SIR,

LETTER IV.

то THE SAME.

July 8, 1820.

THE scales of ignorance being on the eyes of the mob in all ages; to the mob in past times, as in the present, have civil disturbers ever addressed themselves. The mere mob have just as much right, as they have capacity, to discuss the merits of any, at all intricate, question of national moment. What, in the name of common sense, have they to do with a cause which is to rest upon positive fact, and which, divested of the prominence attaching to it from the circumstances of its suitors, no more concerns them or their interests, than the case of Guthrie v. Sterne?

The violent outcry which is fomented for the purpose of biassing the grand question of facts before the British people, is no more than an impudent assumption, grounded on no knowledge whatsoever of the possible establishment

of those facts,that those identical, as yet un, known facts, are a budget of lies. It is a shocking feature of the times, that the ignorant and the abandoned are sedulously taught, and insanely earnest, to put their crude or wicked notions in opposition to the sense of Parliament and the people.

The assumption that the Queen is innocent because she defies and challenges accusation, is right worthy "the silly women" of both sexes. A shrewd discernment, or perhaps a communicated assurance of the temper of these troublous times, according to every present appearance, will, I conjecture, turn out to be the sandy foundation of that "dauntless demeanour" which our " silly women" have discovered, for the first time since the foundation of the world, to be the grand and ennobling characteristic of conscious innocence. With these lack-wit disseminators of disaffection the hardihood of guilt is a contradiction in terms; and venturing the chance, which involves but a small degree of additional degradation in the one event, and the possible consequences of the moral or physical exertions of enlisted faction and party in the other, a

probability worthy only the suppositions of lunacy.

If, sir, the Queen be found guilty, she will be found guilty not only of the charges, as yet to be exhibited against her, but she will stand convicted of paying a very pretty compliment to those weak folks who assert she is innocent, because she comes and defies them to prove her guilty. Supposing her guilt established, the action of coming here will speak thus :-"I am assured that the factious will espouse my cause, be it right or be it wrong. Now, at this moment they can muster pretty strong: party, too, will tamper in such a manner as it did a short time since, when it became like the refreshing new wine to a giant; and finally, I am well convinced there are many soft heads, shallow, good-natured folks, whom the step will astound into a belief of my innocence, inasmuch as they have scarcely the endowment of thought, much less the faculty of reasoning: the strength of this last class of partizans will, I doubt not, equal, if not exceed, that of the first; and the goad which the middle party will apply to both, I may rely upon it, will elicit a quantum of expressed feeling sufficient to shield me from

the extreme of justice, if not to exact new concessions for me, as I am taught to expect. Thus, at the worst, I can but return whence I come, a little more degraded, but having annoyed, if not materially injured, those I would annoy and injure; and having converted all the fools in England into devotees of my innocence." Actions speak plainer than words; and therefore, if the Queen be found guilty, I protest that her motives for coming amongst us will bear neither a less nor an other construction than that which I have put upon them.

Were the times tranquil, and the evil-disposed discomfited, the Queen's coming to face. trial, might have a certain degree of presumptive evidence in favour of her innocence; but nothing short of idiotcy would, in the existing state of things, attach to that action the reputation of being unable to proceed from any other cause than a consciousness of injured innocence. Generous feeling and national gallantry may recommend to mercy, without making mercy a stumblingblock for the purposes of faction, in the way of stern and sterling truth.

I was shocked the other day to observe, that a member or two of the fraternity of Clerical Layman had profaned the pulpit by converting it into a rostrum for political spouting.—" My transgression is sealed up in a bag," proved a very convenient text for misapplication to the purposes of goading on prevailing excitement; and the discovery of it was no doubt reckoned a lucky hit by the Reverend Radical of * * * *. Unless the man be a lunatic, in which case he is guiltless, God in his mercy pardon the poor creature!

That the apostles of dissent should begin to make use of our glorious Liturgy would give me unspeakable satisfaction; but then they must use it as a strife of prayer-a weapon wherewith to wrestle with their God. And now that mention is made of that noble compilation of supplication and thanksgiving, through which we agonize for the mercies of God for the future, and attempt to return thanks for his mercies through the past, I would warn religious communities from suffering themselves to be duped by the misrepresentation that the Queen, as a Member of the Church of England, considers herself aggrieved in a religious point of