long; and this apprehension has been strengthened by a subsequent division in the House of Commons, on a motion made by Lord Porchester for appointing a committee to inquire into the conduct of the Walcheren expedition. This motion was resisted by ministers, as premature; the information promised by his Majesty to the house not having yet been furnished. The house, - however, thought differently: 195 voting for the committee of inquiry, and only 186 against it. On this point, however-viz. the stability of administration-we do not pretend to speculate.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

The Isle of Bourbon, in the East Indies, surrendered to a squadron of four frigates and a sloop of war, under the command of Commodore Rowley, on the 21st of Septem

ber. A French frigate, and the Europe and Streatham East-India ships, were found in the harbour, and taken possession of.

Measures of increased severity have been adopted against British commerce by the governments of Denmark and Holland. Bọnaparte appears, at the same time, to have greatly relaxed the rigours of his commercial decrees, as they relate to France. He has permitted com to be freely exported from that country in neutral bottoms; in which may be imported, in exchange, a variety of articles, which are enumerated: and though he professes to exclude the produce and manufactures of Great Britain, yet he must be aware that such a reservation is altogether nugatory. The quantity of com brought from France to this country has been very large.

WARDLE versus F. AND D. WRIGHT, AND MRS. CLARKE.

We stated in our last number the issue of this trial, and intimated our intention of resuming the subject. Col. Wardle, it will be remembered, had been declared, by the verdict of a jury, liable to pay above 1000l. for furniture, supplied by Mr. Wright, for the use of Mrs. Clarke; in consequence of testimony, given by Mrs. Clarke and Mr. Wright's brother, that he had come to Wright's house with that lady, and made himself expressly answerable for it. Mr. Wardle, indignant at this decision, addressed the public in a letter, in which were these words: "There only remains for me now, before God and my country, to declare the verdict was obtained by perjury alone; and I do pledge myself to prove that fact the earliest moment the forms of the law will allow me to do so." In commenting on this subject in one of our former numbers, we naturally assured, in the same manner, indeed, as almost every one else, that Col. Wardle was about to prosecute the witnesses for perjury; their "perjury" being the fact" upon which he declared himself at issue with them, and on which, therefore, his intended prosecution would be made to turn. He took, however, another course. He prosecuted, not each for perjury, but the whole together for a conspiracy; by which proceeding, as it seems to us, the perjury became a point merely to be interred, certainly not the specific crime that was to be punished. Lord Ellenborough seems to have taken great alarm at this mode of proceeding, for a reason which his Jordship's own words will best explain. "The defendants might all have been in

dicted for perjury, which, in truth, is the correct course that ought to have been pursued; and I am not a little alarmed at this new measure of combining in one charge of conspiracy all the witnesses to a transaction, respecting which they have given their testimony on oath.. Indictment for couspiracy, in every case, has this hardship belonging to it, that it deprives every individual, included in such indictment, of the power of calling those as witnesses who are combined in the indictment. If witnesses, instead of being questioned, and having their credibility impeached, should be thus combined in one aggregate prosecution, and stripped of the advantage of the evidence of each other, it is a hardship of the most severe nature, and which I shall be very sorry to see imposed again."

But we proceed to the trial.

Col. Wardle, as well as Major Dodd and Col. Glennie, who were present on the occasion of the meeting at Wright's house, severally swore that no engagement or undertaking to pay for the furniture in question had been made: and thus the testimony of Wright's brother, and Mrs. Clarke, and indeed also the oath of Wright himself, the prosecutor in the first cause, stood opposed to that of three new witnesses;-of whom, however, two might have been brought forward in the first cause with much more propriety than in the second. Had the question turned on the preference due to the two sets of contending witnesses, there might have been some difficulty in deciding. On the one hand, Mrs. Clarke certainly was, from general character, de

erving of little credit;-Wright was interested, since he hoped to gain payment of his bill by the prosecution;—and Wright's brother might be supposed to have some leaning to his relation, who was also his employer, though on the whole a very fit Col. Wardle, on and competent witness. the other hand, was no less interested than Wright;-Major Dodd's testimony, or at least his general character, was in some measure impaired by the circumstance of his being private secretary to the Duke of Sussex at the very time when he was extracting from the Duke of York's mistress anecdotes to the prejudice of his Royal Highness. There is something undoubtedly extremely revolting to the feelings of respectable men, in the idea of a person's enjoying the confidence, and passing continually into the company, of one son of his Sovereign, and being busily occupied, at that very period, in detecting the faults of another son of the same Sovereign, through the medium of a cast-off mistress, with whom he condescended to travel for that purpose. We cannot wonder that Major Dodd has lost his office, and the emoluments of it: he ought himself to have resigned it, antecedently to his taking the path which he has pursued. Col. Glennie's testimony does not appear to us, on the face of the trial, to have been liable to any particular exception. It should, however, be remembered, that his evidence, as well indeed as that of Major Dodd, must necessarily be somewhat less conclusive in its nature than that of the ether party, inasmuch as they were brought to prove a negative. The words, or something like the words, affirmed to have been spoken, might have been uttered, and though heard by the one set of witnesses, might not have been equally adverted to by some of the others. We say, therefore, that here was nearly a balance of testimonies; and if it was a balance, we incline to think, that, both from the nature of the trial, and

from the circumstance of an antecedent verdict being to be overthrown, the proper course might have been to re-affirm the former decision. Such also seems to have been the opinion of the judge. But a new witness was brought; and his testimony appears to us to have so completely established the propriety of acquitting the persons charged with a conspiracy, that we are not at all surprized at the readiness with which the jury proceeded to their verdict of acquittal. Mr. Stokes, solicitor to Mrs. Clarke--a man of good character, as far as appears, and well acquainted with Mr. Alley, counsel for

the prosecutor-swore, that, be being about to
be called up as an evidence before the House
of Commons on the part of Col. Wardle, had
suggested to the Colonel himself, that it
would be better not to call him, inasmuch as.
he should perhaps be obliged to disclose
what he knew of " Mrs. Clarke's being to
derive considerable advantages for coming
forward upon the investigation ;" and that
he had also dissuaded the calling of Wright
Some of his words,
for the same reason.
given on oath in the trial, are as follow:"
-"Col. Wardle said,This is Wright the
upholsterer: he is come to be examined by
me.' I said, 'You surely do not mean to call
Wright; for he will, if possible, do you
more mischief than myself, as in that case
your furnishing Mrs. Clarke's house, and
sending him to me, to bring an action against
the Duke of York, will certainly come out.
He said, Then you think I ought not to call
him;'" &c. &c. On the production of this
unexpected evidence, Col. Wardle was again
called, and he gave a testimony in flat con-
tradiction to that of Mr. Stokes. It is in-
possible, however, to allow this new evidence
of Mr. Stokes, and this superadded testimo-
ny of Colonel Wardle, to pair off together.
Here are now four witnesses against three;
and the new witness is a man not at all in-
terested, as we conceive, in the question at
issue. He is also remarkably specific, as
well as confident, in all that he says.-
There is a further circumstance to be con-
sidered. It came out, in this and in the for-
mer trial, that Colonel Wardle, who is indig
nant at the idea of his being suspected to
have bribed Mrs. Clarke to give her testi-
mony, by engaging to pay her upholsterer's
bill for about 1000l., had paid her 100l. at
one time, and 90l. at another; and had pro-
cured for her 500l. at another; for which
last transaction he had been guarantee."
Why, then, are we to assume that the man
who would supply above 600l. would not
supply a further 1000l.? Where is the
great difference between the principle of far-
wishing the one sum and the other? More-
over, it is observable, that pains were taken
to conceal the grant of 500l., another name
being interposed for this very purpose. On
the whole, then, we may congratulate our-
selves, that in this case an English jury
has done its duty; and it is important
that our conntryinen should attend to ques-
tions of tins description, since the interests
both of morality and civil liberty are deeply
concerned. It is of great moment that the
fountains of justice should be as pure as
possible. The dne administration of the

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A FRIEND TO THE ESTABLISHMENT, BUT NOT AN ENEMY TO THE CANDID Dis SENTER; ANTIPAPA; INQUISITOR; J. S.; PHILOMEL; R. O. S. G., O. S. G. G.; HISTORICUS; and DELTA; have been received, and are under consideration.

Mr. JOSEPH FOX, secretary to the London Society for promoting the Conversion of the Jews, has requested us to convey the thanks of the Committee of that Society to the Gentleman styling himself "A Well-wisher to Israel," for his Manuscript, being a Reply to David Levi's Dissertation on the Prophecies; and to inform that Gentleman, that the Committee have resolved to publish the same, and have adjudged the Premium of Thirty Guineas to the Author, who is requested to make known to Mr. Fox in what manner he wishes the same to be remitted."

We have received Mr. IVIMEY's paper. He will probably think that his answer ought to be directed rather to the paper on Infant Baptism in our present number, than to that in our number for November.

ERRATUM.

In the present number: p. 13, col. 2, 1, 4 from the bottom: After before, read God.

CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

No. 98.]

FEBRUARY, 1810.

[No. 2. Vol. IX.

RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. HE following paper is the substance of Baxter's retrospective view of his religious opinions in early life, contrasted with the sentiments of his maturer years. The original may be found at the close of the first part of the first book of his posthumous work, entitled Reliquia Baxteriana, or the Life and Times of Richard Baxter, published by Matthew Sylvester, 1696.

R.

'When I peruse the writings of my younger years, I find the footsteps of an unfurnished mind, of emptiness, and insufficiency; yet, of those points which I then thoroughly studied, my judgment is the same now as then, and therefore in the substance of my religion, and in such controversies as I then searched into with some extraordinary diligence, I find not my mind disposed to change. But in divers points that I studied slightly, and in many things which I took upon trust from others, I have since found my apprehensions either erroneous or very defective: and those things which I was orthodox in, I had either insufficient reasons for, or a mixture of some sound and some insufficient ones; or else an insufficient apprehension of those reasons; so that I scarcely knew what I seemed to know: and one common

infirmity I perceive in my writings, namely, that I put forth matters with some kind of confidence, as if I had done something new or more than ordinary in them, when, upon my mature review, I find that I said not one half which the subject reCHRIST, OBSERY. No. 98.

quired: and the reason was, that I had not read any of the fuller sort

points I treated of, nor conversed with those that knew more than myself; and so all those things were either new or great to me, which were common, and perhaps small, to others: and, because they all came in by my own study of the naked matter, and not from books, they were apt to affect my mind the more, and to seem greater than they were. And another token of weakness is discernible in my early works, namely, that I was very apt to start controversies in my practical writings, and also more desirous to acquaint the world with all I took to be truth, and to assault those books by name which I thought unsound: and the reason of all this was, that I was then in the vigour of my youthful apprehensions, and the new appearance of any sacred truth was more apt to affect me, and to be more valued, than afterwards, when commonness had dulled my delight; and I did not then sufficiently discern how much of controversy is verbal, and upon mutual mistakes. And withal I knew not how impatient divines were of being contradicted; and how it would stir up all their power to defend what they had once said, and rise against the truth which is thus thrust upon them, as the mortal enemy of their honour: and I have perceived that nothing so much hindereth the reception of the truth, as urging it on men with too harsh importunity, and falling too heavily upon their errors; for hereby you engage their credit in the business, and they defend their errors as themselves. In