Part 7

While these things were going on in France, the Ministers were not inactive in England. They caused Lord Cochrane, and Colonel Cochrane Johnson, his uncle, to be expelled the House of Commons, for what was called a conspiracy to defraud the Stock Exchange. To punish men for defrauding, or rather playing off a hoax upon a set of swindlers and gamblers in the stocks, was curious enough! The Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia arrived in London on the 7th of June, and the town was illuminated. The Emperor of Russia took up his residence at the Imperial Hotel, in Piccadilly, and the King of Prussia in St. James's Palace. They were received in state at Court, which was held at Carlton House, and the Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia were invested with the Order of the Garter. All the Tom and Molly fools in the country were flocking to London, to see these mighty Sovereigns; they spent their money, and most of them returned disappointed, the fools having expected to see something more than man in a King and an Emperor, and something more than a brute in the dirty old animal Blucher. Nothing else but our new visitors was talked of in town or country. Whatever company you went into, the first question was, "Well, what do you think of the Emperor Alexander? what do you think of Blucher? What! not seen the Emperor, and not seen Marshal Blucher's whiskers?" To hear the females of England, my fair countrywomen, talk of shaking hands with this filthy old beast, and some of them even boasted of his having kissed them, not only disgusted but quite sickened me; and I must own that the scenes I have heard described, which took place at Portsmouth, when they were all there at the great naval fete, made such an unfavourable impression upon my mind, that I have always thought with the utmost contempt of those who participated in these disgusting, revolting orgies. It was all very natural that the time-serving, corrupt, vain, purse-proud Aldermen of London should act as they did; it was very natural that they and their wives and daughters should disgrace themselves as they did; but that my good, handsome, wholesome country-women, should have suffered such a disgusting monster as old Blucher to have slobbered them over and mouselled them with his dirty, stinking whiskers and mustachios, is something so extraordinary and so abhorrent to the character of English women, or, in fact, of any modest woman, that I, as an Englishman, was horror-struck every time I heard the filthy accounts of it. Thank God, none of my family or connections ever disgraced themselves, even by going to see any of these German, Russian, Prussian, or Cossack animals. I had business in London, but I put it off, nay neglected it, because I would not make one of the throng of fools who flocked to grace the triumph of these tyrants, who had been so long waging war against the liberties of mankind, and who had caused the shedding of oceans of human blood, for the sole purpose of gratifying their own malignant desire, to destroy every vestige of liberty and rational freedom upon the face of the globe. During the whole time that these fiends in human form, these enemies and destroyers of the human race, remained in England, I stayed at home; I never spoke of them but with abhorrence and disgust; and as my family felt towards them as I did, they were seldom mentioned at all. I even, as much as possible, avoided having any company at my house, that their blood-stained names might never be introduced. I shall, perhaps, be told by some who read this, that I am inconsistent to express such a horror at blood-stained tyrants, and yet take every opportunity of extolling Napoleon, who was as great a tyrant as any of those whom I condemn. To the unthinking, an explanation is certainly necessary from me; for I fully concur in the opinion that CONSISTENCY is absolutely necessary to form the character of a useful and honourable public man; that amongst the dangerous failings in a public character, inconsistency is the most dangerous. A vacillating, weathercock, changeable being, in the common pursuits, in any pursuits of life, is, to say the least of him, a contemptible creature, one who is generally despised by all classes; but a weathercock in politics, which is the same as a weathercock in principle, is a being not only despicable but most mischievous. To blow hot and to blow cold, in the same breath, or to maintain one opinion to-day and another opinion tomorrow, and the next day to revert to the former opinion, is not so much a proof of a weak head, as a sure proof of a profligate, an abandoned, and a dishonest heart. I do not mean to say that a man cannot alter his opinion without being dishonest; far from it; to maintain this proposition would be to deny the possibility of improvement in the human understanding. But that man is to be dreaded and avoided, who can change his principles, or desert his public duty, from private pique, or selfish, interested motives; such a man would sacrifice not only his principles, but he would sacrifice his dearest friends, nay, a whole nation, to gratify his malignant and selfish passion for revenge; such a passion springs wholly from cowardice; and as a coward is always the most cruel of mortals, such a man, from mere cowardice, is always the most revengeful and remorseless; and he would wade up to his knees in human blood to accomplish his private and selfish ends. Therefore, of all the deadly sins with which public men are accused, oh! save me and protect me, from the misfortune, from the indelible disgrace, of being deservedly pronounced AN INCONSISTENT CHARACTER! I have never praised Napoleon, or at least I have never intended to eulogise him, as a friend of freedom. I have characterised him as a brave and noble-minded man; and the reason why I have been led away sometimes, perhaps, to be too general in my praises and admiration of the man is, not because he was not a tyrant himself, but because I always found him more disposed to tyrannize over mighty tyrants than he was to crush the weak and the unprotected. Possibly all mankind are by nature tyrannical. Take, for instance, the most humane, the most generous, the most sincere lover of liberty, and one who has been the most steady practiser of it--to such a man even as this only give an unlimited, uncontrouled, and unrestricted sway over his fellow-creatures, and ten to one but he becomes an arbitrary tyrant; when, on the other hand, if he had been restrained within due bounds, by means of the proper checks and guards prescribed by a free constitution, he would have been one of freedom's brightest ornaments, one of liberty's safest, staunchest, guardians and protectors. So it was with Napoleon. If the tyrants of Europe had suffered him to remain First Consul of France, surrounded by such men as Carnot, to guard the liberties and rights of Frenchmen, and to controul their ruler's actions, Napoleon possessed all the qualifications for making a mild, liberal, and patriotic, as well as a brave and brilliant ruler. But the despots and tyrants of Europe dreaded such an example; they dreaded the example of freedom which the then constitution conferred upon the people of France. It was not Napoleon's political influence, great as it was, that excited their hatred, but they dreaded the little remaining liberty that the French people possessed, and it was their combined efforts, supported, maintained, and cherished, by the wealth of the people of England, that drove the French nation to submit to the hard and cruel necessity of placing unlimited authority in his hands, and consequently preparing the way for a great tyranny, and compelling him to be a tyrant. My sincere and unchangeable opinion is, that few men ever lived, who, if they had been masters of the same boundless power that Napoleon was, would not have made much more cruel and more arbitrary tyrants than he ever did, and have exercised it more vindictively against the liberties of mankind than he did. My admiration of Napoleon has, therefore, been always by comparison, as contrasted with the sanguinary and remorseless tyrants who were opposed to him; men who had sworn eternal abhorrence of liberty, eternal war against it; men, who, at the time that they professed a hatred of the tyranny of Napoleon, were themselves the greatest tyrants in the universe, and whose sole aim in destroying Napoleon's power was to rivet the chains of slavery upon the inhabitants of the whole civilized world, and who have since sworn upon the altar of the Holy Alliance to maintain an indissoluble union, for the purpose of extinguishing every spark of freedom, wherever it may arise. Napoleon was the enemy, the successful enemy of these tyrants; and under his sway, despotic as it might apparently be, and governed by the excellent code of laws that bears the name of its author, the people of France enjoyed a tenfold greater portion of liberty than any of the people who lived under the protection, or rather who groaned under the pretended forms of law and justice exercised by the hypocritical tyrants who were opposed to him. All these tyrants had made war upon France, because the French had the spirit to overthrow the most execrable tyranny that ever cursed mankind; they made war against French liberty and French principles, before Napoleon was known; he was the child of fortune, who sprung up during the Revolution, and his talent and bravery pointed him out to the people of France as the most likely man successfully to oppose her enemies. He was elevated to unlimited power through the rancour and the malice of those who had sworn in their hearts to restore the hated Bourbons, the Pope, the Devil, and the Inquisition. While he exercised that power he subdued all those who resisted him, and his greatest fault, his greatest crime, was his generosity to the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian despots: having had those enemies to liberty and humanity in his power, it was a crime, an offence, in the eye of God and man, not to annihilate them, and thus secure the human race from the continuance of their arbitrary and brutal domination. Napoleon having conquered them all, restored them all to power, and when they got him into their clutches, the return whichthey made him was, to banish him, to linger out the remainder of his life upon a barren rock, in a noxious and pestilential climate, cut off from the society even of his wife and son. Peace to his manes, for he beat, he humbled, and he subdued, the greatest of tyrants, and he was the author of the Napoleon code, which restrained the power of infamous Judges, and established a real, instead of a mock trial by jury. These are the traits of Napoleon's character, which, as an Englishman, I admire; had I been a Frenchman, I should have adored him. He is dead and gone, and John Gull is beginning to reap the bitter fruits that were sown to procure Napoleon's destruction. John is now grumbling, because he is called upon by the despots to pay the bill, to discharge the expenses which they incurred in dethroning and destroying NAPOLEON, and restoring Louis to the throne of France. I hope and I believe these is not a man in the world who hates and detests tyrants and tyranny more than I do; yet I trust that I may, nevertheless, be permitted to admire certain traits in the character of the brave and murdered Napoleon, without being justly accused of inconsistency. If I am asked whether I should like to live under such a tyrant and such a tyranny as existed in France, during the latter days of Napoleon's reign, I answer NO. But if I must submit to a tyrant, let it be to one that I can look up to, and whose superior qualities I can admire, rather than to a despicable wretch, who has not one noble quality, but, on the contrary, is deserving of contempt, derision, and execration. I have been led into this digression by the recollection of hearing a very pretty little girl say, that she had been kissed by the filthy old beast Blucher, at Portsmouth, where the sceptered tyrants and their whole train had been to view the English fleet and the naval arsenal. This young lady, who was really a very pretty delicate girl, I had always before considered as also a very amiable and a very modest girl; but, after hearing her boast of having been kissed by that dirty old animal, I could never look upon her but with pity, mingled with disgust.

On the 20th of June, peace was proclaimed in London. The country was still intoxicated, or rather insane, with the idea of the GLORY that had been obtained by the downfall of one man, against whom all the despots in Europe had been united, and all the wealth of nations had been squandered during fourteen years. On the 25th, there was a naval review at Portsmouth, to amuse the Royal tyrants; and on the 27th they all departed for Dover, where they embarked on the 28th. On the 7th of July, a mockery or thanksgiving for peace was offered up in these churches, where the tocsin of war had for so many years been sounded by the pious preachers of the Gospel, the servants of the meek and lowly Jesus. On this occasion the Prince Regent went in state to St. Paul's. On the 21st he gave a superb fete to two thousand five hundred persons, and on the 1st of August there was a pompous celebration, on account of the peace, held in Hyde and St. James's Parks, in the latter of which there was a grand display of fireworks; while, still further to amuse the John and Jenny Gulls of the cities of London and Westminster, there was a sham naval engagement got up on the Serpentine River, representing a battle between the British and American fleets. Of course the British fleet was victorious, and the Americans struck their colours, amidst the huzzas and shouts of the family of the Gulls, who, having for nearly a quarter of a century been gulled out of their money to pay the expenses of a sanguinary war, were now gulled out of an additional sum of their money to pay the expenses of a mock naval engagement with the Americans, who were in reality beating the British navy out of their lakes and seas. This was the way in which the peace was celebrated, and at the same time the jubilee to commemorate the accession of the House of Brunswick. It was a considerable drawback upon the pleasure to some of the Royal party, that, at the drawing-room which was held at Court, to receive the Royal visitors, the PRINCESS OF WALES WAS EXCLUDED; and as soon as the rejoicings were concluded, her Royal Highness quitted England, and embarked from Worthing for the Continent.

All this time the old King was confined at Windsor Castle, in some apartments which were padded six feet high; in these, blind and mad, he was suffered to wander about, a melancholy and disgusting object. It is confidently affirmed, however, that he had frequent intervals of reason, in which he was perfectly sensible of his forlorn and wretched fate. During one of these lucid intervals it is said that one of the domestics about his person informed him of the abdication of Napoleon; upon which he put himself in a great passion, and swore "it was a lie." This wretched old man was reduced from the highest pinnacle of grandeur to the most pitiable condition; none of his subjects were admitted to see him for many years; even his children were excluded, except upon particular occasions, and then they were admitted only in the presence of certain individuals. The old Queen had the care of his person, and it is currently reported that she governed his gracious Majesty (it being of course necessary to do so) with considerable harshness.

When one reflects upon the bloody reign of George the Third, and calls to mind the rivers of human gore that were shed during that reign; when one looks back to the period of the American war, which was generally understood to be a war of the King's, more than of his Ministers; when one calls to recollection the commencement of the French war, which, it has been asserted, was waged at his Majesty's particular instance, in opposition to the private opinion of Mr. Pitt; when one looks back on the numerous sanguinary penal statutes that were passed during this King's reign, and the thousands of victims that fell a sacrifice to them; when one contemplates the myriads upon myriads of brave Britons whose lives were offered up as a sacrifice to these Moloch wars, it may well and truly be called the UNFORTUNATE REIGN of King George the Third--which reign was concluded by the King himself being locked up, for many years, in his own castle, a solitary captive, suffering under the complicated and melancholy visitation of blindness and madness: and when one thinks of all this, one may, without being very superstitious, consider the catastrophe as an awful instance of the Divine vengeance levelled at the ruler of a sinful nation.

The story goes that a mouse had contracted a sort of friendly sympathy for the hoary-headed, sightless Royal maniac, and paid him such frequent visits, during his long captivity, that it was at length become quite tame, and would submit to be handled by the unfortunate shadow of a great monarch. The King was very much delighted with this friendly little visitant, and its little antics and gambols assisted him to pass away many a wearisome, sorrowful hour. Unfortunately, the Queen came into the room one day, before the little trembling animal had time to escape to its hiding place. The Queen eyed it before it had yet left the King's hand, and when she quitted the apartment she ordered the attendant to take care and kill that "nausty mose," before she came again. The attendant ventured to state that the poor old King was so exceedingly partial to the mouse, and appeared so much entertained with it, that he was fearful his Majesty would miss it very much, and that the loss of it might make him unhappy. The answer was "kill the nausty mose before I come again!" It was as much as the servant's situation was worth to disobey, and the poor little tame animal, too confident of its former protection, was easily caught and killed! The King, of course, soon missed the little solitary companion of his adversity, and for along time inquired the cause of its absence with the greatest earnestness; and when he found that it never came again, he grieved incessantly, more so than he did for any thing that happened to him during his long and cruel captivity.

So goes the tale, and I, for one, believe it. What a subject this for reflection, what a picture of misery, what an awful monument of fallen greatness! If the King had those lucid intervals of reason which it is said he had, his situation must have been, if possible, infinitely more deplorable than that of the captive of St. Helena; it must have been a thousand times more hopeless than that of the latter; shut up and confined for life in his own palace, by his own family, he must have soon lost all hope: while Napoleon, till he found that his dissolution was approaching, must have always been cheered by the hope, arising from ten thousand chances which could not fail to present themselves to his mind, of his being at length relieved from his iron bondage.

George the Third was the only King I ever saw, and I never wish to see another King. The last time I saw him was when he was getting out of his carriage at the Star, at Andover, on his return from Weymouth; which place he never after visited. His eyesight was then nearly gone, and his attendants were obliged to guide his feet, and to lead him like a child into the Inn. I had known him in his prime, and had frequently hunted with him. At the time when I saw him at Andover, he had indeed sadly fallen off, and his signature to all documents was effected by a stamp, some one directing his hand. All Acts of Parliament, all Commissions, all Death-warrants, and all Pardons, were for a long time signed in this manner. He who had signed more death-warrants than any mortal that ever breathed, and who could spare or kill human beings by the mere dash of his pen; alas! alas! he, once so powerful, could not now even save the life of a poor mouse. He who, as a mere matter of course, and perhaps without giving the subject a thought, had put his fiat on the black scrolls which ordered hundreds upon hundreds of his fellow creatures to be sent to their long homes, and executed in cold blood; he now grieved and lamented, and cried like a child, at the death of a mouse. I would have had the Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, and all the Royal Visitors, go down to Windsor, to be eye-witnesses of the "ills that (Royal) flesh is heir to:" they should have been reminded, by a personal interview with this poor old maniac, to what a wretched state it was possible even for the greatest monarch to be reduced, by the hand of Providence. That all-wise and just Providence, the same Power that permitted the Emperor NAPOLEON to be sent a prisoner to St. Helena; the same Power that permitted HENRY HUNT to remain a captive in Ilchester Bastile, for TWO YEARS AND SIX MONTHS, commanded also that GEORGE THE THIRD should, after having LOST HIS SIGHT, and been DEPRIVED OF HIS REASON, be confined as a solitary prisoner in his own palace, for many of the latter years of his existence. The Lord's will be done!

During the whole time that these ridiculous freaks were going on in London, and that John Gull and his family were running stark mad with joy and glory, each bellowing out, whenever or wherever you met him, have you not seen the Emperor? have you not seen the King? have you not seen Blucher with his whiskers? surely you have seen the Don Cossack? &c. &c. &c.; during this time I remained quietly and snugly at Middleton Cottage, occupied in fishing or looking after my farm, and most sincerely lamenting the folly of my countrymen and countrywomen; and whenever I had an opportunity, I did not fail to remonstrate with them on their ridiculous and preposterous conduct, and to assure them that the hour would come when they would be heartily ashamed of it, and would have cause and leisure for bitter repentance. With many this time has arrived, with others it is fast approaching. So far was I from ever making one of the number of fools who ran after these sceptred despots, that, when some of them were travelling post by the house where I was staying, I retired into a back room, in order to avoid the possibility of seeing them; always saying, when the question was put to me, that "I thanked God I had seen one King, and was so well satisfied, that I never wished to see another." A single sample was quite enough for me. One of my great political friends had expressed the same sort of disgust at the idea of running after these foreign Sovereigns, and he swore most roundly and lustily, that none of his family should stir an inch to see them. It turned out, however, that he did not keep his word--but whether his breach of it arose from "the grey mare being the better horse," or from his being himself overcome by a childish curiosity, I cannot tell; perhaps a little of both prevailed; at any rate I heard that my friend and all his family went to Portsmouth, to see the Royal sight, and get a squint at Blucher's whiskers and mustachios. My friend and his family swelled the number of those who suffered at Portsmouth--"ninny nanny, one fool makes many!" It was now all glory, all joy, and all seeming prosperity with John Gull, every thing was military! As a proof that it could not well be otherwise, let us look to a return, which was presented to the House of Commons, of the number of officers in the British army in the pay of John, which return was as follows: Field Marshals, 5--Generals, 81--Lieutenant Generals, 157--Major Generals, 221--Colonels, 152--Lieutenant-Colonels, 618--Majors, 612--Captains, 2960--Lieutenants, 4725--Ensigns, 2522--amounting in the whole to the enormous number of TWELVE THOUSAND AND FIFTY-FOUR officers! What think you of this, John Gull? Here is a larger army of officers than the whole number of military that was thought sufficient by our ancestors to be kept up during the time of peace. Yes, the officers alone, at the time to which I allude, actually out-numbered the whole of what our peace establishment used to be.

One of the precious effects of the downfall of Napoleon was the restoration of the bigotted, despicable tyrant, Ferdinand the Seventh, to the throne of Spain; and one of his first acts was to restore the hellish Inquisition, with all its horrors, which had been abolished during the sway of the French, and which had also been suppressed by the Cortes. The amiable Pope Pius the Seventh being restored to the see of Rome, he performed his part in the scene of mummery and tyranny, by issuing a Bull for the restoration of the order of the Jesuits. So it will be clearly seen that the canting Boroughmongering Protestant Parliament of England, while it pertinaciously refused to grant emancipation to the Catholics in Ireland, contrived to restore the Pope, Popery, the Inquisition, the Jesuits, and every species of superstition and intolerance upon the Continent!

About this time two fanatics, of the names of Johanna Southcote and Hannah More, were much followed in the West of England. Somersetshire could boast of possessing two female saints, Mrs. Hannah More and Mrs. Johanna Southcote, at the same time; which of the two was the greatest imposter it would be very difficult to decide, although the former appears to have borne off the palm of successful fraud and imposition. Miss Hannah, who, in her younger days, had been a very frolicsome lass, became all at once converted into a saint, and set up for a severe and rigid moralist; and she had the merit of establishing the gang generally known by the title of the SAINTS, amongst our politicians. In her train she had the Sidmouths, the Wilberforces, the Babingtons, the Dickensons, and others of that puritannical cast; although it has been whispered, but that, of course, must be a calumny, that, from the well-known character of some of these gentry, who were very frequent in their visits, the buxom dame (who had now assumed the title of Mrs.) contrived, like the friars of old, to indulge in the gratification of those passions to which it is said real saints are not prone. Some of her neighbours were in consequence so ill-natured as to say, that her conversion was not sincere, but that it was a mere cloak to cover certain practices. But my readers are aware that we must not believe all that the world says. Mrs. Johanna was an illiterate woman, whose fanaticism was carried to full as high a pitch as that of Mrs. More; but as her doctrine did not suit "the powers that be" quite so well as the doctrine of the other did, she could not boast of having Ministers of State and many of the Nobility as her disciples, although amongst her numerous followers she did not want for men of talent and education. Dr. Ash, under whose care the VERY VENERABLE JUDGE BEST received his education, was a staunch disciple of Johanna's, and it is said the venerable Judge himself at times discovered a little hankering after the prophetess; but whether his attachment was to her person or her principles, is not clearly decided.

During this period the British troops were carrying on a marauding, petty warfare in America, and on the 24th of August they burnt the newly-built, half-finished city of Washington, and magnanimously destroyed the city printing-press, and threw the types into the streets, that they might be trampled under the horses feet. England being at peace with all the rest of the world, the Government had nothing else to do but to direct its whole force against the Americans, both by sea and land, and I believe it was Mr. Charles Yorke, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who put forth a speech in his place in Parliament, to the following effect:--"That now Napoleon was deposed there was another example of democratic revolution, and it was necessary to depose James Madison, the President of the United States of America." This speech was hailed and cheered by a great number of the Members of the Honourable House, many of whom seemed to think that it was no very difficult matter to carry it into effect. But they reckoned without their host; for the news having arrived of the total defeat of the British fleet, on Lake Champlain, matters began to wear a different aspect, and the boasters were compelled to draw in their horns a little. Sir James Yeo had the command of the English fleet upon the Lakes, and Commodore Downie, in the Confiance, of 38 guns, had the command of the British squadron upon Lake Champlain, supported by Captain Pring, in the Linnet, of 16 guns; Lieutenant M'Ghee, in the Chub, of 11 guns; and Lieutenant Hix, in the Finch, of 11 guns. Lieutenant Raynham and Lieutenant Dual had the command of twelve gun-boats. The American squadron was commanded by Commodore M'Donough, in the Saratoga, of 26 guns; Captain Harley, in the Eagle, of 22 guns; and Captain----, in the Ticonderoga, of 18 guns, with 1 sloop, and 10 gun-boats. The English fleet had 90 guns and 12 gun-boats; the American fleet had 83 guns and 10 gun-boats--so that the British fleet had the superiority in number of guns and weight of metal. The American fleet was anchored opposite an American battery, commanded by General M'Coomb, at the head of 800 men. The British troops, under the command of Sir George Prevost, amounting to thirteen thousand men, were all drawn up on shore ready to take the battery, if the English fleet had succeeded in beating the Americans. It was communicated to Sir George Prevost that the English fleet would attack the Americans that day. Commodore Downie called all his officers on board, and communicated to each the order of battle, and his last words were, "Lieutenant M'Ghee will lead into action; let it be close quarters, MUZZLE to MUZZLE." He doubled a point of the American coast with a fair wind, and came in full view of the enemy lying at anchor; the signal was then given to bear up, and commence the action. Mr. M'Ghee carried in the Chub, of 11 guns, and placed her gallantly close alongside of the Eagle, of 22 guns, agreeable to orders, having sustained the fire of the gun-boats as he passed; he blazed away at the enemy and received their fire in return, till he himself was wounded in three places, and every man out of his complement of sixty was either killed or wounded, with the exception of six. In fact, the Chub was made into a cullender, and completely disabled, before he struck her colours. The same fate attended the Confiance, the Linnet, and the Finch, the latter of which grounded on a reef of rocks about the middle of the engagement. The gun-boats appear absolutely to have run away. Thus was the British fleet captured by an inferior fleet of the Americans. Commodore Downie was killed by a ball from the American gun-boats very early in the contest, and the Confiance is said to have struck her colours without coming fairly into action; the result was, the British fleet was lost, and the officers were tried by a Court Martial. All the others were promoted, and the gallant Lieutenant M'Ghee was reprimanded for taking his ship prematurely into action. This is a pretty specimen of British justice in the naval department, and a melancholy example of the reward bestowed upon the gallant officers and men who fought our battles and maintained the British character.

On the 1st of November was opened the Congress at Vienna, where Lord Castlereagh, as the representative of the King of England, attended, and where it is generally believed he played second fiddle to Prince Metternich.

In consequence of the peace, and the Bank of England having drawn in a considerable quantity of its paper, preparatory to the payment in specie, which, as the law stood, they were compelled to at the end of six months after the peace had been proclaimed; in consequence of this, and there having been a good crop of wheat and a fair harvest, the average price of wheat during the year was seventy-four shillings per quarter, and the price of the quartern loaf was reduced to one shilling. Notwithstanding this, many riots took place in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, by the Luddites, who continued to set the laws at defiance, and to break the frames in the most lawless and unwarrantable manner. Their hostility was directed against all sorts of machinery, but particularly against the looms and frames used for weaving and knitting in the stocking trade.

The supplies voted this year amounted to seventy-five millions six hundred and twenty-four thousand five hundred and seventy-two pounds. By a return, it appeared that the amount of Bank of England notes in circulation was between twenty-eight and twenty-nine millions, and that the number of private banks was seven hundred and twenty-four.

The Parliament had met late in the fall of 1814, but little was done of importance, except passing the address, and a Bill called "the Preservation of Peace Bill," to put down by force the disturbances in Ireland. The state of Ireland had become very alarming, as the poor Irish were suffering the greatest privations from bad government and severe laws; which laws were exercised with the greatest severity, to support an infamous tithe system and a national church, the most profligate, the most expensive and rapacious that ever existed; a church in every respect hostile to the religion of four-fifths of the inhabitants, and a priesthood proud, overbearing, and intolerant.

In the higher circles it was now confidently given out that the Princess Charlotte, the heir apparent to the throne of England, was to be married to the hereditary Prince of Orange; but the disposition of her Royal Highness had been greatly soured by the infamous treatment of her poor mother, and, conceiving that this said young Dutch upstart had not paid her mother proper respect and attention, but that he was more disposed to fawn and cringe to the will of her father, it is said that she dismissed him from her presence, and peremptorily refused to marry him. This drove her Royal Papa into a great passion, and our magnanimous Prince Regent went suddenly to Warwick House, the residence of his daughter, and discharged all her servants. She, however, proved herself a legitimate Guelph, in obstinacy, at any rate; for she refused to see the young Orange afterwards. This young lady had secured the affections of every honourable and unprejudiced person in the kingdom, by her undeviating attachment to her mother, and she gained the hearts of thousands by her firm and undaunted opposition to the arbitrary mandates of her father, with respect to that mother.

The Parliament met very early after the adjournment, and the first Act they passed was to renew the restriction of cash payments by the Bank of England; another violation of a positive pledge of the Honourable House, another gross breach of faith committed upon the people by a corrupt Parliament, which had solemnly declared by an act that the Bank should be compelled to pay their notes in specie at the end of six months after peace was made.

Accounts were now brought to England that Napoleon was reigning in full sovereignty at Elba, and all the corrupt writers in the Ministerial and daily press were sneering at the idea of his fancied sovereignty. But by the solemn treaty of Paris, Napoleon was as much an Emperor as he ever had been as much a Sovereign as the Emperor of Russia; and, by the law of nations, quite as much entitled to make war or peace with other powers as was the King of England, the King of France, or any other Sovereign. But these writers, as I have before said, were daily ridiculing his sovereignty, and holding his power in derision. But it will be seen hereafter, that it is a very dangerous thing to treat with contempt the hostility of an enemy, however weak that enemy may be. In the meantime Louis the Desired, the contemptible King of France, decreed that the property of the Buonaparte family should be sequestred; the old Bourbon tyranny was making the most rapid strides; the press was much more enslaved than under the reign of Napoleon; disturbances had broken out in many parts of France; yet such was the dreadful, enthralled state of the press, that no one dared to mention them, nor were they ever known but by the proclamations of the King, to restrain and repress them. The finances of France were, nevertheless, in a flourishing state; their trade was fast reviving, and every means that ingenuity could devise were resorted to, to induce the people to feel for royalty; and, amongst other things, a solemn funeral for the late King and Queen of France took place, which was conducted with great pomp and ceremony.

In America, the English were routed at New Orleans, by General Jackson, who, with an undisciplined militia, and very inferior numbers, caused great slaughter amongst the British troops; in fact, the number killed in the English ranks amounted to more than the whole number of the American troops, so expert were the riflemen, and so superior were the abilities of the American General Jackson. This was a death-blow to the hopes of the English, for the bravery of the Americans appeared to be invincible; they were in truth fighting for Liberty, for themselves and their country, and not for any despot or any despotism. This fine spirit gained them a peace, which it may fairly be said they fought for, bled for, and ultimately obtained by conquest; and James Madison remained, in spite of all the threats of deposing him, President of the only free people upon the habitable globe. Thus, as I hope and trust, have they secured and placed upon an imperishable basis, the liberties and just rights of their people. They had a right to be proud of their success. England, at peace with all the rest of the world, carried on a war with America; yet the latter, single-handed, not only met and contended with, but repelled the mighty power of her adversary, and by the equity of her cause, and the bravery of her citizens, she conquered a peace, in spite of the threats of England's haughty, bullying, ignorant, and intolerant Ministers, who had declared that the right of search was a sine qua non which must form the basis of any negotiation. Ultimately, however, these very Ministers were glad to make peace with the Americans, by saying nothing about the sine qua non, the right of search, for which they had gone to war. England went to war almost solely to maintain the right of search; the Americans went to war to resist that right; and England having made peace, and suffered the right of search to be passed over in silence, the Americans have gained their object, and the English have lost the point which was the cause of the war.

On the 17th of January in this year, 1815, a Catholic meeting was held in Dublin, at which it was determined to petition Parliament for an unqualified emancipation.

The price of wheat and all sorts of grain having been reduced, the great landholders had been for some time raising a cry, that the landed interest was in danger, and that the farmers would be ruined unless some law was made to keep up the price of grain to the war standard, which, on an average, was from twelve to fifteen shillings a bushel. The Ministers had been pressed hard by the great landholders, in both Houses of Parliament, to bring forward such a measure; but, knowing and feeling the unpopularity to which it would expose them, they had, from time to time, put them off, and they appeared to discountenance any such proposition, whenever it was mentioned in the House. At length, however, the Ministers gave way to the urgent demands of the landholders, although apparently with great reluctance and considerable doubts. In several districts the landholders urged the farmers and their tenants to petition the House for a Corn Bill. Amongst the number of these landholders, the most active and the most forward to promote such petitions in Wiltshire and the West of England, was Mr. John Benett, of Pyt-House, near Shaftesbury, the present Member for that county. Committees of both Houses of Parliament were appointed to inquire into the state of agriculture, for the purpose of ascertaining what measures it were necessary to take, or what Act to pass to keep up the price of corn, or rather to keep up the price of the quartern loaf to the war standard. Mr. John Benett was one of the witnesses who volunteered to be examined at great length before both of these Committees, that of the House of Lords as well as that of the House of Commons.

As soon as the evidence given before these Committees was published, I rode over to Botley, to my friend Cobbett, to urge him to take a more decided part against the measure; for I thought I discovered in his Register a leaning towards a Corn Bill, or rather the doctrine was maintained that it was necessary to protect the farmer as well as the merchants and other trades. When I arrived, I found him endeavouring, by arguments the most powerful, to shew the injustice of leaving the farmer open to the competition of foreign growers, who could raise the grain at half the expense which must be incurred by the native growers. Perhaps this was said to ascertain my sentiments upon the subject, which I immediately, and in the most unequivocal manner, stated to be in direct opposition to the measure. I argued against the injustice of making the mechanic and the labourer pay a war price for his bread in time of peace, and I maintained that it was the duty of the farmer and the landholder to petition for a reduction of taxation, so as to enable him to compete with the foreign farmer, instead of petitioning for a monopoly by his exclusion. In five minutes my friend Cobbett was either convinced of the propriety and justice of my remarks, or at any rate he professed to be so; and he concurred with me in the necessity of calling upon the public to come forward to oppose so injurious and ruinous a measure as that which was contemplated. I pointed out to him the fallacy and the hypocrisy of those who pretended to be anxious for the good of the farmer, and we both very soon came to this conclusion, that a Corn Bill would be ultimately injurious to the farmer, and that the only result of it would be, to raise the price of the staff of life, and to grind the face of the poor, to enable the farmer to continue to pay high taxes, for the support of an unconstitutional large standing army in the time of peace, and to enable the lazy sinecurist and the unmerited pensioner to wallow in wealth and riot in luxury, drawn from the sweat of the poor man's labour. From this time forward Mr. Cobbett took the most decisive part in opposition to every movement of the Corn Bill gentry.

Sir Henry Parnell, an Irish Member, ONE OF THE OPPOSITION, brought forward the measure in the House of Commons, and I believe he was Chairman of the Committee. I will now put upon record a few questions and answers, extracted from the evidence of the aforesaid John Benett, Esq. of Pyt-House, voluntarily given before the Committee of the House of Lords, in favour of a Corn Bill, which evidence was printed by order of the Right Honourable House:

The Evidence of JOHN BENETT, Esq. of Pyt-House, voluntarily given lefore the Committee of the House of Lords, in favour of the Corn Bill.

You hold a considerable quantity of land in your own hands?--I do.

What number of acres?--I believe upwards of 2000 acres, in various parishes in the western part of Wiltshire, about twelve miles from Warminster.--My residence is Pyt-House, in Wiltshire.

Have you any general information about the state of that quarter of the country, or can you speak only to the particular district in which you reside?--I can speak to the county of Wilts; for I am in the habit of riding through it very often, and am in the habit of meeting with the farmers in the county, from having been for some years a farmer, and am now President of the Agricultural Society of that county. Can you give the Committee any account of the increase and alterations that have taken place in the value and prices of the different articles of produce from land, and the expenses of cultivation, and from what period?--I can speak to nearly twenty years. The price of wheat has varied so very materially, it is more easily ascertained from the returns of the markets than from recollection.

In the present state of the improved cultivation of those parts of the county of Wilts with which you are acquainted, can you state the various prices which it will be necessary for the farmer to receive for the different species of grain he rears, in order to remunerate him for his expenses?--Taking the taxes, the price of labour, and all outgoing expenses of the farmer as they now stand, and the rents at which land has lately been let, I do not conceive the farmer can possibly raise wheat, and remunerate himself with ten per cent. interest upon his capital, under 12s. a bushel, or 96s. per quarter.