The National Register. — London, England, 1819-12-19 00:00:00

malice, but more from ignorance, destroy b. t!: our peace in this life, and our hopes hr , rc:01 er, it will indeed be well, uni we shall there hire now dismiss this topic, mid le ive our judge nett upon it to be tried by the effects it may peodoce. The Training, or Dri lit Bill, us it is calle3, stems liable to no other objection than the new question whether any new law for such an occasion was absolutely needed. Any superfluous legislation is a thing to be carefully avoided, The multiplication of statutes and enactments already constitutes a subject of much just complaint amongst all our best and ablest lawyers, and innumerable instances of the uncertainty, the inconsistency, and the mischief attaching to our legal decisions from this sole rause might easily be furnished. But alas ! whilst a revision of the whole Code thus accumulated is daily mid loudly called for, we go on adding to the heaps, turnishiag fresh matter fir error, and fresh fuel for contention. It is a sound maxim that " tew laws and well administered are best." Now it would be presumption in ua to place any opinion of our own in competition with time high legal authorities of the :and who have framed the Bill in question, but we cannot help asking whether any person ever doubted that a body of men meeting together by moon-light in unfrequented places, and prepari mg themselves by military tactics and discipline fur military opera tions without any ostensible legal object, wore guilty of an overt act of the must seditious and even •treasonable kind? If the state of society amongst us has been until now destitute of any self-defence against such practices, our system of jurisprudence has been more defective than we could have possibly conceived. But this defect does not appear to us to Lave been proved either in theory or in practice. No demonstration has been satisfactorily laid down, that we have seen in,argument, no trial has been had and failed in our Courts of Justice upon such a charge. New statutes against treasonable proceed ings have always been most numerously introduced .mnd enacted in the worst periods of our history, and therefore may always be said to furnish a sort of prima facie evidence against the administration to which they respectively belong. They were never so multiplied as in the unfortunate reign of Richard the Second, and yet, after a melancholy scene of troubles, notwithstanding the devotion of his Par liaments, one of which acquired the name of mer .eilers, so little effect have violent laws to prevent crime, this very Prince himself was both deposed and murdered, and two years afterwards the whole .mass of those laws upon which he relied fur his security repealed and swept away, as having only contributed to augment and aggravate the evils they were meant to cure. To this awful and interesting portion of our public annals we would earnestly recommend the attention of our rulers and of all those who are so eager to support their system of force and coercion in preference to any endeavours to remove the causes of discontent and ferment. The lad measure we have to notice, and by far the worst, is the Bill .to ,regulate, or raiher we the e it litinn awl sentiments M s•,bjects, and should therelore be cherished by aPrince as a privi lege equally dear to himself as yttbette he governs. That a set of bad Ministers thaikld make it their very first and leading object to get such meetings under their own controul is both natural and likely, because their own unpopularity ntey by this means be at once concealed from their master, and perhaps, to a given extent even from their minions and sup porters. It is for these reasons that the freedom of meeting, with no other restra:nt than the condition of preserving the peace inviolate, has been ever asserted as the undoubted right of Englishmen, and the privilege of petition, upon equal terms, to both Houses of Parliament and to the Throne, .has been contemplated as another indispensable bulwark of our liberties. These coupled with the rights to equal law, " freely without sale. fl Ur without any denial, and speedily without delay," and to the possession of arms " to.vindicnte these rights, when actually violated and attacked, (says a great writer on the British Constitution) it is our birth-right to enjoy entire." is it not innsentebiit . to observe that every one of these great hinges are Acne to be new modelled, and the freedom of their movements shackled as the only untans of preserving the power of an administration, or supporting a system which has gone on fur five and twenty years, loading us year by year with fresh debts, adding year by year to our parish paupers by thousands and teas of thou sands, augmenting taxation in the same exact proportiva, and what is still worse, preparing the timid and tke luke-warm for an absolute and unconditional surrender of whatever can render life honourable, or our country happy. The conversation, for we suppose we should describe it by that name, which passed between the Norfolk members, and tae letters produced upon it, both from the Lord Lieutenant and fawn the Lord Chancellor are an admirable comment upon the • character of the measure we arc new discusing Meetings arc not in future to be held without the sanction of the Lord Lieutenant, or fire magistrates of the county, upon any matters connected with our public policy. Now when we consider that the Lord Lieutenants are not only appointed by Ministers, but dismissed if they oppose them, and that magistrates arc again dependent as to their appointment, open the Lord Lit;utenant for his recommendation, and upon a Cabinet Minister fix his commission, what, in tho language of common sense is this, but a direct warning that no public meetings shall be held at all for any object not suited to the wishes and opinions of those Ministers to whom bath the Lords Lieutenants and Magis. (rates are thus subservient for the offices they hold ? n 1 It is true that a magistrate is . quite, by com mon aisrge, become yet so ame •e to authority as not to be at liberty to exercise 'tiamin upon political questions, but when the cc is thus con nected with political influence d mxossarily a a party to political discussion, wilOit not naturally operate upon the minds of roliticarpartisarts in the patronage already has been felt to Norfolk, as C. The charge has been most awkwardly-06490ml to be refuted, but every effort of that sort has tap- • more and more tended to expose its truth and application. What is the present situation of the two divisions of the county in which the Lord Lieutenant himself resides ? In one we believe there is mot a single acting Magistrate whose opi- Diens are not in unison with his Lordship's, and in the other, when his Lordship is not at Gunton, we have beard that many parishes are ten or twelve miles distant from any atagiztrate of that division, a fact, which if true, amounts in a thousand cases, and particularly in those for which the care and' protection of Magistrates is most needed, we mean ,cases of infirmity, and sickness, and old age, as well as petty offences, and oppression, to an absolute, denial of public justice. Is there then no person• of sufficient claims, in every other point but politics, in the former of these divisions, and no fit person whatever conveniently situated in the latter, for 'discharging the Magisterial duties? If there be any such, pecan, *lir has cot his Lordship's boasted impartiality iu one ease, and Lis cub of the public justice of the county in the other, led Vint hitherto to supply and correct this apparent contra diction to his own letter and neclaratiuns? This is a question which the defenders of Lis Lordship's impartiality are bound to answer; and if this be the state .n his own neighbourhood, and amidst his own acquaintances and friends, what may we pre sume it to be in the quarters of those whom he contemplates as his enemies! A new list of Ma gistrates is now said to be forming for recommenda tion to the Lord Chancellor; we shall see what are its names and the bearings it is calculated to have on our public measures. Tt is highly important ia such a period as this, that the character of our Ma gistrates should not be impaired for independance. But if they ever come to make themsaves, or suffer others to snake them, the mere tools and servants cf a ministry, every evil we row- deplore will be in creased ten-fold, and every irritation now e►isting will be proportionably excited. Foree on one hand, and hatred on the other, will be the order of the day between one class of society and snot/tar. The Lady Louisa packet frnm the Brarils has ju•t arrived, having sailed from Itio Janeiro on the 14th , of October. The intelligence and Chili is nut of a later date the Meridian, though the letters was then omitted. Admirall3, had been degraded from his raw.— foe having without orders abandoned Callao, and left Lord Cochrane,. to Payta, exposed to an attack fleet, has been reinstated as second that at the suggestion and with Cochrane himself. This measure, sacrifice he had previously made prire-tatoney to the exigencies of , tiered Lord Cochrane extremely Gonsinerce at Rio Janeiro is pressed, and carried on with greater disadvantage, than ever. _ - ' ,--, 1. , ...., -- -.....4t. , A P. ,, • '''.'ll . "' - • 7 • ,... ;11r..."7441F ' ---- 7 L. , -- 7 - 3111 , ag1......77 .•-- - "‘ , ..••, .. . • 10 .. . .. .\, • . ' e 01 / 1 ' - •qL. ? -" ; " -r-) ,-- -- d.e---A-,Ai-- - d-, 7‘ a : :-.7. e..4 3 .,;', 1 , 1 4...e...e: 5 A C - ...- . -''', 4,-2 -, - . i - .=. •• •1,, ..-. ) , - - N- ~ • 0.2 14 j ..f....... N. 11 1 1 •••••••• N. ta N. tit r ..........„ . .i. • , . . . . . .. • - . Our Itingt Or ondtita ' n /alb itatoit. . • _, a ,... ig f.___...jgaP,_:____ . E , No. 234.—Y0e.. XII.] SUNDAY. DCEM. ER 19, 1819. 11'sics 9;4. • • - ....--,..--.. 1,90 i itt cal Uttrospecr. should say annihilate public m hs s, for to this appointment, will nut every Government expect. cud must the restrictions now • IN our Posteript of last week we offered a few considered as tenth 1t.... Asiembl of the people for to second those expectations. that those vibe eve • observations on the new Bill relative to Seditious and the expression ,of public opinion' matte/sof state, admitted into the nntninimicin +bell be PerIMS net Blasphemous publications, a Bill which we sincerely is a circumstance mentioned l Tecitus as die. likely to facilitate any censuses being east open tb. pray that it may, rather than hope, that it will be tinguishing the policy of our refathers, even in Ministers of the Crown. It is true the evil =vim effectual to its object. If the additional burthen our yet 'mei .ili:!ed 4::,,,., ...,,1 luta Always been con- exist in its full force at prevent, but it will be arising from the increase of our standing army, can >idcred :t: !alibi tl v gr . i.iftt t untliiilti of our freedom. every day encreasing, if thehorrible bill be coudeued. _ be thrown only upon the shoulders of Itadical It is the best nun only sway in which a Sovereign can , What applies to one county a ppli es He/seria lly t o a ll, Reformers and infidel writers, who would, some for ~ e cotne, generally speal iug, fatly acquainted with and enough of that sortof exclusive patronage akently an d 1 has been felt In Norfolk, es 'M r : C. 4 1 1Nib t l. malice but more from itruwatice. destroy h. t!: our the e u lition and ice from Buenos kyre; e than that brought by ,ters state a fact which Banco, it appearse: ink in the Chilia • indaned the bloc • ) e,during Uses • . , tack from the S 0; ccond in cantina " th the sanction • icasure, joined •'4lFt ide of the whol. 9 ,t 4 4 10 of the state, mcly popular at g. :•-** described as more 1 -S