Abroad they have maintained peace and leaned to the side of constitutional governments. The battle of continental freedom is not yet won. A terrible phalanx is couched in the North and East, which waits only the acquiescence or neutrality of this country to open a new crusade against liberal institutions. While England and France are united, the hordes of Tyrants will not break from their ambush. Englishmen are awake! Feudal pretexts of national rivalry and hereditary hate will not excite hostile feelings towards a nation with which so many interests in common ought to unite them in amicable bonds. They rightly appreciate the Aberdeen and Wellington school of foreign politics; they will not again suffer the produce of industry to be squandered and future calamities entailed in support of aristocratic wars,-in support of wars to defend Misrule at home and Despotism abroad!

So long as Ministers pursue national objects, they will be supported. They have opposed to them only that delinquent Muster-roll with whose names are associated every lavish grant -every attack on public liberty-every insolence of authority for the last forty years. That they should be vanquished by a set like this, when supported by the People, is impossible. While, however, we seek for them popular aid, it is, we repeat, an aid accompanied with unceasing vigilance. Government is

power, and its agents will luxuriate in the enjoyment without strict responsibility. Its inherent tendency is to abuse, not to improvement. Individuals are slow to reform without imperative motives; governments are still more reluctant: they are always prompt to bequeath the redemption of their follies to their successors; while posterity has cause to lament that justice has not been contemporary with guilt.

March 17th, 1832.

DEDICATION TO THE PEOPLE.

To the People our labours may be fitly inscribed-they are the tribunal of last resort,-also the victims of Misrule,-and to them, therefore, may be properly dedicated a record of the abuses from which they have long suffered, and of the means by which they may be alleviated.

All the blessings the nation ought to enjoy have been intercepted, the rewards of industry, science, and virtue have been dissipated in iniquitous wars abroad-at home, in useless establishments, in Oligarchical luxury, folly, and profusion.

If we wanted proof of misgovernment-of incapacity and turpitude—Ireland affords a frightful example: it is not Mr. O'Connell who causes her agitation; he is only one of the fruits of Tyranny,-an effect, not the cause, of the disorders, which have originated in the neglect of her vast resources, in an unemployed population, an absentee proprietary, and a plundering church. To the wretchedness of Ireland, England is fast approaching, and

just as little from the efforts of individual disturbers. It is not the manufacturing, but the agricultural districts which are now excited; these have always formed the exclusive domain of the Clergy and Aristocracy ;-the rural population is exactly what tithes, game-laws, the country magistracy, Church-ofEnglandism, and a luxurious and non-resident priesthood have made them. And what do we behold? The people have risen against their pastors and landlords, and have resorted to nightly outrage and revenge-the last resort of the oppressed for wrongs for which neither remedy nor inquiry has been vouchsafed.

We

We are not of the number of those who inculcate patient submission to undeserved oppression. A favourite toast of Dr. Johnson was, "Success to an insurrection of the BLACKS!" Shall we say-Success to the rising of the WHITES! should at once answer yes, did we not think some measures would be speedily adopted to mitigate the bitter privations and avert the further degradation of the labouring classes.

A new era, we are told, is about to commence :-no more liberticide wars--no more squanderings of the produce of industry in sinecures and pensions—and, above all, reform is to be conceded. We wait in patience. Our diseases are manifold and require many remedies, but the last is the initiative of all the rest, involving at once the destruction of partial interests— of monopolies, corn-laws, judicial abuse, unequal taxation,and giving full weight and expression to the general weal and intelligence. If Ministers are honest, they deserve and will require all the support the People can give them to overturn a system which is the reverse: if they are not, they will be soon passed under the ban of their predecessors, with the additional

infamy of having deceived by pledges which they never meant to redeem. We have hope, but no confidence.

Public opinion, and not Parliament, is omnipotent; it is that which has effected all the good which has been accomplished, and it is that alone which must effect the remainder. Unfortunately, Government can never be better constituted than it is for the profit of those who share in its administration; they have no interest in change, and their great maxims of rule are,—first, to concede nothing, so long as it can with safety be refused; secondly, to concede as little as possible; and, lastly, only to concede that little when every pretext for delay and postponement has been exhausted. Such are the arcana of those from whom reform is to proceed, and it is unnecessary to suggest the watchfulness, unanimity, and demonstrations by which they must be opposed.

Some of the Ministers are honest-they are all ingenious, and, no doubt, will have an ingenious plan, with many ingenious arguments for its support, concocted for our acceptance, ---a plan with many convolutions, cycles, and epicycles-and, perhaps, endeavour to substitute the shadow for the substance! But it will avail them nothing; the balance is deranged, and it must be adjusted by a real increase of democratic power. The remedy, too, must be one of immediate action, not of gradual incorporation; it must not be patch-work-no disfranchising of non-resident voters-the transfer of the right of voting to great towns-the lessening of election expenses-and stuff of that sort. Such tinkering will not merit discussion, and would leave the grievance precisely in its original state.