The Statesman.
London, England, 1820-01-08 00:00:00

THE STA'IS.SMAti.

FOR rill ItTATRSNAN.

• --..•-_
lIIIFI.ECIION, ON T- HE STATE OF THE NATION.

Ma. Zoteoe—llee Minister has accomplishes
31011611a1a open. The terrible laws are enacted, by which
he hopes to stifle limitary into a disgraceful transaction,
sad work a wonderful revolution upon the popular
mind. In this, I think. be will find himself mistaken,
thosegh l 'inlet avow the truth. and say, that, in my opi-
-Moo, that mind required, in certain respects, and to a
tonal' dievee, a Watery restraint in ardor to guard It
against seduction.
It is sotto be denied. that the notion and the designs
too of mode of our Reformers ire extremely iptemperate.
There is a sort of cotscapiessoce of the imagination which
leads people astray in more cases than that of love ;
then It ollaintes them almost Insensibly from the path
of tutus. But in this ease the alienation is of another
kind; ft Es in fact an aberrsdoa from the fundamental
priaelpies of the Coostitstion. As friends to old Eng-
bad they should have exerted themselves in correcting
the shwas of that Constitution, but instead of so doing
they have become complete political renegades, and re-
jected its faadamental principles. The most venerable
of our kestitestimes they have slandered and usisrepre.i
seemed, sod the very viruses of our ancestors converted
Into sets of injnstice and oppression. In short their
malice has distorted every thing; and even Christianity
itself, the purest aed most perfect system of morality
that ever masted in the world has been assailed by their
venomless shafts. Upon the populace these persons have
exercised very artful seductions, flattering them with the
notion of a republican ascendency, the natural effect of
which would have been to overbalance, and eventually to
&atm*e other two branches of the Constitution. Such,
no &At, must, from the very nature of the thing. have
been the result of that preponderance which Universal
Suffrage would have coassousicated to the mob, if the
good seam of the nation would have allowed such a re-
volatile* to have taken place in the very elements of
which our government Is formed. The English nation
bas not lost its power of discrimination ; it distinguishes
between the abuse of a thing and the ends and intentions
for which it was instituted; and whilst this faculty con-
finers the advocates of Universal Suffrage will find their
views meottirineek. It was a principle generally acknow-
ledged by the sages of antiquity, that demeerartic
rower (the most terrible power of all) ought only to be
detested to a virtu: us people ; and that in a corrupt
natio% it ought never to be allowed to take the lead.
Whilst the Athenians were virtuous. they were comps-
teat to the exercise of this tremendous power ; bat mbA
they•beeame corrupt, what was the consequence ? Why,
they banished Aristides because he bad acquired the
soros** of Just !! Rome too was fur • great number
of years 'tiresome, great, and glorious. under a demons,
tic ascendency 3 but at last Rome became corrupt ; miff
Apo the coaseqarece was, that the imperial dignity
itself was pot cep to sale.
We have seen in our days, In a neighbouring natl.i
the horrible effete which a democratic preponderaom,
is sore to produce when exercised by a people
whom habits of corruption have obliterated event
;neat of vino.; what bare beeb the fruits of this expe-
riment. but anarchy, rapine, bloodshed. and desola-
tion ? It is well worthy of remark, that the horrors
lately produced by • democratic ascendency in that
country, give a confirmation to the opinions broached
thereby the most enlightened politicians that France
ever produced. The President Montesquieu lays it down
as a rule, that the rommtioas of democracy produce
evils infinitely greater than any which are generated
la a corrupt monarchy. or a corrupt aristocracy. I sp-
ool that Plato was of the same opinion, for although
reellengarded a virtuous democracy as the best of all go-
oevameats, yet when the people were corrupt, be appeals
to have thorn ht a very rigorous authority necessary to
he Invested in the Nobles. or the Chief Magistrate, or
both. 'Mere is • story told of him. which I shall give
from dory—A certain nation desired him to draw
up for them a form of government—he did so, and the
people were extremely discontented with it ; they es-
Ml:Lthete Plato would hare given them ample power;
ead of that, he bridled them severely, and placed
the reins in the hands of the Civil Magistrates. They
asked Plato, with a kind of disdain, if that was the best
plan of government he could devise—No, replied the
sage;.-.but it is the best government for a nation that has
become to corrupt as you are.
I feel disinclined to extend my remarks on this head,'
because I fear that if I were to say all that might be
said, I shouldappear to furnish Mimeters with a justill-
,
eating of their measures. which (however necessary re-
*triable, may have been to a certain degree. and in cer-
tain Cases)! cannot conscientiously approve. I lament
that seine uses should have become political apostates,
but I do not think It Jost that the defection of a few
sharkd be punished by the die/V.B'44omm of all. which,
if I am to believe what has been said in Parliament by
omoy respectable Members, will. to a certain degree at
least, be the effect of throe Hills. I have not read these
famous Wile; hut I will nevertheless venture to give an
optnioa, that the better way to have brought back these
'woken within the pale of the Coustitution. would
hove been to have ;stroll it-of these Magma aurae-
does; so notorious., that they have bees compared to the
sea at noon day, and which are equally irreeontilable
with the primitive principles of our tioverensent, and
the prosperity of the Dation. This. fa doubt, would
bisee been the wisest and the most honourable way of
, and would have been far more satisfactory
dm sat on at large than the passing of coercive M-
ORIN restricting the liberties of a free people. The great
11141teity of the people looked with dismay at the doe-
Weis of the Radicals. and were far from being desirous
Minister's should accede to the wishes of those uses.
not soosethiag was due to justice—something was of-
messary to arrest the progress of eorreption, wnick Uni-
voreal Staffrav, instead of diminishing, would have
festmessed. Seeeething was requisite to secure the
ssmaheing _property Which war and prodigality have
lift •w. BO this severity no wise man would
ex-
Crfton' on extension of the right of suffrage to
who. 1.11•0 no stake is the roasts'', no property ut
Meat is upon their backs. and who, emu they rise is u•
mooning, know not where to And a dinner, till by seine
laborious, or servile oilers, pirhaps some artifice or Ine-
Oxides upon the public. they hare plied one. There
ate seas too, to whom this right is proposed to be is-
wino hive not even a b their was
irs f
which they hare sold frera for powder."—
Crean be expected of all the nom but that they
•should look only to protest ratification? that they
should sell their sewly4equired franchise for a few pots
of beer, a few lassoes of en, or a few shillings in hard
sod as it la net the value of the thing. bet the
!Isolation with which it is given and received. that con-
"dila htibere sod the relative crime of bribery, It is

clear 'hat to vetted the right of suffrage to persons !dr
such a description ffnakl only tent to give a gr
Intension to corruption in general, which is already a
tell of too great magnitude. It is wrong to taut of the
earruptlesi of parliament, the disease is la the nation
at large. and there the remedy should he applied.
The Presi.lent Montesquieu says, in the 13th chap.
of his Sth Book on the Spirit of Laws, a book already
alluded to, and which treats of corruption in general,
under Deenocratical, Monarchial, and other I:govern-
: nients, that "the Romans remained longer uncor-
roptimi than other satiate, from the great veneration
thox paid to an oath. Such was the influence of an
! eatis (says he) &min these people, that nothing bound
theta stronger to the laws. They often did more for the
observance of an oath than they would ever have done
I fee the thirst of glory. er for the love of their country."
And again lie says'
i " Rome was a ship held by two
I anchors. Religion and Motality, in the midst of a fa-
, rious tempest."—ln my bumble opinion, the most effec-
tual means for increasing the spread of corruption,
which in this country is, as I have already said. too
prevalent. are. first to weaken the force of religion by
blasphemous publications, and nest to extend the elec-
tive franchise to persons in distressed circumstances, or
in vicious habits. who either are too poor to be inde-
pendent, or too immoral to desire it, as is the rase with
the military, and all that numerous class who live by
their wits io London, and other populous towns. If
Rome was a ship bad by two anchors, religion and
morality, so in every other State. and oars armies the
rest ; and I should be glad to know how we are snore
bitchy to lose those two anchors than by scoffing at
religion in the first place, and circulating such writings
among the illiterate ; and in the second place, by com-
municating political rights to men who, from their dis-
tressed situation, or their depraved characters, must be
expected to turn them to profit, and by the inevitable
consequences of snch bribery, to plunge themselves over
head and ears in perjury. When the obligation of an
oath is no longer he-141 sacred. adieu all national
morality.
I In taking op the pen to offer a few remarks on the
state of the nation, I felt it impossible not to nodes the
Radical Reformers; because it is their doctrines, and
I their preemedings, which have brought about that de-
plorable state; but it never was my intention to give all
the latitude to that part of my subject of which it is sus-
ceptible. I certainly think I was to blame in replying
to the gross attacks in Toby Philpot's Letter; and as to
Hibernicus. he .site it quite impossible for me to no-
tice hint. by calling in spisistion my veracity as a Gentle-
man. Oar writer. Mr. f ordham. jun. less objectionable
In style and language. I promised to answer; and if
illness and other circumstance% lead not prevented use,
I should have laid before him a faithful representation of
all those consequences which a mob ascendancy is cal-
culated to produce. and which it did produce sot many
years since in a certain country; but nowt shall decline the
subject, for reasons which 1 have already adverted to. My
greed obiect is not to combat a party, but to defend the
Constitution. As that never can be deemed sedition or
treason, it is a task that I never shall relinquish ; and
if I perform it, as I ought to do, Mr. Fordbaut will find
in that defence a sufficient reply to his doctrine. Twu
greater epposents cannot exist than the English Coo-
siltation sad Universal Suffrage ; and to borrow the
emphatic laagnage of Shakespeare—
" Two stars WA not their mottos la one sphere.
Nor can use England brook the double reign'
•
of a Constitution composed of King, Lords. and Com-
mons, and a Democratic ascendancy.
The reader will please to observe, that I have not
ventured to pat any constructions upon any man's mo-
tives ; the most obpasinalde doctrine of the Radicals I
have treated, not as an e.epetlicat, but as an error in
judgment. To some it might be the one, to others the
other; for different men will have different viens ; and,
as Mr. Horns Tooke said, though they travel the same
good. one may intend to go much further than another.
?Isere is one Oentleinaa. however. among the Radicals,
the purity of whose intentions no one will call in ques-
tion. As that Gentleman lately said, on a public occa-
sion, " whatever errors be might fall into, for that is
the common lot of humanity. posterity, be trusted,
would consider him as an honest man." On this head. I
shall only say, that if it does not, it will not do him justice.
—The principle preferable to all, and which I shall prac-
tice myself, and recd mead to others, is, nerve to twit
the Oaten track EV" the Constitutions. That east never
lead us too far, or subject us to either danger or sus-
picion. I have written 'sires of paper on its defence.
with good intentions I will venture to affirm, bet I dare
not say with any great success; for to speak the truth,
it seems to me that it never was in greater want of de-
fence than it is present. The fact is. that it is over-
whelmed, not by corruption only. but by the slander.
malice, and misrepeesentation of awn who pretend to be
the friends of liberty.
In my next letter I shall offer souse remarks on nate-
ral rights and constitutional rights, and on some that
were first natural, and then constitutional; also upon
the doctrine laid down by Mr. Hunt. that an English-
man who is represented is a freeman, bat an Englishman
who is not represented is a slave.
For the present. I remain. Sec. Ste.
TIMOVIT T111{1011•X.

Beckinghaeashire, Jan. 4,1920.
XEIV SYSTEM OF REVENUE, ere.

From a late publication entitled, " New Sptens
e Reveille and Right of Ssifrage," we abbjoin the
following extract, which entirely coincides with
our ow u opinion:—
" The rights of the sultject are diminished, and his
liberties abridged, in the precise retie of the aseitiplisa-
tioo of the laws. Every new law is so much new strength
added to the power of tievernmesti if it be of liessce,
to its prepon&rance, inffiettee. arta pewerref-weahlri
if it he of regulation and restraint, to its despotism.
" A very complicated state of
m society ears so reason
or necessity for a very p
grithilicsties of laws.
The regulations that will nice for a regiment of MO
men, are equally sulkiest for sae composed of a IWO
—fee an army of 10,000. It is only the extension of the
same fundamental principles. The whole system of le-
gislation, as the whole Waimea of the legislator. resolve
themselves into two very simple oars. Protection of
persons and properties easpnses all the aroma. Aid
when legislators keep those first principles constantly
and Mostly in view, and honestly and sincerely seek to
give elect to them, and to them only, without sinister
missives, laws will be little multiplied. It is whoa pre-
jadices usurp the pbccof principle—whoaa disguised
itite fur shit provenly! sad liberties of the 'abject
'einem, the iegtslators, tits laws are imminently mal-
tiplied.
" Therefore, it will be geterally foetid, that that
State is the most free that has the fewest laws—and
them States will be the most moral. and redoes the
frwastellmess and the fewest crimes; for adalls.lloll
Ames being fee the most part determined and mall
by the laws, the mere the law forbids, the more often
maw be offewded.—The fewer restriction that the law
bnrien upon men, the lees often he can 'Enid s as the
r Isms the law requires from him. the lees eftes will he be
e defaulter—the Imo will be be impoverbeed--tbe
rester will be his prosperity-40d the rester win he
die prosperity of the State. The preepersty of the Sisk
being bet the aggregate of the isilividsal presperity of

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MISR OF STOCKS THIS
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Long Ann. 17 lit-161
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DAY AT ONE O'CLOCK.
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-

LONDON:
SATURDAY, JARUART 8, 1880.
-.41.-

Paris Papers of Tuesday and Wednesday have
WAN to hand.
The Chamber of Deputies assembled on the 4th
inst. M. Pasquier, Minister for Foreign Ainiirb,
rose to reply to some observations which had been
made in a previous Sitting by one of the Members,
and which charged Ministers with closing the dis-
suasions before the Opposition Members bad op-
portunity of addressing the Chamber. M. Chauve-
Fin and General Demareay replied ; after Which
the business of the day was proceeded in. Several
private petitions were disposed of. The Minister
of Finance explained the motives for introducing a
project of a law, whereby the purchasers of na-
tional property would be released from the re-
sponsibility of paying their arrears of purchase-
money. " A wise Government," said he, " knows
bow Ouch the assurance of entire security to land
proprietors tends to the amelioration of culture and
the interests of the nation ; and by this act, the
actual loss to the Government would not exceed
two or three millions of francs, a sum which they
could clot have expected the purchasers to pay in
a less period than fifteen or twenty years."
N. Capelle having read the project, it was referred
to the Bureaux, which was to meet on Thursday to take
it into esasideration.—The Chamber sdjseraed.
A carless case came on before the Tribunal of the
Gnu hotlines on Tuesday. The facts of the cause are
Melly stated as follows:—
la the year 1783, the Prince de Conti sold to Mon-
simile• (Mg Look XVIII.) the domain of the Isle of
Adam, kr several millions. Sixteen hundred thousand
francs were left in the bands of the purchaser for the
purpose of paying some annuities. By an Act under
the pine date (the Prince de Coati sot being a party
asamerneith Iloasieer ceded to Louis the XVith his
third of the protectorship of the domain. reserv-
ing to himself the usufruct. At the epoch of the Re-
volatioa this important property was united to the do-
mains of the State. In the month of March, 1814,
the Prince de Conti died in Spin, leaving the
Chevalier Dangrariers the sole legatee. The persons
for whose me the 1,800.000 francs had been left with
the purshaser, having died, that sum became due to the
legatee. In conseqneuce of which the Chevalier Des-
graviers commenced a personal action against his Ma-
jesty for the recovery of it, according to the teems et
the agreement of 1783. N. Duple stated the grounds
on which the action rested. M. Mars, the King's
Counsel, cestended, that the incorporation of the
King's private property, when be ascends the
three*. with the property of the crown, necessarily
readers the whole estate chargeable with the debts
on the private property; and that. consequently,
' the one is question became a public debt, and ought to
be 11161 dated by the nation. (The cause was to be con-
tinued on a subsequent day, is order to give M. Duple
an opportunity of replying.)
nonce, Puxos.—Five per Cents. 71 f. 70c.—Bank
Actions, 1390 fr.

TIMF. PRPAIDENTII NIVISAGIL

We have now time and leisure to make our
further and last remarks upon this important and
much looked-for production. In the view of a mai
Hammy composition, we must, though reluctantly,
confess, that we feel ourselves much disap-
pointed ; it being far inferior in language and OW
striation, to the shorter piece of Mr. Quart
ADAM on the subject of emigration, as given
io our .paper of yesterday. It i•, nevertheless,

domptehermive, Methodical, and, as* State Per fleo•
periketly satisfactory to an American ; which is the I
main sod almost only use it is designed for. But
we have been accustomed to witness what might
have been deemed paradoxical in expectation on
these occasion, 1111.-0111 T and their biome so far
halo degenerating, that it has come more cor-
rect and relined Nora the mouths and pees of a
people transplanted to a great distance from their
alas ewer, es it were, and still more impelled, by
necessity to be agricultural and maritime. That
their liberties, laws, manners, and customs, should
all be improved, amid sot foe a moment surprise
us; but that their and our vernacular tongue should
be freed from any unoecessary expletives and me-
lsifrornameeta, under such a state of things as this
weederhl people have endured, is a feet never to be
brgettea. That men might be supposed to take a
voyage from diffirent quarters and regime of the
globe, to taste of their freedom, and to witness and fa-
milisties themselves with their simpk,rt admirable
institutions, would be but natural in inspisidve and
restless man ; we shall not, however, be surprised
if, hereafter, one of the motives for visiting this