sistent with the dignity of the house to have expunged those resolutions from its journals. If it were not below the dignity of the subject, I might here retort lord Milton's declaration upon his party, and ask, with what confidence could the nation look for the execution of the pledge of economical inquiries to a ministry, who, after one of their agents had acknowledged himself guilty of cheating the public, actually retained him in his official situation in defiance of a resolution of the house of commons? Let this question be answered, before his lordship or any other person pretends to arraign the conduct of ministers, for recalling to his majesty's councils an injured, persecuted, and innocent, nobleman.

To conclude this part of my subject. The result of the appeal to the sense of the people was strikingly demonstrated in the proud majority which the ministers obtained upon the trial of strength with their opponents; for in the house of lords, the numbers in their favour were, 160 to 67, leaving them a majority of 93; and in the house of commons they had 350 to 155, or a majority of 195. By referring to the two divisions, on the motions of Mr. Brand and Mr. Lyttleton, it will be found, that on the first, the late ministers obtained 226 votes in their favour, and on the second 198. This disproportion of votes in their favour at the close of the late, and at the commencement of the present parliament, shews, that the voice of the people is against them. Nevertheless, before the meeting of parliament, they felt confident in their strength, and the Morning Chronicle of June 22 was so certain of their victory, that it inserted a list of the members returned to parliament who had voted against the present administration, and triumphantly predicted, with its wonted accuracy, that the defeat of ministers was certain. We leave our readers," says that paper," to form their own opinion, when they have perused the following lists, as to what is the strength of the opposition, and what has been the result of the appeal to the people. We do not presume to anticipate the manner in which any of the gentlemen whose names we have mentioned will vote; but we may be allowed to express our confident hope and belief, that Mr. Secretary Canning's daring experiment has failed, and that, in the present, as in the former house of commons, there are to be found talents, character, and numbers, incompatible with the exist ence of a juggling and weak administration." On the 29th of June, however, the Chronicle altered its tone, and in a style of coarse and surly invective, abused the ministers for the triumph of which they boasted. There is no necessity to insert the article here, because the one I have recorded above, compared with the votes in both houses of parliament, will suffice to expose the impositions to which all the talents resort in support of their declining cause. The conduct of lord Sidmouth, and of those who are more immediately connected with him in both houses of parJiament, proves, that neither his lordship, nor his friends, have given any countenance to the association of the "great proprietory interest,"who have confederated to throw every obstacle in the way of government. His lordship vindicated the exertion of the royal prerogative in dissolving the late parliament, and honourably declared, that the ministers should be judged by their acts only, and that if they acted for the best interests of their country, they ought to be supported. What a contrast does such conduct exhibit between his lordship and his former colleagues! He has promulgated an admonition which every independent man in the empire should adopt.

THE OUDE QUESTION.-At length there is a prospect that this long pending. inquiry will be brought to a final determination. Lord Folkstone, on Monday last, moved that the papers relative to the affairs of Oude should be re-printed; but in consequence of a suggestion from sir J. Anstruther, that these papers had been. already three times printed, and that there were sufficient numbers of them in the vote office to supply the new members, his lordship withdrew his motion, and promised, that after he had consulted the opinions of other persons, he would fix a day. for the discussion. That day I do not hesitate to predict will be a day of triumph to lord Wellesley, and of confusion to his persecutors. I am thoroughly prepared to meet any one upon the subject, hand to hand and foot to foot; and I should have resumed the discussion in this number, if the necessity I find myself under of keeping pace with the proceedings in parliament, and of avoiding the inconvenience which resulted in my last volume from deferring my remarks upon them, had not, compelled me to postpone it.

REVIVAL OF PRIVATE BILLS.-It is indisputable that the dissolution of the late parliament occasioned great inconvenience to individuals, which required a legislative provision. As I have shewn in a former part of this article, that this inconvenience, however great, was the duty of every loyal subject to bear with, in Consideration of the more momentous national questions which were obtruded upon parliament and the country, I need not enlarge upon this topic. But if it were the duty of individuals to submit to a case of such indispensable necessity, it was also the duty of parliament to afford an adequate remedy to the inconvenience arising from it. With this view, the chancellor of the exchequer proposed on the 29th ult. that private bills and petitions should be referred to a committee; and if they should be reported to be precisely similar to those presented in the last session, that the house should proceed upon them without further attendance of witnesses. Its motive was to obviate delay and expense. With respect of the delay, it was of little Consequence whether bills were passed in May or July; and, in point of expense, the officers of the house would relinquish their fees for any fresh proceedings, as they had before done in 1784. The principle and obvious necessity of the measure seemed to be generally approved; and after a few kicks of course, for form sake, from lord Howick and the opposition, the motion was adopted. Thus all the des plorable consequences to private individuals, which the ferale imaginations of the opposition had conjured into existence, have been effectually prevented. In the house of lords, lord Eldon's motion to the same effect met with no opposition, and even lord Grenville acquiesced in the mode proposed.

had

COMMITTEE OF FINANCE.-The peculators, as the present ministers are inso lently called, have not been backward in giving every encouragement to inquiries into public abuses and dilapidations; and though they were faisely represented, during the elections, as a body of men resolved to stifle every species of investigation, it now appears that the first public act which they have proposed in parliament, is the revival of that committee of finance, the advantages of which are universally acknowledged. The pursuits and objects of the committee will now be prosecuted with as much vigour as if there had been no dissolution of parliament, although it will not be composed altogether of the same members as the former committee, and for very substantial reasons. In the first place, the chancellor of the exchequer when proposing the list of names, omitted those of sir H. Mildmay and Mr. Sturges Bourne, the former because he had been implicated in the 4th military report, and requested from a sense of delicacy that he might not be proposed; and the latter, (who has been most grossly and vilely traduced in the Morning Chronicle and other opposition papers,) because he is now in office. The former committee had been appointed in a manner so contrary to parliamentary usage, that it would have been the height of folly to have re-appointed the same persons. It was composed of the adherents of the late ministers, with the exception of two persons only who were friendly to the present administration, and of three others who were not biassed by either party. A committee so appointed, could not be expected to be impartial and to fulfil the expectations of the public, besides that, five of its memare no longer in the house. The mode pursued by the chancellor of the exchequer was therefore the best suited to the purpose, and the best calculated to give satisfaction to the public. Independently of these considerations, there are many acts of the late administration which will become subjects of inquiry, and will lead, as I mentioned in my last number, to their immediate impeachment for HIGH CRIMES, AND MISDEMEANORS. It would not therefore be proper that a knot of their partizans should influence, by a majority, the decisions of the committee. Some of the misdemeanours of the ex-ministers were adverted to by the chancellor of the exchequer with great candour and liberality; nor did he forget to enumerate: mongst their other abuses of office, their appointments to places in reversion, not.. withstanding their expressed aversion from such grants; particularly of the appointment of a collector and surveyor of customs in the port of Buenos Ayres, when that place was not in our possession, and the nomination of three hundred surveyors of taxes just before the dissolution of parliament in October last, for purposes which may be easily conceived. In addition to these, the chancellor of the exchequer mentioned a variety of other instances in which patent places, sinecures,

bers

and pensions, had been granted by the immaculate and virtuous Talents; and passing all, the grant of 4001. a year during pleasure to a Scotch judge. For these substantial reasons, it was not judged fit or decent, when the delinquencies of the late administration were about to be brought to light, that their adherents should form a majority of the committee appointed to inquire into what checks may be ne cessary for reducing the public expenditure, and for diminishing the amount of salaries, &c. The committee is fixed at 25 persons, and consists of Messrs. Bankes, Biddulph, Shaw, Grattan, Addington, Cavendish, H. Thornton, Ryder, Calvert, H. Combe, Baring, lord H. Petty, and lord Archibald Hamilton, all of whom were members of the former committee. Those who have been appointed, and were not of the former committee are, Messrs. Hawkins Browne, Jodderel, Wharton, Samner, Wigram, L. Foster, Poole Carew, Mills, Rutherford, Ellison, Brogden, and T. Baring names of known respectability, and offering a sure guaranty for the bonest and faithful discharge of the confidence reposed in them. The name of sir Francis Burdett was proposed, but it was negatived without a dívision, most probably from his well known ignorance and imbecility.

THE CARNATIC AND POLYGAR QUESTIONS.-Since the above article was sent to the press, I find that sir T. Turton has given notice, that he shall move for the production of certain papers relative to the Polygars, and that he is quite prepared to enter upon the discussion of the Carnatic question. So am I. But, if he Be su duly prepared, why does he defer the discussion? What has an act of complaisance towards lord Folkstone to do with an act of public justice? Is no allowance to be made for the feelings of the illustrious nobleman who has been for so long a period the victim of persecution? Or can there be any reasonable motive to palliate deferred justice? Every paper which lord Wellesley's enemics have required has been granted to them without hesitation; his friends and admirers have inces santly defied his accusers, and even supplicated a definitive judgment. Yet these facts have made no impression, and session after session is suffered to pass over without a prospect of the termination of these inquiries. I begin to suspect that the accusers of lord Wellesley repent of their benevolent designs; that they find that they have been the dupes of bad men, actuated by nefarious motives; and that they bave discovered that the conduct of the noble lord has been, in every instance, inAuenced by an ardent zeal for the prosperity and glory of his country. It is impos sible otherwise to account for these periodical shufflings, equivocations, and proCrastinations,

I

THE EXPEDITION OF SIR FRANCIS BURDETT FROM PICCADILLY,
TO THE CROWN AND ANCHOR TAVERN, IN THE STRAND.

The celebration of the return of the baronet for Westminster, which had long been announced to the public, and which the peaceable inhabitants dreaded as a great nuisance, took place on Monday last. Many rumours had been circulated that the children of liberty meditated a general attack, at the same time, upon three different offices in the Strand, to wit, the Morning Post office, the Courier office, and the office for the publication of my review. I had received several letters, threatening me with the exercise of their savage vengeance" on the day of glory," which, of course, brought me up to London from the sea-coast, whither Į had repaired for the restoration of my health. I came to town, thoroughly resolved to convince the assailants that I knew how to defend a position full as well as they knew how to attack it. But I am happy to state, both for their sakes and my own sake, that, with the exception of a few hearty hisses which I received in the evening, no demonstration of actual hostility was manifested by them. The Morning Post and the Courier offices also, which had been equally menaced, were suffered to remain untouched. Although I could not participate in the triumph of the citizens of Westminster upon this occasion, I will not refuse to do justice to the good conduct which they displayed both during the march of the expedition,

and at niglit, when their feverish heads were become more inflamed with the polations which they had swallowed in honour of their hero.

It remains therefore for me to present my distant readers with an accurate account of this democratic festival, of which I was a spectator. Having obtained intelligence that the procession would not pass through that part of the Strand where my office is, I took my station on the first floor of a house in Cockspur-street, whence I had a complete view of the whole, and of the hero of the piece. Such a groupe! such a caricature of every thing tasteful or splendid! were never before exhibited to the world. Even the processions of the poissardes, and of the liberty boys of the Fauxbourg St. Antoine in Paris, surpassed this long promised ceremony in arrangement. It is true the baronet could not call in the assistance of M. David, to sketch with his pencil the plan of his machinery, but unless it was meant that the exhibition should be essentially democratical, more attention ought to have been paid to general appearances, especially as it had been announced by the managers of the farce, that it was "beneath the dignity of an human being to draw a fellow-creature" in a cart. The first column of enlightened citizens, who were preceded by marrow-bones and cleavers, absolutely appeared to be a burlesque upon the business of the day. They consisted of a collection of ragged sans-culottes, who surely were not electors of Westminster; or, if they were, they must have disfigured themselves for the purpose, I presume, of giving a greater degree of democratic effect to the scene. It is much more probable that this select groupe must have been a picked detachment from the three hundred Good Intent millers who rendered such service to the baronet at the Middlesex election; for it is difficult to suppose that men of their gearance were bonâ fide electors of Westminster. It is also probable, that some wag had put it into the heads of the managers to form this collection, in order to throw a ridicule upon "the day of glory;" for they excited bursts of laughter from the spectators as they passed along.

These respectable gentry were followed by trumpeters, and by electors better accoutred, with a number of flags descriptive of the object of their festivity. But there was one part of the evolutions of this patriotic fraternity which created great merriment among the British who witnessed the scene, and considerable surprise amongst the foreigners who were present-this was, the rapid flight of the ginbottles through all the ranks. Both cavalry and infantry were hotly engaged in this work, and as these bottles were handed from one to another, above twenty different mouths were applied successively to the same bottle. When twenty or thirty of these bottles were thus applied, you might have supposed that the presiding geniuses of the day had invented a new musical wind instrument through which the choice spirits were blowing in honour of their victory; but the taste of these geniuses was of a different description; it was spiritual in the fullest extent of the word. The jacobins of France ordered these matters better in their processions. There were also two other faults; one of omission, and another of commission. The omission consisted in their neglecting to exhibit amongst the trophies, a bleeding calf's head upon the pinnacle of a pike; and the commission, in the display of the sacred cap of liberty, which was represented in a blue, instead of a blood colour. This unaccountable perversion of the natural and imprescriptible right of the cap of liberty, forcibly struck every one as a great derogation from the majesty of the spectacle. At all events, the spectators should not have been left to form idle conjectures respecting the motive of this alteration in the ordinary course of things; and therefore if it were resolved that blue should be the colour, the butchers who led the line of march ought to have decapitated a bullock, and the cap should have been sprinkled with its blood. Various were the endeavours of commentators to expound this mysterious appearance; but with all these notis variorum, I give the preference to the criticism of an Irish gentleman in our room, who observed that several of the united Irishmen were hanged with blue caps, instead of white, upon their heads. I leave the learned reader to judge for himself whether this annotation be not plausible, and founded upon the strictest principles of sympathy.

There was another circumstance which occasioned a mixture of mirth and surprize among the spectators. One of the bands of music played the national air of

God save the king!!! and neither Ca ira, nor the Marseillois hymn were performed. But the procession of the cavalry surpassed every other part of the shew. There were but few persons on horseback, and, with the exception of six or seven good horses, all the children of freedom were mounted on wretched Rosinantes. Most of the horses seemed to have been taken from hackney coaches, and they were, equipped accordingly. The poor broken-winded and spavined animals crawled along in a sober and measured pace, neither turning to the right nor to the left, nor even presuming to hold up their heads. There were no prancing, no rainbow necks, no curvetting, no springing before, nor kicking behind; but forward they went, much to the satisfaction and safety of their riders, as well as for the convenience of the bye-standers, with all the slow solemnity of a funeral. This was well-judged on the part of the committee of managers; for, if they had mounted their journeymen shoemakers and taylors upon spirited horses, it is probable that most of them would have arrived at Brentford, before the expedition could have reached the Crown and Anchor tavern, besides endangering the necks of their riders, and putting his majesty's liege subjects into great tribulation.

At length the triumphal car appeared. It was a wooden cart, with a tub at its poop, on which tub was mouted a semicircular chair, whereon the " GREAT KatTERPELTO" sat. This wooden machine, which I have been informed cost 150l. was drawn by four grey horses, profusely decorated with blue ribands. It was followed by four or five private carriages, in one of which were the baronet's lady and family, and on the coach-box of another was Mr. Jones Burdett; a third contained Mr. Timothy Brown, the brewer, better known to my readers by the name of "Brown Stout," which he received from our old correspondent, Ajax Flagellifer, Two or three hackney coaches and an hearse closed the procession. I should have observed, that at a small distance before the cart, which carried sir Francis, there went a little cart, drawn by a single horse, with only one person in it. The spectators instantly greeted the charioteer with the epithet of Jack Ketch; but I have had the honour of seeing that respectable gentleman operate, and I can assure my readers that he was not in the cavalcade. The person who rode in the little cart was a young man. But the appearance of this little inachine in front, and of the hearse in the rear of the baronet, necessartiy raised queer thoughts in the minds of some of the spectators, which convulsed them with laughter. I looked attentively for the old man of Wimbledon, but he was not amongst the party, or, if he were, he escaped my sight,

Such, reader! is the account of this famous ceremonial. The windows of the streets through which the baronet was drawn, were ornamented with a great num ber of females, whom we cannot find fault with for being desirous of seeing Katterfelto the Great in the shape of an handsome, young man; for sir Francis is unquestionably entitled to be so called. This was the second and best time I ever had an opportunity of seeing him; and, if I may be allowed to form an opinion of his character, according to the rules of Lavater, I should say, that his countenance bears a very strong resemblance to that of a celebrated methodist preacher, who is a very facetious, pleasant, good-natured gentleman in private life; but the moment he ascends into his favourite tub, he throws off all his agreeable habits, becomes morose, and gives strong symptoms of maniacal propensities. The baronet seems to me to labour under a similar affection of the mind, though in the one case it be a religious, and in the other a political disorder. He is reputed to be a very respectable man in private life; but when he is upon his favourite hustings, or at a dinner at the Crown and Anchor, the disease breaks out with astonishing force, and no considerations of propriety can arrest his progress. The speech which he deli vered after the dinner on Monday, and which I have extracted from the Morning Chronicle of the following day, is a proof of the justice of my remark,

"Gentlemen, it is quite impossible for nie to express, in adequate terms, the sense I feel of the affectionate manner in which you have been so good as to compliment me.

"Your confidence in my public principles, and in the sincerity of my professions, has called me, when I least expected it, from the retirement I had chosen. I have but small hope, that any weak endeavours of mine will be able to benefit my