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Mr. URBAN, Blackburn, March 1. AM happy in having the opportu. nity of forwarding to you an article, which, I am confident, is perfectly congenial to the truly loyal and patriotic sentiments of your worthy Editor; namely, "The Substance of a Speech delivered at a General Meeting of the Magistrates, Clergy, Gentry, and other Inhabitants, of the Hundred of Blackburn, in the county of Lancaster, convened at Blackburn, on Monday, February 10, 1817, in order to enter into certain resolutions tending to support the existing Laws and Constitution of England. By Thomas Dunham Whitaker, LL. D. Vicar of Whalley, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Lancaster, and for the West Riding of the County of York;" which is published at the Request of the Meeting of a District so considerable as to include an hundredth part of the population of England. According to the Census taken A. D. 1811, the whole population of England and Wales amounted to 10,488,000, and that of Blackburn Hundred to 110,149. And it is a still further satisfaction to state, that, at the time of the Meeting the Magistrates received letters from the Principal and Governing Members of the Catholic College at Stonyhurst, from a very numerous Society of Methodists at Blackburn, and from a Congregation of Baptists at the same place, all expressing attachment to the Laws and Constitution of their country. The second of these was accompanied by a circular letter, which proves it to be a part of the discipline of the Society, to remove from their connexion all disloyal and seditious members. EBORACENSIS.

GENTLEMEN, You have heard from the chair the reasons which have induced the Magistrates acting for this Division to convene the present assembly. On the necessity of such a measure in the existing circumstances of the neighbourhood, there can, as I conceive, be one opinion only. Want and privation, which at the present moment are, unhappily, but too general throughout the kingdom, are found to press with peculiar severity on some part of this extensive and populous District; and by a singular process, where they do not press with equal weight, they are observed to be productive of greater irritation and impatience.

In that part of it where it is my fortune to reside, the calamity is such as barely to leave a possibility, by any exertions on the part of the sufferers, to provide for the continuance of life. I do not indeed know that any unhappy persons have actually and immediately died of famine; but I am persuaded that the most conscientious and diligent among the sufferers, who can procure rate of wages, are wearing out their employment but at a very inadequate health, and bringing on premature old age, by pertinacious labour, sustained by food at once defective in quantity and innutritious in quality; while the constitutions of others are so debilitated by the same causes, that they become unable to sustain the shock of any specific disease, even of ordinary malignity. found a general acquiescence under Yet amongst this class of sufferers I have their lot; an indisposition to impute blame to man, where man has not been the cause of their calamities; and a meek but imploring spirit of submission to the disposals of Providence. In another class, weaker for the most part in understanding, and capable of less exertion than the former, a kind of helpless stupor has been induced, which indisposes the subjects of it to take any step, however orderly and legal, for the amendment of their condition, or even to make their sufferings known. Both these classes are entitled to the tenderest

miseration heightened by esteem, and commiseration; the former to com-.

even respect.

I am compelled to seek in other portions of the District for examples, which unhappily require little time or toil to discover them, where suffering is less, and discontent and disaffection greater.

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The primary cause of this great difference I forbear in this place even to hint at; but that cause has certainly created a general predisposition in the lower orders to receive unfavourable impressions with respect to the Governors and Government of their country; an inability, in consequence of former habits of plenty, to endure temporary privations; together with a presumptuous habit of judging on subjects which they cannot comprehend, and of censuring their superiors, whose motives are to them inaccessible. On a soil thus prepared, the seeds of Sedition are never scattered in vain; artful emissaries are at hand, wicked and seductive harangues pronounced, absurd and impamphlets are dispersed, inflammatory possible remedies for existing evils are proposed; till at length the populace,

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having placed themselves under such a state of pernicious pupilage, are brought to believe that, instead of living, as they do, under a Government, with all its imperfections, the mildest and most equitable upon earth, they have fallen upon the worst and most corrupted age of one which, from time and decay, wants only a single impulse from hands like theirs, to shake it in pieces.

On the particular steps which are now taken amongst us, ostensibly indeed for another purpose, but really for the end which has been hinted at, I will beg leave to add a few observations.

There is reason to hope that the great mass of the lower orders is as yet either wholly uncorrupted, or corrupted only in a partial degree. To confirm this pleasing hope, I have to state, that in a very populous and suffering District in an adjoining County, but under my own immediate inspection, where five or six thousand half-starved individuals might, had they been so disposed, have assembled within an hour after the circulation of public advertisements, announcing a general convention at a certain hour and place: to the credit of the poor inhabitants, scarcely more than 300 could be prevailed upon to attend.

It follows, therefore, that these public assemblies, though not wholly to be despised, are not very formidable; nay, that in some respects they are beneficial, by ascertaining the strength or weakness of the party. But there is a system of a far more alarming nature, which requires, and we trust will soon draw down some interposition of the Legislature to suppress it; ;-a system dark and deep, and secretly, though rapidly progressive throughout the country, the contrivance of no ordinary calculator, of no vulgar politician. The power of

combination for œconomical and beneficial ends appears to be a discovery of the present age. The interests of religious parties have been promoted by the same means, with a rapidity and uniformity unknown before. the same principle is now applied to purposes avowedly political, and really seditious.

For the pretended purpose of Parliamentary Reform, books are opened; trifling but weekly contributions subscribed for; multitudes of unwary and credulous people are seduced to lend their names; from subscribers they become partizans, they are entrusted with the secrets of consultation and correspondence; and thus, by no long process, while their engagement to the party is riveted by consciousness and participation, books which at first contained nothing more than a catalogue of

subscribers become the muster-rolls of Sedition. But this entire species of combination, however plausible, however innocent in its intention, is extremely formidable.

To support the late insurrections, which, under the name of Luddism, infested a neighbouring County as well as our own, it appeared that large sums had been abstracted from the funds of Benefit-societies, though these associations are in some degree under the controul of the Magistrates. But where, as in the present instance, multitudes of men, individually poor, and universally discontented, acquire each a fractional interest in a vast, a secret, and rapidly increasing fund, the direction of that fund cannot but become an object of anxious attention to the Legislature. The accumulation of a few grains of sand per week will in time produce a mountain, and that mountain may be driven by a whirlwind over all the adjoining plains. But the increase of money is a process infinitely more rapid than simple addition; and what, 1 would ask, is to become of this country, if such an engine be allowed to get into the hands of men at once able and desperate?

I will now call the attention of this Assembly to another part of the same system, equally, or perhaps more formidable than the last. It is not enough to provide the means of doing mischief, unless the understandings of the people are misinformed, and their wills corrupted. For this purpose secret and unknown emissaries, usually travelling in the night, are, with incredible diligence and dispatch, dispersing among the lower orders diminutive Tracts, tending to inflame them against every order and description of their superiors. And as their leaders well know that the Established Religion of the country is the firmest bulwark of our Civil Constitution, two of these are contrived to answer the double purpose of Sedition and Blasphemy; in these, portions of the English Liturgy are burlesqued, so that a poor man, who has from his infancy attached nothing but the most serious and devout associations to these forms, can no longer hear them recited without bringing such vile and wicked parodies to his recollection *. These wretched compositions are not to be despised because we feel their satire to be dull and point

*This and some following observations refer to two things, entitled, "A Political Litany," and "A Practical Creed, humbly addressed to all Archbishops, Bishops, Rectors, Vicars, &c."

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less, or because we perceive at the first glance that they betray on the part of their writers total ignorance of History and the Constitution, as well as an intrepidity of misrepresentation, which, addressed to intelligent persons, must defeat its own end. But, unfortunately, the disciples of this system are no more intelligent than they are fair; while their teachers well know that the surest way to succeed is by casting off all measure, diffidence, and reserve, in falsehood; by becoming “animosè et fortiter mendaces."

I shall now touch upon a few of their principal topics of invective. The first of these consists in false and exaggerated statements of the emoluments supposed to be attached to the great Dignities of the Church and the Law. These, moreover, though belonging to very laborious stations, are purposely confounded with Sinecure Pensions; thereby to insinuate that both are equally useless, and equally burdensome to the country. That men of such dispositions as the authors of these should hate the Ministers of a Religion which they have disclaimed, and fear those of a Law which they are breaking, is not wonderful; but to the pride of a true Jacobin, mere superiority of rank, or elegance of habits, the expectation of respectful deference, and the forms of polished society, are little better than poison. Accordingly, the great Dignitaries of the Church are invidiously held out to the scorn of the people, as regardless, if not of the decencies, yet of the duties of their calling, as men sunk in sloth and luxury; and their function itself, even if properly administered, superfluous. These calumnies descend much lower, and to a rank where these people, if they were so disposed, have better opportunities of learning, the truth: I mean, to the situation and characters of the Beneficed Clergy; while an hypocritical compassion is expressed for the wants and sufferings of poor Curates; a most respectable and useful order of the profession, few of whom, I am persuaded, will be flattered by such compliments.

If there is to be a distinction of ranks in society, it is fitting that an order of Ministers should be adapted to every such rank; but this object can only be attained by making an adequate and varying provision for their support.

Now the revenues of the English Bishops, which these persons presume to state as exactly as if they had perused their audit-books, are in many instances so inadequate to the high station which they fill, as to render it a station of great anxiety, and sometimes even dis

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tress. Then again, the functions of these great Ecclesiastics, though differing from those of the Parochial Clergy, are equally laborious, and perhaps more irksome. In the greater Sees their daily drudgery is scarcely inferior to that of a Clerk at a desk; and during their Visitations, which in some Dioceces continue 60 days without interruption, their duties are more toilsome than those of the officiating Curate in a populous parish. Add to this, that they are generally men advanced in life, and some of them in a state approaching to decrepitude. They have to associate with men often possessed of ten times their incomes; and yet from them is expected more in acts of public bounty than from the Lay Nobility. They have often no private fortunes, and if they labour to make any decent provision for their families, are accused of extortion. Of extortion! when it is matter of notoriety that Ecclesiastical estates are the cheapest in the kingdom; that is, a larger proportion of the profits is uniformly left to the lessee than in Lay estates, and left moreover by an old man and a tenant for life.

Much of what has now been observed, with an exception as to the mode, not the amount of the provision, applies to the Judges-and now let the assembly judge for themselves, whether Lawn and Ermine, thus rudely and ignorantly ealumniated, are often the envelopes of sloth and luxury.

For us, the Parochial Clergy, if in these times of distress we have pampered ourselves, and are bloated, as we have been accused, with plethoric disease; if we have been rigorous in exacting our dues, and have with-holden our bread from the hungry, or forborne by religious consolation to soothe the desponding, shame be upon us!—but, in common justice to our Order, let these charges be taken out of generalities; let them, if they can, be fastened upon individuals, and let them be proved before they are published.

Once more-In this tissue of malice, ignorance, and falsehood, Ecclesiastical Endowments are represented as a Tax levied upon the people for the support of an order of men civilly styled "the men in black." This is not the case :these endowments, on the contrary, stand on the same footing with every other species of property, namely, the Law of the Land.

A Tax may be repealed by the Legislature without injury to any one; but Ecclesiastical Endowments can no more be taken away, without legal robbery, than any Layman's private estate.

Be

sides, not a purchase of an estate takes place, not a lease of a farm is granted, in which a proportionate abatement is not made for tithes, where tithes are due of right. They do no wrong, therefore -they impose no unjust burden either on purchaser or tenant-but they are held for a particular purpose, which these people would be glad to vote useless. They are tenures by Divine service, and that service is performed. The doors of our Churches stand open every Sunday; there we are in constant attendance to do our duty-and if the People will not do theirs by listening to our instructions, this is no reason, but with Jacobins, for robbing us of our support.

With the payment of tithes, however, these poor Remonstrants have little concern-but Church dues and offerings are oppressive.-Let us see now how this matter stands :- Wages, we suppose even they will admit, are due for work done-but perhaps these are inordinate and excessive-now, for the sum of tenpence, one of the "idle men in black" has not unfrequently to wait for an hour or more in a damp church, and afterwards to inter a corpse bare-headed, in cold wind and rain, at the peril of life-yet, for the same office, the same fee was paid in the reign of James the First, when that sum would have purchased six times the quantity of the necessaries of life that it will at present.

Again, not for the sum of ten-pence, but for nothing, the idle man in black" plunges without scruple into the midst of pestilent and infectious air, to comfort the sick and dying; sometimes, too, where the dying and the dead are mingled in the same apartment. For the sum, not of ten-pence, but of nothing, the "idle man in black" is called, no matter in what weather, or at what hour, by day or night, the distance of miles in order to administer private baptism to children whom he finds in perfect health. Such is the treatment which we receive at these coarse and merciless hands, not because we do not teach and warn the people, but because we do teach and warn them to shun their wicked seducers.

As another instance of the monstrous misrepresentation by which the hatred of the people is excited against their superiors, I must once more refer to the wretched composition already mentioned, in which the Magistrates are required to give up their augmented salaries; a species of disinterestedness not very practicable, since it is well known that the Magistrates serve their country, not only without fee or reward, but at considerable expence to themselves.

Another popular topic of calumny and murmurs is the Corn Bill, of which the people are taught that it is a conspiracy between Administration and the landed interest in Parliament, to enrich the Farmer by starving the Poor.

With their utter inability to comprehend any complicated question of policy or political economy, the painful feelings which they endure in consequence of this misconception, would be pitiable, were not their claim to compassion mitigated by the presumption of forming a judgment on the subject-yet they feel, alas! the pressure of want, they seek for a cause, and are directed to their greatest benefactors. For such assuredly are those who, in the face of popular clamour, dare to provide against famine by an unpopular and even perilous enactment. Yet what the prejudices of the vulgar will not permit them to comprehend, has long been understood by political economists, namely, that an indiscriminate permission to import grain, must necessarily diminish the production of that great support of life in our own country, and that, unless the Farmer were to receive a guarantee for the sale of his produce at a certain price, husbandry would be converted into pasturage, and the wholesome check upon prodigality in the consumption, which is a moderate price, would be removed in the earlier part of the year, the consequence of which must be, not dearth but famine before the next harvest.

Of the beneficial effects of this decried system of policy, we have at this moment the happiest experience; since after the last disastrous barvest a surplus of sound and wholesome grain, adequate to the national consumption for five months was remaining over and above the consumption of the former year (a certain effect of the Corn Bill), so that we are but just beginning to eat musty bread, at the time when the first symptoms of a genial spring are beginning to exhibit the promise of another harvest. It is truly astonishing, that the obvious cause of so large a portion of our calamities should be so little attended to.

Among those whose clamours are loud and unceasing on other accounts, no murmur is heard against Providence. I speak not this to their credit; their acquiescence is not that of submission, but of neglect; they have almost ceased, I fear, to acknowledge a superintending Providence. Yet, as a matter of fact, every morsel of bread which they eat might convince them that the last season had been most disastrous, and the

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