The National Register. — London, England, 1816-09-16 00:00:00

MEETING AT WLSTMINS2TR. --+- PUDET lISC OPPROBRIA Writ!! F.T DWI POTVIStr, ST NUN POTUIdSI; Ft' ERY friend to the best interests of the country nrist foment the language hell at the meeting in Palace Yard on Wednesday last. Much of it might have been eaticipateal, at least the principal topics selected by the e.peakers, but we Will venture to say none of err readers c .old have anticipated the extreme lengths towhich those indainmatory speeches led ; we doubt, indeed, if the Ora tees themselves had calculated the extensive mischief which they were likely to produce at this season of ge nie-al distress and peculiar irritability. If ever the adage was applicable, that the truth is feu to be spoken at all times," it is strikingly so at this moment—though we are by no means •insensible to the evils arising front the enormous load of our national bur diens, its debt, and the taxation absolutely necessary to defray the interest upon it ; though we are alive to all the mischief of large sinecures, and to the injustice of one intin's fattening on the labours of his indigent neighbour; though we lament the existence of the evil, and heartily wish for its possible removel—what good, what pn.ctical g ood, we ask, can result from the agitation at the present ounuent of such dangerous topics, addressed to an audi ence so little previously prepare e l to dispassionately con sider them ? If it be universally admitted by the best and wisest men, that the greatest delicacy and difficulty exists in treating thde subjects—that they arc, in a great measure, mixed with questions of vital importance, viz. on those of property, than which nothing can or ought to be held more sacred—that though we are desirous of weediag out the tares, we are anxious not to pull up the wheat along with them, surely the exaggerated statement of grievances made on the late occasion—the highly-co loured and over-wrought exhibition of sinecure places :Ad emoluments held by individuals, with a graduated aside, either seriously or ludicrously calculated, of the taxes they pay to Government, compared with the incomes they enjoy, can answer no other purpose than to generate disaffection, and bring the Government of the country into contend abh o rrence : there is, besides, u, injustice charging on the subsisting Go vernment, or on the Legislature, the evils resulting from these overgrawn incomes; Since these incomes have not been created by the one or the other ; many of them are evils of long standing, arising from a different state of things to any now existing—many of them saddled on us by our ancestors, incorporated in some instances with questions on property acknowledged by our present rulers to be grievances, and even corrected as such ; for are•we to be told, or are those most forward in urging these griernees to be informed, that the Legislature has put a saip to IteversiOnary Grants, that the great profits of the Tellers of the Exchequer and other per centage holders of public money, have been greatly reformed and cur tailed, and reduced to moderate profits ?—and that, if the Marquis Camden, a name on every occasion now valgarly brought forward ; but let it be recollected, if there is any merit in hereditary worth, Magnum rt me caorabile yeomen gentibus, d mittens nostra quod pro drrat urbi, of that noble Lord, still holds a great sine care ; it is from the inviolate respect always attaching in this country to whatever bears the semblance of property end 'vested interests ; and that in future no such evil can esist, the great profit , of the place alluded to having been abolished by act of Parliament. When these and other matters of a like nature arc dispassionately consi- Acred, with what justice can the present House of Cum rums be accused as the parent of these reprobated sine cures ? on the contrary, whatever may be the deficiency in our representation—whatever the fault or corruption of the present system of Government, on the ques tion of immoderate rewards for inadequate services, the Legislature has marked its sense in the strongest man sea., by abolishing in future the excessive income, com plainest of :—Why, then, is this inflammatory topic urged and re-urged, but to catch the fivor of the popalace ?- 1 his appeal to the people is no new artifice, it is at least as old as the Roman Government ; when every thing else failed. the last resource was, • Provoco ad populum; rut let us hope that the mass and population of the coontq, with the good sense that belongs to it, will view the sinecures presented to them with a just and discriminating eye, not falsely att 'Outing, as a demerit of the present Government, wh as been transmitted to it us a burthcn and debt by fon:fithers, and which cur present rulers arc in fact tai anxious to get rid of as the Orators of Palace Yard,- or their most strenuous ad herents ;—let this only be understood, and the factious topics of Wednesday last will be rightly judged and duly appreciated; v: hat was false and futile in the - arguments adduced will full to the ground. 'Felten iiiihene sine iota. ' What was true and unanswerable will make its way even to the-Seat or Government, in despite of the unpalata tie nature of the subject, or the homely and inelegant im.an in which it ittia scrvcd Aa r . DarLtioß. THE _NATIONAL IttGISTIIII LITERA'FURt:. URQUHUtT ON IMI'RE,'O33IENT. WE have been much pleased with Mr. Urquhart's very patriotic ethision on the subject of Impressment, and we cannot but conclude that any - object con nected with the prosperity of our Navy must of necessity be interesting to an Englishman ; yet the opinion of many is, that it should be considered only as matter of triumph, and not of' inquiry. They seem to think that we have a full rOtt to bow.t in the power, and success, and glory of the navy, but. that we should be careful how the examine minutely its compo nent parts ; they strm to be aware that this power, suc cess, and glory, conec.:: by their lustre some latent evil which they would nit have discovered. While our navy is .riumphant and unrivalled, ingniry is thought frivolous and ritliculo•:s but should some event, perhaps a:-,t lung distant, convince us that though unrivalled at present, yet we may be equalled ; that though now triumphant, we are not invincible—then, (and we fear not till then), shallwe inquire whether the navy does not contain some defects that may be remedied, some abuses that may he corrected. Among the most prominent of these will be found an exceeding severity of discipline, and chiefly, impressment. TLe flamer we know has, during the late war, much abated, but it still exists, to deter seamen front volunteering, and to cause their desertion. Of this evil almost every discharged seaman complains. We admit, that their dissatisfaction has not becu expressed in quite so formidable a way as it ought to have been. At the end of the Ametiosa war it is well known that a naval captain, appearing in Lon don in his uniform, did it ut the risk of his life, which was absolutely endangered by the attacks of discharged seamen and their friends, who were indiscriminately bent upon doing mischief to every officer they could meet with: Impressment, however, is an evil of even a more glaring character. Itisby no means an unfrequent case for a seaman, on demanding payment of some just debt, to find himselthalfan hour afterwards on board thc tender. This we mentioned as being a notorious filet, though Mr. Ur quhart has not noticed it. Of this gentleman's work, we say that it meets with our unqualified approbation ; he states what appears to us a practicable plan, in a plain, seaman-like way, though sometimes the fervour of his feeling , s has made him eloquent, as in the following pas sage addressed to Mr. Wilberforce:— " The subject I have taken up, aad in aid of which I require the support of your talents and reputation, needs so impas sioned delineation—no exaggerated colouring. It oak re quires to be faithfully represented, and brought before Pudic moat aura the public, by a man whose character is free from the suspicion of fatuous motives, and whose parliamentary conduct is regulated by his conscience and a sense of the ge neral good ; in that case I pled"- myself that the evil which is the subject of th:s appeal will be soon redressed. Every ma. five allied with human suffering, every sentiment associated with a sense of signal silts ices, every inducement coupled with policy, and, in a word, the, preservation of our present high bale, prosperity, and rights as a nation, imperiously call for the enquiry and redress I here solicit on behalf of that much neglected and harshly treated class of men of my pro fession. It will no doubt hereafter exercise the ingenuity of the moralist and of the political enquirer, why the most en lightened country upon earth, famed for its laws, and its re spect ts, I the rights of its meanest subject, calling at the very time upon the nations of the earth to assist it in the cause of humanity, and in the extinction of slavery, should have tolerated the viol( lire and injust.tte which ronstitnte the subject of the present letter. 'the solution of this problem will he more dif licult hereafter, ashen the period when those acts of oppres sion were permitted, and the class of men who were the vie- Aims of it shall be considered ; the period the most glorious in our sun ils—the men the first founders and the Imsavest sup. porters of this vast amid towering edifice of national glory. Yes, it was at such a period, that the gallant and constitutional de fenders of our national independence were exposed, without protection and without mesey, to be dragged by fellows—the out-casts of human nature—from their wives, their children and friends on hoard a receiving ship, and confined under locks and boits,as felons, excluded from intercourse with their friends, subjected against their will to the rigour of martial law, and li able to be sent to a foreign station for an undefined period. Mr. Urquhart proceeds to illustrate his subject by the relation of a circumstance whirl► he has not selected, because it is peculiarly dreadful, or because it displays a wantonness of brutality unusually aggravated, but only because it %ems oue he could more readily substan tiate. "'l'o give you some idea of the impress, T shall mention a circumstance which occurred to myself. U bile walking in a street in the east of London in the year 1803, in the month of July, about nine o'clock in the evening, with my wife bolding by 01le of my arms and her sister by the other, was stopped by a man wino demanded who I was : on what I desired to be informed on what authority he dared to ask me that question. 1 bad hardly tittered the words when I was brutally seized by him and three mole. My wife received a violent blow on the breast which compelled her to quit her hold, - and was struck with such force, that symptoms of a cancer appeared in x short time afterwards ; those symptoms continued several months, and only the first medical attention could have pre vented the consegnenets that were apprehended. The ruffians struck me on the head, tore my coat Er my back, and alto wards dragged me by the neck for 40 yards, until life was al most exhitusteil. At this critical moment, some people, who had collected from curiosity, fortunately happened to recog nize me, interfered, and probably by this means saved my life." This circumstance is sufficient, we think, to review the necessity of inquiry. it may be proper to add that on application to Lieutenant Crawford, the names of these men were refused; and that Lord Howiek, after insti tuting an enquiry, declared it to be cut of his power to SEPTEMBER Id. punish man, hut that Government would not protect him against the face of the civil law. We perfectly agree with the author, that " it was the bounden duty of hi:: lordship to have discharged this man from the fervice, and to have & pub] ie:y expressed the most marked disap probation of the conduct of the officers under whom he acted." The civil law, however, appears to have had no fhrce, far after a great expellee both of tune and money, a venliet of fifty pounds was obtained vtinst u man not worth a Earthiug. DRAM.IT'IC REGISTER. DRURY LANE. In the play of Lovers Von's, on Saturday evening, Mrs. Kmottr, from York, and Mr. IlEscouou, from the Bristol theatre, were introduced to a London audience, Mrs. KNIGHT has a good perscn; and her oval face i 3 handsome, intelligent, and expressive : her voice is per. feetly audible and distinct; and if her elocution be not very highly finished, it it at the Fume time not absolutely har7'i or incorrect. Alto i: ;ether she was well re:-.2i7ed ; and her eviaeLt knowledge of the art, together with her more than common tattural advantages, will, we d: übt nod, enable her to apply her powers successfUlly to tl e field on which she has heneeforth to exhibit them. Of Mr. 13ENoonou we can speak in terms of warm approbation. I lis Baron Wildenheim was not only a correct perfirmanoe but a more forcible and interesting portrait than any that we have for a long time beheld of the same persom+ge.— He plays with great feeling: he manages skilfully a fine voice : he moves with the perfect ease of a gentleman, and his a'•tion displays both variety and rigour. Hie figure is tall and manly ; his countenance, we thinl , more comely than marked : but he scents to Le filmilitic with his profession; and if he has formed a permancht engagement at Drury-lane, we are inclined to consider him as no mean acquisition to the company. COVENT-GIRDEN. This Theatre opened on Monday night with the play of Pizaro, one of Sherilan's patriotic gifts to the Pub lie. Its merits are so well known, and have been so truly criticised, that, it is needless to go over them again. In the cast of the characters there was nothing new.— Young has played Rolla on many occasions. As an ac tor, his abilities arc not questioned; and if his great pre decessor Kcmble identified his fame with the Public in pourtraying the Peruvian hero,—t he Rolla of Monday night might claim a portion of public, respect for his ta lents. Mrs. Egerton, in Lleira, was sc.:it to some dis advantage—the character is not adapted to her phy6cal powers; her conception of it is good: and as an Acu:.•As in many other parts, she justly claims attention ; but as we suppsoe, the character was thrust upon her, fr fault was not her own. The audience, however, sss very numerous and very considerate, and they applaudei the sentiments which fell from the lips of Ettira.—C. Kemble, in allonzo, Miss S. Booth, in Cora, and the of the Dramatis Personae, experienced the welcome - dits of the audience on their appearance. The Miller c 7,4 his Men followed. The house does not appear to have La - dergone any alteration. A handseme gas chandelier' as been fixed over the grand stair-case, from the Bow-st:;..et door, which from its size and construction, affords a brit. liant illumination. The decorations of tke interior of the house have b• en freshened; and two boxes, for Prince and Princess of Coburg and the Duke and Deeh ess of Gloucester, have been anitably fitted up. Wtalnestlay, after the musical Romance of Guy Man. ;tering, a new Divertisemcat was performed, for the pur. pose of introducing to the spectators three Spanish dan cers, Senor Luengo and his two nieces or step.daughters, Senoras Rainot. The exertion .s violent—the movement voluptuous—and like the native dance of the Ilighlar.- den, the lboting on the floor is strongly marked, instead of the light spring and elastic pirouette of the French. It is extremely curious, and the dance though short, pro duced tumultuous applause, mixed with some disappro bation. A young lady of the name of Boyle, on Friday made her first appearance in the part of Vialaitle, in the spi rited and bustling comedy of The Wonder. She has a tall, slender, and genteel person—she moves timidly, but with the air of a gentlewoman. In her action there is much gracefulness ; and considering her want of self possession, it must be natura4, or at least habitually, graceful. Her utterance has som•tching in it which seemed at first to approach to a lisp, and to arise from an original impediment : but upon closer observation we arc inclined to think that it may be merely a manner, and that it therefore may be soon unlearned. Her voice is not wanting in volume, nor is her elocution hurried or indistinct. Her features are regular,• and her eve ex pressive. She gave some of the replies to the angry taunts and merciless reproaches of Felix, with a coolness and humour which told strongly upon the audience, and was frequently and tkservedly applauded. Upon tbe whole, we do not affect to speak of this Lady's delineat:en of Vio/ante otherwise than. as a first appearance ; but if it requires some of the tenderness due to such an ordeal, we may pronounce, on the other hand, that it holds out prospects, such ns we shall rejoice to see realized by her ; for they arc such es we have seldom seen raised by others. I-lAN - MARKET r.—This Theatre closed on Sa turday ii ,ht with a shoi: .I:ldre:s sptien by Mr. Terry.