ated by the People of Spain
as a holy tribunal, which has spread a protecting shade over their
religion for hundreds of years, is, among Protestants, an abomination!
Is that, however, a reason why we should not rejoice that Spain is
restored to the rank of an Independent nation; and that her resources do
not continue at the disposal of a foreign Tyrant, for the annoyance of
Great Britain? Prussia no longer receives decrees from the Tuilleries;
but nothing, we are told, is gained by this deliverance; because the
Sovereign of that Country has not participated, as far as became him, a
popular effervescence; and has withheld from his subjects certain
privileges which they have proved themselves, to all but heated
judgments, not yet qualified to receive. Now, if numbers can blame,
without cause, the British Cabinet for events falling below their
wishes, in cases remote from their immediate concerns, the
reasonableness of their opinions may well be questioned in points where
selfish passion is touched to the quick.--Yes, in spite of the outcry of
such Men to the contrary, every enlightened Politician and discerning
Patriot, however diffident as to what was the exact line of prudence in
such arduous circumstances, will reprobate the conduct of those who were
for reducing public expenditure with a precipitation that might have
produced a convulsion in the State. The Habeas Corpus Act is also our
own near concern; it was suspended, some think without sufficient cause;
not so, however, the Persons who had the best means of ascertaining the
state of the Country; for they could have been induced to have recourse
to a measure, at all times so obnoxious, by nothing less than a
persuasion of its expediency. 'But persuasion (an Objector will say) is
produced in many ways; and even that degree of it which in these matters
passes for conviction, depends less upon external testimony than on the
habits and feelings of those by whom the testimony is to be weighed and
decided upon. A council for the administration of affairs is far from
being as favourably circumstanced as a tribunal of law; for the Party,
which is to pronounce upon the case, has had to procure the evidence,
the sum and quality of which must needs have been affected by previously
existing prejudices, and by any bias received in the process of
collecting it.--The privileges of the subject, one might think, would
never be unjustifiably infringed, if it were only from considerati