I am, Sir, Your most bumble And most obedient Servant, WM. COBBETT. At the close of the meeting, which for the effects of that mortification, which, was so tumultuous through the efforts. I hope, led your tongue beyond the cool of the loyal party (as they call them- dictates of your mind. selves) that for a considerable time no man could hear his neighbour speak and that at last no one knew what was done, Cobbett was chaired to his inu; and at this period of the transaction, we shall take up his own words, in his Weekly Political Pamphlet, of Saturday March 15, addressed "To the Good and True Men of Hampshire :" "While this was going on, while all was joy and exultation in our breasts, very different were the feelings of Lockhart the Brave. He had come to ine in the Grand Jury Chamber soon after I had charged him so justly with *foul misrepresentation.' He said, he had not been accustomed to receive language like that. I told him to come to me after the meeting was over. As we were going out of the Chamber he came again. The thing would admit of no delay. I told him to come to the inn. He did so, with two men as witnesses. I then told him, that I would have no communication with him, except it was in writing. They wanted to sit down in the room, where Mr. Goldsmith, Mr. Hunt and other gentlemen were with me; but this I told them that I would not suffer, and bade them go out of the room. They did so; and then a correspondence took place, which I insert here word for word and letter for letter, and, if the Learned Friend should feel sore at seeing his agitation exposed in his illiterate notes, let him thank his own folly and impudence for the exposure. Sir I have received your answer which leaves no alternative except that of my insisting on that satisfaction which you owe ine as a Gentleman, and which I wish. you would empower some friend to arrange this evening. I am Sir your obedient Servant I shall remain in Winchester this evening will deliver this Letter to you, to accept for this purpose until 8 o clock and a friend your arrangement To Wm. Cobbett, Esq.-. Sir, Winchester, 11th March, 18173 If I could stay here another day, I would amuse myself with some fun with you, but having business of more importance on hand, I must beg of you to renew your pleasant correspondence, upon our arrival in town. In the meanwhile I remain, Your most obedient And most humble Servant, WM. COBBETT. "Now, my good neighbours, a few plain facts will enable you to form a perfectly correct judgment of this man's conduct and character.- FIRST, he knew that I had written many essays reprobating, in the strongest terms, the practice of duelling.-SECOND, he knew that I had held it as a species of suicide for a man, in my situation, to fight a duel, seeing that if one missed me, another would be found, 'till some one should hit me.- -THIRD (and this was his rock of safety) he knew well that if I accepted of his challenge, I must instantly forfeit five thousand pounds sterling. He knew this well, for he, who is a Lawyer, mind, knew that I' had been bound in recognizances for seven years from the year 1812.-This was his safeguard! You often hear of taken before magistrates and bound over. people, who are going to fight duels, That puts an end to the affair. But he knew, and well knew, that I was bound over before hand, and in a mónstrous and ruinous sum; and, when you are told that he brought two witnesses with him, you will easily guess what were his real intentions. When men mean to fight, they go to work in a very different way. They send a single friend to tell the party of it in a whisper. They do not go to the party and take two witnesses with them. They do not run blustering about and making a noise. And my real belief 55, that if I had done any thing which would have amounted to a breach of the peace; if I had accepted of a challenge, and had appointed a time to fight, Lockhart the Brave would have taken care to have us both bound over, and would have also taken care that this breach of the peace should have cost me five thousand pounds! This is my belief; but you have the facts before you, and I leave you to judge for yourselves." Ir is a singular circumstance that none of the almanacks notice the now returning direction of the Magnetic Needle towards the North. In the year 1657 it pointed due North, but has been 160 years increasing in declension Westward: last year it attained a declension of 25, and it is now receding back again to the North. Dr. Priestley's Works. Clapton, March 23, 1817. SIR, I BEG leave to inform those of your readers who have encouraged, or may intend to encourage the proposed edition of Dr. Priestley's Theological Works, that the subscribers now amount to 160, and that the copies for which they have subscribed are 174. As the subscriptions required to complete the number of 200 copies are only 26, I am willing to hope that such would be soon procured, if those who have testified their approbation of the project by their own subscriptions, would submit to the trouble of a little further exertion. Any subscriptions which they may receive, I request them to remit to me in the way proposed in your last volume, p. 689, before the 20th of next month, as I must, by that time, at furthest, send you for insertion the list of subscribers. I shall be obliged to those of the 160 subscribers who have not paid their subscriptions, if they will remit them to me, that there may be no By the report of the proceedings of the Court of Chancery, we learn that Mr. Southey, the Poet Laureate, has acknowledged Wat Tyler, (Reviewed P. 172), to be his production, and has an injunction against applied for Messrs. Sherwood and Co. the booksellers, to stop the sale. His counsel said, "So sensible was Mr. Southey of the indecency, impropriety and dangerous tendency of the work, that he had thought it right to undergo the disgrace of acknowledging it to be his own production, in order that it might be suppressed.". It came out that it was written in 1794, and offered by Mr. Southey to two book-sellers, who refused to publish it. The Lord Chancellor would not grant an injunction, because Mr. Southey can claim no property in a work which, though his own, is seditious and wicked. Mr. Southey must therefore make interest with the Attorney General to prosecute the seller of his poem ! ness, when exercising one of the most important functions of your elevated office. "As ministers of the peaceful and beneficent religion of our holy Re deemer, we feel ourselves bound publicly to declare our detestation of every act that tends to endanger the tran quillity of our country, the authority of the laws, and the stability of the constitution: aud we are solicitous to express to your Royal Highness our deep conviction, that to promote the knowledge and the sincere practice of that religion, to the advancement and diffusion of which we have con. secrated our lives, will ever be found the most efficacious means of preventing political disorder, and of promoting the peace and happiness of all classes of the community, from the lowest to the most exalted. "His Majesty's Protestant Dissenting subjects were among the earliest, and have always been among the most faithful adherents to your Royal Highness's illustrious family. We are deeply sensible of the many blessings which our fathers and ourselves have enjoyed under the Princes of the House of Brunswick: and we fervently pray, that the future glories of your Royal Highness's government, and that of descendants, may signalized by the uninterrupted enjoy ment of rational liberty, pure religion and universal happiness." Signed on behalf of the body by the Deputation your be "M. Empaytax, Citizen of Geneva, who accompanied the Baroness Krudener in her travels, has published a pamphlet in which he accuses the' ministers of Geneva of being Socinians. It is certain that this sect, aided at different times by men of acknowledged learning, has progressively and insensibly spread over all Europe: and it is not unlikely that if the world should change its religion (for all things change in time), the most probable means of that event will be obtained from the Socinian and Unitarian seets, which," by first denying the divinity of Christ, may, in proportion as they advance, efface from the world the Christian religion!" Protestant Church at Rome. By a letter from Rome we learn that a meeting was held in that city on the 24th of December, by the English residents there to consider the case of the suffering poor in England, when it was resolved to make a gene ral subscription for that purpose, and to remit the same to the society at the Thatched House. A previous meet ing had been held, (the Marquis of Lansdowne in the Chair,) to take into consideration the relief also of the poor of Rome, when it was agreed to apply the produce of the sacramental collection after the service on the following sunday. Dec. 29. This day was opened the first regular place of worship in the City of Rome, in the Foro Trajano: the public duties of the day concluded by a collection at the door for the poor at Rome, which amounted to upwards of £120. Religious Fanaticism in Sicily. (Extract of a private letter from Messina, Dec. 14.)-We were all witnesses of an event which might have produced fatal consequences. On the 10th the Communion cup, with the Host, was plundered from the Church of St. Auforne. The whole town was in movement; the people ordered the gates to be shut: neither coffee-house, nor shop, nor theatre was left open. The streets were crowded with processions, and the church belis set a ringing. The populace obliged the old infirm archbishop to accompany the processions; he had at last the good fortune to escape in a convent. The people were absolutely furious; they passed through the city with torches, menaced to set fire to the houses of the unbelievers; and committed a thousand extravagancies, which would have ended it is impossible to say where, if some of the municipality had not already spread the report that the Communion cup, &c. had been found. The whole population exclaimed, Nostro Signore si e travato, and returned to their own abodes. Some houses were pillaged, and some individuals ill-treated. The day after, when the falsity of the report was known, the people, who shewed symptoms of wishing to recommence the preceding scenes, were restrained by the presence of the troops of the line, and the campagnoli· or militia, who had been prudently assembled. The processions, how ever, continue every day, nor do they dare to open the tribunals or shops, to work in the port, &c. Even the soldiers have covered their arms with crape." A Letter from Messina of a later date announces that the cup has been really found and tranquillity entirely re-established. English Church at Brussels. Brussels, Dec. 31.-What scandal, what divisions, what spirit of party is there in this world! The English colony at Brussels desires to have a place of religious worship established, in which they may adore the Supreme Being after the forms of the English Church: : nothing can be more natural or more edifying; but the chiefs of this holy enterprise, illustrious noblemen, marquisses and lords, do not choose to be mingled in the crowd; they desire, even in the house of God, to be separated from what is called the swinish multitude. A regulation is made, which decides, that people shall pay at the entrance of the church as at the entrance of a theatre; that those who pay shall be conveniently seated on handsome chairs, painted blue and red; and that the Christian canaille, if perchance any should appear, should be placed in the back ground, in an obscure corner, where they should stand, seeing there is there neither chair nor bench. This corner of the temple remained empty for some time; but at last one fine Sunday morning there came a pious old woman; she is asked for her ticket; she has none; she is then desired to pay a franc in money; she has not a penny; immediately she is sent into the despised corner: she, however, resigns herself patiently to hear the word of God. But the learned preacher is eloquent-his sermon is dreadfully long. He is from that country where the parliamentary orators take pride in speaking four or five hours together. The poor woman faints away. The Philanthropist, an English paper, printed at Brussels, takes the liberty of publishing these circumstances, and even leans rather to the popular side of the question-a foolish conduct, which leads neither to fortune nor glory. The journalist, however, seems a well-informed man; he ought to know that the partisans of the popular cause have never succeeded. They all come to a bad end. To please at court, one must write in French like The Oracle, and in English like The Courier or Times; but If, like The Philanthropist, you insinuate that men, who are every where so unequal, are not so before God, and ought not to be so at church, you will draw on yourself the hatred of all those who set up for patrons. They will leave you as they do the poor journalist, who, for some days past, inserts in each of his papers letters from Lord such a one to Sir such a one, who tell him not to send them his journal any longer; that they withdraw their subscriptions, &c. who will indemnify him? Not so is the woman—she is worth nothing; that is to say, she has no money; which is saying a great deal; for in England, if you wish to know what you ought to think of a man, you ask what is he worth £50,000 sterling, more or less, but the estimate is always made in money.-Extracted from Le Liberale. MISCELLANEOUS. THE French are about to send a corvette from Brest, upon a voyage of general discovery, but especially with a view to the finding in the Southern Ocean some place proper for such a settlement as our's at Botany Bay. A curious and interesting monument of antiquity has been lately found among the excavations made near the temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome. It is a fragment of the consular annals, which fill up one of the chasms of those that are already preserved, and comprises the years between 290 to 300, from the foundation of the city. NOTICE. THE Annual Meeting of the SoUTHERN UNITARIAN FUND SOCIETY, will be on Wednesday, April the 9th, at the Unitarian Chapel in the High Street, Portsmouth. The sermon in the morning by the Rev. W. Hughes, of the Isle of Wight. There will also be a lecture in the evening for which a preacher has not yet been obtained; but it is hoped Mr. Bennett may take it in his way from Poole. Portsmouth, March 23, 1817. MONTHLY RETROSPECT of PUBLIC AFFAIRS; OR, The Christian's Survey of the Political World. GREAT BRITAIN presents at this time a melancholy appearance both in a political and a moral point of view. In the former light it shews evident signs of overstrained powers which now render the patient feeble and exhausted. This has created a considerable degree of dissatisfaction, and it has been thought necessary to put him for a time in a straight waistcoat, lest he should, as it is supposed, do bimself an injury. This mode of treatment does not satisfy every one who considers the nature of the case, some deeming that the cure of the present evils would have been easier effected by more gentle treatiment, whilst others are firmly persuaded that for soine time at least rigorous mea sures must be tried. The experiment is assuredly of a very dangerous nature, and time alone can develope all the causes which have produced this very extraordinary situation, and justify or condemn the state physicians. A vast body of petitions have been presented to the House of Commons; more than upon any occasion have been laid on its table, if we may use that expression when they literally cover the floor. Many have been rejected, but the remainder contain such a multitude of signatures, as may fairly shew the House that the spirit of their demands pervades the whole kingdom. They may be referred to two points, the lessening of the burden of taxation and |