that which we barely dared to suspect, has been openly and audaciously acknowledged and proclaimed; and thus much that has been written is confirmed. Whether the Reform Act shall verify the fears of its opponents, or the hopes of its authors and supporters, the expected good or suffering will alone develope. But though it may possibly be a subject of rejoicing to the country at large, its agitation will ever be remembered by Bristol as the epoch and date of its severest calamity. Previously to that agitation, it has been shown that the city was singularly fortunate, in comparative prosperity, comparative concord and internal amity, and comparative loyalty to the Constitution. It is now unquestionably in distraction and distrust, on the brink of a ruin that may be irretrievable, already burthened with a debt of 70 or £80,000. of which the Riots are solely the cause, and which, falling upon impaired resources, will long be a check to any attempts to restore its credit and hopes of reviving prosperity. Agitation has struck a blow, and is still aiming fresh attacks upon the greatest source of its wealth,-the West India Interest. The citizens have seen and felt that the consequences have been hitherto disastrous, but perhaps do not yet all see, that they must be universal;-that they must reach themselves, and that the system, if persevered in, must be fatal, and sink the second city in the empire into the insignificance of a mere coasting port. The active charity of its wealthier citizens has been ever conspicuous, and the outrages committed against their persons and property have not turned them aside from those good and kind acts by which the sufferings of disease or penury may be alleviated. The once flourishing city is indeed brought low, for it has not only disquiet but pestilence in its streets. Happy will it be for the citizens, if they are led by reflection on the past, to see and acknowledge that those are their best friends who fear innovations; and if they resolve now in their one triumph and many sufferings, to place no confidence in agitators, who would instigate them to the burning of private dwellings and the desecration of churches; and if they would weigh well, (the one only cause of dissatisfaction being removed) against the dessolation they have witnessed, the value of Conservative Principles, whose professed object is the preservation and security of property, the promoting public credit and confidence, without which even industry is unavailing, and the establishment of the liberty of offering our prayers to God, the Giver of all Good, in the temples which our forefathers have raised to her service. August 25, 1832, APPENDIX. STATEMENTS FROM THE MAGISTRATES. To the Editor of Felix Farley's Bristol Journal. COUNCIL-HOUSE, Bristol, 14th Nov. 1831. MR. EDITOR,-A fortnight has now passed since the distressing scenes took place in the city of Bristol, which will long mark Sunday, the 30th October, in the memory of those who witnessed them. During the interval which has elapsed, the Magistrates and their Officers have been occupied almost without intermission in satisfying the numerous claims upon their attention, which the apprehension of persons charged with offences, the recovery and preservation of abstracted property, and other matters of continual and pressing occurrence, presented. In the It is hoped that the candour of by far the greatest part of their fellow-citizens has, in the mean time, spared them from the censure and reproach which others, in ignorance of the facts, and without materials for judgment, have thrown upon them. Their complete vindication must be left to that full and fair enquiry by which, whether it be called down upon them by adverse application, or may take place under any other circumstances, they feel that justice will eventually be done to all, and by the result of which they are content to abide. mean time the inclosed copies of two letters sent by the Magistrates on the 4th Nov., one of them (with the Appendix) to his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department, and the other to the Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's Forces (a copy of which last letter was also sent to Colonel Brereton,) will serve to convey an outline of the principal circumstances as they occurred, and which, it being ten days since the documents were transmitted to the respective offices, the Magistrates think they may now, without impropriety, lay before the |