TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIV, Issue 57, 13 October 1855, Page 4

TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

[The following characteristic letter is addressed by Walter Savage Landor to the people of England.]

I have lived longer than I have thought of living, or than I wished to live, and have written much since I hoped to have left off writing. At no time have I sought any kind of emolument from my various publications, although no gain is so honourable, or may he. I desired but to gratify those who know me, and to profit (by instructing) those who know me not. To this intent I am now bending over my paper. People of England ! since you have in part recovered the right use of eyes and ears, after the pageants and acclamation, look about you far and near, but near first.

It was declared by the greatest, the wisest, the most watchful, and most unwearied of teachers, the truest, although the most unsuccessful of reformers, that they who would not believe in Moses and the Apostles, would not believe if one rose from the dead. What is divine is far above what is logical or what is j experimental ; so I venture not to question the j hypothesis. But Englishmen! you have before you not one alone who has risen from the dead. A thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand, stand before you dead to themselves ; they are not dead to you, ' unless you will it. And do you, can you, look up towards them? Yes; for you were not their murderers, though some whom you trusted were. Take heart, then, Englishmen, and look up. All those whose paler eyes are upon you, were alert like yourselves last year, last spring, last summer, last autumn ; many until winter withered them. Where are they now 1 Dare ye not investigate ? Dare ye not inquire ? Do they not yet stand before you, their bodies wasted by famine in the midst of plenty, their tongues blue and rough with thirst, their wounds gaping, and swelling out ! with worms ? Be cautious, and stumble not over the heaps of limbs that are lying at your feet.

Are ye still incredulous ? Are ye still resolved to take no notice, no care, no thought, of what brought about this saddest of all the calamities and disgraces our country ever endured ? Sweep away (for you can) injustice, arrogance, oligarchy. Sweep these away ; and then, perhaps, the spirits of your brethren and your children, who fought so bravely but so ineffectually, may intercede for you. Had your leaders been chosen from amidst you, no need would there he for such intercession. By some strange fatality, the valiant and virtuous Nott attained command ; but below the highest. He rose from the people ; he rescued an army, or at least what remained of one ; he repressed and pacified Affghanistan ; he lived temperately, unostentatiously, inoffensively, in India ; he returned to England, dropt into the bosom of his family, and died poor. Others had stood still, and stood stiller when he called them to their duty : others were made peers for decimating their armies by their indiscretion. Nott subdued the enemies of his country; he had none of his own outside the cabinet. Surely our nation will never hear his grandchildren cry out for bread which should have been brought into his house. Let a Napier be the historian of these events ; I am incompetent. Meanwhile, my fellow countrymen, upon you rest matters more urgent. Consider well for what you are fighting; consider what debts and liabilities you are incurring, and what obligations you are throwing off your own shoulders on your children's, not only to the third and fourth generation, not only to the ninth and tenth. Leave them at least the patrimony of honour. Your masters — I will never say you — pretended to liberate aa insulted nation from a mightier ; they persuaded you to send armies and navies for the protection of the Ottoman empire ; these armies and navies were indeed sent to consolidate an empire ; but it was the Austrian, not the Ottoman. Your masters have aided no people in the maintenance or the recovery of their rights. The contrary is clearly shown by the words I quoted from Lord Castlereagli in my last letter ; words in which he makes a merit to the Tzar of his treachery to Denmark, to Sweden, to Poland, and wherever else the despots of the north directed it. His worthy successors have now delivered up to Austria the richest provinces of that empire of which they constituted themselves the guardians. To gratify Austria they dismantle Turin and Alessandria, shove the Piedmontese army from the frontier, bale it, embark it, and provide that the broken limbs of Italy shall be as much in want of bandages I as those of our own soldiers.

For less money than you squander in a single month, you might have purchased ninetenths of the Cossacks. We always had the worst diplomatists in the world ; Turkey and India might have given ours instruction. At this moment the Sultan feels and asserts his dignity. He knows that we have already betrayed him, and he reasonably apprehends worse treachery to come. We can make at present no peace with Russia ; fortunate if we fall into no trap on this side of her.

In fine, my fellow countrymen, unless you drive out the traitors you have confided in, you will presently have doubled your national debt, in smelting down your gold for the legs of foreign thrones. Kossuth has told you more than this, and told it more emphatically. To that glorious man I am only what a predella is to a grand altar-piece, a narrow slip containing in small compartments a few subjects relative to the design above. For me to contend with him in eloquence would be preposterous ; but I will contend with him in love of truth and in love of country ; and I pray to God that the contest between us may for ever be undecided. Walter Savage Landor.

Education among Jurymen.— A Parliamentary return just published shows that, in Hertfordshire in 1851. there were 422 coroners' inquests; in 1852, 466; and in 1853, 527; and that in the three years just specified, 195, 294, and 112 jurors were unable to 6ign tbeir names. The proportion is much larger in Gloucestershire, where, in 1851. 422 inquests were held; in 1852, 466; and in 1853, 527; while in the first-men-tioned year, 1,260; in 1852, 1,183; and in 1853, 655 jurors had a mark opposite their natneß. In tbe borough of Hereford during 1851, 1852, and 1853, there were altogether 56 inquests, and the gratifying fact appears tbat all the jurors were able to write.