to morals, dangerous to law, and tending to overthrow the civil constitution, more especially at fo great a distance from the throne.

We fly to the clemency and juftice of our fovereign and common father, from the diftreffes brought upon us through the mifapprehenfions of our diffant fellow fubjects, founded, as we conceive, on groundless reports, and the falfe accufations of fome of your majefty's principal fervants here. And we intreat that your Majefty would be graciously pleafed to give orders that the town may be favoured with governor Bernard's letters, the memorials of the commiffioners of the customs here, and other papers, which muft fo deeply affect their important interefts: that they may have the juftice of being heard, upon notice, by council, upon any matters of charge that may havebeen brought against them; and of laying before your Majefty, and the whole nation, what they may have to offer in their vindication. If fuch an opportunity

might be allowed them, they doubt not being able to make their innocence appear to the fatisfaction of their fovereign, and the fhame of their accufers.

Your Majefty poffeffes a glory fuperior to that of any monarch on earth-the glory of being at the head of the happiest civil conftitution in the world; and under which, human nature appears with the greatest advantage and dignity the glory of reigning over a free people, and of being enthroned in the hearts of your fubjects. Your Majefty therefore, we are fure, will frown, not upon those who have the warmeft attachment to this conftitntution, and to their fovereign, but upon fuch as fhall be found to have attempted, by their mifreprefentations, to diminish the blesfings of your Majesty's reign, in the remotest parts of your dominions.

Your Majefty's faithful and loyal fubjects, the freeholders and inhabitants of the faid town, as in duty bound, fhall ever pray, &c.

up

It is neceffary in this place to remind our readers, that governor B-d is arrived at London, and it is therefore to be expected that he will clear his conduct to the fatisfaction of the whole nation, which is fo deeply interested in the event of the long and warm conteft between them and the inhabitants of the town of Boften, the commerce of the mother country having been thereby greatly interrupted; but if he cannot acquit himfelf of the charges brought against him by the Buftonians, it is no less expected that he will be made an example, to deter future governors from exercifing acts of tyranny and oppreffion.

For the Political Regifter.

Obfervations on the Letters in the London Evening Poft addrefed to the Dof M -b, and the Bijhop of L

-n.

IT is very remarkable, fuch is the depravity of the times, that fcarce a week paffes but fome heavy accufation appears in print against perfons of the first rank in this kingdom; from whofe birth, education, fortune and character, the nation has a right to VOL. V.

I i

expect

T

expect the most fhining examples of public and private virtue. And it is no lefs fingular that of the great numbers who have been accused of high crimes, and mifdemeanours in print, not one has been yet called to account in a judicial manner, though not one of them has acquitted himself, in the eye of the world, of the charges brought against him.

In the course of this month a fcene has been opened which may poffibly terminate on Tower Hill, unless the parties fhould abfcond before Doctor Mufgrave produces the vouchers of his facts. This had scarce engroffed our attention, when an affair of the highest importance to the freedom of the British conftitution is laid before the public.

His grace the duke of Mh is accufed by feveral writers of having bought the votes of the citizens of Oxford at the laft general election by the payment of a debt contracted by the city fome years ago, which had almoft reduced it to a ftate of bankruptcy. And his grace's wishes are faid to be completed in the right he poffeffes of bafhawing it over the city he has purchased. One of thefe writers who has ftiled himself a friend to the people, has likewife attacked the bp of L- -n, and very homely declares, that he has vouchers in his hands, which he will produce to the houfe of Commons next feffion, proving that the faid prelate, commanded the twelve preachers at Whitehall who are of the univerfity of Oxford, to vote for the prefent fitting members at the laft general election. The fact has been denied by an anonymous writer; and in reply, the friend of the people declares he is ready to make oath to the truth of it, and has left his real name with the printer, that the bishop may be enabled to profecute him, if he has advanced a falfehood

As thefe are accufations of a very high nature, cognisable only by parliament, it is our duty only to regifter them, and not to attempt to prejudice our readers in favour of either party, espe cially as they are likely to end in judicial proceedings.But we cannot avoid remarking, that we live in an age abounding either with the most infamous libellers, or the fouleft traitors. Heaven fend that the ax or the halter may do the bufinefs of the guilty, and enlighten our understanding on these dark subjects.

For the POLITICAL REGISTER. Remarks on the Freedom of Speech, made use of by our Ancestors to their Kings.

ON

N reading over fome late parliamentary and other addresses to the CROWN, I could not help exclaiming with Manly in the Provoked Hufband, "what a polite age do we live in !" very different from the unpolished ages of fome of our great grand-fathers, who were too fincere and too loyal to flatter their kings to their deftruction. It has been obferved that adulation is the poifon which the devil flily infinuated into the human frame, juft as it came fair and faultlefs from the hands of the great creator; nor could the tooth of the ferpent have circu

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lated fo fubtle a venom through the veins, as his tongue did through the hearts of our firft parents.-Ye shall be as gods, has been the language that has ever fince entrapped the fons of Adam.

The adulation paid to a prince is the most dangerous fpecies of this vice. He never has his paffions flattered, without thinking, at the fame time, that they ought to be fed: and vanity has been known to be fo voracious, that it hath fucked the best blood, and drained the last penny from nations: this is the food on which fovereign vanity can alone fubfift. The worst of the first twelve Roman emperors came to the imperial purple with humane, nay virtuous fentiments; but adulation turned them into monfters. It found out their paffions; it flattered them; it ftrengthened them, till they rofe into phrenzy, and preyed upon all the human race.

The parliament of England feem to have been exceedingly fenfible of the danger there might be in flattering even the weakneffes of their prince: They knew, that the smallest foible he poffeffed was not confined to his own perfon; that it might be ftrengthened, if not timely curbed; that if it was once ftrengthened, it would feek to be gratified; and that it could not be gratified, but at the expence of the people. We therefore find upon the rolls of parliament, and in our oldeft, honeftest hiftorians, very plain language ufed by the parliaments to their princes, and the latter receiving the bittereft rebukes for that vanity and partiality, not as defigned affronts, but as wholesome chastisements.

Matthew Paris tells us, when Henry III. afked money to defray the expences of a foreign expedition," which his people thought did not at all concern England", that his parliament told him, "It was very imprudent in him to afk money for any fuch purposes, and thereby impoverishing his fubjects at home, by his fquandering it in idle expeditions; and that they flatly refused to his teeth, fupplying him on any fuch account." Upon thus remonftrating, "That he had engaged his royal word to go abroad in person that year, and that he must have a fupply, they ask him, "What has become of all the money he had already gulled them of, and how it comes to be lavished, without this kingdom being one fhilling

the better?"

But the freedom with which the people treated their kings in thofe days was not confined to remonftrances: One of the greatest and most victorious of our princes, Edward I. had an inordinate defire of making, in perfon, a campaign in Flanders, that he might fupport a confederacy he had entered into to reduce the power of France, and had demanded an extraordinary supply for that purpose. The people conceiving that the quarrel was very indifferent to England, ftrongly oppofed his leaving the kingdom upon any fuch idle expedition: "The people of England, faid they, do not think it proper for you to go to Flanders, unless you can fecure, out of that country, fome equivalent, which may indemnify us for the expence,"

We

We have a like inftance in the reign of that great and powerful king Henry II. This prince being strongly tempted to make an expedition abroad in person, became fo fond of the proposal, that he laid it before his parliament, with a most earnest request that they would confent to it," it being the fole and darling purpofe of his heart." But his parliament thought that he had no bufinefs abroad, and " that it was much better for him to keep the money at home;" accordingly, the question was put and carried for an address to the king to keep within his own dominions, according to his duty. Edward III. likewise, received several mortifications of the fame kind; and it appears from the whole tenor of our history, that the great care of our ancestors was to root from the breafts of their kings every principle of vain-glory, which, the more ridiculous it is, becomes the more expensive to the nation. Nor does vain-glory confift merely in the perfonal difplay of magnificence, or military exploits abroad. There is often as much parade and expence, in the moft frivolous and puerile pursuits at home!-What then fhall we fay, to the language of the modern times but exclaim with the poet, Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.

K. W.

To a quondam PAYMASTER, and a new returned EARL, a Perufal of the following Extract from an admired old Poem, is humbly recommended. He whom the Cap fits beft, may wear it.

*** Without a faint, a devil was within,

He fought all dangers, for he knew no fin
A wheedling, fawning, parfimonious knave,
The prince's favour he refolv'd to have,
The only means by which he fought to rife,
He fhuffled cards, and flily cogg'd his dice,
A true ftate-juggler, could make things appear
Such as would please his prince's eye or ear,
Produc'd falfe lights, his monarch to mislead,
Which made him from his paths of int'reft tread
He fcreen'd all villains from due courfe of laws,
And from his prince his trueft fubjects draws;
Till angry fenates the vile monftèr took,
And from the root the upstart cedar fhook,
Squeez'd the curs'd fpunge had fuck'd the nation's coin,
And made him caft up what he did purloin:
Then on a gibbet did the monster die,

A juft example to pofterity.

Let fav'rites beware how they abufe,

;

Their Prince's goodnefs, or the people's laws,
How they clandeftine methods ever ufe,
To propagate a bafe unrighteous caufe.
The prince's favour, like a horfe untam'd,
Does often break the giddy rider's neck :
On him who for preferment's fo much fam'd,
The people oft their bloody vengeance wreak.

Let these beware how they mislead their prince,
Or rob the treasure of a potent nation,
Or multiply enormous crimes, for hence
Come hanging oft, or noble decollation.

The LION and Subject BEAST S.
A Political Fable, for 1769.

A

LION, tamest of his kind,

(Some beasts have said both tame and blind)
Was crown'd of quadrupedes the King:
With full applause the throne he mounted,
The fire of all his fubject fons accounted;

Whilst forests wide with acclamations ring.
Happy that monarch, who deferves fuch praife,
As juftice joins with gratitude to raise!

Averfe to war-the friend of peace-
He bade the fword of conqueft cease;

And stopp'd exhaufting ftreams of blood:
Some thought him right-more thought him wrong;
Debates grew high, and parties ftrong,

Pretending all the public good;

Would partizans contend for that alone,
Each must be deem'd a pillar of the throne!

Some years elaps'd, that babbler Fame
With cenfure clogg'd the Royal Name,
And faid a fav'rite ruled the state!

A Tyger of imperious mold,

To ev'ry patriot-feeling cold,

In nothing but ambition great:

That feeling, baneful to a noble heart,
The very effence of tyrannic art.

A creature, own'd by fome to be
A diftant fprig of royalty,

Seiz'd gentle Leo by the ear.
First minister-without difpute
He watched the nod of Tyger B-;

And crawl'd within his given sphere:
For whomfoe'er B- gave a draft on,
Was finely flea'd by Panther G—;

A Fox, of endless fhifting tricks,
Whom honefty could never fix,

Sly, fubtle, delegate of pow'r,

Had mighty truft of public wealth;
From which purloin'd by artful stealth,

His hoards received a golden fhow'r.

The fubject beafts loud murmur'd, but in vain,
Reynard retain'd, and revel'd in his gain.

The