was kidnapped under the guise of friendship-transported like a malefactor one hundred and fifty miles through a populous country,-and executed in cold blood by a gang of assassins, under circumstances of as damning atrocity as ever stained the annals of human delinquency! Nor was the crime perpetrated by ignorant or hungry banditti, or for the lust of power, or of gold. The circle of the conspirators embraced, directly and indirectly, hundreds of intelligent men, acting, not on the spur of the occasion, from sudden impulse or anger, but after long consultations, and weeks, and even months of preparation. Those immediately engaged in the conspiracy, were men of information, and of high standing in their own neighbourhoods and counties; embracing civil officers of almost every grade; sheriffs, legislators, magistrates; lawyers, physicians, and even those whose calling it was to minister at the altar in holy things. Along the route of the captive, the members of the Masonic fraternity left their occupations, however busily or urgently engaged, and flew at a moment's warning, to aid in his transportation to the spot where his sufferings were ended. A clergyman preceded him, moreover, heralding his approach from town to town, and announcing his captivity to the assembling brethren before whom he was simultaneously to deliver a discourse, dedicating a Masonic temple to the service of God and the holy St. John; and enforcing the golden maxims of " PEACE, HARMONY, AND BROTHERLY LOVE!" Arrived at the end of his journey, the wretched victim was imprisoned in a fortress over which the banner of freedom was streaming in the breeze. In vain did he plead for his life: and in vain did he implore the privilege of once more beholding his wife and children. Nay, more, with worse than barbarian cruelty, was his final request of a BIBLE denied, to soothe his last hours, and point him the way to a brighter world, brighter, far, had he been prepared to enter it, than that upon which he was in a few hours forever to close his eyes! And what was the mighty offence of the miserable man, that he must thus be hurried to his final account, without being allowed a last farewell of his wife, without suffering a single ray of divine light to glance across his path, or illumine the dark atmosphere of his dungeon, but sent to his dread abode with all his imperfections on his head!-Why, forsooth, he was about to expose the wonderful secrets of Freemasonry !-It was feared he would tell how " 'poor blind candidates" are led about a lodge-room by a "cable tow," and how they kneel at the altar, at one time on one knee, and at another time upon the other! It was feared he would tell how they stumble over the emblems of " the rugged path of human life," or bend with humility beneath "the living arch!"—Letters on Masonry, pp. 544—546.

This atrocious proceeding, as might have been expected, led to the immediate formation of associations for the purpose of putting down Free-masonry altogether. The institution itself was made responsible for the alleged murder; and Christianity and Free-masonry were held to be incompatible. Exemplary professors of religion,' who would not consent at once to abandon free-masonry, " were excluded from the communion table.'

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There is much in this proceeding that is highly characteristic of

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the people. Brother Jonathan is, in many respects, old John Bull over again, unembarrassed by any artificial restraints. The same wrongheadedness, but, we believe, in the main, rightheartedness distinguishes him. Only awake him to a sense of wrong or injustice, disabuse him of his flatterers, and get him to lay aside for a moment his pride and his prejudices, and the goodness of his nature comes out in defence of right or truth, with a vigour and an energy foreign to the habits of any other people, and as unrelenting as it is resistless. The present lamentable state of public feeling in America with regard to Slavery, is no valid exception to this statement. Our pages will bear ample testimony to the decision, (some persons may think, bitterness,) with which we have condemned their abominable treatment of the Blacks; and we do not, and will not, abate a jot on this score; but we must at the same time confess, that, with all its wickedness, there is a dash of old English character in it. It is the working of some of the bad blood of the old country,-tenacious of privilege,-indignant of reproof,-violent at the idea of foreign interference, but (may we not hope?) withal anxious, amid all this bluster, to avail itself of the first favourable opportunity for repairing wrong, whenever it can be done with the least possible sacrifice of pride! We do not despair of our brother. Let the leaven which is even now rapidly diffusing itself among all classes in the States work a little longer, and we shall hear some day, that slave-holders as well as gin-drinkers and free-masons are accounted as heathen men and publicans."

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The strange tragedy of which we have given a brief outline, stretches in all its details, as given in the volume before us, through nearly 600 pages octavo. Above one hundred of these are occupied in a complete exposition of Free-masonry, which, we should suppose, can now scarcely be called a mystery. Four hundred more are devoted to the history of the Committees and Conventions, the Trials,-Special Circuits, and multiplied correspondence, in which, among others, Governor De Witt Clinton, the Earl of Dalhousie, and Sir Peregrine Maitland are severally engaged in the detection of the criminals. The remainder is devoted to remarks on the Newspaper press of the United States; to inquiries as to what extent the Masonic lodges and chapters were implicated in the transaction; and finally, to the setting forth of reasons why all good men should abandon the institution of speculative masonry.

For the remarks on the Press of the United States, we must make room. They are curious and instructive. Our first extract relates to the kind of control which the public there exercise over their Newspapers. We happen to know some English Readers of Periodicals who might learn a lesson from the following very just and spirited remarks.

This practice of withdrawing subscriptions from papers, on every trivial occasion, for a mere difference of opinion between the editor and subscriber, upon accidental questions, more frequently abstract than of national importance, I have ventured above to denominate American. In no other country, according to the best information I can obtain, is it so frequently resorted to, as in this: and in my view, it is but a sorry method of manifesting displeasure, or dissent. With papers long established and liberally supported, these individual instances of private proscription can have little effect; but, in respect of papers enjoying slender patronage, and struggling for existence, they strike at the root of the freedom of thought and discussion. In this point of view, connected with the erroneous principle upon which all our public journals are established, this illiberal system may be said to work essential injury. So far as it goes, it is directly at war with free discussion and the independence of the press. Far better would it be, in this respect, if, in the work of composing and vending newspapers, there was the same division of labour, which exists in the European capitals. There, the editors and publishers have no personal knowledge of their supporters, as such: here, they are known to nearly all; and the support which newspapers receive, is but too frequently begged on the one hand, and bestowed on the other, more in the form of personal favoritism, than in the manly and independent course of business, in which favors are neither known nor acknowledged on either hand. Where such are the relations between publisher and subscriber, there is no such thing as the freedom of the press. Every paragraph must be carefully balanced, and frequently all its pungency and meaning must be frittered away, to render it inoffensive to Mr. A., or palatable to Mr. B. Even gross official delinquencies must remain unwhipped of justice, and the cause of morality left to vindicate itself, lest peradventure the offending officer is a patron! forsooth, or Mr. C. and Mr. D. do not acknowledge the same criterion of orthodoxy, either in morals or religion, which the publisher, according to his sense of duty, would wish to uphold.

Let me not be misunderstood, however, as maintaining the opinion, that the subscribers to a paper have no right to exercise this species of influence, or to manifest their displeasure in this way, under any, or even under very many, circumstances. I am speaking only of respectable papers, conducted by educated and responsible men, by men who have character at stake themselves, and whose principles and general mode of conducting their papers, are, upon all great cardinal principles of government,-upon all leading measures of public policy,-held in common by editor and subscriber. It is in cases like these, that I condemn the disposition so prevalent in this country, of endeavoring to avenge every trifling disagreement, or even a casual error, by striking at the pocket of the publisher. It is an ignoble device, unworthy of all who are willing that the same freedom of thought and action should be enjoyed by others, which they glory in exercising themselves. But when editors are derelict in their duty to the public,-when they belie their professions, and degrade their calling,-when they prove recreant to their principles, or habitually violate the proprieties of the press, and the courtesies and charities of social life,-when, from change of con

ductors, or for base bribes, they turn their backs upon old friends and old principles, or when, from general licentiousness, personal scurrility, a mockery of things sacred, and a disregard of those principles of morality and virtue which form at once the jewels of private life, and the true glory of the state, a newspaper becomes unworthy of support, and unfit to be received into families, then is it a high moral duty to discard the offender, and make him feel the heaviest weight of public, as well as of private indignation and scorn. But in such instances, the remedy should be effectually applied; for every effort to crush the growth of vicious principles, or to check the career of those who disseminate them, which falls short of the object, 66 serves no other purpose than to render them more known, and ultimately to increase the zeal and number of their abettors."' Letters, &c., pp. 526-528.

Our next extract relates to the general character of this mighty Engine for Good or Evil; and the picture is certainly anything but flattering to the Transatlantic Editors.

‹ Talk as we please of the despotisms of Europe,-of the restraints imposed upon the mind and the tongue,-I hesitate not to avow, that neither in England nor in France, is the press held in such abject subjection, as the great majority of the American presses are by demagogues and the discipline of party. It is said to be a difficult thing to draw the line between the liberty of the press, and its licentiousness; but heaven knows that in this country the line is as broad and as visible as can be desired. We have licentiousness enough on all sides, and upon every possible subject. The eye sickens at the profligacy of the press, and the mind turns from it with abhorrence and loathing. With this portion of the press, the bitterness of party is mingled in every thing; and the ferocity of its attacks, is equalled only by the profligacy of its conductors. "Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire, are harmless monsters compared with such a press. No matter how virtuous, how innocent, or elevated, or noble, or persuasive, or beneficent the character may be, which is the object of its exterminating purpose, be it Socrates, or Cato, or Peter, or Paul, or John Rodgers, or the Saviour of men himself; there are neither eyes, nor ears, nor heart, nor compunction, nor feeling, nor flesh, nor blood. The general and inexorable cry, crucify! crucify! consummates the fate of the victim." Still, with all this apparent liberty, it is not that liberty of the press which is the safeguard of freedom. There is among the mere party papers, little of that noble spirit of independence, that is exercised in England and France, which assumes the right of free and manly discussion of every subject in which the public becomes from day to day interested, or which appertains to the political or civil relations of the country. When a candidate is to be assailed, or an incumbent hunted down,—no matter for his services, his wants, the purity of his character, or his claims upon the gratitude of his country,spare no arrows," is the maxim; while the cause of sound morals and enlightened government, and the love of truth, are as far from their thoughts as the remotest orb from the dull sphere on which they are unworthy to tread. It has been well remarked by the anonymous

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author I have just quoted above, that every good has its counterbalancing evil. The contemplation of the delightful freedom of our institutions, is most pleasant. But the extreme license, the coarse abuse, the gross misrepresentations, the frequent and unprovoked assaults of private character, the wanton dragging of names before the public eye,-these are great counterbalancing evils of freedom, for which there can be no effectual corrective, but the slow and distant one, to be found in an enlightened public sentiment. Whenever general feeling shall be guided by gentlemanly tact, and correct conceptions of what is right, and respectable, and dignified, and of good report, any attempts of those who assume to sway that feeling, and direct the public sentiment, to overstep the limits of decorum, unsustained by it, would be at once repressed by a general and palpably indignant expression of the public award in the case. The rebuked party would be instantly awed back to propriety and duty. Unhappily, all the individual minds of which the public mind is composed, are so liable to be swayed by prejudice and passion, and there is so much temper in party feeling, mixed up with all the expressions of the public will amongst us, that it is long before we may promise ourselves, that they who are the most efficient in guiding public opinion, will find their land-marks, and stand corrected when they go beyond them." The fervent prayers of all good men are needed, that this time may speedily come; for unless it does, it is greatly to be feared that the evil will have become incurable. A lax state of political morals among the people, and a degenerate press, operate with mutual and fatal effect upon each other, and the course at the present day is tending downward with fearful rapidity.

There have been other atrocities, equalling the outrage upon Morgan, that have been concealed from the readers of those papers, or denied, or extenuated, for political purposes. Look at the conduct of the same description of presses at the present moment. Look at the government papers, from which, if from any, the people should receive the fullest and most impartial details of the public affairs of the land. The same vindictive spirit of party which I have been attempting to describe; the same suppressions of every publication calculated to render even common justice to their political opponents; the same studied suppressions of the truth, which marked the course of the presses opposed to Anti-masonry,-is openly practised, and publicly defended. An English or French journalist would scorn to suppress the speeches in opposition, in either the parliament or the chambers. No matter how strong their party feelings, the presses on that side of the Atlantic would never stoop so low as to deprive the adversary of a fair hearing. The speeches and documents, therefore, upon all questions of moment, are impartially reported, and the comments of the editors given thereon in gentlemanly language. There is a degree of fairness and manliness in this course of political controversy, which commands respect, and illustrates the true character and uses of the freedom of the press. But instead of imitating such examples of candor and magnanimity, by publishing the speeches of the soundest and most eloquent in opposition, our partisan prints, from the government official