to try Your Grace at a bar at which the dignity of the Peerage ought not to be ashamed to appear-the bar of your former conduct. In looking back, my Lord,, to the proceedings of your past life, by which to try the merits of those of the present time, a difficulty, not a little perplexing, has arisen. In vain have I turned over the political records of the day; in vain have I searched the Parliamentary Registers of the period during which Your Grace has twinkled above our horizon, even from the hour in which you played the part of King, in Ireland, to the present, when you are unfortunately playing that of Minister in this country. Traces of Your Grace's measures are as rare as specimens of your eloquence. Four only are the instances in which, from the year 1782 to 1807, Your Grace appears conspicuous in the annals of your country, and they are sufficient to justify the high expectations which that country has formed of the Administration of which Your Grace is at the head! When Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, I find Your Grace making but one speech from your Vice-regal Throne, and I recommend the perusal of it to the "Protestant Ministry" of the present day. On Sa turday, July 27th, 1782, you were graciously pleased to relieve the Members of your Parliament from their Constitutional labours, earnestly congratulating them and their country (in allusion to the indulgences which had been extended to the Catholics) upon the "diligence and ardour" with which they had cherished and enlarged the wise principles of toleration, and made considerable advances in abolishing those distinctions which had too long impeded the progress of industry, and divided the nation!"-What a pity, my Lord, that when the Union destroyed the Parliament. of Ireland, and the fire consumed its place of sitting, Your Grace's most gracious Speech was not lost in the general wreck. You then might have escaped being made made to blush by the exposure of your inconsistency, and your "Protestant Colleagues" might have been spared the mortification of being made to feel that they are linked to apostacy as well as to imbecility. The University of Oxford would then have not had reason to lament the want of orthodoxy of its Chancellor ; Mr. Deputy Birch would have raised more paste to your honour, and celebrated, in terms of praise as durable as his pies, the consistency, as well as the religion, of his idol! The next achievement which Your Grace performed was the inviting two Catholics of the Irish Brigade to come into the English service; and tempting them by the assurance, that it was the intention of His Majesty's Government to extend to the Catholics the power of holding any commission or appointment whatever in His Majesty's service: your letters are extant, and Your Grace cannot deny the fact! The third exhibition on record which Your Grace made to the admiring eyes of your country was when, in the quality of Secretary of State for the Home Department, you wrote those well-remembered letters to the Lord Lieutenant of the county of Oxford, during the scarcity in the year 1796, and which went nigh to produce a famine through the land. And the fourth, and I had hoped the last, instance in which you stood forward to public notice, was when, in the Gazette of 1801, Your Grace is stated to have received His Majesty's permission to retire from office, on account of your age and increasing infirmities!" 66 This is the proud record of Your Grace's political exploits. If they have not been many, at least they have been brilliant! Would to God you had been satisfied with the glory you had gained! You would then have gone down into your grave unheeded, unthought of, and unlamented by the public.-You would have enjoyed one advantage at least of a long life, that you would have been remembered only by your friends; because your enemies would not have had the temptation to raise you into notice by holding up your memory to the country. The case is now altered; your friends, who mourn your loss, will have the additional mortification of hearing, in terms "not loud, but deep," the expression of the public regret that you had not died before. Your enemies will have the opportunity of adding the charge of dereliction of public principle in the days of your age, to the weakness and imbecility which had marked your earlier years. The enemies of your country will alone have reason to rejoice, that, in the last struggles of exhausted nature, your folly got the better of that wish for repose which usually prevails in the breast of old age; for if they should find their most anxious wishes for the ruin and disgrace of this country gratified, they will pay their tribute of thanks to those Secret Advisers who prevailed upon His Majesty to place the helm of power in the hands of the Duke of Portland! Adieu, my Lord.-There is one way by which we may yet be saved: the cry of his people may yet reach your Sovereign's ears; and Your Grace may soon (but -not soon enough for your country's welfare) be dismissed from your station. You will have no cause to lament the change: by returning into obscurity you cannot sink into contempt: it is only by emerging from the former that you can incur the danger of the latter. I am, my Lord Duke, Your Grace's obedient humble servant, April 21. "A PROTESTANT, BUT NO BIGOT." DEATH L DEATH EXTRAORDINARY. [From the Morning Post.] ATELY died, at Westminster, a young gentleman, known by the name of All Talents. His death was occasioned by a long and subtle study to change his own and the religion of his country, which brought him at last to such desperate insanity that he put a period to his own existence. Those acquainted with his temper, wished him to be buried in a crossroad; but others judged it most fit to bury the body in oblivion! April 22. BED OF ROSES. [From the Morning Chronicle.] CREPT snugly into place, once more reposes April 22. EXTRAORDINARY SQUADRON. [From the British Press.] AN Extraordinary Squadron has recently made its appearance within the four seas. We have received official accounts of all its movements; but their great length does not perinit us to give them, except in detail from day to day, as follows: No. I. Arrived in Treasury Harbour, a squadron of ten sail of small craft, consisting of brigs, luggers, smacks, and row-boats, of various sizes, as follows: The Portland, an hospital ship, formerly a large Dutch skipper, very old, and crazy in her timbers. The The Castlereagh, a long fishing-smack, with a false sliding keel, and a bowsprit upon a new construction. She was remarkable, during several seasons, for her success in catching plaices, flats, and gudgeons. The Hawkesbury, a light vessel, of the same class and description as the Castlereagh; used for some time past as a guardship, off Walmer Castle. The Anti-Jacobin, a neat row-boat, formerly used as a launch to the Pitt man of war, and occasionally as a pleasure-boat. The Chancellor, a small vessel, not much larger than a cockboat, formerly a Guineaman, employed in the Slave Trade; laden with a cargo of vinegar and combustibles; consigned to, by a set of merchants at Northampton. The Camden, a heavy, dull sailer, formerly on the Irish station. The Westmoreland, a light bomb-ketch, formerly on the same station. The Mulgrave, a state navy-barge, recently fitted up for offensive operations, with a long gun in her bow. The Chatham, a showy vessel, but without tackle or rigging, and almost water-logged. The Woolsuck, a large lumber vessel, having a great number of cases on board, with the contents of which we do not profess to be acquainted. Several of this squadron cruised in concert a few years ago, as attached to a large and powerful fleet, but were dispersed in a tremendous storm, in which the Pitt man of war ran aground, and was wrecked upon the Catholic Shoals. Some of them, on that occasion, shared the same fate as the Pitt, but were afterwards got off, and laid up in ordinary. The Woolsack and the Hawkesbury were taken in tow by the Sidmouth. It appears, that they have been recently collected in Portland Race, from whence they have been conducted into the Treasury Roads. Their passage |