that the slightest trace of any thing of the kind could not be tolerated in his mind. It would not be more strange to hear a priest talk of common sense than a lawyer, Common law might be compared to divinity, each has an influence among mankind, but, in fact, each is a nonentity, and exists only in the minds of certain men, that is, common law in the minds of lawyers, and divinity in the minds of priests. As the priests are compelled to change their notions of divinity according with the growing intelligence of mankind, but always hanging much in the rear, so also is it with our judges and lawyers, and their common law: it is one thing to-day, another thing to-morrow, and is preserved to answer the purposes of corruption and wickedness. Common sense is an indefinite term, of which every man judges for himself; but common law is the arbitrary dictum of a judge, and day after day we find them contradicting the decisions of former judges, and making common law agreeable to their own dispositions and the purposes they may have to serve. There is a strict analogy between common law and divinity, Mr. Solicitor-General Copley, but common sense is opposed to both, and quite a stranger to you. However, the first act of the drama is over, and if her Majesty was being tried with a jury instead of her accusers, they would not wait for a defence, they would acquit her for want of evidence to support a particle of the charge. 'Tis her very virtues that her enemies have construed into crimes, and if those who sit in judgment on her were free, honest, and honourable men, they would not waste another moment about the Queen, but would set about impeaching those who have conspired against her. The country will demand an example to be made of them. So foul a conspiracy must not pass unheeded. It matters not who is the author of it, a King is considered to be as amenable to the laws as any other subject. Her Majesty is about to have a service of plate presented to her by the nation. Subscriptions are going on very rapid and no one person is allowed to subscribe more than one shilling. Mr. Alderman Wood is treasurer and there is not the slightest fear of any misapplication of the funds. Notwithstanding all the promises and pledges of Lord Liverpool, it has been avowed in the name and on the behalf of the Queen, that the government has withheld from her the necessary means of her defence. She cannot obtain pecuniary supplies to bring forward her witnesses, and she finds obstructions from foreign courts to the same purpose. This is abominable: but it corresponds with every other part of the business. Addresses continue to increase, and the numbers which sign them were never equalled on any former occasion. The Queen's answer to the Whitechapel address is admirable, and will be found in another page. The decided attitude which her Majesty has taken is no small proof of her innocence, and has driven her enemies into holes and corners. She moves about amidst the enthusiastic cheers of the people, whilst her opponents hardly venture to breathe the open air. It is madness to talk about degradation, unless the public could see cause for it; for if a bill for degradation passes the Lords, Commons, and King, it will be derided: it will tend only to elevate the Queen. The public would cheerfully support her in any degree of splendour by a voluntary tax to express their detestation of the present composition of the legislature. To attempt to degrade such a woman by a statute will be laughed at: she will ride triumphant throughout the country and turn her enemies to scorn. Besides the army begins to shew a deep interest in the behalf of the Queen. Her cause has entered the bosom of every individual soldier, and it is not to be denied that the army is the base of the present legislature. The army has a dispensing power over the laws, and should the army be called upon to stop the mouths of the Queen's partisans, it is doubtful whether or not it would not turn out to a man in her behalf. The Queen has nothing to fear in pushing matters to an extremity, her enemies have much to fear: she has nobly avowed that she will not accept the de-gradation proposed for her; and who can put it in practice? R. CARLILE. Dorchester Gaol, Sept. 13, 1820. ANSWERS TO ADDRESSES. FROM THE MERCHANT SEAMEN. "A British seamen is another name for downright sincerity and plainspoken truth. A British seaman always says what he thinks, and is what he seems. A British seaman never deserts his flag, and never abandons his companion in distress. A British seaman is generous to his enemy, but he is never faithless to his friend. His heart is not fickle and inconsistent, like the element on which he moves, or the wind which fills the sails of his ship. The word of a British seaman is as sure as his bond. His veracity is incorruptible. In the late examination before the House of Lords let the evidence of the two British naval officers who were brought forward by my accusers be compared with the misrepresentations, ambiguities, and équivocating perjuries of the other witnesses, and the honest character of a British sailor will be truly resplendent in the contrast with that mass of infamy. "A British sailor is generous to excess, and brave even to a fault. There is no extremity of distress in which he will not share his last shilling with his friend, and often even with his foe; nor are there any circumstances in which he will not prefer death to disgrace; and every evil under the sun to cowardice. "When I had long been convinced that these are the ordinary characteristics of British seamen, it may be easily conceived that I was in the highest degree gratified by an address so loyal and so warm-hearted from such a respectable assemblage of British seamen in the county of Middlesex. "I am not surprised the British seamen, who are as compassionate as they are brave, should feel for my sufferings, and should be indignant at my wrongs. The wrongs and sufferings of a woman, and that woman a Queen, must make a deep impression on their generous bearts. "It is only the base and the cowardly that can tamely acquiesce in injustice and inhumanity; and I am fully convinced that insulted greatness or depressed rank can nowhere find a surer refuge or more steady protection than in the sailors and soldiers of this country. "As the Queen Consort of England, my sphere of usefulness is small, and my means of benefiting the community very circumscribed; but, as far as my power or my influence extend, all classes will ever find in me a sincere friend to their liberties, and a zealous advocate for their rights." FROM THE INHABITANTS OF WHITECHAPEL. "I am happy to find that my many sufferings and my accumulated wrongs have so powerfully interested the sympathies of the inhabitants of St. Mary, Whitechapel. The conspiracy which I am combating, though nominally directed against myself, is, in fact, a conspiracy against British Liberty. No measure since the Revolution has portended such disastrous consequences as the present Bill of Pains and Penalties. While it threatens freedom under all its diversified aspects, and with all its general rights, and all its particular securities, it at the same time darkens the perspective of the future with a lowering appearance of civil war. It exhibits a cloud at the edge of the political horizon that may burst in misery on every family in the country. This Bill of Pains and Penalties may thus be the harbinger of woe to every man's hearth. It may imbitter the days of thousands and tens of thousands, both of rich and poor; and produce in all irremediable regrets. After the noble stand which so many of the most estimable among the Peers have made against this pestiferous Bill, and the total want of any evidence to justify its enactment, it cannot be expected that it will pass; but, if it should pass, we must never lose sight of the probability that his Majesty may marry again. The issue of that marriage would, in all likelihood, cause a contested succession. That part of the uation which will not allow the Bill of Pains and Penalties to be a constitutional act, may not readily submit to the offspring of a marriage which will never, generally, be deemed legitimate. "If my marriage be annulled, it must be annulled in defiance of all law. The Queen, therefore, who succeeded me, would only be nomi nally Queen, for no lawful right can be conveyed by an illegal act; and, in the opinion of the great majority of the nation, nothing can invest this Bill of Pains and Penalties with any legal characteristics. It will never be regarded as any thing more than an act of pure tyranny; and, as such, it will excite the hatred of the present age, and experience the execrations of posterity." FOR THE REPUBLICAN. The following extracts from her Majesty's answers to her addressors deserve notice, for their powerful and constitutional remarks, and the identification of herself with the person and interest of every subject of the empire."* THE INHABITANTS OF SUNDERLAND. "Every person who can reflect upon the consequence of passing events, or who can read the danger of the future dark, in the aspect of the present, must be convinced the public welfare is, at this moment, intimately identified with the preservation of my rights and dignities as the royal consort of his majesty. General tyranny usually begins with individual oppression. If the highest subject in the realm can be deprived of her rank and title-can be divorced, dethroned, and debased by an act of arbitrary power, in the form of a Bill of Pains and Penalties, the constitutional liberty of the kingdom will be shaken to its very base. The rights of the nation will be only a scattered wreck, and this once free people, like the meanest of slaves, must submit to the lash of an insolent domination." THE INHABITANTS OF NEWBURY. "My honour, and my rights are, in fact, those of the country, and every one is interested in their preservation. The tyranny which destroys me to day, makes every man's liberty less secure to-morrow, -In the present alarming crisis, when I am attacked by the strong arm of overwhelming power, I rely first, as an innocent woman, upon the favour of a protecting Providence; and next, as an insulted and a persecuted Queen, upon the sympathies of the people, and upon that potent agency of public opinion, which now forms the best safeguard against the aggressions of tyranny, and the enormities of injustice." * The addresses to her Majesty have been so numerous that it has been impossible for a weekly publication to embrace them: we are indebted to a correspondent for calling our attention to the above extracts, that have not before appeared in the Republican. We have been anxious to devote as much of our publication as prudence would dictate, to the truly dignified answers of the Queen to her Addressers. EDITOR. TO THE EDITOR OF THE REPUBLICAN CONTRADISTINCTION. SIR, The present situation of the two chief persons in this nation, present a perfect contrast to each other. JOHN BULL. Bull Land, Sept. 5, 1820. A King-Vicious, malignant, implacable, despised, rejected and hated. A Queen-Virtuous, benignant, affable, honored, caressed and loved. He hiding his diminished head, in a cottage or a forest, only seen by a few, in unfrequented places, coward-like retreating from the curses of the people for his desertion and unjust persecution of his consort. She drawn in State through populous streets, boldly facing foreign spies, and in the House of Ig-nobles putting her enemies to shaine, attended by, and receiving the benedictions of thousands and tens of thousands. ADDRESS TO BRITONS. Oh, Britons! why content ye to sing Freedom's fame, But tamely submit to a tyrannical stroke, While you have not the courage, like them, to advance! And save her from meeting such a sad fatal hour! Camberwell, Sept. 5, 1820. T. J. BRAYFIELD. |