Star.
London, England, 1821-01-04 00:00:00

GENUINE MADNESS I

It may be necessary to assure our Readers,.that the
following passage is given by the Bath Journal-as a
genuine extract from a speech delivered at a late
Meeting to address his MAJgSTY. Whether real or
assumed, the mental delirium which it manifests is no
more than a fair specimen of the nonsense by which
some, whose craft u in danger, are making the vain at-
tempt to bolster up the credit of those from whom they
have received, or hope to receive, some good things :
" Consider, Gentlemen, what you have at stake ! You are
called upon to defend your country, a country standing pre.emi-
nently proud in the list of nations, for her wisdom, her valour,
her hospitality, and her laws. You are called upon to defend
those houses and possessions which your own industry, or that
lof your forefathers, has acquired for you from being pillaged ;
your wives and daughters from being insulted and abused ; your
defenceless infants murdered before your faces; and yourselves
and families driven from your peaceful habitations, to seek a
home in a foreign, desolating, inhospitable sdU ! What ! are the
trophies of Trafalgar, Is the ever-memorable battle of Waterloo,
are those laurels earned by tens of thousands of British heroes, in
hundreds of hard-fought battles—are all those emblems of victory,
new adorning the brows of our heroes, to be tarnished ? Are the
immortal names of Wellington and Nelson to be cast into the
' shades of obliviancy ? Are our mild and equitable laws, protect-
ing equally the poor and the rich, to be trampled under foot
I Are all those charitable institutions, founded for the relief of
suffering humanity, the liberal support and endowment of which
has justly entitled the country to the proud appellation of a
people of a generous sympathy—are all those asylums for the
refuge of the wretched, the Meted, and diseased, to be levelled
with the dust? Are all those statute laws, which procure for
the poor no less a sum than between seven and eight minions
annually, from the wealth of the nation, to be blotted out ? Is
this, the only support of the decrepld parent--this, the main prop
of the desolate widow and fork,rn orphan--this, the List re-
source of the declining years of the poor man, thus to be
wrested from him? Ate all those securities which guarantee
to us life' liberty, and property, to be taken away ? . Is an ill-
valuable Constitution—the mere shadow of which the civilized
nations of the world are panting to obtain, to be overthrown?
Is this venerable edifice, the work of a thousand years, to be
overwhelmed lu hideous desolating ruin, for a wretched people
hereafter to ask where once the fabric stood?' Forbid it,
Heaven ! Forbid it, Loyalty! Forbid it, Justice !--6 This Eng-
land never did, nor ever shall, lie at the proud f o: of a Con-
queror, but when it first does help to wound itself.' The ques-
tion, Gentlemen, now is, not whether we should have such and
such measures enacted or repealed; whether this, or any other
set of men, should hold the reins of Government; but it is,
whether we shall have Old England ; with the same rule for law
and property, the same Constitutlon—or whether we shall ren-
der ourselves up a prey to anarchy and destruction? I implore
you then, Gentlemen, on all occasions to 'hew your• loyalty, and
1 your inflexible determination to supp.irt the Constitution; and,
for GOD'S sake, let me entreat of you to be content to bold the
guards you have, rather than.fiy to others that you know not oC"
" Let any man," adds the Bath Journal, " be ex-
cluded from society for any given time, and previous ,
to his entering afresh among his fellow-countrymen,
have.the speech from which the above is extracted
placed in his hands for perusal, and we will ventute
to affirm that, unless he possessed a surprising de-
gree of courage, he would most assnredly fly to some
retreat still more secure, rather than venture Among.
such demoralized, such depraved wretches, as ti.e
people are represented to be; but we are happy to
say such alarms are only imaginary, and propagated
merely to •serve party purposes, and to give some
colour to the enactment of laws restrictive of civil
liLerty, and the new-fangled practice of dragomans
John Bull into a practicable sort of an.animal.