LETTER то JAMES MONCRIEFF, Esq. ADVOCATE, CHAIRMAN OF THE PANTHEON MEETING. BY A FRIEND TO THE PEOPLE. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. 1820. LETTER ΤΟ THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PANTHEON MEETING. MR MONCRIEFF, I was glad when I saw Mr Jeffrey come forward to open the business upon which we recently assembled. I was glad, because I hoped that the man who had so long assumed the rule over the taste and sentiment of the literary world, would give an example in the choice of his topics that would for ever regulate the discussions of all after demagogues. I was glad, because I hoped that the man whose theories on political economy are fanciful even to a proverb, would regale us with some views of after improvements, which might take place when the present men, with their measures, should be swept as cobwebs from the state. I was glad, too, because I hoped that the man whose knowledge of law, and opinions on religion, are equally to be relied on, would make out a strong case against those pannels, against whom, by the special desire of the gentlemen of the requisition, he had been placed to plead; and to appear against whom, as he himself so feelingly observed, he had most unwillingly sacrificed that retirement of domestic life which was so dear to his heart. But if I have been disappointed, many have been so before. Perhaps it was, that when I came to the meeting, I looked to the character and acquirements of those men who were to conduct the business, rather than to that business itself. Perhaps it was, that I had only till then considered the Ministers as the opponents of those men, who, to a romantic mind, appear as bearing up the national character against the inroads of oppression on the one hand, and of lavish expenditure on the other. Certain it is, that on that day, on which I had, for the first time, heard the charges against ministers directly and systematically brought forward, I was also, for the first time, fully convinced of their utter absurdity. From the loud denunciations of the press, |