The Statesman.
London, England, 1820-09-04 00:00:00

the Field, and SYDNEY died on the Seal.id!"

USSELL.

My Lotp.
With eqauhurprise and sorrow have I this day
seen in The Morning Chronicle of the 29th, the quo-
tation of a Must extraordinary passage in your Lord-
ship's recently-published pamphlet, as follows :
s• Their petitions are insult, calumny, and libel.
Their grievance is the law and order of society. Their
universal suffrage is no visionary scheme, of which it 1
le can be sai the best argument for it is, its utter int-
prseticabil e, it is a downright practical plan of
Blander sad prosttriptiou. Confusion is held out as
the object, forgery and murder the means ; and we
are taught to obliterate our moral feelings as a step
to improve our political condition."
, This language, my Lord, cannot be thought well
cakulated to convert to your opinions the class from
whom you differ. It is not argument ; it is not per-
suasion I it is not just rebuke ; but direct unqualified
offence.

Were there a possibility of effecting yours object,
could this, my Lord, be the way to put as extinguisher
on the as yet unrefuted logic composing the preamble
of the Duke of Richmond's Bill in 1780 ; whose sub-
sequent letter to Colonel Sharman is also a master-
piece of reasoning ?
Is this, think you, the best mode of assailing a prin-
ciple, which be whom Johnson thought " the most
enlightened of the sons of men," Sir William Jones,
was of opinion 1' °right to be written iss letters of gold,"
Or is it a suitable style for controverting the notion of
the reverend and venerable Wyvill, who, together
with three-score Yorkshire gentlemen, so long ago as
in 1781, candidly wrote thus:— ''l he diversity of
sentiment, therefore, which has in some measure re-
tarded the union of the people, arose, not front a dif-
ference of political principles ; for in them there is an
entire agreement but solely front consideration of a
prudential nature. The questions in debate have been,
arse whether those doctrines (universally of mirage
and anneal elections) be niaintainuble in argument,
for it is admitted they are; hut whether it be probable
in the present state of the nation, that those doctrines
in their full extent are reducible to practice:"
The doctrines in question were ro,sted, my Lord, in
the beans of my two intimate friends, John Jebh and
UranrilJe Sharp, than whom integrity and christianity
never bad brighter examples, and none better under-
stood those doctrines. And your Lordship may be as-
shred, that, although they could have felt no pain for
their doctrines from any possible attack, much they
wssid
.Race Calor ono who should hare been so an-
charitable, reel' to himself, as to have used towards
them, or any other conscientious persons, the lan-
guage of intempaestree, as well as oho lamentable un-
acquaintance with his subject.
And, my Lord, may I not go on to say, that those
who are conversant with the extraordinary penetration
of a Bentham, exhibited in support of the doctrine you
coadetun but cannot refute, are nut to be 1111 l red by
rant, opposed to reasoning ; by unseemly ribaldry en-
countering demonstration.
Having of late years frequently observed rem tail, in-
sidious pleaders fir the rotten borough system of re-
presentation, which, on an immeasurable mass of
evidence, appears to me such a chaos of incorrect cor-
ruption and absurdity as beggars all de-cription ; such
a monstrous combination of folly anal wickedness, as,
in human frailty and perverseness, never had a parallel ;
having, I say, observed that such insidious pleaders
being chased with ignominy out of the open field of
fair argument, into the dark and pathless fort sts and
fastnesses of desperation, sophistry, and hanilitti-war-
fare, whence ever and anon, masked, disguised and
armed with poisoned weapons, they frequently sallied
on a sudden toassessinate truth, jostice and rational li-
herty, as well as the fair fame of their faithful warri-
ors; feeble as my aged arm, I have on vari.ins occasions
snatched up the shield and spear of the Constitution,
and put them to flight.
Your Lordship, indeed, is not to be class/. I At ith
those I have described ; but, as au open, although a
very indiscreet enemy. In open warfare—in bold un-
reserved defiance, there is a stamp of frankness and
generosity of character, which tell us that such a foe
may become a friend. Ask him for the cause of his
anger—calmly tell him he need not be in wrath—far
that you will subscribe to his opinion the moment he
has established it by argument ; it is then odds if he
resort to argument, that he reason himself into those
truths which bring him over to your opinion, pro-
vided that opinion rest on the fountlatkus of eternal
truth.

As you bear the honoured name of Russell, which
ought to assure us of your fidelity to freedom occord-
!lag to the kaosrledle of o'er a,tre, 1 would now inform
you (as yon seem not to know it) that, thrott4h re-
spect to that name, I addressed through the medium
of the press, to the Marquis of Tavistock your brother,
in the year 1811, six Letters on Radical Reform, and
that for the same reason, on the same subje. t, and
through the same medium, I likewise addressed in
ISle, Seven Letters to the Noble Duke your father ;
together with one to a Reverend Divine, whore pre-
judices against universal suffrage were at that time no
less vehement than those of yonr Lordship, but who I
believe now holds a different opinion.
In these essays I trust it is established as a truth
incapable of contradiction, that universal suffrage is
merely an evidence of that whim-rad crudity of torn,
which, in strict unison with philosophy, was taught—
emphatically taught, by that greatest of reformers,
Jesus of Nazareth, who, my Lord, first sowed the seed
of the religion you profess among the poor, as the class
of men whose minds were most open to the reception
of a doetriue of salvation.
Must nut your Lordship therefore perceive, that
your uncharitable, your intemperate and acrimonious

• SoaMe Jen) us.

PRICE &MN PENCE.

accusation of Radical Reformers, without exception, is
in reality a specific accusation of all the eminent per-
sons I have particularly named, not excepting Jesus
of Nazareth, as promoters of " plueder and proscrip-
tion, of forgery and murder?" _

In justice to my argument, I must trouble your
Lordship with quotations from a letter I had the
honour of writing on the 3d of July to Mr. Lamhton.
They here follow ; " you are requested, Sir, to
accept a short series of letters to the Duke of Red-
ford, occasioned by the writings of unprincipled
calumniators, who assume to be Prophets, by daring to
assert that Radical Reform would produce anarchy,
mischief, the destruction of property, and universal
misery. That this ipse disii audacity carries on the
face of it proofs of profligacy and ignorance, the
writer, on the authority of the moral and natural law
of the Divine Being,-en that also ef Christianity, es
well as on whatever history, philosophy, and expe-
rience, have revealed to us, respecting the principies
of Government, trusts that he has made manifest.
" Taking more especially into the discussion, that
master-principle in the science of government, lirp,e•
seatatiox (now infinitely better understood than at are
former period) it is proved to demonstration, that eq
the contrary, there is no earthly system, which so
well provides for the order, tranquillity, security of
property, prosperity, and public happiness, as that c t
Radical Reform. Can we then wonder that it is tar's
calumniated by corruptionists, who revel in the 5?,.:1
and banquet on the blood of the nation ? The co
roptionists against whom it has taken the field ! Ca t
we be surprised that to the imaginations of the
crew, the majestic image of Radical Reform shoult! h •
the most terrific of all spectres ":"
Again,—" The writer has only to add, that so little
is he bigotted even to conrietiod, that whatever either
yourself, or any other, shall favour him with a ron•-•
of reasoning, retrying with it more weight than eat
course which has produced Aim conviction, be shal
consider I ' self under a moral obligation as A man,
as well as under a commanding sense of honour-as a
gentleman, and of duty as a Member of the State, 1.,
yield obedience to such more weighty reasoning, and
to regulate his conduct accordingly."
My Lord ! this is no time fur unjust, rash, arbitrary
and violent declarations, by Members of an AssetttLy,
whose need of radical amendment is as notorious as
the noon-day sun.
The nation is in an awful crisis. Through the .5
rounding gloom, we hare glimpses of but three ca-
tastrophes ; first, a settled militiry dominion, with
crouching slavery under a Government by the swor.l
secondly, a bloody anarchy, .the berg elements of so•
cietv and order thrown back into a chaos. to be new
modelled
content with aught 41,..vt ~t* satanic desrotian,
thirdly, a Constitutioual Rafortn—by a recent Act
of the Legislature, which, in one week, may be ac•
complisherl for our political salvation'.
On selfish principles, they, my Lord, who have
to lose, should be careful not to pull down by tar::
injustice, the crazy fabric of our decayed institntions
on their own heads.
On the generous principles of patriotism, all with
one Voice ought to reclaim—" hr Constitution ; the
whole Constitution ; and nothing but the Coststitct!on '
In the words of the Noble Duke, your father, shall I nit
say—" It is at hand, simple, and of easy attainment r '
And shall I not, fur the hundredth time, also repent
words of genuine wisdom ? "•1 he Constitution of
every free Government is subject (rout time to time to
a sort of dissigercans crisis if the Constitnti to he
only through age impaired, it must be railed inteie to
its first primriple.--" The history of this conntrY
abounds with more of these es itierrl pet ig,l6 felt en u. !y
other." " Thontrll the strurrle. of uor ancestors fro-
trendy produced ri de,it frrry in the State, yet the
Coastitktiom always cause forth in titurept /hie :
curl some mere scesirity was ulatained fur our Protium t.'

They, ay Lord, know 'kat., who do not know that
a truly Constitutional It..forin in our Represt.ntatiol.
would as far transcend in benefit, Marna CAarbt ot..d
the Bill rf nights, as the experien -e of manhisri
transcends glimmerings of intellect in in.ancy, or es
the blase of full perfection in guy seicace trans.en4s
the first faint and transient rays of its light.
The !Noumea,' and revolution furnaces each freed
our much-injured Constitution from some of the
wan dross, with which it was deeply encrusted; bat
when it shall have been in the crucible of just and
rational Reform, and hare been newly stamped in the
national mint, it shall coma out with uo wire than the
legal alloy of hereditary privilege, fur the purpose of
currency.
Now, my Lord, note well the contrast between the
Corruptionists and the Reformers. On one band, b.,-
hold a cliwax of effrontery in men arrogantly affect-
ing to be Prophets, and dogmatically foretelling that
which they ennaut possibly know will eons to poi,.
On the other band, see sober•usindod assn. who veal,
of corruptions, which oh mien do, kiwi mist: who -
refer you to the obvious and universally admitted
cause of those corruptions; and who say, 'Remove
the canoe, and the corruptions will cease."
Again—the impostors, in their pretended prophe.
sylags, betray the grossest ignor.ince of the laws of
(lod and the nature of man, for what they pretend
world come to pass in consequence of Reform is, by
the laws of cause sad eject, the very reverse of what
would naturally follow. They even violate the plain
sod necessary application of language. Rodieslin
M reform is to rout out corruption ; but these i•olmlters
of our common sense tell no, that radically to refit in
is to inundate society with e,ime gad aril!
I have the honour to be,
Your Lordship's obedient servant,
JOHN CAitTiVitIUHT..
Breton Creosote, Vag. 31, 1820.
+ Dimmers& on a Constitutional Force, by tbs.
of Liverpool.
1. I

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