benevolent exertions of the Legislature in their behalf. They exhibited
some features of peculiar malignity--many glaring indications of the
existence of a base and selfish hidden conspiracy against the cause of
law, of order, and of good government. Who were the real originators and
contrivers of that wicked movement, and what their objects, is a
question which we shall not here discuss, but leave in the hands of the
present keen and vigilant Government, and of the Parliament, so soon to
be assembled. If a single chance of bringing the really guilty parties
to justice--of throwing light on the actors and machinery of that
atrocious conspiracy shall be thrown away, the public interests will
have been grievously betrayed. On this subject, however, we have no
apprehensions whatever, and pass on heartily to congratulate the country
on possessing a Government which acted, on the trying occasion in
question, with such signal promptitude, energy, and prudence. Not one
moment was lost in faltering indecision; never was the majesty of the
law more quickly and completely vindicated, never was there exhibited a
more striking and gratifying instance of a temperate and discriminating
exercise of the vast powers of the executive. The incessant attention of
all functionaries, from the very highest to the lowest, by night and by
day, on that occasion, at the Home-Office, (including the Attorney and
Solicitor-General,) would hardly be credited; _mercy to the misguided_,
but instant vengeance upon the guilty instigators of rebellion, was
then, from first to last, the rule of action. The enemies of public
tranquillity reckoned fearfully without their host, in forgetting who
presided at the Home-Office, and who at the Horse Guards. Nothing could
be better than the Government examination into the real causes of the
outbreak, instituted upon the spot the very moment it was over, while
evidence was fresh and accessible, and of which the guilty parties
concerned have a great deal yet to hear. The Special Commission for the
trial of the rioters, was also issued with salutary expedition. The