798 
THE GARDENERS’ CHRONICLE. 
(Nov. 11. 
topics until they were fully impressed upon the public 
mind. He would move that the committee be directed to 
warn the people of Ireland against committing any crime 
—they had come to the great crisis of their great experi- 
ment—an experiment to demonstrate that by peaceable 
means the most beneficial alterations in human institu- 
tions could be obtained. If they adhered to perfectly 
peaceable means, he saw the certainty of carrying the 
Repeal. The Government might incarcerate him and 
others within four walls, but there were others to stand 
in their places. Ireland had an excellent leader in the 
person of Smith O'Brien, who declared at the dinner 
given to him in the county of Limerick, that if to wish 
the liberty of Ireland was a conspiracy, he was a con- 
At the close of the meeting the rent for 
. 5d.—The 
rest of the party seeing the Doctor thus used, made an 
attempt to go up, when Carroll fired down on them, but 
hit no one. Smith, the apprentice, went down to the 
office and brought up a large pistol, which he discharged 
at Carroll without effect, when the fire from the top was 
quickly returned, but fortunately without effect 5 and 
Ryan, the watchman, affirms, that when the Doctor was 
lying down bathed in his blood, he saw Mr. G. F. Delany, 
who was keeping possession for Mr. Wilson, kick the 
Doctor several times in the most brutal manner. 
Quarry lingered until Sunday evening when he expired, 
and the Coroner’s Jury have returned a verdict of Murder 
against all the parties concerned. Mr. Wilson the 
partner has also been arrested on the charge of being 
an accessory before the fact. 
SCOTLAND. 
The Hebrides.—On Tuesday week two islands, named 
Rasay and Bona, situated in the Hebrides, were sold by 
auction at the Auction Mart, London. They were for many 
years the property of the M‘Leods, of Rasay, and com- 
prise about 18,000 acres. The net value of the estate, 
including the mines and the timber, was about 73,000/. 
There were 52 farms, the rent arising from which was 
about 12002. They were capable of improvement, in con- 
sequence of the facilities of communication from them to 
the metropolis, the journey now being completed in less 
than 36 hours. The estate was put up at 20,000 guineas, 
and eventually knocked down at 35,000 guineas. 
7 
THEATRICALS. 
Covent GArpen-—As might have been anticipated 
from the recent proceedings at this theatre, the establish- 
ment is now closed. The actors were assembled on 
Saturday morning on the stage of the theatre, preparatory 
to a rehearsal of the pieces announced for Mr. Wallack’s 
benefit on Monday, when a message was received from 
the manager that there would be no performance, or, in 
other words, that the theatre would not open again. The 
French juvenile performers have since appeared at the St. 
James’s Theatre, and the principal actors of the English 
company have left town on a provincial tour. 
HMitscellaneous. 
American Debt.—The following letter has been ad- 
dressed by the Reverend Sydney Smith to the Editor 
of the Morning Chronicle. ‘*Sir,—You did me the 
favour, Some time since, to insert in your valuable 
Pact @ petition of mine to the American Congress, for 
the repayment of a loan made by me, in common with 
= unwise people, to the State of Pennsylvania. 
‘or that petition I have been abused in the grossest 
THE by many of the American papers. After some 
weeks’ reflection, I see no reason to alter my opinions 
or to retract my expressions, What I then said was not 
wild declamation, but measured truth. I repeat again 
that no conduct was ever more profligate than Dab of the 
State of Pennsylvania. History cannot pattern it: and 
let no deluded being imagine that they will ever repa a 
single farthing—their people have tasted the deb gatous 
luxury of dishonesty, and they will never be brought back 
to the homely rule of right. The money transactions of 
the Americans are become a by-word among the nations 
of Europe. In every grammar-school of the whole world 
ad Grecas Calendas is translated—the American divi- 
dends. Iam no enemy to America. J loved and admired 
honest America when she respected the laws of pounds, 
shillings, and pence 5 and I thought the United States 
the most magnificent picture of human happiness. 
meddle now in these matters because I hate fraud—because 
I pity the misery it has occasioned—because I mourn over 
the hatred it has excited against free institutions. Among 
the discussions to which the moral lubricities of this 
insolvent people have given birth, they have arrogated to 
themselves the right of sitting in judgment upon the pro- 
perty of their creditors—of deciding who among them is 
rich, and who poor, and who are proper objects of com- 
passionate payment 5 but, in the name of Mercury, the 
great god of thieves, did any man ever bear of debtors 
alleging the wealth of the lender as a reason for eluding 
the payment of the loan? Is the Stock Exchange a place 
for the tables of the money-lenders ; or is it a school of 
moralists, who may amerce the rich, exalt the poor, and 
correct the inequalities of fortune ? Is Biddle an instru- 
ment in the hand of Providence to exalt the humble and 
send the rich empty away? Does American Providence 
work with such instruments as Biddle? But the only good 
part of this bad morality is not acted upon. The rich 
are robbed, but the poor are not paid; they growl against 
the dividends of Dives, and don’t lick the sores of Lazarus. 
They seize with loud acclamations on the money-bags of 
Jones Loyd, Rothschild, and Baring, but they do not give 
back the pittance of the widow and the bread of the child. 
Those knaves of the setting sun may call me rich, for I 
have a twentieth part of the income of the Archbishop of 
Canterbury ; but the curate of the next parish is a wretched 
soul, bruised by adversity; and the 3004. for his children, 
uhich it has taken his life to save, is eaten and drunken 
by the mean men of Pennsylvania—by men who are always 
talking of the virtue and honour of the United States— 
by men who soar above others in what they say, and sink 
below all nations in what they do—who, after floating on 
the heaven of declamation, fall down to feed on the cffal 
and garbage of the earth. Persons who are not in the 
secret are inclined to consider the abominable conduct of 
the repudiating states to proceed from exhaustion—“ they 
don’t pay because they cannot pay ;’” whereas, from esti- 
mates which have just now reached this country, this is 
the picture of the finances of the insolvent states :—Their 
debts may be about 200,000,000 dollars, at an interest of 
6 per cent.: this makes an annual charge of 12,000,000 
dollars, which is little more than 1 per cent. of their in- 
come in 1840, and may be presumed to be Jess than 1 per 
cent. of their present income; but if they were all to 
provide funds for the punctual payment of interest, 
the debt could readily be converted into a four or five per 
cent. stock, and the excess, converted into a sinking 
fand, would discharge the debt in less than thirty years. 
The debt of Pennsylvania, estimated at 40,000,000 
dollars, bears, at five per cent., an annual interest 
of 2,000,000 dollars. The income of this state was, in 
1840, 131,000,000 dollars, and is probably at this time 
not less than 150,000,000 dollars; a net revenue of 
only 14 per cent. would produce the 2,000,000 dollars 
required. So that the price of national character in Penn- 
sylvania is 14 per cent. on the net income; and if this 
market price of morals were established here, a gentleman 
of a thousand a year would deliberately and publicly sub- 
mit to infamy for 157. per annum ; and a poor man, who 
by laborious industry had saved 100. a year, would incur 
general disgrace and opprobrium for 30s. by the year. 
There really should be lunatic asylums for nations as well 
as for individuals. But they begin to feel all this: their 
tone is changed ; they talk with bated breath and whisper- 
ing apology, and allay with some cold drops of modesty 
their stripling spirit. They strutted into this miserable 
history, and begin to think of sneaking out. And then 
the subdolous press of America contends that the English 
under similar circumstances would act with their own debt 
in the same manner; but there are many English consti- 
tuencies where are thousands not worth a shilling, and no 
such idea has been broached among them, nor has any 
petition to such effect been presented to the Legislature. 
But what if they did act in such a manner—would it he a 
conduct less wicked than that of the Americans? Is there 
not one immutable law of justice—is it not written in the 
book? does it not beat in the heart? Are the great guide- 
marks of life to be concealed by such nonsense as this? 
I deny the fact on which the reasoning is founded ; and if 
the facts were true, the reasoning would be false. I never 
meet a Pennsylvanian at a London dinner without feeling a 
isposition to seize and divide him—to allot his beaver to 
one sufferer and his coat to another—to appropriate his 
pocket-handkerchief to the orphan, and to comfort the 
widow with his silver watch, Broadway rings, and the 
¢ London Guide,’ which he always carries in his pockets. 
How such a man can set himself down at an English table 
without feeling that he owes 2/. or 3/. to every man in com- 
pany, I am ata Joss to conceive : he has no more right to 
eat with honest men than a leper has to eat with clean 
men. Ife has a particle of honour in his composition 
he should shut himself up and say—‘I cannot mingle 
with you: I belong to a degraded people—I must hide 
myself; Iam a plunderer from Pennsylvania.’ Figure 
to yourself a Pennsylvanian receiving foreigners in his 
own country, walking over the public works with them, 
and showing them Larcenous Lake, Swindling Swamp, 
Crafty Canal, and Rogues’ Railway, and other dishonest 
works. ‘This swamp we i 
borrower) by the repudiated loan of 1828. Our canal 
4 
robbery was in 1830; we pocketed your good people’s 
money for the railroad only last year.’ All this may 
ained {says the patriotic 
| 
i) 
seem very smart to the Americans; but if I had the mis- 
fortune to be born amongst such a people, the land of my 
fathers should not retain me a single moment after the 
act of repudiation. I would appeal from my fathers to 
my forefathers. T would fly to Newgate for greater 
purity of thought, and seek in the prisons of England for 
better rules of life. This new and vain people can never 
forgive us for having preceded them 300 years in civilis- 
ation. They are prepared to enter into the most bloody 
wars with England, not on account of Oregon, or bounda- 
ries, or right of search, but because our clothes and 
carriages are better made, and because Bond-street beats 
Broadway. Wise Webster does all he can to convince 
his people that these are not lawful causes of war: but 
wars, and long wars, they will one day or another pro- 
duce; and this, perhaps, is the only advantage of repu- 
diation. The Americans cannot gratify their avarice and 
ambition at once; they cannot cheat and conquer at the 
same time. The warlike power of every country depends 
on their Three per Cents. If Caesar were to reappear upon 
earth, Wettenhall’s List would be more important than 
his Commentaries; Rothschild would open and shut the 
Temple of Janus; Thomas Baring, or Bates, would proba- 
bly command the Tenth Legion, and the soldiers would 
march:to the battle with loud cries of Scrip and Omnium 
Reduced, Consols, and Czsar! Now, the Americans 
have cut themselves off from all resources of credit. 
Having been as dishonest as they canbe, they are pre- 
vented from being as foolish as they wish to be. In the 
whole habitable globe they cannot borrow a guinea, and 
they cannot draw the sword, because they have not money 
to buy it. Jf I were an American of any of the honest 
states, I would never rest till I had compelled Pennsyl- 
vania to be as honest as myself. The bad faith of that 
state brings disgrace on all; just as common snakes are 
killed because vipers are dangerous. I have a general 
feeling that by that breed of men J have been robbed and 
ruined, and I shudder and keep aloof. The pecuniary 
credit of every state is affected by Pennsylvania. 
Ohio pays; but with such a bold bankruptcy before 
their eyes, how long will Ohio pay? The truth is, that 
the eyes of all capitalists are averted from the United 
The finest commercial understandings will have 
nothing to do with them. Men rigidly just, who pene- 
trate boldly into the dealings of nations, and work with 
vigour and virtue for honourable wealth—great and high- 
minded merchants will loathe, and are now loathing, the 
name of America: itis becoming, since its fall, the com- 
mon shore of Europe, and the native home of the needy 
villain. And now, drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania, 
there is yet a moment left; the eyes of all Europe are 
anchored upon you— 
«Surrexit mundus justis furiis :” 
start up from that trance of dishonesty into which you 
are plunged; don’t think of the flesh which walls about 
your life, but of that sin which has hurled you from the 
heaven of character, which hangs over you like a devour- 
ing pestilence, and makes good men sad, and ruffians 
dance and sing. It is not for Gin Sling alone and 
Sherry Cobler that man is to live 5 but for those great 
principles against which no argument can be listened to— 
principles which give to every power a double power 
above their functions and their offices, which are the 
books, the arts, the academies that teach, lift up, and 
nourish the world—principles (I am quire serious in 
what J say) above cash, superior to cotton, higher than 
currency—principles without which it is better to die than 
to live, which every servant of God, over every sea, and 
in all lands, should cherish. Usque ad abdita spiramenta 
anime.—Y ours, &c., SypNHY SMITH.” Since the above, 
Mr. Smith has sent the following characteristic note, in 
reference to some errors of typography, to the Editor of 
the Morning Chronicle :—* Sir,—Your table of errata 
published the 4th, for my letter of the 3d, is a good indi- 
cation of the modes of English education. I have twice 
endeavoured to write the word skipping— skipping 
spirit,’ Your printer first printed it ‘stripling,’ and 
then altered it into stripping. The fault is entirely mine. 
I was fifteen years at school and college—I know some- 
thing about the Romans and the Athenians, and have 
read a good deal about the praterperfect tense—but I can- 
not do asum in simple addition, or write a handwriting 
which anybody can read.—I am, Sir, Sypney SMITH. 
November 4.”” 
Lab. 
Vicn-Cuancenror’s Court.—(Before the Vice-Chancellor of 
England.) — Ranger v. The Great Western Railway Company: 
_—As to the circumstances of this litigation, our readers will 
under very stringent, put 
complete the 
works in a limited time, under pain of forfeiture of his plant and 
machinery, and of a reserved portion of the price which was not 
to be paid till the works were completed ; and that the Company 
being dissatisfied with the slow progress of the works, had ae 
charged Mr, Ranger and ¢ i ik 
Ranger had filed this bill for relief against the forfeiture, and for 
an account, alleging that Mr. Brunel had fraudulently given 
insufficient certificates of the work done, so that the Company 
had not made him such payments as he was entitled 
m 
cuttings were to be made. The charge of fraud seemed an after 
thought; and his Honour upheld the ‘extent of the discre! 
powers given to Mr. Brunel. It w d 
as, 
portance to the safety of mankind that railroads should 
man. The Great Western Railway Act recognises this principle: 
The objection that Brunel had shares was of no well atalm 
was obvious that the character which the engineer has to 8! 
