THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, AND HISTORICAL CHRONICLE. FROM JANUARY TO JUNE, 1832. VOLUME CII. (BEING THE TWENTY-FIFTH OF A NEW SERIES.) PART THE FIRST. PRODESSE & DELECTARE. E PLURIBUS UNUM. BY SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. London: PRINTED BY J. B. NICHOLS AND SON, 25, PARLIAMENT STREET; AND SOLD BY JOHN HARRIS, AT THE CORNER OF ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, LUDGATE STREET; BY G. G. BENNIS, 55 RUE 1832. LIST OF EMBELLISHMENTS. [Those marked thus are Vignettes printed with the letter-press.] View of Trinity Church, Little Queen-street, Holborn. *Ancient Bowl found in the Severn View of Old London Bridge during its demolition, Feb. 1832 *Snuff-box formed out of the old foundation Piles of London Bridge... PREFACE. . IN the "Historical Chronicle" of our present Volume, there are many subjects which press themselves upon our serious attention; but the most prominent, and certainly the most important, is the question of PARLIAMENtary Reform, which may be truly styled the new British Constitution for 1832. In the attainment of this object the whole empire has been convulsed, and society unhinged. Nobles have been arrayed against Nobles; the mercantile classes have been divided, and their interests paralysed, and popular phrensy has threatened the very existence of the state. "If you would reduce a great empire to misery and degradation (said Frederick the Great), place it under the dominion of philosophical theorists." "If you would grind a nation to powder (said Napoleon), submit it to the guidance of political economists." No general axioms could be more just than these; and no practical experience could more forcibly demonstrate their truth than the events of the last few years. Philosophical or speculative theorists, and political economists, have been so long experimentalizing and administering empirical nostrums to the naturally robust constitution of John Bull, that he is rapidly sinking from his once vigorous condition to weakness and decrepitude. With the experiments of free trade, restricted currency, corn laws, Catholic emancipation, &c. all of which, accompanied by the blessings of peace, were to diffuse the blessings of plenty over the land, we have, year after year, found the national resources on the wane, and every important interest, financial, commercial, and agricultural, gradually sinking to the lowest verge of existence. Bankers have stopped payment, though money was abundant, and thousands knew not how to employ it; Merchants have been ruined, though every port was ready to receive their commodities; manufactures have been paralysed; agriculturists have become insolvent; and labourers, starving in the midst of plenty, have been compelled to quit for ever their native land. What can be the cause of these manifold evils, unless it be the system recently pursued by our soi-disans politicians, of acting upon abstract political notions, without considering the relative circumstances of the national body politic, and its numerous co-relative dependancies? During a long and general war, we were enabled to raise treble the present amount of revenue, which was comparatively unfelt by the mercantile and industrious classes; but now the pressure of taxation, though so much reduced, is felt in a tenfold degree; and in the midst of peace, a frightful defalcation in the national income presents itself, which nothing, we apprehend, but additional burdens can supply. Under these theorizing principles our wealth and energies have for years been wasting, and will continue to waste, until some great practical statesman shall arise, and Turning from the stormy ocean of Politics to the calmer regions of June 30, 1832. |
