To those, who are accustomed to look with an observant eye upon the
causes which lead to the fall and destruction of nations, the present
epoch offers materials for their most weighty consideration. They have
seen their country involved in one of the most destructive and arduous
contests ever recorded in its annals; they have seen the combined
force of the civilized world directed against its very existence; they
have witnessed its unexampled and glorious struggle; the loyalty and
patriotism of the people, and finally they have beheld it, rising at
the close of the contest, not subdued nor conquered, but towering with
renovated fame and lustre, and scattering to their loathsome dens the
dark demons of anarchy and ruin; they beheld the industrious artisan
returning to the shuttle--the laborious peasant to the plough--the
war-worn soldier was seated at his native hearth telling the story
of his battles, and the weather-beaten sailor, in the fulness of
his pride, was glorying in the wounds obtained in the defence of
his country. Peace gave to the nation its blessings, and round the
consecrated altars of our fathers knelt the children of this favoured
land in grateful prayer to that God, who had gone forth with them
in the day of battle; and who, in the wreck of surrounding kingdoms,
had vouchsafed to spread over this his protecting hand. But, in the
midst of these cheering prospects, the pestilential air of Atheism and
Infidelity was raging abroad like the blasting heat of the Simoon in
the desert, and throwing its sickening hue over the beautiful forms
of Religion and Virtue. Men, if such an exalted name can be given
them, who have openly thrown off all submission--all reverence--all
duty and love to their God; who, in the most blasphemous manner,
had reviled and denied their divine Redeemer, considered themselves
enfranchised from every moral and religious duty, from allegiance to
their earthly Sovereign and obedience to the laws of the country. In
the latter they beheld an irksome, and disagreeable restraint upon the
exercise of their degenerate passions, they tore themselves away from
the great human Society, despised its relations and its duties, and in
their midnight assemblies traitorously plotted the massacre of some
of the most exalted individuals of the country. In themselves they
united the dreadful characters of traitor, incendiary, and murderer.
Apostates from their religion, a spirit of horrible infidelity hardened
their hearts against all the tender feelings of humanity and virtue,
blinded their understandings to the dictates of truth, and rendered
them capable of the vilest crimes. But the eye of Providence watched
over their victims in the dark recesses where their hellish plots were
engendered; the Omnipresent Being marked their actions, and, at the
very moment of their expected accomplishment, dragged them forth to the
execration and vengeance of their injured country.
We live in times teeming with events of such uncommon magnitude,
that they seem to laugh to scorn all that we used to call important
in our former history. Let us not deceive ourselves. It is no petty
danger that threatens us; we are not anxious about some dubious point
of honour, nor are we contending for any secondary interest; but for
the very body and substance of our Island: not for the foliage, nor
even the branches, but for the trunk of the British Oak; that Oak so
different in all respects from the Tree of Liberty, intended to be
reared in the Country by certain pretended Patriots; that Oak beneath
which a grateful and a happy people had so long sheltered; and under
which the distressed of other countries have often found a refuge, when
driven to seek protection from the stormy blasts in their own less
happy land.
But to what are the temporal evils which now afflict the country to be
traced? Undoubtedly to apostacy in religion, and to the alarming growth
of infidelity and deism. Conspirators never found an asylum in the
habitations of Christians. The roll of turbulent revolters that History
has recorded and transmitted to us, as the assertors of the _Rights of
Men_, exhibits not one disciple of the meek and lowly Jesus. The true
believer in the doctrines of Christ feels himself, in the view of the
picture exhibited of the real Christian, grounded still stronger upon
the sure foundation of his faith upon the solid rock of this heavenly
dispensation. His soul catches new fire from the host of examples which
Christian History records: he shudders at the attempts which are made
proud and factious men to withdraw subjects from their allegiance, to
plunge them into the horrors of anarchy and civil war; he trembles with
astonishment and indignation, when men rejoice over the mangled remains
of Princes and of statesmen, and over the bloody corpses of Sovereigns
butchered by the hands of their own rebellious subjects. It is to the
progress of irreligion and the decay of morals, that the increase of
crime which now stigmatises the country, is to be attributed. It is to
the fatal neglect of their religious duties, and to the renunciation
of the blessings which Christianity offers them, that the miserable
men, whose dreadful acts are recorded in the following pages, have been
doomed to expiate their crimes on the scaffold. Religion does not leave
the interests of mankind within the contracted circle of his social
duties: its influence is extended in its protection to the utmost
possible degree. The Christian is not only obliged by his profession to
be a good man, but also to be a good citizen. He must be obedient to
the governing powers under which he is born and placed. No subtilty of
reasoning, nor any perversion of language or texts of Scripture will
countenance him in acts of rebellion against his lawful Sovereign.
Whenever, indeed, the standard of rebellion is unfortunately lifted up
against our Prince, it is the duty of the Christian to be active in his
allegiance, and to defend the Government to which he belongs, with all
possible energy.
It has, however, pleased an Almighty Providence to protect the Rulers
of this Country from the diabolical machinations of a set of lawless
wretches who sought to erect their own interest on murder, rapine,
and treason. Their names are transmitted to posterity, branded with
the most horrible crimes that disfigure human nature; their lives are
forfeited to the injured Laws of their Country: and, although they may
have attempted to console themselves with the vain belief that the
punishment for their deeds ends in this world, the dread reality has
now flashed upon them that there is also another world in which the
hardened and unrepentant sinner will meet his everlasting doom.
To the Atheist and the Infidel let the blood of these men speak with
the most solemn admonition. The time is fast approaching when the veil
of earthly things will be removed from their sight; when the cobweb
texture of their fancied theories will be torn asunder; and truth, with
its radiant light, burst upon them. Then let them pause, ere it be too
late: a dreadful example has been set before them of the effect of
irreligion and immorality. If the Atheist bear the holy name of father,
let him ponder well ere he resign his soul to everlasting perdition:
let him, as his babes cling around him, picture to himself the horrors
of that grave on which no morning breaks; and the excruciating horrors
of that death-bed which is not blessed with the hope of a future state.
Let him, in his dispassionate moments, visit the grave of the murderer
Thistlewood; let him there reflect upon the end of a life of infidelity
and irreligion; and then may that Almighty Being, who looks with a
benignant eye upon the weaknesses of his creatures, guard him from the
error of his ways, and teach him that real and substantial happiness on
earth is only to be found in RELIGION, VIRTUE, and MORALITY.