PROGRESS OF PUBLICATION.
Memoirs and Trials of the Political Martyrs of Scotland, is a revised and extended reprint of the article in a recent number of Tail's Magazine, exposing the Tory tyrannies perpetrated in Edinburgh in 1793-9.1 on the pretence of sedition. The publica- tion is well-timed, both to aid the meeting which Mt.. .Hume is preparing to do honour to the memory of Mu IR and his fellows, and to tune the minds of the persons who may attend. But the tract has mote than a mere temporary interest. The facts of the narrative carry us back to a time when Reformers, who acted up to their principles, had something more to dread than a cut from a dandy official or a frown from the members of some coterie— when the pure old Whigs, deserted by BURKE and PORTLAND, and all the fine-weather birds, boldly stuck to their principles through good and evil report, and neither shrunk from the frowns of a King nor the power of their Parliamentary adver- saries : and they show us Scotch legal Toryism, as base, as servile, and as brutal, as ever was that of the Crown Lawyers of England under the STUARTS,—mixed, too, more especially in the case of NI AC UELN (dignified, in the nomenclature of the Scotch Court, by the title of Lord BuAxFium.)) with a kind of gravelling mental slavery, which looked at independence as an unheard-of crime, to be punished for its daring singularity, yet set off' by a coarse, shrewd impudence, which altogether produces the effect of a tragi-comedy. Take part a a scene. GERRALD is addressing the Court- " There are some men, I know, who see a spectre in every bush. Lord Not- tingham, when the Union was in agitation, declared that the changing of the term England to that of Great Brit time wouhl subvert all the laws of England. And in our own days, there are of the slime description of men ; of whom we may always say, that the word innovation, to use Mortimer's expression, has lumen up their souls like fish in a pond.' After all, the most useful discoveries in philosophy, the most important changes in the history of man, have been in- novations. The Revolution was an innovation ; the Reformatiou was an limo. vatiun ; Christianity itself was an innovation."
Braxfield, wha must have been fuming, could stand this no longer ; and he called out—" You would have been stopped long before this, if you had not been a stranger. All that you have been saying is sedition; and now, may Lords, he is attacking Christianity !" Mr. Gerrald—" I conceive thyself as vindicatine the rights of Britons at large ; and I solemnly di.claim all intention of attacking Christianity. I was merely. stating the fact." Lord Justice Clerk—" Gu on in your own way."
Mr. Gerrald—" I think I may be allowed that, at least."
Lord Justice Clerk—" Go on, Sir." Mr. Gerrald—" I should have been going on if your Lordship had not lute'• rupted me." And he proceeded thus—" Gentlemen, the great charge against me is, that I came down here for the purpose of carrying on reform ; and if I am nut allowed to go into a vindication of these general principles, and an enumeration of particular abuses, I may be condemned indeed, but I certainly am not heard." Baxfield was a shrewd Tory, and a man of some coarse humour. Thought thus patient with the prisoners, he had less toleration for the long-windedness
of the Tory Crown lawyers. When Mr. Gillies closed his speech for Gerrald, and when Mr. Montgomery, thee an Advoeate.Depnte, rose, his Lordship said—" Ye may be as short as ye like, Meister Montgommery. We ken weer much how to act. Say awa'."
The decent Judges had predetermined the result, and the trial was a farce.
The Policy of England towards Spain has two purposes. The first is to confute the historical and political views and opinions put forth in the work attributed to Lord CARNARVON ; which, supposing the facts are correct, is done completely enough, though not very powerfully. The second object of the writer is to stimulate the English public to call upon Government to assist Spain with an army sufficient to form a cordon along the French frontier, so as to prevent CARLOS from receiving supplies ; which lie maintains would put an immediate end to the war. This is possible; but if not, we should be drawn into an immense outlay, embroiled most probably with France, and not only committed, without the powerof retraction, to support the Christinos in Spain come what may, but probably get involved in quarrels with half of Europe besides,—and all for a matter affecting English interests to a very small amount.
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