The National Register.
London, England, 1812-11-01 00:00:00

674

landed proprietors, who, ousted by the superior wealth of
the one, and the patronage or turbulence of the others,
shrink from entering into a doubtful contest for a share in
the Legislature, which they must purchase with the ruin of
their fortune, or the abandonment of their principles. Thus
a class whieh..composes,the life guard of the empire, is pro-
gressively deprived of its due weight in the Constitution,
by the very beings whom it cherishes and supports. Trade
brings riches and enervating luxury; it encreases our com-
forts, but also our wants; it gives.us magniscence, but not
strength. It gilds the walls and furnishes the chambers of
our palaces, but the solid structure itself is a native of our
fields, and the work of our own industry. Law assists in re-
gulating the order of society, of which it but too often de-
stroys the peace. It provides for the direction and mainte-
nance of our moral and civil establishments, but does not
give them birth. They spring from the preceding class
whose wants create and nourish trade, and by whom and for
whose protection and security laws were originally made
and governments erected. Officers (and let not the name be
pronounced without reverence and admiration, for those
who shed their blood for the safety and honour of their
country are entitled to its most enthusiastic gratitude,) direct
our native energies to the support of that Constitution from
which they derive all their rights as freemen, and with the
fall of which, our liberties and,..national existence must ex-
pire. To secure the integrity of our soil, to extend, when
provoked by unjust aggressions, the limits of our empire; to
raise oppressed nations from the dust, and on the humiliation
of our enemies to plant the inviting banner of universal inde-
pendence, such is the task, and such have been the deeds of
our chieftains and our warriors. They are the guardians,
but ought
.they also to be the priests of our constitutional
temples? Their scene of action and of triumph is the
boundless expanse of the ocean, or *the territory of injured
nations. The rights of mankind are to be regained by their
valour, and is it. to he chained, when war rages throughout
the globe, because civil duties require their presence at
home . At the same time are the latter to go unperformed,
because the Legislators, are also the soldiers, of the country ?
To exclude officers from Parliament would be an individual
but an honourahle and only a temporary hardship. It would
even prepare a new mode of repaying their services : for the
veteran,crowned with the laurels and retiring from the fatigues
of war, would find in the Senate afield more suited to his
age ; where his wisdom and experience would prove as bene-
ficial to the State, as the youthful vigour he exerted in
battle against its enemies His most glorious reward would
be to sit among the legislators of the land for whom his sword
had purchased security and prosperity, and to ,watch from
the sapctostFy of the Constitution at once over the interests of
his constituents and of his companions or successors in arms
who, esiAtioye to uphold the honour of their country.
These observations may be considered as preliminary to a
snore-extended view.of the consequences likely tosesult from
the ,s .oprietoik in Parliament,.
and Imam -af the -cortner-
44ial,

NOV. 1.

MAR: 1S WELLES:4: V'S ADVOCATES,

'• 'WORDS,',): DS, WORD,!!!"

TO DIE El)lioit.

SIR—A blunt, plain, and, I flatter myself, an lione,t
man, now addresses you, wishing, through the medium of
your valuable publication, to vent his ind gnation against
the mischievous f.tction, who so abs:todlv rtul thcmkel‘e- the
advocates of Marquis WELL Est. r.r. when in fact they
prove themselves his greatest enetnics ; I mean The
Times," and its idolized Cori espoodent V t:Tus. But think
not, Sir, that when I take up the cudgels against them, I
mean to follow theil lung strings of hyoerbnlical invertive
on the present conductors of public affairs, step by s'ep, nr
attempt to answer them ; no, such a ta,k would be b,vona
my talents, for I cannot pretend to reply to whit is in it-
self incomprehensible, or to reason against a firia.4o of
bitter wilds, which are neither backed by any thiog like ar-
gument, nor-depend on any thing like facts. I have al-
ways heard that scurrility and abuse betiayed either an im-
potency of mind in the person who uses them, or a great
weakness in the cause which he supports; and I doubt not
that in the present instance, every thinking, and I will add,
every candid mind, all whose reasoning powers are neither
warped by interest, nor blinded by partiality, will be inclined
to attribute the bitter and vituperative strains which I com-
plain of in the writings of VETUS, to both these causes. I
was once willing to look upon the Noble M A moils, the i.b-
ject of their adoration, as upon one whose transcendent abi-
lities were well fitted for sitting at the Irlat, and directing
the affairs of England. But I will catidid'v confuss, that
though I have not changed the opinion I had of hi& ta!ent,
I think he has lately shown such a spirit of arrog.int in-
flexibility, and of stickling for pretended consistenev, such an
irritability of temper, and lacability in his r, sentments,
as to render him, in my estimation, with all his al
skill, the man the most unfit to be trusted with the reins of
Government ; for how can he pretend to direct ofters, who
knows not how to subjugate himself? flow can he expect
others to make sacrifices to the Comman \Veal, who. lather
than give up one tittle of his self-importance, could, with
frigid apathy, refuse to co-operate in the preservation of his
country unless, for the sake of upholding his consistency
or rather pride, all the measures he advised were to be
adopted ? and yet this is the image which The Times and
VLTIrs have set up for all nations and languages to bow the
knee before !-Does he suppose that others had not also their
consistencies at heart, or did he expect that the majority
were to yield to one who nearly stood alone in the Cabinet?
Such an idea would indeed prove him a man of supei ior ar-
rogance, but by no means convince the world of his superior
abilities to all his former colleagues.
What will V.ETUS, who is so angry about the " treacherous
disclosures" of 1806, say to the man who, in 1814, is guilty of
the same pe:Ady ? flow mile V eir us to know the secrets of
the Austrian and Swedish Cabinets, unless he either be a mem-
' ber of the Privy Council, in-which case he is guilty of perjury
or, unless •he learnt them. (if such there be, which we much
dottbt) from others, perhaps (tom the object of his venera-
tion, who then must have committed the same clime.
_

When I say that I doubt the truth of his statetnent, I do
SP from its extreme absurdity : for is it probable that the
AuStrian Cabinet, having united itself both politically and na-
turally to the House of NAPOLEON, and, no doubt, being
highly bribed by his perfidious Court, should depart from
the self-interested system which throughout the Continental
wars it has pursued either openly or covertl-, to joie us, 110

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