[ 162 ] [FBB. 



THE RE- ASSEMBLING OF PARLIAMENT. 



As this number of our journal will be but one week in the hands, even 

 of those readers to whom it arrives the earliest, before the senators of our 

 country re-assemble, we know not that we can discharge a more useful or 

 a more appropriate duty, than by throwing out a few hints in anticipation 

 of what should, and, as we hope, will be its decisions, upon some of 

 the most important questions that ever were entertained by the parliament 

 of the united kingdom. 



To this we are the more induced, from the very extraordinary cir- 

 cumstances under which that parliament will meet: circumstances which 

 have placed this country in an attitude which is new, and which is as 

 proud and delightful as it is new. Every assembling of parliament 

 is an event to which the people, who are, or at least should be, 

 represented by that parliament, look forward with greater interest 

 than they do toward any other common and periodical occurrence. 

 Sometimes they have looked forward with hope, sometimes with fear. 

 Their hopes have frequently been blasted ; their fears have as often 

 been realized ; and sometimes the conduct of the houses has been of so 

 unexpected and contradictory a nature, that no man could tell the end of 

 it from the beginning. For very many year?, the feeling has partaken 

 more of suspicion than of safety ; and even in those times, when there 

 was no dread that an additional burden should be laid upon the industry 

 of the country, or an additional fetter imposed upon its liberty, liberal 

 men were not in the habit of expecting that the ministerial part of 

 parliament would devise, or the majority of it perform, liberal things. 

 Even under the most favourable circumstances, there was a lingering 

 dread, too, of some sort of leaning toward the principles of arbitrary power. 

 It was feared that while our armies had been fighting the battles of despotism 

 on the continent, our administration at home had been smitten a little 

 with the love of it ; and that thus their object, whenever they could carry 

 it, would be to sacrifice privilege to power, and the prosperity of the people 

 to their own individual aggrandizement. These apprehensions are now at 

 an end ; the minister of England is one of freedom's foremost champions ; 

 and even in very despotic kingdoms, the echo of his eloquence has done more 

 for her than the most powerful army could have achieved by the sword. 

 Nor has he contented himself with mere eloquence, mighty though its 

 effect has been ; for the fire and the winds have conspired to waft the 

 strength of England to the continental shores, in a manner more prompt, 

 and for a cause more praiseworthy than any for which they aforetime, 

 on those shores, either fired a shot or pointed a bayonet. 



The effect of this sound, this truly magnanimous, truly English pro- 

 cedure, has been to touch, as with the spirit of life, all the springs and 

 energies of British activity. The figure is no forced one, when we say, 

 that as the thunders of Mr. Canning, in the cause of freedom, reverbe- 

 rated over these islands, the shuttle sped at a swifter pace, the clangor of 

 the anvil was more loud and moro musical, the wheels of every machine 

 were accelerated, eloquence came upon the pens of those who ere while 

 had been dull, the wavering became established, the weak became strong, 

 and, for the best of purposes, the whole inhabitants of the united king- 

 dom were awakened, inspirited, and united. Nor did, nor can ihe 

 advantage stop here. The spirit of genuine liberty is like the sun in 

 the firmament, " it shines upon the evil and the good :" like the fer- 



