Some of our readers may probably view these reproaches as unmerited aspersions, or hateful invectives, proceeding from a vindictive, malignant, and democratic spirit, and their author deserving to be anathematized as the most execrable of the human race. But TRUTH, irrefragable Truth, is our defence; she has now burst her bonds, and will no longer be prevented, by the threats of power, from boldly speaking out! Common observation, indeed, might have ascertained that the unnatural and usurped power, which so long controlled the destinies of this country, was of a _foreign_ character, and totally at variance with the constitution and chartered rights of Englishmen! Did not JUNIUS expose the illegality of this power? and did not the noble-minded CHATHAM remonstrate against it? But though Tyranny and Corruption trembled to their very centres at the attacks of these champions of liberty, the base fabricks remained unimpaired till the death of their mistress,--the puissant Charlotte of Mecklenburgh Strelitz!
We come now more immediately to the consideration of those political transactions that ensued when the final incapacity of George the Third to discharge the duties of his sovereignty was made known. At this period, Queen Charlotte, in collusion with her hopeful son, the Prince of Wales, came into full power, which she exercised with a spirit truly in accordance with her restless ambition and mercenary desires. A system of despotism, veiled under the specious garb of piety and the country's safety, was immediately put in force; and new taxes levied under various pretences, but in reality for the purpose of bestowing wealth on her zealous adherents. Indeed, in every proposition of the "devourers of the public wealth," for increasing the amount of "SECRET-SERVICE MONEY," a zealous abettor was always found in the queen. German craft is never at a loss for deceptive plans, nor is German prejudice easily pacified. No machinations were too hideous, nor too infamous, when suggested by the one to gratify the other. If the queen and her son had gained what they strenuously endeavoured to obtain--ABSOLUTE POWER--who would not have justly felt alarm, not merely for the liberties of his country, but for his own individual safety? The proscriptions of the Roman Decemviri and the more recent and horrible cruelties of the French Robespierre are appalling instances of what people CAN DO when armed with absolute power. Had these guardians of the British public, therefore, but succeeded in obtaining such power, to what lengths they would have gone may be estimated by the crimes they actually did commit and countenance without it! Where would the voice of mercy have prevailed on them to sheath the sword of persecution? Their ministers, by distorting the constitution from its original meaning, presumed to tear Englishmen from the bosom of their families, without any assigned cause, loading them with irons, and immolating them in damp and dreary dungeons! Some actually died, horrible as the fact may appear, under this treatment, while the survivers were released without any investigation, without any trial whatever,--nay, without their even being made acquainted with the nature of the suspected offence,--and denied the slightest redress for their cruel injuries! Considering, we say, that such monstrous injustice was practised, it is not too much to suppose that, with absolute power, the same parties would have erected the triangle at the Royal Exchange and at the Mews! We might then have expected to see Englishmen running naked through the streets of London, with caps of burning pitch upon their heads, and blood streaming from their lacerated bodies, or observed them hanging on the lamp-posts, or before their burning dwellings! Did not these horrors actually take place in Ireland in the years 1797 and 1798, when the tyrannical Castlereagh held a public situation in that betrayed, forlorn, and persecuted country? At the very time these atrocities were committed in Ireland, spies, informers, executioners, and all the refuse of society, were employed as the principal instruments of Castlereagh's government; and when Queen Charlotte and her son made that Hibernian monster minister of this country, Castle, Oliver, and Edwards, with many other such wretches, shared the smiles and favours of himself and his colleagues.