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highest bidder; a criterion which they were led to adopt, not from any motive of paltry gain (which was an object infinitely below their generous minds) but because it was a criterion of all others the most easy to be ascertained. He said, that if any tenants whose families had lived upon their farms for centuries (before such modes were adopted by their landlords) were turned our, it was entirely their own fault; as they might have taken care that no person should outbid them. He said that the landlords and members of parliament were so careful to avoid being a burden on their tenants that many of them had, and all the rest were striving to get places and pensions, in order that the whole weight of their expences might not fall upon their lands: and in order still further to release their tenants from the burden of the expense, instead of retarning to their own estates, and entertaining a train of consuming servants and relations, they now constantly reside during the summer at watering villages in England*, to the great grief of their wives and daughters, who" doted of all things on a life of pasto"ral obscurity in their own country." He said that even if they were not warranted by law in what they did, yet their peculiar sination ought to extenuate much. They had been sent by the Act of Union into another country, at a great distance, to meet their equals in rank, but much their superiors in wealth. To appear in a strange country, in the same stile as your equal, was an ambition not very likely to be resisted by an Irish gentieman. At this period the immense issue of paper currency had greatly

* The assertion above must be taken with some limitation. Most of them come to Ireland twice a year for about a fortnight to the asszes. In Ireland, there is a sum of about £500,000. per annum distributed at the assizes, under the name of preseutuents. There are 04 county members. The grand juries vote, raise, and distribute the money. The grand juries are struck by the sheriffthe sheriff is named by the crown, probably on the recommendation of the meniber, who may be the friend of the minister. The member is a friend of the minister. The sheriff is a friend of the member. The grand jury are all friends of the sheriff. All is a friendly proceeding. The friendly meinber attends at the distribution. The whole history of this annual sum of £500,000, and its effects shail be detailed at a future opportunity. What a cargo of independence England imported from Ireland by the Union One sixty-fourth part of £500,000, is abové 17,800.

diminished the value of money, and the bank statutes stopping the currency of gold, had aggravated their situation by adding sometimes a charge of 15 or 16 per cent. on their remittances. These circumstances forced them to raise their rents by every means in their power. He said the paper currency was the curse of the country, and that the abhorrence of it had been much increased in the western districts ever since the landing of the French under General Humbert, who (probably, from policy) had taken care to pay, in dollars, for every thing he got. After this, he said, it was impossible to convince the country people, particu Jarly at Castle-bar, that a man who paid for his provisions punctually in " hard silver dollars" was not a better customer, than he, who in his hurry to get away, forgot to pay at all, or if he did recollect it, paid in Green Grocers sixpenny bank notes. I asked him, if this paper currency was thought to be such a curse to the country, why his friends the members of parliament did not put an end to it? He answered, that as Lord Grenville was minister, and as the paper circulation had been a measure of that "illustrious "statesman and his ever to be lamented "friend Mr. Pitt" it was not likely that they would think it prudent," under existing circumstances," to vote in parliament for its abolition. After having thus obtained what I have stated from my friend, the friend of the landlords, Inext applied to the parson of the parish, who fortunately had arrived the week before from Bath; in order to make a new lease of his tithes. From him, I learned, that the whole cause of the present disturbance, had originated in the cruelty and avarice of absentee landlords, who, not content with exacting the utmost penny for their lands, were grasping at the tithes themselves, and irritating the whole country to rise against the poor clergy→→ that he himself got very little from his rectory--so little, that with paying the Income Tax in England, and the price of Exchange on remittances from Ireland, he could not lay by much, though he had three livings. He said, he would take an opportunity of explaining this matter to me when he should return next year which he intended to do and remain a full fortnight: but that at present he was under a necessity of setting out immediately for Bathr, in order to be present at the monthly meeting of the Amateur Harmonie Society where he was to have the honour of presiding at the piano-forte.-As I had heard so rauch from two parties to this question, I own I had a little curiosity to hear something from the third. There was a poor neighbour of mine for whom I bad

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once the good fortune of being able to do some acts of kindness. This man 1 had reason to suspect was not a little engaged among the Threshers in the dispute; and I thought his gratitude would induce him to trust me. Accordingly I made my enquiry in the most soothing manner I was able. The poor man went, indeed, in his confidence, beyond my expectations. He appeared so exasperated by his sufferings, that he hardly seemed conscious he was disclosing what the lawyers would certainly call rebellion, though in our idiom ever since the mild government of Lord Hardwicke it has been called only dispute.

But the tale he told me is not to be written not on account of the crimes it might have confessed, but on account of the causes he assigned in extenuation. By the narration of miseries which I found these wretches had endured and were likely to endure, my individual feelings were SO wounded" that I am certain to repeat them would “wound the feelings of very great

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giments had been issued, priated in very large letters, inviting all sober Irishmen to enlist; specifying to them the singular adVauges to be attained thereby, and that the more effectually to explain the said singular advantages, the proclamation ha4been translated into the Lish language, pristed occordingly, and pasted up on every old wal post and gate within that part of the Uited Kingdom called Ireland. He said, t id been indeed unlucky for the effect of this proclamation, (as what wisdom ha- ben able to controul existing circumste term that although the Irish language be sull stoln by some millions of the inhabitants of Ireland, yet in the whole island there were not above ten or a dozen peonie who could read it when written or printed: and that they were speculative and recluse scholars; men of all others the least likely so enlist: and that an additional circumstance of il luck had occurred, which was, that not having been able to procure types of the Irish characters or letters, (no bock having been printed in that language since the reign of Ollin Fodlagh who lived in the year 3014 of the Julian period and in the 17th century before the Christian ara) the bish words in the proclamation had been printed in the Roman characters: a circunustage which had very much puzzled the antiquaries who had been led by their love of curiosities, to inspect the posts and old walls on which the proclamation was extabited. In the affect of this measure therefore some disappoin ment had occurred. But true wisdom re. dily supplies expedients. The goods which could not be manufactured at home, might be imported from abroad; and accordingly ten or twelve thousand ready made troops have been since transported from. England into this country; which in addition to the Germans, &c. already here my friend the exciseman made no doubt would very mu h conciliate the affections of the Irish. In respect of civil measures, he said, great exertions had been made. To smother the dispute effectually or crush it at once, a special commission had been issued for the purpose of hanging these Threshers according to thd stature in that case made and provided: ane not only to give the measure such a degree of ponderousness as would enable it to keep down this yeasty effervescence in the peo

people;" and as I understand that now by the law of England so to do would be a very great crime, and would probably expose me to be transported to England and kid down within the stroke of a much more powerful Thresher than any of those amongst whom I now live, I must guard myself in silence. Whether the provocations, which my poor neighbour assured me had excited the dispute were truly assigned or not, it is not for me to determine. But as a dispute exists, in which many thousand men in arms have been engaged, I was anxious to know if any step had been taken for its suppression or accominodation. For this purpose, I applied to some gentlemen of consequence who happened at that moment to be in the country. They would not give me any information-they said that as soon as they arrived in London they would ask Sir John Newport. I then thought the exciseman of the district must be the best source of intelligence on the subject; because as he never omits upon any occasion to declare that lie is one of the friends of government," it was natural to conclude, that he knew what was going on in so friendly a connexion. Nor was I mistaken. My friend the exciseman assured me that every measure which the most consummate wisdom could suggest to the most unremitting activity had been put in execution: and that the most effec-ple, had my Lord Chief Justice himself, who tual military as well as the most dignified civil methods had been adopted for suppres sing the present daring and extensive dispute. As an instance of military care, he assured me, as soon as it appeared, that the dispute had become serious, a proclamation for the purpose of filing up the skeleton re

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was undoubtedly a personage of the greatest weight on the bench, been sent cut: but it also appeared. (as might be seen in a composition of much brilliancy, the address of the Grand Jury of the County of Mayo) that the councils in Dublin had acully been de prived for some short time of the benefit of

the wisdom and the support of the virtue of the Attorney General who was sent out also to add, his consistency and influence to enforce a due obedience to the law. These circumstances, the exciseman said were of infinite importance, not only in respect of the event of the particular trials, but in respect of views of general policy. They marked strongly the almost irresistible effect of the penetra ting and searching influence which might be used; by which it was highly probable the peasantry of Ireland would be effectually cured of two troublesome if not dangerous propensities-those of having any comidence in each other, or any reliance on the ministers of their religion. The exciseman said that when the Irish peasantry were thoroughly taught by experience, that they could not have the least reliance upon the bonds of parental, filial, or fraternal affection; that when they were so far cured of their present bigotry, as to despise and hate the ministers of that great branch of the Christian religion in which they had been bred, by being shewn that although confession might obtain for them absolution for the world to come, it would undoubtedly consign them to the hangman in the world that is ;-he had, he said, no doubt but with an entire repeal of the habeas corpus act, a due execution of the statutes for martial law, and the assistance of sixty thousand regular troops, Ireland would become a valuable dependence to England, and produce so considerable a revenue, as to be able with the aid of Sir John Newport, in borrowing two or three millions a year, very nearly to pay the troops to keep the peace, the custom-house officers to collect the revenue, and the salaries and pensions of the "friends of government." It was obvious therefore, my friend the exciseman said, that no exertions had been wanting to keep the Irish to the path in which dutiful and obedient subjects ought to tread. Here ended the exciseman and from his account I am inclined to think that the maker of the speech for Mr. Perceval need not be apprehensive that his system of political reformaion is at all despised in this country. If I should venture in my own private opinion to entertain any doubts of the ultimate wisdom of such measures, I am far from attempting to censure these who suggest them, or those who execute them They good men! surely They good men! surely act to the best of their knowledge. I confess, however, that I do entertain some doubts, as I have said, of the ultimate wisdom and efficacy of such measures.

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collect that Montesquien speaks conten piuously of that system whether civt or reli gious "qui arretoit la main et abandonnoit "le cœur." A cotemporary and countryman of his, observes- Dis que los Empereurs n'eurent plus que des soLDATS pour confidens, ils n'eurent plus que des ENNEMIS pour sujets." These however suggest but doubts. A private pian can view such a subject but in part. A general good may justify a particular wrong. My tele scope may want a sufficiency of field to enable me to sweep the whole of the political heavens. That power belongs only to the awful magnitude of official vision. But, I must observe that the tranquillity and wealth of the ministry are not always the tranquillity and wealth of the people. My Lord Buckinghamshire draws up about £11,400 per annum from the public funds of Ireland: my Lord Liverpool 4,0001. per annum: my Lord Wellesley, about 5,000l. per annum and, my Lord Redesdale, 4,000l, per annum. These great incomes, together with the exhausting Est in which they stand, no doubt contribute much to the wealth and tranquillity of those who receive them; as well as to the tranquility though perhaps not directly to the wealth of those who gave them. But as to the wealth and tranquillity of those who pay them, I cannot find that one acre of land in Ireland ever produced one potatoe more from all the services the whole tribe ever performed; nor that one inhabitant in Ireland ever slept in security, one hour longer on account of all the wealth and tranquillity these splendid placemen enjoys. Nor have all their wealth and tranquillity, and I might add even their wisdom too, yet convinced me, that the alternative of the sword of the law, or the law of the sword, involves the whole arcana of good government : nor that the surest foundation on which to build the edifice of public justice, ean be a resort to the private treachery of an informer: nor that insinuations propagated of the corruptibility of the priesthood can be the soundes. preservation of the morality of the people From the wealth, the wisdom and the tranquillity of such profound sources, I have yet to learn, how laws, practices, and habits, that render effete the cement which should bind the proprietaries to the population of a country, and which not only render that cement effete but reverse its qualities and change it to a repellent force between the component parts of the social order, can contribute to union of a state.- -WV. A.

Printed by Cox and Baylis, No. 75, Great Queen Street, and published by R. Bagshaw, Erydges Street Covent Garden, where former Numbers may be had ; sold also by J. Buld, Crown and Mitre, Pall Mall.

VOL. XI. No. 8.]

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LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1807. [PRICE 10D

"I contend, that there is enough before the House to induce them to inquire, and, the honorable gentleon the other side, unless they felt something against them would come out in that inquiry, would "be amongst the first to propose, and the last to shrink from, a committee.”– MR. GREY'S Speech in the House of Commons, 13th March, 1792, upon a motion for an inquiry into the conduct of Mr. Rose respecting the Westminster Election.

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"To take up the time of the House upon these unfounded inquiries, would only impede the progress of public business, and derogate from the dignity, which belongs to the deliberative character of the House." -MR. PITT's Speech in the same debate.

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CORRECTION.An error of the press, in my last, page 236, makes me say, that the company, at Sir Francis Burdett's Dinner, "seemed to be guilty of hypocrisy." It should have been, as the context will shew," scorned to be guilty of hypocrisy."

SUMMARY OF POLITICS. PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT. (Continued from page 231.)-I. Sinecure Places and Pensions. II. Foreigner's Property in the Funds. III. Hampshire Petition. .-I. Respecting SINECURE PLACES AND PENSIONS Mr. Biddulph made a motion on the 10th instant, for the "pointment of a committee to inquire "whether any, and what further saving "may be made by the abolition of useless "and sinecure offices, by the reduction of "exorbitant fees, and by other modes of "retrenchment in the expenditure of the

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public moncy."- -When notice of this motion was given, I flattered myself, that, upon the principles whereon Mr. Biddulph had acted in the case of the Chairman of Ways and Means, he would have come at once with a motion for the abolition of certain enormous sinecures and pensions, and that he would have included the additions made last year to the pensions to the Royal Family. To appoint a committee to inquire, and to inquire, too, whether any saving could be made, and whether any further saving, too; this was, it seems to me, exactly what the people of Whitehall could have wished for. There have been such committees before, and still the amount of the grants has gone on increasing. There has never been any diminution of the annual amount of sinecure places and pensions, since the day that Pitt took possession of the government. But, this motion of Mr. Biddulph, instead of at once putting the ministers to the proof; instead of shewing the country what it had to expect from them in the way of economy; instead of doing

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this by a proposition for abolishing such sinecures and pensions as never were merited by the parties enjoying them; instead of this, the motion was calculated, like the "Learned Languages," to produce an effect worse than useless; because, by the appointment of a committee, no reduction at all will be brought about, and because, by such appointment, some persons will be led to believe that a reduction will be brought about, and, moreover, because, by the wording of the motion, a doubt seems to exist in the mind even of the mover, whether any saving at all can be made in this way, while he admits, contrary to the fact, that savings have actually taken place in consequence of the inquiries of such committees.Well might the ministers agree to the motion, as they did, with a small modification of it by Lord Henry Petty. But, there are some passages in the speeches, as reported in the newspapers, that I must notice. Lord Henry Petty began by protessions of a love of economy, in the usual style of Pitt. He next asserted, upon what authority I know not, that, for the last twenty years, great care had been taken by his Majesty's ministers to abolish, as fast as possible, all useless allowances out of the public money. His Lordship did, indeed, quite forget to state, that the increase in this way had been ten times as great as the diminution. This trifling omission, however, was nothing in comparison with the argument made use of by this minister, that the sinecures, however great and however conferred, ought not to be abolished, because they were "connected with the history of the country and with the several "branches of the constitution, from its origin." Indeed! What, is the Tellership of the Exchequer, the Auditorship of the Exchequer, the Collectorship of the Customs outwards, the Collectorship of the Customs inwards, the Registarship of the Admiralty court; are these so essentially

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connected with the history and constitution of the country as to be necessary to the existence of the latter? Really, this way of talking about the constitution," our invaluable constitution," may, I am afraid, give a handle to Jacobins and Levellers, and may lead some weak persons to think, that, when they are, in such pathetic accounts, called upon to shed the last drop of their blood for the preserving of our happy constitution," the persons so calling, upen them do not leave places and pensions out of their estimation; and, in short, that to fight for the constrution is, in fact, to fight for the honour of paying an enormous sum annually to persons who render no services for it. But, seriously speaking, does Lord Henry Paty really believe, that, if the sinecures of the Marquis of Buckingham, Lord Arden (with the reversion to Mr. Perceval), Lord Liverpool, the Dake of Manchester, Lord Hobart, Lord Sidmouth's son, Lord Auckland's son, Lord Greuville, Mr. Thomas Grenville, Lord Hawkesbury, and many, many others; does he really believe, that, if these titled persons, these persons bearing coronets upon their coaches, were to cease to receive immense sums out of the public money, out of the fruit of the people's labour, under the character of clerks and customhouse offices, that the aristocratical part of the constitution would thereby receive a wound? Does he, in good earnest, believe, that the aristocracy is rendered more respectable by an Earl's being collector of the customs inwards, and by a Duke's being collector of the customs outwards; by one Lord's being a clerk of the pleas and another a clerk in the admiralty court-His Lordship was very careful to express, in the clearest manner, his conviction, that no power upon earth had a right to trench upon, or to touch, the grants already made and enjoyed. This is a doctrine truly comfortable to us. No matter how hard we are pressed. No matter how burdened. There is no relief in this way; while, at the same time, there is nothing to set bounds as to the making of new grants; nothing but the mere mercy of the king and his ministers. And here, as in many other cases, we may observe, that, as to the laws made in favour of the liberty and property of the people, they can be, at any tine, changed, as the circumstances of the times, or the will of our ruIrs, may dictate; but, on the other side, our taws, like those of the Medes and Persians, are immutable. The late Mr. Fox, of whom I always wish to think as well as I can, and who was a very great man in many respects, Dikyguntas at now declared

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by Lord Henry Petty. His argument, used on the 8th of April, 1794, was, that " you "should never suffer yourself to trench upon private property in any degree. If a pension or sinecure was unworthily bestowed by a minister, he would make complaint against that minister. But, if "it was bestowed legally, it became a part "of the person's property, on whom it was conferred, and, like all other property, was sacred. All that he wished, in any case, to ask about property, was, whether "it was legally granted by a person com

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petent to grant it, and whether it had "been received by a person competent to "receive it. He should, therefore, be for holding sacred from the operation of the

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proposed measure, all sinecures and pen"sions held for a term of years, or for life." That this reasoning was heartily cheered and adopted by Pitt the reader will have anticipated; but, he will not, I hope, have concluded, that it was, on that account, the more sound.—It was the reasoning of a mere barrister; and that, too, of a barrister of a mind the most superficial. There are many grants of property really private, which grants, though strictly legal, are set aside in a court of equity; and, indeed, there are very few grants of private property not liable to such control. But, to insist that it is unjust for acts of parliament to touch private property, is to be bold indeed, when, every day of our lives, we see the houses and lands of private persons taken from them by acts of parliament, and paid for, when paid for at all, agreeably to a scale in the forms ing of which the proprietor has no act or part. This, I shall be told, is for the general good; and, it is because it would be for the general good, that I would recommend an abolition of unmerited grants of the public money. The profits, however, of sinecures and pensions are not private property. They are paid out of the annual fruit of the people's la bour; ar d, if there be not, out of that source a sufficien cency of money to pay the annuities, they cannot be paid; yet, would you, in such a case assert, that there was a violation of private property? The argument of Mr. Fox stops at nothing. It would admi of a minister's granting away in pensions for life, and in reversion too, of the whole of the nation's revenues, and it would, even in such case, only allow you to "complain

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