The National Register. — London, England, 1819-09-13 00:00:00

No. 2111—Vo: Political lActroopta. Mr. Pitt himself, before the , .of office had corrupted him, of the Law and ( titution ? The Liverpool Courier has exercised ingenuity upon a fancied distinction between NUNRERII and ottumes, and the Ministerial Papers fusee appealed to the doc trine as extremely wise and good. We can only say that either we do not understand it, or it is neither more nor less than compleat nonsense, — The only Political Orders acknowledged by the Constitution, are King, Lords, and Commons, and the latter are the whole People of England. Neither the abridgment nor the extending of the elective franchise can, therefore, have any thing to. do with overturning the principles of the Constitution as unw established. It is not less idle ti talk of the, authority given to the Yeomanry forteginning this work of blood by the reading of' the Rick Act, unless it can first be shown, which we contend it cannot, that the Riot Act may be read and acted on where there is no riot. But the Government Press still assure us that they can easily prove, lkath that the Manchester meeting was unlawful, and that the Manchester Yeomanry cavalry we xcectlingly merciful in not having glutted their *ords in a more extensite slaughter. They have boldly ven tured to tell us that 'ignorance, and misrepresenta tion, and calumny, have been the foundation of all the reports and comments which have prasumed to stigmatize those barbarous transactione ;.-that irre ligion and sedition were the real sources of the mischief; that though distress has long ,prevailed among the assembled people, yet that the•eperative wistlorn of Government, a term beautifully borrowed from the loom, would gradually and completely re move it ; and lastly, that "the Bench of Magistrates most exactly did neither too much nor too little, nei ther exceeded nor fell short of the limits of theirpub lie duty.' Now, as we are necessarily include in this charge of ignorance, calumny, and misrepreslatation, we shall endeavour not to apologise for *4., but still further to elucidate and insist on truth, and we can, we trust, fairly prove, that not only is our doctrine constitutional, but our facts cornet. But we will even, for argument sake, admit don the Manchester Reformers are very irreligious, ;At this .is surely the first time that any one ever thought of making his, irrelieon a plea for hewing a allow creature to pieces ; and allowing them to •belediti ous also, yet does the law of England provide a very ditrerent•renhily for that crime then the slashing of sabres and the trampling to death by the hoofs of horses. As to the operative wisdom of his Majesty's Ministers, how long have the eefFerings of these miserable men been borne, and the :r complaints poured forth unheeded ! When a relief from taxation was pleaded for can we forget the trunts of an " ignorant impatience ?" When any Ileform what ever in Parliament liar been proposed, even such as Lord Chatham, and Mr. Pitt, and Sir W. Jones, and Mr Fox, all proclaimed to b" essential to public tranquillity anti the security of the the Constitution, can we firget how it has been met by every unseemly jeer and mountebank joke which could be supplied from the budget of those who riot in the fruits of their profligacy, anti fatten upon public misery ? Whilst Ohl Sarum is permitted to enjoy her lierresentatives, and Ministerial Patron age, over other rotten Boroughs, to controul the House of Commons and consequently the whole dispensation of public freedom, can it be hoped that Manchester, and Leeds, and Birmingham will be io- sensible to their own comparative degrs the affections be conciliated or the re whilst these things are thus administer People of England should ever become The crud, and, until an honest Judge and an im ,partial Jury shall have decided the contrary, what we shall not hesitate•to consider the illegal and un constitutional outrages of the Manchester Magis trates and Yeomanry upon an unarmed and de fenceless multitude, and the deaths and injuries thereby sustained, seem entirely, and very justly, to absorb every other topic of political discussion : and we are glad to observe that they do so, because the -more they arc discussed and argued, the more will their importance be felt, and their character and tendency appreciated. When the accounts of the valiant deeps of these northern Hotspurs, as they have bena very aptly called, were tint published, eveL :he servile and hired band of Ministerial scrib blers were astonished and alarni2l. They talked of the " venial excesats of unsull i loyalty," and ne ver ventured to do more than strive to palliate what they could not defend. Their wise masters, how ever, have since taught them another lesson, viz. that through thick and through thin, " per fas ' Tie ?iglus" the whole transaction must be upheld, and that what they have to do is to reconcile the good People of England•to abandon quietly their liberties, and give up their lives whenever an ire rant Magistracy, backed by a hot-headed soldiery. shal deem it, in the plenitude of their authority, right to demand their surrender. And in this task we must de them the justice. to say, they are labour ing with no ordinary 'seal. In the meantime it svculd ill become the friends of humanity, loyalty, and of equal law, to abandon the field of argument, or to desist from setting before the publia, in its proper light, a subject, than which one more weighty never was submitted to the consideration of a free people. 'Without being friends either to mobs or demagtvuea, every man must fed that not wily the general right of expression of public feeling upon public uflitirs, 'but that his own personal security from lawless attack, and the right of resistsuce to arbitrary rever, under any circumstances, arc un fortwas,ciy but inseparably blended with this ques tion. 11. n . ing that Universal Silfrage, and Elec tion by Ballot, iind Annual Parliaments, are theories as wild and visionary as you please, yet they have nothing in them which can forbid the People of England to deliberate on and to discuss them as much and us often us they please. Even the most sanguinary and relentless tyranny will .find it vain ns well as wicked to commit! opinion ; and every wise Government, and more especially our own laws, necessarily require some distinct and oven act transgression, befiire they inflict a penalty. rtso ciatinns exist for the ohject of promoting Refiirm, enrolling amongst their numt*.irs the greatest and • best men that adorn the age we live in, and Meet ings are held in every direction for the some avowed object; petitions upon Morin in every shape, and almost every variety gradation, both as to t 6• duration of Parliament and as to the extent of Suf frage,•have been proposed, agreed to, and presented and indifferent on ouch subjects, wl and lament it infinitely more dm of turbulence and excitement vs' shewn. The Court r sgai has the numbers killed and wounded flict as not exceeding forty, bo published trite the very nainci injuries received atneontiog to I and twenty women by sabre and only, independent of those wounded cheons of constables and the tramp& Though, if but a single life had been gle wound inflicted, the principt contend would be just as sound, equally well founded ; namely, t 1 Land has been most grossly violan stitution endangered by those whose it was to prove themselves its guardi they have presumed to do that, upon which even plain and positive sob Treason could not have justified. of England knows nothing of it ordered t) be cut to pieces for any nor in any other mode but in hom warfare. A soldier may perhaps • ployed, in certain cases, for the caption of offenders, land for the purpose of bringing them to justice, but' he can never bc•lawfully employed as an instrument for the execution of that vengeance which belongs to a widely different tribunal. But it is also said that the Reformers struck the horses and men with dangerous missiles. We had jest before been told •that they were armed with bludgeons, but the offensive weapons are easily by a fertile fancy n. verted into stones awl brickbats. But granting that they used with every possible energy both the sticks they brought with them, and whatever means of defence accident could supply, yet if they were first ant illegally assaulted, any resistance, however violent, was not only justifiable but becoming the situation they were placed in. Riot and Rebellion may be as easily committed by magistrates and Nil. tilers as by the people, aid every effort to meet and oppose it, wherever that is the case, has been esta blished as the great law of society, and the fiist principle of civil government. Whoever," sa. s Locke, " uses force without right, us every one does in society who does it with o ut law, pots self into a state of war with those against whom he uses it, awl in that state all former ties are cancel led, all other rights cease, and every one has a right to defend 'dare:Wand resist the oppressor." Lastly, that the conduct of the Manchester magistratcs should have met the taste of the Courier may b.: easily imagined, but if any other reflecting man in this,ln any other country, tan be li,utm t, whit can conscientionsly ray that he has w•ttched mid approved the conduct of that venerable Bench, that he has first watched and approved the mode adopted tin securing their wretched victims, their consignment to chains and solitary confinement, their examination and re-committal day after day for eleven days successively, under the charge of Murder and 'High Treason, crimes which Gunn alone, it' fay proved, justify their treatment ; and then has watched and approved also the sneaking abandonment of that charge tin the silly one of a conspiracy to do God knows what, and the dilem. mn in which they have involvedlhoth the Executive Government and themselves, if, we repeat it, there be such a mail, we will not dispute either Lis taste or constitutional knowlesige„ but we will both rymp.►. thize in his stupidity and pity the unfeeling inejta. dice of his heart. both to the Throne and the Legislature; and we heard, not even Mr. Canning himself, question the right and lawfulness of snch proceedings. Again we should beg those who pretend that the object of Universal Suffrage is of itself an illegal object, to infor►n us what is the precise limit to which we may lawfully go. Is it unlawful to petition that Copy holders should be admitted to vote ? Is it unlawful to say that I louseholders in general should be allowed so exercise that right? If so, how ignorant v. at - ,'" • . , ; ". ,r- . la ~,,,_ A • . ! Mt li , atm nal( 44,Lt isittr4 . ~ ..y....... )4 t . Our Mug, Con4titut 4 anUnatuii. trt 1. XII.] MONDAY, SEM ENitE 13, 719. n - 11; 1 I' 1 'f . I .4 - . . ~ ;Ai - 4v :IC"!