The National Register. — London, England, 1819-12-27 00:00:00

eik? 7 4:. - t* WittiOttr+ • -.. 01 Our Ling, Confititution anti if an3d. No. 1,2-L .—Vol.. XII.] rt. PARLIAMEXT, it is supposed by those whose authority may be considered os the best, will lie. &massed front their labours about the .7(1 or ,f.th of' 'January for a recess of six weeks; the important business of passing the Restriction Bills, and stopping .the mouths of those who were described as clamour ous for enquiry, having Lcen successfully carried. Most of these Bills however, to which we have so .often adverted, are very considerably softtned•and meliorated in their prgress, end we hope those which still remain will be SID likewise in the most oljectiottable of their provisions. They were intro timed and supported by Ministers as measures of perpetuity, as a yoke to be, not for a season, but for ever imposed upon our necks, and upon all those who shall live after us, and further also as meant to 'extend their influence over every part of the Bri tish dominions, Whether any ground might eKist or nut for such enactments. They are now, or at least the most obnoxious of them, limited to five years of' duration, and a compromise has thus been conceded of placing the Constitution in abeyance only, instead of utterly destroying it. We have gratefully noted, and the country we are sure, has appreciated the strenuous and patriotic struggles of the Opposition • in this eventful crisis. They were not ignorant that their motives would be traanced by the tongue of l'actious slander, they were not insensible that the cause they fought fir would be described by the vile instruments of ministerial corruption as the cause of blasphemy agaiiiit . Cod and treason against awful governments, and that the purest piety rout most unsullied integrity, and most unquestioned loyalty to the House and to the whole of' our Con stitution, would, for no other reason, but because they boldly threw themselves into the last fortress of our freedom, he held up to view as identified with the vilest and most infamous of the human race. These tricks of a prostituted Press, these worst vices of its lieentiousuess: are now however well underst••od by the people of Enghull, and we cannot help thinking that it has arisen front a eon. scioustirss that they arn so, that Ministers have receded from those trews:dims attacks upon our li. berties with which they opened their campaign. We cannot attribute it solely to the lalsiar of the opposition, because their best and noblest efforts were proved to be quite ineffectual whenever they came to u division, and it could not be front fc-ar of those majorities filling away, because they had testified their zeal and their devotion to a derce %vhich might n•urrant the most implicit confidence in their support upon any or every question which the Minister might think fit to recommend. They had stifled all enquiry by Parliament into the transac tions of Manchester ; they had agreed that a 1:1.44 of revolt was too notorious is places even where it %V.. asserted not to exist at all, to need any exemp tion front the openttions of the measure to•'be adopted, and, what is still more, they applauded and sup. ported the introduction of the Bills in question whilst understood to he perpetual in &natio 1, and unlimited in extent. They had approved by their votes the Bill'relative to Libel with the punishment of death attached as the penclty of offending, and they coultil du tia more when Lord Castlereagh was induced to withdraw the severiiy of such a sentence. • To what are we to attribute the change ? To the! merciful, lenient, gentle spirit of the ? %Von4l to God we could o:itteerely to so, the .14w:1 and the wounils inflicted ut Nlanthester are • • MONDAY, DIICInDIER 27, 1819. yet left without legal iavestigation, and until that tales place no credit Mr gentleness and compassion can he easily conceded to those who have op posed,. what appears to us, so loud and crying a demand for equal law and jnstiue. We believe then that it is to the fume of publis opinion, to the growing and diti), maturing disapproval of the whole body of the nation, and above all, to the exertions of the press, and to the patronsof those exertions, that we owe the most cilia:told and beneficial resistenee to those obnoxious measures. In their passage through the Committee, much of their poison has been neu tralized, several of their most terrible fangs have been extracted, they are now chiefly reduced to local and temporary measures whieh should have beer their character when first proposed. How those who approved and defended them originally, can approve and defend them still is a question they must be left to answer for themselves. Mr. Holt !muse, the author of the celebrated book entitled " 'lime Second Reign of Napoleon," and a late can didate for Westminster, is sufTering ia Newgate the punishment of a libel on the House of Commons.— As an integral part of the Constitution, every well wisher so his country mit be anxious to see that branch of it, perhaps the most important of them all, flourishing in the good opinion of the world, and must he further anxious to throw a veil over its errors and imperfections, wherever the absolute safety of the state does tit eall for their expsure.— But we must still say of the House of 'Commons, that which is so true of : private characters, that nothing is so hard as to support those who will not support themselves.--It is an admirable principle of Government, laid down by a phi losopher of antiquity, that " if you wish those who we subject, willingly and fitithfully to obey, you must chew them that they have the price of the liberty they surrender, in the care and vigilance you exercise for their private security and for their public good, for, - says he, " many, both private persons and states, having insisted upon submission rather that friendship, and slavery rather than allegiance, have been doomed to bewail their folly in their own overthrow mud ruin."— Would it not have been much mare effectual towards curing the venom and sviolencetif such attacks as Mr. I loblnatse has made upon it, if the house of Commons had not sanctioned that wide wasting an.: profligate expenditure both of money and of blocd which has distinguished the 'councils of this country for so lung a period of its past history, and of which we aro now reaping no more than the natural and necessary fruits, overwhelming taxation, encreasing.pattperism, universal stagnation of commerce, and as universal discontent.— Would it not have aided the character of that assembly'io have resisted the first imposition of three millions of taxes lust year bearing almost exclusively upon agriculture and manufactures, which were already groaning under the severest pressure? NVould it not have shown u better regard for the sufferings of a depressed state, not to have granted 10,0001 a year to a son, as the wages of visiting an aged and afflicted parent ? Would it nut have better satisfied the spirit of murmur and dis satisfaction to have fitirly and itapartialiy investiga ted the .Manchester transactions, and if it had been needful to support authority on one hail, yet at least to have admonished them of their error, and to have shorn that such conduct must be not cons; ler. (alas a.?trecetlent, and that the laws ought and must not be broken? Woultififuot have shewn a spirit of / aNkiMa LralrE 04#1. just and humane feclinti to have inst tuted an enquiry . into that distress which is at least as notorious as the discontent itself, and admitted on all hands to be the eause of it, when a committee tbr that Oleo was moved liar by Mr. Bennett, instead of rtjecting it, not because it w.o; deemed unnecessary, but because s tys Mr. Canning, " the Hon. mover has aeeompanicd his motion by observations anti cont. meats, to which 1 cannot entseribe?" The rapt) of England cannot shut tht.ir cycs to thc, , e thiags.; we hope they never will ; not will discontent ever be mitigated till the sources from which it fl ;ws are purified. 'Von may suspend the Habeas Corpus— you may intreduce Green Bags, and legi:late upon them for ever—you may forbid upon tin constituted powers of the State, but you cannc: inspire either esteem or confidence without tk:zerving it ; effects will never give way till the causes are tlomoughly removed. Mr. lloblantses language we admit to be quite homier:ol.:. We readily allow, further, that it is neither consistent with justice in many points, nor with the duty which a subject is hound to cbserve in all. But ivhy will not the House of Commons render - such attacks upon it more unjustifi able still, by making them so totally inapplicable and groundless, that they shall lose their sting by their own absurdity and falselmod ! SOUTH .4.IIERICA. csenscr or A Ihi7T aa. IMTED MARC. VIITA, OCT. & " We received despatches here a few days ago from the Government at Angostura. and also front 'General Bermudez, who is s►ationed at Barcelona. The cause of the abandonment of the blockade of this island by the :ipanish fleet is now explained to be the want of provisions, and it is therelioe proba ble that we shall, ere long, rcccivc another visit front them. Morillo himself was so bent on the measure. that 119 came down in pasts to La Guyrs, to hasten the departure of the squadron The pro visions they bud on board were sufficient only for two months, which, as they sailed on the 2411 of,lttly, must all have been esti:lt:sled at the time they quitted our-cwasl. They had orders from Mu rillo to fight and dyi.at the Venezuelan sod adron whenever and wherever they conld meet with them. Gen. Crania:A has been in disgrace at Angostura. fur the ftilure before Cumana, but is reinstated an his command, and has orders, us soon as the rainy season is over, again to attempt to carry the place, enq what it may. The last accounts from General Pacz state, that he had invested 'San Fernando, which was hour!! expectod to ofl'er Perms of capitu lation, as no relief could be looked tin• from General Morido, who was not believed to have more than 3,000 men under his etanmand. It is aseertained, on the intbrmation of a surgeon who has deserted from the Royalist army, that the garrisons in Cu mana and Porto Cabello are smaller than had been supposed, and very inadequate to their defence, the flamer having !)00, and the latter only 150 men. We have sustained here t severe loss to the Patriot cause by the death of Gen. English, who ditxl of the few. early in the morniog of the 2.5 th alt and Was buried the same evening with military honours." Adviees front Cadiz of the Ist inst. arwouttee that the Government of Spain have cente to.ft determination to semi out immediately two armit. mews to South America, one of which, cromiNti , . of 6,000 men, was to go to the assistance of ; and the other, consisting of from 15,000 men, was to proceed to America, It appears from a late diseus.sion in the .Con Chmeerv, that the fee demanded by the Rev. smith of Gretna Green, for makittg• " one II:. the ardent fugitives %r•ho resort his shrine, less than 1001. They W ho have heel' 1 urtitcs t proceedings, or who have witnessed them, can testimony wheth:..r payment is required b,:fa , performance of the ceremony or But;. fr.iNt 4%2; f Gen. u 10 tr it 1 6 17! (Hirt ~ia‘ l s , ~ Op. ' • t t ri\P is Arfrr‘'.' 1 to 40' --F- s • b L''