sincere advice, and the zealous ed with a heap of trash such as efforts of their neighbours and might be supposed to proceed fellow sufferers to the confused from a mashing up of proceedings gibberish, the jew-like slang, the at police-offices along with scraps false professions and greedy views of plays, gambling-house news, of the out part of The Regiment ? and boxers' slang? This is a Natural Leaders, indeed! What! pretty set to be the "natural are we to acknowledge as our na"leaders" of an intelligent, a tural leaders a set of men, who have proved, by a thousand thou-reading, a well-informed, a publicsand acts, that they have no feel-spirited people, full of genius. and ing for us and no one fragment of full of energy! Faith, my friends feeling in common with us; a set of Coventry, they will find, that' of men made up of the refuse of we are not to be led by such peothe crafty and cold-blooded Pit-ple! What! a score or two of tites and of the half-crazy pu-old drivellers with a long string pils of the school of the cunning of hungry flatterers at their heels; old monk BURKE, who took care, are these the natural leaders of the like a Capuchin, to cram his own People of England; and that, too, wallet while he was frightening in this age of light; in this age of fools out of their wits; a set of men, who, if you subtract about five, have notas much sense as any equal number of coal heavers; a set of men half adventurers and half fox-hunters, the former remarkable only for low 'Change Alley trick, and the latter only for stupid animal pride and insolence; a set of men, who, taking them in a mass, have minds, if you can call them minds at all, furnish reason, of experience, and of real knowledge? All the talents of the Grenvilles, the Wynnes, the Miltons, the Elliots, the Lambs, and of the whole set put together; the clubbing of all their talents would not produce a paper such as I have at this moment lying before me, written by a journey man manufacturer, and to which paper, I beg the writer to be as sured, I shall pay the greatest at- from the brains of PERRY's "natention. Such a man as this might," tural leaders" of the people! indeed, with propriety, be called a "natural leader" of the people. Compared with the fine, clear statement, the cogent argument, the noble sentiments, of this worthy man, whose letter is dated However, I am anticipating here, the observations which I have to make on the incapacity of these pretended leaders. You feel but too sensibly the mischiefs, which The Regiment have done you; the misery and the disgrace which they have brought upon our country. Their wickedness you know enough of: it shall be the object of my Letter C: to exhibit to you some, at least, of their on the 16th November last, and In the meanwhile, I remaîn 4 Your faithful friend, And obedient servant, WM. COBBETT Entered at Stationers' Hall. Printed and Published by and for WM. JACKSON, No. 11, Newcastle Street, and No. 191, Strand, London. Vol. 33, No. 16.---Price Two Pence. COBBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAL REGISTER. 475] LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1818. TO HENRY HUNT, ESQ. LETTER IV. DERBY BEHEADINGS.-STEWART CO- MaAllister's Tavern, near Harrisburgh, MY DEAR HUNT, [476 ROUGH, and executed as Traitors, the prosecutors being Shepherd, the Attorney-General, with nine other lawyers to assist him, while the poor prisoners, who had no rich friend to assist them, were left to the defence of two assigned counsel, one of whom was a man named Cross, who lives at Manchester. The object, which was in view in exciting these men to commit this foolish breach of the peace is clear enough. It was to give a shadow of ground for the hellish measures which had been previously adopted against the people; and, therefore, the ASSIGNED counsel, Cross, bent his efforts, not to obtain a verdict for the I have not much to add on the prisoners, but to cause it to be subject of the Derby beheadings. believed, that they had been instiThe whole matter, rise, progress gated to act, not by the hired inand all is, and must be, so wellstigators, but by me, against whose understood, that further exposure writings, as is very notorious, the is useless. In one word: we all infernal measures had been leknow what ought to be done: all velled. that remains, is, to find out the means of doing it; and to discover such means and accelerate their operation shall be my incessant endeavour. It is right, however, to make a sort of record of the terrible affair at Derby. It appears, that a few men, not exceeding two hundred in the whole, misled and urged on by hired spies and instigators, made a sort of riot. Three of them, BRANDRETH, TURNER, and LUDLAM, have been tried for levying war against the king, found guilty by a jury consisting wholly of Farmers, condemned by judges, RICHARDS, ABBOTT, and Bo Now, to diverge here, for a moment, from the path of mere narrative, let me remind you, that my writings had been characterized as seditious and blasphemous. The first quality was given to them in order to raise the cry of rogues against them, and the second to raise that of fools. It is well known how false both characters were. It is well known, that I have uniformly inculcated a strict obedience to the laws, and that I have, as uniformly, deprecated all attempts to meddle with any body's religion in any way whatever, professing, for myself, my resolution to believe Q Printed by W. Jackson, 11, Newcastle Street, Strand. 66 nothing about the matter, except templated, I dare say, a dismissal what I am bidden to believe by of juries from all cases of libel; the Church of England. Reli- or, perhaps, an imprimatur or gion is a mystery; as such the censorship, in the true Bourbon Church considers it; as such I style. This work of paving was, consider it; and I have not the at once, caught up from his aspresumption to attempt to reason signed lips, and carried on, it now about it. My good old grand- appears, with great industry by mother took the creeds as the those two blood-hunters, Stewart Church presented them to her. and Stoddart. The occasion was She taught them to me; and favourable. The fears of the as I received them from her, so foolish and timid people of proI still hold them. It is for men perty; the compassion of people. like "O'CONNOR," who dispense in general for the poor sufferers, with the use of their names of their wives and children; the awbaptism, to refuse their assent to ful scene; the horrid spectacle; the authenticity of the Bible, the feelings of shame for the while they pretend to believe in country. All these were at work a supreme Being," which latter on the minds and hearts of the belief must be built upon some nation at large; and, it was at discoveries of their own surprising this moment, that these hirelings powers of reason, unless they have of the Boroughmongers endeafound out some other revelation, of voured to make the nation believe, which we common mortals have that the unlawful acts and the no knowledge; but, amongst all horrid fate of the unfortunate "O'CONNOR's" other discoveries, men all arose from my writings it seems strange, that he should and your speeches. If they could not have discovered the supreme cause this to be generally believed, folly of swearing upon the Evan- then, it was plain, that the mass gelists against a man's ears, and of the nation would the more then acknowledging, that he him- easily consent to the adoption of self did not give faith to the book some measures completely to silence that he had sworn upon! How-the press; for, this was still a great ever, let us leave the conduct of object, seeing that the "Two"the descendant of the last of" penny-trash' penny-trash" was now REVI"Irish Kings", as being matter too high for our comprehension; and let us return to the Derby narrative, or, at least, to matter immediately connected with the *late horrible spectacle, exhibited in that town. CROSS, well knowing what he was about, studiously kept the hired spies out of sight, and he pitched on upon me, in order, party to afford a justification for the Bourbon System, and partly to pave the way FÓR FURTHER MEASURES AGAINST THE PRESS, amongst which was con VED, so contrary to the expectations of Mr. WOOLER and the COURIER. It had, indeed, been revived for three months. It had been supposed (very likely) that it was a mere flash; but, when it was seen, that it was pouring on in a regular course, as usual, CoRRUPTION, who had hugged herself in fancied triumph at my departure, began to think, that, if she did not do more, she had, as yet, really done nothing to secure her in the end. These were the real causes of the conduct of Cross and of Stew 66 the Press than the present."-I really wonder, that the slave did not, as proofs of this friendship for the Liberty of the Press, cite the gagging Bills and the dungeon Bills. art and Stoddart in this instance. 1" of our country, any administraTaking the nation in the state of" tion is to be found that has been mind above described, Cross de- "more friendly to the Liberty of fended most courageously, not his poor clients, but Sidmouth's Circular! Cross called upon the magistrates to act upon that Circular! Stoddart and Stewart urged the necessity of new measures to repress the publications of the sedi- It is curious, however, to see tious, and particularly of Cobbett., how the slave draws back upon Proceeding in the old way of finding, that the thing "wo'nt do" paving, the COURIER, on the just yet! Like a pigeon-killing 25th of November, 1817, think cat, he is just darting forth upon ing, apparently, that it had made his prey; but, perceiving that he its ground firm under it, boldly has been a little too much in haste, breaks to the public the intentions he falls softly back to his former of Corruption in the following station. "No," says he, "no words: The Country will learn new laws, we repeat, are in "with pleasure, that measures are contemplation; but an active, "in contemplation for EFFEC-"vigilant, firm execution of the "TUALLY suppressing the auda"old." What, more active and "cious libels which shock and dis- vigilant than Perceval, Gibbs, gust every honest man, whatever Shepherd and Sidmouth? More party he may belong to. Hav-firm than the brave old gentlemen, ing all a common interest in the who sent me to prison for two "welfare of the State, we must years, made me pay a thousand "all INTUITIVELY feel that pounds fine, and bound me over "the common_good will be pro- for seven years? Oh! the foolish "moted by the EXTINCTION fellow! What more can they do 66 of those writings which aim only with the old laws, as he calls them, "to unsettle all our notions in re-than they have done? Is there any "ligion, morals, and politics." thing more to be done with SidThe common good" of the mouth's circular and with the gagBoroughmongers he means. How-ging bills than to act upon them? ever, the vile traitor appears here The slave has mentioned BURKE to have shown the intentious a here, as one who complained, that little too soon, for, being assailed the laws were suffered to sleep, and the next day by PERRY, he affects as having called for severity. Mr. to be surprised, that his words had WINDHAM told me, in the preexcited alarm; and he assures the sence of the man, who is called public, that no such intentions are the Right Honourable WILLIAM entertained. "We believe," says ELLIOT, that BURKE disapthe traitor," we may assure the proved of trying Messrs. TooKE "public, with perfect confidence, and HARDY for treason. "Give "that there is not the slightest in- them," said he, "a good thumping "tention on the part of his Majesty's "MISDEMEANOUR. They "Ministers, to propose any fresh" (meaning the jury) won't take "restrictions upon the Liberty of" their lives; but they'll very glad"the Press. Indeed we may fear-"ly send them to jail for you. lessly ask, where, in the history This old pensioned hack, who was |