362 The State of the Empire : [Oct. 



influence of Jesuitism and JMonkery, though it had received many a 

 formidable blow, still wound its sinuous length through society, and 

 smoothed Avith its slime the ascent to the foot of the throne. In those 

 points, a minister of France had hitherto the advantage of a minister of 

 England. But the Duke has already rapidly diminished the space 

 between the candidates. In England, the Jesuit and the jMonk have 

 now the right to legislate ; they may poison every channel of represen- 

 tation if they will, and may stand up in their places, as Lords and Com- 

 mons of Protestant England, and advocate the cause of the Pope — that 

 Pope with whom, by the laws of the wise, brave, and Christian founders 

 of our liberty, it was high treason for any public functionary of the 

 empire to hold a moment's correspondence. Thanks to his Grace of 

 Wellington, this has been done ! and this is the one exploit of his illus- 

 trious ministry! To this trophy he must point for the evidence of 

 his two years' uncontested power, and say, " Here I triumphed, and 

 triumphed for the Pope." But here his self-praise would do him 

 injustice. Plis triumph was more comprehensive still — he triumphed 

 for Popish Europe. Not an enemy of the British Constitution, whether 

 prince or priest — whether clothed in the rude habiliments of Irish rebel- 

 lion, or flourishing in the costly garniture of Continental bigoti-y — but may 

 now have his agent in the British Legislature. France, that no pacification 

 will ever make faithful ; Austria, that no pledge will ever bind ; Spain, 

 that remembers her tlnvarted days of blood ; and Portugal, that longs 

 for her renewed power of persecution — the whole of Popish Europe may 

 now have its direct instruments in the British Legislature. We shall 

 see the Romish bishops sitting on the benches of the House of Lords ; 

 and we congratulate the Protestant bishops on the accession of such holy 

 assistance to their spiritual guardianship. We shall see the Romish 

 cardinal in the council ; and we congratulate the members of the Cabinet 

 on the aid of his talents and impartiality in the defence of the free Pro- 

 testant Constitution. 



But the new gendarmerie comes first before us. It is remarkable that 

 the first characteristic of the Duke of Wellington's administration is that 

 dullest and most vulgar of all expedients for governing a people — a per- 

 petual recourse to force. If Ireland is to be kept down, his capacious 

 intellect has but one panacea — a dozen regiments ; if the exasperation 

 of the starving manufacturers calls for work or bread, the doctor 

 has still but the same dose to administer — horse, foot, and dra- 

 goons ; if the newspapers join the public voice, and, in natural indig- 

 nation, exclaim against him as ignorant, or negligent, or incapable, 

 the great Sangrado has but the same prescription — ^the indictment. 

 If poverty, combining with the hideous example of political corrup- 

 tion, and the most scandalous and undisguised contempt of all moral 

 decencies among the liighest ranks, impel the lowest to offences 

 not by ten thousand degrees so criminal as the offences of those who 

 ought to be their examples in honesty and honour, the Sangrado still has 

 but one regimen — the guardian of the public peace, in " a neat blue 

 uniform, with a cutlass two feet long, and a brace of pistols in a belt," 

 the whole of this gendarmerie being under the conmiand of a military 

 retainer of the Duke, and making its reports directly to the Home 

 Secretary — that honest Home Secretary ! — as much a menial of the Duke, 

 as if he wiped his shoes, or stood behind his carriage. 



The first question on this new police is — its necessity. This necessity 



