The Statesman.
London, England, 1819-07-23 00:00:00

OBSERVATIOSS

On the iste Smut from the THRONE; en Is late
CI RCUL LITTER from Lord Viscount Ste-
NOM., Secretary of State for the Home Depart-
ment, to LORD LIEUTENANTS of COUNTIES; on a
HILL of INnicrassicr (Of SEDITION, fared at
Knotsford, in Cheshire, against Sir CIL( RECi
WOLsELET and neither; and so Two of the late
ACTS, fur preventing COMMUNICATION of SENTI-
win between MAN and Mix.

" Pureeing his well-known comprehensive views,
his Lodsbip, 1 observe, has, o■ the present occasion,
Mon effectual care not to stand exposed to any
such imputation, as that of Got having taken his
groend large enough. In his Lordship's place, in or-
dins ry man might have been sodded with the giving
it in charge to the official persons in question, to
bring to jestke those offenders by whom they (speak-
ing of the laws) shall have been violated' list oe ;
a provision thus limited was net 'efficient to fill up
the measure of his Lo•dship's prudence : accordingly,
instead of any sock phrase as shall have been, his
Lordship's wisdom has employed the more simple, yet
more comprehensive phrase, may be; accordingly,
the persons who, it Is his lordship's pl , shall
thus be dealt with, are, 6 those off•ndcra, by whom
they (meaning the laws) may be violated' May be
violated.' Whet omens tils wood onnyP Not may
laxfully i for, in that case, the proposition world
he a selicontradictory one; (=fully, no laws can
he violater,. If it means any thing, then, it means,
rosy possitly. Ilat, by possibility, the laws in ques-
tion may, like all other lases, be violated, by all per-
sons, to n hose the physical paver of violating them
is not wanting ; an that here the persons, whom liber.
ties, and eventually their lives, are, for the purpose
111 go!slien, thus ;diced at the disposal of the facial
t'ei•ons thus honoured by his Lordship's confidence,
ire, all pe without enceplion. All persons what.
s ewer 1 Whet can be mo►e compiettensim, or, to
his Lordship, and the other official persons iu goes-
lion, more convenient ?

" Oh, no (says somebody)! not all persons %Ph-
ost exception ; for, as yno yourself bare jolt been
shunt's, in •Idilicu to time ot! er word►, we have •

Pans 7D;

Ihe word offenders;' and be that fornril, the de.
•rription of tfte persons in question steads limited.—
Qfirenders! Nat all persons whatsoever was it his
1.-rdship's intention to envelop in his operations ?
No : but su,h persons, sod such slime, as, being
capable of violating the lens, shit% at a prior lime
not sperifroil, but still at Incas prior time, have hem
(ff. rulers.
" Alit ! in vain could ibis security, such as it is,
he held out to es ; for, though here is a limitation in
word•, little, if any limitation is there in effect.—
Bs our nun weekly confession, all we Church of
Enelludists. from the Monarch our the Throne down
to the ;Jasper in the poor-house, and the felon in the
Penitentisty.boese, are, as I have had occasion to
observe elsewhere, Miserable sinners;' and, with
or without confession, whet is little if any thing IFtt
than true, is, that with little, if lily exception, be.
sides that of the King, who is under the happy inn.
parity of doing wrong, to which, I suppose, is to be
added the Prince Regent, acting in the name and be.
half of his Majesty, we are all of us, in some way or
other, offenders ; at soy rate, what is certain is, that
all such of us are, as are in the habit of either writing,
publishing, reading, or hearing Newspapers; for if
every Newspaper that has ever been printed is not *
libel, then no one is; and what is above is the A.
B. C. of Libel Laws ; ask Lord Coke else.*that
Lord Coke, whom so many Gentlemen are so fond of.

" No less vain would be the observation—that,
whether they have or have not violated the laws, end
whether they be or be not offenders, all the desire
his Lordship on this occasion has impressed, and
therefore all the desire he can justly be consideteJ as
entertaining is, that the persons In question should
be • brought to justice;' end, be the person who he
may, where (it may be asked) con be the harm io his
being brought to justice? Vain, I say, any sects
observation. Considered in itself, justice, it is tree,
is a very charming thing. Bat, on different occasions,
different things are meant by it. On the present oc•
casion, then, what is meant by it ? For answer to
this question, we turn, of course, to the practice of this
same once Loomed and now Noble Person, on former
occasions ; end by this interpretation, • bring loins.
tics' oceans—cnnsign a min, in the first instance, to
prison; thence perchance, lobe at some time or other
liberated ; presided always, that he has money enough
to pay she costs of being defended or betrayed, which
is more then what one io from five to tee of his Ma.
jests's subjects have ; in this least probable case,
thence, I say, to be at one time or other liberated ;
or, in the more probable case, there to stay till he rots.
•• What, in the minute and distoibetiog of that
Official Cocalar, it was Lord Sidmooth's intention to
accomplish, is what I will not take upon me to say.
But what I will, end hereby do take upon me to say,
sad without difficulty, Is— that if it were my lot to
be in possession of arbitrary power, and my disposi-
tion to mike the moat flelitioes see of h, and rather
to decimate or eatirpate the whole People, than see
carried into effect any system of Reform by which
say efficient check might be opposed to it, I cannot
at present think of soy coarse more congenial to
sack a disposition then the one which, with intentions
of unquestionable purity. I ob has taken by
his said Lordship. In like manner, if, being a Me.
gistrate, of the sort of those who being all of them
select men, selected for sech purposes by his Ma.
jesty's Ministers, are in every county in tech &bun.
dance, sod, being of the accommodating disposition
above described, it had happened to me to know or sus.
pect any man to be well disposed towards Reform in
any shape, or, in a word, to be oo any other account
a troublesome man,and it appeared to me that he was
too poor to purchase, and too obscure to ohlsin on
other terms the protection of the law, in such sort as
that' God should send him a good deliterance,' I
should, at my leisure, give him a ticket of admission
to some proper jail, assured of recessing at the hands
of his Lordship's loyalty and justice, with or without
the trouble mod tensility of an Indemnity Act, seek
support, protection, and ludemnity as the case might
might require.
. " If any thing more could be rectisite for the dig.
polling of those doubts which, on these occasions,
will sometimes be troublesome to over-scrupulous
minds, the late Speech from the Throne might snip!y
suffize to clears man's mind of any such troublesome
companions. Certain persons, I observe, are thereia
described by the name of ' those' who, ender the
pretence of R form, have really ' no other object but
the subversion of our happy Constitution;' and these
are the persons ' whose projects' and machinations'
the Lords and Gentlemen addressed are 'shorted to
• use their utmost endeavours, in co-operation with
the Magistracy, to defeat.'
" Now, Sir, so it happens, that, amongst others,
some of whom are, I hope, well meaning, howsoever
misguided men, I have my ' project of Reform;'
and that, though certainly without any the slightest
hope of seeing it during my life-time brought Into
effect, I em employing those ' machinations,' of
which this is one, for the chance of helping to give
effect to it. But the misfortune is—the', howsoever
we II meaning I may be, should it happen to my case
to come for interpretation before any of those' Lords,
Gentlemen,' or Magistrates, of whose utmost anodes.
yours the Prince Regent's advisers, sod amongst
them Lord Sidmooth, have no doubt,' I should be
told, that this project of mine, if successful, cauld
re.ttetiy;'
only aggravate those evils which it isli
awl's:refn
.:rej to
that accordingly what
not a R-form, but quite the contrary; and that there.bft
fore my profession, io regard to Reform, is is
ter iban • pretence :' and thus, with o•i any the
official miens to whom my project she.
be an object of displeases,.
snoters smallest
mdai Ifirdco. I •ayt.
tilhseh
po
leelads
obe d r •
oers I w
soy
oyi tehlidstenb
otehe pfperharti
" If, therefo'ritlt rg an sal sbi!ent co° or travel.

ler in lay one of the counties far the peace of which
Ilse prevision in question Ims been, or shall has• been
made, it mere my misfortune to feel myself ender the
ashligstitvn of assigning, on this occasion, an ;wen-
tints, corresponding in its comprehensiveness to that
of the incomprehensive minds in question, I sue not
bow It could be less comp►ehensive than this—
samelys than the intention the, if by word of
mouth, or by writing, It shall have happen►d to me
to have uttered any thing in f f Reform in
any shop, I shall, by she official persons in gees.
Roo, with the support and amistance of 6 the Yens

Emmy Cavalry' in the said letter mentioned, be
arrested anti imprisoned, bayoneted, shot, or
banged, If the ease might require; and that. if impris
toned, I shell, in persuasive of this great State Pity.
. . .

sician's favoarite ;wipe (extracted frOas the Plmy''.
eel tee of noly Roman Inquisition) for the pre•
•eution eT all abase, be kept and appliorl (I am as-

semi) to practice. in •b, Ws, of thewililltl;tik Peni•

tentisry, by the Jailers, in • state of invisibility to
every other aortal e)e, with the "sception of such as
shall hue been Insured with a *Finial permit from
his Lordship, or some official person specially bo-
ns/1,7.d with his Lordship's confidence.
el For say own port, 1 sm neither resident, nor
bare it St present in contemplation to become • Ira.
yeller, in any one of the only counties to the Lord
Livetenatits of which this Circular his )et, to my

knoulede, been 'damped. Bot, !mid's that, Ilia

fate of otber pe►sons embarked in the moo Clem
cannot be altngether an object of indifference to me, 1

know not how soon the bitoefit of the same p►udeoce
may be extended to the county in which I live ; and
accordingly, seeing sty danger, I cannot but be de.
sirens that, in the same point of 'kw, it should be
seen by all those who are partakers in it, and who,
If they know how (which I am sere is more than I
do, incept peradvewtere, by doing according to the
proverb, as men do in Rome or Spain), would, of
course, not be sorry to obtain security etpiost it.
•' In a Paper, purporting to be a Copy of the Bill
of Indictment found at the Chester Quarter Sessions,
leo Tuesday, the 13th of July, 1819, against Sir
Charles Wolnky, Baronet, and J. Harrison, School-
master, I find It therged, amongst other things, that
they ' being persons of • turbulent and seditious
disposition,' &c. with force of arms,' dm did con-
spire,' ' invite and stir op the People to hatred
and contempt of the Government and Constitution,'
&c. Now whet is certain is—that Ido oot, in my
own mind, ascribe to Lord Sidmooth, or to any of
his Lordship's colleagues, any such intestine, es that
of inciting the People to hatred and contempt of the
Government and Constitotiou in question :—no, nor
of any other Government, if any such there were,
under which they could enjoy so many good things
in such fall security, giving themselves, at the mime
time, the smueement of doing so many evil things,
if it were in their nature to do evil things, with or
witiout the formality of Acts of Indemnity, with such
fall impunity. Ear be it from me so much as to inti.
nuate, that in anything they do,howsoever may be the
case with some things which they soy, there is so much
as a tendency to mitt in the People, ■s towards the
said Gurernmewt and Constitution, any such senti-1
swot as contempt. Neither by the Emperor of Con-
stantinople, nor by the Emperor of Morocco, black
us his Imperial Majesty is said to be, nor eves by the
Rio( of *tie, does it appose to me, how any such
sentiesent ran generally bare bees excited in the
breasts of their respective subjects. Hot as to hatred
—hatred towards the Government sod Constitution
in question—if it were really smog my objects to
excite in the breasts of the People the sentiment that
draomiaated, I can not immediately think of any
other course wove promising, than that which I see
pursued, in sod by those several interesting documents
—the late Speech from the Throne, the late Circular
from his Majesty's Secretary of State, Lord Viscount
Malinnoth, and the Bill of Indictment so found easiest
S Charles Wolseley, Befoul, and J. Harrison,
Schoolmaster, as aforesaid.
" If any doubt can yet be entertained, respecting
thtenmprehensi of his Lordship's views, a clause
in a Stature of the year before last, may be found
amply sufficient for the removal of it. By that Art
(57 GPO. II I.c. 19 s. 2S) referring for its completion
toe former Act (39 Geo. 111. c. 79. s. 8 ) two years
lutprisonanest, or, at the option of the Judges, seven
years transportation, is, I see, provided,—for him,
who, being a member of any Society or Club'
shell, as such, eutertain arty correspondence
with any individual—or, being en indisidnal,
shell entertaip any correspondence with the mem
bore of any Society or Glob, as such ; and that
—whatsoever be the purpose for which such So
eiety or Club was instituted or kept on foot, and
whether it had or had not any relation to politic':
with tialy a few special ezemptious, in f
the Freemasons Society of which se many por-
wises of Royal blood are members,—certain go.
eirties of • religions eomplesion—and tuck other So.
ditties, in which those persons for whose use all other
persons are kept alive, are likely to foid themselves.
—sro fill op the measure of his Lordship's security,
sue thing yet remains : and that is—to inhibit, an-
der the same or other more effectual penalties, every
communication between individual sod individual foe
any purpose whatsoever. In the mess time, such as
above is the condition, in which, under this our
' happy Constitution,' as it is called, we live : such,
as above described—so replete with hatred towards
the Government—would, in the opinion of the framers
of these Acts, be the sentiments of the People, if
any free interchsege of sentiments were capable of
hiking place. Thrice happy Constitution ! seder
chick, without being liable to be imprisoned or
transported (certain privileged orders escepted), no
two persons dare interchange sentizeuts with any
third !

JF.RF.MY BLITIIAM•
Wedarsday maraisp, July 11, 1119."

DINNER r. GENERAL D'EI'EREUX.

DIMAS, JOLT 19. —The Dialler to ha given to
our distinguished coaritroman, General Invereus,
of th► Smith American Patriot Service, will take place
thi4 d•y at Morrisson's. It will be one of the most
splendid and most nousemrsly, as well no respectably
attended that was ewer given in Dublin on any former
oecavinn.—That patriotic and truly Mittel Iridium,
Rill take the Chat.

herd Cloncorry,
I