THE DUKE AND THE MOIL—The addresses of the merchants ot
.London and Westminster to the Duke of Wellington were presented on Friday last week ; the former by Mr. J. Harman, and the latter by Sir Thomas Farquhar. His Highness the Duke read the following -reply.
" Gentlemen—The people have heretofore manifested their disai probation of the npinions, the votes, and the actions or public men upon .wcw,ions of public expectation; and the excitement of the moment may, in some instances, have led to acts of riot and disorder. But on these former occasions the public had not been ex- cited to violence and ontraee against the moperty and persons of individuals by the speeches of gentlemen of influence, and by the publications of a licentious press ; nor had the people been urged to form Unions in every parish of all the ntiddling, classes with the working or operatives,' for the purpose of controlling and overruling the Govemment and Parliament. It is these combinations, upon which a great authority has pronounced the judgment that their permanent existence is inconsistent tt ith good order and the safety of the State, which have occasioned the continuance of excitement after all pretext for it had ceased ; maid the insecurity of persons and or property. which is obvious at the present utoment, and of which the treatment of myself. in the middle of the day, in the most frequented communication of the capital, affords a flagrant example. say that the pretext for the continuance of excitement had ceased, because the bill, upon which I had differed in °pillion from many whom I have now the houour of ad- Aressing,bad become the law. It was my duty to submit toil; and farther, to facilitate its execution by every means in my power. It is not extraordinary that you, Gentle- men, who ate at the head of the great banking and commercial establishments of the ;country, who are interested in the prosperity of its agriculture, and of every branch of its manufactures and commerce, who have among you men possessed of the largest lauded properties, and others of the largest capitals, should consider the events which you have noticed, not merely as they may affect an individual or a party. Gentlemen, -you know that manufactures and commerce cannot flourish, and that capital must dis- 'appear, where political agitation, dissension, and disturbance prevail—that there can be .no security for person or property—that there must boa cessation of business, and a stag- nation of employment, by n Inch all classes must suffer. but most particularly that class .whose comfort and subsistence depend upon the daily produce of their labour. Wile. 'ther yea look back to the history of your own country—to the events of our times in neighbouring coantri,s, or to those which we have again witnessed abroad within the last two years, you must consider the suggestion to the people to assume a direct and active control over the Govemment anti Parliament, as equally inconsistent with the constitution or the 'British empire, and injurious to the people themselves. Such an as- sumption and exercise of sovereignty by the people over those by whom they ought to be coverued tient lead to violence and outrage, and linally, to those contests and mis- fortunes. aud that degradat kn. of which we have at this moment before our eyes the ex- ample in a neighbonting copal, as well as the recorded evidence of history in our own country, aud the test ct experience in other parts of Europe. Cireernstances having ex- posed me to lit attacked as 1 was, I beg leave to return my cordial and heartfelt ac- knowledgments for the interest which you have exicessed for roe as an individual. It gives me ;neat satisfitelion to be able to assure you, that the feelings manifested by your fellow-citizens resident in that part of the metropolis through which I passedon the day to which you have adverted in your address, entirely con .,spond with your own. Many of them, as well as their fitmilies. offered me au asylum in their houses ; and I am convinced that there was not one who would not have made every exertion to pro- tect me Irma injury."
The Duke of Wellington continues to receive addresses' and to deliver answers in Tom Thumb style. We really wonder how the people who perpetrate this interchange of fustian compliment and mock heroic acknowledgment, on such an occasion as the hooting of a few boys and chimney-sweeps, do not laugh in one anothers' faces. Perhaps they do. 'flue last deputation was from Cheltenham ; front
Lord Ellenborough's Club, we suppose.
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