tion of the truce before-mentioned) until the day of his death, which took place in 1806. And here we behold the direct, open, avowed, and all-ruling power of the aristocracy! This body had, for many years, been divided into two " parties," as they called them, bearing the two nick-names of TORIES and WHIGS, the etymology of which is of no consequence. The TORIES affected very great attachment to the throne and the church; the WHIGS affected perfect loyalty, indeed, but surprising devotion to the rights of the people, though it was they who had brought in the Dutch king and his army, and who had made the Riot act and the Septennial bill; so that, if they were the friends of the people, what must their enemies have been! The truth is, there was no difference, as far as regarded the people, between these two actions; their real quarrels were solely about the division of the spoil; for whenever any contest arose between the aristocracy and the people, the two factions had always united in favour of the former; and thus it was in regard to that allimportant question, the war against Republican France.

25. PITT, who was the son of a Whig-Pensioner, and had begun his career, not only as a Whig, but as a Parliamentary reformer, was now at the head of the Tories; and CHARLES Fox, who had not only been bred a Tory and begun his career as a Tory, but who had, and who held

to the day of his death, two sinecure offices, was at the head of the Whigs. These were the two men of the whole collection who could talk loudest, longest, and most fluently, and who were, therefore, picked out by their respective parties to lead in carrying those "DEBATES," as they are called, which have been one of the great means of amusing and deluding and enslaving this nation. Every effort was made by the respective parties to exalt their champions in the public estimation: they were represented as the two most wonderful men that the world had ever seen: as orators, Pitt was compared to CICERO, and Fox to DEMOSTHENES: Pitt, as a lawgiver, surpassed LYCURGUS ; Fox more nearly resembled SOLON! The people, always credulous and vain enough as to such matters, carried away by the jugglery, ranged themselves under one or the other of these paragons and took their respective names as marks of honourable distinction; and thus, for thirty long years, were the industrious and sincere and public-spirited people of this country divided into PITTITES and FOXITES; thus were they for those thirty years the sport of the aristocracy who employed these political impostors, while every year of the thirty saw an addition to their burdens and a diminution of their liberties.

26. In this state stood the factions, when, in 1793, came the question of war against the

B

Republic of France. Pitt, for the reasons before stated, was decidedly opposed to war. The portion of the aristocracy that supported him were for war; but, they were for their leader too, because, if he quitted his post, Fox came in with the tribe of Whigs at his heels. Besides, a vast majority of the people, whether Pittites or Foxites, were against the war. So that Pitt had reason to fear, that, with a war on his shoulders, he would be unable to retain his power. But the Foxite portion of the aristocracy, seeing the common danger, and seeing the grounds of Pitt's opposition to war, went over and joined the Pittite party; leaving Fox with a small party about him, to carry on that "constitutional opposition" which was necessary to amuse and deceive the people.

27. Thus supported by the two bodies of the aristocracy united, Pitt went into this memorable war, which, though attended with numerous important consequences, was attended with none equal, in point of ultimate effect, to the measures by which paper-money was made a legal tender in 1797. The aristocracy, in resorting to this 'expedient, were not at all aware, that, though it gave them strength for the time, it must, in the end, bereave them of all strength; that it must take from them the means of future wars, or compel them to blow up that system of debts and funds, which had been invented by them as a

rock of safety, and without the existence of which the whole fabric of their power must go to pieces.

28. In the meanwhile, however, on they went with the war, and with the struggle between them and the people on the score of Parliamentary Reform: the people ascribing the war and all its enormous debts and taxes to the want of that reform, and the aristocracy ascribing their complaints to seditious and treasonable designs, and passing laws to silence them, or punish them accordingly. When this war began (1793) the Septennial Bill had been in existence seventy-nine years, and that it had produced its natural fruits is clearly proved by the following undeniable facts; namely, that, at the time of the "Glorious Revolution," in 1688, one of the charges against King James was, "that he had violated the freedom of election of members to serve in parliament"; that, one of the standing laws of parliament is, "that it is a "high crime and misdemeanor in any peer to in"terfere in the election of members to serve "in the House of Commons"; that, in 1793, Mr. Grey, now Earl Grey, presented a petition to the House of Commons, signed by himself and others, stating, "that a decided majority of "that House was returned by one hundred and "fifty-four men, partly peers, and partly great 66 commoners, and by the ministry of the day;"

that he offered to prove the allegation by witnesses at the bar of the House, and that he was not permitted to bring his witnesses to the bar ; that there was an appendix to this petition, containing a list of the names of all the peers and great commoners, who thus returned the members, exhibiting the number of members returned by each, and that this list is recorded in the Annual Register for the year 1793; that, in 1779, the House of Commons had resolved, that an attempt to traffic in seats in that House was “highly "criminal in a minister of the king; that it was an "attack on the dignity and honour of the House, "an infringement on the rights and liberties of "the people, and an attempt to sap the basis of "our free and happy constitution"; that, on the 25th April, 1809, LORD CASTLEREAGH, then a minister of the king, having been proved to have thus trafficked, the House resolved, “that it was "its bounden duty to maintain, at all times, a "jealous guard on its purity, the attempt, in the 66 present instance, not having been carried into "effect, the House did not think it necessary "to proceed to any criminating resolutions"; that, alas! in only sixteen days after this, Mr. MADOCKS, member for Boston, accused this same Castlereagh, together with two other ministers of the king, not only with trafficking in a seat, but of having completed the bargain, and carried it into full effect; that,