owners, and to deprive those still greater wretches, the fundholders, of their pretended rights. It appeared also, that these, and other societies of a similar character, had been guilty of the most blasphemous and impious proceedings; and that, as they assumed to be of a convivial nature, their political discussions were followed by songs of the most inflammatory and seditious description, and by the recitation of profane parodies of the liturgy, and of various parts of the Holy Scriptures. That in order to extend the principles of these societies over the whole kingdom, the most active efforts were made by their various members; and in consequence those principles were disseminated in speeches at public meetings to the discharged soldiers and sailors, and to the distressed labourers and manufacturers of the country; and that, in aid of this object, incredible activity had been used to disperse cheap, and in many instances gratuitous publications, unfolding the doctrines of the societies. That it had been proved to the entire satisfaction of your Committee, that a number of the members of these various societies, acting in a body as delegates, conceived and declared, that in their opinion the objects which they bad in view might be and ought to be insured by an effort of the physical strength of the people to overpower the constitutional authorities. That they considered the first step which should be taken by them for this purpose, was by their individual exertions to discover and foment the discontents of the metropolis and its vicinity: and that returns of their proceedings were made by the individual delegates to the general body. That it appears to your Committee, that a plan was formed, by a sudden rising in the dead of night, to surprise the soldiers, and in the terror which would be thereby occasioned, to set fire to the town in various places, and to take possession of the Barracks, the Tower, and the Bank. That to assist in the execution of this project, a formidable machine was invented with which the streets could be cleared of all opposing force. This plan was, however, relinquished as premature; and it was resolved that it would be more proper to ascertain the strength of the popular party, by convening meetings under the pretext of taking into consideration the legal mode of redressing grievances; and a map of London having been examined, Spa-fields was selected as the place whence an attack on the Bank and the Tower could with the greatest facility he made. That the first meeting at Spa-fields was accordingly advertised for the 15th of November, and that printed and written placards were exhibited in all parts of the town, of one of which the following is a copy: "Britons to arms! The whole country only waits the signal from London. Break open the gunsmiths'. Arm yourselves with all sorts of instruments. No rise in the price of bread. No Regent. No Castlereagh. Off with their heads! No taxes. No bishops: they are only useless lumber. "N.B. 5,000 of these bills are posted up in the town and in the principal parts of the neighbourhood." That the intended insurrection assumed all the symbols of the French Revolution. That a committee of public safety was formed, cousisting of 24 members. That flags and cockades were prepared for the occasion: but that on the 15th of November, when the first meeting took place, there was no violence (although there wa some plunder in the evening of the day), and that the meeting adjourned to the 2d of December, by which time it was hoped means might be found to accelerate the accomplishment of the projected undertaking. That your Committee find that not a moment was lost in the interval between the first and second meeting, to take advantage of every circumstance which could further the attainment of the objects in view. Additional publications of an inflammatory nature were circulated every where. Endeavours were made to raise a general subscription for the support of those who had relinquished their ordinary occupations, to enable them to devote themselves to these purposes, which per sons had hitherto chiefly been paid by a principal member of one of the societies. A plan was formed for the seduction of the soldiers, by raising hopes of promotion in the event of their joining in the ap proaching attempt, and exciting discontent among them by a story of the landing of a large foreign force in the country. It was again recommended, that the barracks should be the object of particular observation. Those quarters of the town where distress was most prevalent were visited by individuals appointed to inflame the people. river, and those shops in various parts of Those warehouses along the the town where arms were deposited, were carefully noted. A plan was also formed ing them additional pay under the new for the seduction of the sailors, by offerGovernment which was about to be established. That immediately before the meeting of the 2d of December many persons connected with these proceedings procured thought that sufficient means had thus arms of various descriptions. It was been obtained to carry on the intended opera operations for at least two hours, by which time it was supposed enough would be got from the gunsmiths and other depots to arm a considerable number of individuals. The manufacture of tri-colour riband was encouraged, with a view of rendering it familiar to the eyes of the public. Your Committee have further received undoubted information, that a large quantity of pike-heads had been ordered of one individual, and 250 actually made by him, and delivered and paid for. It was also undoubtedly intended to liberate the prisoners in the principal gaols in or about the metropolis, in the hope of their concurrence and assistance in the intended insurrection. Addresses were introduced into some of those prisons, and recom mended to be communicated to others, in which the persons confined were invited, in the name of the tri-coloured committee, to rally round the tri-coloured standard, which would be erected on Monday, Desember the 20, and to wear tri-coloured cockades themselves. It was promised that the prisoners should be liberated by force, and arms were stated to be provided for them, and they were directed to be ready to assist in overpowering the turnkeys. A waggon was hired for the business of the day, in which the flags, and banner, or standard, which had been previously prepared, together with some ammunition, were secretly conveyed to the place of meeting. From this waggon, before the ostensible business of the day commenced, in the other part of the field, the most inflammatory speeches were delivered, tending directly to excite insurrection, concluded by an appeal to the multitude assembled, whether they were prepared to redress their own grievances. A tri-colour cockade was then exhibited, and the tri-colour flag was displayed, and a number of persons followed it out of the field. The direction which they took was towards that part of the town previously designed; gunsmiths' shops were broken open, addresses and offers were made to the soldiers at the Tower to induce them to open the gates; but from the failure of the numbers expected to join the insurgents, no attempt was made to force the gates. An attack was, however, made upon the City Magistrates assembled in the Royal Exchange, a shot fired, and a tri-coloured flag and cockade openly displayed and seized on the offender. In reviewing the whole of the transactions of the 24 of December, your Committee are firmly persuaded, that, however improbable the success of such a plan may ap pear, it yet was deliberately premeditated by desperate men, who calculated without reasonable ground upon defection in their ●pposers, and upon active support from those multitudes whose distress they had witnessed, and whom they had vainly instigated to revolt. That consequently it was not merely the sudden ebullition of the moment, or the unauthorized attempt of any unconnected individual. Your Committee are further convinced that, notwithstanding the failure on the 2d of December, the same designs still continue to be prosecuted with sanguine hopes of success. Your Committee having thus stated the general result of the evidence which has been laid before them, respecting the state of the metropolis, have now the no less painful duty of calling the attention of the House to what has been passing during the same period in different parts of the country, a subject of equally momentous consideration. The first thing which has here forced itself upon their observation is the widely diffused ramification of a system of clubs associated professedly for the purpose of Parliamentary Reform, upon the most extended principle of universal suffrage and annual Parliaments. These clubs in general designate themselves by the same name of Hampden Clubs. On the professed object of their institution, they appear to be in communication and connexion with the club of that name in London. The It appears to be part of the system of these clubs to promote an extension of clubs of the same name and nature, so widely as, if possible, to include every village in the kingdom. The leading members are active in the circulation of publications likely to promote their object. Petitions, ready prepared, have been sent down from the metropolis to all societies in the country disposed to receive them. communication between these clubs takes place by the mission of delegates; delegates from these clubs in the country have assembled in London, and are expected to assemble again early in March. Whatever may be the real object of these clubs in general, your Committee have no hesitation in stating, from information on which they place full reliance, that in far the greater number of them, and particularly in those which are established in the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, and which are composed of the lower order of artizans, nothing short of a revolution is the object expected and avowed. Your Committee find, from equally undoubted information, that the doctrines of the Spencean Clubs have been widely diffused through the country, either by the extension of similar societies, or more frequently by the intervention of missionaries or delegates, whose business it is to propagate those doctrines throughout every society society to which they have access. It is the universal practice of these societies, to require from the members a small weekly subscription, which provides a fund for the expences of these missionaries, and also for the purchase of seditious tracts, which are read and commented on at their meetings. Some of these tracts, now before your Committee, inculeate, in the most artful manner, the necessity of overturning what they call "The Privileged Class," as distinguished from the people, who are described as consisting of labourers, artizans, tradesmen, and every profession useful to society. A new order is declared to be the will of the people; rebellion is justified by the as sertion, that a nation cannot be a rebel : and all religion is disavowed, as well as loyalty, by the assertion, in answer to the question, "Would you live without Gods or Kings?""we abjure tyranny of every kind." It seems, indeed, to be a part of the system adopted by these societies, to prepare the minds of the people for the destruction of the present frame of society, by undermining not only their habits of decent and regular subordination, but all the principles of morality and religion. Your Committee find, that there is scarcely any very numerous society in the parts above referred to, of whose proceedings they have obtained an account, in which some of the leading speakers do not openly avow the most seditious opinions, and do not excite their hearers to be prepared for actual insurrection. Topics for discussion are selected with this view; amongst others, the question, "Whether the jacobin or the loyalist was the best friend to his country?" Even when petitioning is recommended, it is proposed to be conducted in such a manner, by an immense number of delegates attending in London at the same time, in several parties, attached to each petition, as might induce an effort to obtain by force whatever they demanded. A general idea seems prevalent among those who compose these societies, that some fixed day, at no very great distance, is to be appointed for a general rising. They have been taught to look to the meetings in Loudon as the signal for their operations, and have been in the habit of adjourning their own assemblies simultaneously to the same day : and it is a lamentable instance of the common interest which they feel, if not of the connexion which is formed with those most implicated in the outrages committed in the metropolis, that about Manchester and some other places, the greatest exultation was manifested previous to the meeting in Spa-fields on the 2d of December: and the taking of the Tower and the ruin of the Bank were publicly and confidently predicted. The news of the result was impatiently expected, the roads were crowded during the night with a number of persons, many of them delegates from the different societies in the country, waiting for the arrival of the mail-coach; and the diappointment was not concealed, when it was ascertained that the riot had been quelled without much serious or extensive mischief. It appears, that the confidence of the disaffected is such, that they represent the numbers enrolled as amounting to several hundred thousand, and that their societies are daily increasing; that in their lists they distinguish by particular marks those among their subscribers who are able-bodied men, and ready to act when required; and that they also keep a list of those who refuse to join them in what they call a "Black Book," and threaten vengeance against those persons when the general insurrection shall take place. In some parts of one populous county, where nearly every village has already its Hampden Club, the members make it no secret that they consider themselves as of no other use than as being ready to act whenever they are called upon on their admission they are said to be listed, and receive a secret card with the words "Be ready, be steady." The habits and manners of these persons seem entirely changed; they already calculate upon the share of land which each is to possess, and point out the destruction of the churches, as the necessary consequence of their success. It appears that preparations are in progress, in several places, for providing arms: the demand upon gunsmiths for every species of fire-arms has been beyond all former example: the intention is professed of having recourse for a still larger supply to those towns where arms are manufactured, and where they are to be obtained at a very low rate, from the general cheapness of labour at this time; or in case of necessity, they are to be seized by force." The facility of converting implements of husbandry into offensive weapons has been suggested, and persons have been sent to observe the state of particular places, where depots of arms for the pub lic service were supposed to have been formed. Your Committee find, that a system of secret association has been extended to the manufacturing population of Glasgow, and some other populous towns of Scotland; and although these societies have availed themselves of the same pretext, Parliamentary Reform, on the broadest basis, your Committee are firmly persuaded, from the information which has been laid before them, that their ultimate object is the overthrow by force of the existing existing form of Government. That the time for attempting this enterprise was to depend on the simultaneous rising of the disaffected in England; with some emissaries from whom occasional intercourse appears to have taken place, and that some provision of weapons has been made by this association. Your Committee have now submitted to the House what they conceive to be a fair and not exaggerated statement of the result of their investigation. They have thought themselves precluded from inserting, in an appendix, the information from which it is drawn, by the consideration, that unless it were extremely partial and incomplete, they could not make it public without hazarding the personal safety of many respectable individuals, and in some instances without prejudicing the due administration of public justice. On a review of the whole, it is a great satisfaction to your Committee to observe, that, notwithstanding the alarming progress which has been made in the system of extending disaffection and secret societies, its success has been confined to the principal manufacturing districts, where the distress is more prevalent, and numbers more easily collected; and that even in many of these districts, privations have been borne with exemplary patience and resignation, and the attempts of the disaffected have been disappointed; that few, if any, of the higher orders, or even of the middle class of society, and scarcely any of the agricultural population, have lent themselves to the more violent of these projects. Great allowance must be made for those who, under the pressure of urgent distress, have been led to listen to plausible and confident demagogues, in the expectation of immediate relief. It is to be hoped, that many of those who have engaged to a certain extent in the projects of the disaffected, but in whom the principles of moral and religious duty have not been extinguished or perverted by the most profane and miserable sophistry, would withdraw themselves before those projects were pushed to actual insurrection. But with all these allowances, your Committee cannot contemplate the activity and arts of the leaders in this conspiracy, and the numbers whom they have already seduced, and may seduce; the oaths by which many of them are bound together; the means suggested and prepared for the forcible attainment of their objects; the nature of the objects themselves, which are not only the overthrow of all the political institutions of the kingdom, but also such a subversion of the rights and principles of property, as must necessarily lead to general confusion, plunder, and bloodshed; without submitting to the most serious at ention of the House, the dangers which exist, and which the utmost vigilance of Government, under the existing laws, has been found inadequate to prevent. ABSTRACT OF FOREIGN OCCURRENCES. FRANCE. The Chamber of Peers, after several days discussion, have adopted the law, as set up by the Deputies on the subject of the Elections. There was considerable discussion; and one amendment, for having two degrees of election in the departinents, was lost by 14 only-93 against 79. In the Chamber of Deputies, the debate on the law respecting public jour nals has terminated. It was voted by a majority of 128 against 89. All the jourHals of France are now, therefore, absoJut-ly dependent upon the King's authority; which sanction may be, of course, at any time withdrawn, and any of them be immediately suppressed. The Report on the Badget has been brought forward in this Chamber; the Committee appear. to have ably performed their duty, in recommending Ministers to enforce economy in every department, particularly as to pensions; the revenue is stated to be 300 millions deficient. The Moniteur has published several official documents on the recent negociatrons between France and the Allies, for the reduction of the Army of Occupation. The communications were received by [GENT. MAG. February, 1817, both Chambers with loud acclamations, and Addresses of Thanks were instantly voted the French funds rose to 61, and a general feeling of satisfaction pervaded all. The terms of the boon thus granted by the Allies to France were already partially known. By the 1st of April next, 30.000 of the allied troops, being one fifth of the whole, will quit the French territory; and a loan has been obta ned on advantageous terms from foreign and French bankers: by the four Ambassadors of Austria, so far is learnt by an official note signed England, Prussia, and Russia; but the Duke de Richelieu, in his communication. to the Chambers, alluded to greater ame.. liorations in the financial embarrassments of France. He stated, that the increased pay to the allied troops, estimated in the Budget for the year at 25 millions of francs, was postponed to a period at which the burden would be less severely felt; and also, that the instalments of the indemnities had been arranged by the Allies in the same magnanimous spirit of concitation. The official note of the four Plenipotentiaries declares, that the high personal character of the King, and the principles and conduct of his present Mi Ministry, together with the sanction of the opinion of the Duke of Wellington, are the sole causes of the relief thus afforded to France. A Royal Ordinance has been issued on the subject of the Slave Trade, which ordains, that any ship, whether French or foreign, which shall attempt to introduce Negro Slaves into any of the Colonies of France, shall, with its cargo, be confiscated; and that the captain, if he be a Frenchman, shall be interdicted from commanding any vessel in future. The Moniteur of the 3d inst. was literally filled with the disgusting details of the exhumation of the bones of the Royal Families of France, commencing with those of Dagobert the First, who was buried A. D. 638, and ending with the children of Louis XVI. buried in 1789. The depositions of Madame the Duchess of Angouleme have been taken in the affair of General Decaen, who is shortly to be brought to trial. The Journal de Marseilles states, that the Spanish army destined for South America was about to depart, the English furnishing vessels for its conveyance. The parties in a conspiracy formed in the vicinity of Bayonne, for restoring Buonaparte, have been brought to trial; and two of them, journeymen mechanics, have received sentence of death. The city of Marseilies have had made at Paris two handsome silver urns, one destined for Lord Exmouth, and the other for Sir Hudson Lowe, in gratitude for the security which they have obtained for the Marsellois commerce. The French papers state, that Christophe was the author of the late insurrection at Barbadoes, and that he meditates the empire of the whole of the West India Islands; but no one believes the story. Sir George Murray has broken his leg in two places by his horse falling with him while riding, in company with some English ladies, in the Bois de Boulogne. Sir George Wood, Quarter-Master-Gen. of the British army, lately fell from his horse in the Champs Elysees, at Paris, and broke his leg. The Gazette de France states, that the Loan was finally signed on the 13th inst. The houses engaged in this transaction are, Messrs. Perregaux and Lafitte, Baguenaul, Hottinger, Grosfeuille, of Paris ; Messrs. Hope, of Amsterdam; Messrs. Parish, of Hamburgh; and the brothers Baring, of London. The Duke of Orleans, who arrived on the 14th at Paris, had an audience of the King, which lasted nearly an hour. According to the Moniteur, neither the Duke of Bourbon nor the Duchess of Orleans have arrived in Paris, and it does not appear that they have been invited, The Russian Vice-consul Benkensen had been attacked near Bernai, in the department of the Somme, `aud plundered by a gang of nine armed robbers: seven of them were taken, and it is hoped the other two will not escape. NETHERLANDS. A coolness is said to exist between the Courts of France and the Netherlands. The States General at Brussels have finally rejected a proposition for prohibit ing the exportation of grain. SPAIN. An article from Madrid attempts to give a most favourable aspect to the operations of the Spanish Royalist Army in South America: a horrid war of extermination appears to be carried on, which will ruin the cause of Spain with her Colonies if it is persevered in. Ferdinand VII. on visiting the prisons of Madrid lately, ordered all the instruments of torture to be destroyed; but as yet no decree has appeared, formaily abolishing that cruel punishment. An article from Madrid, in the French papers, gives out that Ferdinand VII. bas abolished the torture in his dominions. The English Government lately solicited that a field in the neighbourhood of Tarragona, in which 300 English soldiers and some officers fell gloriously defending that fortress, should not be cultivated or otherwise disturbed; offering to purchase it; but the city of Tarragona, emulating the feeling of our Government, nobly made a present of the ground for the purpose. ITALY. The emigration of our countrymen to Italy is so extensive, that 400 English families now reside at Naples alone. Between 500 and 600 English persons are now resident at Rome, including branches from the noble families of Devonshire, Jersey, Westmoreland, Lansdowne, Beresford, King, Cowper, Compton, Dunstanville, Denbigh, Carnarvon, and Breadalbane.-The Duchess of Devonshire gives parties every week, and is a great patron of the fine arts. The Neapolitan Government has ceded the Island of Lampedosa, twelve miles only from Malta, to America-the island is uninhabited, but has a good port, capable of containing several ships of the line. Several Spaniards of rank are stated to have arrived at Cagliari, who have been obliged to quit the Spanish capital in consequence of attempts made to liberate the patriots confined in Ceuta. They intended, it is said, to proceed to Charles IV. at Rome. An immense collection of letters, in number half a million, and seven tous weight, from persons in England, Scotland, and Ireland, to the exiled Stuarts, |