STATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

IR Samuel Romilly has called the statesman is in his grave, but the evil

cruelty of our civil code. Success with him. Gold disappeared: paper will, we doubt not, crown his endea was circulated in its 100m; but could YOU S. The slave trade, that disgrace this be done without a change in the to boman mature and Christian pro- affairs of men? The dividends on the feina, did not fall at the first blow: bank shares increased, honuses were it required repeated strokes to fell it given, bank-stock arose in value. All to the ground. Dejudice will cling this was natural; but the effects of pato any cojection. A judge has thrown per-money have been seen in France out an idea, that personal reformation and America,and happily for this counis necessary, before we relax in our try, the same effects have not followed severities:" but we are of a different here; yet, as was to be expected, the opinion. Personal reformation is more change from gold to paper could not likely to succeed, when the laws are take place without some effects correjust and humane; and Braco did not spending to the cause. The Report of understand human nature so well as the Bullion Committee treats the subour great lawgiver Jesus. Let our ject as delicately as the nature of the institutions be improved to the utmost case would admit. It foresees the point of perfection; let our criminal evil that, from the continuance of the code be every where made consistent present system, must arise, and it sug with justice and humanity; let a re- gests a measure to prevent it. This is gard for morality and comfort enter the return of the good old custom of into our prisons; we shall not be afraid paying when you promise to pay: that personal reformation will be in and it fixes a time for the restoration the least retarded. But this we know, that rigorous punishments produce unfeeling hearts, and are unworthy of men who have so much occasion, each for himself, to cry out--Lord be merciful to me a sinner.

of it. This is to be, if their plan is adopted, in two years; at which time the bank is to resume its payments: but, as, if this were done on the sudden, the change might be hurtful, the gradual introduction of gold, within that time, would be left to the sense and discretion of the bank. We heartily wish that the House may improve upon the Report, and suggest some mode by which gold payments may be more easily and speedily restored."

The alarm occasioned by the number of late failures begins to subside; but much calamity has followed, and the minds of men have been prepared to reason upon a topic which is of the utmost consequence to the country. A very able publication leads the way. A curious case has arisen out of this It is the Report of the Bullion Com- paper coinage. A Jew thought he mittee; a committee in the House of might make an advantageous traffic Co Commons, appointed to inquire into with guineas, and he gave for a hunthe causes of the difference between dred of them more than a hundred the real and paper value of bullion. and five bank-notes passing current Mr. Cobbett has most ably written for one pound. There is an old act upon this subject, and the two publi- of pariian ent prohibiting the giving cations place the whole in the clearest of more than twenty-one shillings light. It is now some years ago, since for a guinea; and the man bas that minster of expedients, Mr. Pitt, been tried under that act, found was terribly frightened with a few guilty, with the reserve that the opistoppages in the north, and a run nion of the judges shall be taken, upon the bank for gold They want whether the man's guilt really does gold, do they, said he, they shall not or not come within the meaning of have it. We will order you not to the act. Now it is to be recollected, pay any gold, and then there is an end that, when the act was made, the of this alarm. It is easy for power to legislature had not the least idea of ordain, but the consequences of an the present case; it was impossible action once con.manded do not rest that they should foresee the proba with the ordainer. The miserable bility of persons giving up a hundred

guineas for so many pieces of paper. Two questions then arise: first, whether the giving of so many pieces of paper for a hundred guineas, is any more a breach of the statute than the giving of so many bushels of corn, or so many pounds of sugar for them. Secondly, whether the man, allowing the construction of paper-money, has given more than the guinea's worth is shillings for a guinea: for, where was the man to get his shillings for the paper. At the bank cash is not given: and, if he is to procure shillings for his paper, the difficulty would be great to procure the sum, and he must pay people for the trouble, or lose his own time in getting them. Criminal laws are to be interpreted strictly: and, if the case was not contemplated by the legislature, however desirous it may be in future, that the legislature should make a new law, we cannot see how the present is an offence against the statute. The judges will, however, set us right upon this subject.

The army has afforded a very remarkable subject for inquiry. A paper has been, it is publicly reported, circulated for signatures; and it is a petition to the King to recal the Duke of York to the command of the army. Who the authors of this design are is not generally known; but a more injudicious step, as to the object in view, could not have been taken, nor one, in every sense, more detrimental to the peace and happiness of the country. Mr. Cobbett is in prison for writing what is said to have a tendency to degrade the army in the eyes of the nation; but what have the publishers of this petition been doing? Been attempting to make the army a deliberative body to give it a voice in the choice of its commander-inchief: for, when an army petitions, the authority of the sovereign must be in danger. We hope and trust, that the inconsiderate men, who have given currency to this petition, will see in its true light the error of their conduct; that it will be withdrawn from the army; and that the throne of the King may never be surrounded by generals, who have had the audacity or the weakness to sign such a petition.

The feelings of the public on the

release of Sir Francis Burdett from the Tower, sufficiently made known their opinion of his cause; and, as the great question is to be tried on the 20th of November, we must leave the farther consideration of it to that important time. His constituents, however, took an early opportunity of requesting the favour of a visit from their beloved representative, and the Crown and Anchor was filled upon this occasion. Between eight hundred and a thousand persons were assembled; and the joy diffused over every countenance on the appearance of Sir Francis Burdett may be imagined, but cannot be described.After dinner, on his health being given, he delivered his sentiments in a most eloquent address, and the grace of his person, the charms of his delivery, the grandeur of his sentiments, inspired an enthusiasm as perhaps was never equalled, much less surpassed, on any similar occasion. He vindicated himself and his friends from the unJust aspersions of always endeavouring to run down public characters; and of condemning party, when they were themselves a party. I never said, he observed, that a party, acting upon public principles, was not desirable: but merely meant to express my dislike of a party without principle; where all virtue was compromised; where nothing of principle was to be found; but instead of public principle, private ambition. Earl Grey had, in the House of Lords, advanced some sentiments which surprised all who remembered him to have been, at one time of his life, one of the friends of the people, and an advocate for reform. Against the sophisms in that speech, Sir Francis directed, with great success, his attacks; and, in a very manly manner, contrasted with them his own sentiments. The prac tice of the borough-mongering system, said he, has been to hold up the power of the king, as that dreadful object which is to alarm the whole country: they tell us, that it is the power of the king which is to be guarded against; whereas, in my opinion, the people have nothing to dread from the power of the king; the power of the king and the power of the people are equal; and no throne is or can be secure that does not stand upon that principle.

my mind to that condition. I feel that, if I must fall, I had rather fall with a falling country, than stand elevated on its ruins. The unbounded applause that followed this speech, declared the unanimous approbation of his constituents: and, when Sir Francis retired, between ten and eleven, the honest cheerings of every heart accompanied him to his carriage, and the multitude without testified their joy by conveying him in triumph to his house in Piccadilly.-It was a grand day; and it proved that the mind of Sir Francis was not daunted by his confinement in the Tower, and that he will continue to perform the duty of an honest and independent representative of the people.

The interests of the people and the I shall not be able to get so much of king are one. It is important all should the Englishman out of me, as to bring feel, and that the king should know they feel, that the interests of king and people are one and the same. It should be known that our object is only the destruction of that infamous, that legally-stigmatised monster, the borough-mongering faction. On the introduction of his own name in the Earl's speech, he observed, I am said to hold myself forth as a martyr in the same cause with Sydney and Russel. Nothing could be more unfortunate than such an observation; they were sacrificed to an arbitrary tyrant, through the medium of flagitious juries. What matters it how our liberties or lives are endangered? or, if we must be robbed, whether it be from the right pocket or the left? Here is a power assumed contrary to law, the fundamental law of the country; contrary to reason and common sense; contrary to the happiness and security of the public; and, whether this assumption comes from the King, or the House of Commons, or the House of Lords, it is equally indifferent to us. What I deny, therefore, on the part of the people of England is, that arbitrary sovereign power is entrusted any where. I say, that there is no such thing. I say, that the people have trusted sovereign power as far as they could, with safety to themselves, in the King, and that they have, for the purpose of checking that power, reserved to themselves the right of appointing their own stewards; that they have retained the right of controling that power by their represen- The desertion of a French general tatives in parliament.——Our limits has also occupied some of the public will not permit us to dilate to the ex- attention; but far greater notice was tent of our wishes in gratifying our taken of the circumstance than it dereaders with all the splendid passages served. The general was not high in in this speech: but we cannot omit a rank in the service, nor employed in noble expression on the effects of the such a manner as to give us any maloss of that liberty which was once the terial information on the internal poboast of this country. In time, the litics of Versailles. He was disconminds of Englishmen may become tented, and it is his interest, after the lowered to their condition. Gentle step he has taken, to paint, in high men, the minds of slaves are not at colours, the discontents of France, once adopted. When we consider and the atrocities of Bonaparte. Ou ourselves as freemen, various are the the latter subject, is is needless to exduties expected from us: but, when patiate. They are sufficiently before once we know ourselves to be slaves, we must bear in our minds that the slave has but one virtue, which is pbedience. I greatly apprehend that

The punishments in the army have excited much discussion, from the number of them lately published to the world. One extraordinary case has occurred. A corporal was sentenced to receive a thousand lashes; but this sentence was commuted, and he received only two hundred, the rest being remitted on his going to a foreign regiment. This commutation of lashes for a peculiar service must put the regiment into a strange situation: but we cannot conceal our satisfaction that, at any rate, the remaining lashes were remitted. The man may, by this mitigation of punishment, be led to perform his duty better in this foreign regiment, and re-establish himself in the good opinion of his officers.

the world, and we cannot, by abusing the hero, diminish his prowess in the field of battle, nor destroy his resources. The general's history may

serve for a kind of political scandal to cannot be immediately perceived. In an use gossiping statesmen: but we time, the same effects will be produced do not expect any important results as were in Wales and Scotland, by from it; and we should even think, their respective unions. The ignorance that the Englishman, who for some of the Irish is only a call upon us for time conducted the Argus in Paris, greater efforts for their improvement. and is now come over to abuse Bona- The petition, however, for the repeal parte on this, as he did our country of the union will bring the subject on the other, side of the water, could under discussion: the petitioners will make as mighty discoveries. This shew in what manner their country puny warfare, however, will be of has been injured, and remedies will, very little service in the great coutest it is hoped, be applied to their disin which we are engaged; a contest tresses. But we apprehend, upon inin which we must not endeavour to quiry it will be found, that industry conceal from ourselves, that the enemy is, upon the whole, improving; and is as skilled in the cabinet as he is po- nothing, in fact, is wanting but to tent in the field. throw down the barrier that separates Protestant and Papist, and to unite the whole kingdom together upon that general toleration of sentiment, which has been so humbly and yet so firmly called for in the Christian's petition.

Failures in trade, in England, have produced much distress; but in Ireland, the lower classes have been reduced to such a situation as to call the attention of government, and relief has been very liberally administered. In such a state of things, it is The Americans are lovers of liberty; natural that a variety of causes should but many of them, like people of other be assigned for the calamity; and they countries, have not, when gain is in who were inimical, from the begin view, any regard for the liberty of ning, to the union, would seize this others. One of them, however, has opportunity of expressing their aver- given rise to an important cause; or sion to it. Meetings have been held rather (for we may be doing injustice upon the subject, and it has been to the Americans) a vessel, under agreed on to petition parliament for their colours, has been the means of the repeal of the union. In this the bringing a great question to a proper petitioners can scarcely expect suc- issue. This vessel, laden with slaves cess, nor indeed will it be wished for from Africa, was captured in the West by any impartial person. If we look Indies, and carried into Tortola. The to the government of Ireland for the captain pretended that she was bound last two hundred years, the horrors to Charleston, South Carolina, but committed in that unhappy country not being able to reach that port bemust shock every feeling mind, and fore the 1st of January, 1808, he was they cannot be greater: we should under the necessity of making for hope that they will disappear, when Cuba, there to wait the orders of his the subjects in both countries are employers. This pretence was denied treated in the same manner. That the by the captors. The judge stated that Irish have not, as a body, arrived at the vessel must be considered as emthe par of civilization is evident, from ployed in the slave-trade to a Spanish a comparison which may be made colony, and that trade cannot, abfrequently in this country, of two re- stractedly speaking, have a lawful giments, the one Irish, the other existence. By this is meant, that Scotch, that pass through the same though our country has no right to district. It is not to be wondered at, interfere with the laws of other counsince the Irish have, for the last two tries on this subject, yet the trade hundred years, been kept in ignorance must be considered to be primá facie and sloth; the Scotch, since the re- as illegal; and the burden of proving formation, have had the light of re- it otherwise falls on the claimant, who ligion and learning thrown into every must shew that it is allowed by the Cottage, and, since the union, have laws of his country. In this case the had an open field for the display of. trade was illegal under the American their talents. Let us not despair of law, and therefore the claimant could the Irish. The benefits of the union have no demand whatever on the UNIVERSAL MAG. VOL. XIV. U