“Because _the means to which recourse has been hitherto had in war, have no analogy to the barbarous enactments of this bill, inasmuch as it is not even contended that the privations to be created by it, have any tendency whatever to self-defence, or to compel the enemy to a restoration of peace, the only legitimate object by which the infliction of the calamities of war can in any manner be justified_.” Such was the religious, moral, and political character, given to this bill of Mr. Perceval’s, by our own statesmen. Let us now hear the yet more solemnly recorded opinion of the statesmen of another nation upon Mr. Perceval’s orders in council, of which this formed a part. In the American president’s message to Congress, the following passages occur. “The government of Great Britain had already introduced into her commerce during war, a system _which at once violating the rights of other nations, and resting on a mass of perjury and forgery, unknown to other times, was making an unfortunate progress, in undermining those principles of morality and religion, which are the best foundations of national happiness_.” One more testimony. Napoleon, whose authority, whatever Mr. Perceval and men of his stamp may think, will always have a wonderful influence; Napoleon, at St. Helena, declared, “that posterity would more bitterly reproach Mr. Pitt for the hideous school he left behind him, than for any of his own acts; _a school marked by its insolent machiavelism, its profound immorality, its cold egotism, its contempt for the well-being of men and the justice of things_.” Mr. Perceval was an eminent champion of this hideous school, which we thus find the leading men of England, France, and America, uniting to condemn. And shall a musty Latin proverb protect such a politician from the avenging page of history? The human mind is not to be so fettered. Already the work of retribution is in progress. Mr. Perceval the younger, with something of fatuity, hath called up Mr. Cobbett to testify to his father’s political merit. Commending that rugged monitor of evil statesmen for his “_vigorous sentences_,” for his “_real English spirit and feeling_,” he cannot now demur to his authority; let him then read and reflect deeply on the following passages from that eminent writer’s works, and he may perhaps discover, that to defend his father’s political reputation with success will prove a difficult and complicate task. If the passages are painful to Mr. Perceval, if the lesson is severe, I am not to blame. It is not I but himself who has called up the mighty seer, and if the stern grim spirit, thus invoked, will not cease to speak until all be told, it is not my fault. * * * * * [Sidenote: History of George IV.] EXTRACTS FROM MR. COBBETT’S WRITINGS. _Extract 1.—Of Mr. Perceval’s harshness._