The Recorder

LATE, AND VERY IMPORTANT
LONDON NEWS;
Received via Charleston
LONDON, Nov. 20, 1802.

Conspiracy against the KING and
GOVERNMENT!

Yesterday morning at 10 o'clock, a
privy council was held at lord Pelham's
office, for the purpose of investigating
the charge brought against col. Despard
and his associates, who were apprehended
in Oakley street, on Tuesday evening.

At 1 o'clock col. Despard was brought
in custody to the office; but was asked
very few questions by the privy council.
The greatest part of the day was taken
up in examining other persons, who were
privy to the proceedings of the meeting,
when a great deal of useful information
touching the business transpired. At
3 o'clock, colonel Despard was ordered
to be conveyed to Newgate. His wife
attended him, but was not suffered to
communicate with him except in the
presence of a third person.

We understand, that it was the object
of the conspirators to make an attempt
on the life of his majesty, on his way to
the parliament house, on Tuesday. In
this horrid undertaking, they were to be
joined by 2000 of the poor of Spitalfields:
and about the same number from
St. George's Fields, &c. amounting in
the whole to 10,000 men. The attempt
on his majesty was only intended
as the first scene in this frightful tragedy;
and it is said that having succeeded in
that, it was their further plan to seize the
Tower, where having armed themselves,
they meant to return and take possession
of the bank; from thence they were to
proceed to Buckingham house, and seize
the rest of the royal family resident there.

It is expected that a special commission
will be immediately issued for the trial
of the offenders. It is almost unnecessary
to add, that he is the col. Despard who
was so long confined in Coldbath Fields
prison.

FOR about twenty five years after
the present king of Great Britain acceded
to his grandfather's throne, it was
one of the favorite amusements of a majority
of the people of England to cast
upon him every conceivable species of
scurrility. About seventeen years ago,
however, an absurd attempt was made
to assassinate him. This attempt was
made by an unfortunate woman. With
whom his majesty had entertained a
particular sort of connection, of which
it is not necessary to give a plainer explanation.
The idea of the murder of
a king of England had almost turned
the heads of the English nation. From
this time forward, his Britannic majesty
has enjoyed the cordial attachment of
the British nation.

The advantage of this alarm was immediately
felt: The issue of the matter
has been, that we have since been alarmed
with various reports of the assassination
of the king of England. The following
article we consider as a sort of postscript
to these previous publications. Two
thousand Spitalfields weavers had undertaken
to kill the king of England,
and eight thousand others were to join
them. To any man that ever resided
three months in England, and who
knows any thing about the state of society
in that country, the thing is an absolute
burlesque upon probability. It
is our humble suspicion that this story
has been fabricated in an American newspaper.
It is hardly credible, that the
printer of an English newspaper would
have risked so queer a publication. At
least this is what we conjecture. Early
in summer last, the Recorder contained
an original article, respecting col. Despard.
He had been committed to prison.
An exaggerated account of his severe
usage had been delivered in Parliament
street, it was presently refuted by
a letter from himself. This letter denied,
in the strongest terms almost every
thing that had been urged against the
British government. Thus it is, that
the ins and the outs: that two contending
factions cast pyramids of falsehoods
in the faces of each other. The editors
do not flatly affirm that this pretty story
of col Despard is an American news-invention.
If they are incorrect, they
will in due time prostrate themselves
under the correction of truth. But the
project of affirming, that ten thousand
Spitalfields weavers were to put an end
to the British government, forsooth, is
entirely remote from their habits of
thinking.