The Statesman.
London, England, 1818-01-06 00:00:00

1_

LIFRAPOOL CONGEST= MEE l'iNG.
. Afiiir interning thanks, Dr. tAittitt procietta to
sods rmisarks ma that wystrat of ttpionogii
biaaarly attempts to napes* which had ptOcured him
the highly raised compliment Obith had just Wed
paid him
On a tartans °cession isit bad detailed to the Cob.'
amide Society facts relating to tha character and,
coadietwf the btaCkitaceli spies mad their empiOyets
at a seer groat, and fiend, a sal .weariadaie
lmp* ; but it inlaid tent he 'limitary at present to
astaapy so much tiott.—The late tupoittra of fir:
Okoor had-made his task comparatisely easy ; inns•
mach as it had done away with math of tint incre-
dulity which he had formerly to Contend dtainst•-:-
After the admissions is the Report of the Secret

Ceetioittee of the Howse a Linde, it was do loneer

possible to dssebt the existence of that APll.fangled
species of espionage which he had formerly beets it
such pains to describe; ind be was happy to per.
,ceive from what had passed this evening, that thir
mere mention of the name of a spy was now sal.
ficient to eache the disgest sod abhorrence of all
who heard it; whilst the mysterious Green Bags,
which had been introdeced with so much solemnity

and stage-trick into the two Houses of Parliament,
now sereed only to gin poist to the verses of a
comic song.-
It might not, however, be deemed unnecessary to
say a few words. in Ramer to thew• who argue that
Mr. Oliver could not have dune much mischief. or

perhaps would not have been employed at all, if a
disposition to rebellion had not existed in the
country previously to his mission. There was
doubtless some troth in this, as far as regarded Mr.
Oliver peroonally ; but it should be recollected, that
he was not the first of his trade.—Tbis subject would
meter be well understood, nor its importance suf.
liciently appreciated, unless it were constantly kept
Is mind that Mr. Oliver bad many predecessors, and
ninny fellow-labourers in the same vineyard. The
way had been 'stewed for him by men who were
' no less active than himself—by men who had served a
regular apprenticeship to the business of plot-making;
woo for five, some for fifteen, end some fag for
oven five-aud-twenty years; and who, therefore,
whenever a green bag was wanted, could easily pre.
pare materials proper for filling one, which mate-
riels Mr. Oliver would of course find ready to his
hand. It Was well known that some of the veteran
Lancashire spies, who had long preferred secret ser-
vice-money to weavers' wage-, bat whose characters
bed been a little blown upon in their own neighbour.
hotwl,had lately been serving their King and cou utry,by
acting occasionally as itinerat.ts : and whenever they
went a cruising, some mischief was sere to follow.—
Some of them had their motions watched like those
of a barometer . " Alt !" said their neighbours,
"4 Catarcopusis is gone from home again ; we shall
soon hear of fool weather somewhere or other !"--
And, in fact, these patriots (who might easily be dis-
tineuished from their disaffected neighbours by the
superior sleekness of their skins) were missing for
an unusual length of time, just before the explosion
of the Oliverian conspiracies.—There was but too
much reason to suspect, that the late human sacri-
fices at Derby had been bright about by the same
means as those which so much disgraced and afflicted
Lancashire in the year 11312. In Lancashire, he had
always believed, this blood-thirsty, treason-hatch-
ing spy system bad its origin ; but it was not, on
that account, lessinteresting to the Nation at large,
since it was found, that what was at first barely to-
lerated in the Courts below, would soon, if it were
but sufficiently hostile to the liberties of the People,
become fashionable in the Courts abovealp-And here,
continued Dr. Taylor, is a striking instance of that
disposition to encroachment to which our sttentien
has been already called by oar highly respected
Chairmen, end which, as he says, it will require
oar utmost vigilance to counteract.
The first time I beard spy-witnesses brought for.
ward in the Courts of Lancaster, I had the satisfac-
tion to perceive that their evidence was listened to
with great jealousy and very evident disgust, by the
Judge wins then presided. He cross-essmitted and
brow-beat the witnesses with great aternnsss, awl he
gave a very 'reeve, sod what I thought a well-de-
served reprimand to their employers ; begging in very
forcible accents, that he might hear no more of such
practices. On a later occasion, when wretches of
the same description, some of them, indeed, the
same individuals, were brought forward as witnesses,
I had the mortification to observe that they were
epoch better received, and the thei‘presiding Judge
even ventured to give some littleprsise to the zeal sod
activity of those who had bused them. Again,at the
York Special Comtaissioni a Learned Gentleman
(now a Judge) took occasion to applaud in mock
warmer terms the metiee of employing .pies which
bad already been established in Lancashire. He
went farther, and affected to ridicule as absurd and
visionary the antiquated, and, as it were, antedilu-
vian notions of those who bad expressed a loathing
of this practice. It appeared, however, that this
Gentleman was not prepared to peep rise aoy but
" spies of the old school," for says he, 1.6 if a mew
pied to incite another to commit a crime he is with.
out esceptiuu the most infamous of mankiod."—
When Le gave utterance to this sentiment. how little
mast this Learned Gentleman have known of those
Lancashire practices which be had just been apes
plaudits& ! How ignorant meet he have beets of the
character and cardiac' of that individual Lancashire
missionary spy, whom he was just thew introducing
loth@ notice of the Yorkshire Jury !—At one
your former Meetings, Gentlemen I detailed to
you the result of some enquiries 1 had made into the
character of this man, and some of you may, per-
haps, recollect that he was, like the sappoeitious
character which the Learned Gentleman was affecting
to contrast him with, absolutely drenched in infamy
and in crime. But to proceed with the system of
encroachment. The next step that fell wader my
observation was a pretty bold owe. His Majesty's
late Attorney-General having occasion to bespeak
the good opinion of a London Jury in (swear of a ,
spy-witness, thought it prudent to gaols as a jollifi-
cation what bed passed at York and at Lancaster;
but, mark the ascroachment! Gentlemen, be Ten-
tared to go beyond his precedent—he was prepared
to tolerate spies of the New school—he thought it
Wight be allowable, in sone particular Mtn, to seed
Ott spies for the purpose of leading or 1.6. Waiting"