despotisms of the Continent, with nothing to fear from public jealousy, and every thing to fear from external force, or even from popular tumult, have delayed erecting those places of security, is not easily to be accounted for. In the final remarks of this chapter, we fully agree.

"Let no nation imagine that the magnitude of its resources relieves it from this necessity, or that the effulgence of its glory will secure it from ultimate danger. It was after the battle of Austerlitz that Napoleon felt the necessity of fortifying Paris. England now slumbers secure under the shadow of Trafalgar and Waterloo; but let not her infatuated children suppose that they are for ever removed from the chances of disaster, or that the want of citadels to defend the arsenals of Woolwich, Chatham, and the Tower, will not erelong be bitterly felt against either foreign or domestic enemies." He howeveradds, with a just estimate of the contemptible spirit in which public men are now content to bargain for power, that ideas of either public precaution, or public greatness, are not likely to be adopted in the present age, "with which foresight is the least cultivated of national virtues, and in which the democratic character of the legislature has tinged the government with that disregard of remote consequences which is the inevitable characteristic of the masses of mankind." This is expressed in the stately style which belongs to a great history. But the plain truth is, that men who are content to purchase place by stooping to the populace, must keep it only by submitting to their passions. The love of money is the passion of the lower orders, in every land and in every age, alike from necessity and from the want of any higher object. To this passion the demagogue always appeals, and it never fails him. Let him be the most notorious of swindlers, the most wasteful of spendthrifts, the most corrupt of profligates in private life; in public, he is always the economist. The virtue of saving the public purse, of relieving the people from every thing in the shape of public payment, and of cutting down every thing in the shape of pub. lic salary, is the charm of his perpetual song. We could name a crowd of first-rate patriots, to whom individually no man in his senses would

trust a single shilling, or, if he trusted, would ever see it again, every one of whom has the virtue of an Aristides where he can neither gain nor lose; and proudly erects himself into a guardian of the popular farthings against the rapacities of national demand. And the game is always sure. It is this, and nothing but this, which has raised a race of solid blockheads, whom every man knows, into name-a shelf of living ledgers-a file of Parliamentary indexes a case of arithmetical automatons-a Babbage's machinery of calculators; men with no more feeling for the people than a pawnbroker's duplicate, and no more sense of honour than a forged bank-note, into the actual disposers of the popular influence. This is the first operation of the first stage of our boasted Reform. The struggle of our patriots is now to plunge the state into a second grade, and give us voters at five pounds, the next will go still deeperin the lowest depth a lower depth, until, wherever the cabinet may sit, the true council will be in the hovel. The questions of national existence will be disposed at the pleasure of the venders of shoes and patchers of raiment; and fleets and armies will be dismantled and scattered at the will of administrations who depend on the will of Mr A---, the Radical member for a suburb, stocked with patriots of as much virtue and property as himself, and no more the living mirror of bankrupts of the purest principle, and beggars of the most delicate respect for property; or Mr B--, the oracle of five thousand huts, in which ten times the number of kindred spirits nurture themselves deep from day and the eye of the policeman, for the ripening emergencies of Chartism. This decides on any and all demands for the service, however pressing. We differ from Mr Alison in attributing the penurious absurdity of our time to the mere carelessness of the future, belonging to the masses of mankind. This is too favourable to our folly, it is above the truth. The history of popular power in all lands is a history of popular meanness. All democracies, however violent in the seizure of their neighbour's property, have been miserly in the expenditure of their own. The orator who tells them that he will take their sixpences this year, that the saving may be nine the next, is the man of the people. The rival orator, who will promise them to let half the sixpences remain in their pockets, will supersede the former. And thus were swept away all the colonies of all the republics of the ancient world-andthus were swept away all those of the modern-and thus will England, the more republican she grows, pay the penalty of her "reform" in saving her sixpences and losing her millions, in conciliating the economists of an age of meanness, malice, and hypocrisy, and leaving her shores naked, her arsenals at the mercy of chance, her colonies to the knavery of faction; and her hopes, her glories, and her freedom, to the clamour of obscure millions, who ought long since to have "fattened the region of kites with their offal." If we have empire we must pay for it. If we choose to shrink within the borders of our two islands, we may. But how long, then, shall we be able to save even the sixpences? - where will be the sources of our strength? - where the outworks which have so long kept the battle from our walls?-where the channels which have poured gold from every quarter, with one vast convergent tide into England? And in the day when some Russian fleet, or Ame

rican, or Swedish, or Danish, or Greek -for such policy creates contempt, invites enemies, and makes every enemy formidable-shall be seen sweeping our seas, and burning our harbours; or, like the old piracies of the north, throwing swarms of flying robbers on our shore, and ravaging the land, what small consolation shall we have in hanging the "economists" wherever we can find them?-in exterminating the breed like their kindred rats and vipers? and, before we die, avenging the land at once on the meanest and the most mischievous of its enemies?

But we must come to a close. The remainder, and the still more interesting portion of the volume, leads us through the early period of the Spanish war, the most romantic, chivalric, and gallant scene of arms displayed in Europe since the days of the Paladins. Mr Alison's style is as much fitted as his feelings for this magnificent period of national energy. He has one volume yet to write it is for England and the great crowning triumphs of her war. We envy him his theme-this war of the giants of England and France - Wellington and Napoleon; Europe the field; the prize the world.

THE distracted state of the country, and the evident peril which has arisen to the property and institutions of the empire, from the discontent of the working-classes, have at length attracted the notice of Government, and strongly aroused the attention of both Houses of Parliament. It is evident that the people of the country must now make up their minds not merely how internal tranquillity is to be preserved, and property protected from spoliation, but how the Constitution, such as it is, is to be maintained, and we are to be saved from the horrors of a convulsion similar to that which, fifty years ago, spread desolation and misery through the whole of France. It appears now, from the statements in Parliament of the Home Secretary, that a large proportion of the workmen in the manufacturing districts are banded together in illegal associations-the object of which is, object by terror, intimidation, and violence, to bring about a fundamental change in the Constitution; to obtain Universal Suffrage in the first instance, and a universal liberation from taxation and division of property in the next. The persons engaged in these detestable and criminal objects, it is true, though perhaps a majority in particular districts, are but a minority of the whole community, and that too composed for the most part of the lowest, the most ignorant, and the most desperate of the kingdom. But every body knows that it is by such despicable and abandoned mino

NO. CCLXXXVII, VOL. XLVI.

rities that most Revolutions recorded in history have been brought about, in opposition to the wishes of overwhelming, but timid and disunited, majorities. And even if such a catastrophe is to be averted by the awakened energies of the English people, still unbounded local distress would be occasioned in the conflicts which may ensue; and the numerous bodies who now urge on the second stage of the revolution, will be the first to perish in the distress which they themselves have created.

When the country is now beginning to reap the fruits of that popular agitation, which for party and selfish purposes was so strongly promoted by the Whigs seven years ago, it is now of little moment to point out with what signal justice the day of retribution has come upon the real, though perhaps not intentional, authors of these results. It will little avail us now to observe that Lord John Russell, who, in 1831, corresponded with the Birmingham Political Union when they were organizing the menaces of physical resistance throughout the country, and boasted that the "whisper of a faction could not prevail against the voice of the people of England," is now compelled to take the lead in the suppression of the revolt which his own conduct had been mainly instrumental in producing; and that he is indebted to the support of that very party whose voice he denominated a "whisper," for the means of suppressing that very Reform party whom he then

T

nursed up into such fearful array; or that his former Whig allies, the political unionists, have degenerated into Chartists, and the town-council of Birmingham, composed, as is now admitted, exclusively of Whigs, Radicals, and Chartists, all appointed by the Home Secretary, without the least intermixture of any persons to represent the Conservative wealth of the town, has been compelled to take the lead in beating down their own supporters; and that Birmingham has been delivered over to the flames, and sacked, like a city taken by storm, in the midst of the "peace, law, and order" of the Chartist masses, their former supporters in the magistracy, and under the Government of their once esteemed correspondent in the HomeOffice. As little will it avail us now to find the principles of rebellion and the duties of magistracy so strangely blended together in the same individuals, that the Registrar of Birming ham is a Chartist or political union delegate; and the Clerk of the Peace for the borough, as Lord John Russell admitted, is still so implicated with his former Chartist principles, that at the very moment he is drawing out the warrants for commitment of the Chartists, for Chartist felonies, arsons, and burglaries, within the borough of Birmingham, he is defending the Chartists arraigned for offences having the same tendency, committed in the surrounding county of Warwick. All these are memorable proofs of the effects of political agitation, and of the consequences of that trade in human folly and insanity, which the Whigs have so long and so successfully driven. We record them in this place, not from any wish to embarrass Government in their now, we believe, sincere efforts to suppress the agitation which they have been so instrumental in producing; but from a desire to transfer into the durable pages of this journal, facts highly illustrative of the consequences and effects of revolutionary measures, which, if not snatched from oblivion at the time that they occur, would surpass belief in future and more tranquil times.

We have said that Government are now sincerely anxious to put down the Chartist agitation; and we commend them for the efforts, tardy to be sure, which they are now making for this all-important object. But, neverthe

less, nothing can be more apparent than that the mode which they adopted, and perhaps have been compelled to adopt, in checking these outrages, is fraught with obvious injustice; and that, while it lets the greatest criminals escape, it involves a numerous body of their deluded followers, criminal indeed, but innocent when compared with the leaders, in severe punishment. Every body knows that the Chartist Convention have now sat in London for nearly six months; and it may safely be affirmed that hardly a night has passed during all that time, in which the most rank sedition has not been spoken and delivered at their meetings. Indeed, many of their proclamations, if they are not high treason, border so closely upon it, as to be hardly distinguishable. In fact, the very idea of a National Convention that is, an Assembly of Delegates elected by the people by Universal Suffrage, without either the authority of the Crown or the sanction of the Legislature, and issuing proclamations and orders which they expect to be obeyed by millions of the community, and certainly are obeyed and acted upon by hundreds of thousands of the people-is itself an usurpation of the royal prerogative, the establishment of an imperium in imperio, utterly inconsistent with the existence of order or security of property in the realm, and which never would have been tolerated in any other age or country. Now, what does Government do with the leaders of this monstrous usurpation of the royal and legislative functions? Why, it lets them go on day after day, week after week, month after month, gradually usurping more and more of the powers of Government, and acquiring more consequence among the disaffected, from the belief that their impunity has arisen from terror, until the people begin to act upon their repeated suggestions as to the propriety of arming, and the necessity of having recourse to physical force-till taxes are actually levied by the disaffected under the flimsy name of a contribution, to avoid pillage, to the Chartist funds; and one of the greatest cities in the empire is delivered up to conflagration and pillage, as a warning to the rest of what they may expect, if resistance to the contribution is any longer continued.

Their policy was exactly the same in Canada; and in the cruel devas,

tation and deep wound inflicted on that beautiful province, may be seen the fruits of that weak temporizing system which dallies with rebellion till it has spread its seeds throughout the empire. Like their brethren the Chartists in Great Britain, the Canadian Revolutionists made no secret either of their proceedings or intentions. They had a regularly organized system of delegates from every township of Lower Canada, who held nightly meetings, and inculcated the necessity of drilling, arming, and ap. pealing to physical force. Lord Gosford and the Government made no attempt whatever to arrest and put down these treasonable proceedings, trusting always that that sheet-anchor of Whig imbecility the good sense of the people-would prevent their breaking out into open rebellion, and that Government would be saved the irksome nécessity of bringing its former supporters and friends to trial for high treason. The most noted leaders of the sedition were promoted, entrusted with offices of authority, some even put on the bench, in order to conciliate the unruly mass of their followers; and, to show the perfect confidence of Government in their influence over the seditious, the province was left with only three thousand five hundred men, while unauthorized drilling was going on in almost all quarters, and within sight of the Governor's house. The consequences were clearly foreseen by all men of sense in this country; but they fell like a clap of thunder upon the bewildered Liberal Government. Treason, rendered audacious by long impunity, at length became ungovernable; two successive rebellions broke out; blood was shed in profusion on all sides; vast plains were devastated by fire; hundreds of human beings of both sexes and all ages were driven into the woods, amidst all the severities of a Canadian winter, to perish with cold; above a thousand persons were thrown into prison, and no less than nine-and-twenty expiated their guilt on the scaffold! The emigrants from Great Britain, who the year before were twenty-nine thousand, the year after dwindled down to two thousand; 'and the province, from the stream of emigration being turned into other quarters, has received an irreparable wound.

It was lately said by Lord J. Russell

in the House of Commons, that there could be no doubt that the Convention and all its members had repeatedly rendered themselves amenable to the laws of sedition, if not of treason ; but that it was not deemed expedient to prosecute the members, because it was doubtful whether juries would convict, and the consideration of Government would be seriously weakened by the odium consequent upon an unsuccessful prosecution. Now, what is this but letting the really guilty parties, the principal offenders, es. cape, and making the law fall with unmitigated severity upon the deluded followers whom the violence of the one party, and the timidity of the other, have roused into open acts of hostility? Which is most culpable - the stupid deluded operatives who take staves in their hands, and fight the police at Birmingham, Llanidloes, Stockport, and Newcastle, in defence of what they are told are their rights, and what they believe are their duties-or the reckless demagogues in the Convention, who, though possessed of some talent, education, and information, stimulate the people to such reckless and atrocious proceedings? It has been the principle of good government in contending with revolutionary passion in all ages, obsta principiis; check the evil in the outset before it has acquired strength by long resistance, or audacity by experienced impunity, and, sparing the deluded followers of rebellion, let the severity of the law fall upon its designing and guilty authors. But our Liberal Government have now reversed all this; their maxim is cede principiis; dally with treason while in the cradle, proclaim impunity to sedition while in youth, and only arm in defence of the community when bloodshed, conflagration, and plunder, have openly begun, and then proceed rather against those who have bludgeons in their hands, than those who have sedition on their lips or treason in their hearts. If this is the Whig mode of showing their tenderness for the people, their great consideration for the ignorance of the masses, and the many allowances which they make for the extenuating plea of general delusion, we can only say that it is a novelty in human affairs; and that if, like the New Poor-Law, it is a specimen of the