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there would be drilling enough going on without the necessity of any pay at all, and thereby we should get rid of an evil which is the greatest of the system, because it tends to degrade it. On the topic of inconvenience and hardship to working people, and particularly to those employed in agriculture, it may not be amiss to observe, that the period allotted for the drill, to wit, from Lady Day to Michaelmas, embraces seed time, bay making, barvest, and hop-gathering, and, which is rather extraordinary, closes the moment those busy times are over, and that too at the commencement of a month, which, of the whole twelve, is usually the fairest, and, beyond all comparison, the best suited for practising military exercise. Why this arrangement, as to the time of training, has been adopted, I know not; but, I am afraid, that the Secretary of War viewed the Bill, in this instance, with a lawyer's rather than with a soldier's eye. The ANNUN CIATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, and the FEAST OF ST. MICHAEL, are excellent epochs for holding courts and paying rents; and, they are, too, ready at hand, when a person sits down to draw up a bill; but, with very great respect for the Secretary at War, I must assert, that, to make Lady Day and Michaelmas the boundaries, on the present occasion, was to discover but a very moderate degree of reflection as to this part of the subject. October is undeniably the best month in the year for drilling. The sky is fair, the earth dry, the atmosphere temperate. It is the month of leisure; all the great fairs are held in it. It is just the time when farmer's servants change their places; when they go home to see their relations, when they ramble about the country, and when they want precisely that occupation which it is now proposed to give them at times when they have a thousand other things to do. I would have the first class drilled every week in the year, except in the months of December, January, and February, during which a weekly muster might be sufficient. From the middle of April to the end of May, and from the beginning of October to the middle of November, I would have them drilled three times a week during the rest of the year, that is, during all the busy seasons, I would be content with a Sunday's drill.

3. The bill does not make any specific provision for a drilling officer and a drummer. This is a very great objection with me. The parishes, when small, are to be so classed together, as to collect a respectable number of persons for the drill; but, who

is to show the men thus collected how to use their arms? If the providing of an officer be left to the parish or district, it is to be supposed, that a proper person will be provided? How are parish officers to know who is a proper person, and, if they obtained that knowledge, which would be something very wonderful, where are they to look for their man? It appears to me, therefore, that the drilling officer should be appointed by the king, and should be paid, at a fixed rate and time, out of the treasury of the parish or district. Without some good and effectual provision of this sort, it is absolutely impossible that the men, whom the law will collect together, should ever learn any thing useful.-Some persons object to a drum as being likely to lead to all the ceremony of parade exercise amongst persons whom it is desirable to train to shooting at a mark, to bush fighting, and to other branches of duty more immediately connected with the ultimate object of raising a soldier, that is, the killing or capturing of the enemy. But, let it be remembered, that, before you can teach men even the art of shooting; before you can initiate them in the most simple part of the rudiments of military service; before, in short, you can do any thing at all with them, you must collect them together. This you cannot do without instrument, and no instrument is so good as the drum. By collecting them together, I do not here mean for the first time; that will be performed by the law, which will also appoint certain days for regularly assembling, and the men will come to the place accordingly. But, what is to bring them to the very spot, where they are to be drawn up in rank and file? Those who have had any thing to do with regular well disciplined soldiers, know how very difficult it is to manage any considerable number even of such men without the assistance of the drum; and what, then, must be the difficulty where there will be two or three hundred men, who are under no discipline at all, and whom no earthly lungs could either call together, or keep in silence? A bugle horn has been mentioned as a better instrument; but, if the people were equally fond of a bugle horn, it must be evident, that it is not an instrument so well calculated for the purpose. It requires a nice ear, or very long habit, to distinguish one sound of the bugle from another, whereas the beats of the drum are as distinct as different words, the bugler and the trumpeter make a noise which even the soldiers do not always understand, but the drummer talks to them at

a mile's distance.-Besides, as to exciting a military spirit, which, in every regulation of this sort, ought to be the main object, what instrument is there, a millionth part so efficacious as the drum? The drum rouses the mind more than any other species of noise, and for that reason it is the favourite of the common people, particularly the boys. Set a bugler at one end of a street and a drummer at the other; the latter you will see instantly surrounded with people, while the former will attract but very little attention. Were the object of the present bill merely to get together armed men for the threatened invasion only; then, indeed, I should say, that neither drums nor bugles would be of much consequence; but, the principal object, is, to create a military mind in he nation, to raise up the youth in military ideas and habits, and to make them look to the regular army as the scene of honourable elevation. Impressed with these considerations, it appears to me to be a great neglect, that no provision is made for providing each parish, or district, with a flag, or stan dard. This should have been by no means omitted. The boys, who are now from six to ten years of age, will, probably be men, before this war is over: they will, at any rate, be big enough to carry arms in another war, if not in this war; and the things of which I am speaking are the means, the easy, the cheap, the pleasant, and the effec tual means, of preparing them for, and leading them into, the army. An uniform silk standard, having on it the Crown, the G.R. and the name of the District and County, should, in my opinion, have been expressly provided for; and, the place of depositing it should, by all means, have been the Church. The weekly ceremony of taking out and of lodging these colours would engage the attention of the whole of a country parish; and, the flag itself, acquiring a sort of sanctity from the place of deposit, would be at once the symbol of patriotism, loyalty, and religion.

4. The drilling on Sundays is, it appears, contrary to the dictates of certain methodis tical consciences. These people, whom one meets but too often, in the streets and elsewhere, have set up an outcry against the Sunday-drills, and have, in the most audacious manner, hinted menaces of resistance. That some allowance should be made for Scotland is reasonable: the Presbyterian is the national Church there, and the long established rules of that Church are very strict, with regard to the observance of the Lord's Day. But, while I am ready to make this allowance with respect to those who form

nine-tenths of the population of Scotland, I cannot but spurn at the thought of making all the people of England bend to the humour of a perverse, insolent, and factious sect, which does not consist of a sixteenth part of the population, which is unknown to the law, which has risen up out of the mine of ignorance, and which has spread itself through the country by the means of hypocricy and impudence such as the world never before witnessed.Of the six trai⚫ors, who were executed with Despard, and who had ploted the assassination of our Sovereign and the des ruc ion of the government, three were Methodists, and had a methodist teacher to attend them in their las moments. this plotting sect had, at the time of Despard's conspiracy, a set of Missionaries in France, where I believe they still are; and, it will be recollected, that it was given in evidence, on the trial of Despard, that he postponed the attack of he Tower, till he received news and money from France. And these are the people, this is the canting sect, to indulge whose whims, or ra her to favour whose factions, if not traitorous views, all the loyal people of this country are to be greatly distressed, or a law, intended to provide for the safety of the nation, is to be rendered inefficaciou. Truly a modest pretension! Were it not that the sect would thereby be gratified, I should be very willing to leave them out of the drill and the enrollment altogether; for they are a worthless crew; they are the off-scourings of the community; wretches who have, generally speaking, been guilty of the most base and detestable crimes, and who having exhausted the pleasures of a profligate life are now enjoying the delights to be derived from hypocricy. The blacker the sinner the

brighter the saint," is a fundamental maxim of their creed; and those who know them best are the readiest to assert, that there are very few of them, who enter the sect destitu e of claims to a high degree of this species of holiness.It is amongst the country people, that the law which is now passing will have the most salutary effect; and, into this class, thank God, the impious and rebellious principles of the methodists have not yet penetrated far. The sect consists chiefly of grovelling wretches in and about great towns and manufacturing places; and those of them who get their living honestly, follow, for the most part, sedentary professions incompatible. with that strength and hardihood requisite in a military life. It would, therefore, be no loss to exclude them from the enroll

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ment; but, it would be a trouble, which they have not a right to expect at the hands of publie officers; it would be an indulgeace to them, and they merit no indulgence! it would be to encourage that insolence, for which they ought to be punished; they would like it, and for that reason, if for no other, it ought not to be done."Harmony!" We are to yield to those people for the sake of harmony! Fifteen persons are to yield to one for the sake of harmony! To reason against such an intolerable pretension would be an insult to my readers. Let it be observed, that this sect, who generally get their living by means other than those of day labour, can so arrange matters as not to suffer any injury from a week-day drill, while such a drill must bring great inconvenience upon day-labouring men, and upon all men who work out of doors, which, as I before observed, the Methodists, in general, do not.

-Sunday is, on every account the best day, and the time of the day just after morning service, which, for that reason, should begin at nine o'clock. Sunday is a day on which the cattle rest; but, if the men are at drill on the week-days, the horses and oxen must stand still the while, which will be severely felt, particularly in seed time, a season which, in Figland, admits of not a moment's intermission of labour. On Sunday the children, being let Joose from school, and from those pestiferous prisons ycleped manufactories, may stretch their little cramped up limbs in following their seniors to the drill. Sunday is also the day for the women and girls to bestow their cheering approbation on those young men who distinguish themselves in their military exercises. And are all these advantages to be given up for the sake of having the "good will" of a set of hypocrites, who probably wish for nothing more ardently than for the success of a French invasion?

MESSES. FOX AND SHERIDAN have made their appearance during the discussion of the bill now before Parliament. The former gentleman (respecting whom nothing can change our opinion) has thought proper to make an apology for his late absence.

He

did not come, because he could not approve of the measures that were going forward, and yet be did not like to oppose them. Why! this is precisely the reason that we gave for his absence; and we have now again to observe, that not one word has yet

escaped him hostile to Buonaparté, or to the "monument of human wisdom," commonly called the Republic of France, but which is, in reality, the most degrading despotism that ever pressed upon the loins of a miserable people, who, in an evil hour, lent their ear to the harangues of a set of desperate demagogues, who, in order to retrieve their beggared fortunes, plunged their country into revolution and bloodshed.-No; not. one word has he yet uttered against Buonaparté, or against the Republic, or against any thing French, the family of the Bourbons excepted. This is his bite noire

He seems to be afraid of nothing else; and the reason is simply this: he knows, that the restoration of that fa mily is the only possible means of com. pietely destroying the hopes of all those, who are engaged in such speculations as have engaged his mind for several years past. Why else should be hate the Bourbons? Never did they condescend to hate him, though it is not absolutely impossible, that he may have heard of their contempt of him. But, how comes it, that he says nothing against the tyrant Buonapar é? The tyrant who wanted to destroy the liberty of the press! The glorious liberty of the press! How comes it, that Mr. Fox; the patriot Fox, the friend, the protector, the sentinel of liberty; how comes it, that he has heard of this in silence? Not one word has he uttered against it. Not one word has he said against the execrable ty rant. He still wanted to keep peace with him, on any terms.-We do hope, that the conduct of this man will be now fully exposed to the people of this country. Our endeavours shall not be wanting.--Mr. Sheridan, to whom we have, for weeks past, been looking for a little "true English feeling," has not yet broken out. indeed, make a slight opening the other night; but, so imperfect was it, so far short of the sallies that he was wont to make, that, after considerable altercation, it was impossible to determine on which side be spoke!!! He did, however, say, that there were certain topics, which he wished to have out; and, if Parliament should sit nine or ten weeks longer, we may hope to have a little fun.-Be this as it may, we are resolved to publish a full examination of his past public conduct compared with his present, and our readers may rely, that the materials, which we have collected for that purpose are not small in bulk.

He did,

VOL. IV. No. 4.]

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The following Paper, which, accompanied with the Circular Letter preceding it, has been sent, by direction of the Government, to every parish in England and Wales, appears to be so well calculated for the present crisis, that, notwithstanding, its great length, we think it our duty to give it a place, in preference to all other matter.

CIRCULAR. To the Officiating Ministers of

the several Parishes in England and Wales. It having been thought necessary, that, at this momentous crisis, His Majesty's subjects, in every part of the kingdom, and of every rank and degree, should be fully apprized of the danger, with which their property and their lives, their liberties, and their religion are threatened, in order that their energy may be called forth, and that, under God's Providence, the safety of the realm may thereby be provided for, and its antient ho. nour maintained: it having been also thought, that THE CHURCH is the most safe, regular, and certain channel of circulation, as well as the best suited to the importance of the subject: It appears adviseable to adopt that mode of communication, more especially as, in the execution of this great national purpose, such material aid may be expected from the wisdom and zeal of the Clergy. -In consequence whereof you will herewith receive certain copies of a printed paper, intitled, "Important Considerations for the People of this "Kingdom." It is requested, that you will be pleased to cause part of them to be deposited in the pews, and part to be distributed in the aisles, amongst the poor, on the Sunday following the day on which you shall receive them. There are also inclosed certain copies calculated for posting; one of which is intended to be placed on the church door, and another in some such public part of the parish, as you may deem best fitted for making it known among the Parishioners.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS

FOR THE

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PEOPLE OF THIS KINGDOM.

At a moment, when we are entering on a scene deeply interesting, not only to this nation, but to the whole civilized world; at a moment, when we all, without distinetion of rank or degree, are called upon to rally round, and to range ourselves beneath the banners of that Sovereign, under whose long, mild, and fostering reign, the far greater part of us, capable of bearing arms, have been born and reared up to manhood; at a moment, when we are, by his truly royal and paternal example, incited to make every sacrifice and every exertion in a war, the event of which is to decide, whether we are still to enjoy, and to bequeath to our children, the possessions, the comforts, the liberties, and the national honours, handed down to us from generation to generation, by our gallant forefathers; or whether we are, at once, to fall from this favoured and honourable station, and to become the miserable crouching slaves, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, of those very Frenchmen, whom the valour of our flects and armies has hitherto taught us to despise; at such a moment, it behoves us, calmly and without dismay, to examine our situation, to consider what are the grounds of the awful contest in which we are engaged; what are the wishes, the designs, and the pretensions of our enemies; what would be the consequences, if those enemies were to triumph over us; what are our

neans, and what ought to be our motives, not only for frustrating their malicious intentions, but for inflicting just and memorable chastisement on their insolent and guilty heads.

The grounds of the war are, by no means, as our enemies pretend, to be sought for in a desire entertained by his Majesty to keep the Island of Malta, contrary to the Treaty of Peace, or to leave unfulfilled any other part of his sacred engagements: they are to be sought for in the ambition of the First Consul of France, and in his implacable hatred of Britain, because, in the power and valour of Britain alone, he finds a check to that ambition, which aims at nothing short of the conquest of the world. His Majesty, ever anxious to procure for his people prosperity and ease, eagerly seized the first opportunity that offered itself for the restoration of Peace; but not without remembering, at the same time, that their safety, for which it was his peculiar duty to provide, was not to be sacrificed to any other consideration. This peace he concluded with the most sincere desire, that it might be durable, and the conduct of France would be such as to authorize him to execute, with scrupulous punctuality, every one of the stipulations of the Treaty. But scarcely was that compact concluded, when the First Consul, at the very time that his Majesty was surrendering to Fra ce and Holland, the great and numerous conquests he had made from them during the ar, began a new sort of hostility upon the weak and defenceless states on the Continent of Eu rope: Piedmont, a country equal to all Scotland, was added to France: Holland, which had, at the making of the Pace, been recognized as an independent nation. became, more than ever, the object of French rapacity and despotism; was com pelled to furnish ships and stores for French expeditions, and to feed and clothe French armies; the only use of which was to ke her in a state of slavish subjection,' and' to render her shores an object of serious alarm and real danger to Great Britain: Switzer land was invaded by a French army, which compelled the people of that ence free and happy country, to submit to a government framed at Paris, the members of which go verninent were chilly composed of 'men, who had betrayed the liberties of their country, and who were nominated by the Consul himself. Notwithstanding, how ever, all these and several other acts of aggression and tyranny, some of which were highly injurious to Great Britain, and were shameful violations of the Treaty of Peace,

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still his Majesty earnestly endeavoured to avoid a recurrence to arms; but the Consul, emboldened by our forbearance, and imputing to a dread of his power, that which he ought to have imputed solely to our desire to live at peace, manifested his perfidious intentions, again to take possession of Egypt, whence we had driven him in disgrace; again to open a road to our possessions in India, there to destroy one of the principal sources of our wealth and our greatness.

Not contented with thus preparing for our destruction from without, endeavouring to cut off our intercourse with the rest of the world, shutting, as far as he was able, all the ports of other countries against us; gradually destroying our navigation, commerce, and trade; hemming us up in our own island, and exposing our manufactu rers, artizans, and labourers, to the danger of starving for want of employment; not contented with these malignant endeavours, and seeming to regard us as already within his grasp, he audaciously interfered in the management of our domestic concerns; required us to violate our laws by banishing those subjects of the French Monarch, who had fled hither for shelter from his unjust and tyrannical government; demanded of us the suppression of the Liberty of Speech and of the Press; and, in a word, clearly demonstrated his resolution not to leave us a moment's tranquillity, till we had surrendered our constitution, till we had laid all our liberties at his feet, and till, like the Dutch, the Italians, and the Swiss, we had submitted to be governed by Decrees sent us from France.

Besides the motives of ambition, the desire to domineer over, and to trample upon ali the rest of mankind, the First Consul has a reason, peculiar to himself, for wishing to reduce us to a state of poverty, weakness, submission, and silence; which reason will be at once evident, when we consider the origin of his authority, and the nature of his government. Having succeeded, through a long course of perfidious and bloody deeds, in usurping the throne of his lawful Sovereign; having, under the name of Equality, established in his own person and family, a government the most pompous and expeusive, while the people are pining with hunger, and in rags; having, with the word Liberty continually on his lips, erected a despotism the most oppressive, the most capricious, and the most cruel that the Almighty, in his wrath, ever suffered to exist; having, by such means, obtained such an end, he feared, that while there remaiced upon the earth, and especially within a few leagues of France, a people enjoying, under a