Why ?» You will see.»> << The ninth day of the month, you say?» « The ninth. >> As I observed that the present was the ninth day of the Darvell supported himself, in a half-reclining posture, with great difficulty. He asked for water. I had some doubts of our being able to find any, and prepared to go in search of it with hesitating despondency-but he desired me to remain; and turning to Suleiman, our janizary, who stood by us smoking with great tranquil-month, his countenance changed, and he paused. As he lity, he said, « Suleiman, verbana su,» (i. e. bring some water,) and went on describing the spot where it was to be found with great minuteness, at a small well for camels, a few hundred yards to the right: the janizary obeyed. I said to Darvell, « How did you know this?» ---He replied,<< From our situation; you must perceive that this place was once inhabited, and could not have been so without springs: I have also been here before.» << You have been here before!-How came you never to mention this to me? and what could you be doing in a place where no one would remain a moment longer than they could help it?» To this question I received no answer. In the meantime, Suleiman returned with the water, leaving the serrugee and the horses at the fountain. The quenching of his thirst had the appearance of reviving him for a moment; and I conceived hopes of his being able to proceed, or at least to return, and I urged the attempt. He was silent-and appeared to be collecting his spirits for an effort to speak. He began. sate, evidently becoming more feeble, a stork, with a snake in her beak, perched upon a tombstone near us; and, without devouring her prey, appeared to be stedfastly regarding us. I know not what impelled me to drive it away, but the attempt was useless; she made a few circles in the air, and returned exactly to the same spot. Darvell pointed to it, and smiled: he spoke-I know not whether to himself or to me-but the words were only, «'T is well!» « What is well? what do you mean?» «No matter you must bury me here this evening, and exactly where that bird is now perched. You know the rest of my injunctions.>> He then proceeded to give me several directions as to the manner in which his death might be best concealed. After these were finished, he exclaimed, « You perceive that bird? » « And the serpent writhing in her beak?» « Doubtless there is nothing uncommon in it; it is her natural prey. But it is odd that she does not devour ait.»> « This is the end of my journey, and of my life-I came here to die: but I have a request to make, command-for such my last words must be. You will observe it?» << Most certainly; but have better hopes.» He smiled in a ghastly manner, and said, faintly, « It is not yet time !» As he spoke, the stork flew away. My eyes followed it for a moment; it could hardly be « I have no hopes, nor wishes, but this-conceal my longer than ten might be counted. I felt Darvell's death from every human being.»> weight, as it were, increase upon my shoulder, and, « I hope there will be no occasion; that you will re- turning to look upon his face, perceived that he was cover, and--me})}) dead! Peace! it must be so : promise this.>> << I do. »> I was shocked with the sudden certainty which could not be mistaken-his countenance in a few minutes << Swear it by all that»--He here dictated an oath became nearly black. I should have attributed so rapid of great solemnity. a change to poison, had I not been aware that he had << There is no occasion for this-I will observe your no opportunity of receiving it unperceived. The day request; and to doubt me is--» << It cannot be helped,-you must swear. » I took the oath it appeared to relieve him. He removed a seal-ring from his finger, on which were some Arabic characters, and presented it to me. He proceeded « On the ninth day of the month, at noon precisely (what month you please, but this must be the day), you | must fling this ring into the salt springs which run into the Bay of Eleusis: the day after, at the same hour, you must repair to the ruins of the temple of Ceres, and wait one hour.» was declining, the body was rapidly altering, and nothing remained but to fulfil his request. With the aid of Suleiman's ataghan and my own sabre, we scooped a shallow grave upon the spot which Darvell had indicated: the earth easily gave way, having already received some Mahometan tenant. We dug as deeply as the time permitted us, and throwing the dry earth upon alf that remained of the singular being so lately departed, we cut a few sods of greener turf from the less withered soil around us, and laid them upon his sepulchre. Between astonishment and grief, I was tearless. Parliamentary Speeches. DEBATE ON THE FRAME-WORK BILL, IN THE HOUSE MY LORDS-The subject now submitted to your lordships for the first time, though new to the House, is by no means new to the country. I believe it had occuTHE order of the day for the second reading of this pied the serious thoughts of all descriptions of persons, bill being read. long before its introduction to the notice of that legisLORD BYRON rose, and (for the first time) addressed lature, whose interference alone could be of real sertheir lordships, as follows: vice. As a person in some degree connected with the suffering county, though a stranger not only to this House in general, but to almost every individual whose attention I presume to solicit, I must claim some portion of your lordships' indulgence whilst I offer a few observations on a question in which I confess myself deeply interested. chinery, in that state of our commerce which the country once boasted, might have been beneficial to the master without being detrimental to the servant; yet in the present situation of our manufactures, rotting in warehouses, without a prospect of exportation, with the demand for work and workmen equally diminished, the distress and discontent of the disappointed sufferers. But the real cause of these distresses and consequent disturbances lies deeper. When we are told that these men are leagued together, not only for the destruction of their own comfort, but of their very means of sub To enter into any detail of the riots would be super-frames of this description tend materially to aggravate fluous: the House is already aware that every outrage short of actual bloodshed has been perpetrated, and that the proprietors of the frames obnoxious to the rioters, and all persons supposed to be connected with them, have been liable to insult and violence. During the short time I recently passed in Nottingham-sistence, can we forget that it is the bitter policy, the shire, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence; and on the day I left the county, I was informed that forty frames had been broken the preceding evening,-as usual, without resistance and without detection. destructive warfare of the last eighteen years, which has destroyed their comfort, your comfort, all men's comfort? that policy which, originating with « great statesmen now no more,» has survived the dead to become a curse on the living, unto the third and fourth generation! These men never destroyed their looms till they were become useless, worse than useless; till they were become actual impediments to their exertions in obtaining their daily bread. Can you, then, wonder that, in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony, are found in a station not far beneath that of your lordships, the lowest, though once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? But while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new death must be spread for the wretched mechanic, who is famished into guilt. These men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them: their own means of subsistence were cut off, all other employments pre-occupied, and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be subject of surprise. Such was then the state of that county, and such I have reason to believe it to be at this moment. But whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress. The perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings, tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large, and once honest and industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community. At the time to which I allude, the town and countey were burthened with large detach-capital punishments must be devised, new snares of ments of the military; the police was in motion; the magistrates assembled; yet all the movements, civil and military, had led to-nothing. Not a single instance had occurred of the apprehension of any real delinquent actually taken in the fact, against whom there existed legal evidence sufficient for conviction. But the police, however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious delinquents had been detected; men, liable to conviction, on the clearest evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men who had been nefariously guilty of lawfully begetting several children, whom, thanks to the times! they were unable to maintain. Considerable injury has been done to the proprietors of the improved frames. These machines were to them an advantage, inasmuch as they superseded the necessity of employing a number of workmen, who were left in consequence to starve. By the adoption of one species of frame in particular, one man performed the work of many, and the superfluous labourers were thrown out of employment. Yet it is to be observed, that the work thus executed was inferior in quality; not marketable at home, and merely hurried over with a view to exportation. It was called, in the cant of the trade, by the name of spider - work.» The rejected workmen, in the blindness of their ignorance, instead of rejoicing at these improvements in arts so beneficial to mankind, conceived themselves to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. In the foolishness of their hearts they imagined, that the maintenance and well-doing of the industrious poor were objects of greater consequence than the enrichment of a few individuals by any improvement, in the implements of trade, which threw the workmen out of employment, and rendered the labourer unworthy of his hire. And it must be confessed, that although the adoption of the enlarged ma It has been stated, that the persons in the temporary possession of frames connive at their destruction; if this be proved upon inquiry, it were necessary that such material accessories to the crime should be principals in the punishment. But I did hope, that any measure proposed by his majesty's government, for your lordships' decision, would have had conciliation for its basis; or, if that were hopeless, that some previous inquiry, some deliberation would have been deemed requisite; not that we should have been called at once without examination, and without cause, to pass sentences by wholesale, and sign death-warrants blindfold. But admitting that these men had no cause of complaint; that the grievances of them and their employers were alike groundless; that they deserved the worst; what inefficiency, what imbecility has been evinced in the method chosen to reduce them! Why were the military called out to be made a mockery of, if they were to be called out at all? As far as the difference of seasons would permit, they have merely parodied the summer campaign of Major Sturgeon; and, indeed, the whole proceedings, civil and military, seemed on the model of those of the Mayor and Corporation of Garratt.-Such marchings and counter-marchings! from Nottingham to Bullwell, from Bullwell to Banford, from Banford to Mansfield! and when at length the detachments arrived at their destinations, in all « the pride, pomp, and cir such objects demand it. I have traversed the seat of cumstance of glorious war,» they came just in time to witness the mischief which had been done, and ascertain the escape of the perpetrators; to collect the « spolia opima» in the fragments of broken frames, and return to their quarters amidst the derision of old women, and the hootings of children. Now, though in a free country, it were to be wished, that our military should never be too formidable, at least to ourselves, I cannot see the policy of placing them in situations where they can only be made ridiculous. As the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last. In this instance it has been the first; but providentially as yet only in the scabbard. The present measure will, indeed, pluck it from the sheath; yet had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of these riots,-had the grievances of these men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighed and justly examined, I do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquillity to the county. At present the county suffers from the double infliction of an idle military and a starving population. In what state of apathy have we been plunged so long, that now for the first time the House has been officially apprised of these disturbances! All this has been transacting within 130 miles of London, and yet we, « good easy men, have deemed full sure our greatness was a-ripening,» and have sat down to enjoy our foreign triumphs in the midst of domestic calamity. But all the cities you have taken, all the armies which have retreated before your leaders, are but paltry subjects of self-congratulation, if your land divides against itself, and your dragoons and your executioners must be let loose against your fellow-citi-bayonets be appalled by your gibbets? When death zens. You call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous, is a relief, and the only relief it appears that you will and ignorant; and seem to think that the only way to afford him, will he be dragooned into tranquillity? quiet the « Bellua multorum capitum» is to lop off a Will that which could not be effected by your grenafew of its superfluous heads. But even a mob may diers be accomplished by your executioners? If you be better reduced to reason by a mixture of concilia-proceed by the forms of law, where is your evidence? tion and firmness, than by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of our obligations to a mob! It is the mob that labour in your fields, and serve in your houses,—that man your navy, and recruit your army, that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget, that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people. And here must remark, with what alacrity you are accustomed to fly to the succour of your distressed allies, leaving the distressed of your own country to the care of Pro-rize and tamper with the minds of men; but a deathvidence or the parish. When the Portuguese suffered under the retreat of the French, every arm was stretched out, every hand was opened, from the rich man's largess to the widow's mite, all was bestowed to enable them to rebuild their villages and replenish their graparies. And at this moment, when thousands of misguided but most unfortunate fellow-countrymen are struggling with the extremes of hardships and hunger, as your charity began abroad it should end at home. A much less sum, a tithe of the bounty bestowed on Portugal, even if those men (which I cannot admit without inquiry) could not have been restored to their employments, would have rendered unnecessary the tender mercies of the bayonet and the gibbet. But frame-suppose this man surrounded by the childoubtless our friends have too many foreign claims to admit a prospect of domestic relief; though never did Those who have refused to impeach their accomplices, when transportation only was the punishment, will hardly be tempted to witness against them when death is the penalty. With all due deference to the noble lords opposite, I think a little investigation, some previous inquiry, would induce even them to change their purpose. That most favourite state measure, so marvellously efficacious in many and recent instances, temporising, would not be without its advantages in this. When a proposal is made to emancipate or relieve, you hesitate, you deliberate for years, you tempo bill must be passed off hand, without a thought of the consequences. Sure I am, from what I have heard, and from what I have seen, that to pass the Bill under all the existing circumstances without inquiry, without deliberation, would only be to add injustice to irritation, and barbarity to neglect. The framers of such a Biil must be content to inherit the honours of that Athenian lawgiver, whose edicts were said to be written not in ink but in blood. But suppose it passed; suppose one of these men, as I have seen them,-meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your Lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking dren for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault that he can no longer so support-suppose this man, and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims, dragged into court, to be tried for this new offence by this new law; still, there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him; and these are, in my opinion,-twelve Butchers for a Jury, and a Jefferies for a Judge! DEBATE ON THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE'S MOTION FOR A COMMITTEE ON THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS, APRIL 21, 1812. MY LORDS-The question before the House has been so frequently, fully, and ably discussed, and never perhaps more ably than on this night, that it would be difficult to adduce new arguments for or against it, But with each discussion difficulties have been removed, objections have been canvassed and refuted, and some of the former opponents of Catholic Emancipation have at length conceded to the expediency of relieving the petitioners. In conceding thus much, however, a new objection is started; it is not the time, say they, or it is an improper time, or there is time enough yet. In some degree I concur with those who say it is not the time exactly; that time is passed; better had it been for the country, that the Catholics possessed at this moment their proportion of our privileges, that their nobles held their due weight in our councils, than that we should be assembled to discuss their claims. It had indeed been better Non tempore tali Cogere concilium cum muros obsidet hostis. The enemy is without, and distress within. It is too late to cavil on doctrinal points, when we must unite in defence of things more important than the mere ceremonies of religion. It is indeed singular, that we are called together to deliberate, not on the God we adore, for in that we are agreed; not about the king we obey, for to him we are loyal; but how far a difference in the ceremonials of worship, how far believing, not too little, but too much (the worst that can be imputed to the Catholics), how far too much devotion to their God, may incapacitate our fellow-subjects from effectually serving their king. Much has been said, within and without doors, of Church and State, and although those venerable words have been too often prostituted to the most despicable of party purposes, we cannot hear them too often all, I presume, are the advocates of Church and State, the Church of Christ, and the State of Great Britain; but not a state of exclusion and despotism, not an intolerant church, not a church militant, which renders itself liable to the very objection urged against the Romish communion, and in a greater degree, for the Catholic merely withholds its spiritual benediction (and even that is doubtful); but our church, or rather our churchmen, not only refuse to the Catholic their spiritual grace, but all temporal blessings whatsoever, It was an observation of the great Lord Peterborough, made within these walls, or within the walls where the Lords then assembled, that he was for a «parliamentary king and a parliamentary constitution, but not a parliamentary God and a parliamentary religion.» The interval of a century has not weakeed the force of the remark. It is indeed time that we should leave off these petty cavils on frivolous points, these Lilliputian sophistries, whether our « eggs are best broken at the broad or narrow end.» The opponents of the Catholics may be divided into two classes; those who assert that the Catholics have too much already, and those who allege that the lower orders, at least, have nothing more to require. We are told by the former, that the Catholics never will be contented: by the latter, that they are already too happy. The last paradox is sufficiently refuted by the present, as by all past petitions; it might as well be said, that the negroes did not desire to be emancipated, but this livered them out of the house of bondage without any is an unfortunate comparison, for you have already depetition on their part, but many from their task-masters to a contrary effect; and for myself, when I consider this, I pity the Catholic peasantry for not having the good fortune to be born black. But the Catholics are contented, or at least ought to be, as we are told: I shall therefore proceed to touch on a few of those circumstances which so marvellously contribute to their exceeding contentment. They are not allowed the free exercise of their religion in the regular army; the Catholic soldier cannot absent himself from the service of the Protestant clergyman, and, unless he is quartered in Ireland, or in Spain, where can he find eligible opportunities of attending his own? tholic chaplains to the Irish militia regiments was conThe permission of Caceded as a special favour, and not till after years of remonstrance, although an act, passed in 1793, established it as a right. But are the Catholics properly protected in Ireland? Can the Church purchase a rood of land whereon to erect a chapel? No; all the places of worship are built on leases of trust or sufferance from the laity, easily broken and often betrayed. The moment any irregular wish, any casual caprice of the benevolent landlord meets with opposition, the doors are barred against the congregation. This has happened continually; but in no instance more glaringly, than at the town of Newtown-Barry, in the county of Wexford. The Catholics, enjoying no regular chapel, as a temporary expedient, hired two barns, which, being thrown into one, served for public worship. At this time, there was quartered opposite to the spot an officer, whose mind appears to have been deeply imbued with those prejudices which the Protestant petitions, now on the table, prove to have been fortunately eradicated from the more rational portion of the people; and when the Catholics were assembled on the Sabbath as usual, in peace and goodwill towards men, for the worship of their God and yours, they found the chapel door closed, and were told that if they did not immediately retire (and they were told this by a yeoman officer and a magistrate), the riot act should be read, and the assembly dispersed at the point of the bayonet! This was complained of to the middle-man of government, the Secretary at the Castle in 1806, and the answer was (in lieu of redress), that he would cause a letter to be written to the colonel, to prevent, if possible, the recurrence of similar disturbances. Upon this fact, no very great stress need be laid; but it tends to prove that while the Catholic church has not power to purchase land for its chapels to stand upon, the laws for its protection are of no avail. In the meantime, the Catholics are at the mercy of every « pelting petty officer,» who may chuse to play his «< fantastic tricks before high heaven,» to insult his God, and injure his fellow-creatures. Every school-boy, any foot-boy (such have held commissions in our service), any foot-boy who can exchange his shoulder-knot for an epaulet, may perform all this and more against the Catholic, by virtue of that very authority delegated to him by his sovereign, for the express purpose of defending his fellow-subjects to the last drop of his blood, without discrimination or distinction between Catholic and Protestant. To John I owe some obligation, So John and I are more than quit. Some persons have compared the Catholics to the Have the Irish Catholics the full benefit of trial by jury? They have not; they never can have, until they are permitted to share the privilege of serving as sheriffs and under-sheriffs. Of this a striking example occurred at the last Enniskillen assizes. A yeoman was arraigned for the murder of a Catholic named Mac-beggar in Gil Blas. Who made them beggars? Who are vournagh three respectable uncontradicted witnesses deposed that they saw the prisoner load, take aim, fire at, and kill the said Macvournagh. This was properly commented on by the judge; but, to the astonishment of the bar, and indiguation of the court, the Protestant jury acquitted the accused. So glaring was the partiality, that Mr Justice Osborne felt it his duty to bind over the acquitted, but not absolved assassin, in large recognizances: thus for a time taking away his license to kill Catholics. Are the very laws passed in their favour observed? They are rendered nugatory, in trivial as in serious cases. By a late act, Catholic chaplains are permitted in jails, but in Fermanagh county the grand jury lately persisted in presenting a suspended clergyman for the office: thereby evading the statue, notwithstanding the most pressing remonstrances of a most respectable magistrate, named Fletcher, to the contrary. Such is law, such is justice, for the happy, free, contented Catholic! enriched with the spoils of their ancestors? And cannot you relieve the beggar, when your fathers have made him such? If you are disposed to relieve him at all, cannot you do it without flinging your farthings in his face? As a contrast, however, to this beggarly benevolence, let us look at the Protestant Charter Schools; to them you have lately granted 41,000l.: thus are they supported, and how are they recruited? Montesquieu observes, on the English constitution, that the model may be found in Tacitus, where the historian describes the policy of the Germans, and adds, this beautiful system was taken from the woods; » so in speaking of the charter schools, it may be observed, that this beautiful system was taken from the gypsies. These schools are recruited in the same manner as the Janizaries at the time of their enrolment under Amurath, and the gypsies of the present day, with stolen children, with children decoyed and kidnapped from their Catholic connexions by their rich and powerful Protestant neighbours: this is notorious, and one instance may suffice to show in what manner. The sister of a Mr Carthy (a Catholic gentleman of very considerable property) died, leaving two girls, who were immediately marked out as proselytes, and conveyed to the charter-school of Coolgreny. Their uncle, on being apprised of the fact, which As to Maynooth College, in no instance, except at the took place during his absence, applied for the restitution time of its foundation, when a noble Lord (Camden), at of his nieces, offering to settle an independence on the head of the Irish administration, did appear to in- these relations; his request was refused, and not till terest himself in its advancement; and during the go- after five years' struggle, and the interference of very vernment of a noble Duke (Bedford), who, like his high authority, could this Catholic gentleman obtain ancestors, has ever been the friend of freedom and back his nearest of kindred from a charity chartermankind, and who has not so far adopted the selfish school. In this manner are proselytes obtained, and policy of the day as to exclude the Catholics from the mingled with the offspring of such Protestants as may number of his fellow-creatures; with these exceptions, avail themselves of the institution. And how are they in no instance has that institution been properly encou-taught? A catechism is put into their hands consisting raged. There was indeed a time when the Catholic of, I believe, forty-five pages, in which are three quesclergy were conciliated, while the Union was pending, that union which could not be carried without them, while their assistance was requisite in procuring addresses from the Catholic counties; then they were cajoled and caressed, feared and flattered, and given to understand that « the Union would do every thing; » but, the moment it was passed, they were driven back with contempt into their former obscurity. It has been asked in another place, why do not the rich Catholics endow foundations for the education of the priesthood? Why do you not permit them to do so? Why are all such bequests subject to the interference, the vexatious, arbitrary, peculating interference of the Orange commissioners for charitable donations? In the conduct pursued towards Maynooth College, every thing is done to irritate and perplex-every thing is done to efface the slightest impression of gratitude from the Catholic mind; the very hay made upon the lawn, the fat and tallow of the beef and mutton allowed, tions relative to the Protestant religion; one of these ? Allow me to ask our spiritual pastors and masters, is ヒ |