did not venture openly to advise that the queen should return; and yet, as if determined that she should come to this country, they took care to render it impossible for her to remain abroad! Was not the name of the noble-minded Caroline insultingly excluded from the Liturgy? And what reason was assigned for so unjustifiable a proceeding? The Archbishop of Canterbury and other church pluralists gave this: "If any defiled name should there be inserted, the principles of morality would be invaded, the foundations of religion would be sapped, and the destruction of our constitution must inevitably follow!" Now, even allowing the queen to have been the abandoned character

[[276]]represented by her hireling enemies,—nay, more, had she been a MURDERESS,—these impudent and canting hypocrites need not have searched far for a precedent to prove her eligibility for a place in the Liturgy! Were Henry the Eighth, Queen Mary, Charles the Second and his queen, James the Second and his queen, all pure and undefiled? But the place-hunting clergy need not have gone out of their own generation for an example of infamy. What were Queen Charlotte, George the Fourth, the Duke of York, or, though last, not least in the VIRTUES of his family, the undefiled Ernest of Cumberland? Our volumes fully explain what they were! and yet their names graced the Liturgy, as the Attorney-General has declared that the words "Royal Family" comprehend all the individuals of the royal family. But it may be objected that the names of York and Cumberland were not specifically mentioned in the days of Queen Caroline's persecutions. Well, then, the Prince of Wales' name, at least, did figure in our Prayer Book, and was he "pure and undefiled?" The pious sons of the church formally prayed that "God would endue him with his holy spirit," &c.; but it did not appear, by his actions, that their prayers produced the least effect. When he became king, he was prayed for, "to be endued with heavenly gifts, to incline to the will of God, and walk in his ways." Did his infamous conduct to his wife, and his living in open adultery with the Marchioness of Conyngham and others, qualify him for a place in the prayers of the

[[277]]church, as "pure and undefiled?" If ministers, therefore, consented to deprive the queen of this dignity, because of her imputed immorality, might it not have proved a precedent against George the Fourth himself? The lawyers, even Lord Eldon, if it had suited his purpose, might have afterwards cited the case of Caroline as a case in point, while the country could not refuse to dethrone the king on the same plea as they had dethroned the queen, more particularly as it was so easy a matter to prove the gross adultery and immorality of George the Fourth; for his derelictions from virtue were as notorious as the sun at noon-day. Would to heaven, we say, that a king might have been dethroned for immoral conduct, as the world had not then been so cursed with their atrocious deeds. When at foreign courts, her majesty justly claimed the honours pertaining to her exalted rank, but was insultingly told that she was not known as a queen! Thus subjected, untried and unheard, to every indignity which could only have followed upon proof and condemnation, her majesty had no alternative left but to return to England, and boldly face her mean-spirited and unmanly enemies. Had her title been proclaimed, had foreign courts been instructed to receive her with the honours due to a queen of England, her continuing to remain abroad would not have worn the appearance of shrinking from the defence of her reputation,—a fear to which she was utterly a stranger. Her noble soul scorned danger; for a braver heart than her's never beat in human

[[278]]breast. But her husband's ministers rendered her absence from this country incompatible with her honour; they forced her to return, and they, and they alone, were responsible for all the mischief that might have ensued to the country from such an unavoidable step on the part of the queen. No one, we think, will doubt that the most serious mischief would have occurred, if these men had persisted in their headlong career. But, like all cowards, when they found the danger hovering over their own heads, they shrunk from the contest, and took refuge in a timely retreat!

Nothing in the whole history of human suffering could equal the wrongs of her majesty. With respect to the bill of Pains and Penalties, the various records of persecution may be searched in vain for a case so foul, so false, so full of premeditated and disciplined perjury,—the inquest on Sellis was JUSTICE when compared with this, though the hand of Lord Ellenborough may be traced in both. The mock "trial" of Caroline, Queen of England, we say, cannot be matched for rancour, cruelty, for monstrous and unnatural malignity. There never was a case at all like it: it is without an example in history, and can never become a precedent; for future generations will read it with pity and with horror. The foul charges preferred against the queen by the lowest of the low were disproved by noblemen of the first consideration, by ladies of the highest rank and of the most unblemished honour, by gentlemen of family, of education, and integrity, and by distinguished

[[279]]and gallant soldiers. The evidence of such respectable characters as these present a picture of her majesty which future generations will admire and venerate. But it is impossible that impartial and discerning Englishmen should believe that the "Bill of Pains and Penalties," nominally aimed against the queen, had not, for its main objects, the doing away with trial by jury and the liberty of the press, and, on their ruins, to establish a system of absolute despotism. Whether these effects were originally foreseen and intended by the sagacious projectors of that wicked measure, is a matter of little importance; it is quite obvious that such would have been its consequences. The place-loving Lord Eldon, however, tried hard to make people believe that bills of Pains and Penalties were then "part and parcel" of the constitution of the kingdom. But a trial of such an indescribably infamous description was never before attempted; and even if it had been, Lord Eldon, as a good chancellor, ought to have declared against it, instead of attempting to defend and perpetuate it. With overbearing oligarchs, any sort of precedent was deemed sufficient; and it is rather wonderful that they did not, by the help of precedent, endeavour to re-establish the Star Chamber! If they had succeeded in such a point, the first of the kind attempted in modern times, the faction would, doubtless, have considered themselves authorised, whenever it had suited their views, to proceed by a bill of Pains and Penalties against any obnoxious individual, instead of going before a common

[[280]]jury! To establish such a monstrous system, we repeat, was one of the real, though disguised, objects of ministers, in the prosecution of Queen Caroline; for they perceived the progress of political knowledge, and felt alarmed lest they should lose their arbitrary authority, if they could not adopt some such tyrannical measure to frighten the people into obedience. It was the glorious majesty of the press that bravely defeated such infamous machinations against liberty, for which future generations will have cause to venerate and worship it.

The queen, however, was most grievously slandered and ill-treated by the Tory portion of public writers. Nothing, indeed, could have been more villanous than the charges which blackened the columns of certain newspapers,—journals that, in their general colouring, were too foul and too dark to obtain belief. Well remunerated by government, the scurrilous editors of such libels against female majesty appeared to exult in the pain they inflicted; so long as they satisfied the hateful revenge of their abandoned employers, their end was answered. However much such prostitution of talent is to be lamented, there was yet a worse crime committed by the enemies of Queen Caroline. The ministers of the "established" church scrupled not to take part against her, and, instead of confining themselves to the exposition of the mild and forbearing doctrines of the Christian religion, not unfrequently indulged their wicked disloyalty by delivering the most foul and blasphemous denunciations against

[[281]]their queen, even from the pulpit! This, of course, could only be done with a view of pleasing those who had "rich livings" to reward their misplaced zeal. One of these contemptible reverends, by the name of Blacow, was so violent against her majesty, that the queen's law-advisers thought it right to punish his impertinence by an action, in the Court of King's Bench, for a malicious libel, which was contained in a sermon preached by him in St. Mark's Church, Liverpool, and which was afterwards published in the shape of a pamphlet. The jury having found the reverend defendant guilty, the following sentence was passed upon him by the presiding judge:

"The defendant," Mr. Justice Bailey said, "had been convicted of a libel, contained in a sermon preached by him. He was a clergyman, and had uttered the libel within the church. It was, he rejoiced to say, a rare instance of so sacred a place being corrupted to such purposes(?). Of all other places, the house of God, where charity and brotherly love alone should be inculcated, was the last which should be made a theatre for attacks upon the characters of living persons. Every man had enough to do to look to his own character, and it was not necessary to go abroad and make ourselves inquisitors into those of others. This libel was uttered at a time, and upon a subject, upon which there was no great unanimity of thinking, and was therefore, in its nature, calculated to excite far other feelings than such as ought to be indulged in within an

[[282]]edifice devoted to God. The defendant had exercised a most wise discretion to-day, in the line of conduct which he had adopted; and the court had reason to believe that, looking back to his past conduct, he felt contrition for what he had already done. Under all these circumstances, the court having taken the whole matter into their consideration, did order and adjudge that, for this offence, the defendant was to pay to the king a fine of one hundred pounds, be imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison for six months, and, at the end of that time, give securities for his good behaviour for five years, himself in five hundred pounds, and two sureties in one hundred pounds each, and to be further imprisoned until these sureties are perfected."

Thus foiled in patronizing clergymen and public writers to vilify their queen, as well as being compelled to abandon the "Bill of Pains and Penalties," ministers began to feel alarmed lest her majesty should publish an exposition of those state secrets and crimes, which she had so frequently threatened. A more certain plan, therefore, to rid themselves and their abandoned king from this dread of certain disgrace, if not of entire ruin, was now secretly put in force; and her majesty was devoted to a premature end, as we have before explained. One thing, however, we have forgotten to mention in our account of that period, which is this: Lord P——, one of the then ministers, and who is now a member of the Whig government, was fatally correct in

[[283]]FORETELLING the death of this injured woman; for he very incautiously said, in a letter to a friend, "The Queen will be dead in less than fourteen days!" The letter containing this fatal prediction is now in being; but we could not prevail upon its possessor to allow us to publish a copy of it.

If we have been too prolix in our account or too severe in our remarks respecting our late basely-treated queen, we hope our readers will excuse us. We certainly might say much more, but the subject being one of importance to history, we could not reconcile it with our duty to say less. We are sure every generous-minded Briton will lament, with us, the untimely end of her majesty. Alas! that the page of history should be darkened by such foul transactions as Truth has obliged us to record! Thousands and tens of thousands of the hard-earned money of the tax-payers of this kingdom, with the pledge of peerages to add to the "illustrious dignity" of the House of Lords, were presented to the persons who effected these diabolical acts of atrocity. The money might possibly have been paid; but, in one or two instances, the perpetrators of these sanguinary deeds became too remorse-stricken to wait for the honours of nobility, and made their exit from the world by committing suicide!

The public must have been frequently surprised at the number of persons, of obscure origin, who, without having either distinguished themselves in the world by their talents, or conferred the least benefit upon their country, were ennobled, loaded

[[284]]with wealth, and received into favour, by the profligate George the Fourth. But the following anecdotes, among many others that might be adduced, will explain to our readers the secret causes of such advancement.

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Mr. William Knighton was a surgeon, and in his professional capacity attended Sir John M'Mahon (whose numerous villanies we have before set forth) in his last illness, and immediately upon his decease took possession of all his papers, and carried them away, under pretence that M'Mahon had given them to him. When the prince's grief had a little subsided, he went for these papers, but, to his great surprise and consternation, found all the drawers empty! He sent for Mr. Knighton, and asked him about the matter. "Yes," said Knighton, "M'Mahon gave them to me!" "But you mean, of course, to restore them?" "Yes, certainly; but only upon a proper remuneration." "Oh!" said the regent, "I always meant to give you M'Mahon's place!" Nor could he do less, since he then had made himself master, not only of the private secrets, but public ones also, which were of the greatest possible consequence. The Duchess of Gloucester was present at this dialogue between her brother the Prince Regent and Mr. Knighton. Our informant had this account from her royal highness' own lips, who also added, "And so my poor brother is obliged to keep this viper about him!" But the ministers said, "The prince may entrust his

[[285]]future secretary with his private affairs, but his public ones belong to us alone, as keepers of his conscience." Mr. Knighton, however, was compensated for this "loss of secrets" by receiving the honour of knighthood. He was also employed to deliver a certain titled lady of an illegitimate child, in Hanover-square, and his faithfulness, in keeping this secret from the public, was rewarded by making him a present of the house, most elegantly furnished, in which the disgraceful affair took place!!! Sir William Knighton had likewise a thousand pounds per annum for his professional attendance on the king!!!

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Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, who was some time private secretary to his late majesty, also acquired place and wealth by possessing himself of his master's private transactions. This gentleman was sent from Windsor, by George the Fourth, to the Earl of Liverpool with a large bill for diamonds due to Messrs. Rundell & Co., and for money to pay it. The bill was so large (seventy thousand pounds) that the prime minister insisted upon knowing who these diamonds were for. Sir Benjamin very reluctantly confessed that they had been purchased for Lady Conyngham! Lord Liverpool instantly took Bloomfield with him in his own carriage to Windsor, and requested an audience of the king. His lordship, much to his credit, emphatically told his majesty that Sir B. Bloomfield must resign, or he himself would. The king was so enraged with his secretary

[[286]]for informing the earl of these particulars, that he struck Bloomfield a violent blow, when the mortified knight quickly asked, "Who poisoned the Princess Charlotte?" It was owing to this circumstance that Bloomfield was sent as ambassador to Sweden, into honourable exile, and, to soothe his wounded pride and prevent his exposure of certain infamous transactions, in which he himself had acted a very prominent part, he was shortly after created—a Lord!!! A good round sum of money was also given him to hush up the matter. We cannot help admiring the conduct of Lord Liverpool in this instance,—the only one, that we are acquainted with, which deserved the thanks of his country; for his lordship boldly refused to pay for the aforesaid diamonds without the consent of parliament, which the king, for shame, could not agree to!

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The Duke of Wellington, who has been frequently termed the mushroom duke, obtained his wealth and titles for exposing the brave army of England to unnecessary dangers and hardships. The position which he chose for that army at Waterloo would have assuredly proved its entire destruction, if it had not been for the treachery of Field Marshal Grouchy, one of Napoleon's generals! But the Wellesley family were in possession of the STATE-SECRETS, and it was therefore deemed prudent to shower wealth and honours upon the whole family.

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Mr. Conant, the chief magistrate of Bow-street,

[[287]]was knighted for conducting the secret investigation against the Princess of Wales in 1813.

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The Marquis of Conyngham, it is well known, obtained his title through the prostitution of his wife to the libertine George the Fourth. The baneful influence which this designing woman exercised over his majesty, to the very last moments of his life, is a deplorable fact, which not only proved mischievous to the best interests of the country, but will for ever brand the name of her contemptible husband with derision and disgust. This shameless mistress stood as the fountain of emolument and preferment, and she took every advantage of that situation to promote the aggrandizement of her family. The indulgent country, however, would hardly have found fault with this second, Mrs. Clarke, had not, in some instances, the very laws of the constitution been infringed, and the domestic policy of the country become endangered, by the effects of her improper influence, which, as it was secret, was fraught with the greater injury. Had the marchioness confined herself to benefitting her own family, the mischief would not have been so deplorable; but when the highest offices in the church were bestowed on persons scarcely before heard of,—when political parties rose and fell, and ministers were created and deposed, to gratify the ambition of a prostitute,—then the palace of the king appeared as if surrounded by some pestilential air, and every honourable person avoided the court

[[288]]as alike fatal to private property and public virtue. Thus the entrance to Windsor Castle became, as it were, hermetically sealed, by the "lusty enchantress" within, to all but her favoured minions! The court of George the Fourth certainly differed from that of Charles the Second, although the number and reputation of their several mistresses were nearly the same in favour and character; but George the Fourth had no confiscations to confer on the instruments of his pleasure, and therefore took care to rob the country of gold to make up such deficiency. The reigns of these two monarchs, dissimilar as they might be in some respects, nevertheless possessed this resemblance: that an illegitimate progeny of royalty were thrust forward to the contempt of all decency, and proved a heavy tax on the forbearance of virtuous society. The wicked George the Fourth, as we have been very credibly informed, gave the Marchioness of Conyngham more than half a million of money, as well as bestowing many titles to gratify her insatiable ambition. We really have no words to express our abhorrence of such proceedings!

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Towards the close of George the Fourth's wicked career, he pretended to be very much attached to the drama, and that accomplished and fascinating actress, Miss Chester, was therefore engaged as READER to his majesty. Sir Thomas Lawrence, at that time engaged in taking a portrait of this lady, as well as one of the king, was entrusted with the delicate negotiation. A meeting was soon obtained, and a kind

[[289]]of excuse adopted to have Miss Chester near the king's person, as "PRIVATE READER," at an annual salary of six hundred pounds! Thus was another beauty added to the royal establishment, and her name emblazoned in the "red book" of the country's burdens. For the kind attentions this lady bestowed on the "polished" monarch, she has lately been admitted to that refuge for royal mistresses, titled dames, and pensioned members of the aristocracy—Hampton-Court Palace! Without disputing Miss Chester's claims to be maintained at the public expense among the noble drones there domiciled, it is not without something like disgust and indignation that we view one of our most ancient kingly edifices, built by the liberality of the nation, and at this moment supported by the public purse, being converted into an asylum of this description. Englishmen are thus taxed to support the paramours, and minions of royalty in ease and luxury! But we need not confine our indignation to this one royal residence; for is not Bushy Park within a mile of Hampton, where the progeny of an actress kept at that place form now a portion of our noble aristocracy? We do not charge these unworthy doings exclusively on the Tories; for, alas! the Grey Whigs seem to be treading very closely in the footsteps of their predecessors in office, by tolerating such royal doings, as well as filling their own pockets and that of their families.

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From such disreputable means of acquiring title

[[290]]and wealth, England has long been imposed on, and the ancient nobility of the country degraded. Any pre-eminent degree of merit, if exercised for the country's benefit, was sure to render its possessor a certain object of George the Fourth's vengeance. His private court, therefore, found their best security in their want of virtue. By a voluntary submission to the tyrant's caprices, they retained the high privilege of his smile and favour, and built the bulwark of their safety on their own personal insignificance! And yet, strange as the infatuation may appear, these very creatures fancied their nature had undergone a real metamorphosis by his majesty granting them a title; they considered themselves refined by a kind of chemical process, sublimed by the sunshine of royal favour, and thus separated from the dross and the dregs of ordinary humanity,—from that humanity of which the mass of mankind partake, and which, contemptible as it may seem to upstart lords, is the same with the prince upon the throne and the beggar upon the dunghill. But from such proud characters, we may trace the present contempt in which nobility is almost universally held. The great endeavour of George the Fourth's favourites has been to keep "the people" at a distance, lest their own purer nature should be contaminated by plebeian society; and the first lesson they teach their offspring is, not to revere God, but to maintain their own dignity in the scale of being! To men of such principles, the king had only to make his wishes known,

[[291]]however monstrous and unjust they might be, and they were immediately, and, in too many cases, fatally executed. Under such a government as that of the last sixty years and upwards, it was fortunate indeed to escape notice,—to creep through the vale of obscurity, and to die in old age, without the prison, the pointed steel, or the poisoned cup! From a vigorous mind, in every way calculated to find pleasure and honourable employment in noble and virtuous actions, George the Fourth degenerated into a monster, delighting in baubles and in a wantonness of wickedness that produced the most flagitious habits, and which rendered him the most despicable man in the whole circle of society; yet he was designated "the most accomplished gentleman of the age!!!" We are aware that he was surrounded with flatterers and sycophants, who wished to gratify their own avarice and pride by extending his tyrannical power; but ought such a mean excuse to be urged in extenuation of his crimes? A man, like him, endowed with nature's choicest gifts, both of mind and body, which were farther heightened by the most liberal education, should have spurned such minions from his presence, and kept company with none but the virtuous and the patriotic. Away, then, with that vindication of George the Fourth's unjust deeds, which would fix the stigma of crimes, prompted by his own love of sensuality, to the "advice of evil counsellors!" Evil counsellors would not have dared to present him the cup of flattery, if he had not shewn himself so

[[292]]greedily desirous of swallowing its contents. Let every friend of man and of his country, then, guard against two similar reigns of horror, and defy, as we do, fines and imprisonment, in attempting, by every lawful and rational means, to push back the gigantic strides of tyranny, whether in a king or an overbearing ministry. Even now we are cursed with a power, generated by Queen Charlotte and the late king, her son, which is trying, by every scheme of ingenuity and desperation, to bring back its former unjust, intolerant, and corrupt ascendency, both in church and state; but who is there that can contemplate the possibility of such a state of affairs occurring again, without feelings of horror? What man in the possession of his senses but would exclaim against the national misfortune of having another Pitt, a Liverpool, a Londonderry, a Canning, or a Wellington, in power? Awful, however, as the havoc appears which these men have made, the country need not yet give itself up to despair. We believe that there is a fund of vigour in the empire that may stand experiments, the least of which would shake the sickly frames of other empires to dissolution. There is probably no dominion on earth that has within itself so strong a repulsion of injury, or so vivid and rapid a spring and force of restoration. Its strength is renewed like that of the young eagle; and it is this very faculty of self-restoration that has so long allowed the empire to hold together, notwithstanding the infinite speculations, tamperings, absurdities, and crimes of men

[[293]]in power, under the guidance of Queen Charlotte and George the Fourth. Yet is it right that England should be kept merely above bankruptcy, while she has the original power of being the first, most vigorous, richest, and happiest portion of the world? Where does the earth contain a people so palpably marked out for superiority in all the means of private and public enjoyment of affluence, influence, and security? The most industrious, strong-minded, and fully-educated population of the world inhabit her island. She has the finest opportunities for commerce, the most indefatigable and sagacious efforts and contrivances for every necessity and luxury of mankind; inexhaustible mines of the most valuable minerals, and almost the exclusive possession of the most valuable of them all,—COAL; a singularly healthy and genial climate, where the human form naturally shapes itself into the most complete beauty and vigour; a situation the most happily fixed by Providence for a great people destined to influence Europe,—close enough to the Continent to watch every movement, and influence the good or peril of every kingdom of it from Russia to Turkey, and yet secured from the sudden shocks and casualties of European war by the Channel, of all defences, the cheapest, the most permanent, and the most impregnable!

When these immense and enviable advantages are compared with the present state of England, heavy indeed must the sins of our rulers appear! But a new class and character of hostility is now happily

[[294]]starting up to oppose further inroads upon our liberties, and the question will speedily be brought to a decision, not between the obsolete and formal parties of the two houses of parliament, but between the Treasury bench and the delegates of "the people,"—that people itself shewing a bold and virtuous character, commissioning its representatives with a voice of authority, and exhibiting a rigid determination to see that their duty is done, unexampled in the history of Britain! This is the kind of spirit that has long been wanted, and we look to it as the sure cure for the decaying vitality of the constitution. We are no advocates for a revolution brought about by popular passion, by the vulgar artifice of vulgar demi-gods, by the itinerant inflammation of pretended patriotism; but the present state of public feeling appeals not to the ambition of the democrat, to the baseness of the incendiary, the sordidness of the plunderer, or the fury of the assassin. There is nothing in it but the natural expression of honourable minds, disdaining to look calmly upon injustice, extortion, and royal profligacy, whether practised by Whig or Tory, and however sanctioned by time. The people are indignant at the callous venality of public men, and feel themselves insulted by the open spoil which bloated sinecurists and state-secret keepers have so long committed upon the honest gains of society. They cannot see the necessity of that strangling burthen of taxes which makes industry as poor as idleness, and they shrink from the view of their withering effect on the freedom and

[[295]]prosperity of England. The people who observe matters in this light are not the wild haters of all governments, nor the sullen conspirators against the peace of mankind; but the father of the industrious family, the man of genius, honesty, and virtue, the sincere patriot, are those who now feel themselves compelled to come from their willing obscurity into the front rank of public care, to raise up their voices, till now never heard beyond the study or the fireside, and demand that the House of Commons shall at last throw off its fetters, scorn the indolence, meanness, and venality of the Upper House, knowing no impulse but its duty, no patronage but that of public gratitude, and no party but its country! Such feelings are so just, that they have become universal, and so universal, that they have become IRRESISTIBLE! The minister, be he Whig or Tory, must yield to them, or he instantly descends from his power. All candidates for public distinction will thus be compelled to discover that the most prudent choice, as well as the most manly, generous, and principled, is to side with the country. Then may we hope to see sinecures extinguished; the obnoxious patronage of government destroyed; every superfluous expense of the public service rent away; the enormous salaries of ministers and the feeders on the civil list reduced; the annuities to ministerial aunts, cousins, and connexions of more dubious kinds, on the pension list, unsparingly expunged; which, by disburthening the nation of unnecessary taxes, will enable the Englishman to live by his labour. If these things may be

[[296]]done by the Russell reform bill, it will be only by a circuitous process. But England has no time to wait. What must be done at last cannot be done too speedily. The truth is, that the nation is disgusted with the insolent extravagance of the Grey cabinet, which utters the most zealous declarations of economy and withdrawal of taxes, while the people remain unrelieved of a single impost. They observe a premier lavish of the public money on his own family, while a Chancellor of the Exchequer starts up, and sapiently condemns certain members of the Whig government for refusing their salaries! Thus the old Tory system is still attempted to be perpetuated, under the banners of the Whigs; the tax-gatherer makes his appearance with undiminished demands; the necessaries of life increase in price as they decrease in excellence; every thing, in short, that man eats, drinks, or wears, loads him with an additional tax, paralyzing his industry, and overwhelming him in poverty.

Every candid and impartial observer will acknowledge that the public voice is not raised against government itself, nor against the many admirable institutions of this country; but against the perversions of government; against unconstitutional and wicked rulers; against abuses of trust, office, and authority; against impositions and corruptions pervading every department of the state, which have been reduced to system, and teem with every species of fraud, tyranny, and oppression; against the Star Chamber of Toryism; against the misappropriation

[[297]]of unnecessary, extortionate, and oppressive imposts; against despotic enactments; against fictitious prosecutions and arbitrary imprisonments; against the perversions of law and the decrees of political judges; against spies and hireling ruffians, suborned to deprive the subject of his liberty, aided by the corrupt practices of heart-hardened clerical and other magistrates; against packed juries, and the artful construction of libel; against the iniquitous forms and delays of the chancery and other courts;—against these, we say, and all such violations of the chartered rights of Britons, is that voice proclaiming its DETERMINATION TO BE FREE!—to be masters of their own wealth, their own industry, their own personal security, and their own liberties! The people of England will no longer be swayed by those upstart peers which George the Fourth created. What claims have such state-pensioners on public confidence? Why should sensible men give up their judgments to a selfish and hypocritical faction of—Lords? What better, in the name of heaven, are they than the rest of human creatures?

"Remove their swelling epithets, thick laid
As varnish on a harlot's cheek; the rest,
Thin sown with ought of profit or delight,
Will far be found unworthy."

It is, indeed, idle to suppose that the present highly-enlightened inhabitants of this country can be thwarted from their wishes by the vote of such men; for almost all the ancient nobility are with

[[298]]the people. Englishmen, we repeat, care not for the vote of time-serving lords, for the prayers of worldly-minded bishops, or for the tears and vehement gestures of ex-chancellors! The people have resolved to redeem the constitution from their polluting hands. The pupils of those who have brought the country to its present impoverished state by their misrule, during the last two reigns of vice and profligacy, will seek in vain for the support of the people of 1832! A different form of government is now dawning upon us, and the Tories have "fallen, for ever fallen!" Murder, we trust, will now no longer be committed with impunity by rank; exactions, weighing down a people's existence, will cease; the needy will no longer be required to pamper the insatiable avarice and voluptuousness of the great; a system of pure justice in the administration of national affairs will rectify those abuses which have for so many years ingulphed the kingdom in misery. If the people do but prove true to themselves, nothing can now prevent their emancipation from the thraldom of that overgrown power, by which they have cruelly been enslaved. Yet the disease has been so long accumulating, that it still lies deep, and will require both energy and skill to eradicate it. They must, therefore, be upon their guard against the machinations of their wily enemies, who will magnify every little ebullition of public feeling into an attempt to overturn the existing institutions of the country. Sensible men, and true friends to the constitution, and therefore to the

[[299]]king, who forms so considerable a part of it, will understand the Tory cry of "See the effects of power in the hands of the people!" and will not be led into a fear of some future evil, from popular commotion, by such an attempt to divert them from their constitutional rights. In this respect, vigilance is highly necessary to protect them from the secret depredations of their former artful tyrants, who are ever on the alert to regain their lost power. Let the people, then, avoid all riots, tumults, and popular commotions, with the utmost care, and preserve peace, good order, and security to all ranks of society. True patriots will be careful to discourage every thing which tends to destroy these natural fruits of a free constitution, not only because whatever tends to destroy them tends to destroy all human happiness, but also because even an accidental outrage in popular assemblies and proceedings, as we have before shewn, is used by the enemies of freedom to discredit the cause of liberty. By the utmost attention to the preservation of the public peace, Englishmen will defeat the malicious designs of servile courtiers; but, whatever may happen, they will not desert the cause of humanity. Through a dread of licentiousness, they will not forsake the standard of liberty. It is the part of fools to fall upon Scylla in striving to avoid Charybdis. Who would wish to see restored the despotic sway of Queen Charlotte and George the Fourth, through the fear of a few transient outrages being committed by the excitation of a long-insulted

[[300]]people? Both these extremes are despotic while they last; but the former is a torrent that would rush its headlong course for ever, if it met not a barrier sufficiently strong to resist its power, while the latter may be compared to a spring flood, that covers the meadows to-day, and disappears on the morrow. The learned and eloquent Dr. Price has a passage so applicable to this subject, that our readers must excuse our introducing it. This humane philosopher observes,

"Licentiousness and despotism are more nearly allied than is commonly imagined. They are both alike inconsistent with liberty, and the true end of government; nor is there any other difference between them than that one is the licentiousness of great men, and the other the licentiousness of little men; or that by one, the persons and property of a people are subject to outrage and invasion from a king or a lawless body of grandees; and that by the other, they are subject to the like outrage from a lawless mob. In avoiding one of these evils, mankind have often run into the other. But all well-constituted governments guard equally against both. Indeed, of the two, the last is, on several accounts, the least to be dreaded, and has done the least mischief. It may be truly said, if licentiousness has destroyed its thousands, despotism has destroyed its millions. The former having little power, and no system to support it, necessarily finds its own remedy; and a people soon get out of

[[301]]the tumult and anarchy attending it. But a despotism, wearing a form of government, and being armed with its force, is an evil not to be conquered without dreadful struggles. It goes on from age to age, debasing the human faculties, levelling all distinctions, and preying on the rights and blessings of society. It deserves to be added, that in a state disturbed by licentiousness, there is an animation which is favourable to the human mind, and puts it upon exerting its powers; but in a state habituated to despotism, all is still and torpid. A dark and savage tyranny stifles every effort of genius, and the mind loses all its spirit and dignity."

Mr. Bailey, of Nottingham, an independent writer of great talent, has well defined the causes of political convulsions, and the line of conduct to be pursued by "the people" in times of great excitement. In that gentleman's "Discourse on Revolutions," he says,

"That the progress of civilization may be retarded in states, by the measures of governments, cannot be doubted. That the tendencies towards disturbance in states, which inevitably await on advancing civilization, may be restrained in their development by a politic or resolute government, even whilst its policy is anomalous to the spirit of the age, can as little be doubted. But what, it may be fairly asked, is in reality gained by this procedure? The principle of revolution is not annihilated,

[[302]]the nature of social man is not altered, the impetus of knowledge is not weakened, the momentum of public opinion is not broken! After every thing is done which cunning or tyranny can suggest, to avert the day of demand and concession, IT WILL ARRIVE, when demand will be made in a voice of thunder by an infuriated populace, and concession, of the most humiliating description, be granted by an abject sovereign!

"As fires longest pent up in obscurity at length burst out with the most resistless fury, so revolutions longest deferred are attended, in their crisis, with the most terrible consequences. Were the rulers of nations actuated by a spirit of sound wisdom, those dreadful convulsions could never arise in states, on account of social rights, which, after causing the death of thousands of the citizens, and desolating towns and provinces, leave palaces in ruins, and thrones vacant.

"Revolution ought always to be the work of the government, not of the people, except through the expression of public opinion. This is the only species of power which the people can beneficially employ for the redress of grievances,—at least, in old states, where a long indulgence in habits of venality and corruption by the government, and a widely-extended ramification of interests springing therefrom, and pervading all classes of the community, must create a strong disposition in favour of the existing order of things among large masses of the citizens. Physical force ought never to be employed

[[303]]for the correction of social evils, until every species of negative resistance has been proved to be unavailing.

"When despotism has arrived at that state of audacious temerity, that it makes a mockery of suffering, and tramples on remonstrances, sacrificing alike the property, the persons, and consciences of men to its ungovernable lust of dominion, it is justifiable to arraign such tyrants at the tribunal of nature, that so their impotence may be exposed, and their crimes punished."

Let us hope, therefore, that Englishmen, in freeing themselves from despotism, will studiously avoid such scenes as lately took place at Bristol. Britons should recollect that a determined and virtuous people can do any thing and every thing by firmness and quietness; but all violence defeats its own ends, and gives advantage to our enemies. A thorough reform in church and state MUST take place; a crisis is at hand, and those who wish to see England escape a trial of misery and blood will heartily wish, and openly and resolutely demand, to see a change of that long system, under which Corruption has thickened round the high, while Poverty and Taxation have smitten the low. A longer delay to remedy these evils may unhappily irritate the people into a spirit of vengeance, which the tears of Lord Eldon, the bullying of the Marquis of Londonderry, the professions of a Whig ministry, the intrigues of German women, or the threatenings of

[[304]]Wellington's bayonet law would vainly attempt to oppose! Sullen visions are now upon the clouds, to which place-hunters and renegados are afraid to lift their terrified eyes. But if they tremble at those visions, what will be their fate when they ripen into substance, and let loose their thunders upon the heads of the enemies of our country? May the necessity for such vengeance be obviated by a timely concession to the constitutional demands of an enlightened people is our sincere prayer!

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