The National Register.
London, England, 1819-05-31 00:00:00

ON THS

STATE OF THE NATION.

In our Postscript the week before last, we stated,
and the event has fully proved our assertion to be
correct, that, the pite# dr.*44 of ti!eiymPt!
awn, if net the preloitttesirgainette, 104 ltreit'at*VM
very acme of its progress; and that the develope-
nient, happy or 'miserable, would be soon unfold-
ed. This dewomement has proceeded with unex-
ampled rapidity, since that time. Mr. Tierney's
motion for " un Enquiry into the State of the Na-
tion" has bee-1 negatived by ievery large majority,
and negatived, weregret to state, without one single
argument assigned why it should not have been
adopted. The Defence of Ministers, seemed a
task upon which no one dared to venture, and when
they attempted it themselves, the course they took,
would surely, any where elm brit in the House of
Commons, have been thought an odd one, viz, that
of admitting the whole charge of a miserable state
of Finances, without any plan hitherto adopted,
either for the Redemption of Debt, or the Restora-
tion of Credit ; of a stagnated Commerce, and a de-
pressed Agriculture ; of an Administration divided
amongst themselves, upon Questions of vital and pa-
ramount importance ; and lastly of having done no•
thing, originated nothing, ventured nothing for the
Relief of a public crisis which damands the utmost
energy. Lord Castlereagh, resting his defence upon
a ground, which no man better understands, of fa-
vours conferred during a series of eight years of
power, and a few delicate allusions to the votes of
those who had formerly served him, and whom he
in his turn had sta-wd, upon a flourish or two of
Ithetolic which no one understood, but the Irish
Members, and a long enumeration of the glories of
Waterloo and the sublime arbitrators of the Con-
gress, threw himself, at last with pitiable humility
upon the g,encral sense of Parliament, and Parlia-
ment has forgiven him ail his sins. I Ifs friend and
ally, Mr. Canning, with a still bolder confidence in
the support of those lie was addressing, treated an
Enquiry into the Distresses of the country, dia..'
tresses avowedly admitted on every • side, with pre
cisely the same degree of gravity and.decoram es he
did the suffering of " Me revered, the ruptured Og-
den," the continuance of the suspension-Act, and that
Listing and indelible stigma of the Parliament, the
Bill of Indemnity ; a Bill which honourable men
would not easily have been led to ask, and which
to men of any other description should not have
been granted. How can a hotly of Legislators, sit-
ting in what ought to be a grave and solemn deli-
beration upon the rights awl interests of their 11:11ow-
creatures, allow one of the most serious and awful
suljects that come befbre them, to be made day after
day, fagot for the unseemly jeers and nonsense of
this State Miriam. How can the People of En-
gland refrain from exclaiming like the poor frogs in
the fable, us the boys stoned them, " Good sirs,
this may be sport to you, but remember it is death
to us."

The Catholic Question in the .1-louse of Peers
was negatived by a majority of forty-one, including
all the Bishops, except those of Norwich and
Rochester, the former of whom expressed himself in