own language, and say, This author pleads for septennial parliaments, for limited suffrage, for the admission of the relatives of noblemen in the House of Commons, and for the support of ecclesiastical establishments; but in what part of the sacred volume he finds the least sanction for them I am at a loss to imagine? But when did I plead for the publication of blasphemy, fettered or unfettered? To plead for the liberty of divulging speculative opinions is one thing, and to assert the right of uttering blasphemy is another. For blasphemy, which is the speaking contumeliously of God, is not a speculative error; it is an overt act; a crime which no state should tolerate. In relation to the question of ecclesiastical establishments, since I am challenged to produce any passage from Scripture which sanctions my opposition to them, I beg leave to refer him to our Lord's declaration, Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. That national churches, or exclusive establishments of religion by the civil magistrate, are one of these plants will not be denied; since nothing of that kind, it is universally allowed, existed during the three first and purest ages of Christianity, and not being authorized by the great Head of the church, it must, if we believe him, be rooted up. I have used the term great Head of the church, by way of distinction from that little head* which the Church of England has invented, and on which, whether it be a beauty or a deformity in the body of Christ, the Scriptures are certainly as silent as on universal suffrage and annual parliaments.

It may not be improper in this place to notice a curious argument which the reviewer adduces in support of his darling tenet of passive obedience and non-resistance, from the prevailing and inherent depravity of human nature. He reminds us that mankind are represented in Scripture as "alike depraved and unruly," and from these premises, attempts to enforce that interpretation of Scripture which would annihilate the liberties of mankind, and reduce them, without "restriction or reservation," to a passive submission to their political superiors. On another occasion I have sufficiently rescued the sentiments of the inspired writers from such a detestable imputation, by showing that their design is merely to inculcate the general duty of obedience to government, as the ordinance of God, while they leave the just bounds of authority, and the limits of obedience, to the regulation and adjustment of reason and experience; a task to which they are perfectly adequate. But how does the depravity of human nature evince the necessity of passive obedience and non-resistance, unless it is contended that the ruling part of mankind are not depraved? That mankind are naturally "depraved and unruly" affords a good argument for the existence of government itself; but since they are" alike depraved and unruly," since governors partake of the same corruption as the people, aggravated too often by the possession of power, which inflames the passions and corrupts the heart, to allege the depravity of human nature as a reason for submission to arbitrary power, involves the absurdity of supposing that the cure of one degree of wickedness is to be obtained

* I know of no passage in the works of our author which presents, in my judgment, so gross a violation of good taste as is here exhibited.-ED.

by affording unlimited license to a greater. Retrace the annals of all times and nations, and you will find in the triumph of despotism the triumph of wickedness; you will find that men have been virtuous, noble, and disinterested, just in proportion as they have been free.

The reviewer affects to triumph over me, on account of the supposed failure of the prediction, that ruin would speedily ensue unless prevented by reform. "Has this dreadful alternative," he asks, "fallen upon us? The present comparatively prosperous and improving circumstances of the kingdom, answers No. The general state of the country, the average condition of the great mass of the people, is better and not worse than at the time when Mr. Hall first published this direful presage."

I am at a loss to reply in suitable terms to a writer who seems to glory in setting truth at defiance. Let me ask the reader, whether he thinks there is a single person to be found in the nation who really believes our condition as a people is improved within the last thirty years? Where is this improvement to be found? Is it in the augmentation of the national debt to three times its former amount: in the accumulated weight of taxes; in the increase of the poor-rates; in the depression of land to less than one-half of its former value; in the ruin of the agricultural interest; in the thousands and tens of thousands of farmers who are distrained for rent, and they and their families reduced to beggary? Has this writer already forgotten the recent distress of the manufacturing class, who, from failure of employment and the depression of wages, were plunged into despair, while numbers of them quitted their homes, and sought a precarious and scanty relief, by dragging through the country loaded wagons and earts, like beasts of burden? Is it in the rapid and portentous multiplication of crimes, by which our prisons are glutted with malefactors? If these are indications of increasing prosperity, we may justly adopt the language of the liturgy, from such prosperity, "Good Lord, deliver us."

To do the writer justice, he has the grace to admit something like an exception respecting the agricultural interest, though he expresses himself with the diffidence becoming the solution of so difficult a problem. "If any exception," he says, "can be found, it is in the agricultural interest;" but he adds, "If those are to be believed who ought to be judges, this is to be ascribed to the want of legal protection." Now, two corn-bills have been passed of late years for the express protection of the agriculturist; the last of these in open contempt of the sentiments and wishes of the people. Previously to the passing of these bills, agriculture was in a comparatively flourishing state: since these laws were enacted it has experienced a depression beyond all example; and in the face of these facts, this writer has the assur ance to inform us, that in the opinion of those who ought to be judges, the evil is wholly to be ascribed to the want of legal protection. who are these highly-privileged mortals, who are to be implicitly believed because "they ought to be judges?" If there is any class of persons whose opinion on these questions is entitled to deference and respect, they are undoubtedly political economists, men who have

But

made the sources of national wealth the principal subject of their inquiry and where will he find one, from Adam Smith to the present time, who has not reprobated the interference of legislature with the price of corn? To say nothing of the reasoning of that great philosopher, which is unanswerable, common sense will teach us, that laws to raise the price of produce are unjust and oppressive taxes upon the whole community, for the exclusive benefit of a part. There is a description of men who are accustomed systematically to yield up their understandings to others, who in their view "ought to be judges:" it is needless to add, that the present writer is evidently of this servum pecus, this tame and passive herd; and that his knowledge of the subject is just what might be expected from one who thinks by proxy. These men, forgetting, or affecting to forget, that the exercise of power, in whatever hands it is placed, will infallibly degenerate into tyranny unless it is carefully watched, make it their whole business to screen its abuses; to suppress inquiry, stifle complaint, and inculcate on the people as their duty a quiet and implicit submission to the direction of those who, to speak in the vocabulary of slaves," ought to be judges." These are the men by whom the constitution is endangered; these the maxims by which free states are enslaved. If that freedom which is the birthright of Britons is destined to go down to succeeding generations, it must result from the prevalence of an opposite spirit; a lofty enthusiasm, an ardent attachment to liberty, and an incessant jealousy of the tendency of power to enlarge its pretensions and extend its encroachments.

The reviewer asserts, that "my whole pamphlet is an argument in favour of the supremacy and infallibility of the people, and of the necessity of paying an implicit obedience to the least expression of their will."

This, I must assure the reader, is a gross and wilful misrepresentation. In no part of the pamphlet have I pleaded for any such doctrine. All that I have asserted is, that in proportion as the House of Commons is in unison with the people, animated by the same sympathies, and affected by the same interests, in the same proportion will it accomplish the design of its functions as a representative assembly; and that a reform is absolutely necessary, in order to restore it to that conjunction of interests and of feelings on which its utility, as the popular branch of the legislature, depends. The necessity of such a union between the people and their representatives is manifest from the very meaning of the terms, for it were quite needless for them to be at the pains of choosing men who, in consequence of a foreign bias, are prepared to contradict their sentiments and neglect their interests. A House of Commons which should chiefly consist of court sycophants and tyrants would exhibit nothing more than the mockery of representation. By artfully transferring what I have said of one branch of the legislature to the whole, and presenting even that in an exaggerated form, he has represented me as reducing the government to such an immediate and incessant dependence on the popular will as never

entered my thoughts, and would be utterly incompatible with the genius of a limited monarchy.

Having already trespassed on the patience of my readers, I shall close with one remark on the eulogium pronounced by the reviewer on the character of the late Mr. Pitt. He appears to be extremely shocked with the freedom and severity of my strictures on his conduct, as implying a forgetfulness of his singular disinterestedness, and his "perfect devotion to his country." As this has become a favourite topic with the admirers of that celebrated minister, it is necessary to remind them that there are other vices besides the love of money, and other virtues besides that of dying poor. It may be easily admitted, that the ambition which grasps at the direction of an empire, and the pitiful passion for accumulation, were not the inmates of the same bosom. In minds of a superior order, ambition, like Aaron's rod, is quite sufficient to swallow up the whole fry of petty propensities. Far be it from me to wish to withhold an atom of the praise justly due to him. That he devoted much time and a considerable portion of talent to the affairs of his country is undeniable. The evils which he has brought upon us were not the production of an ordinary mind, nor the work of a day, nor done in sport; but what I contend for is, that, to say nothing of his unparalleled apostacy, his devotion to his country, and, what was worse, its devotion to him, have been the source of more calamity to this nation than any other event that has befallen it; and that the memory of Pitt will be identified in the recollection of posterity with accumulated taxes, augmented debt, extended pauperism, a debasement and prostration of the public mind, and a system of policy, not only hostile to the cause of liberty at home, but prompt and eager to detect and tread out every spark of liberty in Europe; in a word, with all those images of terror and destruction which the name imports. The enthusiasm with which his character is regarded by a numerous class of his countrymen will be ascribed, by a distant age, to that mysterious infatuation which, in the inscrutable counsels of Heaven, is the usual, the destined precursor of the fall of states.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

LEICESTER, Feb. 5, 1822.

ROBERT HALL.

NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

SOME excellent persons who did not know Mr. HALL often express great concern that so good a man should have suffered his thoughts to be so much engrossed in politics as they suppose must have been the case. The truth, however, is, that few men gave themselves less to political matters than Mr. Hall. At the deeply-interesting period in which he wrote his political tracts, the whole world was absorbed in the contemplation of political events and the discussion of political principles. Among the disputants of the two great parties into which this country was divided, clergymen and other ministers took a most active part, and the class denominated evangelical were by no means the least active. Some of the most eminent of them, indeed, engaged in that sad and then frequent profanation of holy places and things, the consecration of the colours of a volunteer corps in a parish church; and one even put on a military cockade in order to incite his parishioners to come forward in the public cause. The genuine principles of our admirable constitution were thought by many to be in imminent peril; yet all who wrote in their defence were exposed to obloquy. A learned prelate asserted in the House of Lords that "the people had nothing to do with the laws but to obey them," and his sentiment was loudly applauded. In a kindred spirit, during the trials of Muir and Palmer for "leasing-making," or sedition, in Scotland, one of the lords of justiciary declared that "no man had a right to speak of the constitution unless he possessed landed property ;" and another affirmed, that "since the abolition of TORTURE there was no adequate punishment for sedition." In such a season of violent excitement, when upright men of every shade of opinion thought the most valuable principles at stake, no wonder that heats and animosities prevailed, and that all expressed themselves with vehemence,-often with acerbity. Mr. Hall, then under thirty years of age, was of too ardent and generous a spirit to be quiescent in that signal crisis of public affairs. He discharged what, in the exigency, appeared to him an imperious duty, and then remained silent, until after an interval of many years, at the entreaty of his friends, he broke the silence in a brief effort of self-defence against anonymous misrepresentation. For some years, indeed, so great was his indifference to political concerns that he scarcely ever read a newspaper, or did more in conversation than advert for a moment, if at all, to public measures. His political principles, however, remained the same through life, with those simple modifications which the lapse of time and the occurrence of new events were calculated to produce in the breast of a considerate man. Though he thought them important, he uniformly regarded them as subordinate to others. He cherished with delight the anticipations of a new and better order of things among mankind; but he looked mainly for the realizing of his hopes to the operation of a higher class of principles than the politics of this world can supply,-principles of heavenly origin, which, flowing from religious truth, and acting at once upon the spiritual part of our nature, change and improve the mass of society by transforming the characters of the men who compose it.

Some of the following pieces yield ample proofs of the prevalence of these sentiments.

That there are occasions on which pious men not only may, but must, if they act fully on scriptural principles, censure public men and public measures, has been clearly shown by one of the gentlest as well as most excellent of menGRANVILLE SHARP-in his essay on "The Law of Passive Obedience."