Chapter 7 THE VICARAGE.

Our history began at the Vicarage; there let it end. It is a cheerful summer's morning, and Margaret sits in the study of her friend Mr. Middleton, who has learned to look upon his charge as upon a daughter. She is still attired in widow's weeds, but looks more composed and happy than when we saw her many months ago there.

"You will not leave us, then," said the good vicar; "we have not tired you yet?"

"No," answered Margaret, with a sweet contented smile, "here must I live and die. My duties will not suffer me to depart, even were I so inclined. What would my children do?"

"Ah, what indeed? The school would certainly go to rack and ruin."

"And my old friends, the Harpers and the Wakefields?"

"Why, the old ladies would very soon die of a broken heart, no doubt of it; and then, there's our dispensary and little hospital. Why, where should we look for a new apothecary?"

"These are but the worst days of my life, Mr. Middleton, which I dedicate to usefulness. How am I to make good the deficiency of earlier years?"

"By relying, my dear madam, upon the grace and love of Heaven, who in mercy regards not what we have been, but what we are."

"And is there pardon for so great a sinner?"

"Doubt it not, dear lady. Had you not been loved, you never would have been chastised-you would never have become an obedient and willing child. Be sure, dear Mrs Allcraft, that having repented, you are pardoned and reconciled to your Father. Pray, hold fast to this conviction. You have reason to believe it; for truly you have not despised the chastening of the Lord, nor fainted when you were rebuked of him."

* * *

KíEFF.

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF IVáN KOZLóFF.

BY T.B. SHAW.

O Kiéff! where religion ever seemeth

To light existence in our native land;

Where o'er Petchérskoi's dome the bright cross gleameth,

Like some fair star, that still in heaven doth stand;

Where, like a golden sheet, around thee streameth

Thy plain, and meads that far away expand;

And by thy hoary wall, with ceaseless motion,

Old Dniéper's foaming swell sweeps on to ocean.

How oft to thee in spirit have I panted,

O holy city, country of my heart!

How oft, in vision, have I gazed enchanted

On thy fair towers-a sainted thing thou art!-

By Lávra's walls or Dniéper's wave, nor wanted

A spell to draw me from this life apart;

In thee my country I behold, victorious,

Holy and beautiful, and great and glorious.

The moon her soft ray on Petchérskoi poureth,

Its domes are shining in the river's wave;

The soul the spirit of the past adoreth,

Where sleeps beneath thee many a holy grave:

Vladímir's shade above thee calmly soareth,

Thy towers speak of the sainted and the brave;

Afar I gaze, and all in dreamy splendour

Breathes of the past-a spell sublime and tender.

There fought the warriors in the field of glory,

Strong in the faith, against their country's foe;

And many a royal flower yon palace hoary,

In virgin loveliness, hath seen to blow.

And Báyan sang to them the noble story,

And secret rapture in their breast did glow;

Hark! midnight sounds-that brazen voice is dying-

A day to meet the vanish'd days is flying.

Where are the valiant?-the resistless lances-

The brands that were as lightning when they waved?

Where are the beautiful-whose sunny glances

Our fathers, with such potency, enslaved?

Where is the bard, whose song no more entrances?

Ah! that deep bell hath answer'd what I craved:

And thou alone, by these grey walls, O river!

Murmurest, Dniéper, still, and flow'st for ever.

* * *

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

PART VII.

Have I not in my time heard lions roar?

Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,

Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?

Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,

And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?

Have I not in the pitched battle heard

Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKSPEARE.

At daybreak, the bustle of the camp awoke me. I rose hastily, mounted my horse, and spurred to the rendezvous of the general staff. Nothing could be more animated than the scene before me, and which spread to the utmost reach of view. The advance of the combined forces had moved at early dawn, and the columns were seen far away, ascending the sides of a hilly range by different routes, sometimes penetrating through the forest, and catching the lights of a brilliant rising sun on their plumes and arms. The sound of their trumpets and bands was heard from time to time, enriched by the distance, and coming on the fresh morning breeze, with something of its freshness, to the ear and the mind. The troops now passing under the knoll on which the commander-in-chief and his staff had taken their stand, were the main body, and were Austrian, fine-looking battalions, superbly uniformed, and covered with military decorations, the fruits of the late Turkish campaigns, and the picked troops of an empire of thirty millions of men. Nothing could be more brilliant, novel, or picturesque, than the display of this admirable force, as it moved in front of the rising ground on which our cortège stood.

"You will now see," said Varnhorst, who sat curbing, with no slight difficulty, his fiery Ukraine charger at my side, "the troops of countries of which Europe, in general, knows no more than of the tribes of the new world. The Austrian sceptre brings into the field all the barbaric arms and costumes of the border land of Christendom and the Turk."

Varnhorst, familiar with every service of the continent, was a capital cicerone, and I listened with strong interest as he pronounced the names, and gave little characteristic anecdotes, of the gallant regiments that successively wheeled at the foot of the slope-the Archducal grenadiers-the Eugene battalion, which had won their horse-tails at the passage of the Danube-the Lichtensteins, who had stormed Belgrade-the Imperial Guard, a magnificent corps, who had led the last assault on the Grand Vizier's lines, and finished the war. The light infantry of Maria Theresa, and the Hungarian grenadiers and cuirassiers, a mass of steel and gold, closed the march of the main body. Nothing could be more splendid. And all this was done under the perpetual peal of trumpets, and the thunder of drums and gongs, that seemed absolutely to shake the air. It was completely the Miltonic march and harmony-

"Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds."

But I was now to witness a still more spirit-stirring scene.

The trampling of a multitude of horse, and the tossing of lances and banners in the distance, suddenly turned all eyes in their direction.

"Now, prepare," said the Count, "for a sight, perhaps not altogether so soldierlike, but fully as much to my taste, as the buff-belt and grenadiers'-cap formality of the line. You shall see the Austrian flankers-every corps equipped after its native fashion. And whatever our martinets may say, there is nothing that gives such spirits to the soldier, as dressing according to the style of his own country. My early service was in Transylvania; and if I were to choose troops for a desperate service, I say-give me either the man of the hill, or the man of the forest, exactly in the coat of the chamois-shooter, or the wolf-hunter."

He had scarcely pointed my attention to the movement, when the whole body of the rearguard was in full and rapid advance. The plain was literally covered with those irregulars, who swept on like a surge, or rather, from the diversity of their colours, and the vast half-circle which they formed on the ground, a living rainbow. Part were infantry and part cavalry, but they were so intermingled, and the motion of all was so rapid, that it was difficult to mark the distinction. From my recollection of the history of the Seven Years' War, I felt a double interest in the sight of the different castes and classes of the service, which I had hitherto known only by name. Thus passed before me the famous Croatian companies-the Pandours, together forming the finest outpost troops of the army-the free companies of the Tyrol, the first marksmen of the empire, a fine athletic race, with the eagle's feather in their broad hats, and the sinewy step of the mountaineer-the lancers of the Bannat, first-rate videttes, an Albanian division, which had taken service with Austria on the close of the war; and, independently of all name and order, a cloud of wild cavalry, Turk, Christian, and barbarian, who followed the campaign for its chances, and galloped, sported, and charged each other like the Arabs of the desert.

The late triumphs of the Imperial arms in Turkey had even enhanced the customary display, and the standards of the cavalry and colours of the battalions, were stiff with the embroidered titles of captured fortresses and conquered fields. Turkish instruments of music figured among the troops, and the captive horse-tails were conspicuous in more than one corps, which had plucked down the pride of the Moslem. The richness and variety of this extraordinary spectacle struck me as so perfectly Oriental, that I might have imagined myself suddenly transferred to Asia, and looked for the pasha and his spahis; or even for the rajah, his elephants, and his turbaned spearmen. But all this gay splendour has long since been changed. The Croats are now regulars, and all the rest have followed their example.

My admiration was so loud, that it caught the ear of the duke. He turned his quick countenance on me, and said-"Tell our friends at home, M. Marston, what you have seen to-day. I presume you know that Maria Theresa was a first-rate soldier; or, at least, she had the happy art of finding them. You may see Laudohn's hand in her battalions. As for the light troops, Europe can show nothing superior in their kind. Trenk's Pandours, and Nadasti's hussars were worth an army to Austria, from the first Silesian war down to the last shot fired in Germany. But follow me, and you shall see the work of another great master."

We spurred across the plain to the mouth of a deep, wooded defile, through which the Prussian grand corps d'armée were advancing. The brigades which now met our view were evidently of a different character from the Austrian; their uniforms of the utmost simplicity; their march utterly silent; the heads of the columns observing their distances with such accuracy, that, on a signal, they could have been instantly formed in order of battle; every movement of the main body simply directed by a flag carried from hill to hill, and even the battalion movements marked by the mere waving of a sword. Even their military music was of a peculiarly soft and subdued character. On my observing this to Varnhorst, his reply was-"That this was one of the favourite points of the Great Frederick. 'I hate drums in the march,' said the king, 'they do nothing but confuse the step. Every one knows that the beat at the head of the column takes time to reach the rear. Besides, the drum deafens the ear. Keep it, therefore, for the battle, when the more noise the better.' He also placed the band in the centre of the column. 'If they are fond of music,' said he, 'why should not every man have his share?'"

The steady advance, the solid force, and the sweet harmony, almost realized the noble poetic conception-

"Anon they move

In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood

Of flutes and soft recorders, such as raised

To heights of noblest temper heroes old

Arming to battle; and instead of rage,

Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved

With dread of death to flight or foul retreat."

It is true that they wanted the picturesque splendour of ancient warfare. The ten thousand banners, with orient colours waving, the "forest huge of spears," the "thronging helms," and "serried shields, in thick array of depth immeasurable." But if the bayonet, the lance, and even the cannon offered less to the eye, the true source of the grandeur of war was there-the power, the tremendous impulse, the materiel of those shocks which convulse nations-the marshalled strength, fierce science, and stern will, before which the works of man perish like chaff before the wind, and the glory of nations vanishes like a shade.

While the last of the troops were defiling before the duke and his staff, a courier brought up despatches.

"Gentlemen," said the duke, after glancing at one of the papers, "the army of the Prince de Condé is in march to join us. They have already reached the neighbourhood. We must now lose no time. M. Marston, you will report to your Government what you have seen to-day. We are in march for Paris."

Varnhorst and Guiscard were now summoned to the side of the duke; a spot was found where we might shelter ourselves from the overpowering blaze of the sun; the successive despatches were opened; a large map of the routes from Champagne to the capital was laid on the ground; and we dismounted, and, sitting together, like old comrades, we held our little council of war.

"I can make nothing of my French correspondents in general," said the duke, after perusing a long letter, "but M. le Comte writes like Cagliostro. He has evidently some prodigious secret, which he is determined to envelope in still deeper secrecy. He tells me that La Fayette has fled; but when, where, or for what purpose, is all equally an enigma. In one sentence of his letter he would persuade me that all France is disorganized, and in the next, that it is more resolved to resist than ever. Paris is prepared to rise at the first sight of the white flag, and Paris is sending out six thousand men every three hours to join the republican force in the field. Paris is in despair. Paris is in furious exultation. How am I to understand all this? Even in his postscript he tells me, in one breath, that the whole of the strong places in our front are filled with national guards, and that no less than seven corps of troops of the line are prepared to fight us in the plains of Champagne; and that we have only to push on to take the towns-charge the troops of the line to see them disperse-and advance within ten leagues of Paris to extinguish the rebellion, set the royal family free, and restore the monarchy."

The mysterious letter was handed round our circle in succession, and seemed equally beyond comprehension to us all. We had yet to learn the temperament of a capital, where every half-hour produced a total change of the popular mind. The letter, fantastically expressed as it was, conveyed the true condition of the hour. The picture was true, but the countenance changed every moment. He might as well have given the colours of cloud.

I had now entered on a course of adventure the most exciting of all others, and at the most exciting time of life. But all the world round me was in a state of excitement. Every nation of Europe was throwing open its armoury, and preparing its weapons for the field. The troops invading France were palpably no more than the advanced guards of Prussia and Austria. Even with all my inexperience, I foresaw that the war would differ from all the past; that it would be, not a war of tactics, but a war of opinion; that not armies, but the people marshalled into hosts, would be ultimately the deciders of the victory; and that on whichever side the popular feeling was more serious, persevering, and intense, there the triumph would be gained. I must still confess, however, in disparagement to my military sagacity, that I was totally unprepared for the gallant resistance of the French recruits. What can they do without officers?-ten thousand of whom had been noblesse, and were now emigrants? What can they do without a commissariat, what can they do without pay, and who is to pay them in a bankrupt nation? Those were the constant topics at headquarters. We were marching to an assured victory. France was at an end. We should remodel the Government, and teach the sans culottes the hazard of trying the trade of politicians.

There was but one man in the camp who did not coincide in those glittering visions. Let me once more do justice to a prince whose character has been affected by the caprices of fortune. The Duke of Brunswick's language to me, as we saw the Tricolor waving on the walls of Longwy, the first fortress which lay in our road, was-"Sir, your court must not be deceived. We shall probably take the town, and defeat its wavering army; but up to this moment, we have not been joined by a single peasant. The population are against us. This is not a German war; it is more like yours in America. I have but one hundred and twenty thousand men against twenty-five millions." To my remark, "that there might be large body of concealed loyalty in France, which only waited the advance of the Allies to declare itself," his calm and grave reply was: "That I must not suffer my Government to suppose him capable of abandoning the royal cause, while there was hope in military means. That it was his determination to hazard all things rather than chill the coalition. But this let me impress upon your Ministry," said he, with his powerful eye turned full on me; "that if intrigue in the German cabinets, or tardiness on the part of yours, shall be suffered to impede my progress, all is at an end. I know the French; if we pause, they will pour on. If we do not reach Paris, we must prepare to defend Berlin and Vienna. If the war is not ended within a month, it may last for those twenty years."

The commander-in-chief was true to his word. He lost no time. Before night our batteries were in full play upon the bastions of Longwy, and as our tents had not yet overtaken us, I lay down under a vineyard shed in a circle of the staff, with our cloaks for our pillows, listening to the roar of our artillery; until it mingled with my dreams.

We were on horse an hour before daybreak, and the cannonade still continued heavy. It was actively returned, and the ramparts were a circuit of fire. As a spectacle, nothing could be more vivid, striking, and full of interest. To wait for the slow approaches of a formal siege was out of the question. Intelligence had reached us that the scattered French armies, having now ascertained the point at which the burst over the frontier was to be made, had been suddenly combined, and had taken a strong position directly in our way to the capital. A protracted siege would raise the country in our rear, and, thus placed between two fires, the grand army might find itself paralysed at the first step of the campaign. The place must be battered until a breach was made, and stormed à la Turque. Our anxiety during the day was indescribable. With our telescopes constantly in our hands, we watched the effect of every new discharge; we galloped from hill to hill with the impatience of men in actual combat, and every eye and tongue was busy in calculating the distances, the power of guns, and the time which the crumbling works would take to fill up the ditch. The reports of the engineers, towards evening, announced that a practicable breach was made, and three battalions of Austrian grenadiers, and as many of Prussians, were ordered under arms for the assault. To make this gallant enterprize more conspicuous, the whole army was formed in columns, and marched to the heights, which commanded a view of the fortress. The fire from the batteries now became a continued roar, and the guns of Longwy, whose fire had slackened during the day, answered them with an equal thunder; the space between was soon covered with smoke, and when the battalions of grenadiers moved down the hillside, and plunged into the valley, they looked like masses of men disappearing into the depths of ocean. The anxiety now grew intense. I hardly breathed; and yet I had a mingled sensation of delight, eagerness, and yet of uncertainty, to which nothing that I had ever felt before was comparable. I longed to follow those brave men to the assault, and probably would have made some such extravagant blunder, but for seeing Varnhorst's broad visage turned on me with a look of that quiet humour which, of all things on earth, soonest brings a man to his senses. "My good friend," said he, "however fine this affair may be, live in hope of seeing something finer. Never be shot at Longwy, when you may have a chance of scaling the walls of Paris. I have made a vow never to be hanged in the beginning of a revolution, nor to be shot in the beginning of a war. But come, the duke is beckoning to us. Let us follow him."

We saw the general and his staff galloping from the ground where he had remained from the beginning of the assault, to a height still more exposed, and where the guns from the fortress were tearing up the soil. From this spot a large body of troops were seen rushing from the gate of the fortress, and plunging into the valley. The result of this powerful sortie was soon heard, for every thing was invisible under the thick cloud, which grew thicker every moment, in the volleys of musketry, and the shouts of the troops on both sides. Varnhorst now received an order from the chief of the staff, which produced its effect, in the rush of a squadron of Prussian cavalry on the flank of the enemy's column. In a few minutes it was broken, and we saw its wrecks swept along the side of the hill. An universal shout was sent up from the army, and our next sight was the ascent of the Austrian and Prussian standards, gradually rising through the smoke, and making their way towards the glacis. They had reached the foot of the breach, when the fire of the town suddenly ceased. A white flag waved on the rampart, and the drums of the garrison beat the chamade. Longwy had surrendered! All now was triumph and congratulation. We flocked round the duke, and hailed his first conquest as a promise of perpetual success. He was in high spirits at an achievement which was so important to the national impression of his talents and resources. The sortie of the garrison had given the capture an éclat which could not have been obtained by the mere surrender of a strong place. But the most important point of all was, the surrender before the assault. "The sight of our troops is enough," was the universal conclusion. If the fortified barrier of France cannot resist, what will be done by troops as raw as peasants, and officers as raw as their troops? The capitulation was a matter of half an hour, and by nightfall I followed the duke and his escort into the town. It was illuminated by order of the conquerors, and, whether bongrè or malgrè, it looked showy; we had gazers in abundance, as the dashing staff caracoled their way through the streets. I observed, however, that we had no acclamations. To have hissed us, might be a hazardous experiment, while so many Hulans were galloping through the Grande Rue; but we got no smiles. In the midst of the crowd, I met Varnhorst steering his charger with no small difficulty, and carrying a packet of notes in his hand. "Go to your quarters, and dress," said my good-humoured friend. "You will have a busy night of it. The duke has invited the French commandant and his officers to dine with him, and we are to have a ball and supper afterwards for the ladies. Lose no time." He left me wondering at the new world into which I had fallen, and strongly doubting, that he would be able to fill up his ball-room. But I was mistaken. The dinner was handsomely attended, and the ball more handsomely still. "Fortune de la guerre," reconciled the gallant captains of the garrison to the change; and they fully enjoyed the contrast between a night on the ramparts, and the hours spent at the Prussian generalissimo's splendidly furnished table. The ball which followed exhibited a crowd of the belles of Longwy, all as happy as dress and dancing could make them. It was a charming episode in the sullen history of campaigning, and before I flung myself on the embroidered sofa of the mayor's drawing-room, where my billet had been given for the night, I was on terms of eternal "friendship" with a whole group of classic beauties-Aspasias, Psyches and Cleopatras.

But neither love nor luxury, neither the smiles of that fair Champagnaises, nor the delight of treading on the tesselated floors, and feasting on the richness of municipal tables, could now detain us. We were in our saddles by daybreak, and with horses that outstripped the wind, with hearts light as air, and with prospects of endless victory and orders and honours innumerable before us, we galloped along, preceded, surrounded, and followed by the most showy squadrons that ever wore lace and feathers. The delight of this period was indescribable. It was to me a new birth of faculties that resembled a new sense of being, a buoyant and elastic lightness of feelings and frame. The pure air; the perpetual change of scene; the novelty of the landscape; the restless and vivid variety of events, and those too of the most powerful and comprehensive nature; the superb display of the finest army that the Continent had sent to war for the last hundred years; and all this excitement and enjoyment, with an unrivaled vista of matchless conquest in the horizon, a triumphal march through the provinces, to be consummated by the peace of Europe in Paris, filled even my vexed and wearied spirit with new life. If I am right in my theory, that the mind reaches stages of its growth with as much distinctness as the frame, this was one of them. I was conscious from this time of a more matured view of human being, of a clearer knowledge of its impulses, of a more vigorous, firm, and enlarged capacity for dealing with the real concerns of life. I still loved; and, strange, hopeless, and bewildering as that passion was in the breast of one who seemed destined to all the diversities of fortune-it remained without relief, or relaxation through all. It was the vein of gold, or perhaps the stream of fire, beneath the soil, inaccessible to the power of change on the surface, but that surface undergoing every impulse and influence of art and nature.

The army now advanced unopposed. Still we received neither cheers nor reinforcements from the population. Yet we had now begun to be careless on the topic. The intelligence from Paris was favourable in all the leading points. The king was resuming his popularity, though still a prisoner. The Jacobins were exhibiting signs of terror, though still masters of every thing. The recruits were running away, though the decree for the general rising of the country was arming the people. In short, the news was exactly of that checkered order which was calculated to put us all in the highest spirits. The submission of Paris, at least until we were its conquerors, would have deprived us of a triumph on the spot, and the proclamation of a general peace would have been received as the command for a general mourning.

The duke was in the highest animation, and he talked to every one round him, as we marched along, with more than condescension. He was easy, familiar, and flushed with approaching victory. "We have now," said he, "broken through the 'iron barrier,' the pride of Vauban, and the boast of France for these hundred years. To-morrow Verdun will fall. The commandant of Thionville, in desperation at the certainty of our taking the town by assault, has shot himself, and the keys are on their way to me. Nothing but villages now lie in our road, and once past those heights," and he pointed to a range of woody hills on the far horizon, "and we shall send our light troops en promenade to Paris." We all responded in our various ways of congratulation.

"Apropos," said the duke, applying to me, "M. Marston, you have been later on the spot than any of us. What can you tell of this M. Dumourier, who, I see from my letters, is appointed to the forlorn hope of France-the command of the broken armies of Lafayette and Luckner?"

My answer was briefly a hope that the new general would be as much overmatched by the duke's fortunes in the field, as he had been by party in the capital. "Still, he seemed to me a clever, and even a remarkable man, however inexperienced as a soldier."

"If he is the officer of that name who served in the last French war, he is an old acquaintance of mine," observed the duke. "I remember him perfectly. He was a mere boy, who, in a rash skirmish with some of our hussars, was wounded severely and taken prisoner. But as I learned that he was the son of a French literateur of some eminence whom I had met in Paris, and as I had conceived a favourable opinion of the young soldier's gallantry, I gave him his parole and sent him back to his family, who, I think, were Provencals. He was unquestionably spirited and intelligent, and with experience might make either minister or general; but as he has begun by failure in the one capacity, it will be our business to show him that he may find success equally difficult in another. At all events, we have nothing but this minister-general between us and Notre-Dame. He has taken up a position on the Argonne ridge in our front. To force it will be but an affair of three hours. Adieu, gentlemen." He put spurs to his horse, and galloped to one of the columns which approached with trumpets sounding, bearing the captured banner of the church tower of Longwy.

The world was now before us, and we enjoyed it to the full. Varnhorst and I were inseparable, and feasted on the scene, the gaiety, the oddity of the various characters, which campaigning developes more than any mode of existence. The simple meal, the noon-rest under a tree, the songs of our troopers, the dance in the villages, as soon as the peasantry had discovered that we did not eat women and children-even the consciousness of a life wholly without care, formed a delicious state of being. "If this is the life of the Arab," I often was ready to exclaim, "what folly would it be in him to leave the wilderness! If the Esquimaux can sleep through one half of the year and revel through the other, is he not the true philosopher in the midst of his frost and snow?" Guiscard, who sometimes joined our party, was now and then moved to smile at our unripe conceptions of the nature of things. But we laughed at his gravity, and he returned to pore over the mysteries of that diplomacy which evidently thickened on him hour by hour. I recollect, however, one of his expressions-"My friend, you think that all the battle is to be fought in front: I can assure you that a much more severe battle is to be fought in the rear. Argonne will be much more easily mastered than the King's closet and the Aulic Council." We had good reason to remember the oracle.

One morning as, with half a dozen hussars, I was ranging the thickets on the flank of the advance, with the spirit of an English fox-hunter, on reaching the summit of a rising ground, I saw, some miles off, a party of horsemen making their way at full speed across the country. The perfect level of the plains, particularly in Champagne, makes the ground as open as a race-course. I called my hussars, and we galloped forward to intercept. On seeing us, they slackened their speed, and were evidently in consultation. At length the sight of our uniforms reassured then, and one of their number came forward to meet us. To our enquiry, the answer was, that "General Lafayette desired to be led to the headquarters." I now saw this memorable man for the first time, and was busy, in my usual style, in looking for the hero or the revolutionist in his physiognomy. I was disappointed in both. I saw a quiet visage, and a figure of moderate size, rather embonpoint, and altogether the reverse of that fire-eyed and lean-countenanced "Cassius" which I had pictured in my imagination. But his manners perplexed me as much as his features. They were calm, easy, and almost frank. It was impossible to recognize in him the Frenchman, except by his language; and he was the last man in whom I could ever have detected that pride of the theatre, the "French marquis." His manners were English, and I had a fellow-feeling for him even in our short ride to the camp, and congratulated myself on being thrown into the intercourse of one who had played so conspicuous a part in the most conspicuous scene of our day.

But on his introduction to the duke, my ardour received a sudden chill. I saw instantly, by the utter absence of all cordiality in his reception, that the French fugitive had taken a dangerous step, and that his Parisian ill fortune had deprived his retreat of all merit in the sight of the commander-in-chief. My doubts were soon confirmed by a message from his tent. I obeyed; and as I passed the lines, saw Lafayette surrounded by a troop of Hulans of the Guard. I found the duke pacing uneasily in front of the tent.

"M. Marston," said he, with a vexed manner, "your capture of this morning has added to our perplexities. You acted zealously, and with the spirit that distinguishes your nation; but I heartily wish that M. La Fayette had taken any other direction than towards us. His fall has been contemplated for some time, and even the possibility of his being arrested by some of our parties. I have received a communication from the Allied cabinets on the contingency; and the question now is, how to execute my order without public weakness or personal severity."

I proposed to accompany him, while we were on the march, and to pledge myself for his honour when we arrived at quarters.

"Generously offered," was the reply. "But my duty, in the first instance, prohibits his remaining in the camp; and in the next, my feelings for himself would spare a man who has commanded the enemy's troops, the sight of that actual collision which must immediately take place. We attack the defiles of the Argonne to-morrow."

He entered the tent, wrote a few lines, and returned to me.

"M. Lafayette must consider himself as a prisoner; but as my wish is to treat him with honour, I must beg of you, M. Marston, to take charge of him for the time. Your offer has relieved me from an embarrassment; and I shall take care to make honourable mention of your conduct in this instance, as in all others, to both the courts of Berlin and St James's. The marquis must be sent to Berlin, and I must request that you will be ready to set out with him this evening."

The sound was a thunder-stoke. "This evening!" when the decisive action of the war was to be fought next morning. "To Berlin!" when all my gallant friends were to be on the march to Paris. Impossible! I retracted my offer at once. But the prince, not accustomed to be resisted, held his purpose firmly; representing that, as the French general was actually my prisoner, and as my court was equally interested with those of the Allied powers, in preventing his return to embroil France, "it was my duty, as her commissioner, to see that the measure was effectively performed." But the appearance of leaving the army, on the very eve of important service, was not to be argued, or even commanded, away. The duke was equally inflexible, though his sentences were perhaps shorter than mine; and I finally left his presence, declaring, that if the request were persisted in, I should throw up my commission at once, volunteer as a common trooper into the first squadron which would admit me, and then, his highness, might, of course, order me wherever he pleased."

A stately smile was the answer to this tirade. I bowed, and retired.

Within a hundred yards I met my two friends, Varnhorst and Guiscard, and poured out my whole catalogue of wrongs at once. Varnhorst shared my indignation, fiercely pulled his thick mustaches, and muttered some phrases about oppression, martinetism, and other dangerous topics, which fortunately were scattered on the air. Guiscard neither raged nor smiled, but walked into the ducal tent. After a few minutes he returned, and then his sallow countenance wore a smile. "You have offended the duke desperately," said he. "And as a sovereign prince, I dare say that banishment from his territories for life would be the least reparation; but as a general, we think that we cannot have too many good troops, and your proposal to take a Hulan's lance and pistol in your hand, is irresistible. In short, he receives you as a volunteer into his own hussars, and as you are henceforth at his disposal, he orders."-My tormentor here made a malicious pause, which threw me into a fever. I gazed on his countenance, to anticipate his mission. It wore the same deep and moveless expression. "His highness orders, that you shall escort, with a squadron, General Lafayette, to the Chateau, our former headquarters, and where we first met; there deliver over the Frenchman to an officer of the staff, who will be in readiness to escort him further; and, in the mean time, if the very fiery and independent M. Marston should have no objection to travel at night, he may return, and be in time for whatever is to be done here to-morrow."

"Bravo, bravo!" exclaimed good-natured Varnhorst. "Guiscard, you are the first of negotiators!"

"No," was the quiet reply. "I pretend to nothing more than the art of being a good listener. I merely waited until the duke had spoken his will, and then interposed my suggestion. It was adopted at once; and now our young friend has only to ride hard to-night, and come to shade his brow with a share of any laurels which we may pluck in the forest of Argonne, in the next twenty-four hours."

I was enraptured-the communication was made in the most courteous manner to the marquis. He had at once perceived the difficulties of his position, and was glad to leave them behind as far as possible. Our escort was mounted within a few minutes, and we were in full gallop over the fruitful levels of Champagne.

To speed of this order, time and space were of little importance; and with the rapidity of a flock of falcons, we reached the foot of the noble hill, on which, embosomed in the most famous vineyards of the vine country, stood the Chateau. It was blazing with lights, and had evidently lost nothing of its population by the change of headquarters. We were soon brought to a stand by a challenge in French, and found that we were no longer among the jovial J?gers of Deutchland. We had fallen in with the advanced corps of the Emigrant army under the command of the Prince of Condé.

Here was a new dilemma. Our prisoner's was perhaps the most startling name which could have been pronounced among those high-blooded and headlong men. The army was composed almost wholly of the noblesse; and Lafayette, under all his circumstances of birth, sentiments, and services, had been the constant theme of noble indignation. The champion of the American Republic, the leader of the Parisian movement, the commandant of the National Guard, the chief of the rebel army in the field-all was terribly against him. Even the knowledge of his fall could not have appeased their resentment; and the additional knowledge that he was within their hands, might have only produced some unfortunate display of what the philosopher calls "wild justice." In this difficulty, while the officer of the patrol was on his way to the Chateau to announce our coming, I consulted the captain of my escort. But, though a capital sabreur, he was evidently not made to solve questions in diplomacy. After various grimaces of thinking, and even taking the meersham from his mouth, I was thrown on my own resources. My application to the captive general was equally fruitless: it was answered with the composure of one prepared for all consequences, but it amounted simply to-"Do just as you please."

But no time was to be lost, and leaving the escort to wait till my return, I rode up the hill alone, and desired an interview with the officer in command of the division. Fortunately I found him to be one of my gayest Parisian companions, now transformed into a fierce chevalier, colonel des chasseurs, bronzed like an Arab, and mustached like a tiger. But his inner man was the same as ever. I communicated my purpose to him as briefly as possible. His open brow lowered, and his fingers instinctively began playing with the hilt of his sabre. And if the rencontre could have been arranged on the old terms of man to man, my gallant friend would have undoubtedly made me the bearer of a message on the spot. But I had come for other objects, and gradually brought him round; he allowed that "a prisoner was something entitled to respect." The "request of his distinguished and valued friend, M. Marston, dear to him by so many charming recollections of Paris, &c., was much more;" and we finally arranged that the general should be conveyed unseen to an apartment in the Chateau, while I did him and his "braves camarades" the honour of sharing their supper. I gave the most willing consent; a ride of thirty miles had given me the appetite of a hunter.

I was now introduced to a new scene. The room was filled with muskets and knapsacks piled against the walls, and three-fourths of those who sat down were private soldiers; yet there was scarcely a man who did not wear some knightly decoration, and I heard the noblest names of France everywhere round me. Thus extremes meet: the Faubourg St Germains had taken the equality of the new order of things, and the very first attempt to retain an exclusive rank had brought all to the same level. But it was a generous, a graceful, and a gallant level. All was good-humour under their privations, and the fearful chances which awaited them were evidently regarded with a feeling which had all the force of physical courage without its roughness. I was much struck, too, with the remarkable appearance of the military figures round me. Contrary to our general notions of the foreign noblesse those exhibited some of the finest-looking men whom I had ever seen. This was perhaps, in a considerable degree, owing to the military life. In countries where the nobility are destitute of public employment, they naturally degenerate-become the victims of the diseases of indolence and profligacy, transmit their decrepitude to their descendants, and bequeath dwarfishness and deformity to their name. But in France, the young noble was destined for soldiership from his cradle. His education partook of the manly preparations for the soldier's career. The discipline of the service, even in peace, taught him some superiority to the effeminate habits of opulence; and a sense of the actual claims of talents, integrity, and determination, gave them all an importance which, whatever might be the follies of an individual, from time to time, powerfully shaped the general character of the nobles. In England, the efforts for political power, and the distinctions of political fame, preserve our nobility from relaxing into the slavery of indulgence. The continual ascent of accomplished minds from the humbler ranks, at once reinforces their ability and excites their emulation; and if England may proudly boast of men of intellectual vigour, worthy of rising to the highest rank from the humblest condition, she may, with not less justice, boast of her favourites of fortune fitted to cope with her favourites of nature.

Among these showy and high-bred soldiers, the hours passed delightfully. Anecdotes of every court of Europe, where most of them had been, either as tourists or envoys; the piquant tales of the court of their unfortunate sovereign; narratives-sufficiently contemptuous of the present possessors of power; and chansons-some gay, and some touching-made us all forget the flight of time. Among their military choruses was one which drew tears from many a bold eye. It was a species of brief elegy to the memory of Turenne, whom the French soldier still regarded as his tutelar genius. It was said to have been written on the spot where that great leader fell:-

Re?ois, O Turenne, où tu perdis lavie,

Les transports d'un soldat, qui te plaint et t'envie.

Dans l'Elysee assis, près du cef des Césars,

Ou dans le ciel, peutêtre entre Bellone et Mars.

Fais-moi te suivre en tout, exauce ma prière;

Puis se-je ainsi remplir, et finir ma carrière."

The application to the immediate circumstances of those brave gentlemen was painfully direct. What to-morrow might bring was unknown, further than that they would probably soon be engaged with their countrymen; and whether successful or not, they must be embarked in war against France. But my intelligence that an action was expected on the next day awoke the soldier within them again; the wrongs of their order, the plunders of the ruling faction, their hopeless expatriation, if some daring effort was not made, and the triumphant change from exiles to possessors and conquerors, stirred them all into enthusiasm. The army of the Allies, the enemy's position, the public feeling of Paris, and the hope of sharing in the honours of an engagement which was to sweep the revolutionary "canaille" before the "gentlemen of France," were the rapid and animating topics. All were ardent, all eloquent; fortune was at their feet, the only crime was to doubt-the only difficulty was to choose in what shape of splendid vengeance, of matchless retribution, and of permanent glory, they should restore the tarnished lustre of the diadem, and raise the insulted name of France to its ancient rank among the monarchies of the world. I never heard among men so many brilliancies of speech-so many expressions of feeling full of the heart-so glowing a display of what the heart of man may unconsciously retain for the time when some great emotion rouses all its depths, and opens them to the light of day. It was to me a new chapter in the history of man.

The news which I had brought of the positions of the armies rendered me an object of marked interest. I was questioned on every point; first, and especially, of the intention of the commander-in-chief, with the most anxious yet most polished minuteness. But, as on this subject my lips were comparatively sealed, the state of the troops with whom they were so soon to be brought into contact became the more manageable topic. On mentioning that Dumourier was placed in command, I received free and full communications on the subject of his qualities for being the last hope of revolutionary France. One had known him in his early career in the engineers, another had served along with him in Corsica, a third had met him at the court of Portugal; the concurring report being, that he was a coxcomb of the first water, showy but superficial, and though personally brave, sure to be bewildered when he found himself for the first time working the wheels and springs of that puzzling machine, an army in the field. A caustic old Proven?al marquis, with his breast glittering with the stars of a whole constellation of knighthood, yet who sat with the cross-belts and cartouche-box of the rank and file upon him, agreeing with all the premises, stoutly denied the conclusions. "He is a coxcomb," said the old Marquis. "Well, he is only the fitter to command an army of upstarts. He has seen nothing but Corsican service; well, he is the fitter to command an army of banditti. And he has been an espion of the Government in Portugal; what better training could he have for heading an army of traitors? Rely upon it, gentlemen, that you have mistaken his character; if you think that he is not the very man whom the mob of Paris ought to have chosen for their general, I merely recommend, that when you go into action you should leave your watches in camp, and, if you charge any of their battalions, look well to your purses."

The old soldier's sally restored our gaiety; but the man best acquainted with the French commander-in-chief was my friend the chevalier, at the head of the table. "It has singularly enough happened to me to have met M. Dumourier in almost every scene of his life, since his return from his first service in Germany. Our first meeting was in the military hospital in Toulouse, where he had been sent, like myself, to recover, in his native air, from the wounds of our last German campaign. He was then a coxcomb, but a clever one, full of animal spirits, and intoxicated with the honour of having survived the German bullets, of being appointed to a company, and wearing a croix. Our next meeting was in Portugal. Our Minister had adopted some romantic idea of shaking the English influence, and Dumourier had been sent as an engineer to reconnoitre the defences of the country. The word espion was not wholly applicable to his mission, yet there can be no doubt that the memoir published on his return, was not a volume of travels. His services had now recommended him to the Government, and he was sent to Corsica. There again I met him, as my regiment formed part of the force in the island. He was high on the staff, our intercourse was renewed, and he was regarded as a very expert diplomatist. A few years after, I found him in a still higher situation, a favourite of De Choiseul, and managing the affairs of the Polish confederation. On his return to Paris, such was the credit in which he stood, that he was placed by the minister of war at the head of a commission to reform the military code; thus he has been always distinguished; and has at least had experience."

Even this slight approach to praise was evidently not popular among the circle, and I could hear murmurs.

"Distinguished!-yes, more with the pen than the sword."

"Diplomacy!-the business of a clerk. Command is another affair."

"Mon cher Chevalier," said the old Marquis, with a laugh, "pray, after being in so many places with him, were you with him in the Bastile?" This was followed with a roar.

I saw my friend's swarthy cheek burn. He started up, and was about to make some fierce retort, when a fine old man, a general, with as many orders as the marquis, and a still whiter head, averted the storm, by saying, "Whether the chevalier was with M. Dumourier in that predicament, I know not; but I can say that I was. I was sent there for the high offence of kicking a page of the court down the grande escalier at Versailles for impertinence, at the time when M. Dumourier was sent there by the Duc d'Acquillon, for knowing more than the minister. I assure you that I found him a most agreeable personage-very gay, very witty, and very much determined to pass his time in the pleasantest manner imaginable. But our companionship was too brief for a perfect union of souls," said he laughing; "for I was liberated within a week, while he was left behind for, I think, the better part of a year."

"But his talents?" was the question down the table.

"Gentlemen," said the old man, "my experience in life has always made me judge of talents by circumstances. If, for example, I find that a man has the talent exactly fitted for his position, I give him credit for all-he had the talent for making the Bastile endurable, and I required no other. But there were times when graver topics varied our pleasantry, and he exhibited very various intelligence, a practical experience of the chief European courts, and, I am sorry to say, a very striking contempt for their politics and their politicians alike. He was especially indignant at the selfish perfidy with which the late king had given him up to the ignorant jealousy of the minister, and looked forward to the new reign with a resolute, and sometimes a gloomy determination to be revenged. If that man is a republican, it is the Bastile that has made him one; and if he ever shall have a fair opportunity of displaying his genius, unless a cannonball stops his career I should conceive him capable of producing a powerful impression on Europe."

The conversation might again have become stormy but for the entrance of a patrol, for whom a vacant space at the table had been left. Forty or fifty fine tall fellows now came rushing into the room, flinging down shakos, knapsacks, and sabres, and fully prepared to enjoy the good cheer provided for them. I heard the names of the first families of France among those privates-the Montmorencies, the Lamaignons, the Nivernois, the Rochefoucaults, the De Noailles, "familiar as household words." All was good-humour again. They had a little adventure in scaring away a corps of the rustic national guards who, to expedite their escape, had flung away their arms, which were brought in as good prize. The festivity and frolic of youth, engaged in a cause which conferred a certain dignity even on their tours de page, renewed the pleasantry of the night. We again had the chansons; and I recollect one, sung with delicious taste by a handsome Italian-faced youth, a nephew of the writer, the Duc de Nivernois.

The duke had requested a ringlet from a beautiful woman. She answered, that she had just found a grey hair among her locks, and could now give then away no more. The gallant reply was-

Quoi! vous parlez de cheveux blancs!

Laissez, laissez courir le temps;

Que vous importe son ravage?

Les tendres coeurs en sont exempts;

Les Amours sont toujours enfants,

Et les Graces sont de tout age.

Pour moi, Thémire, je le sens.

Je suis toujours dans mon printemps,

Quand je vous offre mon hommage.

Si je n'avais que dixhuit ans,

Je pourrais aimer plus longtemps,

Mais, non pas aimer davantage.10

[10] Lovely and loved! shall one slight hair

Touch thy delicious lip with care?

A heart like thine may laugh at Time-

The Soul is ever in its prime.

All Loves, you know, have infant faces,

A thousand years can't chill the Graces!

While thou art in my soul enshrined,

I give all sorrows to the wind.

Were I this hour but gay eighteen,

Thou couldst be but my bosom's queen;

I might for longer years adore,

But could not, could not love thee more.

On returning to look for my distinguished prisoner, I found a packet lying on the table of my apartment; it had arrived in my absence with the troops in advance; and I must acknowledge that I opened it with a trembling hand, when I saw that it came from London and Mordecai.

It was written in evident anxiety, and the chief subject was the illness of his daughter. She had some secret on her mind, which utterly baffled even the Jew's paternal sagacity. No letters had reached either of them from France, and he almost implored me to return, or, if that were impossible, to write without delay. Mariamne had grown more fantastic, and capricious, and wayward than ever. Her eyes had lost their brightness, and her cheek its colour. Yet she complained of nothing, beyond a general distaste to existence. She had seen the Comtesse de Tourville, and they had many a long conference together, from which, however, Mariamne always returned more melancholy than ever. She had refused the match which he had provided for her, and declared her determination to live, like the daughter of Jephthah, single to her grave.

The letter then turned to my own circumstances, and entered into them with the singular mixture of ardour and sneering which formed this extraordinary character.

"I am doing your business here as indefatigably as if I were robbing nabobs in India, or setting up republics at home. The tardiness of the Horse-Guards is to be moved by nothing but an invasion; and it would be almost as rational to wait the growth of an oak, as to wait the signing of your commission; but it shall be done in my own way. I have means which can make the tardy quick, and open the eyes of the blind. You shall be a subaltern in the Guards, unless you are in too much haste to be a general, and get yourself shot by some Parisian cobbler in the purloined uniform of a rifleman. But, let me tell you one fact, and I might indorse this piece of intelligence, 'Secret and Confidential,' to the English cabinet, for even our great minister has yet to learn it-the Allies will never reach Paris. Rely, and act upon this. They might now enter the capital, if, instead of bayonets, they carried only trusses of straw. The road is open before them, but they will look only behind. The war was almost a feint from the beginning. The invasion was the second act of the farce-the retreat will be the third. Poland has been the true object; and, to cover the substantial seizures there, has been the trick of the French invasion. I predict that, in one month from the date of this letter, there will not be an Austrian or Prussian cartridge found in France. Potsdam and Schoenbrunn know more on the subject at this moment than the duke. I write to you as a friend, and by Mariamne's especial order, to take care of yourself. I have seen the retreats of continental armies in my time; they are always a scene of horrors. Follow the army so long as it advances; then all is well, and even the experience of service may be of use to you. But, in this instance, the moment that you find it come to a stop, turn your horse's head to any point of the compass but the front, and ride to the nearest seaport. The duke is a brave man, and his army is a brave army; but both will be instantly covered with all the obloquy of all the libelers on earth. If you have met him as man with man, you have doubtless been captivated with his manners, his wit, his animation, and his accomplishments. I have known him long and well. But Europe, within a month, will decry him, as a fugitive, a fool, and a dastard. Such is popular wisdom, justice, and knowledge. A pupil of the first warrior of Prussia and of modern ages, and wanting only experience to do honour to the lessons of Frederick, he will be laughed at by the loose loungers of the Palais Royal, as ignorant of the art of war, and branded by the graver loungers of courts and councils, as ignorant of the art of government. Once more, I say, take care of yourself. The first step in retreat will raise all France against the Allies. Ten victories would not cost as much as the first week's march towards the frontier. Every thicket will have its troop; every finger, for a hundred leagues round, will be on the trigger. Robbery and murder, famine and fatigue; disease and death, will be upon the troops; the retreat will become a flight, and happy is the man who will ever see the Rhine again. Be wise in time."

Enclosed within this long epistle was a brief note from Mariamne.

"You must not think me dying, because I importune you no longer. But, can you give me any tidings of Lafontaine? I know that he is rash, and even enthusiastic; but I equally know that he is faithful and true. Yet, if he has forgotten me, or is married, or is any thing that, as a preux chevalier, he ought not to be, tell me at once, and you shall see how grateful I can be, before I cease to be any thing. But if he has fallen-if, in the dreadful scenes now acting in Paris, Lafontaine is no more-tell me not. Write some deluding thing to me-conceal your terrible knowledge. I should not wish to drop down dead before my father's face. He is looking at me while I write this, and I am trying to laugh, with a heart as heavy as lead, and eyes that can scarcely see the paper. No-for mercy's sake, do not tell me that he is dead. Give me gentle words, give me hope, deceive me-as they give laudanum, not to prolong life, but to lull agony. Do this, and with my last pulse I shall be grateful-with my last breath I shall bless you."

Poor Mariamne! I had, at least, better hopes than those for her. But within this billet was a third. It was but a few lines; yet at the foot of those lines was the signature-"Clotilde de Tourville." The light almost forsook my eyes; my head swam; if the paper had been a talisman, and every letter written with the pen of magic, it could not have produced a more powerful effect upon me. My hands trembled, and my ears thrilled; and yet it contained but a few unimportant words-an enquiry addressed to Mariamne, whether she could forward a letter to the Chateau Montauban in Champagne, or whether her father had any correspondent in the vicinity who could send her the picture of a beloved relative, which, in the haste of their flight to England, they had most reluctantly left behind.

The note at once threw every thing else into the background. What were invasions and armies-what were kings and kingdoms-to the slightest wish of the being who had written this billet? All this I admit to be the fever of the mind-a waking dream-an illusion to which mesmerism or magic is but a frivolity. Like all fevers, it is destined to pass away, or to kill the patient; yet for the time, what on earth is so strange, or so powerful-so dangerous to the reason-so delicious to the soul!

But, after the long reverie into which I sank, with the writing of Clotilde in my hand, I recollected that fortune had for once given me the power of meeting the wishes of this noble and beautiful creature. The resemblance of the picture that had so much perplexed and attracted me, was now explained. I was in the Chateau de Montauban, and I now blessed the chance which had sent me to its honoured walls.

To hasten to the chamber where I was again to look upon the exquisite resemblance of features which, till then, I had thought without a similar in the world, was a matter of instinct; and, winding my way through the intricacies of galleries and corridors, loaded with the baggage of the emigrant army, and strewed with many a gallant noble who had exchanged the down bed of his ancestral mansion for the bare floor, or the open bivouac, I at length reached the apartment to which the captive general had been consigned. To my utter astonishment, instead of the silence which I expected under the circumstances, I heard the jingling of glasses and roars of laughter. Was this the abode of solitude and misfortune? I entered, and found M. Lafayette, indeed, conducting himself with the composure of a personage of his rank; but the other performers exhibiting a totally different temperament. A group of Polish officers, who had formerly borne commissions in the royal service, and now followed the Emigrant troops, had recognized Lafayette, and insisted on paying due honours to the "noble comrade" with whom they had served beyond the Atlantic. Hamlet's menace to his friend, that he would "teach him to drink deep ere he depart," had been adopted in the amplest sense by those jovial sons of the north, and "healths bottle-deep" were sent round the board with rapid circulation.

My entrance but slightly deranged the symposium, and I was soon furnished with all the freemasonry of the feast, by being called on to do honour to the toast of "His Majesty the King of Great Britain." My duty was now done, my initiation was complete, and while my eyes were fixed on the portrait which, still in its unharmed beauty, looked beaming on the wild revel below, I heard, in the broken queries, and interjectional panegyrics of these hyperborean heroes, more of the history of Lafayette than I had ever expected to reach my ears.

His life had been the strangest contrast to the calm countenance which I saw so tranquilly listen to its own tale. It was Quixotic, and two hundred years ago could scarcely have escaped the pen of some French Cervantes. He had begun life as an officer in the French household troops in absolute boyhood. At sixteen he had married! at eighteen he had formed his political principles, and begun his military career by crossing the Atlantic, and offering his sword to the Republic. To meet the thousand wonderings at his conduct, he exchanged the ancient motto of the Lafayettes for a new one of his own. The words, "Why not?" were his answer to all, and they were sufficient. On reaching America, he asked but two favours, to be suffered to serve, and to serve without pay.

In America he was more republican than the Republicans. He toiled, traveled, and bled, with an indefatigable zeal for the independence of the colonists; his zeal was a passion, his love of liberty a romance, his hostility to the dominion of England an universal scorn of established power. But if fantastic, he was bold; and if too hot for the frigidity of America, he was but preparing to touch France with kindred fire. He refused rank in the French army coupled with the condition of leaving the service of the Republic; and it was only on the French alliance in 1788 that he returned to Paris, to be received with feigned displeasure by the King, and even put under arrest by the minister, but to be welcomed by the praises of the true sovereign, the Queen, feted by the court, the sovereign of that sovereign, and huzzaed by the mob of Paris, already the sovereign of them all; from his military prison he emerged, colonel of the King's regiment of dragoons.

While this narrative was going on, mingled with bumpers, and bursts of Slavonic good-fellowship, I could not help asking myself whether Lavater was not quack and physiognomy a folly? Could this be the dashing Revolutionist? No plodder over the desk ever wore a more broadcloth countenance; an occasional smile was the only indication of his interest in what was passing around him. He evidently avoided taking a share in the discussion of his Transatlantic career, probably from delicacy to his English auditor. But when the conversation turned upon France, the man came forth, and he vindicated his conduct with a spirit and fulness that told me what he might have been when the blood of youth was added to the glow of the imagination. He was now evidently exhausted by toil, and dispirited by disappointment. No man could be more thoroughly ruined; baffled in theory, undone in practice-an exile from his country, a fugitive from his troops-overwhelmed by the hopelessness of giving a constitution to France, and with nothing but the dungeon before him, and the crash of the guillotine behind.

"What was to be done?" said Lafayette. "France was bankrupt-the treasury was empty-the profligate reign of Louis XV. had at once wasted the wealth, dried up the revenues, and corrupted the energies of France. Ministers wrung their hands, the king sent for his confessor, the queen wept-but the nation groaned. There was but one expedient, to call on the people. In 1787 the Assembly of the Notables was summoned. It was the first time since the reign of Henry IV. France had been a direct and formal despotism for almost two hundred years. She had seen England spread from an island into an empire; she had seen America spread from a colony into an empire. What had been the worker of the miracle?-Liberty. While all the despotisms remained within the boundaries fixed centuries ago, like vast dungeons, never extending, and never opening to the light and air, except through the dilapidations of time, I saw England and America expanding like fertile fields, open to every breath of heaven and every beam of day, expanding from year to year by the cheerful labour of man, and every year covered with new productiveness for the use of universal mankind. I own that there may have been rashness in urging the great experiment-there may have been a dangerous disregard of the actual circumstances of the people, the time, and the world-the daring hand of the philosopher may have drawn down the lightning too suddenly to be safe; the patriot may have flashed the blaze of his torch too strongly on eyes so long trained to the twilight of the dungeon. The leader of this enterprise himself, like the first discoverer of fire, may have brought wrath upon his own head, and be condemned to have his vitals gnawed in loneliness and chains; but nothing shall convince Lafayette that a great work has not been begun for the living race, for all nations, and for all posterity."

I could not suppress the question-"But when will the experiment be complete? When will the tree, planted thus in storms, take hold of the soil? When will the tremendous tillage which begins by clearing with the conflagration, and ploughing with the earthquake, bring forth the harvest of peace to the people?"

"These must be the legacy to our children," was the reply, in a grave and almost contrite tone. "The works of man are rapid only when they are meant for decay. The American savage builds his wigwam in a week, to last for a year. The Parthenon took half an age and the treasures of a people, to last for ever."

We parted for the night-and for thirty years. My impression of this remarkable man was, that he had more heart than head; that a single idea had engrossed his faculties, to the exclusion of all others; that he was following a phantom, with the belief that it was a substantial form, and that, like the idolaters of old, who offered their children to their frowning deity, he imagined that the costlier the sacrifice, the surer it was of propitiation. Few men have been more misunderstood in his own day or in ours. Lifted to the skies for an hour by popular adulation, he has been sunk into obscurity ever since by historic contempt. Both were mistaken. He was the man made for the time-precisely the middle term between the reign of the nobility and the reign of the populace. Certainly not the man to "ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm;" but as certainly altogether superior to the indolent luxury of the class among whom he was born. Glory and liberty, the two highest impulses of our common nature, sent him at two and twenty from the most splendid court of Europe, to the swamps and snows, the desperate service and dubious battles of America. Eight years of voyages, negotiations, travels, and exposure to the chances of the field, proved his energy, and at the age of thirty he had drawn upon himself the eyes of the world. Here he ought to have rested, or have died. But the Revolution swept him off his feet. It was an untried region-a conflict of elements unknown to the calculation of man; he was whirled along by a force which whirled the monarchy, the church, and the nation with him, and sank only when France plunged after him.

I have no honour for a similar career, and no homage for a similar memory; but it is from those mingled characters that history derives her deepest lesson, her warnings for the weak, her cautions for the ambitious, and her wisdom for the wise.

On the retiring of the party for the night, my first act was to summon the old Swiss and his wife who had been left in charge of the mansion, and collect from them all their feeble memories could tell Clotilde. But Madame la Maréchale was a much more important personage in their old eyes, than the "charmante enfant" whom they had dandled on their knees, and who was likely to remain a "charmante enfant" to them during their lives. The chateau had been the retreat of the Maréchale after the death of her husband; and it was in its stately solitudes, and in the woods and wilds which surrounded it for many a league, that Clotilde had acquired those accomplished tastes, and that characteristic dignity and force of mind, which distinguished her from the frivolity of her country-women, however elegant and attractive, who had been trained in the salons of the court. The green glades and fresh air of the forest had given beauty to her cheek and grace to her form; and scarcely conceiving how the rouged and jewelled Maréchale could have endured such an absence from the circles of the young queen, and the "beaux restes" of the wits and beauties of the court of Louis the 15th, I thanked in soul the fortunate necessity which had driven her from the atmosphere of the Du Barris to the shades thus sacred to innocence and knowledge.

But the grand business of the thing was still to be done. The picture was taken down at last, to the great sorrow of the old servants, who seemed to regard it as a patron saint, and who declared that its presence, and its presence alone, could have saved the mansion, in the first instance, from being burned by the "patriots," who generally began their reforms of the nobility by laying their chateaux in ashes, and in the next, from being plundered by the multitudes of whiskered savages speaking unknown tongues, and came to leave France without "ni pain ni vin" for her legitimate sons. But the will of Madame la Maréchale was to them as the laws of the Medes and Persians, irresistible and unchangeable; and with heavy hearts they dismounted the portrait, and assisted in enfolding and encasing it, with much the same feeling that might have been shown in paying the last honours to a rightful branch of the beloved line.

But, in the wall which the picture had covered, I found a small recess, closed by an iron door, and evidently unknown to the Swiss and his old wife. I might have hesitated about extending my enquiry further, but Time, the great discoverer of all things, saved my conscience: with a slight pressure against the lock it gave way; the door flew open, and dropped off the hinges, a mass of rust and decay. Within was a casket of a larger size than that generally used for jewels; but my curiosity durst not go beyond the superscription, which was a consignment of the casket, in the name of the Maréchale, to her banker in London. Whatever might be the contents, it was clear that, like the picture, it had been left behind in the hurry of flight, and that to transmit it to England was fairly within my commission. Before our busy work was done, day was glancing in through the coloured panes of the fine old chamber. I hurried off the Swiss, with my precious possessions, to the next town, in one of the baggage carts, with a trooper in front to prevent his search by hands still more hazardous than those of a custom-house officer; and then, mounting my horse, and bidding a brief farewell to the brave and noble fellows who were already mustering for the march, and envying me with all their souls, I set off at full speed to rejoin the army.

With all my speed, the action had begun for some hours before I came in sight of the field. With what pangs of heart I heard the roar of the cannon, for league on league, while I was threading my bewildered way, and spurring my tired horse through the miry paths of a country alternately marsh and forest; with what pantings I looked from every successive height, to see even to what quarter the smoke of the firing might direct me; with what eager vexation I questioned every hurrying peasant, who either shook his moody head and refused to answer, or who answered with the fright of one who expected to have his head swept off his shoulders by some of my fierce-looking troop, I shall not now venture to tell; but it was as genuine a torture as could be felt by man. At length, exhausted by mortal fatigue, and ready to lie down and die, I made a last effort, would listen no more to the remonstrances of the troop, whose horses were sinking under them. I ordered them to halt where they were, pushed on alone, and, winding my way through a forest covering the side of a low but abrupt hill, or rather succession of hills, I suddenly burst out into the light, and saw the whole battle beneath, around, and before me. It was magnificent.

* * *

LETTER FROM LEMUEL GULLIVER.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir-At the request of my four-footed friends, I forward to you a free translation of the proceedings of a meeting of Houynhyms, recently held for the protection of their interests in corn. As the language appears more temperate, and the propositions quite as rational, as those which are ordinarily brought forward in the other Corn-law meetings which still continue to agitate the county, I have no difficulty in complying with their wishes; and if you can afford space for the insertion of the report in your valuable Magazine, you will greatly oblige the Houynhym race, and confer a favour upon, sir, your obedient servant,

LEMUEL GULLIVER.

Stable-Yard, Nov. 10th, 1843.

* * *

ADVERTISEMENT.

A meeting of delegates from the different classes of consumers of oats was held on Friday last, at the Nag's Head in the Borough, pursuant to public advertisement in the Hors-Lham Gazette. The object of the meeting was to take into consideration the present consumption of the article, and to devise means for its increase. The celebrated horse Comrade, of Drury-Lane Theatre, presided on the occasion.

The business of the meeting was opened by a young Racer of great promise, who said it was his anxious desire to protect the interests of the horse community, and to promote any measure which might contribute to the increase of the consumption of oats, and improve the condition of his fellow-quadrupeds. He was not versed in political economy, nor, indeed, economy of any kind. He had heard much of demand and supply, and the difficulty of regulating them properly; but, for his own part, he found the latter always equalled the former, though he understood such was not the case with his less fortunate brethren. He warmly advocated the practice of sowing wild oats, and considered that much of the decrease of consumption complained of arose from the undue encouragement given to the growth of other grain; and that the horse interest would be best promoted by imposing a maximum as to the growth of wheat and barley, according to the acreage of each particular farm.

A HACKNEY-COACH HORSE declared himself in favour of the sliding-scale, which he understood from Sir Peter Lawrie to mean the wooden pavement. He admitted it was not well adapted for rainy seasons, but it was impossible to doubt that things went much more smoothly wherever it was established; and that he, and the working classes whom he represented, found in it a considerable relief from the heavy duties daily imposed upon them. He wished that some measure could be devised for superseding the use of nosebags, which he designated as an intolerable nuisance, especially during the summer months; but he principally relied for an improvement in condition on the prohibition of the mixture of chaff with oats; which latter article, he contended, was unfit for the use of able-bodied horses, who earned their daily food, and ought to be limited to those cattle who spent an idle existence in straw-yards.

A BRIGHT CHESTNUT HORSE, of great power, and well-known in the parks, warmly replied to the last neigher. He denounced the sliding-scale as a slippery measure, unworthy of a horse of spirit, and adding greatly to the burdens with which horses like himself were saddled. He daily saw steeds of the noblest blood and most undaunted action humbled to the dust by its operation; and if Sir Peter Lawrie was to be believed, it was more dreaded by the household troops than Napoleon's army on the field of Waterloo. He yielded to no horse in an anxious desire to promote the true interests of the horse community; but he could not give his support to measures so unsafe, merely because they enabled a small and inferior section of their community to move more smoothly. He reprobated, in strong terms, the unfeeling allusion of the last neigher to the unfortunate inmates of union straw-yards, whom, for his own part, he looked upon as nowise inferior to the hackney-coach horse himself, of whose right to be present at a meeting of consumers of oats he entertained serious doubts. (Loud neighs of "Order! Order!")

A SCOTCH HORSE feared that, strictly speaking, he was included in the same category with the hackney-coach horse, and had no right to be heard, having no personal interest in the question; but he trusted he might be permitted to speak as the delegate of the horses of Scotland, who were ignorant of the Houynhym language, and not entitled to attend. Permission being granted, to the surprise of the assembly he descanted with much asperity upon the gross oppression to which horses in Scotland were subject, as their rough coats and ragged appearance plainly manifested; and stated, in conclusion, that no hope or expectation of bettering the condition of the Scotch horse could be entertained until their lawful food was restored to them, and Scotchmen were compelled, by act of Parliament, to abstain from the use of oatmeal, and live like the rest of the civilized world.

Several worn-out horses belonging to members of the Whig administration then endeavoured to address the meeting, with an evident intention of converting the proceedings into a party question; but they were informed by the president, in the midst of loud snorting and neighing, that they had not the slightest right to be present, as they were all undoubtedly turned out for life. This decision appeared to give universal satisfaction.

AN IRISH HORSE was of opinion that the great cause of the present difficulties arose from deficiency in the quality and not the quantity of the article, and strongly recommended the growth of Irish oats in England. To the surprise of the English delegates, he warmly eulogized the superiority of the Irish oat; but it afterwards appeared, upon the production of a sample, that he had mistaken the potatoe oat for the Irish oat.

AN OLD ENGLISH HUNTER next addressed the meeting, and was listened to with deep attention. He impressed upon the young delegates the good old adage of "Look before you leap," and cautioned them against the delusive hope that their condition would be improved by change of measures. In the course of his long life he had experienced measures of every description, and had invariably found that his supplies depended, not on the measure itself; but on the hand that filled it. He had ever given his willing support to his employers, and served them faithfully; and if they were as well acquainted as quadrupeds with the secrets of the stable, they would learn the fallacy of their favourite maxim of "Measures, not men," and trust the administration of their affairs to upright and steady grooms, rather than those fanciful half-educated gentlemen who were perpetually changing the rules of the stables, and altering the form of the measures, whereby they embarrassed the regular feeding and training of the inmates, without producing any practical good.

A STAGE-COACH HORSE imputed their want of condition to the misconduct of their leaders, who, he said, could never be kept in the right path, or made to do one-half of the work which properly belonged to them. By a strange fatality, they were generally purblind, and always shyed most fearfully when an Opposition coach approached them. Indeed, it was well known that the horses selected for these duties were, generally speaking, vicious and unsound, and not taken from the most able and powerful, but from the most showy classes. He then proceeded to descant upon the general wrongs of horses. He congratulated the community upon the abolition of bearing reins, those grievous burdens upon the necks of all free-going horses; and he trusted the time would soon arrive when the blinkers would also be taken off, every corn-binn thrown open, and every horse his own leader.

Several other delegates addressed the meeting, and various plans were discussed; but it invariably turned out, upon investigation, that the change would only benefit the class of animals by whom it was proposed. A post-horse was of opinion, that the true remedy lay in decreasing the amount of speed, and shortening the spaces between milestones. A Welsh pony was for the abolition of tolls, which, he said, exhausted the money intended for repairs; whilst some plough-horses from Lincolnshire proposed the encouragement of pasture land, the abolition of tillage, and the disuse of oats altogether. The harmony of the meeting was, at one period, interrupted, by the unfortunate use of the word "blackguard" by a delegate from the collieries, which caused a magnificent charger from the Royal Horse Guards, Blue, to rear up, and, with great indignation, demand if the allusion was personal; but who was satisfied with the explanation of the president, that it was applicable only in a warlike sense. A long, lean, bay horse, with a sour head, demanded a similar explanation of the word "job," and was told it was used in a working sense. Several resolutions, drawn by two dray-horses, embodying the supposed grievances of the community, were finally agreed upon, and a petition, under the hoof of the president, founded upon them, having been prepared, and ordered to be presented to the House of Commons by the members for Horsham, the meeting separated, and the delegates returned to their respective stables.

* * *

THE PROCLAMATION.

Bold warriors of Erin, I hereby proclaim,

That the world never witness'd your rivals in fame;

Bold sons of Macmurraugh, Macarthy, O'Neill,

The armies of earth at your sight would turn pale.

A flash from your eyes would light England's last pile,

And a touch give her sceptre to Erin's green isle.

Hurrah for the vengeance of old Mullaghmast,

On the blood-bolter'd ground where your gauntlet was cast;

Hurrah for the vengeance of Tara's proud hill,

Where the bones of our monarchs are blood-sprinkled still.

Hurrah for Clontarf, though the Saxon may smile,

The last, greatest triumph of Erin's green isle!

Let the scoffer scoff on, while I hereby proclaim,

That flight may be courage, and fear but a name;

That boasting is good, when 'tis good for the cause,

But, in sight of cold steel, we should honour the laws;

That powder and shot make men swallow their bile-

So, hurrah for the glory of Erin's green isle!

If they ask for your leader, the land's sword and shield,

At least none can say that he fled from the field.

He kept a whole skin-for the service of Rome;

So he fix'd his headquarters in quiet at home.

They might just as well hunt for the head of the Nile,

While he reckon'd his beads for St Patrick's green isle.

If beggars on horseback will ride-to Clontarf;

If tailors will caper with truncheon and scarf,

At Sunday carousels, all know, I'm in flower,

My taste for the grape don't extend to the shower.

Besides, those blue pills disagree with my chyle,

So, hurrah!-pence and peace for the grand Emerald Isle!

If the scoffer should ask, what the deuce brought you there?

Of course, it was only to taste the fresh air;

To pick cowslips and daisies; and brush off the dew,

Or drink gin o'er the tombstone of Brian Boru.

As to flags, and all that; 'twas but doing in style,

The honours of Freedom to Erin's green isle.

Then, as to your "Squadrons," your "Mount for Repeal,"

'Twas merely to teach them the "Right about wheel,"

By the word of command from the Saxon to run,

As your leader would fly from a bailiff or dun;

In short, since a miss is as good as a mile,

Swear the whole was a humbug for Erin's green isle.

Besides, these are delicate moments to croak,

Since the Saxon's new plan of a word and a stroke.

My mind is made up, like a poodle or pug,

No longer to stir from my berth on the rug;

Though the bold may revile me, so let them revile-

I'm determined to live for old Erin's green isle.

I proclaim-that the Saxon will tremble to meet

The heroes of Erin; but, boys, life is sweet.

I proclaim-that your shout frightens Europe's base thrones;

But remember, my boys, there is luck in whole bones;

So, take the advice of a friend-wait a while,

In a century or two you'll revenge the Green Isle.

I know in my soul, at the very first shot

That your whole monster meeting would fly at full trot;

What horrid mêlée, then, of popping and flashing!

At least I'LL not share in your holiday thrashing;

Brawl at Sugden and Smith, but beware "rank and file"-

They're too rough for the lambkins of Erin's green isle.

Observe, my dear boys, if you once get me hang'd,

'Tis fifty to one if you'll e'er be harangued.

Farewell to the pleasure of paying the "Rint"-

Farewell to all earth's vilest nonsense in print-

Farewell to the feast of your gall and your guile-

All's over at once with the grand Emerald Isle.

* * *

THE FIREMAN'S SONG.

"Ho, comrade, up! awake, arise! look forth into the night:

Say, is yon gleam the morning-beam, yon broad and bloody light?

Say, does it tell-yon clanging bell-of mass or matin song?

Yon drum-roll-calls it to parade the soldier's armèd throng?"

"No, brother, no! no morning-beam is yonder crimson glare!

Yon deep bell tolls no matin-'tis the tocsin's hurried blare!

Yon sullen drum-roll mutters out no summons to parade:

To fight the flame it summons us-the valiant Fire-Brigade!"

Then fast the Fireman rose, and waked his mate that lay beside;

And each man gripp'd his trusty axe, and donn'd his coat of hide-

There bounds beneath that leather coat a heart as strange to fear

As ever swell'd beneath the steel of gilded cuirassier.

And from beneath the leather casque that guards the Fireman's brow,

A bolder, sterner glance shines out than plumy crest can show;

And oft shall ply the Fireman's axe, though rude and rough it be,

Where sabre, lance, and bayonet, right soon would turn and flee!

Off dash the thundering engines, like goblin j?ger-chase-

The sleeper shudders as they pass, and pallid grows his face:

Away, away! though close and bright yon ruddy glow appear,

Far, far we have to gallop yet, or e'er our work we near!

A plain of upturn'd faces-pale brows and quivering lips,

All flickering like the tropic sea in the green light of eclipse;

And the multitude waves to and fro, as in the tropic sea,

After a tempest, heaves and falls the ground-swell sleeplessly.

Now, by my faith! goodly sight you mansion fast asleep-

Those winking lamps beside the gate a dull watch seem to keep-

But a gay awaking waits them, when the crash of blazing beam,

And the Fireman's stern réveille, shall mingle with their dream!

And sound as sleeps that mansion, ye may mark in every chink

A gleam, as in the lava-cracks by the volcano's brink;

Through key-hole and through window-slit, a white and sullen glow-

And all above is rolling smoke, and all is dark below.

Hark! hear ye not that murmur, that hush and hollow roar,

As when to the south-wester bow the pines upon the shore;

And that low crackling intermix'd, like wither'd twig that breaks,

When in the midnight greenwood the startled squirrel wakes!

Lo, how the fire comes roaring on, like a host in war array!

Nor lacks it gallant music to cheer it on its way,

Nor flap of flame-tongued banner, like the Oriflamme of old,

Its vanward cohorts heralding, in crimson, green, and gold.

The engines now are ranged a-row-hark, how they sob and pant!

How gallantly the water-jets curve soaringly aslant!

Up spins the stream-it meets the flame-it bursts in fleecy rain,

Like the last spout of the dying whale, when the lance is in his brain.

Ha, ha! from yon high window thrill'd the wild shriek of despair,

And gibbering phantoms seem to dance within the ruddy glare;

And as a valiant captain leads his boarders to the fray,

"Up, up, my sons!" our foreman shouts-"up firemen, and away!"

Their arms are strong and sinewy-see how the splinters fly-

Their axes they are sharp and good-"Back, comrades! or ye die-

Look to the walls!"-a rending crash-they topple-down they come-

A cloud of sparks-a feeble cheer-again!-and all is dumb.

A pause-as on that battle-day, 'twixt France and England's might,

When huge L'Orient blew up at once, in the hottest of the fight:

There was not one, they say, but wink'd, and held his breath the while,

Though brave were they that fought that day with Nelson at the Nile.

And by to-morrow's sunrise, amid the steaming stones,

A chain of gold half-melted, and a few small white bones,

And a few rags of roasted flesh, alone shall show where died-

The noble and the beautiful, the baby and the bride!

O fire, he is a noble thing!-the sot's pipe gives him birth;

Or from the livid thunder-cloud he leaps alive on earth;

Or in the western wilderness devouring silently;

Or on the lava rocking in the womb of Stromboli.

Right well in Hamburg revell'd he-though Elbe ran rolling by-

He could have drain'd-so fierce his thirst-the mighty river dry!

With silk, and gold, and diamond, he cramm'd his hungry maw;

And he tamed the wild republicans, who knew nor lord nor law!

He feasted well in Moscow-in the city of the Tsar-

When 'fore the northern streamers paled Napoleon's lurid star:

Around the hoary Kremlin, where Moscow once had stood,

He pass'd, and left a heap behind, of ashes slaked in blood!

He feasted once in London-he feasted best of all-

When through the close-packed city, he swept from wall to wall:

Even as of old the wrath of God came down in fiery rain,

On Sodom and Gomorrha, on the Cities of the Plain!

* * *

POSITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE GOVERNMENT.

A recruited revenue; reviving trade and commerce; reduction in the price of provisions; the triumphant termination of hostilities in all parts of the world, with its great immediate prospective advantages: a general feeling of confidence, arising from the steady administration of public affairs, in spite of persevering and atrocious efforts to excite dissatisfaction and alarm; nay, even the stern repose prevailing in Ireland, preserved though it be, for a while, under cover of artillery, and at the bayonet's point, but affording a precious respite from agitation, and a foretaste of the blessings that may be expected from its permanent suppression: all these circumstances unequivocally attest the existence of a powerful Government acting upon a comprehensive and enduring policy, which is becoming daily better appreciated by the strong good sense which ever distinguishes the British character, when a fair opportunity is afforded for its exercise.

Upwards of two years have now elapsed since the accession of the present Government to power, at a period of universally admitted difficulty and danger. We have been, during this critical interval, dispassionate and independent observers of Ministers, and their conduct of public affairs, anxious to see whether they were really equal to the occasion, and worthy of the confidence of the Sovereign and the country. We are ourselves satisfied, and undertake to demonstrate to our readers, that this question must be answered in the affirmative. We say all this advisedly, and with no disposition to deny the existence of difficulties, which, if serious to the present, would be absolutely insuperable to any other Government. During the interval in question, Ministers have triumphed over more formidable difficulties than any which they have at present to encounter. That, also, we say advisedly-cheerfully, confidently-with Ireland before our eyes, and the din of the audacious and virulent Anti-corn-law League in our ears.

Passing these topics for the present, let us proceed to examine carefully the real position of Sir Robert Peel and his Government, with a view to ascertaining its prospects of a continuance in power. This enquiry cannot be successfully conducted, without referring for a moment to the immense changes in principles and parties effected by the Reform Bill in 1832-a period of quite as great a revolution as that of 1688. The Tory party it nearly annihilated!-The first Reform Parliament consisting of only 187 Tories to 471 Whigs and Radicals-the former being thus in the fearful minority of 284. We recollect sharing in the despondency, and even despair, which paralysed our party. There was, however, one signal exception in the person of Sir Robert Peel, whose conduct on that occasion entitles him to the eternal gratitude of every man pretending to the character of a Conservative, nay, of every true lover of his country and its institutions. With surprising energy, calmness, and foresight, he instantly addressed himself to the formation, even under those inauspicious and disheartening circumstances, of that great CONSERVATIVE party of which he is now the acknowledged head. In 1841, just before the general election, he thus reminded that party, and apprized the country at large of the principle on which he had acted in 1832. We beg our readers to ponder his words, and the period when he uttered them.

"I then foresaw the good that might result from laying the foundation of a great Conservative party in the state, attached to the fundamental institutions of the country-not opposed to any rational change in it which the lapse of years, or the altered circumstances of society might require, but determined to maintain, on their ancient footing and foundation, our great institutions in church and state. In order to form that party, however, it was necessary, in the first instance, to widen the foundation on which it should stand: to call into our connexion men from whom we had been separated in consequence of differences which no longer existed. My grand object was to build up that great party which has been gradually acquiring strength in this country-which has been gradually widening the foundation on which it stands, and which has drawn, from time to time, its support from its opponents."11

[11] Speech to the Tamworth Electors on 28th June 1841, (Painter, Strand.)

The shortest and best evidence of the success which has attended the unwearied exertions of Sir Robert Peel during the ensuing then years, is afforded by the following summary of the results of the four general elections since the passing of the Reform Bill; three of them under the auspices and with the unscrupulously exercised patronage of the Reform Government. Observe the ascending and descending scales:-

C. L.

187 471 (1832)

275 383 (1835)

314 344 (1837)

373 283 (1841)

Who was it but its founder, that led the Conservative party through these successive stages of triumph? Who did so much as he to effect that gradual but decisive change in public opinion which, in 1841, routed the Liberal Ministry in spite of their extraordinary exertions and advantages, and placed a Conservative Government at the head of affairs? To enable us to appreciate the importance of that great victory, and also the decision of character evinced on that occasion by Sir Robert Peel, let us for a moment advert to the calm self-reliance with which, amidst the breathless apprehensions and misgivings of his whole party, he gave battle to the enemy-proposed the memorable vote of want of confidence, and carried it by a majority of one.12 A more critical move never was followed by more signal success; every ensuing event serving to show, that so far from his movements having been impelled by rash and desperate party speculations, they had been based upon a profound and accurate knowledge of his resources, and of the state of feeling and opinion in the country. "I gave the Government every advantage," said he, "to make their appeal to the country. They boast of the confidence of the crown-they have every means at their disposal which official influence can command to exert in their own behalf. An appeal has been made by them from the House of Commons to you, and it is for the country to decide the question at issue. They have made an appeal to public feeling on account of cheap sugar and cheap bread. My firm belief is, that the people of this country have not at all responded to that cry." How well-founded was that "firm belief," was proved by the glorious result:-the "people of this country did" not "respond to that cry"-they rejected-they repudiated it, and they would do so again if another such appeal were made to them to-morrow.

[12] Ayes, 312; Noes, 311-4th June 1841.

Let us now proceed to show what pretence there is for the injurious insinuations and assertions of Sir Robert Peel's traducers-whether treacherous friends or open enemies-that, in order to obtain power, he hung out false colours to the nation; that his declarations before the general election have been disregarded and falsified by his acts on attaining office. We will for ever demolish all such calumnies and false pretences by going, step by step, through a document which we made a point of procuring at the time, and preserving hitherto, and to which we have since frequently referred, on hearing uttered the slanderous charges to which we allude. That document is a copy of the speech which Sir Robert Peel, on the 28th June 1841, addressed formally to his constituents, but virtually, of course, to the whole nation.

One of his earliest declarations was the following:-"Gentlemen, I have ever professed moderate opinions on politics. The principles I professed, and adhered to, I shall adhere to during my public life, whether in opposition or in power, are, I believe, in perfect conformity with the prevailing good sense, the moderation, and the intelligence of the great body of the people of England." This was a sufficiently distinct notice to all men, especially to those of extreme opinions, whether Tory, Liberal, or Radical, of the course of action which was to be looked for from the expectant Prime Minister.

Then, first, he proceeded to admit the existence of manufacturing distress.

"I admit and deplore it, but I do not despair. I have seen distress in manufactures and in commerce before now. I think the causes of the present distress are but temporary-that the cloud will soon blow over-and that the great foundations of manufacturing prosperity are not affected; and I hope I shall very shortly see the day when our manufactures will once more revive, and when we shall again fill the place we have always occupied-that of producers for the markets of the world."

Now for its cause.

"Now let us consider the important question, as to how far the distress in the manufactures and commerce of the country is fairly attributable to the corn-laws." He proceeded to show, from Lord Palmerston's official statement in Parliament on the 22d July 1840, that, between the years 1830 and 1839, the exports had risen from the value of L.38,000,000 to L.53,000,000, and the imports from L.46,000,000 to L.62,000,000, "a clear proof that, notwithstanding the local and temporary checks which our commerce had experienced, on the whole it had gone on steadily improving, and that between the two periods it had increased not much less than from two to three."

He then took the shipping and navigation of the country for the preceding three years; and in looking at them, I cannot help thinking that, if there was any thing like an absolute decrease in trade and commerce, there would also be a decrease in the shipping of the country. "Well," said Sir Robert Peel, "What do I find?" The returns "showed an increase, presented within the last three years, from 4,000,000 tons to 4,780,000 tons." Now mark-"during the whole of this period the corn-laws were in operation; how then can they be fairly or honestly assigned as the cause of the present manufacturing and commercial distress?"

But if the corn-laws were not, what was the cause?

"I see causes enough in the world, as well as in this country, why there should be manufacturing and commercial distress at the present moment, irrespective and totally independent of the corn-laws."

These were-

1st, "I do fear that, in the north of England, an undue stimulus has been given to manufacturing industry by the accommodation system pursued by the joint-stock banks. I think the connexion of the manufacturer with the joint-stock banks gave an undue and an improper impulse to trade in that quarter of the county; and I think that, in consequence of this, there have been more manufactures produced within the last two years than were necessary to supply the demand for them."

2ndly, "Look to the state of some of the foreign countries, which took, at one time, the greatest quantity of our manufactures;" South America, its ports strictly blockaded by France; the United States of North America, "in a state of nascent hostility," and also labouring under "a distress similar to our own, and arising from similar causes. The facility of accommodation afforded by certain banks there gave an undue stimulus to industry; this produced extravagant speculations; many persons failed in consequence, and trade necessarily then came to a stand-still." Canada-the peninsula, France, the great Kingdoms of the middle and north of Europe-Syria, Egypt, China, had been, and were, in such a state, as occasioned all interruption of our trade thither; "a stoppage in the demand for manufactured goods, and a correspondent depression in commerce." "When you put all these things together, all causes, mind you, affecting the market for your goods, and then combine them with the two or three defective harvests we have had of late, I ask you to answer me the question, Whether or not they have been sufficient to account for the depression of manufacturing industry."

Then came Sir Robert Peel to the two grand and suddenly discovered panaceas of the late Government, for recruiting the exhausted revenue, and relieving the general distress-viz. "cheap sugar," and "cheap bread."

1st, As to foreign sugar:-

"I clearly and freely admit that those restrictions which cannot be justified should be removed, and that the commerce of the country should be perfectly free, whenever it can possibly be so; but I consider the article of sugar to be wholly exempt from the principle of free trade." * * * "The question now is this-whether, after the sacrifices which this country has made for the suppression of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery, and the glorious results that have ensued, and are likely to ensue, from these sacrifices-whether we shall run the risk of losing the benefit of those sacrifices, and tarnishing for ever that glory, by admitting to the British market sugar the produce of foreign slavery." * * * "If you admit it, it will come from Brazil and Cuba. In Brazil, the slave-trade exists in full force; in Cuba, it is unmitigated in its extent and horrors. The sugar of Cuba is the finest in the world; but in Cuba, slavery is unparalleled in its horrors. I do not at all overstate the fact, when I say, that 50,000 slaves are annually landed in Cuba. That is the yearly importation into the island; but, when you take into consideration the vast numbers that perish before they leave their own coasts, the still greater number that die amidst the horrors of the middle passage, and the number that are lost at sea, you will come to the inevitable conclusion, that the number landed in Cuba-50,000 annually-is but a slight indication of the number shipped in Africa, or of the miseries and destruction that have taken place among them during their transport thither. If you open the markets of England to the sugar of Cuba, you may depend on it that you give a great stimulus to slavery, and the slave-trade." Sir Robert Peel then pointed out peculiar and decisive distinctions between the case of sugar, and that of cotton, tobacco, and coffee; that, though all of them were the produce of slave labour-First, we cannot now reject the cotton of the United States, without endangering to the last degree the manufacturing prosperity of the kingdom. Secondly, of all the descriptions of slave produce, sugar is the most cruelly destructive of human life-the proportion of deaths in a sugar plantation being infinitely greater than on those of cotton or coffee. Thirdly, slave grown sugar has never been admitted to consumption in this country.13 He also assigned two great co-operating reasons for rejecting slave-grown sugar:-"That the people of England required the great experiment of emancipation to be fairly tried; and they would not think it fairly tried, if, at this moment, when the colonies were struggling with such difficulties, we were to open the floodgates of a foreign supply, and inundate the British market with sugar, the produce of slave-labour;" adopting the very words of the Whig Vice-President of the Board of Trade, Mr Labouchere, on the 25th June 1840. The other reason was, "that our immense possessions in the East Indies give us the means, and afford us every facility, for acquiring sugar, the produce of free labour, to an illimitable extent."

[13] The following striking passage from the writings of the celebrated Dr Channing of America, was quoted by Sir Robert Peel in the speech under consideration. "Great Britain, loaded with an unprecedented debt, and with a grinding taxation, contracted a new debt of a hundred millions of dollars, to give freedom, not to Englishmen, but to the degraded African. I know not that history records an act so disinterested, so sublime. In the progress of ages, England's naval triumphs will shrink into a more and more narrow space in the records of our race-this moral triumph will fill a broader-brighter page." "Take care!" emphatically added Sir Robert Peel, "that this brighter page be not sullied by the admission of slave sugar into the consumption of this country-by our encouragement-and, too, our unnecessary encouragement of slavery and the slave-trade!"-Noble sentiments!

So much for foreign sugar. Now for-

II. FOREIGN CORN; and we beg the special attention of all parties to this portion of the manifesto of Sir Robert Peel:-

"Look at the capital invested in land and agriculture in this country-look at the interests involved in it-look at the arrangement that has been come to for the commutation of tithes-look at your importation of corn diminishing for the last ten years-consider the burdens on the land peculiar to this country14-take all these circumstances into consideration, and then you will agree with Mr McCulloch, the great advocate of a change in the Corn-law, that 'considering the vast importance of agriculture, nearly half the population of the empire are directly or indirectly dependent on it for employment and the means of subsistence; a prudent statesman would pause before he gave his sanction to any measure however sound in principle, or beneficial to the mercantile and manufacturing classes, that might endanger the prosperity of agriculture, or check the rapid spread of improvement.'"15

[14] "We believe," says Mr McCulloch himself in another part of the pamphlet, (Longman & Co., 1841, p. 23-6th Edit.) from which Sir Robert Peel is quoting, "that land is more heavily taxed than any other species of property in the country-and that its owners are clearly entitled to insist that a duty should be laid on foreign corn when imported, sufficient fully to countervail the excess of burdens laid upon the land."

[15] Speech, pp. 9, 10.

Now for the "Sliding Scale."

"I just here repeat the opinion which I have declared here before, and also in the House of Commons, that I cannot consent to substitute a fixed duty of 8s. a-quarter on foreign corn, for the present ascending and descending scale of duties. I prefer the principle of the ascending and descending scale, to such an amount of fixed duty. And when I look at the burdens to which the land of this country is subject, I do not consider the fixed duty of 8s. a-quarter on corn from Poland, and Prussia, and Russia, where no such burdens exist, a sufficient protection for it."16

[16] Do. p. 8.

Again-

"If you disturb agriculture, and divert the employment of capital from the land, you may not increase your foreign trade-for that is a thing to dwell under existing circumstances-but will assuredly reduce the home trade, by reducing the means to meet the demand, and thus permanently injure yourselves also."17

[17] Do. p. 13.

Again-

"I have come to the conclusion, that the existing system of an ascending and descending scale of duties, should not be altered: and that, moreover, we should as much as possible make ourselves independent of a foreign supply-and not disturb the principle of the existing corn-laws-of these corn-laws, which, when you have an abundance of your own, exclude altogether the foreign supply-and when the price rises in this country, freely admits it."18

[18] Speech, p. 15.

Again-he quoted the following remarkable language of Lord Melbourne on the 11th June 1840-

"Whether the object be to have a fixed duty, or an alteration as to the ascending and descending scale, I see clearly and distinctly, that that object will not be carried without a most violent struggle-without causing much ill-blood, and a deep sense of grievance-without stirring society to its foundations, and leaving behind every sort of bitterness and animosity. I do not think the advantages to be gained by the change are worth the evils of the struggle."19

[19] Do. p. 18.

And Sir Robert Peel concluded the foregoing summary of his views, on the great questions then proposed to the country for its decision, in the following words:-

"I ask your free suffrages, with this frank and explicit declaration of my opinions."20

[20] Do. p. 18.

On this, there occur to us three questions-

(1st.) Was this, or was it not, a frank and explicit declaration of his opinions? And, (2d.) Did it, or did it not, as tested by the result of the general election, completely satisfy the country? (3d.) In what respect has the subsequent conduct of Sir Robert Peel been inconsistent with these declarations? And we echo the stern enquiry of the Duke of Wellington, for "the when, the where, and the how," "of Sir Robert Peel's deceiving his supporters or the country"-and "pause for a reply." Failing to receive any-for none can be given, except in the negative-we shall proceed to condense the substance of this memorable manifesto into a few words; offer some general observations designed to assist in forming a correct judgment upon the topics discussed in the ensuing pages; and then give as fair an outline as we know how to present, of the "DOINGS" of Sir Robert Peel and his Government, by way of comment upon, and illustration of his previous and preparatory "SAYINGS."

What, then, was the substance of Sir Robert Peel's declaration, on presenting himself before the country as a candidate for the office which he fills? He avowed himself a man of moderate political opinions; recognized the existence of manufacturing and commercial distress, but referred it to causes of only a temporary nature, unconnected with the corn-laws; repudiated the empirical expedients proposed by the late ministry; and pledged himself to maintain the principle of protection to our agricultural interests; declaring his deliberate preference of a sliding scale of duties, to a fixed duty, upon foreign corn.

The first of the observations to which we beg the reader's earnest attention, is-that Sir Robert Peel has to govern by means of a Reformed House of Commons. It is for want of well considering this circumstance, that one or two respectable sections of the Conservative party have conceived some dissatisfaction at the line of policy adopted by Sir Robert Peel. They forget that, as we have already stated, the Tory party was nearly destroyed by the passing of the Reform Bill; that from its ashes rose the CONSERVATIVE party, adapted to the totally new political exigencies of the times; its grand object being, as it were, out of the elements of democracy to arrest the progress of democracy. The bond of its union was correctly described by its founder, as consisting in attachment to the fundamental institutions of the country-non-opposition to rational changes rendered requisite by the altered circumstances of the times-but determination to maintain, on their ancient footing and foundation, our great institutions in Church and State. Keeping these grand objects ever in view, the true policy to be adopted was to widen the foundations on which should stand "that new party which was to draw, from time to time, its strength from its opponents." None saw this more clearly than Sir Robert Peel-and hence the "moderation," indispensable and all-powerful, which he prescribed to himself, and recommended to all those who chose to act with him, and the steady acting upon which has at length conducted them to their present splendid position of power and responsibility. Could the government of the country be now carried on upon principles that were all-powerful twenty-or even fewer-years ago? No more than Queen Victoria could govern on the principles of Queen Elizabeth! We must look at things, not as they were, or as we would wish them to be-but as they are and are likely to be. He is unable to take a just and comprehensive view of political affairs in this country-of the position of parties, and the tendency of the principles respectively advocated by them, who does not see that the great and only contest now going on, is between conservative and destructive. We say boldly-and we are satisfied that we say it in conformity with the opinions of the immense majority of persons of intelligence and property-that the forces which would drive Sir Robert Peel's Government from office would immediately and inevitably supply their places by a Government which must act upon destructive principles. This will not be believed by many of those who, moving in the circumscribed sphere of intense party feeling, can contemplate only one object, namely-a return to power, and disregard the intentions of the fierce auxiliaries of whose services they would avail themselves. To the country at large, however, who breathe a freer air, the true nature of the struggle is plain as the sun at noonday. The number of those who only nominally belong to parties, but have a very deep stake in the preservation of our national institutions, and see distinctly the advantages of a Minister acting firmly on moderate principles, and who will consequently give him a silent but steady support in moments of danger, is infinitely larger than is supposed by the opponents of the Conservative party. Such a Minister, however, must make up his account with receiving often only a cold and jealous support from those of his adherents who incline to extreme opinions; while his opponents will increase their zeal and animosity in proportion to their perception of the unobjectionableness of his measures, the practical working of his moderation, viz.-his continuance in power, and their own exclusion from it. Such a Minister must possess a large share of fortitude, careless of its exhibition, and often exposing him to the charge of insensibility, as he moves steadily on amongst disaffected supporters and desperate opponents, mindless equally of taunts, threats, reproaches, and misrepresentations. He must resolve to bide his time, while his well-matured measures are slowly developing themselves, relying on the conscious purity of his motives. Such a man as this the country will prize and support, and such a man we sincerely believe that the country possesses in the present Prime Minister. He may view, therefore, with perfect equanimity, a degree of methodized clamour and violence, which would overthrow a Minister of a different stamp. Such are the inconveniences-such the consolations and advantages-attending that course of moderation which alone can be adopted with permanent success, by a Conservative Minister governing with a reformed House of Commons.

Another observation we would offer, has for its object to abate the pique and vexation under which the ablest volunteer advisers of the Minister are apt to suffer, on his disregard of their counsels, and sometimes to revenge themselves by bitter and indiscriminate censure of his general policy. They should remember, that while they are irresponsible volunteers, he acts under a tremendous responsibility; to sustain which, however, he has advantages which none but those in his situation can possibly possess-the co-operation of able brother Ministers, with all those sources and means of universal information which the constitution has placed at his disposal. The superior knowledge of the circumstances of the country thus acquired, enable him to see insuperable objections to schemes and suggestions, which their proposers reasonably deem to be palpably just and feasible. We have often thought that if Sir Robert Peel, or any other Prime Minister, were to take one of these eager and confident advisers into his cabinet, and calmly exhibit to him the actual impossibility-the imminent danger-of adopting the course of procedure which that adviser has been strenuously recommending, he would go away with slightly increased distrust of himself, and consideration for the Minister. Neither Sir Robert Peel, nor any other Minister, would be so arrogantly stupid as to disregard free information and advice, merely because it came from such persons, who, if they have no right to expect their advice to be followed, have yet a clear right to offer it, and urge it with all their force.

Again-The present Ministers had the disadvantage (in some respects) of succeeding to those, who, if they could do nothing, made up for it by promising every thing. Sir Robert Peel and his friends, on the contrary, made no promises whatever, beyond what would indeed be implied by acceptance of office-namely, honestly to endeavour to govern the country, for the permanent good of the country. While admitting the existence of great distress, they expressly admitted also, that they saw no mode of sudden relief for that distress, but would trust to the energies of the country gradually recovering themselves, under steady and cautious management. Sir Robert Peel frankly stated in the House of Commons, just previously to the dissolution in 1841, that he had no hope of an immediate return of prosperity; and that such had become the state of our domestic and foreign embarrassments, that "we must for years expect to struggle with difficulty." This was their language on the eve of the general election, yet the country placed confidence in their honour and capacity, heartily sickened of the prodigal promises of their opponents. The extravagant visionary hopes which they held forth at the eleventh hour, in their frenzied eagerness to obtain a majority at the last election, are still gleaming brightly before the eyes of numbers of their deluded supporters; imposing on the present Government the painful and ungracious duty of proving to them that such hopes and expectations cannot be realized, even for a brief space, without breaking up the foundations of our national existence and greatness.

Lastly. Can the Conservatives be expected in TWO years' time to repair all the evils resulting from a TEN years' gross mismanagement of the national affairs by their predecessors? "The evil that they did, lives after them." But for the fortunate strength of the Conservative party, moreover, in opposition, and the patriotism and wisdom of the house of Lords, the late Ministers would, by the time of their expulsion from office, have rendered the condition of the country utterly desperate-for very nearly desperate it assuredly was. Their vacillating, inconsistent, wild, and extravagant conduct during these ten years, had generated an universal sense of insecurity and want of confidence among all the great interests of the country, which locked up capital-palsied enterprise. Trade and commerce drooped daily, and the revenue melted away rapidly every year. Great things were justly expected from the practical skill and experience possessed by the new Government; but time is requisite for the development of a policy which had, and still has, to contend against such numerous and formidable obstacles. Confidence, especially mercantile confidence, is a delicate flower, of slow growth, and very difficult to rear. A breath may blight it. It will bloom only in a tranquil and temperate air. If ever there was a man entitled to speak, however, with authority upon this subject, it was Mr Baring, the late candidate, and unquestionably the future member, for the city of London-a man constantly engaged in vast mercantile transactions in all parts of the globe, and whose ability equals his experience. In the presence of a great number of gentlemen, representing two-thirds of the wealth and intelligence of the city of London, thus spoke Mr Baring, on the 6th October 1843:-"I rejoice that Sir Robert Peel did not hold out to the country the fallacious hope, that, by any particular measure, he could restore prosperity, or cure sufferings which were beyond the reach of legislation, and that he patiently relied upon the resources and energies of the country to set trade and commerce right. That expectation is already beginning to be realized. That calm reliance is already justified. I am speaking in the presence of those who are as much as, if not more conversant with business than, myself, and they will contradict me if I am not right when I say, that great symptoms of improvement in the trade and industry of the country have manifested themselves; which symptoms are of such a nature, that they do not appear to be the result of momentary excitement produced by some fallacious experiment, but of the paramount re-establishment of commerce, and of a fresh era in the prosperity of the empire. I am asked what have the Government done? Why, they have restored CONFIDENCE to the country! They have terminated wars, they have restored confidence at home, and commanded respect abroad."

Now, however, for the DOINGS of the Government; and of those we shall take no more detailed or extended notice than is requisite, in our opinion, to exhibit the general system and plan of their procedure, and show its complete consistency with the declaration of opinions made by Sir Robert Peel previous to the general election of 1841.

It will be borne in mind, that the then existing distress in our commercial and manufacturing interests he referred to three temporary causes:-the undue stimulus which had been given to industry in the manufacturing districts-by the accommodation system pursued in the joint-stock banks, the troubled and hostile condition of almost all those foreign countries which used to be the best customers for our manufactures, and the two or three preceding defective harvests. The first of these was not of a nature to call for, or perhaps admit of, direct and specific legislative interference. It originated in a vicious system of contagious private speculation, which has involved many thousands of those engaged in it in irredeemable, shall we add deserved, disgrace and ruin-and which had better, perhaps, be left to work its own cure. The last of the three causes was one to which all mankind is every where subject, and which is in a great measure beyond the reach of effective human interference. Before proceeding to explain the steps taken to remedy the second, viz., our distracted foreign relations, let us premise briefly for the present, that the very earliest acts of Ministers showed how profoundly sensible they were of the necessity of doing something, and that promptly, to relieve the grievous distress under which the lower orders were suffering, and at the same time afford a safe, effective, and permanent stimulus to trade and commerce. A comprehensive survey of the state, not only of our own but foreign commercial countries, satisfied them, as practical men, of the serious difficulties to be here contended with. The steps they took, after due deliberation-viz., the proposing the new tariff and the new corn-law-we shall presently refer to. Let us now point out the income-tax as a measure reflecting infinite credit upon those who had the sagacity and resolution to propose it. We shall not dwell upon this great temporary measure, which in one year has poured upwards of five millions into the exhausted exchequer, further than to say, that as soon as ever it was known among the monied classes, that the Minister, environed as he was with financial difficulties, would risk any amount of popular odium rather than add to the permanent burdens of the country, or permit the ruinous continuance of an excess of expenditure over revenue. As soon as this was evident, we say, the great monied interests of the kingdom recognized in Sir Robert Peel an honest minister, and gave him forthwith its complete confidence, which has never since been for an instant withdrawn from him. And how great are the obligations of that vast portion of the most suffering classes of the community, whom he exempted from this extraordinary contribution to the burdens of the state!

But now for foreign affairs. May not the present Ministers look with just pride towards every quarter of the globe, and exclaim, Qu? regio in terris nostri non plena laboris? In truth their success here has been sufficient to set up half a dozen Ministers-as is known to no man better than Lord Palmerston. The Duke of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen have restored peace to the whole world, re-establishing it on a footing of dignified security and equality. By the persevering energy, the calm determination, and inexhaustible resources of Lord Aberdeen, "the winter of our discontent," has been "made glorious summer," with all the great powers of the world. Look at our glorious but irritable neighbour-France: is there any language too strong to express the delight which we feel at the renovated sympathy and affection which exist between us?

We cannot answer for France to the extent which we can for England; but we know, that through the length and breadth of this land-our beloved Queen's familiar visit to the King of the French, their affectionate greeting, and her Majesty's enthusiastic reception by the people, diffused a feeling of joy and affection towards France, which will not soon-nay, should it ever?-subside. But would that visit have taken place, if Lord Palmerston, and not Lord Aberdeen, had presided over the foreign councils of this country? 'Tis a disagreeable question, and we pass on. Then as to America, thanks to the mission of Lord Ashburton, peace has been secured between us, on terms equally honourable to both. We are now at peace with the United States-a peace not to be disturbed by the (to Whiggish eyes) promising (!!) aspect of the Oregon difficulties-which we tell our aforesaid friends will end in-nothing at all-[It is not, by the way, the fault of our Government, that this disputed matter was not embraced by the Washington Treaty.]-While Lord Palmerston and his doleful ally, the Morning Chronicle, were daily stigmatizing the treaty of Washington, as highly dishonourable and disadvantageous to this country, it may interest our readers to see what one of the disaffected American senators had to say on the subject. Thus spoke, in the senate, Mr Benton, a well-known member of congress:-

"The concessions of Great Britain to the United States are small. The territory granted to the United States, is of such a nature, that it will never be of importance to hold it, while the possessions given up by the United States are important and valuable to them, and have the effect of admitting a foreign power within a territory which was granted to the United States, by the treaty of 1783. * * When I see the Government giving up more than Great Britain demanded, I cannot conceal my amazement and mortification!"

Glancing, however, from the West to the East-what do we see? Wars in India and China, brought gloriously to an advantageous termination.-"Wars," to adopt the language of one of the greatest mercantile authorities living, "which have been deranging our money transactions, and making our trade a trade of hazard and speculation, most injurious to the commerce of the empire at large."

While, on the one hand, we are relieved from the ruinous drain upon our resources, occasioned by our protracted warlike operations in India and China, on the other, a prospect is opened to us, by the immensely important treaty into which the Emperor of China has entered with this country, of very great and permanent commercial advantages, which are already being realized. Let our manufacturers, however, beware of the danger of forfeiting these advantages, by excessive eagerness to avail themselves of these newly acquired markets. Twelve-months ago, we earnestly warned them on this score,21 and we now as earnestly repeat that warning; "Notwithstanding," observed an able French journalist, a few weeks ago, upon this subject, "the opening of five ports to European commerce, China will for many years preserve her internal laws, her eccentric tastes, her inveterate habits. China is the country of routine and immovability. The treaty with Great Britain cannot modify the nature of China in a few months. If the English are not prudent in their exports, if they overload the newly opened ports with foreign produce, they will injure themselves more than they were injured by the war just concluded." In every word of this we concur: but alas! what weight will such considerations have with the agitating manufacturers in the north of England? Their fierce but short-sighted anxiety to make rapid fortunes, will make most of them, in a very few years, melancholy evidences of the justness of our observations! We cannot pass from the East without noticing the sound statesmanship which is regulating all Lord Ellenborough's leading movements in India-a matter now universally admitted. How unspeakably contemptible and ridiculous has the lapse of a few months rendered the petty clamours against him, with which the ex-ministerial party commenced their last year's campaign! Without, however, travelling round the entire circle of our foreign connexions and operations-there are one or two points to which we will briefly refer, as striking instances of the vigilant and indefatigable energy, and the powerful diplomatic influence of Lord Aberdeen, especially with reference to the securing commercial advantages to this country-and which has extorted the following testimony, during the present month (December,) from another French journal, by no means favourably disposed to this country:-"The English Government is incontestably the best served of all Governments in the means of obtaining new, and extending old markets, and in the rapid and complete knowledge of the course to be adopted to ensure the sale of the immense products of Great Britain in different parts of the globe." Take for instance the case of Russia. We have actually succeeded in wringing from the tenacious and inflexible Cabinet of St Petersburg an important commercial advantage! On Lord Aberdeen's accession to office, he found Russia in the act of aiming a fatal blow at a very important branch of our shipping trade, by levying a differential duty on all British vessels conveying to Russian ports any goods which were not the produce of the British dominions. After, however, a skilful and very arduous negotiation, our foreign secretary has succeeded in averting that blow-and we retain the great advantages of which we were about to be deprived. Nor has this signal advantage been purchased by any sacrifice on the part of Great Britain, but only by a permission, founded on most equitable principles, for Russian vessels arriving here from Russian ports with the produce of Russian Poland, to possess the same privileges as if they had come direct from Russian ports: Russian Poland being able to communicate effectively with the sea, only through the Prussian territory. Look again at Brazil-which has also been recently the object of persevering and energetic negotiation on the part of Lord Aberdeen. It is true that, at present, his exertions have been attended with no direct success; but we have doubts whether the importance of the proposed Brazilian treaty has not, after all, been greatly exaggerated. However this may be, Lord Aberdeen is, at this moment, as strenuously at work with the young emperor, as could be desired by the most eager advocate of a commercial treaty with Brazil. But, suppose the emperor's advisers should be disposed to continue their obstinate and unreasonable opposition, observe the gentle pressure upon them, to be felt by and by, which Lord Aberdeen has contrived to effect by the commercial treaty which he has concluded with the contiguous republic of Monte Video, and other states on the right bank of the river Plata, for the admission (on most favourable terms) of British imports into these states. One of them is the Uruguay republic, which borders through a great extent of country on Brazil, the Government of which is utterly unable to prevent the transfer of merchandise across the border; whereby the exclusion of British goods from the Brazilian territory is rendered a matter of physical impossibility.

[21] Great Britain at the commencement of the 19th Century-January 1843-No. CCC.

It is true, that our efforts to enter into commercial treaties with France and Portugal have not, as yet, been successful; but, formidable as are the obstacles at present in existence, we do not despair. Those least wonder at the present position of affairs who are best acquainted with the artificial and complicated positions of the respective countries, and their relations, and consequent policy, towards each other. Whatever can be done by man, is at this moment being done by Lord Aberdeen; and sooner than we have at present a right to expect, his indefatigable exertions may be crowned with success-not only in these, but in other quarters. All foreign Governments must be strongly influenced in such matters, by contemplating a steady and strong Government established in this country; and that object they see more nearly and distinctly every day. Such (without entering into details which would be inconsistent with either our space or our present object) is the general result-namely, the rapidly returning tide of prosperous commercial intercourse of the foreign policy of Conservative Government, which has raised Great Britain, within the short space of two years, to even a higher elevation among the nations of the world, than she had occupied before a "Liberal Ministry undertook the government of the country"-"a policy," to adopt the equally strong and just language of an able writer, "replete with auspicious evidences of the efficacy of intellect, combined with firmness, activity, and integrity, in restoring to wholesome and honourable order a chaotic jumble of anomalies-of humiliations and dangers-of fears, hatred, and confusion thrice trebly confounded."22

[22] Thoughts on Tenets of Ministerial Policy. By a Very Quiet Looker-on.-P. 22. Aylott, London, 1843.

While thus successfully active abroad, have Ministers been either idle or unsuccessful at home? Let us look at their two main measures-the new tariff and the new corn-law.

The object of the first of these great measures was twofold-to give a healthy and speedy but permanent stimulus to trade and commerce; and, at the same time, to effect such a reduction of price in the leading articles of consumption as should greatly reduce the cost of living-a boon, of course, inexpressibly precious to the poorer classes. Mark the moment at which this bold and critical line of policy was conceived and carried into execution-namely, a moment when the nation was plunged into such a depth of gloom and distress as had very nearly induced utter despair! when there was a deficiency of five millions sterling in the revenue of the two preceding years, and a certainty of greatly augmented expenditure for the future, owing to our wars in the East and elsewhere. We say-mark this, in order to appreciate a display of the true genius of statesmanship. Foreseeing one effect of such a measure, namely, a serious reduction in the revenue derived from the customs, and which would commence with the bare announcement of such a measure, the Government had to consider whether it would prove a permanent or only a temporary reduction, and to act accordingly. After profound consideration, they satisfied themselves (whether justly or not remains to be seen) that the diminution of revenue would prove only temporary; and to secure the immediate benefits of the measure, they imposed a temporary income-tax, the onerous pressure of which was to cease as soon as matters should have come round again. That period they fixed at the expiration of three years. After an interval of two years, do their calculations appear to have been well or ill founded? Let us see. Early in March 1842 they announced the proposed new tariff, (instantly producing the effect on the customs duties which had been anticipated;) and succeeded in bringing it into operation on the 9th of the ensuing July. The deficiency of revenue which ensued was so very serious that it would have alarmed the whole country, but for their confidence in the firmness and sagacity of Ministers, particularly as evidenced by their announced measures. We have not at the present moment before us the earliest quarterly revenue returns of the period referred to; but it will suffice to state, that such had been the extent of the reductions effected, that the deficiency on the year ending on the 5th October 1843, amounted to no less a sum than L.1,136,000; the decrease on the quarter ending on that day being L.414,000. Still, however, each succeeding quarter-or at least the latter quarters-gave more satisfactory indications of a rallying revenue; and we are enabled to announce the highly gratifying fact that, up to the 8th of the present month (December,) the customs duties returns are of the most decisively improving character. The receipts of duties for the port of London alone, during that period, exceeds the receipt on the corresponding period of last year by L.206,000; while the returns from all the outports, especially from Liverpool, are of the same cheering character, and warrant us in predicting that the returns to be presented on the 5th of the ensuing month will afford a most triumphant proof of the accuracy of the Minister's calculations and the success of his policy; for be it borne in mind, moreover, that his income-tax realized, in the year ending on the 5th October last, the immense sum of L.5,052,000. As far, therefore, as concerns the direct financial effects of the new tariff and its counterbalancing income-tax, the results of Sir Robert Peel's policy are such as may stagger and confound the boldest of his opponents.

Now, however, for the two great objects of the new tariff, which were declared by Sir Robert Peel23 to be "the revival of commerce, and such an improvement in the manufacturing interest, as would react on every other interest in the country; and diminishing the prices of the articles of consumption and the cost of living."

[23] Hansard, Vol. lxi. Col. 439.

With respect to the first of these objects, we had prepared a copious explanation of the highly satisfactory working of one great portion of the machine of the new tariff, viz. the relaxation of the taxes on the raw materials of manufacture; but it has occurred to us, that the necessity of our doing so has been entirely superseded by the following very remarkable admission, contained in a number of the Morning Chronicle newspaper, published towards the close of September last; an invaluable admission, tending to prove, out of the mouth of the bitterest opponent of the present Ministry, the general success of their domestic policy:-"Notwithstanding insurrection in Wales and agitation in Ireland, there are various circumstances in the present aspect of our national affairs of an encouraging and cheering nature. The first and most prominent thing which strikes an observer, is, the undoubted general revival of trade and commerce. Every thing seems to indicate that the morning is breaking; that the dreary night of disaster and suffering, through which all our material interests have been passing since 1836, is now well-nigh over. The hum of busy industry is once more heard throughout our manufacturing districts; our seaports begin once more to stir with business; merchants on 'Change have smiling faces; and the labouring population are once more finding employment easier of access; and wages are gently, slowly rising. This has not come upon us suddenly; it has been in operation since the end of last year; but so terrible was the depression, so gradual the improvement, that the effects of the revival could not be perceptible till within a recent period. Our exports of cotton and wool, during the present year, very considerably exceed those of a similar period in the preceding; and though there might be increase of export without increase of profit, the simple fact that the districts of our great manufacturing staples are now more active and busy than they have been for a very considerable period, coupled with the apparently well-founded belief that this increased activity is produced, not by speculative but genuine demand, are indications of the most pleasing and gratifying kind to all who are in the least concerned about the prosperity of the country. In addition to the improvement manifested in our staple articles of industry, other important interests are showing symptoms of decided improvement; even the iron-trade has got over its 'crisis;' and though we are very far indeed from having attained to a condition of prosperity, the steady, though slow, revival of every branch of industry, is a proof that the cause of the improvement must be a general one, operating universally." May we venture to suggest, that the worthy editor of the Morning Chronicle need not go about with a lantern to discover this cause?-that it is every where before his very eyes, under his very nose, in the form of the bold, but sagacious and consistent, policy pursued by the present Government?

With respect to the second great object of the new tariff, viz., the "Diminishing of the prices of the articles of consumption and the cost of living."

Has this great object, or has it not, been attained? Why, the reduced price of provisions is a matter of universal notoriety, and past all question. Unable to contest the existence of this most consolatory fact, the Opposition papers endeavoured to get up a diversion by frightening the farmers, whom they assured, that the admission of foreign live-stock would lead to a fearful depreciation in the value of British agricultural produce. The graziers and cattle-dealers were forthwith to find "their occupations gone." British pasture farming was to be annihilated, and an immense stimulus given to that of our continental rivals. Hereat the farmers pricked up their ears, and began to consider for a moment whether they should not join in the outcry against the new tariff. But the poor beasts that have come, doubtless much to their own surprise, across the water to us, looked heartily ashamed of themselves, on catching a glimpse of their plump, sleek brother beasts in England-and the farmers burst out a-laughing at sight of the lean kine that were to eat up the fat ones! The practical result has been, that between the 9th of July 1842, and the present time, there have not come over foreign cattle enough to make one week's show at Smithfield. But mark, the power of admitting foreign cattle and poultry, (on payment, however, of a considerable duty,24) conferred by the new tariff, is one that must be attended with infinite permanent benefits to the public, in its moderating influence upon the prices of animal food. Its working is in beautiful harmony with that of the newly modeled corn-laws, as we shall presently explain. In years of abundance, when plenty of meat is produced at home, the new tariff will be inoperative, as far as regards the actual importations of foreign cattle; but in years of scarcity at home, the expectation of a good price will induce the foreigner to send us a sufficient supply; for he will then be, and then only, able to repay himself the duty, and the heavy cost of sea-carriage. As prices fall, the inducement to import also declines. In short, "the inducement to importation falls with the fall, and rises with the rise of price. The painful contingency of continued bad seasons has thus, in some measure, been provided against. The new tariff is so adjusted, that when prices threaten to mount to an unfair and extravagant height, unjust to consumers, and dangerous to producers, in such contingencies a mediating power steps in, and brings things to an equilibrium."25 These great and obvious advantages of the new tariff, the opponents of Ministers, and especially their reckless and discreditable allies called the "Anti-corn-law League," see as plainly as we do; but their anxious aim is to conceal these advantages as much as possible from public view; and for this purpose they never willingly make any allusion to the tariff, or if forced to do so, underrate its value, or grossly misrepresent its operation. But we are convinced that this will not do. Proofs of their humbug and falsehood are, as it were, daily forcing themselves into the very stomachs of those whom once, when an incompetent Ministry was in power, these heartless impostors were able to delude. "A single shove of the bayonet," said Corporal Trim to Doctor Slop, "is worth all your fine discourses about the art of war;" and so the English operative may reply to the hireling "Leaguers," "This good piece of cheap beef and mutton, now smoking daintily before me, is worth all your palaver."

[24] Poultry ￡5 for every ￡100 value; oxen and bulls, ￡1 each; cows, 15s.; calves, 10s.; horses, mares, foals, colts, and geldings, ￡1 each; sheep, 3s. each; lambs, 2s. each; swine and hogs, 5s. each-(Stat. 5 and 6 Vict. c. 47, Table A.)

[25] Thoughts, &c., by a Quiet Looker-on, pp. 16, 17.

Before passing from the subject of the new tariff, let us observe, that the suddenness and vastness of its changes (some of which we consider to be of questionable propriety) for a time unavoidably deranged mercantile operations; and in doing so, as necessarily produced many cases of individual dissatisfaction and distress. Some of the persons thus situated angrily quitted the Conservative ranks for those of the Opposition; others, for a position of mortified neutrality: but we believe that many more, notwithstanding this sharp trial of their constancy, remained true to their principles, faithful to their party, and are now rewarded by seeing things coming rapidly round again, while unvarying and complete success has attended every other branch of the policy of Ministers. We know a good deal of the real state of opinion among the mercantile classes of the City of London; and believe we correctly represent it averse to further changes in our tariff-system, and coincident with the views expressed by Mr Baring in his address to the electors, when he deprecated "a constant change, unsettling men's minds, baffling all combinations, destroying all calculations, paralysing trade, and continuing the stagnation from which we are recovering;" and declared his belief "that the minister who applies the principles of free-trade with the most caution, deliberation, and judgment, is the statesman who merits the confidence of the commercial world." We now, however, quit the subject-interesting, indeed, and all-important-of the tariff, with the deliberate expression of our opinion, that it is, taken as a whole, a very bold, masterly, and successful stroke of policy. Now for the NEW CORN-LAW.

But how shall we deal with a topic with which the public has been so utterly sickened by the people calling themselves "The Anti-corn-law League?" We do not, nevertheless, despair of securing the attention of our readers to the few observations which we have to offer upon a subject which, however hackneyed, is one of paramount importance. We are satisfied that nine out of every ten even of newspaper readers turn with disgust from the columns headed "Anti-corn-law League," "Doings of the League," "Great Meeting of the Anti-corn-law League," and so forth; and, (making every allowance for the exigencies occasioned by the dearth of topics while Parliament is not sitting,) we are exceedingly surprised, that the great London newspapers should inflict upon their readers so much of the slang and drivel of the gentry in question. In the due prosecution of our subject, we cannot avoid the topic of the new corn-law, even were we so disposed; and we shall at once proceed to our task, with two objects in view-to vindicate the course pursued by Sir Robert Peel, and set forth, briefly and distinctly, those truly admirable qualities of the existing Corn-laws, which are either most imprudently misrepresented, or artfully kept out of view, by those who are now making such desperate efforts to overthrow it. "Mark how a plain tale shall set them down!"

Whether foreign corn should be admitted into this country on payment of fluctuating duties, or a fixed duty, or free of all duties, are obviously questions of the highest importance, involving extensive and complicated considerations. Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, and the persons banded together under the name of "The Anti-corn-law League," may be taken as representing the classes of opinion which would respectively answer these three questions in the affirmative. All of them appealed to the nation at large on the last general election. The form in which the question was proposed to the country, it fell to the lot of the advocates of a fixed duty to prescribe, and they shaped it thus in the Queen's speech:-

"It will be for you to determine whether the corn-laws do not aggravate the natural fluctuations of supply; whether they do not embarrass trade, derange currency, and, by their operation, diminish the comforts and increase the privations of the great body of the community."

To this question the country returned a deliberate and peremptory answer in the NEGATIVE; expressing thereby its will, that the existing system, which admits foreign corn on payment of fluctuating duties, should continue. The country thus adopted the opinions of Sir Robert Peel, rejected those of Lord John Russell, and utterly scouted those of the "Anti-corn-law League," in spite of all their frantic exertions.

We believe that this deliberate decision of the nation, is that to which it will come whenever again appealed to; and is supported by reasons of cogency. The nation is thoroughly aware of the immense importance of upholding and protecting the agriculture of the country, and that to secure this grand object, it is necessary to admit foreign corn into the country, only when our deficiencies absolutely require it. That in the operation of the "sliding-scale of duties," and the exact distinction between its effect and that of the proposed fixed duty, is demonstrably this: that the former would admit foreign corn in dear years, excluding it in seasons of abundance; while the latter would admit foreign corn in seasons of abundance, and exclude it in dear years. Our present concern, however, is with the course taken by the present Government. Have they hitherto yielded to the clamour with which they have been assailed, and departed from the principle of affording efficient protection to the agriculture of the country? Not a hair's breadth; nor will they. We have seen that Sir Robert Peel, previously to the general election, declared his determination to adhere to the existing system of corn-laws, regulating the admission of foreign corn by the power of the sliding-scale of duties; but both he and the leading members of his party, had distinctly stated in Parliament, just before its dissolution, that while resolved to adhere to the principle of a sliding-scale, they would not pledge themselves to adhere to all the details of that scale. And they said well and wisely, for there were grave objections to some of those details. These objections they have removed, and infinitely added to the efficiency of the sliding-scale; but in removing the principal objections, they stirred a hornet's nest-they rendered furious a host of sleek gamblers in grain, who found their "occupation gone" suddenly! On the other hand, the Government conferred a great substantial benefit upon the country, by securing a just balance between protection to the British corn consumer and producer; removing, at the same time, from the latter, a long-existing source of jealousy and prejudice. A few words will suffice to explain the general scope of those alterations. Under they system established by statute 9 Geo. IV. c. 60, in the year 1828, the duty on foreign corn, up to the price of 68s. per quarter, was so high, and declined so very slowly, (L.1, 5s. 8d., L.1. 4s. 8d., L.1, 3s. 8d., L.1, 2s. 8d., L.1, 1s. 8d., L.1, 0s. 8d., 18s. 8d.,) as to amount to a virtual prohibition against importation. But when the price mounted from 68s. to 72s. per quarter, the duty declined with such great rapidity. (16s 8d., 13s. 8d., 10s. 8d., 6s. 8d., 2s. 8d.,) as to occasion the alarming and frequently recurring evils of glut and panic. Now the following was the mode in which these serious defects in the law of 1828 were taken advantage of by the aforesaid desperate and greedy "rogues in grain," who are utterly prostrated by the new system; they entered into a combination, for the purpose of raising the apparent average price of corn, and forcing it up to the point at which they could import vast quantities of foreign corn at little or no duty. Thus the price of corn was rising in England-the people were starving-and turned with execration against those into whose pockets the high prices were supposed to go, viz., the poor farmers; whereas those high prices really were all the while flowing silently but rapidly into the pockets of the aforesaid "rogues in grain"-the gamblers of the Corn Exchange!-Ministers effected their salutary alterations, by statute 5 and 6 Vict. c. 14, in the following manner:-They substituted for the former duties of 10s. 8d. per quarter, when the price of corn was 70s. per quarter, and 1s. when the price was 73s.; a duty of 4s. when the price of corn is 70s. per quarter, and made the duty fall gradually, shilling by shilling, with the rise of price, to 3s., 2s., and 1s. Thus are at one blow destroyed all the inducements formerly existing for corn-dealers to "hold" their foreign corn, in the hopes of forcing up the price of corn to starvation-point, viz., the low duty, every inducement being now given them to sell, and none to speculate. Another important provision for preventing fraudulent combinations to raise the price of corn, was that of greatly extending the averages, and placing them under regulations of salutary stringency.

So far, then, from evincing a disposition to trifle with, or surrender, the principle of the sliding-scale, the Government have, with infinite pains and skill, applied themselves to effect such improvements in it as will secure its permanency, and a better appreciation of its value by the country at large, with every additional year's experience of its admirable qualities. There is a perfect identity of principle, both working to the same good end, between the existing corn-law and the new tariff. Their combined effect is to oppose every barrier that human wisdom and foresight can devise, against dearth and famine in England: securing an abundant supply of corn and meat from abroad, whenever our own supply is deficient; but up to that point protecting our home producers, whose direct interest it will henceforth be to supply us at fair and moderate prices. It is the cunning policy of the heterogeneous opponents of the existing corn-laws, to speak of them as "doomed" by a sort of universal tacit consent; to familiarise the public with the notion that the recent remodeling of the system is to be regarded as constituting it into nothing more than a sort of transition-measure-a stepping-stone towards a great fundamental change, by the adoption of "a fixed duty," some say-"a total repeal," say the Anti-corn-law League. But those who think thus, must be shallow and short-sighted indeed, and have paid very little real attention to the subject, if they have failed to perceive in the existing system itself all the marks of completeness, solidity, and permanence; and, in the successful pains that have been taken to bring it to a higher degree of perfection than before, a determination to uphold it-a conviction that it will long continue the law of the land, and approved of as such by the vast majority of those who represent the wealth and intellect of the kingdom, and have the deepest stake in its well-being.

As for a total repeal of the corn-laws, no thinking man believes that there is the remotest prospect of such a thing; but many imagine that a fixed duty would be a great change for the better, and a safe sort of compromise between the two extreme parties. Can any thing be more fallacious? We hesitate not to express our opinion, that the idea of maintaining a fixed duty on corn is an utter absurdity, and that Lord John Russell and his friends know it to be so, and are guilty of political dishonesty in making such a proposal. They affect to be friends of the agricultural interest, and satisfied of the necessity for protection to that body; and yet they acknowledge that their "fixity" of duty is of precisely the same nature as the "finality" of the Reform bill, viz.-to last only till the first pressure shall call for an order in council. Does any one in his senses believe that any Minister could abide by a fixed duty with corn at the price of 70s., with a starving, and therefore an agitating and rebellious population? A fixed duty, under all times and circumstances, is a glaring impossibility; and, besides, is it not certain that the period for the issue of an order in council will be a grand object of speculation to the corn importer; and that he will hoard, and create distress, merely to force out that order? And the issuing of that order would depend entirely on the strength or the necessity of the Minister: on his "Squeezableness"-his anxiety for popularity. Does the experience of the last ten years justify the country in placing confidence, on such a point, in a Whig Ministry? In every point of view, the project of a fixed duty is exposed to insuperable objections. It is plain that on the very first instant of there being a pressure upon the "fixed duty," it must give way, and for ever. Once off, it is gone for ever; it can never be re-imposed. Again, what is to govern the amount at which it is to be fixed? Must it be the additional burden on land? or the price at which foreign countries, with their increased facilities of transport, and improved cultivation of their soil, would be able to deliver it in the British markets? What data have we, in either case, on which to decide? Let it, however, always be borne in mind, by those who are apt too easily to entertain the question as to either a fixed duty, or a total repeal of duty, that the advantages predicted by the respective advocates of those measures are mere assumptions. We have no experience by which to try the question. The doctrines of free trade are of very recent growth; the data on which its laws are founded are few, and also uncertain. And does any one out of Bedlam imagine, that any Minister of this country would consent to run such tremendous risks-to try such experiments upon an article of such immense importance to its well-being? Let us never lose sight of Lord Melbourne's memorable words:-"Whether the object be to have a fixed duty, or an alteration as to the ascending and descending scale, I see clearly and distinctly, that the object will not be carried without a most violent struggle-without causing much ill-blood, and a deep sense of grievance-without stirring society to its foundation, and leaving every sort of bitterness and animosity. I do not think the advantages to be gained by the change are worth the evils of the struggle."26

[26] Debates, 11th June 1840.

To return, however. Under the joint operation of the three great measures of the Government-the income-tax, the new tariff, and the new corn-law, our domestic affairs exhibit, at this moment, such an aspect of steadily returning prosperity, as not the most sanguine person living could have imagined possible two years ago. For the first time after a miserable interval, we behold our revenue exceeding our expenditure; while every one feels satisfied of the fact, that our finances are now placed upon a sound and solid basis, and daily improving. Provisions are of unexampled cheapness, and the means of obtaining them are-thank Almighty God!-gradually increasing among the poorer classes. Trade and commerce are now, and have for the last six months been steadily improving; and we perceive that a new era of prosperity is beginning to dawn upon us. We have a strong and united Government, evidently as firmly fixed in the confidence of the Queen as in that of the country, and supported by a powerful majority in the House of Commons-an annihilating one in the House of Lords. The reign of order and tranquillity has been restored in Wales, and let us also add, in Ireland, after an unexampled display of mingled determination and forbearance on the part of the Government. Chartism is defunct, notwithstanding the efforts made by its dishonoured and discomfited leaders to revive it. When, in short, has Great Britain enjoyed a state of more complete internal calm and repose than that which at present exists, notwithstanding the systematic attempts made to diffuse alarm and agitation? Do the public funds exhibit the slightest symptoms of uneasiness or excitement? On the contrary, ever since the accession of the present Government, there has been scarce any variation in them, even when the disturbances in the manufacturing districts in the north of England, and in Wales, and in Ireland, were respectively at their height. Her Majesty moves calmly to and fro-even quitting England-her Ministers enjoy their usual intervals of relaxation and absence from town-all the movements of Government go on like clockwork-no symptoms visible any where of feverish uneasiness. But what say you, enquires a timid friend, or a bitter opponent, to the Repeal agitation in Ireland, and the Anti-corn-law agitation in England? Why, we say this-that we sincerely regret the mischief which the one has done, and is doing, in Ireland, and the other in England, among their ignorant and unthinking dupes; but with no degree of alarm for the stability of the Government, or the maintenance of public tranquillity and order. Ministers are perfectly competent to deal with both the one and the other of these two conspiracies, as the chief actors in the one have found already, and those in the other will find, perhaps, by and by; if, indeed, they should ever become important or successful enough to challenge the notice and interference of the Government. A word, however, about each, in its turn.

The Anti-corn-law League has in view a two-fold object-the overthrow of the present Ministry whom they abhor for their steadfast and powerful support of the agricultural interest;-and the depression of the wages of labour, to enable our manufacturers (of whom the league almost exclusively consists) to compete with the manufacturers on the Continent. Their engine for effecting their purposes, is the Repeal of the corn-laws; and they are working it with such a desperate energy, as satisfies any disinterested observer, that they themselves perceive the task to be all but utterly hopeless. They were confounded by the result of the general election, and dismayed at the accession to power of men whom they knew to be thoroughly acquainted with their true objects and intentions, and resolved to frustrate them, and able to carry their resolutions into effect. The ominous words of Sir Robert Peel-"I think that the connexion of the manufacturers in the north of England with the joint-stock banks, gave an undue and improper impulse to trade in that quarter of the country"-rang in their ears as a knell; and told them that they were found out by a firm and sagacious Minister, whom, therefore, their sole object thenceforth must be to overthrow per fas aut nefas. For this purpose they adopted such an atrocious course of action, as instantly deprived them of the countenance of all their own moderate and reasoning friends, and earned for themselves the execration of the bulk of the community:-they resolved to inflame the starving thousands in the manufacturing districts into acts of outrage and rebellion. They felt it necessary, in the language of Mr Grey, one of their own principal men, in order "to raise the stubborn enthusiasm of the people," (!) to resort to some desperate expedient-which was-immediately on Sir Robert Peel's announcing his determination, early in 1842, to preserve, but improve, the existing system of the corn-laws-to reduce the wages of all their work-people to the amount of from ten to twenty per cent. This move originated with the Stockport manufacturers. We have little doubt but it was the suggestion of Mr Cobden; and are quite prepared for a similar move during the ensuing session of Parliament. But was not-is not-this a species of moral arson? The Government calmly carried their measure: the outbreak (which we firmly believe to have been concerted by the Anti-corn-law League) in Lancashire arrived, and was promptly and resolutely, but mercifully repressed; and thus was extinguished the guilty hopes and expectations of its contrivers; and Ministers were left stronger at the close of the session than they had been at its commencement. They resolved to open a new campaign against Ministers and the Corn-laws-greatly to augment their numbers and pecuniary resources-to redouble their exertions, and immensely to extend the sphere of their operations. They did augment their pecuniary resources, by large forced contributions among the few persons most deeply interested in the success of their schemes; namely, the Lancashire manufacturers-they did redouble their exertions-they did extend the sphere of their operations, spreading themselves over the whole length and breadth of the land, even as did the plague of lice over Egypt. But did they augment the number of their friends? Not a person of the least political or personal importance could be prevailed upon to join their discreditable ranks; it remained as before:-Cobden and Bright-Bright and Cobden-Wilson, Bright, and Cobden-Milner Gibson, Fox, Bright and Cobden-ad nauseam usque; but, like a band of travelling incendiaries, they presented themselves with indefatigable energy in places which had never known their presence before. And how comes it to pass that they have not long since kindled at least the manufacturing population into a blaze? Is it any fault of the aforesaid incendiaries? No-but because there is too much intelligence abroad, they could not do what they would-"raise the stubborn enthusiasm" of the people. In one quarter they were suspected-in another despised-in another hated; and it became a very general impression that they were, in fact, a knot of double dealers, who certainly contrived to make a great noise, and keep themselves perpetually before the public; but as for getting the steam "up," in the nation at large, they found it impossible. In truth, the "Anti-corn-law League" would have long ago been dissolved amidst the indifference or contempt of the public, but for the countenance they received, from time to time, and on which they naturally calculated, from the party of the late Ministers, whose miserable object was to secure their own return to power by means of any agency that they could press into their service. But, to return to our sketch of the progress of the "League." Admitting that, by dint of very great and incessant exertion, they kept their ground, they made little or no progress among the mercantile part of the community; and they resolved to try their fortune with the agricultural constituencies-to sow dissension between the landlords and the tenants, the farmers and their labourers, and combine as many of the disaffected as they could, in support of the clamour for free trade. This was distinctly avowed by Cobden, at a meeting of the Anti-corn-law deputies, in the following very significant terms: "We can never carry the measure ourselves: WE MUST HAVE THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS WITH US!!"27

[27] League Circular, No. xxx. p. 3.

They therefore proceeded to commence operations upon the agricultural constituencies. They knew they could always reckon upon a share of support wherever they went-it being hard to find any country without its cluster of bitter and reckless opponents of a Conservative government, who would willingly aid in any demonstration against it. With such aid, and indefatigable efforts to collect a crowd of noisy non-electors: with a judicious choice of localities, and profuse bribery of the local Radical newspapers, in order to procure copious accounts of their proceedings-they commenced their "grand series of country triumphs!" Their own organs, from time to time, gave out that in each and every county visited by the League, the farmers attended their meetings, and joined in a vote condemnatory of the corn-laws, and pledged themselves to vote thereafter for none but the candidates of the Anti-corn-law League!

The following are specimens of the flattering appellations which had till now been bestowed, by their new friends, upon these selfsame farmers-"Bull-frogs!" "chaw-bacons!" "clod-poles!" "hair-bucks!" "deluded slaves!" "brute drudges!"28 Now, however, they and their labourers were addressed in terms of respectful sympathy and flattery, as the victims of the rapacity of their landlords-on whom were poured the full phials of Anti-corn-law wrath. The following are some of the scalding drops let fall upon their devoted heads-"Monster of impiety!" "inhuman fiend!" "heartless brutes!" "rapacious harpies!" "relentless demons!" "plunderers of the people!" "merciless footpads!" "murderers!" "swindlers!" "insatiable!" "insolent!" "flesh-mongering!" "scoundrel!" "law-making landlords!" "a bread-taxing oligarchy!"29 Need we say that the authors of these very choice and elegant expressions were treated with utter contempt by both landlords and tenants-always making the few allowances above referred to? Was it very likely that the landlord or the farmer should quit their honourable and important avocations at the bidding of such creatures as had thus intruded themselves into their counties? should consent to be yoked to the car, or to follow in the train of these enlightened, disinterested, and philanthropic cotton-spinners and calico-printers? Absurd! It became, in fact, daily more obvious to even the most unreflecting, that these worthies were not likely to be engaged in their "labours of love;" were not exactly the kind of persons to desert their own businesses, to attend out of pure benevolence that of others-to let succumb their own interest to promote those of others; to subscribe out of the gains which they had wrung from their unhappy factory slaves, their L.10, L.20, L.30, L.50, L.100, out of mere public spirit and philanthropy.

[28] League Circular, No. 10.

[29] Ibid. Nos. 26, 29, 44, 50, 71, 83, 94, 99, 100.

Still, we say, the whole thing was really a failure-the "steam," even yet, could not be "got up," in spite of all their multiplied agencies and machinery, incessantly at work-the unprecedented personal exertions of the members of the league-the large pecuniary sacrifices of the Lancashire subscribers to its funds. One more desperate exertion was therefore felt necessary-and they resolved to attempt getting up a sensation, by the sudden subscription of splendid sums of money, by way of starting a vast fund, with which to operate directly upon the entire electoral body-in what way, it is not very difficult to guess. Accordingly, they began-but where? At the old place-Manchester!-Manchester!-Manchester! Many thousands were subscribed at an hour's notice by a mere handful of manufacturers; the news came up to London-and the editor of the Times, in a transient fit of excitement, pronounced "the existence of the League" to be a GREAT FACT. Upon this phrase they have lived ever since-till somewhat roughly reminded the other day, by Mr Baring, that "great facts" are very "great follies!" Now let us once more ask the question-would all these desperate and long-continued exertions and sacrifices-(all proceeding, be it ever observed, from one quarter, and from the same class of people-nay, the same individuals of that class)-be requisite, were there any real movement of the public mind and feeling against the Corn-laws? Are they not requisite solely because of the absence of any such movement? Nay, are they not evidence that the public feeling and opinion are against them? And that, perhaps, they will by and by succeed in rousing the "stubborn enthusiasm of the people" against themselves? Where has there been called one single spontaneous public meeting of any importance, and where exhibited a spark of enthusiasm, for the total repeal of the Corn-laws? Surely the topic is capable of being handled in a sufficiently exciting manner! But no; wherever a "meeting," or "demonstration," is heard of-there, also, are the eternal Cobden, Bright and Wilson, and their miserable fellow-agitators, who alone have got up-who alone harangue the meetings. Was it so with Catholic Emancipation?-with the abolition of Negro Slavery?-with the Reform Bill? Right or wrong, the public feeling was then roused, and exhibited itself unequivocally, powerfully, and spontaneously; but here-bah! common sense revolts at the absurd supposition that even hundreds of thousands of pounds can of themselves get up a real demonstration of public feeling in favour of the object, for which so much Manchester money has been already subscribed.

"'Tis not in thousands to command success."

If the public opinion of this great country-this great enlightened nation-were really roused against the Corn-laws, they would disappear like snow under sunshine. But, as the matter now stands, if their dreary drivellers Cobden, Bright, Wilson, Acland, W.J. Fox, were withdrawn from the public scene in which they are so anxious to figure, and sent to enjoy the healthy exercise of the tread-mill for one single three months, would this eternal "brutum fulmen" about the repeal of the Corn-laws be heard of any more? We verily believe not. "But look at our triumphs!"-quoth Cobden-"Look at our glorious victories at Durham, London, and Kendal!-our virtual victory at Salisbury!" Moonshine, gentlemen, and you know it;-and that you have spent your money in vain. Let us see how the matter stands.

I. Durham. True, Mr Bright was returned; but to what is the House of Commons indebted for the acquisition of that distinguished senator, except the personal pique and caprice of that eccentric Tory peer, Lord Londonderry? This is notorious, and admitted by all parties; and these causes will not be in operation at another election.

II. London. And do you really call this a "great triumph?" Undoubtedly Mr Pattison was returned; but is it a matter of congratulation that this notorious political nonentity, who openly, we understand, entertains and will support Chartist opinions, is returned instead of such a man as Mr Baring? What was the majority of Mr Pattison? One hundred and sixty-five, out of twelve thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine who actually voted. And how was even that majority secured? By the notorious absence from London-as is always the case at that period of the year (21st October 1843)-of vast numbers of the stanchest Conservative electors. There is no doubt whatever, that had the election happened one fortnight later than it did, Mr Baring would have been returned by a large majority, in spite of the desperate exertions of the Anti-corn-law League and Mr Rothschild and the Jews. As it was, Mr Baring polled more (6367) than had ever been polled by a Conservative candidate for London before; and had an immense majority over his competitor, among the superior classes of the constituency.30 At another election, we can confidently predict that Mr Baring will be returned, and by a large majority, unless, indeed, the Charter should be the law of the land; in which case Mr Pattison will probably enjoy another ovation.

[30] Among the Livery, the numbers were-Baring, 3196; Pattison, 2367;-majority for Baring, 889!

Among the Templars-Baring, 258; Pattison, 78!!-majority for Baring, 180!

III. Kendal. Is this, too, a victory? "Another such, and you are undone." Why? Till Mr Bentinck presented himself before that enlightened little constituency, no Conservative dared even to offer himself; 'twas a snug little stronghold of the Anti-corn-law League interest, and yet the gallant Conservative gave battle against the whole force of the League; and after a mortal struggle of some fourteen days, was defeated by a far smaller majority than either friends or enemies had expected, and has pledged himself to fight the battle again. Here, then, the League and their stanch friends have sustained an unexpected and serious shock.

IV. Salisbury.-We have not the least desire to magnify this into a mighty victory for the Conservative party; but the interference of the Anti-corn-law League certainly made the struggle a very critical and important one. We expected to succeed, but not by a large majority; for ever since 1832, the representation had (till within the last year) been divided between a Conservative and a Liberal. However, the Anti-corn-law League, flushed with their "triumphs" at London and Kendal, flung all their forces ostentatiously into the borough, and exhibited a disgusting and alarming specimen of the sort of interference which it seems we are to expect in all future elections, in all counties and boroughs. It was, however, in vain; the ambitious young gentleman who had the benefit of their services, and who is a law-student in London, but the son of the great Earl of Radnor, lost his election by a large majority, and the discomfited League retired ridiculously to Manchester. When we heard of their meditated descent upon Salisbury, we fancied we saw Cobden and his companions waddling back, geese-like, and exclaimed-

"Geese! if we had you but on Sarum plain,

We'd drive you cackling back to Camelot!"

So much for the boasted electoral triumphs of the Anti-corn-law League-we repeat, that they are all mere moonshine, and challenge them to disprove our assertion.

They are now making another desperate effort to raise a further sum of a hundred thousand pounds; and beginning, as usual, at Manchester, have raised there alone, within a few days' time, upwards of L.20,000! The fact (if true) is at once ludicrous and disgusting: ludicrous for its transparency of humbug-disgusting for its palpable selfishness. Will these proverbially hard-hearted men put down their L.100, L.200, L.300, L.400, L.500, for nothing? Alas, the great sums they have expended in this crusade against the Corn-laws, will have to be wrung out of their wretched and exhausted factory slaves! For how otherwise but by diminishing wages can they repay themselves for lost time, for trouble, and for expense?

Looked at in its proper light, the Corn-law League is nothing but an abominable conspiracy against labour. Cheap bread means cheap labour; those who cannot see this, must be blind indeed! The melancholy fact of the continually-decreasing price of labour in this country, rests on undisputable authority-on, amongst others, that of Mr Fielding. In 1825, the price of labour was 51 per cent less than in 1815; in 1830 it was 65 per cent less than in 1815, though the consumption of cotton had increased from 80,000,000 lbs. to 240,000,000 lbs.! In 1835 it was 318,000,000 lbs., but the operative received 70 per cent less than in 1815. In 1840 the consumption of cotton was 415,000,000 lbs., and the unhappy operative received 75 per cent less than in 1815!

If proofs be required to show that in reality the deadly snake, cheap labour, lurks among the flourishing grass, cheap bread, we will select one or two out of very many now lying before us, and prepared to be presented to the reader.

"If grain be high," said Mr Ricardo, in the House of Commons,31 "the price of labour would necessarily be a deduction from the profits of stock." "The Corn-laws raise the price of sustenance-that has raised the price of labour; which, of course, diminishes the profit in capital."32

[31] Debates, May 30, 1820.

[32] Ib. Dec. 24, 1819.

"Until the price of food in this country," said Mr Hume, in the House of Commons on the 12th of May last, in the presence of all the leading free-trade members, "is placed on a level with that on the Continent, it will be impossible for us to compete with the growing manufactures of Belgium, Germany, France, and America!!"

Hear a member of the League, and of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Mr G. Sandars:-

"If three loaves instead of two could be got for 2s., in consequence of a repeal of the Corn-laws, another consequence would be, that the workman's 2s. would be reduced to 1s. 4d., which would leave matters, as far as he was concerned, just as they were!!"33

[33] Authentic Discussions on the Corn-law, (Ridgway, 1839,) p. 86.

Hear a straightforward manufacturer-Mr Muntz, M.P.-in the debate on the 17th May last:-

"If the Corn-laws were repealed, the benefit which the manufacturer expected was, that he could produce at a lower price; and this he could do only by reducing wages to the continental level!!"

If the above fail to open the eyes of the duped workmen of this country, what will succeed in doing so? Let us conclude this portion of our subject-disgusting enough, but necessary to expose imposture-with the following tabular view, &c., of the gross contradiction of the men, whom we wish to hold up to universal and deserved contempt, on even the most vital points of the controversy in which they are engaged; and then let our readers say whether any thing proceeding from such a quarter is worthy of notice:-

* * *

The League Oracle says-

1. "If we have free trade, the landlords' rents will fall 100 per cent."-(League Circular, No. 15. p. 3.)

2. "Provisions will fall one-third."-(Ib. No. 34, p. 4.)

"The Corn-laws makes the labourer pay double the price for his food."-(Ib. No. 15.)

3. "The Corn-law compels us to pay three times the value for a loaf of bread."-(Ib. No. 13.)

"If the Corn-laws were abolished, the working man WOULD SAVE 31/2d. UPON EVERY LOAF OF BREAD."-(Ib. No. 75.)

"As a consequence of the repeal of the Corn-laws, we promise cheaper food, and our hand-loom weavers would get double the rate of wages!"-(Ib. No. 7.)

"We shall have cheap bread, and its price will be reduced 33 per cent."-(Ib. No. 34.)

4. Messrs Villiers, Muntz, Hume, Roche, Thornton, Rawson, Sandars, (all Leaguers,) say, and the oracle of the League itself has said, that "We want free trade, to enable us to reduce wages, that we may compete with foreigners."-(Post, pp. 13-16.)

5. The League Oracle admits that "a repeal would injure the farmer, but not so much as he fears."-(League Circular, No. 58.)

Mr Cobden says-

1. "If we have free trade, the landlords will have as good rents as now."-(Speech in the House of Commons, 15th May last.)

2. "Provisions will be no cheaper."-(Speech at Bedford, Hertford Reformer, 10th June last.)

3. "THE ARGUMENT FOR CHEAP BREAD WAS NEVER MINE."-(Morning Chronicle, 30th June 1843, Speech on Penenden Heath.)

"THE IDEA OF LOW-PRICED FOREIGN CORN IS ALL A DELUSION."-SPEECH AT Winchester, Salisbury Herald, July 29, 1843, p. 3.

4. Messrs Cobden, Bright, and Moore, now affirm-"It is a base falsehood to say we want free trade, to enable us to reduce the rate of wages."-(Mr Cobden on Penenden Heath. Messrs Bright and Moore at Huntingdon.)

5. Cobden, Moore, and Bright, say, that it is to the interest of the farmer to have a total and immediate repeal.-(Uxbridge, Bedford, Huntingdon.34

[34] Extracted from a very admirable speech by Mr Day of Huntingdon, (Ollivier, 1843,) and which we earnestly recommend for perusal.

* * *

The disgusting selfishness and hypocrisy of such men as Cobden and his companions, in veiling their real objects under a pretended enmity to "Monopoly" and "Class Legislation"-and disinterested anxiety to procure for the poor the blessings of "cheap bread"-fills us with a just indignation; and we never see an account of their hebdomadal proceedings, but we exclaim, in the language of our immortal bard-

"Oh, Heaven! that such impostors thoud'st unfold,

And put in every honest hand a whip,

To lash the rascals naked through the land!"

While we repeat our deliberate opinion, that the Anti-corn-law League, as a body, is, in respect of actual present influence, infinitely less formidable than the vanity and selfish purposes of its members would lead them to wish the country to believe-we must add, that it is quite another question how long it will continue so. It may soon be converted-if indeed it has not already been secretly converted, into an engine of tremendous mischief, for other purposes than any ever contemplated by its originators. Suppose, in the next session of parliament, Ministers were to offer a law-fixed duty on corn: would that concession dissolve the League? Absurd-they have long ago scouted the idea of so ridiculous a compromise. Suppose they effected their avowed object of a total repeal of the Corn-laws-is any one weak enough to imagine that they would then dissolve? No-nor do they now dream of such a thing; but are at the present moment, as we are informed, "fraternizing" with other political societies of a very dangerous character, and on the eve of originating serious and revolutionary movements. Their present organization is precisely that of the French Jacobins; their plan of operation the same. Let any one turn to The League Circular of the 18th November, and he will see announced a plan of action on the part of this Association, precisely analagous, in all its leading features, to that of the French Jacobins: and we would call the attention of the legislature to the question, whether the Anti-corn-law League, in its most recent form of organization and plan of action, be not clearly within the provisions of statutes 57 Geo. III., c. 19, § 25 and 39; Geo. III., c. 79? What steps, if any, the legislature may take, is one thing; it is quite another, what course shall be adopted by the friends of the Conservative cause-the supporters of the British constitution. It is impossible to assign limits to the mischief which may be effected by the indefatigable and systematic exertions of the League to diffuse pernicious misrepresentations, and artful and popular fallacies, among all classes of society. That they entertain a fearfully envenomed hatred of the agricultural interest, is clear; and their evident object is to render the landed proprietors of this country objects of fierce hatred to the inferior orders of the community. "If a man tells me his story every morning of my life, by the year's end he will be my master," said Burke, "and I shall believe him, however untrue and improbable his story may be;" and if, whilst the Anti-corn-law League can display such perseverance, determination, and system, its opponents obstinately remain supine and silent, can any one wonder if such progress be not made by the League, in their demoralizing and revolutionary enterprize, that it will soon be too late to attempt even to arrest?

If this Journal has earned, during a quarter of a century's career of unwavering consistency and independence, any title to the respect of the Conservative party, we desire now to rely upon that title for the purpose of adding weight to our solemn protest against the want of union and energy-against the apathy, from whatever cause arising-now but too visible. In vain do we and others exert ourselves to the uttermost to diffuse sound political principles by means of the press; in vain do the distinguished leaders of our party fight the battles of the constitution with consummate skill and energy in parliament-if their exertions be not supported by corresponding energy and activity on the part of the Conservative constituencies, and those persons of talent and influence professing the same principles, by whom they can, and ought to be, easily set in motion. It is true that persons of liberal education, of a high and generous tone of feeling, of intellectual refinement, are entitled to treat such men as Cobden, Bright, and Acland, with profound contempt, and dislike the notion of personal contact or collision with them, as representatives of the foulest state of ill feeling that can be generated in the worst manufacturing regions-of sordid avarice, selfishness, envy, and malignity; but they are active-ever up and doing, and steadily applying themselves, with palatable topics, to the corruption of the hearts of the working classes. So, unless the persons to whom we allude choose to cast aside their morbid aversions-to be "UP AND AT them," in the language of the Duke of Waterloo-why then will be verified the observation of Burke-that "if, when bad men combine, the good do not associate, they will fall, one by one-an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." Vast as are our forces, they can effect comparatively nothing without union, energy, and system: with these, their power is tremendous and irresistible. What we would say, therefore, is-ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE! Let every existing Conservative club or association be stirred up into increased action, and put into real working trim forthwith; and where none such clubs or associations exist, let them be immediately formed, and set into cheerful and spirited motion. Let them all be placed under the vigilant superintendence of one or two real men of business-of local knowledge, of ability, and influence. We would point out Conservative solicitors as auxiliaries of infinite value to those engaged in the good cause; men of high character, of business habits, extensive acquaintance with the character and circumstances of the electors-and capable of bringing legitimate influence to bear upon them in a far more direct and effective manner than any other class of persons. One such gentleman-say a young and active solicitor, with a moderate salary, as permanent secretary in order to secure and, in some measure, requite his services throughout the year-would be worth fifty dilletante "friends of the good cause dropping in every now and then," but whose "friendship" evaporates in mere talk. Let every local Conservative newspaper receive constant and substantial patronage; for they are worthy of the very highest consideration, on account of the ability with which they are generally conducted, and their great influence upon local society. Many of them, to our own knowledge, display a degree of talent and knowledge which would do honour to the very highest metropolitan journals. Let them, then, be vigorously supported, their circulation extended through the influence of the resident nobility and gentry, and the clergy of every particular district throughout the kingdom. Let no opportunity be missed of exposing the true character of the vile and selfish agitators of the Anti-corn-law league. Let not the league have all the "publishing" to themselves; but let their impudent fallacies and falsehoods be instantly encountered and exposed on the spot, by means of small and cheap tracts and pamphlets, which shall bring plain, wholesome, and important truths home to the businesses and bosoms of the very humblest in the land. Again, let the resident gentry seek frequent opportunities of mingling with their humbler neighbours, friends, and dependents, by way of keeping up a cordial and hearty good understanding with them, so as to rely upon their effective co-operation whenever occasions may arise for political action.

Let all this be done, and we may defy a hundred Anti-corn-law Leagues. Let these objects be kept constantly in view, and the Anti-corn-law League will be utterly palsied, had it a hundred times its present funds-a thousand times its present members!

Let us now, however, turn for a brief space to Ireland; the present condition of which we contemplate with profound concern and anxiety, but with neither surprise nor dismay. As far as regards the Government, the state of affairs in Ireland bears at this moment unquestionable testimony to the stability and strength of the Government; and no one know this better than the gigantic impostor, to whom so much of the misery of that afflicted portion of the empire is owing. He perceives, with inexpressible mortification, that neither he nor his present position awake any sympathy or excitement whatever in the kingdom at large, where the enormity of his misconduct is fully appreciated, and every movement of the Government against him sanctioned by public opinion. The general feeling is one of profound disgust towards him, sympathy and commiseration for his long-plundered dupes and of perfect confidence that the Government will deal firmly and wisely with both. As for a Repeal of the Union! Pshaw! Every child knows that it is a notion too absurd to be seriously dealt with; that Great Britain would rather plunge instanter into the bloodiest civil war that ever desolated a country, than submit to the dismemberment of the empire by repealing the union between Great Britain and Ireland. This opinion has had, from time to time, every possible mode of authentic and solemn expression that can be given to the national will; in speeches from the Throne; in Parliamentary declarations by the leaders of both the Whig and Conservative Governments; the members of both Houses of Parliament are (with not a single exception worth noticing) unanimous upon the subject; the press, whether quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily, of all classes and shades of political opinions, is unanimous upon the subject; in society, whether high or low, the subject is never broached, except to enquire whether any one can, for one moment, seriously believe the Repeal of the Union to be possible. In Ireland itself, the vast majority of the intellect, wealth, and respectability of the island, without distinction of religion or politics, entertains the same opinion and determination which prevail in Great Britain. Is Mr O'Connell ignorant of all this? He knows it as certainly as he knows that Queen Victoria occupies the throne of these realms; and yet, down to his very last appearance in public, he has solemnly and perseveringly asseverated that the Repeal of the Union is an absolutely certain and inevitable event, and one that will happen within a few months! Is he in his senses? If so, he is speaking from his knowledge of some vast and dreadful conspiracy, which he has organized himself, which has hitherto escaped detection. The idea is too monstrous to be entertained for a moment. What, then, can Mr O'Connell be about? Our opinion is, that his sole object in setting on foot the Repeal agitation, was to increase his pecuniary resources, and at the same time overthrow Sir Robert Peel's Government, by showing the Queen and the nation that his admitted "chief difficulty"-Ireland-was one insuperable; and that he must consequently retire. We believe, moreover, that he is, to a certain extent, acting upon a secret understanding with the party of the late Government, who, however, never contemplated matters being carried to their present pitch; but that the Ministry would long ago have retired, terrified before the tremendous "demonstration" in Ireland. We feel as certain as if it were a past event, that, had the desperate experiment succeeded so far as to replace the present by the late Government, Mr O'Connell's intention was to have announced his determination to "give England ONE MORE trial"-to place Repeal once more in abeyance-in order to see whether England would really, at length, do "justice to Ireland;" in other words, restore the halcyon days of Lord Normanby's nominal, and Mr O'Connell's real, rule in Ireland, and enable him, by these means, to provide for himself, his family, and dependents; for old age is creeping rapidly upon him-his physical powers are no longer equal to the task of vigorous agitation-and he is known to be in utterly desperate circumstances. The reckless character of his proceedings during the last fifteen months, is, in our opinion, fully accounted for, by his unexpected discovery, that the ministry were strong enough to defy any thing that he could do, and to continue calmly in their course of administering, not pseudo, but real "justice to Ireland," supported in that course by the manifest favour and countenance of the Crown, overwhelming majorities in Parliament, and the decided and unequivocal expression of public opinion. His personal position was, in truth, inexpressibly galling and most critical, and he must have agitated, or sunk at once into ignominious obscurity and submission to a Government whom, individually and collectively, he loathed and abhorred. Vain were the hopes which, doubtless, he had entertained, that, as his agitation assumed a bolder form, it would provoke formidable demonstrations in England against Ministers and their policy; not a meeting could be got up to petition her Majesty for the dismissal of her Ministers! But it is quite conceivable that Mr O'Connell, in the course he was pursuing, forgot to consider the possibility of developing a power which might be too great for him, which would not be wielded by him, but carry him along with it. The following remarkable expressions fell from the perplexed and terrified agitator, at a great dinner at Lismore in the county of Waterford, in the month of September last:-"Like the heavy school-boy on the ice, my pupils are overtaking me. It is now my duty to regulate the vigour and temper the energy of the people-to compress, as it were, the exuberance of both."

We said that Mr O'Connell revived the Repeal agitation; and the fact was so. He first raised it in 1829-having, however, at various previous periods of his life, professed a desire to struggle for Repeal; but Mr Shiel, in his examination before the House of Commons in 1825, characterized such allusions as mere "rhetorical artifices." "What were his real motives," observes the able and impartial author of Ireland and its Rulers35, "when he announced his new agitation in 1829, can be left only to him to determine." It is probable that they were of so mixed a nature, that he himself could not accurately define them.... It is, however, quite possible, that, after having so long tasted of the luxuries of popularity, he could not consent that the chalice should pass from his lips. Agitation had, perhaps, begun to be necessary to his existence: a tranquil life would have been a hell to him." It would seem that Mr O'Connell's earliest recorded manifesto on Repeal was on the 3d June 1829, previous to the Clare election, on which occasion he said-"We want political excitement, in order that we may insist on our rights as Irishmen, but not as Catholics;" and on the 20th of the same month in the same year, 1829, he predicted-listen to this, ye his infatuated dupes!-"that BEFORE THREE YEARS THERE WOULD BE A PARLIAMENT IN DUBLIN!!!" In the general elections of 1832, it was proclaimed by Mr O'Connell, that no member should be returned unless he solemnly pledged himself to vote for the Repeal of the Union; but it was at the same time hinted, that if they would only enter the House as professed Repealers, they would never be required to VOTE for Repeal. On the hustings at the county of Waterford election, one of these gentry, Sir Richard Keave, on being closely questioned concerning the real nature of his opinion on Repeal, let out the whole truth:-"I will hold it as an imposing weapon to get justice to Ireland." This has held true ever since, and completely exemplifies all the intervening operations of Mr O'Connell. It has been his practice ever since "to connect every grievance with the subject of Repeal-to convert every wrongful act of any Government into an argument for the necessity of an Irish Legislature." Can it be wondered at that the present Government, thoroughly aware of the true state of the case-knowing their man-should regard the cry for Repeal simply as an imposture, its utterers as impostors? They did and do so regard it and its utterers-never allowing either the one or the other to disturb their administration of affairs with impartiality and firmness; but, nevertheless, keeping a most watchful eye upon all their movements.

[35] pp. 43, 50.

At length, whether emboldened by a conviction that the non-interference of the Government was occasioned solely by their incapacity to grapple with an agitation becoming hourly more formidable, and that thus his schemes were succeeding-or impelled onwards by those whom he had roused into action, but could no longer restrain-his movements became daily characterized by more astounding audacity-more vivid the glare of sedition, and even treason, which surrounded them: still the Government interfered not. Their apparent inaction most wondered, very many murmured, some were alarmed, and Mr O'Connell laughed at. Sir Robert Peel, on one occasion, when his attention was challenged to the subject in the House of Commons, replied, that "he was not in the least degree moved or disturbed by what was passing in Ireland." This perfect calmness of the Government served to check the rising of any alarm in the country; which felt a confidence of the Ministry's being equal to any exigency that could be contemplated. Thus stood matters till the 11th July last, when, at the close of the debate on the state of Ireland, Sir Robert Peel delivered a very remarkable speech. It consisted of a calm demonstration of the falsehood of all the charges brought by the Repealers against the imperial Parliament; of the impolicy and the impracticability of the various schemes for the relief of Ireland proposed by the Opposition; of the absolute impossibility of Parliament entertaining the question of a Repeal of the Union; and a distinct answer to the question-"What course do you intend to pursue?" That answer is worthy of being distinctly brought under the notice of the reader. "I am prepared to administer the law in Ireland upon principles of justice and impartiality. I am prepared to recognise the principle established by law-that there shall be equality in civil privileges. I am prepared to respect the franchise, to give substantially, although not nominally, equality. In respect to the social condition of Ireland-as to the relation of landlord and tenant36-I am prepared to give the most deliberate consideration to the important matters involved in those questions. With respect to the Established Church, I have already stated that we are not prepared to make an alteration in the law by which that Church is maintained."

[36] In conformity with this declaration, has been issued the recent commission, for "enquiring into the state of the law and practice in respect to the occupation of land in Ireland, and in respect also to the burdens of county cess and other charges, which fall respectively on the landlord and occupying tenant, and for reporting as to the amendments, if any, of the existing laws, which, having due regard to the just rights of property, may be calculated to encourage the cultivation of the soil, to extend a better system of agriculture, and to improve the relation between landlord and tenant, in that part of the United Kingdom."

We recollect being greatly struck with the ominous calmness perceptible in the tone of this speech. It seemed characterised by a solemn declaration to place the agitation of Ireland for ever in the wrong-to deprive them of all pretence for accusing England of having misgoverned Ireland since the Union. It appeared to us as if that speech had been designed to lay the basis of a contemplated movement against the agitation of the most decisive kind. The Government acted up to the spirit of the declaration, on that occasion, of Sir Robert Peel, with perfect dignity and resolution, unmoved by the taunts, the threats, the expostulations, or fears of either enemies or friends. Mr O'Connell's tone increased in audacity; but we greatly doubt whether in his heart he had not frequent misgivings as to the real nature of the "frightful silence"-"cette affreuse silence"-of a Government in whose councils the Duke of Wellington took a decided part, and which was actually at that moment taking complete military occupation of Ireland. On what information they were acting, no one knew; but their preparations were for the worst. During all this time nothing could exceed the tranquillity which prevailed in England. None of these threatening appearances, these tremendous preparations, caused the least excitement or alarm; the funds did not vary a farthing per cent in consequence of them; and to what could all this be ascribed but to the strength of public confidence in the Government? At length the harvest in Ireland had been got in; ships of war surrounded the coast; thirty thousand picked and chosen troops, ready for instant action, were disposed in the most masterly manner all over Ireland. With an almost insane audacity, Mr O'Connell appointed his crowning monster meeting to take place at Clontarf, in the immediate vicinity of the residence and presence of the Queen's representative, and of such a military force as rendered the bare possibility of encountering it appalling. The critical moment, however, for the interference of Government had at length arrived, and it spoke out in a voice of thunder, prohibiting the monster meeting. The rest is matter of history. The monster demagogue fell prostrate and confounded among his panic-stricken confederates; and, in an agony of consternation, declared their implicit obedience to the proclamation, and set about dispersing the myriad dupes, as fast as they arrived to attend the prohibited meeting. Thus was the Queen's peace preserved, her crown and dignity vindicated, without one sword being drawn or one shot being fired. Mr O'Connell had repeatedly "defied the Government to go to law with him." They have gone to law with him; and by this time we suspect that he finds himself in an infinitely more serious position than he has ever been in, during the whole of a long and prosperous career of agitation. Here, however, we leave him and his fellow defendants.

We may, however, take this opportunity of expressing our opinion, that there is not a shadow of foundation for the charges of blundering and incompetency which have been so liberally brought against the Irish Attorney-General. He certainly appears, in the earlier stages of the proceedings, to have evinced some little irritability-but, only consider, under what unprecedented provocation! His conduct has since, however, been characterised by calmness and dignity; and as for his legal capabilities, all competent judges who have attended to the case, will pronounce them to be first-rate; and we feel perfectly confident that his future conduct of the proceedings will convince the public of the justness of our eulogium.

The selection by the Government of the moment for interference with Mr O'Connell's proceedings, was unquestionably characterised by consummate prudence. When the meetings commenced in March or April, this year, they had nothing of outward character which could well be noticed. They professed to be meetings to petition Parliament for Repeal; and, undoubtedly, no lawyer could say that such a meeting would per se be illegal, any more than a meeting to complain of Catholic relief, or to pray for its repeal-or for any other matter which is considered a settled part of the established constitution. The mere numbers were certainly alarming, but the meetings quietly dispersed without any breach of the peace: and after two or three such meetings, without any disturbance attending them, no one could with truth swear that he expected a breach of the peace as a direct consequence of such a meeting, though many thought they saw a civil war as a remote consequence. The meetings went on: some ten, twelve, fifteen occurred,-still no breach of the peace, no disturbance. The language, indeed, became gradually more seditious-more daring and ferocious: but, as an attempt to put down the first meeting by force would have been considered a wanton act of oppression, and a direct interference with the subject's right to petition, it became a very difficult practical question, at what moment any legal notice could be taken by prosecution, or executive notice by proclamation, to put down such meetings. Notwithstanding several confident opinions to the contrary advanced by the newspaper press at the time, a greater mistake-indeed a grosser blunder-could not have been made, than to have prosecuted those who attended the early meetings, or to have sent the police or the military to put those meetings down. An acquittal in the one case, or a conflict in the other, would have been attended with most mischievous consequences; and, as to the latter, it is clear that the executive never ought to interfere unless with a force which renders all resistance useless. It appears perfectly clear to us, even now, that a prosecution for the earlier meetings must have failed; for there existed then none of that evidence which would prove the object and the nature of the association: and to proclaim a meeting, without using force to prevent or disperse it if it defied the proclamation; and to use force without being certain that the extent of the illegality would carry public opinion along with the use of force; further, to begin to use force without being sure that you have enough to use-would be acts of madness, and, at least, of great and criminal disregard of consequences. Now, when meeting after meeting had taken place, and the general design, and its mischief, were unfolded, it became necessary that some new feature should occur to justify the interference of Government; and that occurred at the Clontarf meeting. No meeting had, before that, ventured to call itself "Repeal infantry;" and to Clontarf horsemen also were summoned, and were designated "Repeal cavalry;" and, in the orders for their assembling, marching, and conducting themselves, military directions were given; and the meeting, had it been permitted to assemble, would have been a parade of cavalry, ready for civil war. It would have been a sort of review-in the face of the city of Dublin, in open defiance of all order and government. Let us add, that, just at that time, Mr O'Connell had published his "Address to all her Majesty's subjects, in all parts of her dominions," (a most libellous and treasonable publication;) and the arrangements to secure the peace were more complete, and could be brought to bear more easily, on the Clontarf than on any of the preceding meetings. The occasion presented itself, and as soon as possible the Irish authorities assembled at Dublin; the proclamation appeared; the ground was pre-occupied, and a force that was irresistible went out to keep the peace, and prevent the meeting. The result showed the perfect success of the Government's enterprise.

As the foregoing topics will doubtless occupy much of the attention of parliament during the ensuing session, we were anxious to place on record our own opinions, as the result of much reflection, during a period when events were transpiring which threw upon the Government an awful responsibility, and rendered their course one of almost unprecedented difficulty. Modern times, we are convinced, have witnessed but few instances of such a masterly policy, combined with signal self-reliance.

One or two general topics connected with Ireland, we have time only to glance at. First.-From the faint reluctant disavowal and discouragement of Mr O'Connell and his Repeal agitation, by the leading ex-Ministers during the last session, when emphatically challenged by Sir Robert Peel to join him in denouncing the attempted dismemberment of the empire, irrespective and independent of all party consideration, we are prepared to expect that in the ensuing session, the Opposition will, to a great extent, make common cause with Mr O'Connell, out of mingled fear, and gratitude, and hope towards their late friend and patron. Such a course will immensely strengthen the hands of the Queen's Government.

Secondly.-To any thoughtful and independent politician, the present Sovereign state of Ireland demonstrates the utter impossibility of governing it upon the principle of breaking down or disparaging the Protestant interest. Such a course would tend only to bloody and interminable anarchy.

Thirdly.-Ireland's misery springs from social more than political evils; and the greatest boon that Providence could give her, would be a powerful government inflexibly resolved to put down agitation.

Lastly.-Can we wonder at the exasperation of the peasantry, who have for so many years had their money extorted from them, without ever having had, up to this moment, the shadow of an equivalent? And how long is this disgraceful pillage to go on? But we must conclude. The ensuing session of parliament may, and probably will, be a stormy one, and harassing to the Government; but they may prepare to encounter it with cheerful confidence. Their measures, during their brief tenure of office, have been attended with extraordinary success-and of that both the sovereign and the country are thoroughly aware, and we entertain high hopes concerning the future. We expect to see their strong majority in the House of Commons rather augmented than diminished by reason of the events which have happened during the recess. If the Ministers remain firm in their determination-and who doubts it?-to support the agricultural interests of the country, and persevere in their present vigorous policy towards Ireland, the Government is impregnable, and the surges of Repeal agitation in Ireland, and Anti-corn-law agitation in England, will dash against it in vain. So long as they pursue this course, they will be cheered by augmented indications of the national good-will, and of that implicit and affectionate confidence in their councils, which, we rejoice to know, is vouchsafed to her Ministers by our gracious Sovereign.