pear to be in communication and connexion with the club of that name in London.

"It appears to be part of the system of these clubs to promote an extension of clubs of the same name and nature, so widely as, if possible, to include every village in the kingdom. The leading members are active in the circulation of publications likely to promote their object. Petitions, ready prepared, have been sent down from the metropolis to all societies in the country disposed to receive them. The communication between these clubs takes place by the mission of delegates. Delegates from these clubs in the country have assembled in London, and are expected to assemble again early in March. Whatever may be the real object of these clubs in general, your committee have no hesitation in stating, from information on which they place full reliance, that in far the greater number of them, and particularly in those which are established in the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire, Lei cestershire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, and which are composed of the lower order of artisans, nothing short of a revolution is the object expected and avowed.

"Your committee find, from equally undoubted information, that the doctrines of the Spencean clubs have been widely diffused through the country, either by the extension of similar societies, or more frequently by the intervention of missionaries or delegates, whose busi ness is to propagate those doctrines throughout every society to which they have access. It is the universal practice of these societies, to require from the members a small weekly subscription, which provides a fund for the expenses of these missionaries, and also for the pur

chase of seditious tracts, which are read and commented on at their meetings. Some of these tracts, now before your committee, inculcate in the most artful manner, the necessity of overturning what they call the privileged class,' as distinguished from the people, who are described as consisting of labourers, artisans, tradesmen, and every profession useful to society. A new order is declared to be the will of the people; rebellion is justified by the assertion that a nation cannot be a rebel; and all religion is disavowed, as well as loyalty, by the assertion, in answer to the question, Would you live without gods or kings? We abjure tyranny of every kind.'

"It seems, indeed, to be a part of the system adopted by these societies, to prepare the minds of the people for the destruction of the present frame of society, by undermining not only their habits of decent and regular subordination, but all the principles of morality and religion. Your committee find, that there is scarcely any very numerous society, in the parts above referred to, of whose proceedings they have obtained an account, in which some of the leading speakers do not openly avow the most seditious opinions, and do not excite their hearers to be prepared for actual insurrection. discussion are selected with this view: amongst others the question, Whether the jacobin or the loyalist was the better friend to his country? Even where petitioning is recommended, it is proposed to be conducted in such a manner, by an immense number of delegates attending in London at the same time, in several parties, attached to each petition, as might induce an effort to obtain by force whatever they demanded.

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manded. A general idea seems prevalent among those who compose these societies, that some fixed day, at no very great distance, is to be appointed for a general rising. They have been taught to look to the meetings in London as the signal for their operations, and have been in the habit of adjourning their own assemblies simultaneously to the same day; and it is a lamentable instance of the common interest which they feel, if not of the connexion which is formed with those most implicated in the outrages committed in the metropolis, that about Manchester and some other places, the greatest exultation was manifested previously to the meeting in Spafields on the 2d of December; and the taking of the Tower and the ruin of the Bank were publicly and confidently predicted. The news of the result was impatiently expected; the roads were crowded during the night with a number of persons, many of them delegates from the different societies in the country, waiting for the arrival of the mail coach; and the disappointment was not concealed, when it was ascertained that the riot had been quelled without much serious or extensive mischief.

"It appears that the confidence of the disaffected is such, that they represent the numbers inrolled as amounting to several hundred thousands, and that their societies are daily increasing; that in their lists they distinguish by particular marks those among their subscribers who are able-bodied men, and ready to act when required; and that they also keep a list of those who refuse to join them, in what they call a 'black book,' and threaten vengeance against these persons when the general insurrection shall take

place. In some parts of one po pulous county, where nearly every village has already its Hampden club, the members make it no secret that they consider themselves as of no other use than as being ready to act whenever they are called upon : on their admission they are said to be listed; and receive a secret card with the words • Be ready, be steady.'

"The habits and manners of these persons seem entirely changed; they already calculate upon the share of land which each is to possess, and point out the destruction of the churches, as the necessary consequence of their success. It appears that preparations are in progress in several places for providing arms: the demand upon gunsmiths, for every species of fire-arms, has been beyond all former example; the intention is professed, of having recourse for a still larger supply to those towns where arms are manufactured, and where they are to be obtained at a very low rate, from the general cheapness of labour at this time; or in case of necessity they are to be seized by force. The facility of converting implements of husbandry into offensive weapons has been suggested; and persons

have been sent to observe the state

of particular places, where depôts of arms for the public service were supposed to have been formed.

"Your committee find, that a system of secret association has been extended to the manufacturing population of Glasgow, and some other populous towns of Scotland; and although these societies have availed themselves of the same pretext, of parliamentary reform on the broadest basis, your committee are firmly persuaded, from the information which has been laid before them, that their ultimate ob

ject

ject is the overthrow by force of the existing form of government. That the time for attempting this enterprise was to depend on the simultaneous rising of the disaffected in England; with some emissaries from whom occasional intercourse appears to have taken place, and that some provision of weapons has been made by this association.

"Your committee have now submitted to the house what they conceive to be a fair and not exaggerated statement of the result of their investigation. They have thought themselves precluded from inserting, in an appendix, the information from which it is drawn, by the consideration, that unless it were extremely partial and incomplete, they could not make it public without hazarding the personal safety of many respectable individuals, and in some instances without prejudicing the due administration of public justice.

"On a review of the whole, it is a great satisfaction to your committee to observe, that, notwithstanding the alarming progress which has been made in the system of extending disaffection and secret societies, its success has been confined to the principal manufacturing districts, where the distress is more prevalent, and numbers more easily collected; and that even in many of these districts privations have been borne with exemplary patience and resignation, and the attempts of the disaffected have been disappointed; that few if any of the higher orders, or even of the middle class of society, and scarcely any of the agricultural population, have lent themselves to the more violent of these projects. Great allowance must be made for those who, under the pressure of urgent "distress, have been led to listen to

plausible and confident demagogues in the expectation of immediate relief. It is to be hoped, that many of those who have engaged, to a certain extent, in the projects of the disaffected, but in whom the principles of moral and religious duty have not been extinguished or perverted by the most profane and miserable sophistry, would withdraw themselves before those projects were pushed to actual insurrection.

"But with all these allowances, your committee cannot contemplate the activity and arts of the leaders in this conspiracy, and the numbers whom they have already seduced, and may seduce; the oaths by which many of them are bound together; the means suggested and prepared for the forcible attainment of their objects; the nature of the objects themselves, which are not only the overthrow of all the political institutions of the kingdom, but also such a subversion of the rights and principles of property, as must necessarily lead to general confusion, plunder, and bloodshed; without submitting to the most serious attention of the house, the dangers which exist, and which the utmost vigilance of govern. ment, under the existing laws, has been found inadequate to prevent.”

House of commons, Feb. 21.— Mr. Curwen said, he had quite made up his mind not to go into a committee to take into consideration the present state of the poor's laws, unless there was a good prospect of obtaining effectual and speedy relief. He said that he had a

variety of letters from Shropshire, Sussex, and many other places, stating they paid rom 18s. to Æs. in the pound. He calcula ed the number of paupers to an ount to two millions and a half, and the

amount

amount of subscriptions and poor's rates to be about 8,500,000l. which made on the whole 26 per cent. on the entire rent. These considerations, he said, required some attention-these evils called for some redress. Many lawyers of high eminence were of opinion that all property in the funds and elsewhere was liable to poor's rates; and by a quotation which he made, it appeared, that in the year 1663 it was resolved by the judges, that every person should be charged according to his estate; and by the 22d of George I. property in the funds was made chargeable. But he contended, if the houses of parliament should at any time say that property in the funds should not be charged, that then they would have exceeded their powers, and have acted in opposition to the laws of nature, and contrary to the immutable principles of justice. And as to the policy of taxing funded property for the poor, it was quite as politic to do so as to lay the income tax on it. The country had now been brought to a state of the utmost distress, and relief was now essential to existence. The poor's rates were one of the many causes which produced these melancholy effects; and now the greatest pains should be taken to equalize the burdens which they imposed. He - calculated the amount of interest on funded property, namely, debentures, bank stock, India stock, South Sea stock, &c. &c. to amount to three millions and a half: if this, together with landed property, was taxed, even at a very low rate, it would yield a sufficient sum for the poor. He also observed, that mo. ney lent at interest should also be made chargeable. He was of opinion, that pauperism was more the effect of commerce than of agricul

ture; and he also observed, that the poor's laws were peculiarly oppressive upon persons who were not natives of England. After the natives of Ireland or of other places came into England in search of occupation, and after they had spent a long life in labouring for the luxury and comfort of the English, they were sent back to their native country, diseased, destitute, and infirm, forgotten by some friends, and deprived of others by the hand of death. He assured the house, that he felt his inadequacy to perform the task which he had undertaken; and before he concluded, he begged leave to conjure the noble lord to raise and immortalize his name, by lendingh is assistance to the melioration of those unjust and oppressive laws. He urged him to come forward; he entreated him to tell the house and the country what they had to expect, as every thing depended upon him. The honourable member concluded by moving that a committee be appointed to inquire into the state of the poor's laws.

Lord Castlereagh doubted whether all the sanguine views of the honourable gentleman could be realized by the labours of the proposed committee, but he certainly believed that much good might be reasonably expected from the measure. He assured the honourable gentleman, that he took as gloomy a view of the influence of the poor's laws, in breaking down the national character, as he could possibly do; and if they did not elevate the national character, by inspiring the population of the country with the wish rather to live on their own labour, than on what they could draw from the labour and property of others, he firmly believed that the English people

would

would not in future ages be what they had been in times past. The present system not only went to accumulate burdens on the country which it could not continue to bear, but to destroy the true wealth of the poor man, the capability of making exertions for his own livelihood; for, if pecuniary relief went on with the laxity which now prevailed, and all the cunning of uncultivated minds was to be directed to the means of escaping from labour, and the enjoying the fruits of the labour of others, a national ca. lamity might be said to be overta king us by a double operation-in the increased burdens imposed on the country, and the diminution of the industry from which its resources were derived. Though, therefore, they could not set themselves against the statute of Eliza beth, yet they could look into it; and on doing so they would find that those objects which were within the original purview of the law, were the sick and infirm poor, and those labouring under temporary difficulties. Without any innovation, therefore, on the existing law, or shaking any of those claims which were supposed to exist under the law, he apprehended that no proposition was more clear than that when a man possessed bodily ability to work, the performance of work might be made the criterion of the condition entitling him to relief, and that this pecuniary claim might be connected with work. If that were made the basis of the poor's laws, there was hardly a parish in England, however small it might be, where the industry of those able to work, and applying for relief, might not be turned to advantage. In every parish they might find materials sufficient for relieving all the distressed of the parish by means

of work, excepting children, and those whose advanced age or infirmity precluded them from exertion. But he would push this principle so far, that he would rather employ the labouring poor to dig a hole one day, and make them fill it up again the next, than allow them to remain idle, and expose themselves to the danger of losing the use of their hands and legs, and the power of making themselves useful to themselves and their country. Though this labour might not be immediately productive, it at least kept the labourers in a state which rendered them capable of future efforts, and thus averted one great danger to be apprehended from a great proportion of the labouring poor subsisting without effort at all. If the law did not receive some such correction in its administration, the evil would, at last, become too strong for the law. The difficulty was the getting at personal property by taxation. With respect to the application of such funds as might be obtained from personal property, in aid of the general interest, on a principle of equalization, assisting such parishes as were already taxed to a given amount, he could never approve of such a system. By it, a parish which had once arrived at a maximum, would have nothing to do but to put its hands into the pockets of the rest of the country. There would then be no interest whatever to counteract abuses, and to watch over the due application of the parish fands. Let not the honourable member apprehend, when he touched on these ideas, that he wished to discourage all attempts to overcome the difficulty-he threw them out, because he wished them to go into the committee like statesmen, with correct ideas of the difficulty. He felt the utmost grati

fication