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large sums of public money, who ought to have been the very last to oppose it, or "rather, who ought to have been amongst "its most chearful patrons and promoters even though actuated by no other motive than that which guided every prudent tradesman, and made him consider present security, as well as future gain. He would, and with no unfriendly voice, call upon those persons to consider, whether, by their opposition to this bill of Reversion, they might not produce bills "of Resumption, whether they might not, "by opposing this small commencement of reform, cause themselves speedily to hear sounds the most unpleasant, he should suppose, to their ears-for he would "have then recollect, that it was not the "first time in the history of this country "that the necessity of the times, and the indignation of the public, had echoed through the land resume and refund." "MR. WINDHAM did not think that the measure of abolishing Reversions would be so productive of advantage to the people as was supposed. The assertion of the hon. baronet, that it would be the commencement of reform, was to him no recommendation of it, knowing, as he did, the dreadful dangers which might ensue from misguided attempts at reformation, of which we had had sufficient examples in a neighbouring country. As to the corruption that was so generally asserted to exist among the higher orders, he contended that that corruption existed in an equal degree in the lower, and that the tree struck its root as deep into the earth as it elevated its branches into the air."After Mr. Windham came, it appears from the report, Mr. Sheridan: but, I can hardly believe, that the speech attributed to him ever fell from his lips. He has astonished me many times, but, that he should make the speech, which has been published under his name, is quite incredible. He spoke with great warmth, too, the reporters tell us. It was represented to me, only a few days ago, that he was ill; and really, if this report be correct, I am afraid that the representation was but too well founded, But, it is impossible. He never could have uttered the words. No, not even Mr. Sheridan could have made such a speech,

-The words, published as his speech were these:" Mr. Sheridan could not be provoked to say a word at so late an hour, by any thing but the extraordinary positions which he had just heard from his right hon. friend. What! all corruption in the state was to be found only at the root! The people were the

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root, and from the people then sprung up all corruption! He must beg his right hon. friend to recollect that he had successively represented such a variety of places, whether the county of Norfolk, Norwich, S. Mawe's, or Higham Ferrers, that even a memory like his, and such a known ac quaintance with the constitution of parliament, could not well enable him to say of what place he was really the representative. His right hon. friend had chiefly insisted, that the root of corruption was to be traced only to the people. He would contend the very contrary. It was government that was the seducer; the people the seduced. The present question would put it to the test; and if his right hon. friend's principles were to be adhered to, it would only prove, that the drippings of the top of the tree were the real cause of the blighting of the branches, and the corruption of the root. Where root, branches, &c. were undermined, could any fair fruit be after expected to blossom from such a ground?"Now, how the repor ter could insert this appears to me to be astonishing. It was an answer to Mr. Windham, but it answered what he did not say. He said, that corruption had gone as far amongst the poor as it had gone amongst the rich as far amongst the low as amongst the high; that the tree of corruption had shot as far downwards as it had shot upwards, a figure perfectly corresponding with the well-known observation respecting the oak, that its tap root penetrates exactly as far into the earth as its topmast twig mounts into the air. As to the truth of the proposition, which this figure was meant to illustrate or embellish, that is another matter; but, if Mr. Sheridan did give the answer, which is here imputed to him, he must have been out of the house when Mr. Windham spoke; for, if he had. been disposed so glaringly to misrepresent a member's word, he could not have rentur. cd to do it, knowing that the misrepresentation must be perceived by every one who. heard him, Did Mr. Windham say, that corruption sprang up solely from the, people?" No. He did not say, that it, sprang up from the people at all. He said, that the tree had shot as far downwards as it had upwards; but, he said nothing about the seed, or about who had sown the seed. Now, as to the fact, let any one look at Honiton and hundreds of places that could be named, and deny, if he can, that the corruption has shot as far downwards as it has upwards. Let any one look at the election of Alexander Davison; nay, let any one look at the number of votes, which were obtained, upon a late occasion, for a person,

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whom it is needless now to name. These, These, if we had not thousands of others, are quite sufficient proofs of the truth of Mr. Windham's assertion. In fact, it is only because the electors are corrupt, that corruption prevails at all. If they were to do their duty, there would not exist the food for corruption to feed upon.I imagine, I could easily point out the reason why Mr. Sheridan chose, upon this occasion, to post himself up, as it were, for an advocate of reform. Yes, I could easily assign, à cause for this wonderful ebullition of popular spirit. But, he may rest assured, that the persons, whom he had in his eye, even if they had now another opportunity of making a choice, would convince him, that they are not easily to be led to alter their minds, as to any part of his conduct or character. It well became him, indeed, to talk about St. Mawe's and Higham Ferrers His election and his riding in the dirt-covered car with Sir Samuel Hood, were, one would have thought, sufficient to have induced him to say nothing about elections; and, as to sinecure places, it is well-known that he has now, or lately had, a pretty good one (I suppose it has come back to him upon the death of Lord Lake); it is also well known, that the Whig ministry was scarcely formed, when he obtained for his son a sinecure worth three thousand pounds a year, that sop receiving at the same time, pay as a captain in the army; it is also well known, that he asked for himself the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancas ter, another sinecure place worth three thousand a year, and that he asked it for life too. In fact, men more greedy of the public money than himself and his son, it is, I think, impossible to find, even in this country, at this timē. He has always been hunting after place, which is very well, perhaps, but, then, he should never attempt to play the part of the disinterested man.

would, like him, speak out, we should always know what we had to trust to. He says plainly, that he disapproves of any attempt to reform the parliament; he acknowledges that corruption exists; he wishes it did not; but, he tells us, that, in his opinion, the remedy would be worse than the disease. Let no man suppose, that he has not reasons to give in support of this opinion. It is our business to combat those reasons, and not to abuse him for entertaining the opinion, or for acting upon that opinion, until it be proved to be erroneous. At any rate, he is not an enemy to be hated, who speaks out who acts without disguise; who scorns all subterfuge, and who is willing to run the risk of defeat. -It will not be forgotten, that this advocate of reform, never talked about reform, while he himself was in place. Before and after, but not during that time, when he had the power to speak with effect. It has been the same, with regard to all the other subjects, which, from time to time, he has taken up. There have always been some means found out of mollifying and silencing him, During the last session of parliament, he talked about a bill respecting the powers of the police magistrates; he gave notice of his intention to propose such a bill. Now we hear no more of it; and no more of it we shall hear, unless a similar motive should again animate the patriotic proposer. It must have surprized a great many people to see Mr. Sheridan thus turn upon Mr. Windham all of a sudden. His friendship is like that of a cat. He will purr about you for a long while to gether, but, by-and by, when you least expect it, he gives you a scratch. He now appears to be purring to Sir Francis Burdett, the pan by the means of calumniating whom he gained the support of the friends of Sir Samuel Hood; the man against whom chiefly the speeches and toasts at all his election dinners, during the first contest, were le velled; the man, in short, whom the Whigs sought to destroy by all the means that ma lice could invent and baseness execute, This purring, however, will not succeed and, therefore, if Mr. Sheridan be wise, he will make the best that he can of a steady attachment to his old party.

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-It is odd enough to hear him expressing his indignation at Mr. Windham's defence of sinecure places; he, who is a sinecure placeman, and would have been, if he could, a double-handed sinecure placeman, and whose son (of whom he is so proud, as he told the electors of Westminster) was, as long as the ministry would permit him to be so, a sinecure placeman, the place having been obtained by the means of the father. Mr. Windham is no sinecure placeman; he never, in his life, pocketted a farthing of the public money; he must, therefore, have therefore, have spoken from principle; and, though I differ with him in opinion, as to sinecure places, nature of the wars cannot help respecting him for the manly we carry on in India; and may lead them to declaration of his sentiments. If every man the conclusion, so much to be desired, name

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INDIA AFFAIRS. The recent, intelligence from India, or, our Empire in the East," is of a gloomy complexion, in my sight, only inasmuch as if gives an account of the loss of a great number of English of ficers and soldiers.. It may to make men reflect justly on the

ly, that the possession of that country is a terrible evil. This, it seenis, is to be the last war; but, we have been told the same thing for more than thirty years past. There is a constant, a never-ceasing war in India. There is not always actual fighting; but, there are always going on preparations for fighting. What right, in God's name, what right have we to do this? How is it possible for us to justify our conduct, upon any principle of morality? Conquests in India eware not at all necessary either to our safety or our comfort. There is no glory attending such conquests and their accompanying butcheries. We must be actuated by a sheer love of gain; a sheer love of plunder. I reilly believe, that the history of the whole World does not afford an instance of a series of aggressions so completely unjustifiable and inexcusable. But, the Indian branch makes a considerable part of our political system. These colonies, on the other side of the globe, have no small share in the decision of all questions relative to us here at home. The East-India interest is embodied, and it is always held in the hands of the minister of the day. The East-India adventurer is enriched by money paid out of the taxês raised here, and that money he frequently employs for the purpose of obtaining the power of taxing us, for facilitating which employment the borough system is most admirably calculated. If corruption at elections were prevented, if the laws relating to elections were obeyed; if the Constitution of England were adhered to, there would be little danger from combinations of any sort. If those who pay the greater part of the taxes were all to have their free voice; and if the qualifications were Such as the law intended them to be; if no man having alien interests, and being exposed to no temptation to swerve from his duty, which duty, supposing him to be properly qualified, would have a perfect coincidence With his interest; if such were the state of the representation, (and such the constitution of England means it should be,) the nation would be in no danger whatever of seeing either its honour or its interest sacri ficed to such bodies as the East-India Compapresent state, it is impossible, that such to than their is impossible, that such sacrifices should not be made. It is said now, that some fegulations will be adopted, in India, for the purpose of conciliating the natives, and especially for the purpose of preventing any future attack upon their religious prejudices. This alludes to the whisher shaving affair, which was, indeed, of Buthe notable instance. But, the Indians knew

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only one half of the story; and, if they had been informed, that we were putting whiskers upon the faces of

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they might, perhaps, have taken the thing more quietly. If they could have seen whisker Mellish, riding in a dog-cart to and from the Brentford election, they might, perhaps, have profited from so striking an example of complaisance. This man exceeded, in that way, any one I ever heard of, in this or any other country. He put a pair of most odious bunches of hair upon his face; he disfigured himself; he voluntarily rendered himself ugly, and, to all appearance, for no reason whatever except that of paying his court to those, who preferred the look of a German to that of an Englishman! Here, ye slaves of Hindostan ! Behold this example, and repent of your refractory behaviour! It would seem, that delegated rulers in "our Eastern Empire, are really alarmed at the threats of Napoleon, and are making preparations for defence, on the side of Persia. That is good. I wish to see them upon the alert. It will bring on the desired result, It will hasten that result; and will make it as certain as if Buonaparte himself were to enter India an army. And here I must observe, how abominably cowardly our language respecting the French is. We appear to be more afraid of six Frenchmen than of thirty millions of Indians. When we are beaten, or in danger of being beaten in India, we always ascribe it to the French. Like the fellow in one of Goldsmith's plays, where we will we find the Parlez vous; and always are we, upon land, most dreadfully afraid him. As tọ India, we are not at all ashamed to acknowledge, that, if the French could throw in a trifling force of their own, or, even a body of military offcers only, we should soon be driven out of the country. We never hear the French expressing such terrible apprehensions at the influence of English military officers. These apprehensions of our India rulers are, however, by no means unfounded; for, if the French should get but a mere footing, they will very soon overset a company of as com fortable sovereigns as the world ever saw.

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PORTUGAL The situation of Portugal, respecting which I have, in another part of this number, inserted an account, is truly shocking; but, it is no other than what expected and foretold, Portugal cannot exist, in the present state of its agriculture, without importation,It is stated, that an application was made, in the latter end of Charles Cotton,

last month, to our admiral come provisions

by General Junot, to suffer

power, Napoleon having, by his commercial decrees, cut off our trade, we have been driven to do that which wisdom long ago pointed out to us.Portugal will now, instead of an additional weapon in the hand, be a mill-store about the neck of France. The fate of that wretched country will teach the people of Europe, that there is a boundary to the power of Napoleon. He himself cannot but feel, that it must tend to render him odious, to cause his name to be bated and cursed, and to render his sway of precarious duration. All these, Mr. Roscoe, and not your Lauderdale negociations, and petitions from Liverpool, lead to a secure and lasting peace.

to come into Lisbon to prevent the people from starving, and that Sir Charles has sent home, for instructions. I think, I should not have sent home. The chief object of the Orders in Council, and of the blockades, was to produce distress in France, and in all the countries under her controul. This is the immediate object of preventing provisions from going into a besieged town. But, there is, in the latter case, a consequent object, and that is, the surrender of the town by the enemy. Now, though no state of distress, no ravages of famine, could, perhaps, be reasonably expected to induce the French to evacuate Portugal, and, if they were to do it, we could not take pos session and hold it; yet, a sort of capitulation might have been made. The French might have been required to yield something. The worth of the plunder, for instance, which they have made upon English subjects. They might have been required to give up or drive out the Russian fleet, This may, perhaps, be done yet; but, the sooner the thing had been done the better. I am aware of the horrors of famine. I hear the cries of humanity in favour of a starving people; but I hear them also in a town besieged; and I never yet heard of town in that state being supplied by the besieger. I shall be told, may be, that the Portuguese are our old friends and allies; and so were the Dutch; and so were the Russians. Portugal now belongs to France; two millions and a half of people have submitted to her autho-ple, who are, to say the best of them, as rity; the ports and resources of Portugal are now arrayed against England. This being the case, we must consider, the Portuguese as enemies. Amongst the effects of the Orders in Council, I always counted greatly upon the distress to be produced in all the countries dependant upon France, and especially upon the starving of Spain and Portugal. Now, though I feel sorrow that Portugal should have so acted as to bring herself into a state of starvation; I cannot

say that I am sorry that starvation has been the consequence. I should be sorry, that a peculator should have so acted as to bring himself to the gallows; but, I could not say that I was sorry that he had been hanged.

SPAIN,A very confused account (in serted below from the news-papers) of an insurrection in Spain shews, I think, clears ly, that the last remaining branch of the House of Bourbon has not many months to enjoy even the name of regal authority. That, infatuation and imbecility, which have, in all the other countries of the con tinent, paved the military road of the conqueror, seem to have worked double tides in the monarchy of Spain. It is not long since we saw the king accusing his son of being engaged in a conspiracy against his life; and, it is pretty generally asserted, that the queen had as little of constancy as the king had ef sense. Profligacy and extravagance in the Royal family; base peculation in the nobles; and a total want of public-spirit in the peo

corrupt as their rulers: these are the causes of the present distracted state, and of the approaching subjugation, of Spain; and, let no man hope, that similar causes will not, in every country where they prevail, produce, first or last, similar effects. Riches, luxury, corruption, cowardice, passive submission at home, subjection to a foreign foe: this, the history of the world, tells us, is the invariable progress and, I am afraid, that it tells us besides, that a nation,sonce deeply corrupted, never yet regained its purity, without feeling the scourge of a conqueror, or passing through the fire of revolution.In the approaching change in Spain, I, therefore, see nothing to reTerrible as the effect of our power is, in Portugal (and it will soon have, I should people can be placed in a state more wretchgret. It appears to be impossible, that the think, a like effect in Spain,) it cannot fail to be attended with advantages to Europe in ed and degraded than they now are. Let us endeavour, let us Englishmen, each general. The example is, indeed, dread-according to the utmost of his means, make fal; but it will be the more efficacious. It will tend to convince the yielding nations, that there is something still more to be dreaded than the armies of France. The greediness of trade has, until now, prevented us from making the true use of our naval

from befalling our country; for, we may an effort, at least, to prevent a similar fate decrees of Providence, there is no article be well assured, that, in the immutable containing an exception in favour of use

AMERICAN STATES. My querulous

correspondent, the American merchant "of New Er al Street," has sent me another letter, which I have inserted, and, upon one part of which only I shall make any observation. He says, in answer to my question, so often repeated, that he would not give up the right of searching for seamen; but, that he would take care to prevent abuse in the exercise of it; and this is all, as he understands, that the American president asks for. If he does really understand this; his understanding must, I should suppose, have been asleep, for some months past; for, we learn, from the correspondence between Lords Holland and Auckland and Mr. Canning, that our negociators went as far as they could possibly go in assurances that all abuse in the exercise of the right should be effectually prevented. But, this is not all: The king, in his proclamation upon, the jubject, strictly enjoins and commands all his officers to exercise this right of search with the least possible degree of inconvenience to the ships, which they judge it necessary to search. Well, what more are we to do? It is impossible to do any thing more, without doing away the right as to all its practical utility. And, observe, that this proclamation, so far from having satisfied the Americans, is, in all their newspapers, on both sides, stated to be the sole cause of the non-importation act being put into force, and the chief cause of the embargo.Having entered upon this subject, I will How state a most curious and interesting fact, relating to the embargo, which was omitted last week. It appears from the Charleston (South Carolina) city gazette of the 10th and 17th of February last, that a large number of British subjects, seamen in the "American ships," went, on the 15th of that month, in a body, to the English Consul, at that port, and requested him to give them relief, or employment. Now, then, where are the Morning Chronicle and its correspondent A. B. to affect a laugh at the idea of many of our seamen being on board the American ships? This is a most unfortunate fact for those gentlemen, as well as for the American negociators, who have invariably asserted, that the number of English sailors on board of the American ships was not worth notice, and that the men taken out of them by our searchers were, almost in all cases, Americans. Whence, then, did this large number" spring at Charleston? This is a very curious effect of the embargo. That self-blockade was adopted to prevent us from taking our seamen out of American ships; and, one of the effects of it has been to make those sea

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men voluntarily withdraw themselves from their ships, which has, at the same time, furnished us with a proof of the falsehood of the allegations, upon which they founded their demand of a surrender of our right of search.The Morning Chronicle, of the 13th instant, has made an extraordinary dişplay of its understanding upon a matter connected with the embargo, but which connection it does not appear to have perceived. -It publishes a proclamation of the king, dated on the 11th instant, which it prefaces with the following sagacious remark, "We "understand that the following proclama

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tion by the king in council has been issued. It is another proof that the system which has been so rashly adopted is "found to be impracticable; and, there"fore, day by day, relaxations of the prin "ciple. are forced upon ministers." Now, what, reader, should you imagine was this proof" of the "impracticability" of the Orders in Council system? What should you imagine was this relaxation, forced upon the ministers ?" Read the proclamation, and then admire the profound ignorance of this oracle of the Whig politicains. "GEORGE R.— Instructions to the "commanders of our ships of war and pri "vateers. Given at our court at Windsor, "the 11th day of April, in the 48th year "of our reign.-Our will and pleasure is, "that you do not interrupt any neutral ves"sel laden with lumber and provisions, and

going to any of our colonies, islands, or "settlements, in the West-Indies, or South "America, to whomsoever the property

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may appear to belong, and notwithstand"ing such vessel may not have regular clear"ances and documents on board, and in case any vessel shall be met with, and be in her due course to the alledged port of "destination, an indorsement shall be made

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on one or more of thy principal papers of "such vessel, specifying the destination al"ledged, and the place where the vessel was "so visited. And in case any vessel so laden "shall arrive and deliver her cargo at any "of our colonies, islands, or settlements "aforesaid, such vessel shall be permitted "to receive her freight, and to depart,

either in ballast, or with any goods that may be legally exported in such vessel, "and to proceed to any unblockaded port, "notwithstanding the present hostilities, cr

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any future hostilities which may take place; "and a passport for such purpose shall le granted to the vessel by the governor, or other person, having the chief civil com"mand in such colony, island or settle"ment. Now, one would have

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