numerous List of unemployed Foreign Ministers, who are now a burthen on the public purse. I am not one of those who disapprove of a due and reasonable provision being made for those who have devoted their lives to the public service, especially in a branch of it where the salaries, not being more than adequate to the necessary expences of the station, afford no means of laying up any provision for old age or infirmity; neither should I object generally to the amount of the provision which has been made in these instances, if my information be correct as to the difference between the apparent amount, as stated in the report, and the real amount received, the latter being, as I am told, about two thirds only of the former (what becomes of this difference?); but I may possibly, in a future letter, observe upon some particular cases, which bear very strong marks of jobs, or in which the remuneration far exceeds the length and importance of the service performed. For the present, I shall content myself with adverting to the extraordinary circumstance of new persons having been selected of late for foreign stations, whilst the old ones continue thus burthensome on the revenue. The selections I refer to, are too recent to need being pointed at, and they could not have been motived by any previous trial of the respective capacities of the persons selected, in as much as these persons, as far as I can learn, were never before employed.-Now, Sir, if the old ministers, who figure on this pension list, are all of them unfit for the discharge of the duties of the stations to which the new men have been appointed; if none could be found in this list who are capable of managing the national concerns Cagliari, Lisbon, Sicily, &c. then there must have been a most lamentable want of discernment, or something worse, in the predecessors of the present secretary of state, by whom these incapable men were so improperly thrust into public employments; and the pensions which have been granted to them are a most reprehensible waste of the public money. But if, on the other hand, these pensioned ministers are still able to execute the duties of their profession, either better or even as well as the "young friends" (for the right honourable secretary treads in the early steps of his prototype Pitt in drawing satellites around him); if, I say, the old ministers are more capable or as capable as the young friends whom the rays of the right

at

honourable secretary's favour have ille mined and vivified, then the preference of these latter is at once an act of gross injustice to the former, whose claims had a stronger foundation in past services, and to the public, who thus become most unnecessarily burthened with a large additional expence, without the prospect of being more profitably served. Leaving the right honourable secretary on the horns of this dilemma, I remain, Sir, his and your obedient Servant, B.

MR. WARDLE.

Sir; The following Letter was sent for insertion in the Morning Chronicle, a few days after the communication appeared which gave rise to it. By that impartial Journal it was deemed inadmissible: but as it attempts a defence of some opinions contained in your Political Register, from the misrepresentations of its calumniators, a space perhaps may be there afforded it in defect of better materials.

To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle.

Sir; In your paper of the 8th of September, I find a long and elaborate com munication, on the subject of "Colonel Wardle's Trial," from a correspondent, who subscribes himself" a Lover of Truth." The lucubrations of this writer must be deemed the more valuable, as they are, confessedly, the production of a mind habitually conversant in the arts of logomachy, and practised in the wiles of disputa tion; of one, who, though living in a remote part of the country, is yet accus tomed "weekly to read the papers and "to discuss the politics of the day, at a "club which assembles every Saturday "night." Whether the present be the first effort, on the part of these illustrious statesmen, to give publicity to their pa triotic vigils, we are not told: In mercy to mankind, we hope it will not be the last; but that, emulating a like institution, whose proceedings they will find detailed with impressive solemnity in "Memoirs of P. P." a distinguished rural politician, their consultations may gain the ear of ministry, and direct the operations of legislature. -Not content, however, with simply dis closing his alliance with this respectable assembly, your correspondent condescendingly admits us to participate their councils: and gives us to understand, that be, "and some others, who constituted a very small minority at the weekly meetings,"

have maintained a long, laborious, but at length successful struggle against their numerous and prejudiced associates. Indeed, he seems wonderfully to congratulate himself on the peculiar felicity of his discernment. He appears to have been favoured, for some mysterious purpose, no doubt, with a spirit of political second sight; to have harboured suspicions" for which he could assign no cause; and to have detected the fermentations of revenge and conspiracy, when they escaped the notice of every body else." These discoveries, too, were made at a time when the promulgation of them " produced no small degree of heat and controversy at the weekly meetings"!! It is enlivening, however, to learn, that an assembly, possessing so powerful an influence on the public welfare, is at length restored to comparative harmony: "There is not now," thank heaven! above two or three who adhere to their old opinions"; and we must hold ourselves deeply indebted to your correspondent, for the interesting intelligence, whatever be the precise object of his communications: whether it be to eulogize his own preternatural sagacity, or utterly to confound and demolish those two or three refractory spirits, who remain impervious to remonstrance,

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"And who, though vanquished, yet will argue still."

At one time, indeed, it should seem, these disconsolate disputants were almost reduced to silence and despair. How unlucky then must we regard the arrival of those inflammatory "papers"! and how ought we to pursue with execration those artful writers who have given ardour to stupidity, and language to dumb-foundedness! -I fear, Mr. Editor, you will be more disposed to admire my temerity than my prudence, in presuming to take the field against a foe so formidable; in daring to frown defiance on one who enjoys the stated advantages of hebdomadal discussion, and who domineers over the politics of a neighbourhood. But, Sir, I must declare that, notwithstanding the laboured ingenuity of your correspondent, I do still think the mode of reasoning," upon which he has lavished his animadversions, neither manifestly unfair, nor particularly complicated and why he should choose to represent his refractory brethren, ast incapable of arriving at it by their unaided efforts of excogitation, unless by way of contrasting his own perspicuity by their dulness, I really have not the

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pleasure to comprehend. How far the reasoning of the club may partake of the above mentioned qualities, remains to be examin ed.-The general propositions, laid down with such imposing formality, by your correspondent, I am fully disposed to admit. It is very certain that the evidence of testimony unsupported by correlative circumstances, is mainly regulated by the value of personal character; that the bias of interest" will render it suspicicus; and that the violation of truth will justify us in "setting it aside, as totally unworthy of belief." Let us look a little at the application of these data.-Mrs. Clarke, for the benevolent purpose of paying her upholsterer's bill, thinks proper to prefer a charge against Colonel Wardle, the very existence of which, according to "a Lover of Truth," she had most unequivocally denied in the house of commons. Here we have both interest and contradiction. Now for the inference-That her accusation is false, her testimony worthless?-I thank you, says our acute logician; but that is not exactly the purpose for which my propositions were schemed. I brought them forward not to uphold the sinking cause" of Col. Wardle, believe me, but to assist the Duke of York. In the name of common sense, Mr. Editor, why should his royal highness be hooked up so triumphantly? In what respects can Mrs. Clarke's saying or unsaying her story of negociation prove or disprove a charge perfectly distinct? How can her "variance of testimony," in this instance, bear upon a case in which there is no variance. Her general credibility as a witness, indeed, it may and does affect: her unsubsantiated evidence it may and does impair; and if this be all your correspondent has fatigued his faculties to evince, I would beg leave to tell him, he has only undertaken to prove what every man in his wits was fully convinced of. But he must excuse me for adding, that, so long as he has stamped no contradiction on the proof of connivance; so long as he leaves it in medio whether that proof do rest on "unsupported testimony," he has gained nothing to his purpose. The former indeed, he has attempted, by convicting Mrs. Clarke of a practical falsehood in the very fact of accusing COL. WARDLE! but the latter he has wittily tossed over to a “friend.”—As for Mrs. Clarke, it is by no means my intention to perplex myself with her defence. I consign her to the malediction of "the club" without remorse. This

infuriated leader of a triumphant majority may pour upon her devoted head the whole He -storm of his accumulated vengeance. is perfectly welcome. But can he be ignorant that, in so doing he is essentially befriending the " sinking cause," of Col. Wardle? Can it possibly escape his selfpraised discernment, that upon this very hinge the incredibility of her interested and contradictory testimony - Colonel Wardle's justification entirely turns? Your correspondent, Sir, professes to be disconcerted with the "unfairness" of the 4 mode of reasoning," assumed by Mr Cobbett and other writers, in favour of Colonel Wardle: apparently unsuspicious that the whole course of his own argumentation is diametrically opposite to that first taken, by their disinterested adversaries, on the occasion of the trial. Far from attempting to convict Mrs. Clarke of contradiction, they hailed her return to their broken and dispirited ranks with the most extravagant exultation. Far from calling into question, in this instance, the credibility of her depositions, they generously entertained every word of them; and were even willing to pardon her former deviations into propriety, in their first flush of gratitude for this new and almost unhoped-for display of perfidy. Now, in opposition to this ridiculous inconsistency, I do contend, it was perfectly fair to argue, that if Mrs. Clarke's testimony was so very immaculate when offered against Mr. Wardle, it was not absolutely incredible when produced against the Duke of York; that if, as a credible witness, she stigmatized Mr. Wardle with negotiation, his royal highness, by parity of reasoning, could not possibly be exonerated from connivance. But now steps forward a controversialist of a new description: who thinks proper to shift the ground of the argument; who skulks behind the artillery, and then, with a bravery truly admirable, derides its ineffectual fire. defender of corruption, we may pardon this ingenious writer for his adroitness: his conduct is equally fair with that of the generality of his friends:

As a

Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit; unus atrique

Error, sed variis illudit partibusFor who, I ask, but one habituated to the everlasting wranglings of a weekly vigil, would ever think of maintaining, that the point blank contradictions of this misguided woman, should confirm her credibility in one instance, and destroy it in another; and that too, when the proof of dishourable collusion in Col. Wardle, rests infinitely more on contradictory and unsubstantiated evidence, than the proof of connivance in the Duke of York. Your correspondent, Sir, calls her evidence "consistent;" and in the former case yet (mark the absurdity of error) is actually at the pains of shewing that in daring even to assert the charge, she stands clearly convicted of deliberate falsehood.

What! was the testimony delivered in court, indeed more "free from the strong bias of personal interest," was it really more clear and better supported than that produced in parliament? The witnesses to collateral facts were perhaps more numerous? This, I should think, would hardly be imposed on the club." The parties then were less interested in the re sult? Possibly, though I confess I do not recollect that even one witness was interrogated, who had 1,9007. depending on the inquiry, or whose profits were augmented in proportion to the extravagance of a confederate. Or, lastly, were "truth," and

justice" out-faced by the specious purity of reputation? This, indeed, seems a point, not undesirable to your correspondent's argument, But, yet, Sir, as far as I can ind, the leading witness was in both cases the same; and it is certain, her character sustained a much severer scretiny in the house of commons, than in the court of King's Bench. If there were some of our representatives, who indulged their eloquence, in "expatiating on her fine feelings, and her beautiful evidence," there were others, who did not scruple to handle those fine feelings very roughly, and to twist that beautiful evidence, into every possibility of distortion. Indeed, Sir, I am greatly mistaken, if it will not puzzle more than the combined efforts of your two ingenious correspon dents to prove, that Mrs. Clarke's deposi tions were received in evidence upon trust; or that, supposing her then to have divulged her pretensions to infamy and dishonour, much more could have been done in at tempting to divest the current of publie