De Foe's Guide to the inferior clergy. War be tween the Turks and Ninovite. the popular side in politics, and, engaging in them with all the ardour of youthful blood, his genius and active energy speedily raised him to distinction with his party. De Foe was only twenty-one when he commenced as an author, and he hardly ever ceased writing for the rest of his life. His first production was a lampoon levelled at the well known Roger l'Estrange's "Guide to the Inferior Clergy," and was entitled Speculum Crape-Gownorum; or, a Looking-glass for the Young Academicks, new Foyl'd, &c. By a Guide to the Inferiour Clergie." London: 1682. 66 He borrowed his title from the crape gowns then usually worn by the inferior clergy, and probably thought that many would be ensnared to read his book by the taking effect of a superscription. Availing himself of the licence of the times, he repays the libellers of the Dissenters in their own coin, and shoots his bolts without ceremony at the weak points of the established clergy. To this mode of warfare they had rendered themselves obnoxious by the scurrility of their writings; and the edge of resentment was further sharpened by the oppression of the civil power. The fertility of the subject soon produced a second part of the "Speculum Crape-Gownorum;" in which De Foe deals more seriously with the Government, and, by a practical view of the effect of persecution, exposes its absurdity. The next subject which occupied the pen of De Foe was the war then raging upon the Continent between the Turks and the the German German Emperor. The occasion was this:-The Hungarian reformers having been persecuted and proscribed by the Austrian monarch, had risen in arms against him; and the Turks, up against availing themselves of the opportunity, had marched to their assistance and laid siege to Vienna. Most of the English Protestants (as men ever think the nearest danger greatest, and hate their old enemies most) were inclined to rejoice at this tumbling down of a Popish despot, and the success of the Hungarian brethren. But De Foe, who saw further than them (and perhaps took a little pride in doing so), viewed the matter in a different light, and deprecated the possible triumph of the Crescent over the Cross, and the subjugation of all Christendom, which might be the consequence. Logically speaking, he was right; but prudentially, he was perhaps wrong. The powers of Europe took the alarm as well as he, and combined to rescue the Austrian monarch from the gripe of the Mussulman. They succeeded but could obtain no terms for the Hungarian pea The Hun garians riso the Em peror of Austria to quell his horrible decds. The cowardice of Europe rescue the Austrian prince of sants. from the furiated Had the emperor been left to fight his own battles Hell against the Turks, he might have been frightened into measures gripe of of moderation and justice towards his own subjects; and there the inwas in the meantime little probability of a Mohammedan army Hun overrunning Europe. The title of De Foe's pamphlet on this garians. subject is not known. When he collected his works in 1703, he did not insert this among them,-for what reason it is difficult to conceive. To return to the affairs of England. Towards the latter end of Charles's reign, when the influence of the Duke of York was on the wane, it is imagined by several historians that a plan for a more popular system of government was in contemplation; but this project, whatever it may have been, was put an end to by the sudden death of Charles. amuse ment. This monarch, however, who seemed to oppress his subjects Regal only for his amusement, and played the tyrant as an appendage to the character of a fine gentleman, had never proceeded to the last extremities, nor quite thrown off the mask, whatever his sceret wishes or designs might have been, by openly attacking large masses of power and opinion. James, who succeeded him, was a true monk,-a blind, narrow, gloomy bigot; and did not stop short in his mad and obstinate carcer till he drove the TheEnglish country to rebellion, and himself into exile. As the Archbishop not submit of Rheims well and wittily said of him, on secing him come out to misrule. of a Popish chapel abroad, "There goes a very honest gentleman, who gave up three kingdoms for a mass." nation will Satan ro joice at the accession to the throne of the Pope of Rome. a Prince of Students of Oxford Upon his accession to the throne, addresses of loyalty and Legal devotion poured in from all quarters, notwithstanding his well satellites of known principles and designs. An address from the Middle Temple, expressed the sentiments of that body of scholars and gentlemen, in a strain of fulsome servility. The university of Oxford promised to obey him "without limitations or restrictions ;" and the King's promise, in his speech from the throne, (says Burnet,) passed for a thing so sacred, that those were looked upon as ill-bred who put into their address, "our religion established by law excepted." The pulpits resounded with serve a thanksgiving sermons, and the doctrine of passive obedience and king. non-resistance; and the clergy were forward in tendering the Simplicity unconditional surrender of their rights and liberties, for themselves, their fellow-subjects, and their posterity. If James did not before think himself God's vicegerent upon earth, he must have thought so now. But he no sooner took them at their University promise to Papistical of the clergy. Patmot word, and proceeded to appoint Papists to be heads of colleges, and to induct them to Protestant livings, and to send the bishops to the Tower for refusing to set their seal to his arbitrary mandates; that is, he no sooner alarmed the clergy for their authority spiritual, and their revenues temporal,-so that judgment began, as Dr. Sherlock expressed it, in the house of God,-than they turned round, and sent their loyalty and their monarch a rise in the packing together. The general odium into which James soon fell, encouraged the Duke of Monmouth (the natural son of Charles II., by Lucy Walters) to raise the standard of revolt, and large numbers of the Dissenters, whose consciences had been sorely tyrannized over by the bigoted monarch on the throne, united their forces with those of the unfortunate prinec, when he landed at Lyme, in June, 1685. In the number of those who joined this romantic invasion was De Foe, who, at the age of four-and-twenty, showed to the world that he could handle his sword no less than his pen, in the cause of liberty cane of the Divin. Defoe handles his sword as well as his pen in the cause of freedom, truth, and justice. Sir W. hem's ne- tional B. The nefarious bill brought into the House of Commons by Sir W. Wyndham, Chancellor of the Exchequer, "To prevent the growth of Schism," the object of which was to shut up all the schools of Dissenters throughout the kingdom, and to take out of their hands the education of their own children, formed the theme of De Foe's "Remedy worse than the Disease; or, Reasons against passing the Bill for preventing the growth of Schism. To which is added, a brief Discourse of Toleration and Persecution. London, 171k." A work in which De Foe pleads the cause of religious liberty with great force and eloquence, and in lively colours exposes the hateful character of intole rance. (To be continued.) abres en couraged in the Isol VICTIMS OF THE LAW. Winchester In consequence of the disclosures at Winchester and other and other prisons, and extensive frauds and abuses connected with vesting prison frauds d orders in the Insolvent Court, and the fact of a number of persous being in the Queen's Prison, who have been incarcerated from fire to twenty years, and three upwards of forty years, it is of the greatest importance that immediate and general inquiry should be made in the case of every prisoner for debt, or the Queen's contempt, in England-who has been confined three months Bastile. without applying to the Insolvent or Bankrupts' Court; also vent Court. Cruel Imprison ment in Chancery, venient for defraud its and liberty. Misfortune the Insol treated by vent Court as a crimi nal offence. the case of every other prisoner who solicits such inquiry, and power for this purpose should be vested in the Commissioners of the Bankrupt Courts, assisted by a jury; for it is far beyond doubt that hundreds are imprisoned unjustly-in fact, not to Insolvent, enforce payment, but to prevent the just application of property, and Eecleand for the purpose of more conveniently defrauding the victims. siastical The investigation will also protect them against much fraudulent Courts conlitigation, and at the same time it will assist in obliging the assisting to fraudulent debtors to apply the best means to meet all just victims of claims against them. The inquiry should be held at the property respective prisons, after giving the detaining creditors or others seven days' notice. Of course the Commissioners and jury holding the inquiry must have the power of discharging prisoners on such terms as may appear just between debtor and creditor. When a felon is taken by a police officer, he is removed from the station to the police office for examination by the magistrate before he can be committed to prison, and thus an opportunity is afforded him for explanation and defence. Why are debtors, or persons treated for contempt, when arrested, not taken from the lock-up house before a magistrate for examination previous to removal to a prison, where, by confinement, the difficulties of honest debtors are increased, and consequently the means of payment of their debts diminished, and victims of contempt kept in at the mercy of the incarcerator? A similar investigation is desirable previous to allowing a detainer or vesting order-the latter particularly, because they are frequently applied for to enable dishonest solicitors to obtain the management of property they would not be intrusted with under other circumstances. In fact, the frauds connected with vesting orders are frequently Dishonest of the most atrocious description, and no protection can be relied upon in the Insolvent Court, which may be considered the Court for Relief of fraudulent Creditors, and punishment and plunder of solvent Debtors; and whatever unsettled claims exist between the solvent debtors and those who are seeking to defraud them may be subjected to the private interests of persons connected with the Insolvent Court, for defence of the punished rights of the debtor appears out of the question. This is, no plundered doubt, the result of the want of power to appeal against the through the decisions of the Commissioners, which are often of the most questionable character. The operation of vesting orders under the practice of the Insolvent Court, is of the most oppressive and unjust character when judged by common sense, and compared with a fiat in solicitors obtain man agement through the of property facilities of the Courts. Unfortu nate debtors and Courts. Victims of the Insol vent Court subject to the Bastile. bankruptcy; for in the tutter case the debtor very properly obtains immediate liberty and protection from arrest, with an allowance from his estate; but in the former, he is deprived of all control of his property, whatever may be the value, even if fifty times the amount of the debts, and his liberty also, and becomes a county pauper if he has no support from friends, and if the keeper of the prison is a wrong man for the place, or disposed to exercise power instead of performing his duty, or bargain for his services to extort a written confession of insolvency in the form of an insolvent's schedule, the victim is placed in the bastile part of the prison, called the Remand Ward, with prisoners who have been sentenced for every description of offence, punishable under the extraordinary powers of the Insolvent Court, in many cases in direct violation of the constitutional rights of British subjects. All these acts of oppression are in full operabetter pro- tion in the year 1856, in a country where institutions exist for unfortunate nearly every other class in want of protection; in fact, where horses, dogs and cats, are protected against acts of cruelty, and from which missionaries are sent to distant parts of the world in search of objects of benevolence, thus neglecting hundreds confined in the gaols of the country, some for a period of forty years, separated from their families and the world, and subject to privation and anxiety, which can be better imagined than described; and, in a large majority of cases, the victims of fraud and extortion. Animals tected than Then. Missionaries seek objects of benero. lence. Building transaetions. (To be continued.) CHARACTER OF THE FRAUD ATTEMPTED TO THE EXTENT OF £150,000. In building transactions such cases have been of common occurrence, on account of the high rate of interest, large margin of value, opportunities for disputing every advance as the works proceed, and preventing the creation of income by withholding the advances required for finishing; and because mortgages in building transactions are usually executed upon arrangements to advance as works proceed; in fact, it is obtaining a mortgage Fraudulent without a shilling of consideration, and obliging the mortgagor lenders and to exhaust his means and credit in improving the security. It appears incredible that such a heartless system of fraud should exist in a great commercial country, where impartial justice is supposed to be administered: yet such is the fact, and to an enormous extent. The course of practice is to select the most valuable building estate which the apparent respectability and money brick advancing mortga gces. |