The Statesman.
London, England, 1818-02-28 00:00:00

test necessary, except the two Evauses,. the Spencein
philosophers. All the other leaders of the disaffect-
ed in London had been allowtA to prosecute their
dangerous projects without any interruption. The
case to which the latemeasures had been applied,
was one of leaders without followers : and not
that to which atone a measure of Suspension could
be Isropitily applied, a ease of followers without
Seeders, Row e, Suspensions of the Betio* Qom
Act could deprive leaders of a body of followers, he
woold leave tittlr 1,01...1ithi.p.1 to coojectrre. . If thee,*.
had been leaders, they would hive been Ole to effect;
something. Every etive,ntege they Multi, ticsite hid
been offered tit, their tleOgnst Orin( It Yogi' of ull•
paralleled distress, tkoy eeposted opportunities
of working eko the Petgnos of tae. rm.', of Loudon ;
tiatafter all, the 3 heft beep able to effect nothieg; every
tats saw them with diminished. hone and diminished
forces ; and when it was most intportant for them to
call their ranks together, they could new et any one
point MuSter atere•ltteu 50 cc l(9 intlivWoals out of
s population of 800,000 People. He mentioned
this Is most decisive of tart weakness of those persons
to, whorn so much power to produce mischief had been
impat.ed. Ile mentioned this as most decisive of the
state of. feeling in the population at large; because,
IT ray eapetiment coshd be tried oo the temper of
society (Its was car from wishing that any such expo.
iiment should be tried), none could have afforded a
Snore decisive result than this, where mischievous
two bad been at work through a whole year, of great
RubPc distress, atO at tug end of it were Good to
knee tailed in oroduclogany effect from all their ma-
chinetipte. But it wske perfectly tree that there had
berm, and might still:he, perms,' actively etuployed
in digasing violent and erro.osoos opioiene ; and it
was singular that the persons most ectivel, employed
es mentiorted in the two Reports of last Session, were
Wilt1)01e. throughout, of proportioning the means to
the end : they never once appeared to consider whit
w het iusufficierst. means they thought to compass their
vrojects. In all the circookstaticys, in All the bear-
ings of these proceedings, it would hove been meek
snore effectual if Parliament had conferred the ex-
traordinary powers col the Governor of Bedlam, re.
ther than consign the. objects of their fears to his,
Majesty's prisons; and so much easier would it kw
been to convict them qf madness than of treissent
that it would never have beep necesssry for Doctor
Mourn to call on toe Mouse for a Bill of Indemnity.
—[Dear, hear!]—Thill, then, was the case of tile
disturbances that had taken place in Loudon. He
should now come to the case of the Midland Coun-
ties, ns set forth in. the. Reports of last yeas and the
present Session. It was here necessary for him to
state, that. in the Midland. Counties as elsewhere
(notwithstanding the state of London was such as he
hat! just skuts es), it was generally entertained that a
}arge body. of. People were there ready to co-operate
with any who should join them. How that belief
obtained growl's!. be. would tint now discuss; but that
it had heel' produced, in Yorkshire especially, by
delogate, from burden, better known by the
name of Oliver--,Loud Cr* of Hear, hear,
hear!j-.-wo‘ undoubtedly tree; but to what es-
tent other. parts of the king4o.m.llad been operated
infli.tPluatnry speechee and the writings of
persons respahling ntadroeu (for madmen they. did
resenthle)t what portion of the expectation was de-
rived front the latter, and, whet from Oliver he could
pot pretend to say. He certainly was bound to say
that. Oliver. did exceed his insteuclious ; and he.
*jolted dolt. Lordships to, nltlerast this, because the
ev,itierice, which sliewed the improper W110;01011 of
(Veer, was of the slime esrere es that oat which se-
vets' persona ii4oPmeJl by; Oliver bed beet,
arrested, tend if there was. any. qhjection to the olio,
the; amine objection niestiepply to/the other also.
Its
buds cases the evidence was! OR; of•parties cuncerned
in the iiansaction ;, end. here he. begged, leave to call
the attention of their Lordships to the nature of those
transactions its which (though it was impossible to
assign on rthat.groend end motives) the impression
he hall alluded to existed it, the midland and other
counties. And %kat, even under 11,4 impre,sbion,
took place in those counties? Their Lordships would
read, in the Report of the Committee, a detail of
what took place in•ar Derby, sed of the insurrection
thet broke nut in Yisiksiiire; they would find how
mall was the tiumbpr of the rioters, and with what
extreme fetidly they, were put down ; indeed, the
object had rather been to. overtake than to put
duets sedition : they. would find what was the
disposition of the itthabitants of the neighbouring
counties, and of the surrounding villages, in the
very centre of all the disturbances that had taken
place ; these people were at least neuter ; and
tin many occasions appeared to entertain au absolute
hostility against the insurgents. Such was the ea-
tent of that,itisurrection ; and, whatever its amount
might be, no diminution of it was effected by trhe
Suspension of the Habeas Corpus. Its Derbyslti r,
the Suspension had afforded no check whatever to
the disaffection that existed. The disturbance there
took place.under. the reliance that the discontented
of that district had on their leader ; it took place un
the nomination of Braudieth, called the. Nottingham
Captain, who was appointed to command the cape-
ditiett, Here Oleo was the whole extent of the ope-
ration of the Suspension of the Ilabese Corpus in
that couttty. lie knew it would be said, that if it
had nut been for the opeeatiott of that measure, the
same disturbances wowid_bave taken place in other
counties. Ile would.ask, in estimating the extent of
such .a possibtainsurrection, even in places where the
disaffected
.pnasessed the. strongest hold—be would
esk.if, even in these.places, it would not hare been
put down with meat facility; if there would not
fatebeenfoetid in each of the adjoining counties one
Magistrate, one Colonel, one serjestit, and eighteen
tutu, for uo more of each had been employed—
Hear!)—to quell the whole force of the disaffected.
'hat the Noble Duke had insisted, that the object of
Government was to prevent, rather than put down.
Had. the,Noble Duke considered what had beets the
effect of the mnbt arbitrary power, the abuses of itn-
prisonntent, the false information, the insecurity of
persons 14 property, which always ensued, under
the pretence of preventing crimes which the, policy of
this country thought it more wise to leave to the pub-
• tic forms of justice? 'He hskstated on supposition,
. that if similar insurrections had taken place in all the
counties, they would have been put down in a*sim.
far manner. But what did really happen ? Some
parzcits attached to the left trill of this formidable
•