The prosecutor (if this system were altered) would have the choice of counsel: so he has now-with this difference, that, at present, his counsel cannot be answered nor opposed. It would be better in all cases, if two men of exactly equal talent could be opposed to each other; but as this is impossible, the system must be taken with this inconvenience; but there can be no inequality between counsel so great as that between any counsel and the prisoner pleading for himself. It has been lately my lot,' says Mr. Denman, to try two prisoners who were deaf and dumb, and who could only be made to understand what was passing by the signs of their friends. The cases were clear and simple; but if they had been circumstantial cases, in what a situation would the judge and jury be placed, when the prisoner could have no counsel to plead for him.-Debates of the House of Commons, April, 25, 1826. cases should be so much objected to in criminal ca- | must fling every thing into confusion. The court for ses? Would you have all this wrangling and bicker- misdemeanours must be a scene of riot and perplexiing, it is asked, and contentious eloquence, when the ty; and the detection and punishment of crime must life of a man is concerned? Why not, as well as be utterly impossible: and yet in the very teeth of when his property is concerned? It is either a good these objections, such courts of justice are just as ormeans of doing justice, or it is not, that two under- derly in one set of offences as the other; and the constandings should be put in opposition to each other, viction of a guilty person just as certain and as easy. and that a third should decide between them. Does this open every view which can bear upon the question? Does it in the most effectual manner watch the judge, detect perjury, and sift evidence? If not, why is it suffered to disgrace our civil institutions? If it effect all these objects, why is it not incorporated into our criminal law? Of what importance is a little disgust at professional tricks, if the solid advantage gained is a nearer approximation to truth? Can any thing be more preposterous than this preference of taste to justice, and of solemnity to truth? What an eulogium of a trial to say,' I am by no means satisfied that the jury were right in finding the prisoner guilty; but every thing was carried on with the utmost decorum. The verdict was wrong; but there was the most perfect propriety and order in the proceedings. The man will be unfairly hanged; but all was genteel? If solemnity is what is principally wanted in a court of justice, we had better study the manners of the old Spanish Inquisition; but if battles with the judge, and battles among the counsel, are the best method, as they certainly are, of getting at the truth, better tolerate this philosophical Billingsgate, than persevere, because the life of a man is at stake, in solemn and polished injustice. The folly of being counsel for yourself is so notorious in civil cases, that it has grown into a proverb. But the cruelty of the law compels a man, in criminal cases, to be guilty of a much greater act of folly, and to trust his life to an advocate, who, by the common sense of mankind, is pronounced to be inadequate to defend the possession of an acre of land. In all cases Why would it not be just as wise and equitable to it must be supposed, that reasonably convenient inleave the defendant without counsel in civil cases, and struments are selected to effect the purpose in view. to tell him that the judge was his counsel? And if A judge may be commonly presumed to understand the reply is to produce such injurious effects as are his profession, and a jury to have a fair allowance of anticipated upon the minds of the jury in criminal common sense; but the objectors to the improvement cases, why not in civil cases also? In twenty-eight we recommend appear to make no such suppositions. cases out of thirty, the verdict in civil cases is correct: Counsel are always to make flashy addresses to the in the two remaining cases, the error may proceed passions. Juries are to be so much struck with them, from other causes than the right of reply; and yet the that they are always to acquit or to condemn, contraright of reply has existed in all. In a vast majority ry to justice; and judges are always to be so biassed, of cases, the verdict is for the plaintiff, not because that they are to fling themselves rashly into the oppothere is a right of reply, but because he who has it in site scale against the prisoner. Many cases of misdehis power to decide whether he will go to law or not, meanour consign a man to infamy, and cast a blot and resolves to expose himself to the expense and upon his posterity. Judges and juries must feel these trouble of a lawsuit, has probably a good foundation cases as strongly as any cases of felony; and yet, in for his claim. Nobody, of course, can intend to say spite of this, and in spite of the free permission of that the majority of verdicts in favour of plaintiffs are counsel to speak, they preserve their judgment, and against justice, and merely attributable to the advan-command their feelings, surprisingly. Generally speaktage of a last speech. If this were the case, the sooner ing, we believe none of these evils would take place. advocates are turned out of court the better-and then Trumpery declamation would be considered as discrethe improvement of both civil and criminal law would ditable to the counsel, and would be disregarded by be an abolition of all speeches; for those who dread the jury. The judge and jury (as in civil cases) would the effect of the last word upon the fate of the priso- gain the habit of looking to the facts, selecting the ner, must remember that there is at present always a arguments, and coming to reasonable conclusions. It last speech against the prisoner; for, as the counsel is so in all other countries, and it would be so in this. for the prosecution cannot be replied to, his is the last But the vigilance of the judge is to relax, if there is speech. counsel for the prisoner. Is, then, the relaxed vigilance of the judges complained of, in high treason, in misdemeanour, or in civil cases? This appears to us really to shut up the debate, and to preclude reply. Why is the practice so good in all other cases, and so pernicious in felony alone? This question has never received even the shadow of an answer. There is no one objection against the allowance of counsel to prisoners in felony, which does not apply to them in all cases. If the vigilance of judges depend upon this injustice to the prisoner, then, the greater injustice to the prisoner, the more vigilance; and so the true method of perfecting the Bench would be, to deny the prisoner the power of calling witnesses, and to increase, as much as possible, the disparity between the accuser and the accused. We hope men are selected for the Judges of Israel, whose vigilance depends upon better and higher principles. There is certainly this difference between a civil and a criminal case that in one a new trial can be granted, in the other not. But you must first make up your mind whether this system of contentious investigation by opposite advocates is or is not the best method of getting at truth: if it be, the more irremediable the decision. the more powerful and perfect should be the means of deciding; and then it would be a less oppression if the civil defendent were deprived of counsel than the criminal prisoner. When an error has been committed, the advantage is greater to the latter of these persons than to the former; the criminal is not tried again, but pardoned; while the civil defendant must run the chance of another jury. If the effect of reply, and the contention, of counsel have all these baneful consequences in felony, why not also in misdemeanour and high treason? Halt the cases at sessions are cases of misdemeanour, where counsel are employed and half-informed justices preside instead of learned judges. There are no complaints of the unfairness of verdicts, though there are every now and then of the severity of punishments. Now, if the reasoning of Mr. Lamb's opponents were true, the disturbing force of the prisoner's counsel But the most singular caprice of the law is, that counsel are permitted in very high crimes, and in very small crimes, and denied in crimes of a sort of medium description. In high treason, where you mean to murder Lord Liverpool, and to levy war against the people, and to blow up the two houses of Parliament, all the lawyers of Westminster Hall may talk them. English prisoners, we believe many are found guilty who are innocent, and would not have been found guilty, if an able and intelligent man had watched over their interest, and represented their case. If this happen only to two or three every year, it is quite a sufficient reason why the law should be altered. That such cases exist we firmly believe; and this is the practical evil-perceptible to men of sense and reflec tion; but not likely to become the subject of general petition. To ask why there are not petitions-why the evil is not more noticed, is mere parliamentary froth and ministerial juggling. Gentlemen are rarely hung. If they were so, there would be petitions without end for counsel. The creatures exposed to the cruelties and injustice of the law are dumb creatures, who feel the evil without being able to express their feelings. Besides, the question is not, whether the evil is found out, but whether the evil exist. Whoever thinks it is an evil should vote against it, whether the sufferer from the injustice discover it to be an injustice, or whether he suffer in ignorant silence. When the bill there was not a petition from one end of England to the other. Can there be a more shocking answer from the ministerial bench, than to say, For real evil we care nothing-only for detected evil? We will set about curing any wrong which affects our popularity and power: but as to any other evil, we wait till the people find it out; and, in the mean time, commit such evils to the care of Mr. George Lamb, and of Sir James Mackintosh. We are sure so good a man as Mr. Peel can never feel in this manner. selves dry, and the jury deaf. Lord Eldon, when at the bar, has been heard for nine hours on such subjects. If, instead of producing the destruction of five thousand people, you are indicted for the murder of one person, here human faculties, from the diminution of guilt, are supposed to be so clear and unclouded, that the prisoner is quite adequate to make his own defence, and no cousel are allowed. Take it, then, upon that principle; and let the rule, and the reason of it, pass as sufficient. But if, instead of murdering the man, you have only libelled him, then, for some reason or another, though utterly unknown to us, the original faculties in accused persons is respected, and counsel are allowed. Was ever such nonsense defended by public men in grave assemblies? The prosecutor, too, (as Mr. Horace Twiss justly observes) can either allow or disallow counsel, by selecting his form of prosecution; as where a mob had assembled to repeal, by riot and force, some unpopular statute, and certain persons had continued in that assembly for more than an hour after proclamation to disperse.That might be treated as levying war against the was enacted, which allowed counsel for treason, king, and then the prisoner would be entitled to receive (as Lord George Gordon did receive) the benefit of counsel. It might also be treated as a seditious riot; then it would be a misdemeanor, and counsel would still be allowed. But if government had a mind to destroy the prisoner effectually, they have only to abstain from the charge of treason, and to introduce into the indictment the aggravation, that the prisoner had continued with the mob for an hour after proclamation to disperse; this is a felony, the prisoner's life is in jeopardy, and counsel are effectually excluded. It produces, in many other cases disconnected with treason, the most scandalous injustice. A receiver of stolen goods, who employs a young girl to rob her master, may be tried for the misdemeanour; the young girl, taken afterwards, would be tried for the felony. The receiver would be punishable only with fine, imprisonment, or whipping, and he could have counsel to defend him. The girl indicted for felony, and liable to death, would enjoy no such advantage. In the comparison between felony and treason, there are certainly some arguments why counsel should be allowed in felony rather than in treason. Persons accused of treason are generally persons of education and rank, accustomed to assemblies, and to public speaking, while men accused of felony are commonly of the lowest of the people. If it be true, that judges, in cases of high reason, are more liable to be influenced by the crown, and to lean against the prisoner, this cannot apply to cases of misdemeanour, or to the defendants in civil cases; but if it be necessary that judges should be watched in political cases, how often are cases of felony connected with political disaffection? Every judge, too, has his idiosyncrasies, which require to be watched. Some hate Dissenters, some mobs; some have one weakness, some another; and the ultimate truth is, that no court of justice is safe, unless there is some one present whose occupation and interest it is to watch the safety of the prisoner. Till then, no man of right feeling can be easy at the administration of justice, and the punishment of death. Two men are accused of one offence; the one dexterous, bold, subtle, gifted with speech, and remarkable for presence of mind; the other timid, hesitating, and confused; is there any reason why the chances of these two men for acquittal should be, as they are, so very different? Inequalities there will be in the means of defence under the bes: system, but there is no occasion the law should make these greater than they are left to chance and nature. Howard devoted himself to his country. It was a noble example. Let two gentlemen on the ministerial side of the house (we only ask for two) commit some crimes, which will render their execution a matter of painful necessity. Let them feel and report to the house, all the injustice and inconvenience of having neither a copy of the indictment, nor a list of witnesses, nor counsel to defend them. We will venture to say, that the evidence of two such persons would do more for the improvement of the criminal law, than all the orations of Mr. Lamb, or the lucubrations of Beccaria. Such evidence would save time, and bring the question to an issue. It is a great duty, and ought to be fulfilled; and, in ancient Rome, would have been fulfilled. The opponents always forget that Mr. Lamb's plan is not to compel prisoners to have counsel, but to allow them to have counsel if they choose to do so. Depend upon it, as Dr. Johnson says, when a mau is going to be hanged, his faculties are wonderfully concentrated. If it be really true, as the defenders of Mumpsimus observe, that the judge is the best counsel for the prisoner, the prisoner will soon learn to employ him, especially as his lordship works without fees. All that we want is an option given to the prisoner, that a man, left to adopt his own means of defence in every trifling civil right, may have the same power of selecting his own auxiliaries for higher interests. But nothing can be more unjust than to speak of judges, as if they were of one standard, and one heart and head pattern. The great majority of judges, we have no doubt. are upright and pure; bnt some have been selected for flexible politics-some are passionate-some are in a hurry-some are violent churchmen-some resemble ancient females-some have the gout-some are eighty years old-some are blind, deaf, and have lost the power of smelling. All one to the unhappy prisoner-he has no choice. It is impossible to put so gross an insult upon judgBut (it is asked) what practical injustice is done-es, jurymen, grand-jurymen, or any person connected what practical evil is there in the present system? with the administration of justice, as to suppose that The great object of all law is, that the guilty should the longer time to be taken up by speeches of counsel be punished, and the innocent should be acquitted. A very great majority of prisoners, we admit, are guilty, and so clearly guilty, that we believe they would be found guilty under any system: but among the number of those who are tried, some are innocent, and the chance of establishing their innocence is very much diminished by the privation of counsel. In the course of twenty or thirty years, among the whole mass of constitutes the grind bar to the proposed alteration. If three hours would acquit a man, and he is hanged because he is only allowed two hours for his defonce, the poor man is as much murdered as if his throat had been cut before he came into court. If twelve judges cannot do the most perfect justice, other twelve must be appointed. Strange administratiou of criminal law, to adhere obstinately to an inadequate number of judges, and to refuse any improvement which is incompatible with this arbitrary and capricious enactment. Neither is it quite certain that the proposed alteration would create a greater demand upon the time of the court. At present the counsel makes a defence by long cross-examinations and examinations in chief of the witnesses, and the judge allows a greater latitude than he would do, if the counsel of the prisoner were permitted to speak. The counsel by these oblique methods, and by stating false points of law for the express purpose of introducing facts, endeavours to obviate the injustice of the law, and takes up more time by this oblique, than he would do by a direct defence. But the best answer to this objection of time (which, if true, is no objection at all) is, that as many misdemeanors as felonies are tried in a given time, though counsel are allowed in the former, and not in the latter case. | facts, and prefer his arguments. Then criminal jus- One excuse for the absence of counsel is that the evidence upon which the prisoner is convicted is always so clear, that the counsel cannot gainsay it. This is mere absurdity. There is not, and cannot be such a rule. Many a man has been hung upon a string of circumstantial evidence, which not only very ingenious men, but very candid and judicious men, might criticise and call in question. If no one were found guilty but upon such evidence as would not admit of a doubt, half the crimes in the world would be unpunished. This dictum, by which the present practice has often been defended, was adopted by Lord Chancellor Not-1. tingham. To the lot of this chancellor, however, it fell to pass sentence of death upon Lord Stafford, whom (as Mr. Denman justly observes) no court of justice, not even the house of lords (constituted as it was in those days) could have put to death, if he had had counsel to defend him. 3. 3. CATHOLICS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1827.) 4 Plain Statement in support of the Political Claims of the Roman Catholics; in a Letter to the Rev. Sir George Lee, Bart. By Lord Nugent, Member of Parliament for Aylesbury. London, Hookham. 1826. A Letter to Viscount Milton, M. P. By One of his Con stituents. London, Ridgway. 1827. Charge by the Archbishop of Cashel. Dublin, Milliken. To improve the criminal law of England, and to If a poor man were to accept a guinea upon the make it really deserving of the incessant eulogium condition that he spoke all the evil he could of another which is lavished upon it, we would assimilate tri- whom he believed to be innocent, and whose privaals for felony to trials for high treason. The pri- tions he knew he should increase by his false testisoner should not only have counsel, but a copy mony, would not the person so hired be one of the of the indictment and a list of the witnesses, many worst and basest of human beings? And would not days antecedent to the trial. It is in the highest de- his guilt be aggravated, if, up to the moment of regree unjust that I should not see and study the de- ceiving his aceldama, he had spoken in terms of high scription of the crime with which I am charged, if the praise of the person whom he subsequently accused? most scrupulous exactness be required in that instru- Would not the latter feature of the case prove him to ment which charges me with crime. If the place where, be as much without shame as the former evinced him the time when, and the manner how, and the persons by to be without principle? Would the guilt be less, if the whom, must all be specified with the most perfect ac-person so hired were a man of education? Would it be curacy, if any deviation from this accuracy is fatal, the less, if he were above want? Would it be less, if the prisoner, or his legal advisers, should have a full oppor- profession and occupation of his life were to decide tunity of judging whether the scruples of the law have men's rights, or to teach them morals and religion? been attended to in the formation of the indictment; Would it be less by the splendour of the bribe? Does a and they ought not to be confined to the hasty and im- bribe of 30007. leave a man innocent, whom a bribe of perfect consideration which can be given to an indict- 301. would cover with infamy? You are of a mature pement exhibited for the first time in court. Neither is riod of life, when the opinions of an honest man ought it possible for the prisoner to repel accusation till he to be, and are fixed. On Monday you were a barrister knows who is to be brought against him. He may or a country clergyman, a serious and temperate friend see suddenly, stuck up in the witness's box, a man to religious liberty and Catholic emancipation. In a who has been writing him letters, to extort money few weeks from this time you are a bishop, or a dean, from the threat of evidence he could produce. The of a judge-publishing and speaking charges and sercharacter of such a witness would be destroyed in a mons against the poor Catholics, and explaining away moment, if the letters were produced; and the letters this sale of your soul by every species of falsehood, would have been produced, of course, if the prisoner shabbiness, and equivocation. You may carry a bit had imagined such a person would have been brought of ermine on your shoulder, or hide the lower moiety forward by the prosecutor. It is utterly impossible of the body in a silken pettiooat-and men may call for a prisoner to know in what way he may be assail- you Mr. Dean, or My Lord; but you have sold your ed, and against what species of attack he is to guard. honour and your conscience for money; and, though Conversations may be brought against him which he better paid, you are as base as the witness who stands has forgotten, and to which he could (upon notice) at the door of the judgment-hall, to swear whatever have given another colour and complexion. Actions the suborner will put into his mouth, and to receive are made to bear upon his case, which (if he had whatever he will put in his pocket.f known they would have been referred to) might have been explained in the most satisfactory manner. All these modes of attack are pointed out by the list of witnesses transmitted to the prisoner, and he has time to prepare his answer, as it is perfectly just he should have. This is justice, when a prisoner has ample means of compelling the attendance of his witnesses; when his written accusation is put into his hand, and he has time to study it-when he knows in what manner his guilt is to be proved, and when he has a man of practised understanding to state his When soldiers exercise, there stands a goodly portly person out of the ranks, upon whom all eyes are directed, and whose signs and motions, in the per * All this nonsense is now put an end to. Counsel is al lowed to the prisoner, and they are permitted to speak in his defence. It is very far from our intention to say that all who were for the Catholics, and are now against them, have made this change from base motives; it is equally far from our intention not to say that many men of both professions have subjected themselves to this shocking imputation. man. As formance of the manual exercise, all the soldiers fol- in a man who has two courses, and a remove! low. The Germans, we believe, call him a Flugel- you value your side-board of plate, your broad riband, We propose Lord Nugent as a political flugel- your pier glasses-if obsequious domestics and large man; he is always consistent, plain and honest, rooms are dear to you-if you love ease and flattery, steadily and straightly pursuing his object without titles and coats of arms-if the labour of the French hope or fear, under the influence of good feelings and cook, the dedication of the expecting poet, can move high principle. The House of Commons does not con-you-if you hope for a long life of side-dishes-if you tain within its walls a more honest, upright man. are not insensible to the periodical arrival of the turtle We seize upon the opportunity which this able fleets-emancipate the Catholics! Do it for your pamphlet of his lordship affords us, to renew our attention to the Catholic question. There is little new to be said; but we must not be silent, or, in these days of baseness and tergiversation, we shall be supposed to have deserted our friend the Pope; and they will say of us, Prostant venales apud Lambeth et Whitehall. God forbid it should ever be said of us with justice—it is pleasant to loll and roll, and to accumulate to be a purple and fine linen man, and to be called by some of those nicknames which frail and ephemeral beings are so fond of accumulating upon each other; but the best thing of all is to live like honest men, and to add something to the cause of liberality, justice, and truth. The Letter to Lord Milton is very well and very pleasantly written. We were delighted with the liberality and candour of the Archbishop of Cashel. The charge is in the highest degree creditable to him. He must lay his account for the furious hatred of bigots, and the incessant gnawing of rats. There are many men who (thoroughly aware that the Catholic question must be ultimately carried) delay their acquiescence till the last moment, and wait till the moment of peril and civil war before they yield. That this moment is not quite so remote as was supposed a twelvemonth since, the events now passing in the world seem to afford the strongest proof. The truth is, that the disaffected state of Ireland is a standing premium for war with every cabinet in Europe which has the most distant intention of quarrelling with this country for any other cause. If we are to go to war, let us do so when the discontents of Ireland are at their greatest height, before any spirit of concession has been shown by the British cabinet.' Does any man imagine that so plain and obvious a principle has not been repeatedly urged on the French cabinet?-that the eyes of the Americans are shut upon the state of Ireland-and that the great and ambitious republic will not, in case of war, aim a deadly blow at this most sensitive part of the British empire? We should really say, that England has fully as much to fear from Irish fraternization with America as with France. The language is the same; the Americans have preceded them in the struggle; the number of emigrant and rebel Irish is very great in America; and all parties are sure of perfect toleration under the protection of America. We are astonished at the madness and folly of Englishmen, who do not perceive that both France and America are only waiting for a convenient opportunity to go to war with this country; and that one of the first blows aimed at our independence would be the invasion of Ireland. We should like to argue this matter with a regular tory lord, whose members voted steadily against the Catholic question. I wonder that mere fear does not make you give up the Catholic question! Do you mean to put this fine place in danger-the venisonthe pictures the pheasants-the cellars-the hothouse and the grapery? Should you like to see six or seven thousand French or Americans landed in Ireland, and aided by a universal insurrection of the Catholics? Is it worth your while to run the risk of their success? What evil from the possible encroachment of Catholics, by civil exertions, can equal the danger of such a position as this? How can a man of your carriages, and horses, and hounds, think of putting your high fortune in such a predicament, and crying out, like a schoolboy or a chaplain, "Oh, we shall beat them! we shall put the rascals down!" No Popery, I admit to your lordship, is a very convenient cry at an election, and has answered your end; but do not push the matter too far: to bring on a civil war, for no popery is a very foolish proceeding ease, do it for your insolence, do it for your safetyemancipate and eat, emancipate and drink-emancipate and preserve the rent-roll and the family estate !' The most common excuse of the Great Shabby is, that the Catholics are their own enemies-that the violence of Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Shiel have ruined their cause-that, but for these boisterous courses, the question would have been carried before this time. The answer to this nonsense and baseness is, that the very reverse is the fact. The mild and long-suffering may suffer forever in this world. If the Catholics had stood with their hands before them simpering at the Earls of Liverpool and the Lords Bathurst of the moment, they would not have been emancipated till the year of our Lord four thousand. As long as the patient will suffer, the cruel will kick. No treason-no rebellion-but as much stubborness and stoutness as the law permits-a thorough intimation that you know what is your due, and that you are determined to have it if you can lawfully get it. This is the conduct we recommend to the Irish. If they go on withholding, and forbearing, and hesitating whether this is the time for the discussion or that is the time, they will be laughed at for another century as fools-and kicked for another century as slaves. I must have my bill paid (says the sturdy and irritated tradesman); your master has put me off twenty times under different pretences. I know he is at home, and I will not quit the premises till I get the money. Many a tradesman gets paid in this manner, who would soon smirk and smile himself into the gazette, if he trusted to the promises of the great. Can anything be so utterly childish and foolish as to talk of the bad taste of the Catholic leaders?—as if, in a question of conferring on, or withholding important civil rights from seven millions of human beings, anything could arrest the attention of a wise man but the good or evil consequences of so great a measure. Suppose Mr. S. does smell slightly of tobacco-admit Mr. L. to be occasionally stimulated by rum and water, allow that Mr. F. was unfeeling in speaking of the Duke of York-what has all this nonsense to do with the extinction of religious hatred and the pacification of Ireland? Give it if it is right, refuse it if it is wrong. How it is asked, or how it is given or refused, is less than the dust of the balance. What is the reason why a good honest tory, living at ease on his possessions, is an enemy to Catholic emancipation? He admits the Catholic of his own rank to be a gentleman, and not a bad subject-and about theological disputes an excellent tory never troubles his head. Of what importance is it to him whether an Irish Catholic or an Irish Protestant is a judge in the King's Bench at Dublin? None; but I am afraid for the church of Ireland, says our alarmist. Why do you care so much for the church of Ireland, a country you never live in?-Answer-I do not care so much for the church of Ireland, if I was sure the Church of England would not be destroyed.-And is it for the Church of England alone that you fear?—Answer— Not quite to that, but I am afraid we should all be lost, that every thing would be overturned, and that I should lose my rank and my estate. Here, then, we say, is a long series of dangers, which (if there were any chance of their ever taking place) would require half a century for their developement; and the danger of losing Ireland by insurrection and invasion, which may happen in six months, is utterly overlooked, and forgotten. And if a foreign influence should ever be fair. ly established in Ireland, how many hours would the Irish church, how many months would the English church, live after such an event? How much is any English title worth after such an event-any English family-any English estate? We are astonished that the brains of rich Englishmen do not fall down into their bellies in talking of the Catholic question-that they do not reason through the cardia and the pylorus -that all the organs of digestion do not become intellectual. The descendants of the proudest nobleman in England may become beggars in a foreign land from this disgraceful nonsense of the Catholic question -fit only for the ancient females of a market town. What alarms us in the state of England is the uncertain basis on which its prosperity is placed-and the prodigious mass of hatred which the English government continues, by its obstinate bigotry, to accumulate-eight hundred and forty millions sterling of debt-the revenue depending upon the demand for the shoes, stockings, and breeches of Europe-and seven millions of Catholics in a state of the greatest fury and exasperation. We persecute as if we did not owe a shilling-we spend as if we had no disaffection. This, by possibility, may go on; but it is dangerous walking the chance is, there will be a fall. No wise man should take such a course. All probabilities are against it. We are astonished that Lord Hertford and Lord Lowther, shrewd and calculating tories, do not see that it is nine to one against such a game. It is not only the event of war we fear in the military struggle with Ireland; but the expense of war, and the expenses of the English government, are paving the way for future revolutions. The world never yet saw so extravagant a government as the government of England. Not only is economy not practised -but it is despised; and the idea of it connected with disaffection, Jacobinism, and Joseph Hume. Every rock in the ocean where a cormorant can perch is occupied by our troops-has a governor, deputy-governor, store-keeper, and deputy-store-keeper, and will soon have an archdeacon and a bishop. Military colleges, with twenty-four professors, educating seventeen ensigns per annum, being half an ensign for each professor, with every species of nonsense, athletic, sartorial, and plumigerous. A just and necessary war costs this country about one hundred pounds a minute; whipcord fifteen thousand pounds; red tape seven thousand pounds; lace for drummers and fifers, nineteen thousand pounds; a pension to one man who has broken his head at the Pole; to another who has shattered his leg at the Equator; subsidies to Persia; secret service money to Thibet; an annuity to Lady Henry Somebody and her seven daughters-the hus band being shot at some place where we never ought to have had any soldiers at all; and the elder brother returning four members to Parliament. Such a scene of extravagance, corruption, and expense as must paralyze the industry, and mar the fortunes, of the most industrious, spirited people that ever existed. of Damocles still hangs over them-not suspended, indeed, by a thread, but by a cart-rope-still it hangs there an insult, if not an injury, and prevents the painful idea from presenting itself to the mind of perfect toleration, and pure justice. There is the larva of tyranny, and the skeleton of malice. Now this is all we presume to ask for the Catholics-admission to Parliament, exclusion from every possible office by law, and annual indemnity for the breach of law. This is surely much more agreeable to feebleness, to littleness, and to narrowness, than to say the Catholics are as free and as eligible as ourselves. The most intolerable circumstance of the Catholic dispute is, the conduct of the Dissenters. Any man may dissent from the Church of England, and preach against it, by paying six-pence. Almost every tradesman in a market town is a preacher. It must absolutely be ride and tie with them; the butcher must hear the baker in the morning, and the baker listen to the butcher in the afternoon, or there would be no congregation. We have often speculated upon the peculiar trade of the preacher from his style of action. Some have a tying-up or parcel-packing action; some strike strongly against the anvil of the pulpit ; some screw, some bore, some act as if they were managing a needle. The occupation of the preceding week can seldom be mistaken. In the country, three or four thousand Ranters are sometimes encamped, supplicating in religious platoons, or roaring psalms out of waggons. Now, all this freedom is very proper; because, though it is abused, yet in truth there is no other principle in religious matters, than to let men alone as long as they keep the peace. Yet we should imagine this unbounded license of Dissenters should teach them a little charity towards the Catholics, and a little respect for their religious freedom. But the picture of sects is this-there are twenty fettered men in a jail, and every one is employed in loosening his own fetters with one hand, and rivetting those of his neighbour with the other. " "If, then," says a minister of our own church, the Reverend John Fisher, rector of Wavenden, in this county, in a sermon published some years ago, and entitled "The Utility of the Church Establishment, and its Safety consistent with Religious Freedom "-"If, then, the Protestant religion could have originally worked its way in this country against numbers, prejudices, bigotry, and interest; if, in times of its infancy, the power of the prince could not prein the affections of the people-when invested with authorvail against it; surely, when confirmed by age, and rooted ity, and in enjoyment of wealth and power-when cherished by a sovereign who holds his very throne by this sacred tenure, and whose conscientious attachment to it well warrants the title of Defender of the Faith-surely any attack upon it must be contemptible, any alarm of danger must be imaginary."'-Lord Nugent's Letter, p. 18. Few men consider the historical view which will be taken of present events. The bubbles of last year; To go into a committee upon the state of the Catho. the fishing for crowns in Vigo Bay; the Milk Muffin lic laws is to reconsider, as Lord Nugent justly obser. and Crumpet Companies; the Apple, Pear, and Plum ves, passages in our domestic history, which bear date Associations; the National Gooseberry and Currant about 270 years ago. Now, what human plan, device, Company; will all be remembered as instances of that or invention, 270 years old, does not require reconsid partial madness to which society is occasionally ex-eration? If a man drest as he drest 270 years ago, posed. What will be said of all the intolerable trash the pug-dogs in the streets would tear him to pieces. which is issued forth at public meetings of No Popery? If he lived in the houses of 270 years ago, unrevised The follies of one century are scarcely credible in that and uncorrected, he would die of rheumatism in a which succeeds it. A grandmamma of 1827 is as wise week. If he listened to the sermons of 270 years ago, as a very wise man of 1727. If the world lasts till he would perish with sadness and fatigue; and when 1927, the grandmother of that period will be far wiser a man cannot make a coat or a cheese, for 50 years than the tip-top No Popery of this day. That this together, without making them better, can it be said childish nonsense will have got out of the drawing- that laws made in those days of ignorance, and framroom, there can be no doubt. It will most probably ed in the fury of religious hatred, need no revision, have passed through the steward's room- -and butler's and are capable of no amendment? pantry, into the kitchen. This is the case with ghosts. They no longer loll on couches and sip tea; but are down on their knees scrubbing with the scullion or stand sweating and basting with the cook. Mrs. Abigal turns up her nose at them, and the housekeeper declares for flesh and blood, and will have none of their company. It is delicious to the persecution-fanciers to reflect that no general bill has passed in favour of the Protestant Dissenters. They are still disqualified from holding any office-and are only protected from prosecution by an annual indemnity act. So that the sword We have not the smallest partiality for the Catholic religion; quite the contrary. That it should exist at all-that all Catholics are not converted to the Protestant religion-we consider to be a serious evil; but there they are, with their spirit as strong, and their opinions as decided, as your own; the Protestant part of the cabinet have quite given up all idea of putting them to death; what remains to be done? We all admit the evil; the object is to make it as little as possible. One method commonly resorted to, we are sure, does not lessen, but increase the evil; and that is, to falsify history, and deny plain and obvious facts, |