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LETTER XIII.

TO THE SAME.

January 5, 1820.

SIR, THE " Misleading Journal of Europe," in winding up that six months' course of deception and fabricated falsehood, which posts it, like a drunken Helot, in disgusting and ludicrous warning, before the diurnal press, has very consistently asserted a fact, and given it direct contradiction, in the last paragraph of its lucubrations for the year of our Lord 1819. A boorish, Billingsgate slang, has characterized its columns ever since its apostacy; but it was reserved for the fag-end of its falsehood to sign and seal itself Liar and Fool.

On the last day of the past year it writes thus:"The charge of assassination extends. The Morning Chronicle of yesterday charges the Courier, as well as us, with recommending the assassination of Buonaparte in 1811. This is amusing in the extreme; for there is no doubt whatever that the Courier did advise

assassination at the time with which he is charged, by the Chronicle, as much as we advised it lately." What is this but an asservation that both itself and the Courier are equally guilty or innocent? If it declare itself innocent of the charge, the Courier is innocent also, as much as itself. Well, it goes on to support the assertions (not the proofs) of its innocence, put forth the previous morning; and consequently the as much as couples the Courier in the asserted exculpation. In the declaration, therefore, of its own guiltlessness, is involved the equal guiltlessness of the Courier. Two sentences further on, however, it avers that the Morning Chronicle is right in preferring its charge of favouring the atrocious suggestion of assassinating Buonaparte in 1811," against the Courier 66 ; as much as" now reverses the sentence of not guilty, and couples the "Misleading Journal of Europe" in the guilt of the Courier.

66

Is such a self-branding blunderhead as this yes-and-no amalgamater to be tolerated? Even in an emporium of perjury, liars, to succeed in any deceit, must stick to their lie-not first broach it, and finally give it flat denial. Hating

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the Courier still more than the Chronicle, this sorry editor assents to the latter's accusation of the former, at the very moment that accusation was withdrawn, with expressions of regret, and confessions that "the mistake of our correspondent evidently occasioned it." The prosecutor drops his suit upon invalidating evidence, which he acknowledges to be unanswerable; and a by-stander, wishing to re-embroil the defendant with the plaintiff, that is, in this case to avenge himself on his greater enemy by means of his lesser, malignantly declares the self-proposed nonsuit invalid.

They who read no other Journal but the Misleading one, cannot meet with an exposure of the gross falsehood of its fabrications, but they must surely discover when yes and no are forced into coalition, and logic violated in its simplest principles. They must see the suspicious irritation with which their idol defends himself; they must perceive the vulgarity and personality of his scurrilous abuse; and they must, in consequence, be much worse than himself, if they continue to give him their countenance and support. To expect truth of such a reprobate is to ask righteousness of the Devil.

Having shewn how neatly the Times-serving Editor closed the operations of one campaign, with a proclamation of his own want of ability and veracity, I may be justified in expecting no better tactics in the conduct of another; and taxing the past for a prophecy of the future, pronounce, that as badness cannot remain stationary, the "Misleading Journal of Europe". will shortly become intolerable even to its present deluded readers.

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SIR,

LETTER XIV.

TO THE SAME.

January 12, 1820.

WITH heartfelt pleasure I this morning read, in your valuable Paper, a copious extract from the second of those Essays which have appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, under the title of "The Warder." That such masterly productions should create the sensation they have, is but natural and just. Their loyalty and their independent spirit give them peculiar interest at the present moment; and the deep reasoning they contain has succeeded in quelling the false fears of many, who suffered imagination to master judgment, and to paint the state of their country in colours which might appal the stoutest heart.

In a former Letter, I avowed my conviction that we had nothing to be afraid of but our own fears-that "vigilance was all that was necessary to prevent surprise and ambuscade from fighting the battles of the factious." With

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