248 Doineslic PolUics. [[Sept. 



Nor do we now advert to the charges brought against the minister's 

 ulterior views. If his ambition have shaped to itself forms which it has 

 not avowed, we must wait for the avowal. The perpetual seclusion of 

 the king at Windsor, the character of the persons about him, the rumours 

 of intended alliances, the open disgusts of individuals of the highest 

 rank of subjects, and the sudden gatliering of those high personages to 

 the vicinity of the Court, are matters still too cloudy for any development 

 of ours. But, alike against v.'hat is not done, and what is done, we 

 protest, in the name of the country. We have already suffered a 

 tremendous change in the principles of the Constitution. It has " been 

 broken in upon." Protestantism, the bulwark of liberty in every land, 

 has in ours been levelled to an equality with the old tyrannical igno- 

 rance and Jesuitical malevolence of popery. A papist demagogue, a 

 papist spy, or a papist persecutor, may henceforth thwart, or rule the 

 whole councils of protestant England. 



But, if this be theory, a practical experiment of the Premier's system 

 is now to be made. The whole local administration of police is to be 

 taken from the customary hands, and given over to a gendarmerie ; — a 

 new force, paid not by the people, but by the minister, formed on a 

 military jilan, receiving its impulse not from the ordinary magistracy, 

 but from military individuals ! — ready to act as an organized force, by 

 orders from the minister ; and commanded by a confidential m,ilitary 

 officer ! Is there nothing in this that ought to fix our attention with the 

 keenest vigilance on the proceedings of power ? What would be thought 

 by our ancestors, of surrendering the metropolis into the hands of a 

 domestic army, commanded by creatures of the horse-guards ? The 

 whole working of the Constitution was once to separate the civil force 

 from the military. The whole working of the new policy is to unite 

 tlieni. The new army, which is to watch over us in spite of ourselves, 

 is already eight hundred men, at three tiwes the pay of a soldier. And 

 this levy is but for a small portion of London. The whole force, at 

 this rate, will not be less than four thousand men, — for London alone. 

 But it is to be extended to the vicinity. Aye, and it will be extended 

 to every city, and hamlet, and parish, through the island — a great 

 domestic army, deriving its existence, its authority, its duties, its pro- 

 motions, and its pay from the IMinister ! Is there nothing to awake 

 the public mind in this } Or could there be a more ready or more fatal 

 instrument of evil, if evil should enter into the minds of men in autho- 

 rity ? What could give more immediate facilities for establishing a 

 system of espionage through every corner of the land, if espionage 

 should happen to please a government .'' What could render popular 

 feeling more timorouf, or ministerial excesses more easy .'' What coidd 

 make the reclamations of honest men more hazardous to themselves ; or 

 the most formidable innovations more a matter of simple performance? 

 We charge no man with those intentions yet. But it should be enough 

 for those who knew the course of the hviman mind, to anticipate the 

 evil -where they see the temptation ; the possibility of danger to their 

 rights and liberties, should be enough for the vigilance of English- 

 men ! 



But every moment presses on us the conviction of this minister's 

 incapacity for directing the councils of England. We might ask but one 

 question more on the subject. Has the Duke of Wellington anticipated 

 the present posture of affairs in the East ? Has he been prepared for 

 the march of the Russians up to the walls of Constantinople ? If he 



