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.

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, No. 234.—Y0e.. XII.] SUNDAY. DCEM. ER 19, 1819. 11'sics 9;4. •
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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.iftttuntliiilti 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 applies He/serially to all,
Reformers and infidel writers, who would, some for ~ecotne, generally speal iug, fatly acquainted with and enough of that sortof exclusive patronage akently
and 1 has been felt In Norfolk, es 'Mr: C. 411Nibtl.
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,t4410
of the state,
mcly popular at g. :•-**
described as more