Star.
London, England, 1829-09-18 00:00:00

THE KING.

His MAJESTY has graciously condescended to becor..c
the patron of the Philological Institution, and to preen•
it with a donation of 601. with the promise of an annuit v
of 301. The Philological School is meant principally fir
the education of the sons of half-pay officers of the army
and navy, of retired clerks of public offices, and of
chants and tradesmen. It maintains seventy boys on the
foundation, besides fifty-five others, who contribute a
small sum towards the funds, which, from the extreme
respectability of the managers, are, we have no denht,
wisely and prudently administered.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

No. 11.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR.

SI Remember always what a great man said in Parliament, that
They who bought thei► seats in the House, must sell their votes there."
Exastnsaa, Oct. 5, 1710.

Si a—A typographical error which occurred in the in-
sertion of my first letter, ascribed to the EXAMINER of
our own day— Whig and staunch Reformer as he is
the important warning which I had selected from the
Tory EXAMINER of a preceding century. I should
scarcely have requested the correction of such an inad-
vertence, if it did not afford me an opportunity of depre-
cating the folly of such nominal distinctions as PARTY
has laboured to perpetuate, without any due regard to
PRINCIPLE. The paper from which that brief, but in-
structive, sentence was quoted, contains some passages
which are worthy of the most liberal spirit, and which
deserve to be impressed upon the mind of every Elector
in the Kingdom ; since the most zealous Reformer of
modern times could not promulgate more wholesome
advice, on the choice of Representatives, than the fol-
lowing : " Your first care should be to chum Gentlemen
of Estates in your neighbourhood, whom you know,
rather than those who come from London once in three
years, and whom you never see but at an election. The
first of these have their lands at stake for their probity
and honour : the latter, as actions rise or fall, have an
estate or none. What a scandal 'tin to.have your Mem-
bers chosen upon the Exchange, and while you are
ploughing and sowing what you think your own land,
to be yourselves bought and sold in 'Change-alley ?
Beware of Member-makers, and Undertakers for Par-
liament-men : People that have a farther aim than
bringing a friend or relation into your Borough. They
know very well how to get the money they bribe you
with, repaid ; and at what rate to sell you and your
Borough to their party, and are sure to make a good
bargain of you.—With regard to their fellow-subjects,
pray chum those who love their own countrymen better
than any foreigner whatsoever ; and would neither be
enslaved by the French, nor bubbled by any other nation.
Who would be exact and industrious in the Public Ac-
counts; be frugal of the Nation's Money ; and let those
that pay it, know how it is disposed of: who would con-
sider that Great Britain is an Island, and therefore be
infinitely diligent in strengthening our Naval force : in
a word, such as would be just to all men, religiously
observe the laws of the land, and be always tender of
the Lives, Liberties, and Fortunes of their Fellow-
suldects." Admonitions of a nature so just, and so
salutary—no matter from what party they emanate—can
never be too frequently, nor too earnestly repeated,—
" line upon line, precept upon precept, until," in the
words of BuuxE, " they come into the currency of a
proverb." Essentially and intrinsically valuable, they
lose none of their importance from the distance of time
through which they have descended to us : nor of their
validity, from the source from which they sprung. It is
prudent at all times—wise under all circumstances—and

justifiable in all warfare, to learn from the enemy ; and
if the ancient doctrines of TOZYISM be found appli-
cable to the present condition of the people, shall they be
rejected by modem WHIGS, merely through the un-
worthy prejudice of Tarty-spirit ? Assuredly not.
_ _

Dr. JonwsoN, who was as free from any tendency to
assert popular right, as the most pensioned courtier of
the land, was forced, even in his advocacy of Ministerial
power, to admit, that " many of the representatives of
the people, can hardly be said to have been chosen at
all. Some by inheriting a borough, inherit a seat ; and
some sit by the favour of others—some are safe by their
popularity, and some by their alliances." This avowal,
which may be found in " The False Alarm," furnishes
a strange contrast to his glowing and pompous descrip-
tion of the rights of electors in " The Patriot :"—" To
select and depute those by whom laws are to be made,
and taxes be granted, is a high dignity, and an important
trust ; and it is the business of every elector to consider
how this dignity may be well sustained, and this trust
faithfully discharged. It ought to be deeply impressed
on the minds of all who have voices in this national deli-
beration, that no man can deserve a seat in Parliament,
who is not a PATRIOT No other man will protect our
rights, no other man can merit our confidence. A Patriot
is he whose public conduct is regulated by one single
motive, the love of his country ; who, as an agent in Par-
liament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither
kindness nor resentment, but refers every thing to the
common interest." Alas, for England, that the personi-
fication of such a character is never to be realized !—but
that the " one single motive" must for ever resolve itself
into the gratification of selfish ambition, or the promotion
of sordid interests ;—that " the agent in Parliament"
should become but the instrument of arbitrary power ;
that he should " have for himself neither hope nor fear"
only when he has secured the favour of a Minister by the
sacrifice of his constituents ;—and that " the Patriot"
who alone could " deserve a seat in Parliament"—who
alone could protect our rights," or " merit our con-
fidence"—should dwindle into the mere creature of abso-
lute authority—worthy only of being ranked as a repre-
sentative with those who " by inheriting boroughs, in-
herit seats ;"—who " sit by the favour of others ;"
and who, " are safe by their alliances !" Such are the
evils of the present system of representation—which
truth, however, proclaims to be a system of MISREPRE-
SENTATION. That the people have tolerated, nay en.,
couraged, the growth of such evils, I, for one, delibe-
Jately declare.
It was said by the great Lord By Runcii, that " Eng-
land could never be ruined but by a Parliament"—an
assertion which,when duly considered, implies, that " the
people of England can never be ruined but by themselves"
—since it cannot be denied that Parliament is but the
deputed organ of the people,—selected, and empowered
by the people to express their wishes, feelings, and sen-
timents upon every question in which are involved the
birth-right privileges they enjoy from the Constitution.

" The power of the House of Commons is not original.
but delegated to them for the welfare of the people, from
whom they received it." If this be not the fact, what then
becomes of all our vaunted privileges ? But if the people
barter their cwn independence, how can they expect that
rights which they have themselves betrayed should be
respected by those who have made their venality the
passport to Ministerial favour? So long as that venality
exists—so long as the traffic in corruption is carried on
with impunity, courted by the constituency, and con-
nived at by the State ; so long► must the most flagrant
abuses menace the safety of the Constitution. And how
can electors, who are base enough to make a marketable
commodity of " their most sweet voices," presume to
arraign the conduct of Representatives to whom they
have sold themselves, with something more than an im-
plied understanding that the purchasers are entitled to
make the best of their bargain ? With what unblushing
effrontery, the traffic of honour and of conscience—the
iniquitous sale of the electivo franchise has been carried
on, we have been taught, by the declaration of one of
the most arbitrary Ministers that ever menaced a country
with the infliction of absolute despotism—and by whom
the practice was defended in his place in Parliament.
Here, then, is the root of the evil, and here must RE-
FORM commence. THE REMEDY IS IN THE PEOPLE.
So say all violent Reformers; but they say so in a spirit
widely different from that in which I would have this
subject contemplated. I know, I feel, and I acknow-
ledge, that the remedy is in the People ; but I also know,
feel, and acknowledge that the necessity of Re ro u m found
birth, and has grown into evil strength, among the
People. Possessing the unquestioned, and unqualified
right of election, they have been for years the patient
witnesses, nay, the abettors, of the corruption of
which they complain ; and have abused their own privi-
leges, by sending back to the very sphere of temptation
the men of whose conduct they entertained suspicion—
men whom they accused of having betrayed their trust,
and of suffering their integrity, their honour, and their
bond to their constituents to be alike forgotten : nay
more, men whom they charged with having betrayed the
confidence reposed in them, from the worst of all possible
bad motives ; and converted the powers with which they
were invested for the benefit of the people, into the most
unwarrantable means of their own aggrandisement. Ad-
mitting, to the fullest extent, the existence of all the
abuses alleged to have crept into the executive of the
country, and all the venality so loudly inveighed against,
I ask, with whom has the evil originated ?----Again and
again I answer, wITH THE PEOPLE. " The Submission
of a free people to the authority of Government, is no
more than a compliance with laws which they themselves
have enacted. The power of King, Lords, and Com-
mons is not an arbitrary power : they are the trustees,
not the owners, of the estate : the feo simple is in us."
Now, since the property of the estate is established be-
yond question in the people, with whom, or by whom,
has the monster of corruption been generated ? Strong
and powerful as the boroughmongering interest may be,
such a plea is not in itself sufficient to exonerate the
people from being parties to the work of perversion.
All strength, all power, is originally and essentially in
the People ; and if they can so far stifle all sense of na-
tional honour as to re-elect the men who have once be-
trayed them—men whom they have branded with every
foul and disgraceful stigma, whose very names they have
made the bye-words of scorn and reproach—if they will,
with cringing servility, " with baited breath and whis-
pering humbleness" salute these men as they approach
the hustings, instead of confronting them manfully as in-
dignant accusers—they are themselves the fittest objects
of scorn and of derision ; unworthy of the name of free-
men, apostates from the sacred cause of liberty, traitors
to their country, and defrauders of their posterity.
London, Sept. 12, 1829. VERAX.

The Brighton Gazette says, " We have heard from a
private channel the very unexpected information, that a
serious misunderstanding has arisen between the French
and English Governments. Without guaranteeing the
accuracy of this statement, we can assure our readers that
it is derived from a source of very high authority."
At a late hour last night we received Dutch Papers to
the 16th inst. An article from Berlin, alluding to the
levies now making in the Russian and Polish Empire,
calculates the population at 59 millions, which would give
the number to be raised under the new conscription, at
354,000.

SPANISH Ex PEDITION.—This famous armada, almost
as famous as the Miguelite expedition lately driven with
loss and disgrace from the sacred shores of Terceira, ap-
pears to have been somewhat roughly handled, if not by
the Mexicans, against whose liberty it is directed, at least
by the winds which were to have wafted it in triumph to
their shores. It appears from the American Papers, al-
ready mentioned, that the American ship Bingham, one
of the vessels chartered as transports at the Havannah,
bad put into New Orleans in distress with five hundred
troops on board, having been separated from the squad-
ron on the 11th of July, in a violent tempest. The Spa-
nish Consul applied for permission for the troops to land
until the vessel was repaired, which was granted by the
Governor on certain conditions. It is strange to see the
subjects of a free state thus lending themselves to aid
in rivetting the chains of others ; to see Britons disposed
to favour tyranny in Portugal, and American Republicans
contributing to the subjugation, or rather the attempted
subjugation, of a sister Republic ; but so it has been in
every age, and in every country of the world : the
thorough-paced republican is the most selfish animal in ex-
istence ; he would engross all the happiness of the world to
himself, and leave, not so much as a crumb for others to
pick up. Rome, in all the plenitude of her republican great-
ness, was one of the most ambitious tyrants, and the most
unfeeling conquerors.—ln more modern times, Europe
can tell what happiness, what freedom, Revolutionary
France bestowed ; and the conduct of the United
States has uniformly betrayed a sufficient readiness to co-
operate in the extinction of liberty abroad, provided her
citizens were allowed to clamour and riot at home.
They are ready to do any dirty work for hire, and reply,
as Vespesian did to Titus, that the unsavoury origin of
the gain did not extend itself to the tribute.—Plymouth
Weekly Journal.
The Treadmill, at Exeter, is actually unemployed for
mot of handy or rather legs, to keep the mill In motion.