PREFACE. V 



discussing the causes and remedies of these evils, and 

 petitions for redress of grievances, for economy and 

 for parhamentary reform, poured in on all sides. 



A meeting in Spa Fields, summoned for the avowed 

 ' object of petitioning the Prince Regent, produced a dar- 

 ing insurrectionary attempt, by which the city was for 

 some hours thrown into a state of violent alarm, but it 

 was immediately checked by the spirited conduct of 

 the magistrates, and ended withont difficulty by the 

 appearance of the military. 



The expedition of Lord Exmouth to Algiers, added 

 fresh laurels to tlie triumphs of the British navy, and 

 animated for a moment the general gloom which was 

 fast gathering round our domestic prospects. It af- 

 forded to humanity the gratifying result of the aboli- 

 tion cf Christian slavery in all the piratical states of 

 Barbary ; and demonstrated that the present possessors 

 of j\Ialta, with equal good-will, possess far more effica- 

 cious means than the Order to which they have suc- 

 ceeded, of protecting the weaker European States on 

 the shore of the Mediterranean. 



In France the undisguised violence and bigotry of 

 the emigrant party, more royalist than even the king 

 himself, and attaching itself almost exclusively to the 

 presumptive heir to the throne, appears very naturally 

 to have excited the jealousy of the sovereign. The re- 

 sult has been the dismission of the ultra ministrv, and 

 the admission of the more liberal party to a share in the 

 ftdministration ; an event which has added to the per- 



I sonal independence of the king, and has calmed in a 

 considerable degree the apprehensions, entertained by 

 the purchasers of national domains and ecclesiastical 

 property, of violent resumptions. 



l| The pirates of Greece, of Albania, and of other parts 



of the Alediterranean, who during the war lioisted the 

 flag of one or other of the belligerent parties, and were 

 allowed to carry on their depredations under the ap- 

 pellation of privateers, liave, as might be expected, 



been 



