his needy relatives, whom he knows to be in a state of pauperism. -In my letter to you of the 2d instant, I took notice of a Charity Sermon that was to be preached on the Sunday following at the parish church of St. Ann, Blackfriars', for the benefit of the German Sufferers. I also observed, that the worthy Rector had devoted the same pulpit, some weeks before, to the same laudable purpose, for the sole benefit of the poor of his flock. I should have mentioned also, that the Afternoon Lecturer, in both cases, took up the subject, and made some small collection. There were, therefore, two separate Sundays devoted to preaching at the same church, by the same eminent Divine, to the same congregation, and upon the same occasion,namely, to relieve misery and distress, and that brought on by the same cause, the calamilies of war.---The suffering German is expelled from his cottage and property by a merciless enemy; the suffering Englishman by the hand of a friend, a civil officer, who, at the command of a collector, takes forceable possession of his house, to seize for the King's taxes, and the landlord sweeps the cottage for the arrears of rent. They are both deprived of the comforts of a habitation, and find themselves and families reduced to misery and want.Point out to me, Sir, if you can, the difference in the situation of these two parties. In the estimation of some people, there must be a difference, and a great difference too (though I cannot see it), as it is a noto rious fact, that the suffering Germans have four times the pity and assistance of the suffering English.- -What is it that these newly acquired friends, the suffering Germans, have done for us, which they have not already been paid for, that entitles them so strongly to our compassionate regard? It is not yet twelve months since they stood in battle array against us, and it is not impossible that in less than six months they may again assume the same hostile position. whoever will give themselves the trouble to examine into the conduct of the Germans towards this country for the last hundred years, will easily discover that gratitude is not their most prominent virtue. I hear many people prate about their love of country, and I have been simple enough to imagine they meant the people of the same country in which they were born and brought up; but I have discovered my mis take. It is the soil they mean, on which they tread, and not the people. The people may go to the--I'll say no worse to the workhouse, and that is bad enough. -No, no, it is the Germans, the beloved Germans, who have won our hearts, and claim our solicitude, our cares, and our attentions; to such a degree, indeed, that I should not be surprised if England should be nearly deserted, as it is very natural for men to be fond of the company of those who so completely possess their esteem and affection.--But, to return to the collection made for the poor of the parish of St. Ann's. The two sermons preached on that occasion produced a collection considerably under £30; but when the sermons were preached for the benefit of the German sufferers, the hearts of the hearers were certainly softened; they were thawed either by political heat, or the warm sun-beams of vanity: it is impossible it could be from humanity. The sermon in the morning produced £93, and, if I am rightly informed, that in the afternoon raised £17. -Judge, Sir, from these facts, what little feeling there is in the hearts of Englishmen for the suffering English, and that, too, in the severest weather I ever remember, and I am not a chicken. A FRIEND TO HUMANITY. STOCK EXCHANGE MORALITY. MR. COBBETT,-It may be customary to introduce an anonymous letter with an exordium of high-flown compliments to the Editor. This, however, I must beg leave to wave at present.-Without any personal acquaintance with yourself, your Register has for many years afforded me both pleasure and information; and, except when you have condescended to drag obscure individuals into a kind of fame, by laying open to the public their silly speeches or dishonest actions, I have uniformly admired your talent and your selection of subject, deeming your labours highly beneficial to humanity.--A late event, I am glad to find, has not escaped your eagle-eye, nor your still sharper pen: I do not mean any of the former, but the last imposition prac tised upon that highly esteemed and truly respectable body of men, the Stock jobbers; -men who never wish to profit by false rumours ! men who, for self-defence, ought to be particularly upon their guard against the manoeuvres of Jacobins, who make no scruple of asserting that the war and the national debt yield support to the Stock-jobber, and therefore wish to put an end to both.-Morality, forsooth, in the with France. The plan which I propose is more certain and stable than the Sinking Fund, and is such as no honest man can, I conceive, oppose with any show of justice. It ought to unite all parties, because it is founded on general equity, and gives equal religious rights and privileges to all sects and denominations; and, as a great excellency, will do no injury to any individual. 1st. Let every person, of whatever order, office, or description, who belongs to and receives any emolument from the established national religion, enjoy his income during his life. 2d. Let the government sell all the tithes, at the death of the incumbents, and apply the church revenues to the purpose of paying off the interest of the national debt, &c. mouths of Stock-jobbers!-It is certainly very disgusting to hear men talk of a thing they themselves neither practise nor understand. The squeamish consciences of these gentlemen are much revolted at the late hoax practised upon them. They are out of pocket by it; they are losers; therefore they have lugged in morality.-Pray what is the foundation of the national debt? What is the cause of its increase? What is the nature of Stock-jobbing in the Alley? Which bears the highest premium, Morality or Omnium? Is it customary for the buyers to proclaim a victory before they buy? or for the venders to boast of bad news before they sell? Do they not all endeavour to buy cheap and sell dear? Do they not all seize upon the slightest advantage either way? Do they not most eagerly make a profit of credulity? Was this This is the whole of my simple plan; fraud the first, the only one that has ever and, besides its political usefulness, it will taken place? Why do they appeal to Go- serve to restore religion to its primitive vernment for present redress and future simplicity, as its Founder left it. It is prevention? Do they not see in our pub-well known, that Christianity, before it had lic papers fraud practised, openly avowed and authorized? Of what description was the act of that Commander who obtained the secret, and counterfeited the cypher of the enemy? Oh! but that was a ruse de guerre! say these gentlemen, and therefore allowable.-Very well; since you will have it so, let the hoax be also deemed a ruse de guerre. Gambling is a species of warfare: the combatants in the one case thirsting for blood, in the other thirsting for money! A Cossack and a Stock-jobber are more allied than is generally imagined; although, upon reflection, we may easily discover a relation's joy, a family affection, in the excessive caresses shewn to a cousin Cossack who visited the metropolis some months ago.-Excuse my hasty scribble, but I belong to a Bible Society, and some of our members as well as myself make a practise of going our rounds regularly, to discover what green-grocer or what chandlers' shops expose their ware to sale on a sabbath-night. Sabbath evening. SIMON PANTEGRUEL. NATIONAL REFORM, MR. COBBETT,As your Register has been, and is now, the great means of diffusing important political truth to our think ing nation, you will oblige one of your constant readers, as well as the friends of general liberty, by inserting the following plan of national reform, to support our minds under the present expensive contest any union with worldly establishments, or had received any support from national emoluments, even though opposed and persecuted, made its irresistible way through the Roman empire, but when it became a national institution, it lost its essence as a spiritual religion, was changed into a corrupt, mercenary, and persecuting religion, a kingdom of this world, and an engine of the state. No person of the church of England can reasonably complain of the above plan, because they may enjoy their religion on the same terms as all other secs and being the minority, they ought to consider the good of the whole, but, as being professing Christians, they ought to remember that equal justice is due to all, without favour or distinction. A FRIEND TO JUSTICE. UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. Mr. Editor, In the discussion that has taken place in Oxford, in consequence of the observations on certain statutes of that University, and on the power of the Proctors, which appeared in your Register of the 26th ult. I have heard the writer taxed with a culpable omission in not stating that the sentence of the Vice-Chancellor's Court is not final; but that any person, who conceives himself aggrieved by any proceedings in that Court, has means of redress by an appeal, beg leave to say, that the I REE 66 she came, whither she was going. This, to say the least of it, was highly inquisitorial. It must have been done to gratify an impertinent curiosity, an insatiable lust of power, or something worse, To the inhabitants of the place, who are daily subject to the effects of such abuse of power, this conduct cannot but be irritating, and must conduce to keep up that jealousy and illwill, which have always existed between the University and city. It may, perhaps, be said, that this exertion of assumed authority did not arise from any badness of heart, but merely from the excusable desire which a young man feels to display his consequence on his first entrance into office. appeal is generally considered as nugatory, and so completely out of the power of a poor client, as not to be worth mentioning, and as only calculated to add insult to injury. -Respecting the appeal, BLACKSTONE informs us, that from the sentence of the Vice-Chancellor, his deputy or assessor, an appeal lies to delegates appointed by the Congregation, from thence to other delegates of the House of Convocation; and if all three concur in the same sentence, it is final, at least by the statutes of the University, according to the rule of the civil law. But, if there be any discordance or variation in any of the three sentences, an appeal lies, in the last resort, to judges delegates appointed by the Crown under theIt is difficult, indeed, to restrain the great seal of Chancery."Now, Sir, expression of our pity at the weakness of not to insist upon the impossibility of a that man, who can be proud of an office, poor client having recourse to so tedious which is merely ministerial, and which and so expensive a mode of seeking redress places him, in the eye of the law, in nearly from the sentence of this Court, I shall the same situation as that of a common only observe, that the names of the Vice- constable.It must, however, be remarkChancellor, of both the Proctors, and noted, that this was not only a very foolish, unfrequently of some of the Pro-Proctors,+ but a very illegal proceeding, being totally are among the delegates of appeals both in unwarranted either by the law of the land, Convocation and Congregation! I hope, or by the University-charters. By the latthen, we shall no more hear of the easyter, the time of watch and ward is limited method of a poor person's obtaining re- between nine o'clock at night and five în dress, and of the utter impossibility of his the morning, during which time only the being persecuted by the University officers. University-officers have the right or power I hope, as the matter is now beginning of interference in the streets with any but to be agitated, that the members of the matriculated persons. This, however, I University will express their abhorrence of know to have been done with impunity. some late disgraceful proceedings, which An action could not be brought against the are well known, and which have long been aggressor in any other court than that of the chief topic of conversation in Oxford. the Vice-Chancellor.I knew a Proctor, -From my long residence in the Uni- who, at the very time when several females, versity, I have been personally acquainted whom he himself had apprehended, were with several of the Proctors, who have confined in prison, at a most inclement seabeen men of judgment and of acknowledged son of the year, had so little sense of probenevolence, and who have discharged the priety and feeling, and so much meanness duties of their office with honour and inte- and brutality, as to exult on the success of grity. It is to be lamented, that some the cunning plans and stratagems by which others have displayed a total want of proper he had entrapped his victims. -To add feeling, and have behaved like tyrannical to this unpleasant, but necessary recital, I school-boys.To produce instances of remember a circumstance to have happencruelty and tyranny is always an unpleasant ed, of so unjustifiable a nature, that the very task, and is disgusting to the reader. The recollection of it rouses my indignation. cause of truth and humanity, however, re- The Proctors took the trouble of going two quires that facts be brought forward in sup- miles out of Oxford, late at night, and enport of assertions.I can bring an in-tered a cottage, where five or six girls of stance of a Pro-Proctor, who carried his assumed power to such a length as to stop every woman he met walking by herself, in the streets, in the dusk of the evening, and to demand of her who she was, whence * Blackstone's Commentaries, B. iii. ch. 6. + Each Proctor has two Masters of Arts to assist him, who are called Pro-Proctors. bad character were dancing with countrymen who lived in their neighbourhood. On finding that no gownsmen were there, it is said, that they all demurred except one of the Pro-Proctors, who declared that his walk should not be in vain. The fact, however, was, that they took the girls to Oxford, and the Vice-Chancellor commit some circumstance of importance, which he cannot possibly foresee, should induce him to depart from his determination. 66 ted them to the county gaol for ten days, in very cold weather.* On what legal authority, or what law of the land, or statute of the University the commitment was found-"Capt. Campbell, observing from Mr. ed, still remains a problem, which might "Mant's statement, in the Political Regisbe solved, could the cause be brought into "ter of the 12th of March, that Mr. Mant any other than the Vice-Chancellor's own has the full authority from numerous court. The above facts can be well at- ""friends, and of the greatest respectabitested. Do not, however, imagine, that "lity, to proclaim, that his veracity this severity has at all improved the mo- ""stands unimpeached," and this after rality of the place. The case is quite the" his only ground of defence had been reverse. The money of the young men is proved to be false by the oath of Captain now expended, and their time wasted in "Wilson; Captain Campbell observing hiring carriages and horses to pursue their "this, would gladly have avoided any pleasures in the neighbouring towns and "thing calculated to diminish the content villages, and in Oxford itself seduction is" which must necessarily have arisen from very prevalent.It must be allowed, in- " the consolatory decision of so numerous deed, that the Proctors are not the only" and respectable a circle. But, Mr. Mant, persons to be blamed for these injudicious "not satisfied with having thus happily proceedings. To the Vice-Chancellor for "established his veracity, takes occasion the time being must be attributed the greater" again to state certain pretended facts of share of the blame; for it must be remem- "accusation against Captain Campbell, bered, that no commitment can take place which, though they present nothing new, but by his warrant, or by that of one of the" are now circulated in a manner that enPro-Vice-Chancellors acting for him.-- "titles them to some attention on the part If the officers of the University had com- "of Capt. Campbell.--The FIRST is, mon sense or common prudence, they would "an insinuation respecting 1,500 Venetian act with some degree of moderation; they "Zeechens. It is evident, that Mr. Mant, would not insist upon the enforcement of "in the passage alluded to, wishes to cause statutes, and the exertion of privileges," the public to believe, that Capt. Campwhich were always odious and unconstitutional, and which ill accord with the temper and spirit of the times. If, however," they are determined still to persist in these measures, contrary to the voice of justice" and reason, they cannot have any cause to complain if they shall be deprived of their" means of annoyance; for this business now calls for the interference of Parliament; and a petition from the inhabitants of Oxford, stating their grievances, might place" the real destination of which was Malta. them within the protection of the law of the land, and put them on a footing of equal security with the inhabitants of other places. Oxford, March, 1814. CAPT. CAMPBELL AND MR. MANT.The Proprietor of the Register has received. from Capt. Campbell the following short statement, which, after the very ample space that has been given to the subject, he has determined shall be the last, unless * There was no riot or disturbance in the house. When the men who were with the girls said that they were ready to protect them from the Proctors, the girls would not suffer any interference of that sort, but said that they would go quietly with the Proctors to Oxford, which they did. "bell took this sum as a sort of bribe.- 66 66 "The Vice-Consul (not a very likely chan"nel for bribe) made Capt. Campbell ac"quainted with it. But he, considering "that the offer did not come from his own 66 countrymen, and that it was not becom"ing him to accept of it, refused the offer; " and the money was returned to the Mer"chants. Capt. Campbell has in his "possession the receipt of the Merchants, "given to the Vice-Consul for the return of "the money to them; the certificate of the "Vice-Consul that he had returned the money; and, what would certainly ex"cite the indignation of all mankind, except that "" numerous and respectable ""body of friends, who have fully autho-. """"rized Mr. Mant to publish that his ve""racity stands unimpeached," Captain "Campbell has in his possession a paper 66 “ 66 "committed an act of most flagrant rogue66 ry. -It is not very probable that the "squadron should have quietly submitted to so singular a distribution of prizemoney. But, the facts of the case are these.The English Consul at Trieste "had given papers to four Austrian vessels, coming out of that port, which papers 66 (demanded from Mr. Mant in conseof his former insinuations), signed quence 66 by Mr. Mant, and drawn up in his own "hand, "declaring most solemnly, that "" this identical sum of money, offered as ""above-stated, was actually returned by ""Capt. Campbell's direction."--The "Second allegation, or rather insinuation, "is, that Capt. Campbell has left 40,000" the masters of those vessels looked upon "dollars unaccounted for; from which "as passports, or, at least, as the means of "the public are left to believe, that he may "insuring them from capture by English "have really embezzled that sum.- -The "vessels of war. The King's Order in 66 sum was twenty, instead of forty thou- "Council of the 7th January, 1807, made "sand dollars, a mistake, which Mr. "all vessels liable to capture, coming out 66 Mant's 66 numerous and greatly respect- "of any port situated, with regard to the ́ ́ ́ ́ able friends” will, of course, look upon enemy's influence, as Trieste then was, as not the smallest ground of impeach- "and bound to another port under similar 66 ment of his veracity. This sum belonged "circumstances. The four vessels in ques66 to the squadron, on account of prize- "tion were stopped by Capt. Campbell, in "vessels. It was sent by Capt. Campbell," sight of the port of Trieste; but, in con66 by the Captain of a brig of war, to "sideration of their having sailed under "Malta. He, on calling at Corfu, on his "faith of the English Consul's papers, and way to Malta, received dispatches of im"of their not having attempted to escape 66 portance from our Minister there to con- "from him; he directed them to return vey to Lord Collingwood, then at the "into the port; and wrote to the Consul, "mouth of the Dardanelles. He, there- requesting him not to give any such pa"fore, deposited the money with Mr. For- pers in future, as it was only deceiving "resti, our Minister, to be forwarded to "the masters of the vessels, and doing in"Malta by the first conveyance. But, al- "jury to them and the merchants. This 66 most immediately after, Corfu was given "communication to the Consul was made up by the Russians to the French, and by letter, the bearer of which letter was "Mr. Forresti was obliged to quit the" Mr. Mant himself, who, as a further place in such haste, that it was left be- proof of Mr. Mant's veracity, wrote a hind, where, as he has informed Capt." letter, now in Capt. Campbell's posses66 Campbell, it now remains. It is only "sion, giving an account of his interview necessary to add, that Capt. Campbell," with the Consul upon the occasion.―― "on behalf of himself and the squadron, "Capt. Campbell has no doubt of his strict "holds the bond of Mr. Forresti for this "right to have considered the four vessels money; and, that of all the history and "as lawful prize, under the Order in "all the circumstances of this transaction, "Council; but, under all the circum"Mr. Mant is, and from the first to the "stances of the case, he also has no doubt, "last has been, perfectly well acquainted." that a Judge of the Admiralty would -But, it would, doubtless, be no dif- "have directed them to be restored. "ficult matter for Mr. Mant to obtain the any rate, they were not made prize of; same respectable authority to publish as "they were not given away: there was no "long as he pleased, that he was, in putting" appearance of their having been given "forth this insinuation, actuated by the away; and of these facts Mr. Mant is as purest motives, and by any thing rather "well acquainted as is Capt. Campbell "than malignity.- -The THIRD insinua- "himself. Capt. Campbell is sorry to ❝tion is, that Capt. Campbell gave away "have taken up so much room with his "four vessels, prizes to the squadron under "statement; but, it appeared to him not "his command. Mr. Mant calls it an ap"too much to request after the large space "parent giving away, and, having such a "which had been allowed to Mr. Mant, "stock of current veracity at command, "whom Capt. Campbell will now leave to "says quite enough to produce a belief" the enjoyment of the society of that nu(that is to say, amongst his numerous "merous and respectable circle of friends, "and respectable friends), that Captain" who have given him full authority to "publish," that his veracity stands un 66 66 66 66 66 "one, to be disposed of for his own private"" impeached." "advantage; or, in other words, that he At |