A very strange correspondence has been published, between Mr. George

Wilson, the Chairman of the Anti-Corn-law League, at Manchester, and the Duke of Cleveland ; with a further correspondence between Mr. Acland, a lecturer of the League, and the Duke. The former portion we leave to speak for itself, copying it entire—

THE LEAGUE TO THE DUKE.

•• National Anti Corn-law League, Manchester, 234 August 1842.

"My Lord Duke—In an account of a meeting of your Grace's tenants, which appears in the last number of the Mark Lane Express, you are reported to have warned your hearers against the doctrines of the Anti-Corn-law League, and to have said that it was madness to suppose the British farmer could compete with the foreigner without protection, and which protection was given to enable him to bear the enormous amount of taxation laid upon land at the Close of the wan " The Council of the League believing that your Grace made such statements in the absence of correct information, and not with a view of misrepresenting the facts of the case, take leave to forward you the accompanying tracts, proving

" First, That the land, instead of being exclusively burdened, is more lightly taxed in this than in any other country ; and "Secondly, That the small amount of revenue derived from the land is due to the state as a commutation for the old feudal services.

"The Council venture to hope, that when your Grace shall have carefully studied these documents you will arrive at a different conclusion to that which appears in the report of the speech referred to, and that you will take the earliest opportunity of correcting the error. "I have the honour to be my Lord Duke, your Grace's most obedient ser vant, (By order of the Council,) GEORGE Witsos, Chairman."

THE DUKE TO THE LEAGUE.

"4th September 1842. " Sir—I have received a letter which has followed me into the Rigfitands of Scotland, signed George Wilson, in a public capacity, and accompanied by certain documents, which has filled me with astonishment. The writer of this letter styles himself the Chairman of the Anti-Corn-law League ; and however despicable this faction has become in the opinion of the people of England, not less detestable for their false assertions than for their seditious and unconstitutional conduct, I could not have conceived that any one of its members could have had the boldness to lecture me upon what I am supposed to have stated at a private dinner in my own castle, given solely to my own tenantry, where not only no newspaper reporter was present, bat no stranger whatever. As I do not read the Mark Lane Express, I know not what was there inserted, nor am I answerable for what it did insert ; but for you as a stranger to write to me in a public capacity, venturing to lecture me for my private opinions because they differ from your own, Is a kind of impertinence which I treat with that contempt which it deserves.

"I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant, CLEVELAND."

THE LEAGUE'S REJOINDER.

" National Anti.Corn.law League. Manchester. 13th September 1842. " My Lord Duke—I am directed by the Council of the League respectfully to acknowledge the receipt of your favour of the 4th instant. "The Council deeply regret that your Grace should have received my letter in so unfriendly a spirit, and have felt yourself justified in so strong an expression of your feeling on the occasion. "Your Grace will, however, permit the remark, that your observations upon the great public question of the day, and in censure of the League, had previously appeared in two newspapers; and the Council, in the absence of any disclaimer or correction of such published report, felt justified in concluding the matter to be fairly open to public notice and to courteous controversy; under other circumstances, indeed, interference with the promulgation of your Grace's opinions to your own tenantry might have been objectionable.

"The Council do not consider it within their province to discuss your Grace's statements concerning those whom you are pleased to describe as a "despicable faction," but strong in the conviction of the principles they are associated to proclaim and of the eventual and not distant realisation of their object, they had hoped that the opinion of the people of England was not so adverse as your Grace appears to imagine; and, notwithstanding your Grace's very strong impressicme to the contrary, take the liberty to hope your Grace is in error, and that they still retain the favourable opinion of their fellow-citizens, as at once their reward and encouragement.

"I have the honour to be, my Lord Duke, your Grace's most obedient servant, "(By order of the Council.) GEORGE WILSON, Chairman."

Findingithat the Duke would not come forth to vindicate his own opinions, the League turned their lecturer upon him, and Mr. Acland was sent to the neighbourhood of Raby Castle. In a letter dated "Queen's Head Inn, Staindrop, 29th September 1842," Mr. Acland announces his arrival to the Duke

" It has thus devolved upon me to proffer to your Grace's tenantry such information as may enable them, not merely to appreciate the soundness of principle and honesty of purpose which have ever characterized the efforts of the League, but at the same time to comprehend the suicidal tendency of the Little Trade system advocated by monopolists, and to understand that the question of Free Trade, as between the commercial and agricultural interests, is merely a question of rent as between the landlord and land-renting portion of the community. I trust your Grace will not take offence at this intimation of my purpose publicly to challenge the rational antagonism of intelligent opponents.'

The Duke, however, did take offence, and his rage provoked the following reply—

THE DUKE TO THE LECTURER.

"Baby Castle. 30th September 1842. " Sir—I received your letter last evening announcing your arrival in this neighbourhood, and the object of your mission.

"I have hesitated for some time as to whether I should answer your letter or not ; and perhaps it would have been the wisest course to pursue merely to treat it with silent contempt ; as it is certainly not my intention, nor have you any right to ask me, to enter into any controversial dispute with you as to the nefarious designs or false doctrines promulgated for party objects, without re gard truth, by the anti-national party styling itself the Anti-Corn-law League.

"it appears that you are the hired instrument of that party, ready to undertake any duty, however mean, ready to interfere, however unjustifiable that interference may be. "I shall make no comment upon any public course you may think proper to pursue; and I have too great a respect for the laws and usages of my country to complain of you or any other person animadverting upon any part of my public conduct or upon any speech delivered by me in any public place or to any public assembly.

"But when you choose to make the allusion which you have done in your letter, to what passed at a dinner-table in my own private house, where no newspaper reporter was present—where no stranger was admitted—where, in spite of any accurate information of what passed, you tell me that it is your duty to publicly contradict what you presume me to have stated in private to friends who were present, I tell you that such interference is not only contrary to all usage, but must unjustiable, most reprehensible, and impertinent in the greatest degree.

"I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant, CLEVELAND. "James Acland, Esq., Queen's Bead Inn, Staindrop."

This drew upon the Duke a very long letter from Mr. Acland, administering some very sharp rebukes, partly well put, and partly spoiled by false taste. We subjoin an extract or two—

THE LECTURER TO THE DUKE.

The Duke's Style.—" In style it is'sufficiently vulgar for the veriest plebeian in your Grace's scullery; in character, ungentlemanly personal; in matter, replete with lamentable misapprehension or shameful misrepresentation; whilst in its morale it is such as an honourable man would have scorned to pen. In a word, it is ungraceful, undignified, and unducal ; as your Grace may live to feel when you shall have survived the newness of the dignity which has so recently befallen you." The Natural Nobility of the League.--" Your Grace's allegations against the League, of 'nefarious designs,' false doctrines,' 'party objects,' or antinational' views, but prove you the reckless calumniator of a body of men ennobled by nature far above the casual heritage of conventional coronets—a body of gentlemen who hold wealth to be no justification of an unprovoked insult, and who are at a loss to comprehend bow title can excuse, even in a Duke, the unwarrantable charge of impertinence.' But possibly your Grace may be incapable of appreciating any thing beyond the beauty of an ermine, or any quality superior to that of a rent-roll.' Comparative Ability of Cleveland and Acland.—" Your Grace is pleased to taunt me with being the 'hired instrument' of the League. It is true that I am so; but I am far from considering that circumstance disgraceful ; on the contrary, I glory in my occupation. It is of my free will that I battle against the corruptions of monopoly ; and it is my poverty, and not my will, which bows to the miserable necessity of being 'hired' in the service of the suffering and starving masses. It is by no means certain that your Grace, had you been

born without the pale of hereditary succession to an entailed estate, could have found any man or body of men to have hired you in your years of maturity, as an available instrument for good. For my poor part, rather than intrust the advocacy of a great cause to your pen or tongue, I would have bribed you, and right liberally to play dummy against a brace of dowagers, or sleep until awakened by the pealing knell of defunct monopoly. In truth, the ability to provide for my family by an honourable effort to enable millions to provide for their families, is matter for great self-gratulation. The possession of such power is at once the source and guarantee of my independence. The mind with which God gifted me, enriched by an education generously bestowed by a father, who toiled the more that I might be rendered the more Intelligent, con. stitutes an estate whose title your Grace can neither invalidate nor impeach, whose record is in the chancery of the Eternal, whose possession death alone can determine, and the due improvement of which will secure a reversionary interest exceeding calculation and enduring for ever."

• To prove that the farmers of England are still, upon the whole, able to obtain "fair remunerating prices" for their stock, the show of cattle at several fairs has been cited. At Brough Hill fair the show was very great, and the quality of the animals was excellent : but here a large quantity of Scotch and Irish bullocks were sold at about 30s. ahead lower than cattle of the like description and condition last year ; cattle of every description were lower in price than last year ; and fat cattle were" bad to sell." At Penrith Fair, two-year old bullocks were eagerly sought after ; and great numbers were sold at 61., a. 10s. 71. 5e, and 71. 10s. The demand for "good buckend calves" was brisk most of them were bought at 104 11/. 10z., 12/., and as high as 131. ahead. Fat cattle were lower in price. "Little business was done among the sheep." A great deal of business was transacted at Bampton Fair; and here, especially among the sheep, "at fair remunerating prices." Although, however, a great number of bargains were effected, prices were "a little down" at Egremont Fair.

The opening of the Stafford Special Commission took place on Friday. The Judges, Sir Nicholas Tindal, Sir James Parke, and Sir Robert Monnsey Rolfe, were met by Earl Talbot, the Lord-Lieutenant, and other local authorities, at the railway station; and they were ushered into the town in state. After going through the usual forms, the Court was adjourned till Monday. The business of the Commission began on that day. On the Bench and in the Grand Jury-box were a number of the most influential persons in the county : among them the Earl of Dartmouth, and Earl Talbot ; the Foreman of the Grand Jury was Viscount Ingestre ; and of the Jury were Viscount Sandoo, Mr. Charles Adderley, M.P., and Captain Fowls, whose name was frequently mentioned as taking active steps to preserve the peace during the late outbreak. In his charge to the Grand Jury, Chief Justice Tindal, after a general outline of thepistory of the late outbreak, expounded the law applicable to the subject

" The first observation that arises, is, that if the workmen of the several collieries and manufactories, who complained that the wages which they received were inadequate to the value of their services, had assembled themselves peaceably together for the purpose of consulting upon and determining the rate of wages or prices which the persons present at the meeting should require for their work, and had entered into an agreement among themselves for the purpose of fixing such rate, they would have done no more than the law allowed. A combination for that purpose, and to that extent, (if indeed it is to be called by that name,) is no more than is recognized as legal by the statute 6 George IV.; by which statute also exactly the same right of combination, to the same extent, and no further, is given to the masters when met together, if they are of opinion the rate of wages is too high. In the case supposed—that is, a dispute between the masters and the workmen as to the proper amount of wages to be given—it was probably thought by the Legislature, that if the workmen on the one part refused to work, or the masters, on the other, refused to employ, as such a state of things could not continue long, it might fairly be expected that the party must ultimately give way whose pretensions were not minded in reason and justice— the masters if they offered too little, the workmen if they demanded too much.

"But, unfortunately for themselves and others, those who were discontented did not rest here. Not satisfied with the exercise of their own right to withhold their own labour if they were discontented with the price they received for it, they assumed the power of interfering with the right which others possessed, of exercising their discretion upon the same point : and accordingly, you will have numerous cases laid before you in which large bodies of dissatisfied workmen interfered, by personal violence and by threats and intimidation, to compel others who were perfectly willing to continue to labour in their callings at the rate of wages then paid, to desist from their work, to leave the mind or manufactory, and against their own will to add themselves to the numbers of the discontented party ; than which a more glaring act of tyranny and cler potism by one set of men over their fellows cannot be conceived. If thereas one right which, beyond all others, the labourer ought to be able to call his own, it is the right of the exertion of his own personal strength and skill, in the full enjoyment of his own free willeItogether unshackled by the control or dictates of his fellow-workmen: yet, strange to say, this very right, which the discontented workman claims for himself to its fullest extent, he does by a blind perversity and unaccountable selfishness entirely refuse to his fellows who differ in opinion from himself. It is unnecessary to say, that a course ofproceeding so utterly unreasonable in itself, so injurious to society, so detrimental to the interests of trade, and so oppressive against the rights of the poor man, must be a gross and flagrant violation of the law, and must be put down, when the guilt is established, by a proper measure of punishment.

"But, even without any evidence that combination is the object or purpose of the meeting, if a large body of the people assemble themselves together for the purpose of obtaining any particular end, and conduct themselves in a turbulent manner, either accompanied with acts of violence or with threats and intimidation calculated to excite the terror and alarm of the Queen's subjects, this is in itself a riot, whether the end and object proposed be a just and legitimate one or not. • • * There is another description of offence which will probably be submitted to your consideration—namely, the inciting and encouraging large masses of the people by means of seditious and inflammatory speeches to commit acts of violence, and to break the peace. If such charges are brought forward, it must be left to your own good sense to distinguish between an honest declaration of the speaker's opinion upon the political subjects on which he treats—a free discussion on matters that concern the public, as to which full allowance should be made for the zeal of the speaker, though he may somewhat exceed the just bounds of moderation, and, on the other hand; a wicked design, by inflammatory statement and crafty and subtle arguments, to poison the minds of the hearers, and render them the instruments of mischief. Be that addresses himself to a crowded auditory of the poorer class, without employment or occupation, and brooding at the time over their wrongs, whether real or imaginary, will not want hearers ready to believe and apt followers of mischievous advice. You will consider, therefore, the language that is employed on such an occasion: if it consists of broad and bold assertion, unfounded in fact—if, in discussing religious topics, you find the speaker endeavouring to be sprightly and facetious on those subjects which make wise and good men serious—if; instead of argument, he deals only in sneers and sarcasm —it will be for yourselves to say whether, under such circumstances, the part; charged with the offence is an honest but mistaken man, or whether he is wickedly intending to bring the religion, laws, and government of the country into contempt, and to teach the hearers to despise all those institutions which it is their duty to hold in respect and veneration."

He then entered upon the explanation of some technical points. He expressed an earnest hope, that the administration of criminaljustice under the Special Commissions would teach the guilty that punishment would follow crime; would teach those who were inclined to subvert the law that it was too strong for them, and that the honest part of the community, the lovers of peace and order, would unite with the authorities to put down the evil-doers with a strong hand— "I would, in conclusion, further suggest, that the effectual, and only effectual method of counteracting the attempts of wicked and designing men to undermine the principles of the lower classes and to render them discontented with the established institutions of their country, is the diffusion of sound religions knowledge (in which there can be no excess) among those classes who are the most exposed to their attempts, and the educating their children in the fear of God, so that all may be taught that obedience to the law of the land and to the Government of the country is due, not as a matter of compulsion, but of principle and conscience."

The counsel retained by the Crown for these trials, were besides the Solicitor-General, Sergeant Ludlow, Sergeant Talfourd, Mr. Godson, Mr. Waddington, and Mr. Talbot.

In the first case, which occupied the Court for the remainder of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, twenty-nine prisoners, mostly young men or even mere boys, were tried for riotously and tumultuously assembling on the 15th of August last, and beginning to demolish the dwelling-house of the Reverend Benjamin Vale, at Longton in the parish of Stokeupon-Trent. The first witness was Mrs. dary Anne Vale ; who described the attack on the house— On the 15th August, she saw a mob approaching the house, and immediately proceeded to close the shutters. The mob, however, reached the house Lefore she was able to do so. She was greatly alarmed, her husband not being at home. They demanded money and drink ; which at first she refused; but she afterwards gave them her purse, containing Sc. or 6s., and desired the servant to give them some drink. They then proceeded to the study, and commenced destroying and burning the books and furniture. Some of them then went up stairs and set fire to several of the rooms; others followed the servant to the cellar with a sheet, which they set on fire ; and they then commenced drinking whisky. Witness fled as soon as she saw the whole house in flames, and took refuge in an adjoining cottage ; when Jabez Phillips, one of the prisoners, came up and said, "They were going to London to burn, and bring all things to their 'proper level."

Dr. Vale returned while the house was burning ; but a friend prevented his entering it. The mob made a bonfire of furniture in front of the house, and were with difficulty stopped in their rough sport

" When I saw the house on fire, (said George Bailey, a bricklayer,) I went to fetch the engine, and helped to work it and put out the fire. I saw Richard Wright, William Cartledge, John Williams, and Joshua Hurst, among the mob when I came up with the engine. Williams came to stop us from working the engine. Be first set his foot on the hose, and then he borrowed a knife from Cartledge to cut the hose hut he was taken into custody before he could do it by Mr. Richard Cyples. I afterwards went into the house with the hose. I saw Hurst in one of the upper rooms throwing out the furniture to the mob to break up. I spoke to him, and asked what he was doing ; but he made no answer. Be and the others in the room continued to break up the furniture and throw it out. I saw Wright put a bed upon the fire in front of the house. I had known him before. I also saw Joseph Whiston, who was known by the name of Joco. I saw him take a piano and put it on the fire. Be said the Lord was at his side, and the flames would not hurt him."

At this time there were about four or five hundred persons present. One of the prisoners was detected in pilfering small articles, caps, scissors, and the like, and putting them in his pocket. The people who brought the engine were putting out the fire, when the military came to the spot, and several of the rioters were taken into custody.

There was no evidence against two of the prisoners, Hollins and Jackson, boys ; and they were acquitted at once. The case for the defence began and closed on Wednesday. Various counsel appeared for the prisoners ; and the general endeavour of each was to show that the evidence was vague and did not bring the charge home to his clients— impugning the character of the witnesses as themselves heedless spectators of the destruction. Mr. Price, who defended Whiston aud Coddough, two of the most active rioters, without justifying their conduct sought to extenuate— It was shown that these persons were most of them in a state of intoxication. That there was a barrel of demoniacal spirit—whisky—found in the cellar ; and when they considered the ghastly, and he would almost say ghostly., countenances of the half-starved wretches at the bar, they could easily imagine that such a stimulus applied to persons who were on the verge of starvation must have driven them into a state of temporary madness, rendering them in a great measure unaccountable for their acts. Unless they were satisfied that the evil intention existed beforehand, that the mischief was premeditated, the acts committed through egregious folly, or in a moment of temporary madness, it could not be rendered punishable under the present indictment. Mr. Lee, the advocate of three others, appealed to the mercy of the Jury— He called upon the Jury to consider the appalling position in which the unhappy men at the bar were placed : many of them were the fathers of families, who would be left in a state of utter destitution and misery by the conviction and banishment of these unfortunate men from their homes, their families, and the'r country, for ever. [The learned counselihere became deeply affected, and several of the prisoners burst into tears and wept long and bitterly:] Mr. Allen exhorted the Jury to view the evidence with caution, and denied that a deliberate intention was proved against the prisoners— He would commence with the last of his clients, young Hurst. [The prisoner, a diminutive boy, marked in the calendar "eleven years old," but who did not appear older than a boy of nine, was here ordered to stand up.] He would ask the Jury seriously, whether they believed that boy went to Dr. Vale's house with the premeditated intention of demolishing and destroying los house? "Why, was it not the more natural inference that he went there to

seethe fun", and that he had no idea whatever of committing any destruction ?

The prisoners were all found "guilty" except one. The cases which famed on Thursday were of minor interest; the charges being

couched in the form of indictments for " stealing" or " burglary," u the violence of the rioters had partaken of one or other crime.

The Cheshire Commission was opened, with the usual formalities, by Lord Abinger, Sir E. H. Alderson, and Sir Cresswell Cresswell, at Chester Castle, on Wednesday. The calendar comprises the names of sixty-six persons, half of whom are indicted for the riot at Stockport Workhouse; and more prisoners have been sent in since the calendar was compiled. The Court was adjourned till next morning.