appearing on the course, or of starting from the goal,, in the motly garb of mock reform !

Thus to make a fruitless bustle about one of the petty effects, instead of striking at the causes of the whole;-thus to clap a plaister on an external sore, while all is rottenness within; were not the conduct of an enlightened physician, a wise legislator, a practical statesman. "The source of our evils must be cut off," or we perish. Let these words of your father never be absent from your mind! Inscribe them on an ægis to be worn on your breast, that the treacheries, and plausible delusions of evil counsellors may find no entrance!

density, as the pruning the tips of a yew hedge by the shears, makes it more compact.

The present revival of the word triennial, is but a mere echo of the delusive chaunting of the faction thirty years ago. When at that period a call for parliamentary reform began to create alarm, the faction, knowing there are persons, even among men of education, weak enough to entertain the notion, that merely to allow parliaments a duration of only three years instead of seven, would be a reform, instantly throw out the lure of a triennial parliament. In 1780, the deputies of the associated counties, cities, and towns, declared in their memorial, that "annual And you have undertaken, it seems, to 'parliaments are the ancient constitution move for the repeal of the septennial" of England, and the birth-right of Eng"act," or, in other words, to give us "lishmen." It was also by them "Reback parliaments of three years continuance. "solved, that it be recommended to our Allow an aged pilot to warn you against "several Committees to adopt the followsplitting on this rock. Permit time to repeat what he said but last year, on a similar occasion.

ing propositions, as parts of their gene"ral plan of union and association," and one of them was, "That the members of "the House of Commons be annually "elected to serve in parliament *.".

In respect of triennial parliaments, we shall on see Mr. 's double ignorance; his ignorance both of the con- The borough faction was alarmed. Its stitution, and of the historical facts to be resource was, to make us believe it acfound in the statute books and in the par- ceded to moderate reform, while it meant liamentary proceedings. "The power," nothing less than to hold fast its despotic says this gentleman, "of dissolving par- grasp of the nation's purse strings. Al"liaments, is a prerogative essential to the though with the deputies (among whom I safety of the crown, and to the exist- had the honour to sit) it failed in its at "ence of the constitution.". "The pre-tempt to strangle at its birth the Resolurogative itself cannot be taken away; "but it may be reduced within the bounds "which the constitution originally set it." Here I imagined I was coming to a principle; or to something at least like evidence of a rational limitation of this pretended prerogative; but how was I both disappointed and surprised on finding the sentence close thus:" by restoring parliament to their right dura"tion of three years."

Here is double ignorance with a witness! unless it be something else I shall not name. Triennial is becoming again a convenient watch-word: its former good service is kept in remembrance. It is not, however, as some foolishly fancy, that the borough faction are acting upon the maxim, that half a loaf of usurpation is better than no bread. No; for they well know, and they have both reason and experience for their guides, that a parliament of three years continuance, with a little tinkering in the Scotch counties, would only give their corruption more

tion in favour of annual parliaments; yet, no sooner had the deputies of Yorkshire set foot again in their own county, than the " baffling" lure of a triennial parliament, as the condition of a great alliance, was held out to them, and the bait was unhappily swallowed.

Although considerable dissatisfaction hereupon ensued among the constitutional reformers, yet they did not " disclaim all "intercourse and association" with their mistaken brethren; and, in 1782, Mr. Pitt's motion for a Committee was lost by only twenty votes, and that by an acci dent ;-yes, by an accident—a mere accident-that of the Marquis of Kockingham, then prime minister, (as his secretary, Mt. King, who, I believe, is now alive, the next morning informed me) forgetting the day of a discussion, on which was rivited the anxious attention of the whole kingdom!!!

But, so it was; the prime minister,

.

This young Lord had, no doubt, been instructed by those who knew, that, before he was born, a similar offer had done good service, in dividing reformers and defeating reform; and who also knew the truth of the words they had put into his mouth, that, in a triennial parliament there would be no reformation *."

forgetting the day of the discussion, forgot to give the customary summons to his friends, and the question was lost by twenty votes only. This faculty of forgetting is one of those which makes man's nature a riddle; for it was at the time currently reported, and generally believed, that the absence from the debate of Mr. Burke, whose red-hot enmity to the I have been the more full, my Lord, in reform, and whose snorting scorn of every these quotations, because they are explathing built on human rights, were well natory of a duplicity which has so reknown, was at the earnest entreaty of his peatedly been practised by Whigs of patron the Marquis, who felt that any op-rank and influence, as to have brought position by his dependent would of course have been laid at his own door. He, therefore, did not forget to keep Burke away, although he did forget to send his more obsequious partizans; and Burke, whose temper was sufficiently ungovernable, did submit to fall in with his patron's policy *'

In another part of the essay here quoted, it was also said" It may be said of the factions, as of false prophets,-by their works ye shall know them. If we ask a statesman for the bread of the constitution, shall he give us the stone of the close boroughs? or the garbage of those which are open to the highest bidder?-If we call for a brother's aid to avert from us the dire contents of seven phials of wrath, shall that brother be the person to pour out upon our heads three of those blistering plagues, and gravely call it our medicine? When to an option between two experienced curses we must submit, we, of course prefer the least; but, to choose, to propose, to canvas for a curse, and, because of its being merely less in degree than another of its kind, to call it a blessingwhat, in God's name is this, but party infection, historical ignorance, or pitiable infatuation! Even by those well-wishers who have neither consulted history, nor reason, nor the constitution of their country, a triennial parliament, one would think, might be rightly appreciated from this striking fact, that, on the very first apprehension of reform in the late session

from Mr. Brand's motion in the House of
Commons, a triennial parliament was spon-
taneously offered by an avowed enemy,
Lord Milton, who declares himself averse
to "
any steps which might lead in the re-
"motest degree to a reform in parliament.'
He yet officially offers you a triennial
parliament; telling you he considers it as
mere regulation,' not "reformation."

* The Comparison, p. 41.

Whig patriotism into proverbial disrepute. More, my Lord, in the way of warning against this rock of a parliament of three years continuance may be found not only in the same treatise, p. 43, but likewise in An Appeal, Civil and Military, on the subject of the English Constitution, p. 33; and in The People's Barrier, p. 59. 139, 140; as well as in a Detection of the Parliaments of England, vol. i. p. 121. Besides which, I would beg leave to refer you to the Protest entered on the Journals of the House of Lords on the 18th of December, 1694, in consequence of the passing of what we now call the Triennial Act; being the first statute which allowed one and the same parliament to have three years continuance; for the acts of Charles the First and Charles the Second, called triennial, were for a different purpose; namely, to prevent an intermission of parliaments for more than three years at a time.

Having now, my Lord, touched on the two particular topics to which your parliamentary notices related; meaning, henceforth, as much as possible, to shun detail; arguing such points only as, in a thirty years discussion, are not already well settled; and purposing to keep my word, in confining these Letters to a short series; I proceed to consider what are the best means of obtaining that substantial Representation of the People which ought to be the object of every parliamentary Reformist, as being all that is wanting to a complete restoration of the constitution.

In thus reasoning with your Lordship, I shall, of course, consider you as a man of honour, who assumes the character of Reformist with perfect sincerity; as one who has no mental reservation in favour of a private illegitimate interest, to the prejudice of the public good; one who, being ready to sacrifice any such illegitimate

* The Comparison, p. 5.

duals sink under the rigours of adversity, |
powerful nations never perish; and our's
will know how to imitate the magnificent
example of the 2nd of May, as it has fol-
lowed it hitherto without turning aside for
a moment. Yes, Spaniards, since the 2nd
of May has again dawned upon our eyes,
and finds us struggling with the same in-
flexibility as at first; let us, on it, proudly
repeat to the slaves of Buonaparté, that
the tyrant was most bitterly deceived in
his calculations at Bayonne. The inno-
cents sacrificed at Madrid could not
plunge us into the stupor of terror. By
them began a war which perhaps shall last
for ages. Thousands upon thousands of
warriors shall be immolated to our ven-
geance. What, though discipline and
military skill may give them victories!
their fate shall not on that account be
better in this terrible country. Conque-
rors or conquered-to day in small num-
bers, to-morrow in greater-as many as
pass the Pyrenees shall, sooner or later,
accompany the three hundred thousand
victims whom we have already offered as
a holocaust to the manes of those who fell
on the 2nd of May; and Spain, like the
gulph of eternity, shall receive the French
on her bosom, and shall not permit one of
them to escape from it.

PEDRO DE AGAR, President.
MANUEL JOSE QUINTANA, Sec,

FRANCE.-Speech of Euonaparte to the

sented, and taken the oaths, the Emperor
made the following Speech:
"Gentlemen Deputies of Departments

to the Legislative Body,

"The Peace concluded with the Emperor of Austria has been since cemented by the happy alliance I have contracted: the birth of the King of Rome has fulfilled my wishes, and satisfies my people with respect to the future.

"The affairs of religion have been too often mixed in and sacrificed to the interests of a state of the third order. If half Europe have separated from the Church of Rome, we may attribute it specially to the contradiction which has never ceased to exist between the truths and the principals of religion which belong to the whole universe, and the pretensions and interests which regarded only a very small corner of Italy. I have put an end to this scandal for ever. I have united Rome to the Empire-I have given palaces to the Popes at Rome and at Paris; if they have at heart the interest of religion, they will often sojourn in the centre of the affairs of Christianity. It was thus that St. Peter preferred Rome to an abode even in the Holy Land.

"Holland has been united to the Empire; she is but an emanation of it-without her, the Empire would not be complete.

"The principles adopted by the English Government, not to recognize the

Le-neutrality of any flag, have obliged me tb possess myself of the mouths of the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, and have rendered an interior communication with the Baltic indispensible to me. It is not my territory that I wished to increase, but my maritime means.

gislative Body-Paris, June 16. This day, the 16th, the Emperor proceeded from the palace of the Thuilleries in great state, to the palace of the Legislative Body. Discharges of artillery announced his departure from the Thuillieries, and his arrival at the palace of the Legislative Body.

The Empress, Queen Hortense, Princess Pauline, the Grand Duke of Wurtzburg, and the Grand Duke of Frankfort, were in one Tribune; the Corps Deplomatique in another Tribone; the Bishops convoked for the Council, and the Mayors and Deputies of the Good Cities, summoned to be present at the Baptism of the King of Rome, were on benches.

His Majesty placed himself on his throne. The King of Westphalia, the Princes, Grand Dignitaries, Grand Eagles of the Legion of Honour, occupied their accustomed places about his Majesty, Prince Jerome Napoleon on his right.

After the new Members had been pre

America is making efforts to cause the freedom of her flag to be recognizedI will second her.

"I have nothing but praises to give to the Sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine.

The union of the Valais had been forescen ever since the act of Tediation, and considered as necessary to concilitate the interests of Switzerland with the interests of France and Italy.

"The English bring all the passions into play. One time they suppose France to have all the designs that could alarm other powers-designs which she could have put in execution if they had entered into her policy. At another time they make an appeal to the pride of na?