They were not very long in power before they stretched forth their long arm after the notorious William Cobbett for the publication of certain libels with intent to traduce His Majesty’s Government in Ireland, and the persons employed in the administration thereof, particularly Lord Hardwicke, Lord Redesdale, Mr. Marsden, and the Hon. Charles Osborne, contained in certain letters signed Juverna. He was tried on the 24th of May, and found guilty. On the 26th he had another action brought against him for slandering Mr. Plunket, in his official capacity as Solicitor-General for Ireland, and was cast in a verdict for £500. On the 27th of June the Abolition of the Slave Trade was read a third time in the Commons, and some curious facts came out in debate. One member called attention to the fact that there were 7,000 French prisoners on the Island of Barbadoes, besides a great number in prison-ships, and feared they would foment discontent among the negroes, who did not distinguish between the abolition of the slave trade and immediate emancipation. He also pointed out that the Moravian missionaries on the island were teaching, most forcibly, the fact that all men were alike God’s creatures, and that the last should be first and the first last. An honourable member immediately replied in vindication of the missionaries, and said that no fewer than 10,000 negroes had been converted in the Island of Antigua, _and that their tempers and dispositions had been, thereby, rendered so much better, that they were entitled to an increased value of £10_. Next day the Bill was taken up to the Lords and read for the first time, during which debate the Duke of Clarence said: “Since a very early period of his life, when he was in another line of profession—which he knew not why he had no longer employment in—he had ocular demonstration of the state of slavery, as it was called, in the West Indies, and all that he had seen convinced him that it not only was not deserving of the imputations that had been cast upon it, but that the abolition of it would be productive of extreme danger and mischief.” Before the second reading he also presented two petitions against it, and when the second reading did come on, on the 3rd of July, Lord Hawkesbury moved that such reading should be on that day three months, and this motion was carried without a division, so that the Bill was lost for that year. The Invasion Scare, although dying out, in this year was far from dead; but, though people did not talk so much about it, the Government was vigilant and watchful, as was shown by many little matters—notably the signals. In the eastern district of England were 32,000 troops ready to move at a moment’s notice; whilst the hoisting of a red flag at any of the following stations would ensure the lighting of all the beacons, wherever established: