gone before, in which the Circean taste of power has oblivioned ali remembrance of the former man; we must forgive him; we must bear with his anger; we know his inestimable value, and with what ardour he will support us when he finds us sincere. Let him anticipate our early exertions for restoring to the peopis their due weight in the legislature, by our favouring, in every way that is constitutional and honourable, bis election for the metropolitan county of England! Then shall we have a noble revenge for the injury o. his invectives!" Give me leave, Sir, now to advert to that part of your letter in which you utterly deny it to be an opinion founded in truth, that a person holding an office under the crown, however otherwise estimable, cannot at any time, become the fit representative of a tree, incorrupt, and independent people.” Here, Sir, I confess you have surprised me; and no less so, when you add that "the people, by the acceptance of the Baronet's doctrine, would reduce themselves to the hard necessity of being governed by the worst of mankind. Not laying, Sir, any stress (for I despise cavil) upon au erroneous interpretation of Sir Tra.s's words, taken by you as extending .0 lude all the executive servants 66 of gove rin seats in either House of Parlian xherms they are confined to the "R sentative," or Commons' House only; ima su stia express my astonishment, that the exclusion thought necessary by Sir Francis Burdett, namely, an exclusion of the servants of the crowd from among the rebresentatives of the people, should, by a patriot statesman, be represented as exposing that people to the hard necessity of being goyerned by "the worst of mankind;" and equally was I the other day astonished, in reading it as the declaration of another patriot statesman (Mr Sheridan), that " ́such an exclusion was contrary to the English constitution," or words to that effect, for I quote from memory 46 Does not Mr. Whitbread know, that in the Seventeen American Houses of Commons, there sits not among the representatives of the people, a single placeman in the pay of the executive magistrate? Are, then, I ask, all these seventeen American nations governed by the worst of mankind?" Have we observed in that country any such mismanagement of its affairs, any such perversions of its constitution, any such underminings of its freedom, or any such flagrant corruptions, or abuses, as to indicate that it is " governed by the worst of mankind?” When those legislatures, without being as sisted by the wisdom of men in office, successively placed the executive sovereignty in the hands of a Washington, an Adams, and a Jefferson, did this bespeak a defect in their constitution, whereby the people were reduced to the hard necessity of being governed by the worst of mankind? The lastnamed of these presidents, some time since, informed the people under his authority, that such economy and order had been introduced, that the whole revenue of the United States was raised at their "sea-board," by custom-house duties on exports and inports; that is, on superfluities they sent out of, and luxuries they received into, their country; and that, from one end of the states to the other-states extending over au immense continent, not a single tax-gatherer was to be seen. Is this, again, a proof of their being governed by the worst of mankind ?′′ I should rather conceive these sublime facts which have hitherto been thrown away upon us, to prove, that when some of our persecuted ancestors retired beyond the Atlantic, they had the good sense to carry with them only the purity of the representative branch of the English constitution, leaving the corrupt dregs in the land where they had experienced their persecutions. Nothing can be more certain than that the magnificent facts to which I recal your recollection, are genuine emanations, from the English constition. Let us now, Sir, view a humiliating contrast; let us suppose a country to exist, where every servile place-hunter, every ur principled adventurer, every rapacious speculator on public plunder, at the signal of a general election, posts to a Borough to corrupt the electors; where the minister corrupts the pretended representatives, and they in return, corrupt and contaminate the whole executive government; where action and reaction are equally pernicious to the national morals, the national liberty, the national property. Must it not, Sir, I ask you, and I ask it with anguish, be, in such a country, and under such a system, that the people are most exposed to the misfortune of being governed by the worst of mankind!" My question, Sir, has the authority of me lancholy experience. Your assumption is against fact and against reason. Contemplate, Sir, I beseech you, in one and the same view, a Commons House and a Common Jury; and disunite, if you can, the sacred principles of duty, on which a vote and a verdict ought ever, and ought alone to be given. Both are held in trust for the public. A verdict, Sir, you know cannot be sold for gain; no, nor even given to friend If, Sir. it were possible to extinguish in private life, the just influence of wealth well employed, such distinction would destroy the cements and the endearments of society; or if it were possible to extinguish in public life that influence of the crown which holds out rewards to public toil and public virtue, such extinction would be the curse of our country; but, Sir, in the same degree that we ought to preserve the just influence of private wealth or of public power, we ought to be jealous of the corrupt infiuence of ei ther. In a House of Popular Representa tives, every place, every pension, every emoJument dependent on the will of the crown, that is held by a member, is a drop of poison in the legislative chal:ce. ship against duty, but with infamy. If this be so, where, for the most part, only an individual is injured, how infinitely stronger the argument in the case of a vote, by which injury may be done a whole nation and its posterity to the latest generation! For, Sir, if your English mind would revolt with horrer at the thought of foisting into a jury, that was to decide a cause of a hundred pounds between you and another, your own hired servants, or pensioners living on your bounty, how can you reconcile it to any principle of integrity, or of the constitution, that a large proportion of the House of Commons should be servants and dependants in the pay of the crown to vote away the money of the people by millions? Neither Mr. Sheridan nor yourself, ia pleading for this indefensible practice, have told us in what proportion it ought to prevail, Your inability to tell us this proportion will ever be a proof that the practice for which you (I trust unwarily) have become an advocate, is contrary to all constitutional principle; and if principle be to govern, if the English constitution be to be held sacred, not one placemian can you constitutionally make a representative of a free people. The things are in nature at variance; no man can serve two masters, occasionally in opposite interests, without failing in his duty to one or the other; in short, no man can serve God- and Mammon.Tovility and dependence, and the crown from this monstrous inconsistency, to this gross absurdity, it is but too true, that corrupt h2bit on one hand, and a pretended impracticability of reform on the other, have too mach reconciled our blunted our callous feelings; as the feelings of Jamaica planters are reconciled to the viewing with complacency fellow-men in slavery, tilling the sun-scorched soil under the terrors and the smart of the driver's lash! Surely, Mr. Whitbread, it cannot be necessary to state to you, that a House of Commous which should be filled by genuine election, as free as pure; opening the doors of parliament to all the worth and wisdom of our country, against which they are now barred, and from which placemen, as voting members, should be totally excluded, would not cease to be the theatre of ambition, and the road to power! A theatre for the display of all the virtues and all the talents of the patriot and the statesman! Surely it cannot be necessary to observe to a man of your enlightened mind, that such a house must be infinitely more prolific of characters fit for the government of a free people, than a house liable to be filled, by the means I have noticed, with the most base and profligate of their species! But, Sir, a pure and truly Representative House of Commons would form men for the duties of government: at the same time that it nourished a love of liberty and patrict integrity, it would train genius and industry to public business, and create a host of statesmen. It would be there the crown would look for ministers and official servants; the House would exult in having furnished them; and the people would rejoice in being governed by the best of mankind. Thus, Sir, would the action and reaction of pure and free election, and of public virtue, prevent parliament from degenerating into ser becoming either a tempter of parliamentary integrity or a tyrant of the people.—There con be no objection to a Treasury Bench, or to a Naval, or Military, or any other Bench, having place in a House of Commons for purposes of state utility, to be occupied by servants of the crown; but that such persons should vote on questions between the crown and the people, touching either liberty or property, is a proposition too shocking to be entertained. Until a reformation, which is most devoutly to be wished, shall have been obtained, methinks, Sir, it would be but paying a decent homage to the real constitution of our country, should statesmen who hold places of great emolument under the Treasury, content themselves with representing the Boroughs of the TreasuryFor these reasons, Sir, although I am sorry to differ from a man I respect and honour, I certainly shall assist" Sir Francis Burdett to the utmost of my power" in becoming 3 member of parliament." I have the honour to remain, Dear Sir, your most obedient humble servant JOHN CARTWRIGHT MR. PAULLS' CORRESPONDENCE. The public have seen, in all the daily prints, but particularly in the Morning Chronicle, garbled extracts from a correspondence between Mr. Paull and Marquis Wellesley, in India. The intention of these garbled extracts has been to cause the world to believe, Mr. Paull has, in the first place been ungrateful to the Marquis; and, in the next place, that he expressed, while in India his cordial approbation of all the Marquis's measures. — -The following two letters, which are the only letters that ever passed between Mr. Paul and the Marquis, will enable the reader to judge of the fairness of these charges against Mr. Paull.But, as an introduction to these two letters, I must insert, two, to the Editor of the Morning Chronicle, the latter of which has appeared in that paper, but not the former. To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. MR. SPANKIE,- -From the manner in which you have lately conducted the Morning Chronicle, and particularly, when I con-sider the unwarrantable conduct of Mr. Perry, who, before he got possession of the place he has been so long seeking, gladly inserted every article calculated to pourtray the true character and conduct of Lord Wellesley; but now, with you, joins in every infamous calumny against his accuser, for whom you formerly professed respect and esteem; I can ask no favour from you, I merely demand an act of justice. This act of justice, is, to insert the inclosed Letters with the preface to them in the Chronicle of Monday. Already you have given to the public garbled extracts from them, because you well knew that the insertion of the whole would not have reflected dishonour on me. They are the only letters which ever passed between me and Lord Wellesley, and will be seen to relate solely to commercial objects of a public nature. The only favour, if an act not to be refused without incurring the risk of punishment, can be called a favour, rendered to me by the Marquis Wellesley, wassisting (with the Nabob of Oude) cry return to Lucknow, where I had been permitted to go by the Court of Directors. This has been magnifie into an obligation not to be repaid or forgotten, and I have been accused of ingratitude because I did not suffer such an act so to operate on my mind, as to make me forget my duty to my country, and to suffer tyranny and oppression to go unpunished. Let the people of England be my judges, to them I shall on every occasion be glad to refer my conduct. I never had a personal misunderstanding with Lord Wellesley, as has been so falsely reported, and I have inclosed you these letters that by publishing them the whole world may be convinced I have no wish to shrink from inquiry, or to disclose every transaction of my public or private life. -The bearer will wait for your answer, and for the letters and preface, in case you should refuse their insertion.I am, Sir, your obedient servant,——J. PAULL.- -Nov. 10, 1806. To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. SIR, A great deal has been said by my opponents in and out of Parliament of my ingratitude to Lord Wellesley, and this censure has been pronounced on me, in consequence of a letter written by me to his lordship, in the year 1802. Extracts from this letter of the most partial nature, have been given to the public; in justice to myself, therefore, and that the nation may be acquainted with the real nature of the transaction, I send you the letter, with the answer to it, and shall shortly state the circumstances under which it was written, leaving you and your readers to form your own conclusions from it. They were printed by order of the House of Commens, and have been in the hands of all the members.--When I quitted Lucknow in 1801, where I had resided for 12 years, the Nabob of Oude was in possession of the whole of his territories. On my return to India, in 1802, havIng, previously to my leaving England, obtained permission from the Court of Direc tors to repair again to Lucknow, I found the Nabob's country in possession of the Company. With the usurpations and means which had been practised to obtain this possession, I was wholly unacquainted, as was I with the other acts of aggression and oppression committed by Lord Welsesley in that country. From personal pique the Nabob of Onde wished me not to return; this will sufficiently shew, that my connec tion with that Prince was as imaginary as that now imputed to me with the Emperor Napoleon and his 500,000 mercenaries. demanded of Lord Wellesley to be sent thither, and as an act of justice this was granted me. Finding that great obstructions were put in the way of my commercial pursuits. in the coded territories, I, a few days afterwards, addressed this celebrated letter to Lord Wellesley; and, fresh with the recollection of what had been recently done by hit, I, who am not totally devoid of feclings of sensibility, made use of the expression in the latter part of my letter, which has been urged against me as an inconsistency with my future condnet. I leave the world to judge how far it is inconsistent, and to say whether an act of justice in my commercial engagements should prevent my af I terwards becoming the accuser or a person | Copy of a Letter from the Persian Secre- I have had the honour to receive your Excellency's letter (recapitulate his Excellency's letter on the subject of Mr. Paull.) -Agreeably to your Excellency's desire, I have communicated the contents of that letter to his Excellency the mos: noble the Governor General, who has directed me to state to your Excellency in reply, that previously to the receipt of your Excellency's letter, his Lordship had been induced by the information which he received of the regularity and propriety of Mr. Paull's conduct during his former residence at Lucknow, to grant him permission to return to that station, for the purpose of prosecuting his mercantile concerns; his Excellency was further induced to grant that permission by the consideration that those concerns are calculated to benefit your Excellency's country, by encouraging industry and by promoting the interests of commerce within your Excellency's dominions.-Under these circumstances his Lordship confidently trusts that your Excellency will be disposed to permit Mr. Paull to remain at Lucknow, unless any acts of misconduct on the part of Mr. Paull, of which his Excellency is not apprized, should appear to your Excellency to merit that destruction to Mr. Paul's just and equitable prospects which must be the consequence of his being prohibited from remaining at Lucknow in the prosecution of the beneficial objects of commerce. grievous hardship in the present mode of collecting the Company's Duties at their Custom houses within the provinces.——— By an express article of the commercial treaty, which I understand from the Vizier's government is still in force, the Nabon's Rowannah is therein laid down as the rule for the Company's Custom-Masters to levy the duties on exports from Gude: 1 am aware at the same time, that in July last, government in its wisdom passed a regulation, which however is never been promulgated, empowering the Custom-Masters to alter the old and to substitute a new mode of valuation To this regulation it is my duty to yield submission; and it is the mode only of carrying the government regulations into execution of which I presume to complain to your excellency.-Notwithstanding that I accompany my dispatches with the actual and bonâ fide prices of my exports: to these the Custom Masters will pay no attention they stop the boats, unpack as many bales as they choose; they carry a number of picces of cloth from the boats to a distance, and affix an exact an arbitrary undefined rate: in a word, my Lord, it is left to the wisdom or caprice of their native servants to affix what duty they choose upon articles on which government have defined no express rate of duty for their guidance.—The hardship alone, my Lord,, of unpacking bales at three different custom-houses (and they are subject to it at Juanpore, Ghauzipore, and Patna) which are carefully made up in unfavourable weather, or, indeed, in any weather, is of itself a most serious evil: but the consequent delays that must inevitably attend the new system, and the heavy arbitrary undefined valuation put upon property, (and moreover, my Lord, one transaction forms no guide for me to go by, to prevent recurrences of to these evils, for each valuation of the same sort of goods differs from another) are drawbacks and impediments that no commerce can thrive under, and I humbly presume to say, totally incompatible with that excessive wise, liberal, and enlightened policy, that marks every act of the administration of your excellency.― Permit me, my Lord, with diffidence, to suggest that it would prove very beneficial to government, and would remedy at the same time the hardships of which I com Copy of a letter from Mr. Paull to the Marquis Wellesley, K. P. Governor General, &c. Dated Lucknow. Dec. 5th, 1802. MY LORD.-Although incessantly engaged in the affairs of a most mighty Empire, I am, however, well aware that the concerns of an humble individual are not beneath your Excellency's notice.—I have, my lord, for many years carried on extensive concerns in Gude, and for the ensuing twelve months I reckon my exports from the Vizi-plain, were the duties in some manner er's country will be at least fifteen lacks of rupees. On re-commencing my business, after a short absence in Europe, I find myself, however, reluctantly under the necessity of representing to the notice of your Excellency, a very vexatious and truly defined: and at all events, those on goods intended for Calcutta, collected at the first government custom-house at which the Oude exports apply for clearance. To this mode I believe no objection could be offered, whilst the present system is open to unans swerable ones; the reason for establishing Custom - houses at Juanpore, Benares, Chauzipore, and Patna, is sufficiently obvious; it was to prevent the passing of goods by the Ganges, Gograh, or Goomtie, without paying the regulated duties; but there seems to be no substantial reason for levving a duty of 5 per cent. at separate custom-houses; and as the two custommasters pay no attention to the valuation of each other, the rate of duties is no longer ive per cent. The custom-masters by this mode get a dividend, and sometimes a higher commission, but government is not benefited, and the public greatly injured.I trust the great interest I have at stake, wil plead my pardon for this address to your Excellency to whom I with confidence leave my case, trusting if the provisions of the treity are no longer in force, that some sysem will be adopted to render unnecessary the unpacking of goods. The consequent delays at the custom-houses, and the arbitrary, heavy, and capricious valuation of a native appraiser, are grievances that I am persuaded only require representation to ensure redress from your Excellency, to whom no man ever complained in vain, that complained with justice. With an indelible sense of past obligations, with great consideration, and the highest respect, I have the honour to be, my Lord, &c. (Signed) JAMES PAULL. HAMPSHIRE ELECTION. To the Gentlemen, Clergy, and Freeholders, of the County of Southampton. GENTLEMEN,-D teated, but not dismayed, I feel a higher sense of exultation in the disinterested zeal and exertions which have followed me to the close of the poll, than I could derive from the successful issue of a contest obtained by the undue preponderance of ministerial influence, and in defiance of the general feelings and wishes of a great majority of the independent freeholders of the county.-The gross, undisguised, and unconstitutional manner in which every department of the executive government connected with this county, has interfered in the choice of your representatives is unexampled in the history. of this country. Notorious as these facts are, they cannot fail to have excited a deep and lasting indignation in the breast of every independent freeholder; and, should a reference to the poll prove that the majority which has secured the return of the successful candidates is not equal to the number of the immediate dependents on goytrument who have been bronght to vote in their favour, I leave it to your decision whether they are, the representatives of the county at large, or of the Dock Yard at Portsmouth -For my own part, I feet little disappointment in the issue of the contest : I had no political purpose to answer; I had no private ambition to gratify. Called on as I was, in a manner the most honourable to you and highly flattering to my own personal feelings, I willingly submitted myself as an instrument in your hands to assert your independence, and vindicate the insult which you had sustained. I felt that I embarked in the common cause of every gentleman, yeoman, and freeholder, who respected his own consequence, or consider ed the free exercise of his elective franchise as a valuable inheritance; and I retire from the contest with the proud satisfaction of having discharged my duty, and exempted from the reproach of having surrendered your dearest rights without a struggle. I have, however, the gratification to believe, that, although we may have failed in the full accomplishment of our object, our efforts. have not been altogether unsuccessful: the great preponderance of the landed proper.y that has appeared in our favour, and the formidable resistance which your exertions have enabled us to present to the weight of ministèrial interference has, I am confident, laid the foundation of the future emancipation of the county, and will finally ensure its independence. It has afforded a lesson to ministers, that, notwithstanding their local influence, they may be assured, that every effort to extinguish our spirit will be fruitless, and that any future attempt to control the free choice of our representatives will terminate in their own disgrace, confusion, and discomfiture. I trust that you will not for a moment lose sight of the important object we have in view: that you will neither abate your zeal nor relax your exertions till you have rescued our native county from the degraded state of a ministerial borough, and restored to our fellow freeholders the constitutional privilege of sending to parliament the objects of their free choice.--Deeply involved in the welfare and prosperity of the county of which I have the honor to represent no unimportant part, I shall not cease to watch over your interests in parliament with anxiety, and vigilance; and when the hour of honorable struggle shail again arrive, I shall be found at my post. I have the honor to be, with the deepest gratitude, your most faithful servant, H. P. ST. JOHN MILDMAY, Eastgate-House, Nov 18, 1906. |