The National Register.
London, England, 1812-03-29 00:00:00

SrNDAY, MARCH ,29,. Igl2.

N. 2.21.

-.POI,ITICAL DISQUISITION.

-, '

No. 208.

•

CIVIC PATRIOTISM.

The polittcal world has seldom.presented a more aw-
fully interesting spectacle than at this moment.-;-‘
It is not oneiof peace and security, but of agitation and
danger. Late events have burst the bonds of human
passions, and they now rage in all their hideousness and
their futy. Disappointed ambition has torn from her own
face the mask that veiled her features. Pretended friend-
ship has unblushingly renounced -her smiles and turned
into bitter enmity, public spirit, which formed the
motto of party, is openly abandoned as unprofitable
ncl vain, and we hear from almost every side,
the loud clamours of disappointment, the jeer of
malignity, and the ridiculous lamentations of sel-
fishness and baffled interest. Like the ocean after a
rough equinoctial blast, the whole country presents a
ruffled surface. What would be the duty of real pa-
triots4—To exert themselves to restore the tranquillity of
the land. But what is the conduct of our pretended pa-
triots ? Do they endeavour to quell the agitation of the
public minds ? Do they shed balm on the wounds which
they represent the Body Politic to have received ? Let
the declaimers of the Common Hall answer these ques-
tions ; but let them look at home, before they yield a
reply,

It was natural to expect, that the grand efforts
lately made by the most elevated class of the opposition,
to frighten the PRINCE REGENT into a change of rnea-
Lures and men, would be followed, after their failure, by
a puny and desultory warfare on the part of their adher-
Nits in the lower walks of life. We saw, therefore, with.
out any excessive surprise, the exertions made throughout
the country to excite popular discontent, and to give it a
voice which might reach the Throne with the accent of
menace and the language of insult. We heard, but we
can scarcely believe it, for we cannot conceive the exist-
ence
of such a degree of iniquity possible, that the riots
that destroyed the peace and prosperity of several ccun-
ties, Were fed by the secrect contributions of the friends
of Reform, After receiving such information, and learn.
ing that it had been communicated as authentic to an
higher authority after thus seeing rebellion organized in
our land, the proceedings of the Livery of London on
Thursday last, and their Resolutions, must'appear com-
paratively mild and harmless. The traveller, who has
been terrified by the distant roar of the lion, perceives no
fearful
sound in the loud braying of an ass.
The linen-draper of patriotic spirit, who, while re;kon.
CCXX

PRICE 9(1.

ing behind his counter the rich -krofits of hisstrade, • pon-
ders on national bankruptcy aWd ruin, has once more
brought to light the fruit of his shop meditations. Like
the articles which he exposes for sale, and this is perhaps
one of them, it is of a motley nature. Its general cha-
racter is abuse, but its is lavished on so many subjects that
it partakes of their variety. Wild and disgraceful pro-
jects, frauds and peculatious, useless places, pensions, sine-
cures, reversions, and expensive establishments, form the
out-works against which Mr. WAITHMAN directs the fire
of his artillery. He next discharges his wrath on the
weight of taxation, and the " inquisitorial and arbitrary
mode of its exaction," and then, with all the Quixotic
spirit that once so successfully fought with windmills, he
bravely assails our paper currency, and only leaves this
powerful antagonist to return to his old stores of abuse
against the traffic of seats in Parliament, the Walcheren
expedition, and the re-appointment of the Duke of YORK,
The Orders infCnuncil are then represented, in imitation
of BUONAPAnTE'S reports, as having rendered the threats,
of our enemy efficient, and produced ,‘ the almost general
ruin of our merchants, and the starving and wretched
condition of the population of the manufacturing districts,
who, driven to despair, claim relief in a change of system,
instead of an extension of our penal codes"—Here Mr.
WA MINIAN has displayed mere decency than we expected
from a patriot of his natuese and condition, Although he
has used in the foregoing passage which we have extraeted
from his resolutions, the very ideas contained iv. the French
report, he has altered a few words here and there, so as
to conceal their identity from the e-ys of a careless and
easily deluded public. To address the Purees: REGENT ja
the very words of Neroeuosr would have been so gross
an insulr, that it might have dissipated the blindness of the
common herd of reforwers, the deceived not the deceivers,
and increased the pretty general defection from their
party which has already taken place. It was therefore
not only decent, but prudent, in Mr. WAITHMAN to act
as he had done : and we do him the justics to believe, that
.he would never have sacrificed so -nWth to decency in
this case, had not that more serious consideration been at,
tached to it.
It would he fatiguing to our readers, as much as the hear.
ers of Mr. WAITHYAN'S speech, to enter at length into an
examination of its sentiments. They were the same, he
told tits himself, which he used twenty years asp, and
which had been eepressed by almost every man out
place ever since states have existed, in which a field has
lain open to the ambition of the lowest subject. A tide
of repetitions flowed from his lips, and, notwithstandieg
all his exertions, lie had the mortification of not being
once originally abusive.
The rest of the resolutions which this unfortunate
speech introduced, arc of a piece with those we have als
ready described, The one asserts again, what had been
officially declared in Parliament to be a falsehood, that
ioreigners have been placed he; in command over E