Alas! little better, three lustres ago, Were we of this land, as all present well know; And in recenter times when the Licence so dread, Sing, &c. &c. &c. Aye, and still by her friends, through the world, shall be lov'd, His name, who that badge of our slavery remov'd; Then fill every glass with bright wine to the brim, three, While we shout through the welkin "The Press is made Free!" Sing, &c. &c. &c. beg you to assure the meeting and our greatly respected guest, that nothing but unavoidable necessity could have kept me away on such a great occasion as the celebration of the privilege of freely expressing our opinions of public measures and men. It is my duty more particularly, as a native landlord and merchant, and more intimate than most of my countrymen, perhaps, with yours and with the nature of the Government under which this great and rising country is connected with England, to speak out on an occasion like the present. I sincerely believe that the liberating of the Press in India is on of the most valuable acts ever attempted by the Indian Government; it strengthens their own hands, aud ears, and eyes, in ruling this vast region, and it is also a guarantee to the people that their rulers mean to govern with justice since they are not afraid to let their subjects judge of their acts. Yours very truly, DWARKANAUTH TAGORE. Calcutta, 6th February, 1838. THE VICE CHAIRMAN.-Gentlemen; I rise under feelings of no ordinary embarrassment, with a greater mistrust, indeed, of my own powers to address a public assembly, very limited as I have always felt these powers to be, than I ever experienced in my life. It can scarcely be otherwise, for while I feel that no words of mine can do justice to the excellence of the good man and good citizen I am about to name to you, I am nervously THE CHAIRMAN.-Gentlemen; my friend, the Vice-anxious that one whom I am proud to call a dear and Chairman, at the bottom of the hall, and my other valued friend, should receive full justice at my hands. friends under his care, have not been uniformly orderly Hence my mistrust, hence my apprehensions. I am in their proceedings this evening, and I feel a little jea-sensible that the public and private virtues of this admilous that at a festivity given in the cause of Freedom, they rable individual ought to be themes for some tongue "less should have all the disorder to themselves (A laugh). unworthy of mine," at the same time I feel that my own As I cannot set, I shall therefore follow the example, and friendship, instead of inspiring.makes me full of doubts,break through the order of the toasts. We have drank, doubts lest I should fulfil neither my own ideas or yours gentlemen, the Freedem of the Press and its Liberator, of the honor due to the name I am about to proposebut there is another to whom the Press owes great obliga-yet why should I feel thus apprehensive? It ought to tions. If it needed any argument to recommend to you be no very difficult matter to illustrate what is already the object of my toast, I know I need but mention the illustrious. Thank God, the honor due to the name conhigh opinion which Sir Charles Metcalfe entertains of him, and the sincere esteem with which he prizes him as an enlightened statesman, and a friend of India. Gentlemen, it was Lord William Bentinck (Loud cheering) I say it was Lord William Bentinck who first practical ly set the Press of India free; for from the moment that he landed on these shores, to the hour that he left them, the restrictions existed but in name. Let me recall to you also, gentlemen, bis uniform support of the cause of Steam Navigation. It is he that has sent the boats to the distant provinces by inland navigation; it is he who is nobly advocating the scheme in England; and though he has left our shores, he has not deserted our interests. (Cheering.) I could dwell on many other strong claims he has on your gratitude, but need I do more than give our late Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, the friend of the Press, the staunch advocate of Steam. (Drank with loud cheers.) nected with my toast depends upon a more solid foundation than my feeble words! That name is inscribed foremost amongst the foremost on the roll of those most distinguished for mercantile liberality and commercial enterprize. It is amongst the first, if not the very first, on the list of active, able and munificent citizens to whom the whole community is indebted. The name of my friend is revered by many whom he has saved or established in life by his judicious advice or his liberal assistance. It is written in the hearts of thousands who have partaken of his inexhaustible charity;who have had cause to bless his boundless benevolence, confined to no caste, colour, or creed. It shines brightly surrounded with all that is urbane and kind and courteous, on the tablets of social hospitality. It is heard in the halls of our colleges, in the porticos of those literary and scientific institutions which he has supported and enriched. it shines gloriously through an act, a recent act, of chaTHE CHAIRMAN.-Gentlemen; previous to our pro-rity so princely, so magnificent, that I tax my memory ceeding to the next toast on the list, permit me to read to in vain to discover a parallel to it within my own knowyou a letter I have received from a gentleman now ab-ledge and experience. Above all, the name of this adsent, but who is greatly respected and esteemed by you all; I mean my friend Dwarkanauth Tagore. (Cheers) Mr. Clarke then read the following letter : LONGUEVILLE CLARKE, ESQ., -- Chairman of the Free Press Festival. MY DEAR SIR, -It is a severe disappointment to me that the departure of the steam packet, only two days before our meeting, deprives me of the satisfaction to which I had so long looked forward, in common with my brother stewards and the friends of free printing, of holding our yearly festival in the presence of Sir Charles mirable citizen is inseparably connected with that cause whose triumph we have met this night to celebrate. Gentlemen, need I say after this that it is the name of Dwarkanauth Tagore. (Much cheering) Here then we have in an individual,-though to a degree so eminent that we cannot expect it to be common,-the qualities and attributes which we desire to foster amongst his countrymen at large,-moral courage, integrity, liberality, self dependence, love of truth, a sense of right, a scorn of wrong, and a freedom from prejudice. (Cheers.) But what if we succeed in our endeavours to create analogous feelings, not only in those immediately around us millions, of their countrymen. If we inspire the masses mixed them, and grained them, and glazed them into gan-Aye, there's the rub. The question is a grave one, powder, then throw a lighted torch into the midst of the and demands grave consideration, let us think of it. I heap and it sha I not explode. (Cheers.) Gentlemen; do not now address that party, for many of whom I have will these people never learn from experience, are the the highest esteem, but whom I must be permitted to lessons of history to be for ever lost upon them? What designate as of the Silver-stick and Burra Sahib school, have we and our fathers seen for the past fifty years in in reverence for whose mighty attributes the worthy France, in Spain, in Portugal, in Italy? Why, that Hindoo backed his horse or his ass into a ditch, on the wherever a Free Press has suddenly grown up amongst approach of the majesty of the services, in the person of a people previously civilized,-mind, gentlemen, I say our departed friend, Indophilus-(Cheers and laughter.) amongst a people previously civilized but yet wholly unthe last person in the world, God knows, to require such familiar with its workings, wholly unprepared for it,an act of homage which filled him with astonishment in other words, were the Free Press has not grown with and pity. (Laughter.) I do not, gentlemen, address this a nation's intellectual growth and stregthened with its party. They are at least consistent. They would still strength,"-there it is no longer a beneficent spirit minislegislate for India not after the A. Z. fashion but from tering to civilization, prosperity and happinees, but a the Vedas and the Koran. They would be great in San- revening fiend with Ate by her side come hot from hell" serit and Arabic. They would enlighten the universal to cry "havoc and let slip the dogs of war," to spread mind of India with the philosophy of Aristotle and the strife, bloodshed, and misery. (Cheers.) Think not, science of the Moorish Alchemists. They would have the however, that because I utter these opinions 1 underpeople remain in the same free and happy state as when value the Freedom of the Press. However introduced, its the successors of Sevagie levied chout, and the dues of ultimate results are well worth a century of revolutions. the state were collected from the zemindars by the sim- I advert only to the facts, and in doing so I again ask, ple and effective process described in Mr. Harrington's will the party I have alluded to never learn from experianalysis, of tying up their bare legs in company with ence? For I turn from the countries I have mentioned some half dozen of cats in a pair of loose pantaloons to another-I look “ upon this picture and on this." I (Laughter.) As for the Press; no doubt this respectable turn gentlemen, to the United States. They also passed party would be well content to allow the Press as much through the terrible ordeal of civil war; they too saw freedom and influence as would have been accorded to party in every village, almost in every family; factions it, bad they ever thought about the matter, by those in every city,-foreign armies in every field. But what liberal minded potentates Surajah Dowlah and l'ippoo was the result? The storm rolled over, the fiery strife, Sultan. But let that pass. This party is at least con bloody-mark me, gentlemen-bloody,with so few excep. sistent, and in friend or foe I revere an honorable con- tions that history has almost forgotten them, only in the sistency. Cheers.) But I turn from them to another" fair field of fighting men." The fiery strife died away, party, full of magnates and dignitaries and Education and left freedom, happiness, prosperity and national cha. Committees, and School book Societies and Friends of racter, which has nobly manifested itself, if our latest India, and every thing that is genteel and superb, both accouuts from Home are to be relied upon in the conduct here and at home -a party which attempts to carry into of the American merchants during the recent trying mopractice the incongruous absurdity-I know not how to netory crisis. (Cheers.) Whence is the cause of the designate it-the vain imagination of enlightening and mighty difference which I have noticed? I answer coneducating and civilizing the people of India,-of giving fidently in the pre-existence of a Free Press in the prethem a love of truth and knowledge, which is in other sent United States; (Cheers.) to the people being famiwords a love of freedom, yet at the same time shackling liar with a Free Press in all its bearings, including those the Indian Press with fetters of iron and manacles of political and social benefits to Society to which a Free steel. (Cheers.) Nothing appears to me more absurd Press is essential, and which are as inseparable from its than this singular delusion-It is to the Greek's foolish-constant presence amongst a people, as harmony and beauness. I trust and believe that this party will not suc- ty are inseparable from the works of creation. (Cheers.) ceed in their suicidal efforts again to mnacle the Press; but if they do, then it seems to me self-evident that they tion it occurs, but the idea of a Free Press is invariably Gentlemen, I know not by what process of ratiocinamust be prepared at ouce, not only to discourage, but associated in my mind with Highland Whiskey. altogether to prohibit and put down the study and acquirement of the English language. (Cheers.) Gentle-(Laughter.) I believe there are those here who will men; the explosive tendencies of steam and of all the Gael enters the world, he is made familiar with the virbear me out in the assertion, that as soon as the young combustible gasses in the world are as nothing to those tues of "moun ain dew." From thenceforward he never which would exist amongst a people conversant with the relaxes in the laudable attachment thus early fostered. language of Milton and Junius, of Chatham and Broug. It is good that it should be so. ham, of Franklin and Washington, yet prohibited by land constitution, to enable the shepherd on the mounIt is good for the Highlaw fom giving publicity to these sentiments with restain, the fisher on the lake, the hunter in the glen, to pect to the acts of their Government. (heers.) No; contend against the storms of a humid and severe climate. if the enemies of the Indian Free Press, to whom At the age of discretion a pint bicker or quaigh, I believe, 1 now advert, wish to be consistent,-if they wish is the term of the veritable Farintosh, is but a comforting even for safety,-let them adopt in their projects and wholesome draft; for the drinker hath ever been of civilization, the civilising language of Muscovy, used to it. or Crim-Tartary; but let them beware of English. For you shall as soon bind the light of the blessed sun with chains of iron as prevent a people familiar with the language of liberty from openly uttering their sentiments on the public measures of public men. (Much cheering.) But we may be told, "When English is familiar to every mau who can read or who thinks, we will then place at the disposal of the community the means of publicly expressing their thoughts on the important point of Government, to wit, the Free Press. Giving the party I advert to credit for this intention, yet still surely it is a miserable delusion, it is as if one were to say, here is our charcoal, and our sulphur, and our saltpetre; while they are in separate heaps approach them not, even with not been taught to reverence the virtues of this elixir But give the same medicine to one who has vite from his youth upwards, and instead of promoting a wholesome circulation, a cheerful glow through his entire frame, it makes him a mad, ungovernable savage. long digression; charitably think that I have inadver(Laughter.) Gentlemen,; I pray of you to pardon this tently mounted my hobby horse and that he has run I return to the subject of my toast and more worthy or more noble. away with me. I could return to none Dwarkanauth Tagore, then, is inseparably connected with our good and just cause. (Cheers.) At the time when all was apathy or dismay; at the time of the pass illustrious friend, who sleeps with the just, alone stood Temple of Fame, to be treated by his country with neg forth to fight the good fight. (Cheers.) On the first celebration of this anniversary, we were told by no mean authority, that Dwarkanauth Tagore had spent thousands with no other object than the Freedom of the Press. They went to charges gentlemen,-heavy charges which, after all, is no bad test of men being in earnest." Kill a man's family," says Byron, "and he may brook it," but keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket." (Laughter.) They went to charges, gentlemen, they entertained counsel to argue against the registration of the Law in the Supreme Court; they petitioned the Parliament; they stood, in short, like those described in the beautiful lines of Moore. "Night closed around the conqueror's way." lect, if not with scorn. What pleasure would it have given his mind, had he now been alive, to have witness. ed our meeting this evening, under the auspices of our honored guest, to commemorate the liberation of the Indian Press, an object most dear to his heart, and by him petitioned for and advocated! (Cheers) To have witnessed also he impulse which his been given, by the praiseworthy exertions of Government, of Societies, and of private individuals, to the cause of education, the great means for the enlightenment of the people of India. By promoting education we make some return to the people among whom we live for the riches, which are drawn from their country; for through education we will teach them how to improve the natural, and how Night, gentlemen, always closes round the way of to create new sources of wealth, and will raise them, in any conqueror or who triumphs over the Press. Night closed around the conqueror's way, And lightning shewed the distant hill, Where those who lost that dreadful day Stood few and faint but fearless still." Manfully did this little band of patriots stand in the breach; manfully did they continue to hope when "Hope seemed none." (Cheers.) In the hour of our triumph, let not these brave hearts be forgotten. One has, as the French happily express it " gone to immortality." But the noble, the admirable survivor, can still enjoy the applause of his fellow citizens, can still know that his name, "is in our flowing cups freshly remembered." (Cheers.) I call upon you, therefore, to pledge me with hearts and voices, with three times three and all the honors. "The principal survivor amongst the native champions of a Free Press, DWARKA NAUTH TAGORE." (Much and enthusiastic cheering.) Air." For Auld Lang Syne." a moral point of view, in the scale of nations. This is our duty. It ought also to be an object of our ambition, as no surer method could be adopted to falsify the prediction," that were we driven from this country no monument of state or beneficence would be left behind." The enlightenment of the people of India will be a monument of our rule more gigantic and lasting than the Pyramids themselves. They are but a senseless mass to mark the place of sepulture of a few dead kings, ours will be a living monument to speak to latest ages of the resuscitation of whole people! (Loud cheers.) I have only now to request you to drink to the memory of Rammohun Roy, and to bespeak your best wishes and exertions for the enlightenment of the people of India." (Drank in solemn silence.) BABOO PROSONNO COOMAR TAGORE.-Gentlemen ; as a friend of the late Rammohun Roy, and one who was glad to participate, though in a minor degree, in the persecutions he suffered, and as a native of India, I rise to offer you my warmest thanks for the honor you have BABOO RAMNATH TAGORE.-Gentlemen; in conse-done to the memory of my late lamented friend, and for quence of the departure of Dwarkanauth Tagore from the interest you have expressed for the improvement of Calcutta, owing to his ill health, I regret extremely he my country. When you hear that we complain of has been unable to join with you to night for the omission on the part of Government as regards the purpose of drinking the health of our distinguished guest, improvement of our country and the cause of education, the liberator of the Indian Press. (Cheers.) But as I wish you not to understand that we mean to say, that he is absent, I think it is a duty incumbent on me, being it has totally neglected to perform its duty, but that it his nearest relation, to return you thanks for the honor has not done so much in this respect as it ought and you have done him in drinking his health. (Applause.) could have done. The day when the distinctions of J. F. LEITH, Esq.-Gentlemen; the toast which I color, caste, and religion, and the difference between have the honor to propose, is preceded by the name of a conquerors, and conquered will be totally banished, is, man whom living England honored, and whom dead, I am happy to say, fast approaching, when we shall India has cause to mourn! To you who know the moral be treated not as conquered put as fellow subjects and intellectual condition of the natives of this country of the British crown. (Cheers.) the boldness, the independance, the enlightened views of the late Rammohun Roy, (Cheers.) must be convincing proofs of his superiority over the great mass of his fellow Countrymen. While these characteristics command for his memory unfeigned respect, they must induce you to admit the appropriateness of coupling his name with the present toast, The enlightenment of the people of India." (Cheers.) It is no doubt true, that many of his youthful fellow-countrymen, with their present advantages, may soon rival him in mere extent of know. ledge, but no other will draw to himself that wonder and admiration which Rammohun Roy's advent excited at a time when, relatively speaking, moral and intellectual darkness spread itself over the length and breadth of the land. His be the praise of having first, by the inherent force of a superior intellect, burst the swadding-bands of Although, gentlemen, you perceive but a small number prejudice and caste, which keep the mind in a state of of my countrymen present this evening to do honor to the helpless infancy, to assume the full stature and to assert occasion, yet I have reason to believe, that it will not be the natural prerogatives of a reasonable being,- -a think-long ere this cause of complaint against them will be ing man! (Cheers.) His name is linked to his country' removed. The day will soon come when in this hall history, and to the cause freedom, and must, on ac- and on such an occasion, your number will not command count of his unwearied orts to improve the politicalo overwhelming a majority, but rather be in the and social condition of the people of India, in after ages, minority. ranked among the most honored names of his countrymen, although during his life it was his fate, like that of Some have thought fit to surmise, that by the diffusion of education among the people of India, the connexion between her and England, will ultimately be desolved. These people, I say, are quite wrong; because, if gratitude be a feeling inherent in human nature, and if education and enlightment tend to cherish that feeling, how can it be asserted, that if India owe to England, her mother country, a heavy debt of gratitude for her enlightenment, that she will prove an ungrateful daughter? No, on the contrary, education, and allowing to the people of India the exercise of the political privileges regarding the English, as at home, is the surest way of establishing British rule in India on the firmest basis. I cannot, gentlemen, proceed further. Though thoughts I have not language sufficient at command to you my warmest thanks for the honor you have done me by the last toast. (Cheers.) THE CHAIRMAN. - Gentlemen; you have drank to two of the earliest and most staunch supporters of the Press; I have now to appologize for the absence of another old friend of the good cause, James Pattle. Domectic afflictions keep him away, or he most assuredly would have been here. (Cheers.) my own, T. DICKENS, Esq., rose and was greeted with enthusiastic cheers, which seemed to affect and embarrass him very much. After a short pause he said: - Gentlemen; your kindness almost overpowers me, I rose to purpose to you the Indian Press, wishing to dwell upon the subject; but I fear I shall be unable to do justice to it. Permit me to vivify and peonify, as far as the past is concerned, that abstraction which we call the Indian Press, and recall to your memory a few, and but a few, of those whom I have known as its avowed and responsible conductors: all friends, I am proud to say, of and all, as you will admit, worthy of the public esteem. The end and aims of the Press of India may be well judged of by a bare mention of the names of those who were engaged in it. Let me recall to you those of Fullarton, of Compton, of John Grant, of William Adam, of James Sutherland, (may I be pordoned for speaking too of myself as one of those men,) of my friend long since gone, Dr. Abel, whom many of you must remember personally, and most knew by reputation. Many recollections crowed upon and make me, however much I desire it, incapable of doing justice to this toast. From those names of its avowd conductors which I have given you, and to the list many more names equally worthy might be added, every one may judge of what has been the general character of the periodical Press in this country. I give you, gentlemen, the INDIAN PRESS. (Loud cheers) MR. SAMUEL SMITH.-Gentlemen; though labouring under rather severe indisposition, I rise with pleasure to express, as well as I am able, the acknowledgements of the Press, for the toast just proposed by Mr. Dickens, which has been so flatteringly received by this company. After the very eloquent addresses you have listened to from the excellent Chairman, Mr. Clarke, and other highly talented gentlemen, who have said all that can be advanced on the subject, it would be a vain endeavour to address myself to you on the value and importance of a Free Press. I shall not, therefore, make the attempt. Besides, on two former occasions when I had the happiness to meet many of the gentlemen I now see arround me, to commemorate the glorious event of the Emancipation of the Indian Press, I had opportunities of which I availed myself freely and fully to describe the former state of the Press, and express the deep obligations of its conductors to its honorable and magnaninious liberator. (Cheers.) I shall not, therefore, now detain you by any repetition of the experiences of the olden time, when the unfortunates of the Indian Press dragged on a shackled existence, disgusting to themselves, and contemptable in the eyes of the public. From these shackles, we acknowledge the boon with the most grateful feelings, they were freed by the magnanimous Act of Sir Charles Metcalfe. (Loud cheers.) Who that had ever tasted of freedom would again pasiently submit to bondage,-to bondage of the worst description,-to bondage of the mind, -to prohibition of the free expression and interchange of opinions between men, by nature and by habit free. Not I, for one, and I had accordingly looked forward gloomily to the daily expected arrival of Lord Haytesbury, and the departure of Sir Charles Metcalfe in 1835. But the bright star of the Indian Press was in the ascendant. Lord Heytesbury came not, and Sir Charles Metcalfe remained our Supreme Governor, long enough to fulfil his noble intention he passed the glorious WHITE act of 1835,-he gave For this one Freedom by Law to the Press of India. act, if for no other, his memory will live in the grateful recollection of all who prize freedom of thought, freedom of expression, Freedom of. Press,-and who does not ? England, to which happy land, the head-quarters of the Free Press, our liberator is now proceeding, will receive him with open arms,-will join the friends of freedom in India, in loud acclaim-will hail with joy the arrival on their shores of Sir Charles Metcalfe, the Liberator of the Indian Press. (Much applause.) : Gentlemen, as a member of the once shackled, now free Press of India, I thank you for the honorable mention of our tribe,- for your handsome reception of the toast, and I trust that the Press of India will never disgrace the good opinion which, after some years of trial, you appear to entertain of it. (Cheers.) CAPT. T. J. TAYLOR.-(Madras Army).-The toast, gentlemen, I have now to propose, requires but few prefaratory remarks on my part, for it is one which will at once strike home to every patriot breast. There is one country dear to every Englishman,-one people for whom our earliest sympathies are enlisted. Need I say that that country is Poland? whose heroic struggles, alike in the past and present century, are above all praise, and from the most touching portion of modern history. (Cheers.) On such an occasion as this, when met to commemorate the anniversary of the day on which, after a long but happly a bloodless struggle, the safeguard of our liberties, the palladium of our rights in this country, the freedom of the Press was achieved, the fate of that unhappy people demands our especial sympathy; for of all the sufferers in the cause of Freedom none have experienced such woes as Poland. (Cheers.) Who is not familar with that tale of woe, and has not mourned over the fate of her gallant defenders? Who has not breathed a heartfelt anathema against the tyrant conquenors of her soil, of her princes, nobles, warriors? How many fell before the oppressor's sword, or expiated on the saffold the crime of having defended their country! (Cheers.) How many were swept away to the snows of Siberia ; others thrust into dungeons,fit tenements only for the adder or the toad,-how many linked in chain-gangs on the ramparts of Warsaw, while others hardly less wretched, and stripped of their possessions, were driven forth in banishment and poverty, to seek subsistence, as they best might, in foreign lands! was the treatment the men experienced, the women were treated worse. Every insult and outrage that rage could dictate or ingenuity invent has been wreaked on that ill-fated race. Females even of the noblest It is true that we had long enjoyed by sufference, under blood of Europe, were made to labour on the roads, the Lord William Bentinck (and even under Lord Amherst, scoff of mocking soldiery, exposed to insult, outrage, the in a lesser degree,)nearly the same freedom of expression, cham and the scourge; and of their offspring, sucklings we have since practised under the law; but none of us were torn from their mother's breasts and dashed headknew the day, the hour, when the death, departure or long from the ramparts of Warsaw, as if in derision of supercession of a liberal Governor by a Tory Lord, an the walls so gallantly defended by their unhappy sires, enemy to liberal measures and freedom of discussion, while others of-larger growth were sent off to Siberia or might again plunge us into the depths of that disgracful to military colonies thousand of miles distant, and-hor thraldom from which we have been liberated by Sirrible cruelty! --their names were changed so as to prevent Charles Matecalfe. (Cheers) The new Governor, finding the possibility of tracing, in after years, their present desa Press-gagging law on the books, might easily enforee tination. And for what were all these miseries inflicted it unobstructed by the diffculties which would attend the on this noble people, the bravest of the brave, the most concoction of a new law. What would then have been injured of the oppressed? For what, but for claiming Such most solemn treaties, and for venturing to dream they might yet be free? They have failed for a time, and misery has invaded their hearths; but the spirit of that face is yet unbroken and the hour of retribution will surely come. It cannot be, that the moan of the widowed mother, the cry of the fatherless child, or the groan of the patriot, calling in dying agony on his fellowmen to avenge his death, on his God to save his country, will have ascended to Heaven in vain! The hour will yet arrive, when overgrown, bloated Russia, that cradle of treachery and despotism, shall pay in tears of agony and blood for the infamous wrongs she has heaped on Poland. (Much applause.) That the hour of reckoning is not far distant; that Sarmatia may resume her proud place among nations, and justice be rendered to her chivalric but suffering sons, is the hope and wish of every true hearted Briton, Up then all classes, and with one heart and one voice let us fervently unite in the patriot's toast-"The Regeneration of Poland." (Much enthusiastic cheering.) "Tyrolese Air." VICE CHAIRMAN.-Gentlemen. Would that I could exchange my feeble voice for the inspiring eloquence of one of those old Spanish ballads of chivalry, which stir the heart as with the sound of a trumpet, while I propose to you our next toast. It is fhe cause of Constitutional liberty in Spain and Portugal." (Cheers.) That this holy cause will ultimately triumph I cannot doubt, no not for a moment, "For freedom's battle once begun, I had hoped that I might be permitted to remain a quiet spectator,—a sympathizing listener on this occasion; for though second to no one in the sincerity and warmth of feeling due to it, yet I could have preferred for several reasons giving a silent vote, but one from the bottom of my heart, for the continuance,-the permanent duration of the inestimable boon which we owe to that great and good man, whose presence couters such a deep interest upon, and may add stamps with a character of solemn parting tenderness, this eve of civic commemoration. But it may not be; our chairman (who with such rare felicity fulfils his task) has issued his mandate that 1 should speak, and deeming as I do cheerful obedience to all just belests of the ruling powers, and a proper respect for constituted authorities, the very basis upon which genuine and rational freedom rests, I bow to the wish of our president. Let me not, however, be misunderstood; no lurking or unmanly timidity as to consequences,-no trimming hesitation in declaring openly and freely my honest opinions when decorously expressed (for such hold to be my inalienable birthright, of which no man can legally deprive me),-I say that no such unworthy feeling entered into the reasons that inclined me to be a listener rather than a speaker here, but a downright diffidence of myself, a grave doubt,-a doubt which still oppresses me, of my own power, (all unprepared as I am and more especially at such a late hour in the evening) to do justice to the toast which I hold in my haud. I appeal to yourselves, gentlemen, if I had not just reason to shrink from the somewhat formidable task of proposing a toast, comprising such a magnitude of interests, such boundless potentiality of good, such sublime aspi But ever while the struggle lasts it affords, if ever rations of hope for the well-being of universal man as earthly events afforded it, an example and a warning to Constitutionel freedom and civil religious liberty all over us in this country. The atrocities which have distin- the world? Do I suppose that there is one person in the guished this fearful contest are the continual theme of room, nay in this great city, who would object to drink Liberty. Whence arise those atrocities! Again I main- that toast? No, certainly, I cannot imagine such a tain what I have but a short time since upheld, that they thing possible; I may as readily conceive the weary sohave their original chiefly in that state of darkness in journer in the parched wilderness of this life, preferring which the people of Spain and Portugal have been kept the bitter pools of Marah to refreshing draughts from the for centuries, until now when their eyes are opened living rock of Truth! And yet when I look around me, they cannot bear the light. I will put a question. Does numerous and respectable as this assembly is, I miss any one believe that if by any strange chance, a Free many whom I regret not to see among us. Why is this? Press had been g afted on the institutions of Spain in They differ from us perhaps in mere shades of opinion; the days of Charles the Fifth, when the intellect of the and yet I can scarcely conceive but they must concur nation was comparatively young; - does any one believe, in the same conclusion, that I am sure all here have I say, that in such a case the revolutions of the few past arrived at, that constitutional freedom, as civil and reyears, or at least what has been most fearful and de-ligious liberty, cannot co-exist along with a gagged Press. plorable in those revolutions, would have occurred in the days of Ferdinand and Christina; in the days when the intellect of the nation has arrived at maturity in all but the first knowledge of a wholesome liverty? The thing strikes me as a mere impossibility. Bloody revolutions are the offspring of grinding abuses,--of abuses even more fearful than the frantic efforts under which they perish. But with a Free Press in Spain and Portugal exposing abuses from the days of Charles the Firth, there could have been few or none to overthrow in the days of the two queens who now reign in those lands. Is not this a warning and a lesson to us in India? But the night wears and I will not allow myself to dilate upon it; I will only call upon you to drink, with the honor my toast assuredly deserves, "The cause of Constitutional Liberty of Spain and Portugal,” (Cheers.) Be that as it may, the arch of improvement will on, and the time may come when they will, perhaps, be sorry for having absented themselves this evening. In my own case, I frankly contess that I should consider myself a recreant to a noble cause if I had not attended, not merely from respect to the cause itself but from my esteem and affection for the LIBERATOR. (Cheers.) I fear, at this protracted hour, after so many brilliant land excellent speeches, to trespass long upon your indulgence, but for this circumstance I should have taken a wide range (for this I might freely claim for the nature of my toast), and have glanced at a far gone epoch when civil and religious liberty were but obscurely understood, inadequately secured, and little practised. Tell me of a country where civil and religious liberty are not under the guardianship of a Free Press, and I will reply, that though mere animal happiness may be found there, yet in that country shall you find no high tone of moral enDR. JOHN GRANT.-Much more practised speakers than lightenment; no masculine consistence of character; no myself have expressed a diffidence of their own powers intellectual greatness! (heers.) Taking no advantage in addressing you, gentlemen; you may well believe me of the all-over the-world freedom of my toast, did time then, when I declare that it is with the most unaffected permit, I might have carried you to Consular Rome. I distrust of my own capability to do it justice, that in obe-night have asked of you if she was not continually dience to the command of the chair, I rise to propose a moulded to their own selfish purposes by haughty irontoast. This is the less surprising, since it is a toast of willed aristocrats, glozing, wily orators, and factious derather large proportions; reminding me somewhat of themagoges, the people having no Free Press to open their Air," Ca Ira." |