TO THE READERS OF THE REPUBLICAN.

Printing Office, London, Dec. 8, 1825. HERE I am once more, after a hard struggle to get away from my Devonshire and Hampshire friends. To those of Portsea, I must make an apology, as I could not wait to shake hands with the half of them. Hitherto, mine has been but a running visit: if at liberty in the summer, I purpose to make a more formal visit in as many parts of the country as I can get over. I had prepared a journal of my movements from Exeter, with a hope of finding room in the present No.: but I find it too late and must defer it a week.

I pay my respects to my London Friends and heartily thank them for the support which they have given me during my confinement. I wish it to be known, that I did not reach London until this morning at 12 o'clock, as I hear that many suppose, that I have been in town some days and fear to show myself at the shop, which, by the bye, is not so good as I could wish and will be soon changed for a better.

My wish is not to take an offensive attitude toward my late persecutors; but if any of them have a taste for similar proceedings to the past, I will meet them at an appointment for any purpose of the kind.

We have now on sale both Paine's and Palmer's works complete and I am ready to sell a copy of either to any person who may wish to take it from my hand.

The sale of the prints of the Jewish Idol has been interrupted by a little delay on the part of the Colourer, which I hope will not exceed the present week.

I shall not have much time to spend at the shop; but I repeat, that, if desired, I will meet any person there or any other where by appointment.

The congratulatory letters which I have received from various parts of the country are so numerous, that I can neither print nor answer the whole, so I must beg of each friend to partake of this general acknowledgement until I have an opportunity to make a better.

RICHARD CARLILE.

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 135, Fleet Street.-All Correspordences for The Republican," to be left at the place of publication.

No. 24, VOL. 12.] LONDON, Friday, Dec. 16, 1825. [PRICE 6d.

CITIZENS,

TO THE ALBIONITES."

Star Inn, Southampton, Dec. 3, 1825. THE people of this Island want some distinctive name. They ought not to be longer known under the names of English, Scotch and Welsh, as implying three distinct nations. They are in fact, now but one nation and require but one name. We are no longer in danger of an invasion that shall introduce a new people among us, and one name would do much to break up the pro.. vincial prejudices that exist. Dr. Stukely called the old inhabitants of this Island by the name of Albionites: and as Albion was the common name given to the Island from the whiteness of its shores, as seen from the continental coast, and as the name carries with it no ideas of that conquest and slavery which the Danish, Saxon and Norman Invaders have brought into the Island, it should become a matter of national or insular ambition to revert to some common name, and particularly to so old and unobjectionable a name as that of Albion and Albionites. Further than to the political utility of the measure, my taste moves not; but I do perceive a political utility in the measure, and I wish, hereafter, in addressing the Albionites, to be understood as addressing the whole people of this Island, and of such of the adjacent Islands, as may desire to live under our political protection. Brevity that has full expression is always to be preferred and the name of Albionites is more comprehensive and more distinctive than that of Britons, and unsullied with associations of conquest and slavery.

My journal of movement left me at Exeter. I found some difficulty to get out of that city with grace toward old and new acquaintances, but before I left, I obtained an extract, by the hand of a friend, of John Cooke's occasional bulletin. This man has been in the habit of posting these bulletins before his house from the time of my first acquaintance with that city, which was in 1808; and his apparent purpose seems to be, to instruct the good people of Exeter in matters of politics! By profession, this man is a saddler, and had he more intellect, his intense mental excitement would bring on that species of insanity which requires restraint. He owes his liberty of unlimited locomotion to the obtuseness of his brain or nervous system and he opposes the establishment of Mechanics' Institutes because he learnt nothing in his youth but the pronunciation of his alphabet, and nothing,

Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 135, Fleet Street.

in an advance toward old age, but to prove his incapacity to write or to utter a correct sentence. This shall be proved by a specimen of his bulletins; for in making an extract we have preserved his errors of language, his ignorance of words. Of any things but the trappings of a horse, he does not profess to teach. He speaks and writes occasionally in rhyme, of which we are to have a specimen. In speaking against the Mechanic's Institute of Exeter, he said :

"I am for God, the Church and the King,
And for every other useful thing."

This was a poetical error of Johnny's; for the Mechanics' Institute, against which he was speaking, is evidently a useful thing, and he will find some difficulty in defining the utility of a God, a Church or a King. John Cooke has not clearness of vision enough to see, that, property is the only criterion of a country's prosperity, that property arises from nothing but labour, and that God, Church and King consume without adding any thing to property. If excessive taxation be an evil, we receive it from a God, a Church and a King.

The following is an Extract of a Placard in large Writing placarded in a Gateway belonging to John Cooke a sadler in the High Street, Exeter, Friday, November 25, 1825.

Gratest Bulletin of Intelligence

But your not to forget Diligence

Market day, Friday 25. November. Full Moon

this afternoon. Three weeks to the shortest day Next Wednesday. ·

England is going on remarkable well, the present years

revenue, is near two million of increase

I need not say that this day is as mild

as it is in April or September, fine weather

It is to be hope that some channel will

remind the Chancellor of Finance, to take
off the house and windor Taxes.

England is improving so well that she does not
stand in need of three trump up Institutions,

1. Combination,

2. Christian Evident Society at a Room in London for all vice,
3. Nor a Mechanic's Institution, to learn Philosophy.

This is a specimen of tory or corporation politics in Exeter, and it certainly reflects highly to the wisdom and honour of those who call themselves reformers, that the advocates of things as they are, have, in Exeter, no better advocate. Logic, from John Cooke, must not be expected; but he should avoid plain contradictions. "England is going on remarkably well:"-" England is improving:"A channel should remind the chancellor of Fi nance that house and window taxes should be taken off. England going on remarkably well" implies, that it has not gone on badly. "England improving" implies, that it has gone on badly;

which John Cooke never admitted, and the necessity of a channel asking the Chancellor of Finance to take off taxes implies, that it is still going on badly.

I moved from the reading of this bulletin towards a specimen of England's improvement. On the following day, I reached Plymouth, too late in the evening of the Saturday, to see the run upon the existing banks. The town was in a state of lamentation, and if the one half, with its inhabitants, had been swallowed by an earthquake, the other half could not have been in a greater state of alarm and grief. It was observed, that it was well for the existing bankers, that the run began on a Saturday, so as to give the respite of a Sunday. Mr. Cobbett has obtained and published precise information upon this subject, and as it is one peculiarly his own, on which he leaves no room for addition, comment from me would be superfluous. I heard a statement, which he has not mentioned, that the tradesmen of one small street, Cornwall Street, lost six thousand pounds by the breaking of Sir William Elford's bank, and one of those tradesmen two thousand pounds of that sum. Many old people, who had trusted their small independence of labour to this bank, were seen in the streets on the Saturday bewailing their change from comparative affluence to pauperism. The legislature must regulate this banking system, for, in its present state, there is not the least security for any depositings of property with them, and their eventual breaking seems a matter of certainty. I have seen a brief notice, that the Ashburton bank has failed. If so, it is the second case of the kind. The Abrahams enriched themselves by the silliness of their neighbours, and then made a failure to pay their promissory notes or to return the property that was entrusted to them, and though Mr. Winsor began with more property, he seems to have taken a similar step. It is a sort of gratification to me that these bankers have been among my most bitter enemies in that town, and have tyrannically sought the injury and expulsion from the town of any one of my relatives that would say a favourable word for me, during my imprisonment. I exhort my friends not to trust the banking fellows with a farthing's worth of their property. To return to Johnny Cooke, we find him calling the Christian Evidence Society a room for all vice, that is, a public association for no other purpose than public discussion is called vicious! I had an inclination to propose an interview with him, having known his family and connections from my youth; but on a second consideration, it occurred to me, that there would be no honour obtained in discussing a point with a man so decidedly ignorant and full of bad habits.

The Christian Evidence Society is exciting great interest throughout the country, and by what I have heard from persons and by letters, there is a general desire that the discussions be made public, or that the Reverend Secretary visit the large towns

for the local extension of his discussions. This society, so far from being vicious, as John Cooke asserts, is doing much good, and if the managers of it be only wise enough to abstain from forced or pressing contributions on the audience and let it rest on voluntary contributions, it will go on to occupy the places of public worship and form affiliations throughout the country. No, no, Mr. Johnny Cooke, there is nothing vicious in discussion, and it can only be offensive to ignorant and dishonest persons. The Christian Evidence Society is a society for discussions, though not for free discussion, as its topics are limited. For instance, a defence of atheism, or what is called materialism, is not allowed, a circumstance which renders it not free enough for me to have any participation in its proceedings, though I shall occasionally become one of the audience. Though limited in its discussions it can do nothing but good, and the man, who can see any thing wrong in Mechanics' Institutes, cannot be expected to see any thing right in a Christian Evidence Society. Evidence is not what the Christian wants, of which the following narrative will be a proof :

On my return from Plymouth to Exeter, I met a methodist local preacher by appointment. The first point in his conversation was an assurance that he rested upon nothing but the evidence of his senses; and the last, after a little questioning, which shewed the absence of all evidence, acknowledged, that the Christian must rest upon FAITH. There is no making a convert of such a man, there is no instruction in such a discussion, and we can only appeal from him to one who will not rest upon faith unsupported by the evidence of his senses.

In travelling from Exeter back to Dorchester, I had a Devonshire Curate for a companion, an elderly gentleman; but certainly the most liberal as a politician, if not the most intelligent clergyman that I have met. His hat was the only badge of his office, and his vivacity appeared to extend even to his habiliments. To all appearance, on meeting him, I was unknown and unsuspected, though he had heard of my being in Exeter. We talked of the breaking of banks; of the Catholic question; of the Reverend Mr. Taylor, and his molestation in Dublin; of the London Christian Evidence Society, and of Carlile! He wished the Catholic question at rest, as a means of breaking up a bitter dissension, by putting the Catholics on the same footing with other dissenters. He expressed his disapprobation of Mr. Taylor's taste, in assuming the character of both a clergyman of the Established Church and a preacher against it. But as for Carlile, though his writings were to be condemned, he was an open, manly fellow and was known how to be dealt with. I asked him if he had read any of Carlile's writings. He said none but such as had appeared in such newspapers as had come in his way: and this he confessed could form no fair specimen for judgment.