Thursday, May 17th, an humble Addrefs, Remonftrance,. and Petition of the free Burgeffes of the town and county of. Newcastle upon Tyne, was prefented to his Majelly at St. James's, by Sir Francis Blake Delaval, Knight of the Bath-The following is a copy thereof: To the KING's Moft Excellent Majesty. The humble Addrefs, Remonftrance, and Petition, of the free Burgeffes of the town and county of Newcastle upon Tyne. E, your Majefty's most dutiful and loyal fubjects, the free W burgeffes of the town and county of Newcastle upon Tyne, emulous of following the great example of the city of London, (notwithstanding the independency of its firt magiftrate, and of the two public-fpirited heriffs, has given fuch particular offence to your minifters,) think ourfelves called upon to repeat our unwearied application to your Majefty for redrefs of unexampled grievances. "We cannot but feel with the much-injured county of Middiefex, for the wound given to them, to us, and to the contlitution, and warmly animated by the late noble behavior of the independent electors of Westminster, whofe actions have beft contradicted the fallacious language of your minifters, when they confidently affured your Majefty, that only fome few mifguided perfons had complained of their determination by the houfe of commons, but who nevertheless found themfelves under a neceffity of beholding, with filent confufion, a virtuous remonftrant rewarded by the grateful tribute of a free people. "We point out this picture of the people with the more fatif facttion, that your Majefty, notwithstanding misreprefentations, may give us credit for being a majority, equally warm in the truc fervice of our country, and of your Majeity, and equally out of the reach of that baleful influence which fome way or other has hitherto fucceeded, we fear, in concealing from your Majesty the wishes of an affectionate but afflicted people. "We therefore humbly prefume to folicit your Majefty to exert that conftitutional authority which the laws have vetted in you for the benefit of your fubjects, by diffolving the prefent parliament, and molt earneftly implore you to remove for ever from your counfels thofe minifters, who, not content with having violated the freedom of election without doors, have advifed your Majefty to difmifs the first officer of the law for his faithful endeavours to fupport the liberty and conftitution of his country; and this measure is ftill the more afflicting, as our laft hopes amongst your Majefty's fervants were placed in his acknowledged integrity and ability, from whence we flattered ourselves the truth might reach your Majefty's ear in fpite of every confederacy against it. "The grateful acclamations of your whole people (a term your minifters affect to hold in contempt) would incefiantly await your Majefty, if you would deign to relieve the afflictions of your fubjects by the difmiffion of thefe pernicious counsellors. "For while the affairs of this great nation are, by an overruling fatality, placed in the incapable and-mercenary hands of men who under the fpecious title of minifters, are collufively tranfferring from one to the other the exclufive right of fporting with their country, we have every calamity to dread both at home and abroad, as well from their want of experience as from their want of integrity." May 19. This day his Majefty came to the house of peers, and the commons being come thither, his Majefty was pleased to give the royal affent to all the bills which were ready. After which his Majefty was pleased to make the following moft gracious speech: My Lords and Gentlemen, The feafon of the year, and the dispatch you have given to the public bufinefs, make it proper for me to put an end to this feffion of parliament. The temper, with which you have conducted all your proceedings, has given me great fatisfaction, and I promife -myself the happieft effects from the firmnefs, as well as the moderation, which you have manifefted in the very critical circumftances which have attended your late deliberations. With respect to foreign affairs, I have nothing material to communicate to you. I will continue my endeavours to appeafe, if poffible, the troubles which ftill prevail in fome parts of Europe, or at leaft to prevent them from fpreading farther. In all events it fhall be my first and conftant care to watch over the interests, and to preferve undiminished the rights of my people. Gentlemen of the Houfe of Commons, The I return you my thanks for the supplies you have so chearfully granted for the current year, as well as for your attention to make ufe of every opportunity of reducing the national debt. provifion you have been able to make in this feffion for discharging fo confiderable a fum, without laying any further burthen on my fubjects, cannot but be highly advantageous to public credit. My Lords and Gentlemen, I must earnestly recommend to you to exert, in your refpective counties, the fame zeal and prudence that you have fhewn in parliament for promoting the peace and welfare of the kingdom: nothing can be fo favourable to the wishes of thofe, who look with jealoufy on the ftrength and profperity of this country, as the prevalence of animofities and diffentions amongst ourselves: let it therefore be your care to discountenance every attempt to infufe groundless fufpicions and difcontent into the minds of your fellow fubjects: make them fenfible of my conftant attention to promote their happiness; and convince them, that nothing can fo effectually fecure their liberties, as the maintenance of every part of our excellent conftitution in its due force and authority. Then the Lord Speaker, by his Majefty's command, faid: It is his Majesty's royal will and pleasure, that this parliament be prorogued to Thurfday the 19th day of July next, to be then here held; and this parliament is accordingly prorogued to Thurfday the 19th day of July next. REVIEW OF AN IMPARTIAL POLITICAL WORKS. Thoughts on the Cause of the prefent Difcontents. 8vo. 25 6d. FE Dodsley. EW political pieces of late date have given fuch general fatisfaction, or have been purchafed with fuch avidity as the pamphlet now before us. It is in almost every one's hand who pretends to the leaft concern or intereft in the fituation of publick affairs. Three editions have been printed in the courfe of a few weeks; and on the fame and reputation of its fuppofed author, Edmund Burke, Efq; it is probable it may pass through feveral more. When we are not authorized pofitively to affert that any gentleman is the author of a work afcribed to him, we can only proceed on the strong ground of prefumptive evidence: fuch is the cafe with the pamphlet in queftion. The fentiments, manner, ftyle and complexion of the whole performance, own no other mafter but Mr. Edmund Burke; and the fubject is fo public, fo important, and fo delicate, that in thefe times of doubt and difficulty we cannot hesitate to pronounce that a gentleman fo well known in the political and literary world, would have thought it a duty incumbent on him, to undeceive the public, if he had not been the author, when he found that his great name, was the charm to lure fuch numbers to purchase it. Conceiving it then to be incompatible with the open candour and integrity of Mr. Burke to fuffer any deceit to be paffed on the public of any kind under the fanction of his name, we fhall not fcruple, from his acquiefcence in the voice of the town, to join the ral opinion, and confider it as his performance. gene The fixing this belief, is effentially neceffary to enable us to give impartial remarks on fome parts of the pamphlet; for many arguments advanced in it, gain additional ftrength from the opinion that they are Mr. Burke's, while fome others for the very fame reafon lofe all their weight and influence. These we shall point out in the courfe of our enquiry into the merits of this applauded piece; as an introduction to which enquiry it may not be amifs to give the grand out-line of the work in as concife terms as poffible. After exhibiting the moft convincing proofs that the present national difcontents are well founded, that they are not the effect of that reflefs difpofition which difpofes men to complain of the age they live in; to murmur at the prefent poffeffors of power, to lament the paft, and to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, but are the refult of mal-administration; our author obferves that it is impoffible that the caufe of this diftemper in the flate fhould not fometimes be the fubje&t of difcourfe. In compliment. to the miniftry he begins with their opinion of the occafion of our difcontents, which amounts to no more than this-" That we are VOL. VI. Z z grown grown rich and faucy from the increase of our trade and manufactures, from colonization and conqueft: that the infolence of fome from their enormous wealth, and the boldness of others from a guilty poverty, have rendered them capable of the most atrocious attempts, fo that they have trampled upon all fubordination, and violently borne down the unarmed laws of a free government; barriers too feeble against the fury of a populace fo fierce and licentious as our's: that no adequate provocation has been given for fo fpreading a difcontent; our affairs having been conducted throughout with remarkable temper and confummate wisdom; and that the wicked induftry of fome libellers, joined to the intrigues of a few difappointed politicians have produced this unnatural ferment in the nation." By this account of affairs it should feem fays our author, "That we have a very good miniftry, and that we are a very bad people." But in a very masterly manner he has demonftrated that our unhappy cafe is the very reverfe; he acknowledges that the people in this, as well as all other countries have often been egregioufly in the wrong: but is of opinion, that where popular difcontents have been prevalent, that there has been generally fomething found amifs in the conftitution, or in the conduct of government. This opinion he supports by a quotation from Sully's memoirs; and having thus laid the ground work for an enquiry into the caufes of our national difcontents, by a ftrong prefumption in favour of the people, he proceeds to his grand object which is, to point out that misconduct in government which has given rife to our popular difcontents; and as the whole ftrength of his performance refts upon the conviction that he is right in his affertions; it will be proper to give the account of the origin of our unhappy fituation in his own words: "At the revolution, the crown, deprived, for the ends of the revolution itself, of many prerogatives, was found too weak to ftruggle against all the difficulties which preffed fo new and unfettled a government. The court was obliged therefore to delegate a part of its powers to men of fuch intereft as could fupport, and of fuch fidelity as would adhere to, its establishment. Such men were able to draw in a greater number to a concurrence in the common defence. This connection, neceffary at first, continued long after convenient; and properly conducted might indeed, in all fituations, be an ufeful inftrument of Government. At the fame time, through the intervention of men of popular weight and character, the people poffeffed a fecurity for their juft portion of importance in the ftate. But as the title to the crown grew ftronger by long poffeffion, and by the conftant increafe of its influence, thefe helps have of late feemed to certain perfons no better than incumbrances. The powerful managers for Government were not fufficiently fubmiffive to the pleafure of the poffeffors of immediate and perfonal favour, fometimes from a confidence in their own ftrength natural and acquired; fometimes from a fear of offending their friends, and weakening that lead in the country, which gave them a confider ation ation independent of the court. Men acted as if the court could receive, as well as confer, an obligation. The influence of government, thus divided in appearance between the court and the leaders of parties, became in many cafes an acceffion rather to the popular than to the royal fcale; and fome part of that influence which would otherwife have been poffeffed as in a fort of mortmain and unalienable domain, returned again to the great ocean from whence it arofe, and circulated among the people. This method therefore of governing, by men of great natural intereft or great acquired confideration, was viewed in a very invidious light by the true lovers of abfolute monarchy. It is the nature of defpotifm to abhor power held by any means but its own momentary pleafure; and to annihilate all intermediate fituations between boundlefs ftrength on its own part, and total debility on the part of the people. "To get rid of all this intermediate and independent importance, and to Jecure to the court the unlimited and uncontrouled use of its own vaft influence, under the fole direction of its own private favour, has for fome years paft been the great object of policy. If this were compaffed, the influence of the crown muft of course produce all the effects which the most fanguine partizans of the court could poffible defire. Government might then be carried on without any concurrence on the part of the people; without any attention to the dignity of the greater, or to the affections of the lower forts. A new project was therefore devised, by a certain fet of intriguing men, totally different from the fyftem of adminiftration which had prevailed fince the acceffion of the House of Brunfwick. This project, I have heard, was first conceived by fome perfons in the court of Frederick Prince of Wales. "The earliest attempt in the execution of this defign was to fet up for minifter, a perfon, in rank indeed refpectable, and very ample in fortune; but who, to the moment of this vaft and fudden elevation, was little known or confidered in the kingdom. To him the whole nation was to yield an immediate and implicit fubmiffion. But whether it was for want of firmness to bear up against the first oppofition; or that things were not yet fully ripened, or that this method was not found the most eligible; that idea was foon abandoned. The inftrumental part of the project was a little altered, to accommodate it to the time, and to bring things more gradually and more furely to the one great end propofed. "The first part of the reformed plan was to draw a line which Should Separate the court from the ministry. Hitherto thefe names had been looked upon as fynonymous; but for the future, court and adminiftration were to be confidered as things totally distinct. By this operation, two fyftems of adminiftration were to be formed; one which fhould be in the real fecret and confidence; the other merely oftenfible, to perform the official and executory duties of government. The latter were alone to be refponfible; whilft the real advifers, who enjoyed all the power, were effectually removed from all the danger. were |