Camberwell, and Dulwich can testify; leaving him to his actings as a Surrey and a Kentish and a Middlesex justice of the peace; leaving his godliness to dictate false assertions about the naked woman at Nottingham, and about the late Duke of Bedford’s breaking the Sabbath; leaving him to these occupations, let us proceed to notice one little point in the Report and documents, which, otherwise, may escape public attention. In a paper, laid before the committee, it is said, that the Commissioners trust, that the Committee “will not forget, that two of their number, have been under the necessity of relinquishing their professions, in order to attend to their duty as commissioners.” Now, I take it for granted, that John is one of these two; and, then, let the reader bear in mind, that John had actually become a Commissioner of Bankrupts, before he was a Dutch Commissioner! Would he have done this, if he had had much practice at the bar? I will bet him my right hand against his net proceeds, that he never had the pleading of a cause in his life, though he must have been thirty-five years old, at least, before he became a Dutch Commissioner. Besides, he has, during the time, if not the whole time, that he has been a Dutch Commissioner, been also a Commissioner of Bankrupts, and, if I am not much in mistake, he is actually a Commissioner of Bankrupts at this moment! Well, John, if we do not give full credit to thy professions now, the devil is in us.—The Committee do, indeed, say, that they cannot admit of this plea of compensation for loss of profession; but, why did they not ask, whether the said gentry held no other places under the government? I am persuaded they all do at this moment.
But, what a scandalous thing it is, that, when any creature, who calls itself a lawyer, is taken into government employ, he is not only to receive the pay of the post, but is to receive compensation for the loss, the imaginary loss, of his profession. Just as if he was pressed into the service; just as if he was taken and forced to come to the aid of the country. Thus it is, that the bar is enslaved; thus it is that no minister is afraid of legal talents; thus it is that the bar is the tool of the government. Men are bred to the law, not for the purpose of being lawyers, but for the purpose of qualifying for a post and a pension under the government. No wonder, that we see, amongst lawyers, what we have recently seen. In short, this is another of the many ways, in which we have been reduced to our present degraded state; from which state we must raise ourselves, or we deserve to perish as a people, and the means of doing which is only to be found in legal, and constitutional, and loyal applications for a reform in that assembly, where the laws originate; all other remedies having been tried, over and over again, and having been found unavailing.
John Bowles was amongst the loudest of those, who clamoured against Sir Francis Burdett for his phrase about the “accursed Red Book,” the leaves of which he wished to tear out. But, John took care not to tell the public, that his own name was in that book, in two places, at least. No; it suited John better to say, that Sir Francis wanted to tear out the name of “our good and pious old king;” and, thereupon, to call him a bloody-minded Jacobin. But, now let the reader say, who has done the most injury to the throne; who has brought most discredit upon the government, Sir Francis Burdett or the abusers of Sir Francis Burdett. The Jacobin Baronet, or the Anti-Jacobin friends and associates of the Duke of York and John Bowles?
John has had a longer race than most men like him; his hour is certainly come. During the late busy season, John had quite slipped out of my mind; and this morning, just as I was thinking about beginning an exposure of the affair of the correct Colonel’s improvements, at Chelsea, in dropped, from the mail-coach, the Case of John and his five per cent partners, every one of whom is not only a stanch Anti-Jacobin, but belongs also, I am told, to the Society for the Suppression of Vice; Anti-Jacobins, Anti-bull baiters, Anti-boxers, Anti-revellers, and Anti-dancers; Anti-every thing that is calculated to draw the people together, and to afford them a chance of communicating their ideas; Anti-every thing which does not tend to abject subjection.
Thus, reader, have you the grand Anti-Jacobin before you. He comes out at a fortunate time, and serves as an excellent elucidation of the doctrine of those, who set up the cry of Jacobinism against Mr. Wardle; thanks to whom, thanks to whom be for ever given, for having opened the eyes of this blinded nation to the character and conduct of these the very worst of its foes.
DUKE OF YORK.
(Political Register, February, 1809.)
Note by the Editors.—The affair of the Duke of York occupied all public men, and the attention of the whole public, during a large part of the year 1809, and it takes a large part of the Political Register for that year. In looking through all the speeches, examinations, and comments, as they are given in that work, we, at first, intended merely to give the latter; but, on reading these, we found it impossible to disjoin them from the facts with which they are interspersed, and, therefore, we have thought it necessary to give the whole as it now stands in the work from which we extract it. It seems, indeed, more just towards all the parties, that the whole case should stand with the comments on it, than that the comments should go forth without the case. The reader cannot fail to perceive the then-growing animosity against the popular part of the press, which this affair ripened; and he will be prepared to find, that Mr. Cobbett was prosecuted by the Attorney-General, Gibbs, before the end of the year, for an alleged seditious libel.
“’Tis all a libel, Paxton, Sir, will say.”
—Pope.
Much as I wish to communicate to the public some information, some really authentic information, which I possess, respecting the disposition of the people of Spain, their behaviour towards our army, the manner in which the retreat was conducted, the superior bodily strength and the superior bravery of our troops; anxious as I am to communicate this information to the public, I must defer it for the present, the parliamentary discussion relative to our illustrious Commander-in-Chief imperiously demanding a preference to every thing else.
On last Friday, the 27th ult., Mr. Wardle, a member of the House of Commons, who came into the honourable house for the first time, I believe, in consequence of the dissolution in 1807, when his Majesty was last “most graciously pleased to appeal to the sense of his people,” and for which gracious act the public will do me the justice to say, that I, at the time, expressed my profound gratitude, though I could not then possibly foresee a thousandth part of the good which has resulted from the dissolution. Mr. Wardle, having before given due notice of his intention, did, on the day above-mentioned, after a speech of considerable length, make a motion “for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the conduct of the Commander-in-Chief, with regard to Promotions and Exchanges in the Army, &c. &c.” This is truly high matter; and, as it is also matter of great “delicacy,” as will be seen in the sequel, it will demand, from reader as well as writer, more than an ordinary degree of attention, to say nothing about the reverence, which, upon such an occasion, will naturally take and keep possession of our minds. The honourable persons, who spoke on the side of the Duke, and who, from what appears in the report, seem to have known his wish upon the subject, declared, that that wish was decidedly for publicity; that every part of the inquiry, from the beginning to the end, should be made as public as possible. In this respect, the public do, I am certain, perfectly coincide in wishes with the royal chief; and, therefore, though, in general, it is not desirable that reports of debates should be inserted in this work, I shall insert here the whole of this most interesting debate, or, rather conversation, of the honourable house. Upon comparing the reports in the different newspapers, I find the best, that is to say, the fullest, to be in the Morning Chronicle, as is, indeed, usually the case. I find very little difference as to the substance, the accuracy with which the debates are, in general, taken and published, being really wonderful, and a circumstance eminently creditable to the talents of the gentlemen, by whom those debates are given to the public. But, upon this important occasion, I will, as I proceed with the insertion of the debate from the Morning Chronicle, subjoin, in notes, parts of the report as given in the Courier, wherever it appears that there has been any material omission in the report of the Morning Chronicle; and thus we shall have the best possible chance of letting nothing of consequence escape us.
