arter Sessions; but this is a thing
that can be done but once, and could not be continued without an
expense equal to that of the old French police. Our laws suppose
magistrates and Grand Juries to do this duty, and if they do it
not, I have little faith in its being done by a Government such as
the Constitution has made ours. If you look back to the last time
in our history that these sort of things bore the same serious
aspect that they now do--I mean the beginning of the Hanover
reigns--you will find that the Protestant succession was
established, not by the interference of a Secretary of State or
Attorney-General, in every individual instance, but by the
exertions of every magistrate and officer, civil or military,
throughout the country.

I wish this was more felt and understood, because it is a little
hard to be forced to run the hazards of doing much more than one's
duty, and then to be charged with doing less.

As to what you mention of overt acts, those things are all much
exaggerated, where they are not wholly groundless. The report of
what is called "Cooper's Ass-Feast" (Walker's I never heard of),
and of the Scotch Greys being concerned in it, reached me _by
accident_, for of all the King's good subjects, who are exclaiming
against its not being noticed, not one thought it worth his while
to apprise the Secretary of State of it. I took immediate steps for
inquiring into it, and am satisfied that the whole story has no
other foundation than Mr. Cooper having invited two officers to
dine with him in a small company, and having given them, by way of
curiosity, as a new dish, a piece of a young ass roasted. I
inquired, in the same manner, about the riot stated to have
happened at Sheffield; and learn from Lord Loughborough, who lives
in the county, and is enough on the _qui vive_ on the subject, that
there was nothing which, even in the most peaceable times, could
deserve the name of a riot. That supposed at Perth I never heard of
yet, though Dundas has been within a short distance of that place.

It is not unnatural, nor is it an unfavourable symptom, that people
who are thoroughly frightened, as the body of landed gentlemen in
this country are, should exaggerate these stories as they pass from
one mouth to the other; but you, who k