means bashful in inquiries: but if the discovery operated in any way upon their behaviour, it was rather to my advantage; nor did I meet with a single case of incivility between Canada and Charleston, except at the Shenandoah Point, from a drunken English deserter. My testimony, in this particular, will certainly not invalidate the complaints of many other travellers, who, I doubt not, have frequently encountered rude treatment, and quite as frequently deserved it; but it will at least prove the possibility of traversing the United States without insult or interruption, and even of being occasionally surprised by liberality and kindness.'-Hall, p. 255, 256. Black Episcopalians, 1; Black Methodists, 2. The Methodists, Mr. Palmer tells us, are becoming the most numerous sect in the United States. Mr. Fearon gives us this account of the state of re ligion in New York. you are already acquainted with, that legally there is the Upon this interesting topic I would repeat, what indeed most unlimited liberty. There is no state religion, and no government prosecution of individuals for conscience sake. 'I fell into very pleasant society at Washington. Strangers similar state of things in England, are in existence here, Whether those halcyon days, which I think would attend a who intend staying some days in a town, usually take lodgings must be left for future observation. There are five Dutch at a boarding-house, in preference to a tavern: in this way Reformed churches; six Presbyterian; three Associated Rethey obtain the best society the place affords; for there are formed ditto; one Associated Presbyterian; one Reformed always gentlemen, frequently ladies, either visitors or tempo- ditto; five Methodist; two ditto for blacks; one German rary residents, who live in this manner, to avoid the trouble of Reformed; one Evangelical Lutheran; one Moravian; housekeeping. At Washington, during the sittings of Con- four Trinitarian Baptist; one Universalist; two Catholic; gress, the boarding-houses are divided into messes, according three Quaker; eight Episcopalian; one Jew's Synagogue; to the political principles of the inmates, nor is a stranger ad- and to this I would add a small Meeting which is but little mitted without some introduction, and the consent of the known, at which the priest is dispensed with, every member whole company. I chanced to join a democratic mess, and following what they call the apostolic plan of instructing name a few of its members with gratitude, for the pleasure each other, and "building one another up in their most their society gave me-Commodore Decatur and his lady, the holy faith." The Presbyterian and Episcopalian, or Church Abbé Correa, the great botanist and plenipotentiary of Por- of England sects, take the precedence in numbers and in tugal, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Navy respectability. Their ministers receive from two to eight Board, known as the author of a humorous publication entitled thousand dollars per annum. All the churches are well "John Bull and Brother Jonathan," with eight or ten members filled; they are the fashionable places for display; and the of Congress, principally from the western States, which are sermons and talents of the minister offer never-ending subgenerally considered as most decidedly hostile to England, jects of interest when social converse has been exhausted but whom I did not on this account find less good-humoured upon the bad conduct and inferior nature of niggars (neand courteous. It is from thus living in daily intercourse with groes); the price of flour at Liverpool; the capture of the the leading characters of the country, that one is enabled to Guerrière; and the battle of New Orleans. The perfect judge with some degree of certainty of the practices of its equality of all sects seems to have deadened party feeling: government; for to know the paper theory is nothing, unless it be compared with the instruments employed to carry it into controversy is but little known.'-Fearon, p. 45, 46. effect. A political constitution may be nothing but a cabalistic form, to extort money and power from the people; but then the jugglers must be in the dark, and "no admittance behind the curtain." This way of living affords too the best insight into the best part of society: for if in a free nation the depositories of the public confidence be ignorant or vulgar, it is a very fruitless search to look for the opposite qualities in those they represent; whereas, if these be well informed in mind and manners, it proves at the least an inclination towards knowledge and refinement in the general mass of citizens by whom they are selected. My own experience obliges me to a favourable verdict in this particular. I found the little circle into which I had happily fallen full of good sense and good humour, and never quitted it without feeling myself a gainer, on the score either of useful information or of social enjoy ment.'-Hall, p. 329–331. In page 252 Mr. Hall pays some very handsome compliments to the gallantry, high feeling, and humanity of the American troops. Such passages reflect the highest honour upon Mr. Hall. They are full of courage as well as kindness, and will never be forgiven at home. Literature the Americans have none-no native literature, we mean. It is all imported. They had a Franklin, indeed; and may afford to live for half a century on his fame. There is, or was, a Mr. Dwight, who wrote some poems; and his baptismal name was Timothy. There is also a small account of Virginia by Jefferson, and an epic by Joel Barlow; and some pieces of pleasantry by Mr. Irving. But why should the Americans write books, when a six weeks' passage brings them, in their own tongue, our sense, science, and genius, in bales and hogsheads? Prairies, steamboats, grist-mills, are their natural objects for centu ries to come. Then, when they have got to the Pacific Ocean, epic poems, plays, pleasures of memory, and all the elegant gratifications of an ancient people who have tamed the wild earth, and set down to amuse themselves. This is the natural march of human affairs. The Americans, at least in the old States, are a very religious people: but there is no sect there which enjoys the satisfaction of excluding others from civil offices; nor does any denomination of Christians take for their support a tenth of produce. Their clergy, however, are respectable, respected, and possess no small share of influence. The places of worship in Philadelphia in 1810, were as follows: Presbyterian, 8; Episcopalian, 4; Methodists, 5; Catholic, 4; Baptist, 5; Quakers, 4; Fighting Quakers, 1; Lutheran, 3; Calvinist, 3; Jews, 2; Universalists, 1; Swedish Lutheran, 1; Moravian, 1; Congregationalists, 1; Unitarians, 1; Covenanters, 1; Black Baptists, 1; The absence of controversy, Mr. Fearon seems to imagine, has produced indifference; and he heaves a sigh to the memory of departed oppression. Can it be possible (he asks) that the non-existence of reli gious oppression has lessened religious knowledge, and made men superstitiously dependent upon outward form, instead of internal purity?' To which question (a singular one from an enlightened man like Mr. Fearon), we answer, that the absence of religious oppression has not lessened religious knowledge, but theological animosity; and made men more dependent upon the pious actions, and less upon useless and unintelligible wrangling. The great curse of America is the institution of slavery of itself far more than the foulest blot upon their national character, and an evil which counter balances all the excisemen, licensers, and tax-gatherers of England. No virtuous man ought to trust his own character, or the character of his children, to the demoralizing effects produced by commanding slaves. Justice, gentleness, pity, and humility, soon give way before them. Conscience suspends its functions. The love of command-the impatience of restraint, get the better of every other feeling; and cruelty has no other limit than fear. "There must doubtless," says Mr. Jefferson, "be an Mr. Hall from the "Letters on Virginia." "I took the boat this morning, and crossed the ferry over to Portsmouth, the small town which I told you is opposite to this place. It was court day, and a large crowd of people was gathered about the door of the court-house. Presbyterian church. What will Mr. Littleon say to this? he is hardly prepared, we suspect, for this union of Calvin and the Little Go. Every advantage will be made of it by the wit and eloquence of his fiscal opponent, nor will t pass unheeded by Mr. Bish. * Mr. Fearon mentions a religious lottery for building a him."-Hall, 358-360, I had hardly got upon the steps to look in, when my ears were assailed by the voice of singing; and turning round That such feelings and such practices should exist to discover from what quarter it came, I saw a group of among men who know the value of liberty, and profess about thirty negroes, of different sizes and ages, following to understand its principles, is the consummation of a rough-looking white man, who sat carelessly lolling in his wickedness. Every American who loves his country, sulky. They had just turned round the corner, and were should dedicate his whole life, and every faculty of coming up the main street to pass by the spot where I stood, his soul, to efface this foul stain from its character. on their way out of town. As they came nearer, I saw some If nations rank according to their wisdom and their of then loaded with chains to prevent their escape; while virtue, what right has the American, a scourger and others had hold of each other's hands, strongly grasped, as murderer of slaves, to compare himself with the if to support themselves in their affliction. I particularly noticed a poor mother, with an infant sucking at her breast least and lowest of the European nations?-much as she walked along, while two small children had hold of more with this great and humane country, where the her apron on either side, almost running to keep up with greatest lord dare not lay a finger upon the meanest the rest. They came along singing a little wild hymn, of peasant? What is freedom, where all are not free? sweet and mournful melody, flying, by a divine instinct of where the greatest of God's blessings is limited, with the heart, to the consolation of religion, the last refuge of impious caprice, to the colour of the body? And these the unhappy, to support them in their distress. The sulky are the men who taunt the English with their corrupt now stopped before the tavern, at a little distance beyond Parliament, with their buying and selling votes. Let the court-house, and the driver got out. "My dear sir," said I to a person who stood near me, "can you tell me the world judge which is the most liable to censure what these poor people have been doing? What is their we who, in the midst of our rottenness, have torn off crime? and what is to be their punishment?" "O," said the manacles of slaves all over the world;-or they he, "it's nothing at all, but a parcel of negroes sold to who, with their idle purity, and useless perfection, Carolina; and that man is their driver, who has bought have remained mute and careless, while groans echo. them." "But what have they done, that they should be ed and whips clanked round the very walls of their sold into banishment?" "Done," said he "nothing at all, that I know of; their masters wanted money, I suppose, spotless Congress. We wish well to America-we reand these drivers give good prices." Here the driver hav-joice in her prosperity-and are delighted to resist the ing supplied himself with brandy, and his horse with water absurd impertinence with which the character of her (the poor negroes of course wanted nothing,) stepped into people is often treated in this country: but the exist. his chair again, cracked his whip, and drove on, while the ence of slavery in America is an atrocious crime, with miserable exiles followed in funeral procession behind which no measures can be kept-for which her situa tion affords no sort of apology-which makes liberty The law by which saves are governed in the Caroli- itself distrusted, and the boast of it disgusting. nas, is a provincial law as old as 1740, but made per- termine for himself. A carpenter under thirty years As for emigration, every man, of course, must depetual in 1783. By this law it, is enacted, that every of age, who finds himself at Cincinnati with an axe negro shall be presumed a slave unless the contrary appear. The 9th clause allows two justices of the over his shoulder, and ten pounds in his pocket, will peace, and three freeholders, power to put them to get rich in America, if the change of climate does not any manner of death; the evidence against them may kill him. So will a farmer who emigrates early with be without oath.-No slave is to traffic on his own acsome capital. But any person with tolerable prospercount.-Any person murdering a slave is to pay 1001. ity here had better remain where he is. There are or141. if he cuts out the tongue of a slave.-Any be madness not to admit, that it is, upon the whole, a considerable evils, no doubt, in England: but it would white man meeting seven slaves together on an high road, may give them twenty lashes each.-No man very happy country-and we are much mistaken if currency. We have Mr. Hall's authority for the ex-been groaning under the evils of the greatest foreign must teach a slave to write, under penalty of 1007. the next twenty years will not bring with it a great deal of internal improvement. The country has long istence and enforcement of this law at the present war we were ever engaged in; and we are just beginday. Mr. Fearon has recorded some facts still more ning to look again into our home affairs. Political economy has made an astonishing progress since they were last investigated; and every session of Parlia ment brushes off some of the cobwebs and dust of our ancestors.* The Apprentice Laws have been swept away: the absurd nonsense of the Usury Laws will probably soon follow, Public Education and Saving Banks have been the invention of these last ten years; and the strong fortress of bigotry has been rudely as sailed. Then, with all its defects, we have a Parlia ment of inestimable value. If there be a place in any country where 500 well educated men can meet to gether and talk with impunity of public affairs, and if what they say is published, that country must improve. It is not pleasant to emigrate into a country of changes and revolution, the size and integrity of whose empire no man can predict. The Americans are a very sensible, reflecting people, and have con ducted their affairs extremely well; but it is scarcely possible to conceive that such an empire should very long remain undivided, or that the dwellers on the Columbia should have common interest with the navigators of the Hudson and the Delaware. instructive. Observing a great many coloured people, particularly females, in these boats, I concluded that they were emígrants, who had proceeded thus far on their route towards & settlement. The fact proved to be, that fourteen of the flats were freighted with human beings for sale. They had been collected in the several states by slave dealers, and shipped from Kentucky for a market. They were dressed up to the best advantage, on the same principle that jockeys do horses upon sale. The following is a specimen of advertisements on this subject. "TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD "Will be paid for apprehending and lodging in jail, or delivering to the subscriber, the following slaves, belonging to JOSEPH IRVIN, of Iberville.-TOM, a very light mulatto, blue eyes, 5 feet 10 inches high, appears to be about 35 years of age; an artful fellow-can read and write, and preaches occasionally.-CHARLOTTE, a black wench, round and full faced, tall, straight, and likely-about 25 years of age, and wife of the above named Tom. These slaves decamped from their owner's plantation on the night of the 14th September instant."-Fearon, p. 270. "The three "African churches," as they are called, are for all those native Americans who are black, or have any shade of colour darker than white. These persons, though but a million of millions has been expended in mak England is, to be sure, a very expensive country; many of them are possessed of the rights of citizenship, are not admitted into the churches which are visited by whites. ing it habitable and comfortable; and this is a conThere exists a penal law, deeply written in the mind of the stant source of revenue, or what is the same thing, a whole white population, which subjects their coloured fel- constant diminution of expense to every man living low-citizens to unconditional contumely and never-ceasing in it. The price an Englishman pays for a turnpike insult. No respectability, however unquestionable,-no road is not equal to the tenth part of what the delay property, however large,-no character, however unblemished, will gain a man, whose body is (in American estimation) cursed with even a twentieth portion of the blood of his African ancestry, admission into society!!! They are considered as mere Pariahs-as outcasts and vagrants upon the face of the earth! I make no reflection upon these things, but leave the facts for your consideration."'— Ibid. p. 168, 169. years ago, every judge, (except the Lord Chancellor, then * In a scarcity which occurred little more than twenty Justice of the Common Pleas, and Serjeant Remington,) when they charged the grand jury, attributed the scarcity to the combinations of the farmers; and complained of it as a very serious evil. Such doctrines would not now be tole rated in the mouth of a schoolboy. would cost him without a turnpike. The New River Company brings water to every inhabitant of London at an infinitely less price than he could dip for it out of the Thames. No country, in fact, is so expensive as one which human beings are just beginning to inhabit; -where there are no roads, no bridges, no skill, no combination of powers, and no force of capital. How, too, can any man take upon himself to say, that he is so indifferent to his country that he will not begin to love it intensely, when he is 5000 or 6000 miles from it? And what a dreadful disease Nostalgia must be on the banks of the Missouri! Severe and painful poverty will drive us all anywhere: but a wise man should be quite sure he has so irresistible a plea, before he ventures on the Great or the Little Wabash. He should be quite sure that he does not go there from ill temper-or to be pitied-or to be regretted or from ignorance of what is to happen to him-or because he is a poet-but because he has not enough to eat here, and is sure of abundance where he is going. GAME LAWS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1819.) Three Letters on the Game Laws. Rest Fenner, Black & Co. London, 1818. rights and pretensions in the best way they could In addition to these arguments, it is perhaps scarce- But though a system of game laws is of great use in promoting country amusements, and may, in itself, be placed on a footing of justice, its effects, we are sorry to say, are by no means favourable to the morals of the poor. THE evil of the Game Laws, in their present state. has It is impossible to make an uneducated man under- Laws for the preservation of game are not only of importance, as they increase the amusements of the country, but they may be so constructed as to be perfectly just. The game which my land feeds is certainly mine; or, in other words, the game which all the land feeds certainly belongs to all the owners of the land; and the only practical way of dividing it is, to give to each proprieter what he can take on his own ground. Those who contribute nothing to the support of the animal, can have no possible right to a share in the distribution. To say of animals, that they are fera Natura, means only, that the precise place of their birth and nurture is not known. How they shall be divided, is a matter of arrangement among those whose collected property certainly has produced and fed them; but the case is completely made out against those who have no land at all, and who cannot therefore have been in the slightest degree instrumental to their production. If a large pond were divided by certain marks into four parts, and allotted to that number of proprietors, the fish contained in that pond would be in the same sense, fera Natura. Nobody could tell in which particular division each carp had been born and bred. The owners would arrange their respective These few preliminary observations lead naturally to the two principal considerations which are to be kept in view, in reforming the game laws;-to preserve, as far as is consistent with justice, the amusements of the rich, and to diminish, as much as possible, the temptations of the poor. And these ends, it seems to us, will be best answered, 1. By abolishing qualifications. 2. By giving to every man a property in the game upon his land. 3. By allowing game to be bought by any body, and sold by its lawful possessors.* Nothing can be more grossly absurd than the present state of the game laws, as far as they concern the qualification for shooting. In England, no man can possibly have a legal right to kill game, who has not 100l. a-year in land rent. With us, in Scotland, the rule is not quite so inflexible, though in principle not very different.-But we shall speak to the case which concerns by far the greatest number; and certainly it is scarcely possible to imagine a more absurd and capricious limitation. For what possible reason is a man, who has only 907. per annum in land, not to kill the game which his own land nourishes? If the legislature really conceives, as we have heard sur mised by certain learned squires, that a person of such a degree of fortune should be confined to profitable pursuits, and debarred from that pernicious idleness into which he would be betrayed by field sports, it would then be expedient to make a qualification for bowls or skittles-to prevent landowners from going *All this has since been established. to races, or following a pack of hounds-and to pro- | at the expense of the neighbour who surrounded him. hibit to men of a certain income, every other species But, under the present game laws, if the smaller posof amusement as well as this. The only instance, session belongs to a qualified person, the danger of however, in which this paternal care is exercised, is intrusion is equally great as it would be under the prothat in which the amusement of the smaller land- posed alteration; and the danger from the poacher owner is supposed to interfere with those of his richer would be the same in both cases. But if it is of such neighbour. He may do what he pleases, and elect great consequence to keep clear from all interference, any other species of ruinous idleness but that in which may not such a piece of land be rented or bought ?— the upper classes of society are his rivals. Or, may not the food which tempts game, be sown in Nay, the law is so excessively ridiculous in the case the same abundance in the surrounding as in the inof small landed proprietors, that on a property of less closed land? After all, it is only common justice, that than 1007. per annum, no human being has the right of he whose property is surrounded on every side by a shooting. It is not confined, but annihilated. The preserver of game, whose corn and turnips are demollord of the manor may be warned off by the proprie-ished by animals preserved for the amusement of his tor; and the proprietor may be informed against by neighbour, should himself be entitled to that share of any body who sees him sporting. The case is still game which plunders upon his land. The complaint stronger in the instance of large farms. In Northum- which the landed grandee makes is this. Here is a berland, and on the borders of Scotland, there are large man who has only a twenty-fourth part of the land, capitalists who farm to the amount of two or three and he expects a twenty-fourth part of the game. He thousand per annum, who have the permission of their is so captious and litigious, that he will not be contentdistant non-resident landlords to do what they please ed to supply his share of the food without requiring with the game, and yet who dare not fire off a gun his share of what the food produces. I want a neigh upon their own land. Can any thing he more utterly bour who has talents only for suffering, not one who absurd and preposterous, than that the landlord and evinces such a fatal disposition for enjoying.' Upon the wealthy tenant together cannot make up a title to such principles as these, many of the game laws have the hare which is fattened upon the choicest produce been constructed, and are preserved. The interference of their land? That the landlord, who can let to farm of a very small property with a very large one; the the fertility of the land for growing wheat, cannot let critical position of one or two fields, is a very serious to farm its power of growing partridges? That he source of vexation on many other occasions besides may reap by deputy, but cannot on that manor shoot those of game. He who possesses a field in the midby deputy? Is it possible that any respectable ma- dle of my premises, may build so as to obstruct my gistrate could fine a farmer for killing a hare upon his view; and may present to me the hinder part of a own grounds with his landlord's consent, without feel- barn, instead of one of the finest landscapes in nature. ing that he was violating every feeling of common Nay, he may turn his field into tea-gardens, and desense and justice? stroy my privacy by the introduction of every species Since the enactment of the game laws, there has of vulgar company. The legislature, in all these insprung up an entirely new species of property, which stances, has provided no remedy for the inconvenienof course is completely overlooked by their provis- ces which a small property, by such intermixture, ions. An Englishman may possess a million of money may inflict upon a large one, but has secured the same in funds, or merchandize-may be the Baring or the rights to unequal proportions. It is very difficult to Hope of Europe-provide to government the sudden conceive why these equitable principles are to be viomeans of equipping fleets and armies, and yet be with-lated in the case of game alone. out the power of smiting a single partridge, though in- Our securities against that rabble of sportsmen vited by the owner of the game to participate in his which the abolition of qualifications might be supamusement. It is idle to say that the difficulty may posed to produce, are, the consent of the owner of the be got over, by purchasing land: the question is, upon soil as an indispensable preliminary, guarded by heavy what principle of justice can the existence of the diffi- penalties and the price of a certificate, rendered, culty be defended? If the right of keeping men- perhaps, greater than it is at present. It is impossiservants was confined to persons who had more than ble to conceive why the owner of the soil, if the right 1007. a-year in the funds, the difficulty might be got of game is secured to him, has not a right to sell, or over by every man who would change his landed prop- grant the right of killing it to whom he pleases-just erty to that extent. But what could justify so capri- as much as he has the power of appointing whom he cious a partiality to one species of property? There pleases to kill his ducks, pigeons, and chickens. The might be some apology for such laws at the time they danger of making the poor idle, is a mere pretence. It were made; but there can be none for their not being is monopoly calling in the aid of hypocrisy, and tyrannow accommodated to the changes which time has introduced. If you choose to exclude poverty from this species of amusement, and to open it to wealth, why is it not opened to every species of wealth? What amusement can there be morally lawful to an holder of turnip land, and criminal in a possessor of exchequer bills? What delights ought to be tolerated to long annuities, from which wheat and beans should be excluded? What matters whether it is scrip or short-horned cattle? If the locus quo is conceded-if the trespass is waived-and if the qualification for any amusement is wealth, let it be any provable wealth Dives agris, dives positis in fœnore nummis. It will be very easy for any country gentleman who wishes to monopolize to himself the pleasure of shoot ing, to let to his tenant every other right attached to the land, except the right of killing game; and it will be equally easy, in the formation of a new game act, to give to the landlord a summary process against his tenant, if such tenant fraudulently exercises the privileges he has agreed to surrender. ny veiling itself in the garb of philosophical humani ty. A poor man goes to wakes, fairs, and horse-races, without pain and penalty; a little shopkeeper, when his work is over, may go to a bull-bait, or to the cockpit; but the idea of his pursuing an hare, even with the consent of the land-owner, fills the Bucolic senator with the most lively apprehensions of relaxed industry and ruinous dissipation. The truth is, if a poor man does not offend against morals or religion, and supports himself and his family without assistance the law has nothing to do with his amusements. The real barriers against increase of sportsmen (if the pro posed alteration were admitted), are, as we have be fore said, the prohibition of the landowner; the tax to the state for a certificate; the necessity of labouring for support.-Whoever violates none of these rights, and neglects none of these duties in his sporting, sports without crime; and to punish him would be gross and scandalous tyranny. The next alteration which we would propose is, that game should be made property; that is, that every man should have a right to the game found upon his land-and that the violation of it should be punished as The case which seems most to alarm country gen-poaching now is, by pecuniary penalties, and summatlemen, is that of a person possessing a few acres in the very heart of a manor, who might, by planting food of which they are fond, allure the game into his own little domain, and thus reap an harvest prepared ry conviction before magistrates. This change in the game laws would be an additional defence of game; for the landed proprietor has now no other remedy against the qualified intruder upon his game, than an action at law for a trespass on the land; and if the "The first and most palpable effect has naturally been an trespasser has received no notice, this can hardly be exaltation of all the savage and desperate features in the poachcalled any remedy at all. It is now no uncommon er's character. The war between him and the gamekeeper has practice for persons who have the exterior, and per- necessarily become a "bellum internecivum." A marauder may haps the fortunes of gentlemen, as they are travelling is only six months' imprisonment in the county jail; but when hesitate perhaps at killing his fellow man, when the alternative from place to place, to shoot over manors where they the alternative is to overcome the keeper, or to be torn from his have no property, and from which, as strangers, they family and connections, and sent to hard labour at the Antipodes. cannot have been warned. In such a case (which we we cannot be much surprised that murders and midnight comrepeat again, is by no means one of rare occurrence), bats have considerably increased this season; or that informa it would, under the reformed system, be no more diffi- tion such as the following has frequently enriched the columns cult for the lord of the soil to protect his game, than it of the country newspapers. would be to protect his geese and ducks. But though before Richard Clutterbuck, Esq., of keeping and using engines "POACHING.-Richard Barnett was on Tuesday convicted game should be considered as property, it should still or wires for the destruction of game in the parish of Dunkerton, be considered as the lowest species of property-be- and fined £5. He was taken into custody by C. Coates, keeper cause it is in its nature more vague and mutable than to Sir Charles Bamfylde, Bart., who found upon him 17 wireother species of property, and because depredations snares. The new act that has just passed against these illegal are carried on at a distance from the dwelling, and practices, seems only to have irritated the offenders, and made without personal alarm to the proprietors. It would them more daring and desperate. The following is a copy of an be very easy to increase the penalties, in proportion magistrates, and other eminent characters in this neighborhood. anonymous circular letter, which has been received by several to the number of offences committed by the same individual. The punishments which country gentlemen expect by making game property, are punishments affixed to offences of a much higher order; but country gentlemen must not be allowed to legislate exclusively on this, more than on any other subject. The very mention of hares and partridges in the country, too often puts an end to common humanity and common sense. Game must be protected; but protected without violating those principles of justice, and that adaptation of punishment to crime, which (incredible as it may appear), are of infinitely greater importance than the amusemements of country gentlemen. "TAKE NOTICE.-We have lately heard and seen that there is an act passed, and whatever poacher is caught destroying the game is to be transported for seven years.-This is English liberty! "Now, we do swear to each other, that the first of our company that this law is inflicted on, that there shall not one gentlein number, and we will burn every gentleman's house of note. man's seat in our country escape the rage of fire. We are nine The first that impeaches shall be shot. We have sworn not to impeach. You may think it a threat, but they will find it reality. The game-laws were too severe before. The Lord of all men sent these animals for the peasants as well as for the prince. God will not let his people be oppressed. He will assist us in our undertaking, and we will execute it with caution."-Bath paper. "DEATH OF A POACHER.-On the evening of Saturday se❜enWe come now to the sale of game.-The foundation night, about eight or nine o'clock, a body of poachers, seven in on which the propriety of allowing this partly rests, is number, assembled by mutual agreement on the estate of the the impossibility of preventing it. There exists, and Hon. John Dutton; at Sherborne, Gloucestershire, for the purhas sprung up since the game laws, an enormous mass pose of taking hares and other game. With the assistance of two of wealth, which has nothing to do with land. Do the dogs, and some nets and snares which they had brought with Country gentlemen imagine that it is in the power of them, they had succeeded in catching nine hares, and were carhuman laws to deprive the three per cents of phea- keeper and seven others who were engaged with him in patre. rying them away, when they were discovered by the gamesants? That there is upon earth, air, or sea, a single ing the different covers, in order to protect the game from flavour (cost what crime it may to procure it), that nightly depredators. Immediately on perceiving the poachers, mercantile opulence will not procure? Increase the the keeper summoned them in a civil and peaceable manner to difficulty, and you enlist vanity on the side of luxury; give up their names, dogs, implements, &c. they had with them, and make that to be sought for as a display of wealth, and the game they had taken; at the same time assuring them which was before valued only for the gratification of that his party had fire-arms (which were produced for the purappetite. The law may multiply penalties by reams. them the folly of resistance, as, in the event of an affray, they pose of convincing and alarming them), and representing to Squires may fret and justices may commit, and game- must inevitably be overpowered by superior numbers, even keepers and poachers continue their nocturnal wars. without fire-arms, which they were determined not to resort to There must be game on Lord Mayor's day, do what unless compelled in self-defence. Notwithstanding this remonyou will. You may multiply the crimes by which it strance of the keeper, the men unanimously refused to give up is procured; but nothing can arrest its inevitable pro- on any terms, declaring that if they were followed, they would gress, from the wood of the esquire to the spit of the give them a "brush," and would repel force by force. The citizen. The late law for preventing the sale of game down with the game, &c., behind them, and approached the poachers then directly took off their great coats, threw them produced some little temporary difficulty in London keepers in an attitude of attack. A smart contest instantly enat the beginning of the season. The poulterers were sued, both parties using only the sticks or bludgeons they caralarmed and came to some resolutions, but the alarm ried: and such was the confusion during the battle, that some of soon began to subside, and the difficulties to vanish. the keepers were occasionally struck by their own comrades in In another season the law will be entirely nugatory mistake for their opponents. After they had fought in this and forgotten. The experiment was tried of increased manner about eight or ten minutes, one of the poachers, named Robert Simmons, received a violent blow upon his left temple, severity; and a law passed to punish poachers with which felled him to the ground, where he lay, crying out murtransportation who were caught poaching in the night der, and asking for mercy. The keepers very humanely desired time with arms. What has the consequence been?—that all violence might cease on both sides: upon which three of Not a cessation of poaching, but a succession of vil- the poachers took to flight and escaped, and the remaining lage guerillas; an internecive war between gamekeep-three, together with Simmons, were secured by the keepers. ers and marauders of game;-the whole country flung Simmons, by the assistance of the other men, walked to the into brawls and convulsions, for the unjust and exorbi-keeper's house, where he was placed in a chair: but he soon tant pleasures of country gentlemen. The poacher hardly believes he is doing any wrong in taking partridges and pheasants. He would admit the justice of being transported for stealing sheep; and his courage in such a transaction would be impaired by a consciousness he was doing wrong: but he has no such feeling in taking game; and the preposterous punish ment of transportation makes him desperate, and not timid. Single poachers are gathered into large companies for their mutual protection; and go out, not only with the intention of taking game, but of defending what they take with their lives. Such feelings soon produce a rivalry of personal courage, and the thirst of revenge between the villagers and the agents of power. We extract the following passages on this subject from the Three Letters on the Game Laws: after died. His death was no doubt caused by the pressure of blood upon the brain, occasioned by the rupture of a vessel from the blow he had received. The three poachers who had been taken were committed to Northleach prison. The inquest upon the body of Simmons was taken on Monday, before W. Trigge, Gent., Coroner; and the above account is extracted from the armed with bludgeons, except the deceased, who had provided evidence given upon that occasion. The poachers were all himself with the thick part of a flail, made of firm, knotted crabtree, and pointed at the extremity, in order to thrust with, it' occasion required. The deceased was an athletic, muscular man, very active, and about twenty-eight years of age. He re sided at Bowle, in Oxfordshire, and has left a wife, but no child. The three prisoners were heard in evidence; and all concurred in stating that the keepers were in no way blameable, and attributed their disaster to their own indiscretion and imprudence. Several of the keepers' party were so much beat as to be now confined to their beds. The two parties are said to be total strangers to each other, consequently no malice prepense could |