356 NOTKS OF Tin; MONTH. 



What is impressment in the navy but a species of the most ignominious 

 slavery that ever was inflicted upon a people. It will be seen that Mr. 

 Buckingham's very humane motion for the abolition of this disgust- 

 ing law was lost; but the smallness of the majority gives us hope that the 

 close of the next session will not see this disgrace upon our statute-book. 

 Members spoke of expediency, as if expediency were the slightest ex- 

 cuse for the violation of every social tie. Jt seems to us a national dis- 

 grace that any man possessing the feeling and spirit of a gentleman can 

 be found hardy enough to bless his God that he owes his safety to 

 such ignominous means. If the service held out proper inducement, 

 men would never be wanting on any emergency, and if we can afford 

 to pay millions for the partial manumission of slaves, we can afford, 

 at least to pay men the wages they are worth to others. The Ame- 

 ricans can afford a fair remuneration to the seamen, the merchant 

 service can afford it, and why are we to force men to risk life, and 

 limb, and brutal treatment, for half the wages they can get anywhere 

 else. It was amusing to witness the effects of office in the person of 

 Sir James Graham, Lord of the Admiralty. What apostates is not 

 this same office capable of producing. When he was candidate for 

 Hull, if we remember right, he was enthusiastically eloquent on the 

 wrongs of the seaman. In how different a strain were his paltry 

 pointless sarcasms, in his attempted reply to Mr. Buckingham, yet 

 some witless boobies condescended to cheer him. Hear the Honourable 

 Gentleman ; " he did not look upon impressment as a hardship upon 

 seamen ; they entered the sea service voluntarily ; by being subject to 

 impressment they only changed masters" Did any one ever hear more 

 flippant, and at the same time more heartless observations. If they 

 entered the service voluntarily why need impressment ? As to their 

 only changing masters by impressment it may be very true ; but the 

 law of England, in every other case, allows a man to change his own 

 master, and if one may judge, few would choose a service regulated 

 by such a specimen as Sir James Graham. 



A GREAT CRY AND LITTLE WOOL. A great fuss has lately been 

 made by certain interested parties in the City, touching the late 

 transactions of Sir John Key ; now although we do not pretend to 

 act the Don Quixotte, by running a-muck at these windmills, or in 

 other words, becoming Sir John's champion, yet wherever we see an 

 act of oppression, and know the base nature which prompted it, our 

 journal shall never be the last to place the affair in its true light, be 

 the view we take of it, popular or not. 



Now the fact is, that the trade to which Sir John has the ill-luck to 

 belong is about the most envious and covetous of all those numerous 

 guilds that batten within the liberties of this most renowned City of 

 London, a small circumference ; but, we do not hesitate to say, en- 

 closing the greatest number of rogues in the known world. Now the 

 worshipful company of Stationers are rogues par excellence, one half 

 of them would stick at nothing short of the gallows, and it is this 

 class that have never forgiven Sir John Key, elevating himself by his 

 own conduct so much beyond them, as to deserve the thanks of his 



fellow citizens, and the reward of hia sovereign. It must not be for- 







