out to disperse the people upon the occasion. Looked at soberly, here were no grounds for alarm. Those who write anonymous letters, very seldom act according to those letters. The very act itself shows that the party writing or sending is afraid to do any-thing; and as to the writings on the walls in London, "Rescue BELLINGHAM, or die," these were too low to bestow even contempt upon; besides that, a wise government would have considered that writings of this description might have been, and very likely were, the offspring of men who wished to see severe laws passed against the people, and who really had no object in view but that of calumniating the people and causing them to be enslaved.

132. Nothing ever heard of in man can exceed the calmness with which BELLINGHAM met his fate. He committed the deed on the Mon. day, was tried on the Friday, and was executed the next Monday morning at eight o'clock. He wrote to his wife on the Sunday night, a letter in which he spoke in the greatest calmness of her and of his children; told her that he sent her his watch and his prayer-book, and prayed God to preserve her and her children. After writing this letter, he went to sleep as if nothing extraordinary was expected in the morning. During the trial on the Friday, troops had been placed in readiness at no great distance from the Sessions-house where he was tried. For the time

ecution, a larger portion of troops had been ded. Some thousands of soldiers were in on by five o'clock, and many bodies of miliwere assembled by six, taking their stations, e government papers informed the public, in enient places, least likely to excite the peoattention. At the place of execution, the ner thanked GOD for having enabled him to his fate with so much fortitude and resigna

At the moment when the hangman was ng the usual preparations; at the moment he was going out of the world; at the mo

when he was expecting every breath to be last, his ears were saluted with "God bless God bless you, God Almighty bless you, God ighty bless you!” issuing from the lips of y thousands of persons. persons. The newspapers ined the public that a few persons exclaimed ELLINGHAM for ever!" Others stated that e were many persons anxious to possess some of the deceased; and that the great-coat hich he was executed was sold for ten pounds, e other parts of his dress were bought at a e equally exorbitant. The buttons of his hes were all sold at high prices.

33. These circumstances are of importance as they show what the feeling of the nation. at this time. With regard to the fact of the nder going out of the world amidst the blessof the people, I, the author of this History,

can vouch for its truth, having been an eye and ear-witness of the awful and most memorable scene, standing, as I did, at the window of that prison out of which he went to be executed, and into which I had been put in consequence of a prosecution ordered by this very PERCEVAL, and the result of which prosecution was a sentence to be imprisoned two years amongst felons in Newgate, to pay a thousand pounds to the PRINCE REGENT at the end of the two years, and to be held in bonds for seven years afterwards; all which was executed upon me to the very letter, except that I rescued myself from the society of the felons by a cost of twenty guineas a week, for the hundred and four weeks; and all this had to suffer for having published a paragraph, in which I expressed my indignation at the flogging of English local militia-men, at the town of Ely, in England, under a guard of Hanoverian bayonets. From this cause, I was placed in a situation to witness the execution of this unfortunate man. The crowd was assembled in the open space just under the window at which I stood. I saw the anxious looks; I saw the half-horrified countenances; I saw the mournful tears run down; and I heard the unanimous blessings. What, then, were these tears shed, and these blessings bestowed by Englishmen, upon a murderer! He was a murderer, to be sure; the act was unjustifiable; there is no defence to be offered for it without an

onment of every principle of justice known gst men; but, the people did not rejoice bea murder had been committed; they did ed tears for and bless BELLINGHAM because d committed a murder; but because his act, wicked as it was in itself, had ridded them of hom they looked upon as the leader amongst

y

whom they thought totally bent on the action of their liberties. In a speech which MARQUESS Of WELLESLEY was reported to made a few days after this affair took place, eople of England were described as having ne ferocious and bloody. Not they, indeed. - character was in nothing changed; they still the same humane people; had still the horror at the shedding of blood as their rs had been famed for for a thousand years. conduct upon this occasion only shows, t does show in the most striking light, the discontent that they felt at the terrible laws had been passed, and were almost daily passto abridge their liberties, and to deprive them 1 security, whether for property, limb, or life. 4. The House of Commons, having recovered their fright, made the first use of that rery by proceeding to take measures for grantums of public money to the family of the deed minister, the particulars of which grants be a subject of observation hereafter. In adn to the money, they resolved upon a monu

ment to his memory, as they did in the case of PITT. One member proposed a public funeral, attended by all the heraldic insignia and officers of the king, and to be paid for out of the public money. This intended honour was, however, desisted from, for reasons at which every reader will be able to guess after what has been said of the feelings of the people. The funeral took place on Saturday the 16th of May, at the unusual hour of seven o'clock in the morning, when the body was put into a hearse, and carried to the little village of Charlton, in Kent, about eight miles from London. Whether by accident or not, a considerable body of cavalry-soldiers marched along the same road that the funeral went, a short distance before the hearse. Thus fell SPENCER PERCEVAL, at the threshold of the House of Com

mons, in the 50th year of his age; and, which is not, perhaps, wholly unworthy of notice, he fell on the anniversary of the ever-memorable day of the making of Mr. MADDOX's motion respecting the conduct of this same PERCEVAL, and into the grounds of which motion the honourable body to which they both belonged refused to inquire. Alas! how fleeting are human triumphs, and how capricious is the exercise of human power! With those majorities, those overwhelming majorities, by the means of which he had so often yielded protection to others, when assailed with all the artillery of political warfare, he was not able to pro