epochs of human history, has been used to justify every enormity under heaven. We never remember to have read a document of any kind which excited in us The committee, after explaining the ex- stronger feeelings of dissatisfaction, a more isting practice, and stating various reasons irrepressible impulse of indignation, than affecting it, pro and con, as if they under- the conclusion of this report. A great opstood all the bearings of a question, which portunity was given for vindicating the nait is plain they have utterly misconceived, tional honor against the dangerous fallacy tell the world they can find nothing in the of the maxim which all governments are practice to condemn. Not a whisper of too prone to adopt, that the end justifies the disapprobation escapes the committee upon means, and the committee actually turn the exercise of the power complained of round upon the public, defend the maxim in any one instance; but-and let us avoid as a safe one, and only qualify it by observmisrepresentation-they are too cautious ing, that when objectionable means are reto commit themselves to an approval of the sorted to, it should only be in "cases of principle in plain terms; they even ven- emergency" affecting "important public ture to express a doubt whether, in certain interests." Of course not; and where cases, the opening of letters and sealing has there been a tyrant, however infamous them up again, is not attended with more in the annals of oppression, who has not trouble than profit. Their reasoning is whol- had his "cases of emergency" affecting ly utilitarian; after the practical philosophy," important public interests" to plead for not of Locke, but of Sheppard. One can every outrage upon public liberty? imagine Jonathan Wild, with an opportunity presenting itself of betraying a confederate into the hands of justice, when nothing could be got by it, and debating the matter in his own mind in the very language of the committee: "It will be doubted by some, taking into account the strong moral feeling which exists against the practice, with its accompaniments of mystery and concealment, whether the power is worth retaining in this class of cases." The moral feeling, of course, stands for nothing in every other class of cases, in which some real or imaginary benefit is to be attained by a departure from principle; and the committee therefore conclude their report with a more yes than no" recommendation, that the Secretary of State should continue to hold the power of perpetrating a breach of trust, and that the proper occasions for doing so should be entirely left to his discretion. Many of our readers have heard, or read, that "it is forbidden to do evil that good may come;" that "law makers should not be law breakers;" that "justice, if it be driven from the earth, should find a refuge in the breast of kings;" but none of these old and familiar axioms seem to have had the slightest weight with the committee.— On the contrary, they almost candidly avow a conviction that it is quite becoming and right that the government of kings should be carried on by those dishonest arts and stratagems which, if practised between private gentlemen, or between a common clerk and his employers, would be punished with a horsepond or the treadmill. Fraud, forgery, felony, say the committee (not indeed in direct terms, but in words which imply no other meaning), may all be practised in "cases of emergency," for the public good. We hold the doctrine to be deserving of universal execration; and it is high time to expose it. From the recklessness of assertion exhibited by party leaders, and sometimes flagrant breaches of faith, as in the case of the New Zealand Company, the window duties,* and other questions, "Under these circumstances, it will be for parliament to consider whether they will determine upon any legislative regulation, or whether they will prefer leaving the power on its present footing, in point of law, in the hands of the Secretary of State, to be used on his responsibility, in those cases of emergency in which, according to the best of his judgment, its exercise would be sanctioned by an enlight ened public opinion, and would appear to be strongly called for by important public in-, ch. 54, moved by Lord Althorpe, July 30, terests.' >> * Baring, Sir William Heathcote, Sir Charles # We allude to the clause in the 4 & 5 William 1834, to enable the occupiers of houses to open fresh windows, free of duty, one effect of which, he stated, would be, "to prevent any further increase of the revenue, in the case of houses already existing." (See Mirror of Parliament,' page 3116.) The clause has been set aside by a quibble, "A monster of such frightful mien, That to be hated, needs but to be seen." an opinion is beginning to prevail, that know what they were about; but we feel truth with politicians is but a plaything.-not the less the necessity of stripping the A fearful lesson; for there are other class- principle advocated of all disguise, and we es than lawyers who follow precedents.- would present it to the reader in its naked Our criminal returns show the contagious hideousness. influences of example: there is a fashion even in murder and suicide: the lad who first threw himself from the Monument had at once a crowd of imitators, and it would be vain now to expect that the open-lish statesmen in the 19th century; or, ing of letters, and counterfeiting of seals, will be confined to Secretaries of State, and their knavish tools. Here, then, is the moral creed of Eng more correctly speaking, a portion of that craft of government which sets itself above all laws, human and divine. 1. THEFT is permissible, when information important to the public interest can only be obtained by STEALING it from a letter. The vices of the rulers of a people inevitably become national vices. The position occupied by a minister is more exposed to observation than that of any other human being. Every action is watched, every 2. LYING is permissible to conceal word is chronicled; his opinions are seeds theft; in the tacit form of resealing a letscattered by the four winds of heaven, sure ter, so that the fact of its having been at last to fall upon a fit soil for their nour-opened may never be detected. ishment and growth. We are told by divines (and the subject demands the strongest illustration we can find) that in the government of the world, so important is the principle that the fountain of justice should itself be pure, that even the Creator of the universe, the Omnipotent and All-beneficent, could not forgive sin until the claims of justice had first been satisfied through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. It is part of the creed of the Church of England, that for God to forgive sin without an expiation of the offence, would be for God himself to sin against his own immutable law. We will not discuss a theological question, but we would contrast this doctrine with the political latitudinarianism which recognizes no fixed principles of conduct. Shall not the Judge of the whole earth do right? There is a sublime truth in the sentiment. How different from that rule of government which confounds all distinctions between virtue and vice as mere conventionalities, and substitutes for them, at the discretion of a minister, the shifting expedients of the hour, a sliding scale of morality, subject to no check but the "responsibilities of office," and the fear of opinion. We would put no unfair or strained interpretation upon any of the expressions in the report. We are fully aware that those who prepared it, and those who signed it, so bewildered themselves by their own sophistries, that they did not, in fact, well and subsequent administrations have refused to carry out the spirit and intention of the act. 3. FORGERY is permissible for the same object; in the form of counterfeiting seals and imitating Post-office stamps. 4. TREACHERY is permissible in cases of emergency." The servant may betray his master for the "public good;" the confidential agent may act as a secret spy. The bearer of a written communication, compromising, perhaps, the lives and fortunes of individuals, may carry it direct to their bitterest enemies, and be honorably commended for his breach of trust. 5. ROGUE-MAKING is also permissible; for the arts of knavery are somewhat distasteful to honest men, and forgery, in particular, is a SKILLED profession, which cannot be thoroughly acquired without many opportunities of practice. 6. TYRANNOUS ÎNJUSTICE is permissible; in the form of secret accusations, and secret tribunals for trying a man in the dark, upon the evidence of STOLEN documents, of which the purport may be wholly misunderstood. In using the word PERMISSIBLE, we have put the case less forcibly than we should have done, to place it upon its true merits. The business of a public office, like that of the Secretary of State, does not consist in the exercise of optional privileges. Sir James Graham or Lord Aberdeen, when they opened Mazzini's letters, did so, not, of course, from motives of idle curiosity, but from a sentiment of duty. Observe, then, where our moral legislators are leading us. It is the DUTY, say they, of a minister, in certain cases of emerg tion has been suppressed in the report of the committee of the House of Commons: ency," affecting "important public inter- of the Lords' committee, of which all menests," TO STEAL, TO LIE, TO COMMIT FORGERY, TREACHERY, and TYRANNOUS INJUSTICE; and to keep in constant training a staff of knaves fit for similar acts of public service, when not convenient to perform them personally. a "It appears to have been for a long period trations, an established practice, that the forof time, and under many successive adminiseign correspordence of foreign ministers, passing through the General Post-office, should be sent to a department of the Foreign office before the forwarding of such correspondence according to its address. The Postmasterthe fact that there was no sufficient authority General, having had his attention called to for this practice, has since June discontinued it altogether." The proposition leads us a step further. In all sound reasoning, the minor is of course included in the major. If it be duty to ward off a small calamity by dishonest stratagems, it is equally a duty, and even a more serious obligation, to employ them to ward off a greater calamity. Now, compare the possible consequences to Great The Commons' committee admit, that Britain of any plot emanating from a few during the administration of Charles James poor Italian exiles, and those which may Fox, and the Marquis of Carmarthen, at arise at any moment from the ambition of the close of the last century, diplomatic France or Russia. When we are about to correspondence of foreign ministers passsteal information, whose secrets is it of ing through the post was very generally inmost importance to steal, those of M. spected, but they add, "they are satisfied Mazzini, or those of the Count de St. Au- no such warrants or practices now exist." laire and of Baron de Brunow? Here, for Do they mean by the word now, since last example, has been the Emperor of Russia June; that is, since Mr. Duncombe preon a visit; and now, on his departure, sented the petition of Mazzini and others comes his Prime Minister, Count Nessel- on the subject? If so, they have availed rode, to take the benefit of sea-bathing at Brighton. These movements, doubtless, mean something, and something more than Russia cares to reveal fully. We take it, therefore, for granted, that Lord Aberdeen has not neglected his DUTY in this case. His lordship has, of course, put in operation the picklock and dark-lantern principle, and by means of accomplished artistes has already, we may presume, obtained extracts from papers lying in the escritoire of the Russian count! The Brighton postmen, of course, need no instruction upon their duty, in the case of any and every letter to or from Count Nesselrode, intrusted to their delivery. Here we must express our surprise that, in one part of the report before us, the Committee of the House of Commons deny the fact of any peeping or prying into the letters of foreign ambassadors. What is this, but in other words to charge upon the present Government a neglect of the public interest, in taking no steps to steal important state secrets from the ministers of other countries; confining their activity to a discovery of the affairs of private individuals, comparatively insignificant? There is, however, reason to believe that this charge is made without sufficient foundation; and we must call attention to a most important revelation in the report themselves of a most unworthy quibble. Or does the remark refer to a period of some ten or twenty years back? In this case the committee have shown themselves unable to apply the commonest rules of evidence. If letters from abroad were habitually opened at the Foreign office in 1782, as the committee admit; if the same clerks, or their successors, have had from that period to the present the same class of letters, day by day, laid upon their desks, with a power of inspection, as the Lords' committee tell us, we take upon ourselves boldly to assert that foreign letters have been habitually opened up to June, 1844; opened, not, perhaps, by Ministers, r with their cognizance, but opened, at all events, by other persons than the parties to whom the letters were addressed. And let any one consider the enormous temptation of an opportunity thus given, put in the way of a Government employé having connections in the City. In a critical state of the funds, a knowledge of the contents of a letter coming from a Rothschild abroad to a Rothschild in London, relative to purchases of stock, might realize a fortune. Is it possible to believe that a clerk early trained in the mysteries of softening wax, and counterfeiting seals, having such a letter put into his hands, and knowing its value, would wait for the instruction of his superiors before he open-made use of them. The subordinates of ed it? the Post-office, thus harshly described, have done nothing more than imitate the conduct of their chiefs. The plundering of letters by the state from motives of expediency was a state secret to the public, but not to Postoffice officials. When Lord Aberdeen determined to steal the contents of Mazzini's all the sorters and receivers of St. Martin'sletters, he was necessarily obliged to make le-Grand a party to the theft. Let this fact be well weighed by the public. Letters directed to Mazzini did not present themselves of their own accord in Not necessary? Why this was to halt at the very threshold of their inquiry. The Downing-street. They had to be searched extent to which the practice of opening letters has been carried, depends, not upon the number of warrants issued, but the modus operandi of their execution. The public want to know what securities were taken that the ingenious men employed to counterfeit seals should never transact a little private business on their own account -whether warrants have not in practice been regarded as mere forms, (the public knowing nothing of their existence,) and so sometimes filled up before, sometimes after, the occasion for their use, and sometimes omitted altogether; as commonly happens in the case of all other matters of mere office routine? The committee tell us, that upon an average the letters of one person per month, or twelve persons per year, are opened and resealed at the Post office. Of how many more is that the true indication? We have heard it said, and not lightly, but by well-informed persons, that within the memory of many now living, the contents of any letter passing through the Post office might be obtained for a consideration, by a person interested in the matter, and making a judicious application to the proper parties. We can readily believe it, for in complete contradiction to the present report, Colonel Maberly in his examination a few months back before the Post-office committee, has described this department of Government as thoroughly demoralized. He says, "there has been enormous plunder and robbery" (1163); nay, that "the plunder is terrific" (1176), and that "a letter posted with money in it might as well be thrown down in the street as put into the Post-office" (1178). These are strong expressions from a Secretary of the Postoffice, and it is quite clear that Colonel Maberly never thought of their possible application to the Home Secretary, when he for by human hands, and carefully selected from a pile of perhaps many thousands, and then to be sent about by different messengers from one office to another. Or, supposing the fact to have been that the Devonshire-street bag was sent to the inner office and searched by Colonel Maberly himself, the notoriety of the object for which the bag was required, would still be the same. Why," it would of course be asked, "does Colonel Maberly always require, every day and every month for four months in succession, to count the letters contained in the Devonshire-street bag?" The general fact of the detention and opening of letters must therefore have been known to some hundreds of persons, including common letter-carriers; and what wonder is it that poor and ignorant men should convert public expediency into private expediency, and keep their own counsel when abstracting a bank note, as safely as they had been taught to do the political felonies of their employers. Twelve months ago the newspapers were filled with the case of a Government clerk, who forged exchequer bills to the amount of several hundred thousand pounds. It is not at all an unlikely fact that the initiative step in his career of fraud was the instruction he possibly received in the art of counterfeiting seals for state purposes. Think of forgery in this form being systematically taught in a Government department, and of the probabilities of its stopping there; an apt pupil never becoming too expert for his own teacher ! A light now breaks in upon us to explain the animus of the otherwise unaccountable hostility of the Post-office to Rowland Hill and his plans. Colonel Maberly describes his establishment as a den of thieves; and who can blame the instinct which teaches knaves to beware of an honest man? Put Rowland Hill in the Post-office! Send to Norfolk Island for a candidate. The Ex-supposed to influence a body of English chequer-bill office should supply the next gentlemen, that of the men thus held up to Postmaster-General! We now see why infamy, whose civil rights had been violated Rowland Hill was not to be trusted by in their correspondence, not one was called either the present Government or the past. before the committee to be examined? The There were state mysteries connected with committee declined to go into any examinathe Post-office which Rowland Hill had tion of the grounds upon which the warnot unravelled, and it certainly would have rants had been issued; and they had, therebeen imprudent to have confided them to fore, absolutely no authority whatever, behim. yond a foul insinuation, either for the gross act of defamation of which they have been guilty, or for their zealous justification of Lord Aberdeen, on the score of a necessity for extraordinary precautions. No such necessity was proved; and, indeed, from "The committee have not learned that there We proceed to a part of the report, the spirit of which appears to us so utterly incompatible, not only with the duty which the committee owed the public, but with every just and manly sentiment; indeed, so opposed to the constitutional English the very next passage in the report, it is maxim, that no man should be condemned evident the necessity did not exist :unheard, that we find it difficult to preserve sufficient calmness to put the facts fairly before the reader, and yet find fit terms to characterize appropriately the conduct of the committee, without appearing to assume an exaggerated tone of severity. We refer to the paragraph in which reference is made to Mazzini and his brother exiles; but chiefly to the following passages : "A warrant to open and detain all letters addressed to Mr. Worcell and to Mr. Stolzmann was issued on the 17th of April, 1844, and cancelled on the 29th of June. "A warrant to open and detain all letters addressed to Mr. Grodecki, at Paris, and to another foreign gentleman, was issued on the 3d of June, 1844, and cancelled on the 13th of the same month. "The last two warrants rested on grounds connected with the personal safety of a for eign sovereign, intrusted to the protection of England. It appears to your committee that, under circumstances so peculiar, even a slight suspicion of danger would justify a minister in taking extraordinary measures of precaution." We have here an accusation of one of the blackest crimes that can be laid to human charge; and preferred against individuals who, for any thing that appears to the contrary, may be as honorable men as move in society. The committee tell the public that there were grounds of suspicion, slight perhaps, but still sufficient, to justify the British Government (justify is the word used) in treating Messrs. Worcell, Stolzmann, Grodecki, and their friends, as engaged in a plot for the assassination of the Emperor of Russia-there is no other meaning in the words; let the reader examine them carefully. Now, will it be believed, does it not seem incredible, as repugnant to every feeling that could be appeared in the letters that were opened any thing to criminate the gentlemen whom the committee have very reluctantly named." This reluctance we do not understand. The parties named had brought themselves before the public; they had petitioned for redress of a grievous injury; and the committee meet the case by adding wrong to wrong. The committee refused to hear the allegations of the petitioners, or to call a single witness of character; but they do not the less hesitate to pronounce the following unjust and ex parte judgment:"Gentlemen, we have not learned that any thing has been found to criminate you, but we are satisfied, notwithstanding, that the Foreign Secretary was quite justified in treating you as criminals, and guarding against your possible designs upon the life of the Emperor." The appointment of a secret committee showed a foregone conclusion; and the members named upon it have well answered the expectations of the minister who appointed them. A sifting investigation was not wanted. Sir James Graham was only anxious to show that he was no worse than the leaders of the Opposition; * Mr. Stolzmann is a captain of artillery, who has lived in England since 1836; Count Worcell is a member of the Diet; both able men, and men of unspotted character. Their real offence was attending a public meeting in favor of the Poles 16th of April. The warrant for opening their letters was issued on the 17th. The other case was a mysterious letter from a person abroad of unsound mind, taken by a Pole to the Russian embassy, with a view of getting himself included in the late Polish amnesty, and probably obtained also for that purpose. We regret to learn that the amnesty includes only men of a like stamp. at the Hall of the National Association on the |