constitute High Treason; and although his death might be punished as a murder, still it could not be denominated High Treason. This opinion may sound rather strangely tothe ear of a Whig, and still more strangely if that Wing should happen to be a lawyer; it is necessary, therefore, that I should explain my motives for coming to this conclusion.

The Sovereignty is, I believe, on all hands acknowledged to rest in the People, therefore nothing can be law, but that which is unequivocally sanctioned by the Sovereign People, Another axiom, no less uncontrovertible, is, that one generation have no right to legislate for another. If, Sir, it so happened that the People of a country chose a Sovereign to govern them one or two centuries ago, and if they made a law declaring his children or descendants heirs to the Crown per secula seculorum, they were exercising a tyrannical power, which posterity were not morally obliged to submit to longer than they could help it. Any attempt at the life of the Sovereign so chosen would be, in every sense of the word, High Treason; but against the life of his descendants I am clearly of opinion that it could only amount to murder. You, Mr. Brougham, are one of those who view the correction of every abuse in the Administration as an event greatly to be dreaded; you abhor such wild and visionary ideas, and also those who circulate them. You, Sir, seem to imagine that a certain portion of corruption is as necessary to the good government of a nation, as azotic gaz is to the air we breathe; it qualifies its purity, and has many other good effects, which by and by Mr. Brougham doubtless expects to participate.

A form of administration, free from every species of abuse would in your opinion destroy the Constitution! Oh! Mr. Brougham, Mr. Brougham, forget the ermined robes of the judicial chair, which may indeed be visionary, and scan more accurately the natural feelings of your heart. Ask that heart if it was not treason to lengthen the duration of Parliament, first to three and then to seven years? Ask it whether it was not treason to plunder the People of their money, and reduce them to the brink of starvation? Ask it if it was not treason to suspend their liberties? Ask it, if it was not treason to keep a standing army in time of peace, contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Ask it if every person in any way accessary to such measures, ought not to be considered traitors? And finally, ask it if open resistance to traitors can be denominated treason?

You profess, Sir, to have a great antipathy to sedition,

and yet condemn with might and main the most constitu tional writers in the kingdom. Much noise has been made throughout the country respecting this said Constitution, which after all is nowhere to be found. It is not in any of the Statute Books! I am not a lawyer, but having often considered the subject, I venture to lay before you, Sir, the result of my cogitations.

The British Constitution is now that portion of the aforesaid Law of Nature, which has been left to the enjoyment of the People by a successive chain of tyrannical and interested Ministers, since the days of Sir Robert Walpole; and a very small portion I lament to say it is; and yet much fear that it will be less, ere many days pass over this unfortunate and miserably enslaved People. Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights were nothing more than a return to first principles, from which the tyrant JOHN thought proper to depart in a very kingly manner. They are now a mere nullity, which the Ministry leave in force or suspend, at their divine will and pleasure.

A noble Lord (Caernarvon) in the House of Peers expressed his horror at the seditious publications, which could hold out the threat of the scaffold to the Ministers for plundering the People of the means of existence, although that People, if they were absolutely starving, would be more than threatened for stealing a bit of bread from the table of Lord Castlereagh!!! I would express a hope that you, Sir, will stand forward to oppose all designs against the Liberty of the Press: this may perhaps be the last time I shall be able to offer my sentiments to the Public, for one other week, and despotism may reign with absolute sway. I should deem myself wanting in my duty to the Public, if I did not warn the Representatives of the People to beware how they accede to the measures of the Ministry. The votes and speeches of every Member of either House will be carefully treasured in the minds of the People, until a fit opportunity presents itself of wreaking upon them wellmerited punishment. With a sincere hope that when that time shall arrive, you, Sir, (whom I believe to be a goodhearted man) may be found among the ranks of those who have done their duty, I respectfully subscribe myself,

Your fellow-citizen,
J. GRIFFIN.

WHAT IS BLASPHEMY?

The general outcry in both Houses of Parliament, against irreligious and blasphemous publications, induces us to ask the question of what is Blasphemy? is it balsphemy to doubt the divinity of Kings and Priests, or is it blasphemy to publish our opinions upon any religious topic, if those opinions tend to invalidate the divine origin of Christianity? How strong must be the force of prejudice, when even the publication of opinion is denominated blasphemy; and yet such is unhappily the case, even with men whom we should suppose education had raised above the influence of prejudice. We would most earnestly request, the attention of those gentlemen (who it seems read the Cap of Liberty as well as their less wealthy countrymen) to the two following extracts from writers who treat the subject, bettor than perhaps any writer of the present day. The first is from Mirabaud's System of Nature, which is now publishing in weekly numbers, by Mr. Davison; the other from Volney's Ruins of Empires, lately published by him. It must be remembered that these celebrated individuals, had thrown aside their every prejudices, and calmly investigated the fundamental principles of the subject on which they treated, and whose opinions were consequently entitled to more weight than a thousand of those religious methodistical gentry, who piously suffer others to lead them by the nose, blindfold through the world.

"Error is always prejudicial to man: it is by deceiving himself, the human race is plunged into misery. He neglected Nature; he did not comprehend her laws; he formed gods of the most preposterous and ridiculous kinds; these became the sole objects of his hope, and the creatures of his fear: he was unhappy, he trembled under these visionary deities; under the supposed influence of visionary beings created by himself: under the terror inspired by blocks of stone; by logs of wood: by flying fish; or the frowns of men, mortal as himself, whom his disturbed fancy had elevated above that Nature, of which alone he is capable of forming any idea. His very posterity laughs at his folly, because experience has convinced them of the absurdity of his groundless fears-of his misplaced worship. Thus have passed away the ancient mythology, with all the trifling and nonsensical attributes attached to it by ignorance.

"Not understanding that Nature, equal in her distributio entirely destitute of malice, follows only necessary and

mutable laws, when she either produces beings or destroys them, when she causes those to suffer, whose construction creates sensibility; when she scatters among them good and evil; when she subjects them to incessant change he did not perceive it was in the breast of Nature herself, that it was in her exuberance he ought to seek to satisfy his deficiences; for remedies against his pains; for the means of rendering himself happy: he expected to derive these benefits from fantastic beings, whom he supposed to be above Nature; whom he mistakingly imagined to be the authors of his pleasures, and the cause of his misfortunes. From hence it appears that to his ignorance of Nature, man owes the creation of those illusive powers, under which he has so long trembled with fear; that superstitious worship, which has been the source of all his misery, and the evils entailed upon posterity,

"For want of clearly comprehending his own peculiar nature, his proper course, his wants, and his rights, man has fallen in society from FREEDOM into SLAVERY. He had forgotten the purpose of his existence, or else he believed himself obliged to suppress the natural desires of his heart, to sacrifice his welfare to the caprice of chiefs, either elected by himself, or submitted to without examintaion. He was ignorant of the true policy of association-of the object of government; he disdained to listen to the voice of Nature, which loudly proclaimed the price of all submission to be protection and happiness: the end of all government is the benefit of the governed, not the exclusive advantage of the governors. He gave himself up without enquiry to men like himself, whom his prejudices induced him to contemplate as beings of a superior order. as Gods upon earth: they profited by his ignorance, took advantage of his prejudices, corrupted him, rendered him vicious, enslaved him, and made him miserable. Thus man, intended by Nature for the full enjoyment of liberty, to patiently search out her laws, to investigate her secrets, to cling to his experience; has, from a neglect of salutary admonitions, from an inexcusable ignorance of bis own peculiar essence, fallen into servility; has been wickedly governed.

"Having mistaken himself, he has remained ignorant of the indispensible affinity that subsists between him, and the beings of his own species; having mistaken his duty to himself, it consequently follows, he has mistaken his duty to others. He made a calculation in error of what his happiness required! he did not perceive what he owed to himself, the excesses he ought to avoid, the desires he ought to

resist, the impulses he ought to follow, in order to consolidate his felicity, to promote his comfort, and to further his advantage. In short, he was ignorant, of his true interests; hence his irregularities, his excesses, his shameful extravagance, with that long train of vices, to which he has abandoned himself, at the expence of his preservation, at the hazard of his permanent prosperity,

"It is therefore ignorance of himself, that has hindered man from enlightening his morals, The corrupt authorities to which he had submitted, felt an interest in obstructing the practice of his duties, even when he knew them. Time with the influence of ignorance, aided by his corruption, gave them a streugth not to be resisted by his enfeebled voice. His duties continued unperformed, and he fell into contempt both with himself and with others,

"The ignorance of Man has endured so long, he has taken such slow, such irresolute steps, to ameliorate his condition, only because he has neglected to study Nature, to scrutinize her laws, to search out her expedients, to discover her pro- : perties, that his sluggishness finds its account, in permitting himself to be guided by example, rather than to follow experience, which demands activity! to be led by routine, rather than by his reason, which enjoins reflection; to take. that for truth upon the authority of others, which would re- › quire a diligent and patient investigation. From hence may be traced the hatred man betrays for every thing that deviates from those rules to which he has been accustomed; hence his stupid, his scrupulous respect for antiquity, for the most silly, the most absurd and ridiculous institutions of his fathers; hence those fears that seize him when the most beneficial changes are proposed to him, or the most likely attempts are made to better his condition. He dreads to examine, because he has been taught to hold it irreverent of something immediately connected with his welfare; his credulity suffers him to believe the interested advice, and spurns at those who wish to shew him the danger of the road he is travelling.

"This is the reason why nations linger on in the most shameful lethargy, suffering under abuses handed down from century to century, trembling at the very idea of that which alone can repair their calamities."-Mirabaud.

"That we may understand the general feelings of priests respecting the rest of mankind, whom they always call by the name of the people, let us hear one of the doctors of the church. The people,' says Bishop Synnesius in Calvit. page 315, are desirous of being deceived, we cannot act