LETTER IV.

TO THE SAME.

GENTLEMEN,

December 8, 1819.

THE Legislature, in which the majority of Englishmen is proud to confide, has been called upon to enact some new laws to meet the exigencies of the times, and those deficiencies in our present code, of which these exigencies are the natural offspring.

After the triumph in their favour, which signalized the outset of the present Parliamentary campaign, the loyal have no doubts as to the answer such a call will receive-on the necessity to be supplied they are unanimous. You, however, in conjunction with the deluded and the seditious, are vociferous in decrying, as subversive of the Constitution, every additional bulwark its best champions deem necessary for its defence. Because a blasphemer who violates some positive enactment can yet be immured in jail, more insidious reptiles, who, shiel ding themselves under the too great laxness

of the laws, equally contrive to effect the most diabolical wickedess, and escape its merited reward, are to be left at large to prey upon principle and be re-invigorated by success. Because our imperishable Magna Charta still secures to us the unalienable right of petition and public meeting, we are to tolerate a suicidal perversion of their purposes; nor dare meddle with mobs to which we hear doctrines preached that shall only disperse them for the time being to manufacture pikes, or thieve fire-arms.Because a solitary Leviathan or two of folly have given credence to rogues, who, with a lie in their mouths, protest that nocturnal drills are to teach them to preserve, instead of to violate order-military training is to be permitted till the rabble become an armed multitude, cutting one another's throats, over the wreck of an empire. These becauses, with their inferences, are an exact and faithful epitome of the arguments (if they deserve such an appellation,) which your faction urge against the appeals of evaded, violated, and endangered justice.

The monopolists in opposition have made a bolder speculation, and hazarded a because, of which the hardiest brass trumpet of radicalism

would have been ashamed. Because, they exclaim, the evidence which is brought forward to prove the necessity of some supplementary enactments is only authenticated on the declarations of A. B., B. C., and an alphabet exhausted

anonymous signatures, it is insufficient; and consequently "no case being made out," there can be no justification for the restrictions about to be imposed. This is the literal argument with which your mighty ones have ventured to shew cause against the propositions of their opponents. In pointing out the syllogistic confusion of such an argument, I shall elucidate the correctness of my simile, when I liken them to men answering the fire of an enemy with priming flashes from spiked cannon. That the great gun in their logical battery is spiked, I will undertake to prove; but shall leave to their own investigation whether ignorant workers or jealous allies have been the perpetrators of the deed. To attempt to embowel it with priming, is as ludicrous as to think themselves engineers enough to work their artillery with effect on the position of their enemies. The main plea of these protesters is grounded on assuming a part for the whole. The bulk of the evidence before both Houses of Parliament

is incontrovertibly authenticated by the attestations of all the local and resident authorities of the quarters whence it poured, and still continue s. to pour in, from grand juries down to the lowest officers of the police. In this bulk of evidence just adverted to, the Magistracy of many districts declare themselves unable to answer for consequences, unless with more power vested in their hands, they have also such a supply of physical force as shall enable them to exert it effectually. They lament, too, the system of intimidation which, in their present state, they are unable to cope with; deploring that it paralizes that practical declaration of loyalty, which, if once benumbed to a great extent, would deliver us up to the gibbets and knives of raggamuffin incendiaries. This indisputable portion of evidence would be sufficient to justify all the fresh measures proposed, were it not supported by the more appalling part which, from the circumstance of its being at present anonymous, designing men have taught the ignorant to receive as either fabricated or influenced by party exaggeration. When these mere mouth-pieces of faction are told that the Magistrates knew themselves responsible for the truth of every eposition they took-that they are bound to

consider their attached names as hostages for the appearance of the deponents; when they learn that these deponents will be forthcoming in a Court of Justice, will they conceive any Magistrate, I will not say vile enough, but daring enough to have sent a false oath into his Majesty's Privy Council? The name, therefore, of a Magistrate affixed to every single deposition, makes each of them legal and valid evidence. How a Wooler and a Sherwin must chuckle to see your great men echoing their hearts' best wishes, and bellowing for a disclosure of names, which, if now obtained, would be blazoned in red letter through some thousand copies of their proscription lists. Their advertisements for executioners have already been answered, and a Philippic on spies, accompanied with names and abodes, would fire some human brute to emulate a BELLINGHAM or a SANDT. Spies too! with their venom-bags full, pledged to sting to death some innocent hecatomb at the ensuing Quarter Sessions. Oh! for one spark of German sentamentalism, and a tithe of GOERRE's talent to exhaust it in rhapsodies, on patriotic assassinations!"regions of dark energies!" and Panacean daggers! A premature disclosure of