from uniting to aid the civil power, evidently ascribes the whole to distress, as its ultimate or producing cause. This part of the country (says that distinguished and justly respected person) is unfortunately surrounded by idle Irishmen, weavers and colliers, who create a general uneasiness.' (p. 49.) I must repeat to your Lordship (he says in another Letter), that this neighbourhood continues in a state of extreme distress; generally in want of employment, and under a considerable degree of agitation, all of which appear more likely to increase than diminish.' (ibid.) Lord Glasgow's Letter is quite general; enters into various statements of the spirit of discontent prevailing; and complains of the attempts made to pervert the minds of youth, without giving a single fact in support of his assertion. He speaks the technical language of the alarmists, and, like the rest of his sect, avoids all discussion of particulars. He prefers, with Lord Grenville and Mr Plunket, to stake the question upon general notoriety.'

We have now minutely gone through the whole evidence laid before Parliament; and we venture to draw from it one inference, without the least fear of contradiction,-that distress is at the bottom of the whole discontent; that no deep-laid design exists to destroy the Constitution, or war against the Law, or invade the property of the country; but that, as always happens in a popular Government, demagogues have availed themselves of the bad times to further their views, whether of political speculation, or of personal vanity; and that these proceedings may have here and there overstepped the bounds which are prescribed by law. The history of these events reminds one forcibly of the insurrections which broke out in Henry VIIIth's reign, upon occasion of the first attempt to introduce an Income Tax into this country. The masters were forced, by the difficulties it imposed on them, to throw men out of employment; and the poor workmen in many places rose up and took arms, not being quite so shortsighted as some of our demagogues, who conceive such a tax to fall wholly on the rich, and hold that the poor are noway concerned in opposing it. The Government took precautions to quell the riots, and enforce the tribute; and the principal scene of operation being in the eastern counties, the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk were sent thither with a force to quell the insurgents; with whom, when they began to reason, and asked who was their leader or captain, an aged man, called John Green, stood forth and said, If it please you, Sirs, our captain's name is Poverty, and his brother Necessity;' and opined plainly the causes of their ferment to lie in the impost, and its grinding effects on their

employers, who could thus pay no wages. And after a while,' adds the Chronicler (Hall), this tribute surceased through the land, and quiet was restored-for well it was seen that the Commons could none pay.'

If any addition were wanting to the proofs which we have given of the groundlessness of our late alarm, we assuredly have it in the important fact, wholly overlooked by the supporters of the new Bills, that the meetings, so much the object of dread, had in fact ceased all over the country before a single Bill was brought in. Previous to the 16th of August, we have seen how they were dwindling away both in numbers and viclence;-the events of that memorable day excited a general ferment, and revived the drooping spirit of popular assemblies; and then this was continued and augmented by the constant irritation kept up in the public mind by the unfortunate course of judicial proceedings, both before the Magistrates, the Grand Jury, and the Coroner, apparently amounting to a complete denial of justice; so that for a few weeks more numerous and violent meetings were everywhere held than had at any former time been known. But no fact is more certain than the tendency of all popular spirit to evaporate of itself, if unchecked by persecution; and the difficulty of repeating public meetings frequently within a short period of time, where there is nothing done but debate, is well known to all who have ever engaged in such proceedings. Accordingly, the effects of the Manchester outrage, and of the subsequent course pursued by the Courts in the Country, by degrees subsided; and even to discuss those interesting and fruitful topics, no new meetings were assembled. The leaders of the multitude tried in vain to renew their exploits; the spirit of the capital was found to have evaporated in a great procession; that of Manchester was under the control of a salutary caution, and the indisposition to witness another 16th of August was manifest. The demagogues, both in town and country, began to quarrel among themselves, and to show some sense of justice in copiously reviling one another, both by parole and in writing; vain attempts were made to assemble even the rabble of London; and two Spafields meetings, lately the terror of all men, were held with hardly any auditors, to the laughter and pity and contempt of all the town; till at length the whole having dwindled to nothing, the last account, that lived in the recollection of the publick, was the accusation brought against one rebel chief of embezzling four pounds thirteen and twopence, and the arrest of another for about the same sum, being the tavern bill of a civic entertainment to commemorate the triumph of the popular cause! Strange, that the

Alarmists should have been so little comforted by contemplating these proceedings-these manifest symptoms of innate debility in the cause of the disaffected-these demonstrative proofs that the machinations of such miserable creatures never could hurt the State-and that whatever ferment might have at one moment subsisted, had all yielded to the operation of the ordinary laws of the land. But it was now said that the danger lay not in London. Here was a material change of doctrine; for the whole malignity of its character in 1812 and 1817, had been made to depend upon the influence of the London chiefs, and the universal ramifications into the country of a conspiracy, the root of which was planted in the capital. But, then, all ferment in the country had also ceased; no outrages were committed; not a meeting of any sort had been held, or even announced for weeks before the Bills were brought into Parliament, and for two months before the new measures were in force. How could this be reconciled to the accounts so lavishly circulated, and so greedily devoured, of the imminent dangers of our situation? Surely every man must have been aware that the prospect of restraints upon publick meetings would necessarily have forced on the crisis, had any such risk really existed; for those who really wished to meet, and those whose plan was to avail themselves of meetings to work their mischievous purposes, must equally have endeavoured to hold meetings while they were yet lawful: Yet not a meeting was called while the new Bills were in progress. Of all this there is but one explanation. The season of tumult, the time for being afraid of such assemblies, had passed by; and there never was any ground for the alarm which they had excited; nor the shadow of a ground for maintaining that the ancient constitutional law of the country, if steadily as well as equally administered, would not prove more than a match for all the machinations of discontent.

We have now seen two months more pass away in equal tranquillity; on which we shall only observe, that a more vile piece of empiricism never was practised than their's who now pretend to ascribe this quiet to their nostrums of last Session. The operation of the act restraining meetings, never could have checked the evil all at once, had its nature and magnitude been such as those men described; for that measure left so many means of holding meetings of the most dangerous description, that it would have been found wholly ineffectual, had real danger existed. For example, all meetings in buildings, however numerously attended; all processions, if without emblems; all district meetings; all meetings of whole towns and counties, provided discussion was not the object, including a meeting and

procession to buy Paine's bones, though: attended by 100.000 personal. these went tet: as legal as netore the new law was. Lassed. But, another most demonstrative proof that tus a nat no connexion whatever with the Tease we have eniovel SINCE I. Dassel, the equally profound tranquillity entovet for at emua period of time betore it was in operation at al. Ins clear point ought ever te kent in view, in order to detect and contoume the nointica quask wht would tam ther nerncious arus, unor is as having effected cures which hat beer competed by the regular practitioners long before tuer vit medicamens were compoundet..

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Alarmists should have been so little comforted by contemplating these proceedings-these manifest symptoms of innate debility in the cause of the disaffected-these demonstrative proofs that the machinations of such miserable creatures never could hurt the State-and that whatever ferment might have at one moment subsisted, had all yielded to the operation of the ordinary laws of the land. But it was now said that the danger lay not in London. Here was a material change of doctrine; for the whole malignity of its character in 1812 and 1817, had been made to depend upon the influence of the London chiefs, and the universal ramifications into the country of a conspiracy, the root of which was planted in the capital. But, then, all ferment in the country had also ceased; no outrages were committed; not a meeting of any sort had been held, or even announced for weeks before the Bills were brought into Parliament, and for two months before the new measures were in force. How could this be reconciled to the accounts so lavishly circulated, and so greedily devoured, of the imminent dangers of our situation? Surely every man must have been aware that the prospect of restraints upon publick meetings would necessarily have forced on the crisis, had any such risk really existed; for those who really wished to meet, and those whose plan was to avail themselves of meetings to work their mischievous purposes, must equally have endeavoured to hold meetings while they were yet lawful: Yet not a meeting was called while the new Bills were in progress. Of all this there is but one explanation. The season of tumult, the time for being afraid of such assemblies, had passed by; and there never was any ground for the alarm which they had excited; nor the shadow of a ground for maintaining that the ancient constitutional law of the country, if steadily as well as equally administered, would not prove more than a match for all the machinations of discontent.

We have now seen two months more pass away in equal tranquillity; on which we shall only observe, that a more vile piece of empiricism never was practised than their's who now pretend to ascribe this quiet to their nostrums of last Session. The operation of the act restraining meetings, never could have checked the evil all at once, had its nature and magnitude been such as those men described; for that measure left so many means of holding meetings of the most dangerous description, that it would have been found wholly ineffectual, had real danger existed. For example, all meetings in buildings, however numerously attended; all processions, if without emblems; all district meetings; all meetings of whole towns and counties, provided discussion was not the object, including a meeting and