Under the pressure of calamity so widely and so deeply felt, it is not surprising if the minds of men, eagerly turned to explore its causes and its remedies, should have been more than ordinarily disposed to impute blame to the conduct of their rulers; nor can it be affirmed that plausible grounds of censure were wanting. The pledge to the observance of economy given by the Regent in his speech to parliament at the opening of the session, seemed to have been inadequately fulfilled; and the suggestions of the opposition members, which appeared to have pointed out various fit objects of retrenchment, had been uniformly over-ruled by a ministry habituated and attached to the reckless profusion on minor objects which naturally accompanies the enormous expenditure of war;-circumstances peculiarly adapted in such times to shake the popular confidence in the wisdom or the integrity of government. A spirit of petitioning for the redress of obvious grievances became general; and numerous public meetings were convened for the purpose, at which the waste and corruption arising from pensions, sinecures, and extravagance of every kind in the administration of the public money, were animadverted upon with great freedom and severity. Such topics of invective powerfully re-acted upon the passions of the inferior orders; and when it was observed, for the first time probably in English history, that political assemblies were numerously and zealously attended by the lowest and most ignorant classes of the community, who were harangued by orators of their own; the more temperate and more respectable opponents of the adminstration withdrew from the scene, apprehensive of giving a sanction to popular tumult, and anxious to await the effect of these formidable demonstrations on the conduct of ministers

This was more especially the result, when, amongst other topics, the long agitated question of parliamentary reform, which the whig party appeared to have abandoned as an impracticability, began to undergo zealous discussion at some of these meetings. In the most guarded petitions presented at this juncture for

redress of grievances, the subject was indeed carefully avoided; but it formed a prominent feature in several remonstrances, and especially in one of a very comprehensive nature, presented to the Prince Regent by the corporation of London. On the whole, these popular assemblages, whatever might be thought of their future tendencies or ultimate objects, were conducted in an orderly and decorous manner; and only in one instance gave occasion to a breach of the public peace, and to acts of an immediately alarming character. This instance occurred on December 2d, when a meeting having been convened in Spa-fields by Mr. Hunt, late candidate for Bristol, to receive the answer to a petition which had been presented to the Prince Regent, a band of desperados, who appeared on the ground with a tri-coloured flag and other banners, after listening to inflammatory harangues from two persons of the name of Watson, began their march towards the city. They procured arms by breaking into a gunsmith's shop on Snow-hill, where a gentleman, who of fered some remonstrance, was shot by the younger Watson; then proceeding down the city in military array, they had the audacity to fire at the Lord Mayor, after three of their body had been seized by him and others and confined within the Royal Exchange. Their number, however, was from the first insignificant; and after plundering two or three shops of arms of various kinds, they were dispersed or taken, without further mischief, and one or two examples were afterwards made of the ring-leaders. After this occurrence, every meeting of this nature in the vicinity of the metropolis was watched by a considerable military force, as well as by strong bodies of special constables.

The marriage of the Princess Charlotte took place on May 2d, and was hailed by the cordial felicitations of the whole English people; who understood that his personal merit alone had recommended the Prince of Saxe Cobourg to the choice of the presumptive heiress of the British throne. This prince had acquired high reputation in the war of Buonaparte, as a commander of

cavalry in the allied army; and accompanying the confederated princes in their visit to England in 1814, the solidity of his understanding and the propriety of his conduct, had so favourably impressed the Prince Regent, that he was readily induced to sanction what was understood to be the wish of his royal daughter. The union of the Princess Mary to the Duke of Gloucester was completed in the month of July; and no application was made to the public purse on this occasion.

The

In the midst of the tranquillity of Europe, an occasion arose in this year for a display of the undaunted valour of the British navy, not less honourable in its principle, than glorious and triumphant in its results. ferocious outrages which the piratical states of Barbary had been permitted to exercise against all the weaker Mediterranean powers, unchecked by the interference of Great Britain, had frequently afforded foreigners a topic of reproach against the mistress of the sea, which it was now determined that they should no longer possess. Early, therefore, in the spring of this year, Admiral Lord Exmouth, who held the chief command in the Mediterranean, received instructions to negociate with the Barbary powers for treating the Ionian Islands as British possessions; to mediate a peace between these powers and Sardinia and Naples; and to procure, if possible, a general abolition of Christian slavery. The Dey of Algiers readily acceded to the two first objects of treaty, but declined all overtures for the accomplishment of the third; the states of Tunis and Tripoly, on the contrary, were prevailed upon to enter into a declaration, that in future they would not make slaves of their prisoners of war, but conform to the practice of civilized Europe. On a second application to the Dey of Algiers on this subject, he alleged that he could not accede to the wishes of the British court, without the concurrence of the Grand Seignior; and an ambassador was dispatched to Constantinople, for whose return Lord Exmouth consented to wait. Before, however, his lordship had quitted the Barbary coast on his return home, the Dey commenced hostilities by the

seizure and imprisonment of the British vice-consul, and by an atrocious massacre of the crews of some Corsican and Neapolitan boasts, who carried on a coral fishery at Bona under protection of the British flag. The news of these insults infused fresh vigor into the resolutions of the British cabinet; and it was determined to send back Lord Exmouth at the head of a force capable of compelling these barbarians to respect the laws of humanity and of nations. He set sail with a fleet consisting of one ship of 110 guns, another of 98, three of 74, five frigates, and several smaller armed vessels; and having rendevoused at Gibraltar, where he was joined by a Dutch squadron of five frigates and a sloop, who proved themselves worthy associates, he quitted that port on August 14th. It was not till the 27th that the fleet was able to reach the bay of Algiers; and the interval had been well improved by the Dey in throwing up new works about his city, and assembling a large army for its defence. A flag of truce was sent with the demands of the Prince Regent, to which the Dey was required to send an answer within three hours; but none being received, the gallant admiral made the signal for the attack, which he led in person in the Queen Charlotte, of 110 guns. Owing to the strength and situation of the Algerian defences, and the steadiness and courage of the troops by whom they were manned, the action was long and obstinate, and afforded scope for the full display of British heroism: a fire more tremendous, on both sides, than was perhaps ever before witnessed, continued from a quarter before three to nine, without intermission; and partially for more than two hours longer. But the result was decisive; the batteries of the Algerines had been destroyed; nearly their whole navy, the arsenal, and all the mili tary stores, consumed by fire; and several thousand men had been killed or wounded; and the next day the admiral imposed, and the Dey accepted, the terms of a conqueror. These were, the abolition for ever of Christian slavery; the immediate delivery to his lordship of all slaves, of whatever nation, in the dominions

of the Dey, and of all the money received by him for the redemption of slaves since the beginning of the year; a public acknowledgement made, and pardon asked by the Dey of the British consul, in presence of his ministers and officers. The captives thus rescued were freely conveyed to their own shores, and the sums recovered were transmitted, untouched by the captors, to the courts of Naples and Sardinia. Great Britain performed this splendid service to Christendom, without stipulation and without reimbursement, magnanimously contenting herself with the pure and brilliant glory of such a victory, atchieved in such a cause.