Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/294

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doctrine of divine right. We do not wonder that the writer, after this "delicious declaration," thought it proper to apologize to his court-readers for expressing his approbation of the abolition of the Slave Trade, as indirectly compromising those principles of legitimacy, which make one part of the species the property of another, and which we have seen so successfully established in Europe as the basis of liberty, humanity, and social order!




The Opposition and the Courier

July 19, 1817.

The Opposition, it seems, with Mr. Brougham at their head, "attack all that is valuable in our institutions." So says Lord Castlereagh; and, to make the thing the more incredible, so says The Courier! They attack Sir Judkin Fitzgerald and the use of the torture; and therefore they attack all that is valuable in our institutions. They attack the system of spies and informers; and therefore they attack all that is valuable in our institutions. They object to the moral characters of such men as Castles and Oliver; and therefore they attack all that is most respectable in the country. They consider Lord Sidmouth, who is "to acquaint us with the perfect spy o' th' time," as no conjurer, treat his circular letters and itinerant incendiaries with as little ceremony as respect; and therefore they are hostile to all that is venerable in our constituted authorities. They do not approve of the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus, of Standing Armies, and Rotten Boroughs; and therefore they would overturn all that is most valuable in the Constitution. They say that Lord Castlereagh was connected with the measures of the Irish government in the year 1798; and they are said to hold a language "grossly libellous." They say that they do not wish the same system to be introduced by his Lordship in this country; and their principles are denounced as "of a decidedly revolutionary character."