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TABLE of the Number of CHRISTENINGS and BURIALS within the Bills of Mortality,
from December 1808, to May 1809, inclusive.

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April

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May

408

765 751 4,931 4,855 ||2,640 |1083402[295]585] 760 973 824740|617|221| Total Christ... 9,786

182 156138109 40 145 117121| 90] 36 199 67 38 99 135 150 148132100 41 183 57 50119 145 200 180125 121| 40) 161 76 52105] 126 154 115111 96 32 144 49 44 79 109 142 108115101

6

903 89

693

674

790 728

914

819

769 698

32 6

702 634

Table of the Prices of MEAT, SUGAR, SALT, and
COALS, in LONDON, from December 1808,
to May 1809, inclusive.

27 4,771 4,449

Total Burials... 9,220

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per Stone of

Slb. to sink
the offal.

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49 8 50 749 0449 44 44 8438 10Cwt.

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684

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673

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Table of the Number of BANKRUPTCIES in England, from Dec. 1808, to May 1809, inclusive. December...... 96 January....

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| February..... 87 | March...... 92 | April...... 101 | May...... 88

COBBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAL REGISTER.

VOL. XV. No. 1.] LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 1809. [PRICE 10D.

"The interposition of the City of London was not necessary for inducing me to, direct due inquity to be #made into a transaction, which has disappointed the hopes and expectations of the nation." KING'S ANSWER TO THE CITIZENS OF LONDON."

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SUMMARY OF POLITICS. COURT OF INQUIRY.Of this Conrt, or Board, or whatever else the ministers and the members may choose to call it, it may be truly said, and I do say it without grudging, that it has not disappointed the

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hopes and expectations of the nation;" for, in this whole kingdom, there was not one living soul, who expected from it any thing satisfactory. The Report of the members will be found in another part of this sheet; which report, after a very dull narrative of facts, with which every one was before acquainted, concludes with the expression of an unanimous opinion, that no further military inquiry or proceeding, relative to the conduct of any of the gene. rals, concerned in the transaction, is necessary; and that for this very curious reason, that they had, during the whole of the service, discovered great...... ....great

what? Great courage and skill? No: but great zeal and firmness."A man who simply utters his opinion has afterwards to be heard as to his reasons for that opinion; but, here we have both the opinion and the reason; and such a reason, such a ground, for such a decision, was, I am fully persuaded, never heard of before, since any thing like judicial inquiries have made a part of the practices of mankind.

What the nation deemed a great military fault, or crime, had been committed'; a great national wrong had been deemed to have been done by some one of three generals, or by all the three together; the king, after waiting for the calls of his people, causes a board of General Officers to be as

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point? Who would not have expected these men, versed in the art military, to say, "from this evidence, it appears to us, "that the acts were good (or bad); and "that, therefore, we think, that no fur"ther, (or some further) proceedings are

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necessary, in this case?" Who would not have expected a decision in this way? Instead of which, we have, and the king has been mortified, not to say insulted, with a heavy narrative of transactions, before known in substance, and quite uninteresting and fatiguing in the detail; to which narrative is added no decision, or opinion, with regard to the acts, which the whole nation had deemed a wrong done to its interest and its honour; and yet, we are told, by these same inquirers, that no funther proceedings are neces ary because, during the whole of the service, great " zeal and firmness" were displayed by the parties accused.If, indeed, those parties had been accused of a want of zeal or of firmness, then there, would have been some seuse in this decision; but, they were accused of no such thing. Zeal and firmnes are mere qualities of the mind. These ger nerals were accused of acts; of what, in the jargon of the law, are called overt acts; of what, in plain, language, are rightly called, open and visible acts namely, the making of an Armistice and a Convention. What had their general zeal and firmness, supposing them to possess those mental qualities, and to have displayed them in Portugal, to do with the commission of these acts? The Court might as well have reported, that they found Sir Arthur Welles

sembled to inquire into the matter; and, asley and his associates to have been excellent

the acts, which were deemed criminal, consisted of an Armistice and a Convention, they were charged to ascertain, and to state to the king, what was the nature of those acts, the fact of the acts, having been committed by the parties being notorious and undeniable. Now, who would not have 'expected from these generals an expression of their opinion upon the nature of those acts? Who would not have expected to see the Report concluded with a regular deduc-ground of his having a black or a yellow tion from the evidence, as to this particulat

palm singers, and that, therefore, they sawino necessity for any further proceedings, relative to the Conventions, which those gentlemen had made in Portugal. The abJesurdity of such a reason would have been a little more flagrant than that given by the Court of Inquiry; but, it would not, in the smallest degree, have been more absurd in reality. If a man, accused of high-way robbery were, to be acquitted upon the

beard; the acquittal would not be less con,

by the opposers, that, if a satisfactory in-
vestigation did not take place, they would be
amongst the foremost to petition the king
for such an investigation. Well, then, will
they say, that this investigation is satisfacto
ry? Will any one man, of any pretensions
to integrity, dare to say this, in the face of
those who know him, and whom he is liable
to meet again? Wil! any such person say,
that, either in the kind or constitution of
the Court; or in its proceedings, or its Re-
port, he can see any thing to satisfy him?
Will any such man say, that a Court, con-
sisting of unsworn members; having to
examine unsworn witnesses without any
power to compel either the giving of evi-
dence or even of attendance; the witnesses
being all, more or less, parties concerned;
and the questions put in writing, with time
in abundance allowed for the several wit-
nesses to frame their answers and previously
to confer with each other upon all and every
point: Will any man, pretending to charac
ter for integrity, seriously say, that an ac-
quittal by such a Court, so proceeding, is,
or can he, satisfactory to his mind?-
Come, then, you, who before opposed pe-
titions for inquiry, and let us hear what
ground it is, upon which you will now op-
pose petitions for an inquiry of a more effi-
cient nature. Is this that has taken place all
that you expected, or wished for? You said
the contrary. You told us, that satisfactory
inquiry was promised; and, in order to si-
lence us, you asserted, that that promise
ought to be looked upon as the king's, and
not as his ministers'; and that, to appear to
doubt its sincerity was to insult the king,
"in his old age;" the king's age having,
according to your ideas of the constitution,
very much to do with the matter. We, who
imputed the Answer, given to the City of
London; we who imputed this answer to the
ministers, have no scruple to say, that “ due

sonant with reason, than was the decision now under our observation. Any thing so preposterous has, surely, never before made its appearance under the sun. In this light it, at once, appeared to the Duke of ork, who, as will be seen by his letter, sets the board to work again, and explicitly asks them for their opinion respecting the Armistice and the Convention. Now, then, they are obliged to speak in intelligible language. The majority say, with out giving any reasons, that they approve of both; two of the members say, that they disapprove of the Convention; and one of them, Lord Moira, giving very satisfactory reasons for his disapprobation, disapproves of both those acts. Yet, only a few days before, these members, as well as the majority of the Court, had set their hands to a Report, which concluded, with an expression of their unanimous opinion, that no further proceedings, against the parties accused, were necessary. The majority of the Court; that is to say, those members who approved of the acts, might, by possibility, have, in their minds, good reasons for their decision on both days; their conduct was, at least, consistent; but, where will the public find, where will it look for, arguments to make out the consistency of the disapproving members, especially that of the Earl of Moira; who, to-day, gives most excellent reasons for his disapprobation of the acts committed, who shews that those acts were injurious to the nation and its allies; who also shews, that there was no necessity for committing them; and who fur ther shews, that the plain path of duty led directly another way: where shall we seek for the consistency of hire, who, to-day, does this, and who, but yesterday, declared, that no further proceedings against the parties were necessary? -Such has been the result of this far-famed Court of Inquiry with all its solemnity and all its bundles, its" inquiry" has not been made; that the imbales, of evidence. I said, at the outset, that its proceedings would exceed in bulk the Old and New Testaments; and, the court news-writers now inform us, that the Duke of York took down the papers, to Windsor, in his travelling carriage, they consisting of two packages of twenty pounds weight each, written, of course, upon about seventy or eighty quires of foolscap paper. This is to be our satisfaction," is it? Each of the petitioning counties is to have a quire or two, is it, of these precious, and dearly purchased papers?The question now is, what will the people do? At almost, if not all, the meetings, where the Address to the king for inquiry met with opposition, it was declared

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plied promise, advised by the ministers, has not been kept and fulfilled; we say, and you cannot deny, that the report, that the result is not satisfactory; and, therefore, if all our small remains of spirit and of national feeling have not evaporated, we shall now put your sincerity to the test.-Will you now oppose a petition, not upon the ground that you are satisfied, but that the matter has been taken up by, and ought to be left in the hands of, the king? Why, this argument, if admitted here, would be good against almost every petition, which, upon any occasion, could be drawn up, or of which an idea could be formed. It would have been full as good' against the City of

London, before any promise of inquiry hadr been made; for, was not the matter already in the hands of the king? Suppose a proclamation to be issued for the cutting off of all our ears, would you not petition against it, because the matter was in the hands of the king? Would you quietly have your ears cut off, rather than trouble the king with your "interference"? I know yon will say, "yes," if the pulling out of a tooth or two were added, provided your sinecures and contracts were left untouched; but, that can never be the general taste.To suppose it to be an insult to the king to request him to do that which he has power to do, and does not do, is of the very essence of slavery. It is, at once, to give up, to censure, to stigmatize, the vital principles of the constitution of England. Every man, be he who or what he may, has a right to petition the king that is to say, he has the right, not only to state to the king what he thinks to be a wrong done, or about to be done, to him individually, or to the community, of which he is a member, but also to complain of that wrong, and to ask for redress. The wrong, (real or imaginary no matter about that) if of a public nature, must necessarily proceed from some person, or persons, having his or their authority from the king; with the king it rests to reprove, or punish, those who abuse the trust with which he invests them; so that, if it be to insult the king; if to ask him to use his power in this way; if this be to insult him by imputing to him a want of discernment or of justice; if this be to "insult our good king, in his old age," why, then, there is, at once, an end to the right of petition, guaranteed to the subject by so many acts of parliament, established by so many hundreds of legal precedents; this boasted right, this last resort of the suffering subjects, is become a farce, and a farce not at all the less despicable on account of its solemnity.We often see petitions presented to the parliament against bills pending before it. The people, or a part of them, think that what they learn is about to be passed into a law will be injurious to them; and, they pray the parkament, that the same may not become a law. But, do we ever hear one of these petitions called an "insult to the parlia ment? Do we hear it imputed to the petitioners, that they question the discernment, or the justice, of either of the Houses? Yet, the parliament have taken the mat "ter up", the thing is in their hands; and quite as completely as the affair of the Conventions is now in the hands of the king.

When an impeachment has been before the House of Commons; when the House has proceeded upon it; when it is in the course of proceeding further, or when it has stayed its proceedings: in these cases, under these circumstances, the people present petitions to the House, praying it to go on, and to do this, or that, in the affair, according to the views and opinions of the petitioners. This is a case exactly in point; yet, we have never heard the petitioners, in such a case, accused of insulting the House, and of casting upon it insinuations of a want of knowledge or of integrity. Whence, then, this new doctrine about insulting the king, because we humbly pray him to do that which appears to us to be for the public good, and which it is not denied that he has the power to do?-The fact is, that this doctrine is a mere pretence, invented for the sole purpose of screening ministers, or their favourites and supporters, and totally void of feeling of respect for, or attachment to, the person, or the office of the king, whose name is thus abused, whose dignity is thus vilified, and the hearts of whose subjects must, if this doctrine were to succeed, be thus completely alienated. Establish this doctrine, and you, at once, cut off all valuable and esteemed communication between king and people; as flatterers, as slaves, they may still approach him; but, never for that purpose, that sole purpose, the answering of which can make them value the kingly office; never for the purpose of obtaining redress for the past, or security for the future, can they again address him, and the loyal sentiment of the poet, I flee from petty a tyrants to the throne," becomes a ranting and senseless exclamation.The Report of the Court of Inquiry has, in no wise, changed my opinion as to the nature of the Armistice and Convention; and, I think, that so it is with the public in general. It still appears, that Sir Arthur Wellesley says he could have pursued and shut up Junot with only 13,000 men; that Junot had only 14,000 men in the field when he made his attack and was repulsed; that, as to the rest of Junot's army, they were not soldiers fit for battle, but mere Buckram men, who must have been a burthen to him; that our army was in no real want, or in any danger of being in want of provisions; that it consisted of 35,000 men before the Convention was signe ed; and, that, therefore, the Convention was injurious and disgraceful, and the Arinistice still more injurious and disgraceful. The fatal consequences of these acts are now evident. It is impossible to believe, that if we had captured the whole of Juno's army, the im

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