most tumultuary form and description, collected from all the quarters of discontent, and marching into the heart of a great trading town with mottos and emblems of resistance and defiance, for the avowed purpose of hearing inflammatory harangues, and promulgating their mandates for altering the constitution of the realm, was an illegal meeting, has always appeared to us to be the same as doubting the authenticity or authority of our statutes and common law. Being easily decided upon this point, on which no lawyer has been found intrepid enough to intimate a doubt, we were irresistibly led to the conclusion that it was the duty of the sworn conservators of the peace to anticipate the result of such a meeting by an instantaneous dispersion, Magistrates are not to speculate but to act on occasions like these; they may err in the mode, but their obvious duty is to act preventively. They proceed upon a delicate responsibility, but with the fullest title to all reasonable allowance for natural infirmity. The question of the expediency of a parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of these magistrates, which has virtually involved the whole question of their justification, and has been the touchstone for trying the national soundness, is the subject in debate between these reverend writers and their caustic reviewer, and we have thought it good to range the speeches of three of our greatest statesmen after these controverted pamphlets, as best adapted to aid our own humble judgment upon the points in altercation.

In one view of the controversy we see something like an ap proximation of opinion between Mr. Phillpotts and his Reviewer; -the Reverend Author intimates no regret that the question has undergone a preliminary discussion in Parliament, but is satisfied on the same grounds with Mr. Davison that the proper place for the judicial investigation is the criminal judicature of the country; and that that being so, it would contravene the first principles of justice to send the case to the proper tribunal pre-examined upon imperfect evidence, and yet more warped and stained than it already was by partiality, prejudice, and passion. We do not understand that either Mr. Phillpotts or Mr. Davison denies that there may be cases clearly within the scope of our ordinary criminal law, which may yet very properly be made the subject of an independent inquiry in Parliament, or that actions may be committed out of the range of common remedial justice, and yet be so contrary to policy, humanity, or general duty, as to be fairly within the function of the legislature to visit, investigate, absolve, or condemn. What is contended for by these gentlemen is merely that the Manchester case would receive only prejudice from an anticipating inquiry before a court of incompetent powers for that full, impartial, and effective examination, which the exigency of the particular subject

demands, and which the regular courts of administrative justice would be sure to afford.

We have read the answer of Mr. Phillpotts to his Reviewer with a disposition to deal fairly between the disputants. And we cannot but think that the Author has some decided advantages over his critic. He is at least his equal in temper and language, and, as it appears to us, better founded in facts and principles. But what raises him to great superiority over his antagonist, is the palpable proof he brings home to him of mistating his express positions. It would have been natural, and even excusable, had Mr. Phillpotts returned to the subject, after such an attack by the Reviewer, with a temper somewhat ruffled, but we do not perceive any thing in his defence exceeding the tone of calm indignation. Another advantage of Mr. Phillpotts. arises out of the indecorous personality of the Reviewer, an engine principally dangerous in the recoil. Of this personality Mr. Phillpotts complains in the following terms, in a short advertisement, at the beginning of his second pamphlet.

"The author of the following Remarks' is reluctant to obtrude on the public any matters, which chiefly concern himself: he trusts, however, to their candour and justice, that they will bear with him in repelling an attack, which he sincerely thinks the most disgraceful (by no means the most important) instance, in which this Journal, professing the office, and undertaking the duties, of criticism, has lent itself to the low objects of personal or party spleen." (Phillpotts' Second Letter, p. 2.)

Of the diminished circulation of the journal in question, adverted to with much complacency by Mr. Phillpotts, in the first page of his "Remarks" we have no certain knowledge, but we cannot help thinking that the author is too secure upon that point. As long as unspiritual reason shall have its shrine and votaries in this country, and a philosophy profoundly anti-christian shall interpose its dark and morbiferous shade between heaven and human hope; as long as men shall continue to presume against experience on subjects purely practical in favour of their own chimeras; as long as it shall be natural to corrupt beings, to be pleased when dignities are evil spoken of, and authorities brought into contempt, a journal like that which has given Mr. Phillpotts such offence is not likely to fail from deficiency of interest.

What Mr. Phillpotts complains of is not the severity of the criticism, but its personality and its mistatements; and accordingly his second pamphlet puts his defence entirely on that ground. After alluding to the re-appearance of his supposed Reviewer, as a performer on the stage, to which he had long bade adieu, for the benefit of his distressed friend the editor of

the journal, and complaining of the re-issue of the article in a different form, price 2d. from a press avowedly under the patronage of Mr. Lambton, he proceeds to enumerate the particulars against which the critic has directed his invective. We will touch only upon a very few of these points of controversy, which we do not flatter ourselves we can make interesting to our readers. One or two, however, it may be important to exhibit, no less for the sake of critical justice than of placing the general merits of the question between the parties in a fair point of

view.

Mr. Phillpotts is accused of having "plunged freely into the error of thinking the issue of the trial of Hunt and others to be whether certain persons were engaged in a conspiracy to alter the law by intimidation and force,' which is not, and cannot be the issue, for that is high treason." In opposition to which position of the Reviewer, Mr. Phillpotts, after disclaiming all pretensions to legal knowledge, cites the authority of the following passages from Foster's Crown Law.

"Insurrections in order to alter the established law, are in construction of law high treason, within the clause of levying war. D. 1. Ch. II. s. 4. But a bare conspiracy for effecting a rising for the purposes mentioned in the two preceding sections, is not an overt act of compassing the king's death. Nor will it come under any species of treason within the 25th E. III, unless the rising be effected. s. 6-So much for this learned gentleman's law."(Mr. Phillpotts' Second Letter, p. 6.)

On this point we so far agree with the Reviewer, as to be of opinion that a conspiracy to alter the established law, or even to compel a change of public measures by intimidation and force, if manifested by any actual tumult or rising for such purpose, is high treason within the clause of "levying war" in the 25th Edw. III.; and that a consultation and scheme for carrying such purposes into effect, accompanied by clear indications of the criminal intention, may be an overt act to prove a compassing of -the King's death within the other clause: but all this is idle cavil with respect to the real point, whether the Manchester meeting was legal or illegal; and we entirely concur with Mr. Phillpotts that this question is virtually involved in the event of the present prosecution against Hunt and others.

It is, we apprehend, quite clear that a bare conspiracy to effect a rising for the purposes above alluded to would not be high treason, though the actual rising would amount to that crime. The indictment to which these persons have pleaded charges them with the offence of causing a great number of persons to meet together for the purpose of disturbing the peace, exciting discontent, disaffection, and hatred of the government

and constitution, and that in pursuance of such conspiracy they did cause a large number of persons to meet together for the purposes aforesaid, in a formidable and menacing manner, and in military array, with offensive weapons and seditious ensigns, &c. to the great terror, &c.

Now Mr. Phillpotts is represented by his Reviewer to have said that by the finding of these bills the prima facie case was all against the legality of the meeting. But we do not find that Mr. Phillpotts has so said. What was really urged by the writer of the letter to the Freeholders of Durham was this:

That several persons at the head of the meeting at Manchester were apprehended and detained for high treason, of which that meeting was the alleged overt act; that after their detention for several days, the charge of high treason was given up, and the parties were held to bail for a conspiracy to overturn the government and alter the laws of the land by force; that bills of indictment were preferred against them for such conspiracy at the assizes at Lancaster, and were found true bills;-that bills of indictment were preferred against certain persons concerned in dispersing the meeting by force, the consequence of which force was the loss of several lives,-and that these bills were thrown out." (Mr. Phillpotts' first Letter, p. 12.)

From the above extract from the first pamphlet of Mr. Phillpotts, it plainly appears, that he has reason to complain that his Reviewer has neither been just nor generous in representing him as maintaining that "the prima facie case was all against the legality of the meeting, because the bills have been found." The amount of his observations on this head is this-that the gentlemen of the Durham County Meeting, avowedly, upon the vague authority of newspapers, or other unauthorized representations pronounced that "the meeting at Manchester appeared to have been legally assembled and peaceably conducted." Against this interesting specimen of the wisdom and candour of the Durham patriots Mr. Phillpotts sets in opposition the sense and opinion of the Lancashire Grand Jury, expressed by their finding of the bills of indictment preferred against certain persons for a conspiracy, the overt act of which was laid to be the assembling of the meeting at Mancester, of the 16th August, and their throwing out the bills preferred against other persons charged with dispersing that meeting by force, and thereby occasioning the loss of lives; the fair presumption from which facts, as far as it goes, was, contends Mr. Phillpotts, against the lega lity and peaceableness of the meeting in question. The rejected bills, in that gentleman's consideration, furnished a stronger ground for presuming against the legality of the meeting than the bills found, since, if the meeting was legally held, and peaceably conducted, all who were engaged in dispersing it by force

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would be guilty of murder, if the consequence of that force was the loss of life.

We are frankly of opinion that on these general grounds Mr. Davison and Mr. Phillpotts had as fair a right to presumé in favour of the Magistrates and Yeomanry concerned in the events of the 16th of August, at Manchester, as the very cool, and candid, and sapient promoters and framers of the Durham address of the 21st of October, had to predicate of the Manchester meeting, that it "appeared to be legally convened, and peaceably conducted." And, supposing it to be true in strict ness that the finding or not finding by the Grand Jury of the bills preferred against the parties occasioning that meeting, or against those engaged in its dispersion is no prima facie case, as to the question of legality, any more than the conviction or acquittal by the jury on the trial would be conclusive on the same question; yet are any man's ears so sealed, or his judgment so warped by his politics, as not to discern and admit that on the legal character of the meeting will substantially depend the legality, and even the discretional propriety, and municipal prudence of the magistrates in their conduct on that occasion. It is pos sible for the Magistrates or Yeomanry to have acted illegally in dispersing an illegal meeting, and it is possible for the persons indicted to have been guilty of sedition, and yet the meeting to have been legal; but where is the unperverted understanding that can help seeing, or rather feeling, how naturally and even necessarily these questions bear upon each other in reason, in substance, and even in legal consequence. The defendants in the present indictment are charged with a conspiracy to procure a meeting for unlawful purposes, and the actual meeting in pursuance of the conspiracy is averred as the fact illustrative of the criminal design; is it then to be doubted that the character of the meeting will enter into the constitution of the offence, and be substantially involved in the decision? We must own, that to our minds, the legality of the meeting has always appeared to be every thing in the case. It is possible, that the meeting was illegal to the extent of being treasonable, and the magistrates guilty in their mode of dispersing it; but this is never lightly to be suspected of British magistrates, more especially with the opinion of a Grand Jury on their side. Nor can we help inclining strongly to the opinion, that, at the county meeting, as it was called, of the Freeholders of Durham, a great judicial question was, on groundless and gratuitous assumptions, most inequitably prejudged, and that the same persons were totally unfounded and unjustified in pronouncing the meeting at Manchester to have been "legally assembled and peaceably conducted," or in stigmatizing the conduct of those who dispersed