pensioners and placemen; when half the earnings of the daylabourer is absorbed in taxes; when distress and misery are pervading every class of society; and legal executions, even in this loyal city, following close upon their heels; let us ask these timid men-Is this the time for half measures?-Is this the time to fear the expiring efforts of gasping corruption?-No! If they had a particle of the spirit of their ancestors, they would unite with their brother patriots, and liberate themselves at once from the shackles of the plundering oligarchy. But there are other much worse characters in our ancient city, men who would not scruple to go any length in keeping up the present odious and oppressive system. These corrupt men, imitating the hirelings of the London Press, call you the mob, the rabble, the poorer classes, the lower orders, who are forsooth incapable of judging upon political questions; others again wish to revive the obselete cry of "schism and sedition," and call your laudable endeavours in the cause of the constitution "exertions, to effect the entire subversion of church and state." Poor weak men! to imagine that you never can get out of your leading strings, that you are still to be frightened by bugbears. I dare say there is not one of those polished loyal gentlemen who would not be glad of your votes, rabble and mob as they think you; nor would they scruple, upon such an occasion, to wink at your schism, and shake your seditious hands. The word schism indeed, in the address of an honest country gentleman, soliciting the votes of an "ever faithful" city, appears to my humble comprehension, perfectly irrelevant. Rumour attributes this expression to some minister of the gospel; but christian charity forbids me to believe that it ever could have proceeded from one, whose duty it is to preach "peace on earth, and good will towards men." Schism means division in the church of God: how inapplicable then to an electioneering contest! No! this idea never came from any minister of the gospel-from any of that sacred order, who are constantlywrestling against principalities and powers; against the rulers of the darkness of this world; against spiritual wickedness in high places." No! no! it never could have proceeded from a minister," whose loins are girt about with truth, and who wears the breast-plate of righteousness. Do these loyal men entertain the hope of reviving the Treason and Sedition Bills, or of suspending the Hebeas Corpus Act? Eph. ch. vi Believe me, the day is past, mankind are too enlightened. The very debt under which the nation groans, a debt larger than that of civilized Europe, is not to be paid off by such merry-andrew tricks. No man again will be enabled to pick your pockets, and escape by crying-stop thief. Be firm, my friends! be decisive, be persevering; but, above all, keep your temper. Give not the occasion, so much sought after by the oligarchy, of calling out the military, and of putting the country under martial law; and rest assured that your efforts will be finally, perhaps, speedily crowned with triumph and Buccess. The simple fact of a patriot alderman (our fellowcountryman) being twice placed by the voice of the people, in the civic chair of the metropolis, is a thunderbolt to our enemies. But you are repeatedly told that " the abstruse science of po litical economy" is above your capacity. All questions of this kind your enemies declare you "incapable of investigating." That" mobs of the lowest class (according to the Courier) are not to decide upon questions of the most delicate state policy." What! Is there any difficulty then in raising the Income Tax from six and a quarter to ten per cent? To pension wives and daughters upon the nation? To make a man first lord of the treasury, and auditor of the exchequer? To abuse a man all one's life, and then join with foes in erecting a monument to his public services? Is it difficult for another set to preach about economy and retrenchment? To boast of the prosperity of the country, of the increase of revenue, and the flourishing state of commerce and manufactures, when taxation, pauperism, and bankruptcy were marching hand in hand throughout the kingdom? Was there ary proof of wisdom in carrying on a long war upon variable and false pretences? To bribe, alternately, every potentate of Europe, for the secret purpose of restoring Ferdinand and the Inquisition, and keeping, by the aid of foreign bayonets, a family upon a throne, which had long been the bitterest foe of these kingdoms; and that too in the teeth of The debt (says Mr. Cobbett, Nov. 9,) is £ally whom no honors nor rewards can seduce from us. She is a steady, unrelaxing, persevering, incor ruptible ally; an ally that is proof against all blandishments, all intrigues, all temptations, and all open attacks. She sets at defiance all military, all yeomanry cavalry. They may as well fire at a ghost. This ally cares not a straw about spies and informers; she laughs at the employment of secret service money; she is always erect day and night; and is always firmly moving on in our cause, in spite of all the terrors of gaols, dungeons, halters, and axes." repeated promises, and against the will of an enlightened nation? But perhaps the difficulty of this delicate state policy lies in raising from a patient and impoverished people the sum of £212,000 per annum, to divide among ninety-one patriotic servants of the two factions. Conceive, too, the mighty wisdom in making corn dear, for the ostensible purpose of relieving distress; and then exhorting the insulted people to live upon butter-milk, and abstain from the abstruse science of politics. These are some of the glorious works of Whigs and Tories, which you, forsooth! are incapable of understanding; and when any of these wise gentry are convicted of breaches of the constitution, they get off by proclaiming that corruption for which they could punish a poor Plymouth tinman, and which, as acknowledged by themselvees, would have made our ancestors startle with indignation, is as "notorious as the sun at noon day!" and that "all are corrupt from top to bottom." Well, and truly then did a celebrated Whig writer once allow, that the nation was crucified between two thieves, the Whig thief and the Tory thief.* But political knowledge is not difficult of acquirement, it has been recommended by our best writers, one of whom has expressly declared, that it is the business of every Briton." It was Judge Jefferies who recommended men" to keep within their own bounds, mind their callings, and employments," (you see they had some in Charles II. reign), and concern "themselves with their own affairs, and leave the administration "of the public to them to whom it belongs, and is intrusted "with." It was an English bishop who said, that "man's "abuse of his delegated authority is to be borne by resignation;. "that disquisitions upon government did more harm than good; "that public discussions of such topics ought to be prevented; "that he did not know what the mass of the people had to do "with the laws but to obey them." But these days of despotism are gone; and the very same intellect that suffices to manage the concerns of trade, commerce, and manufactures, is fitted, if so applied, for the guidance of a nation. The best of the Romans was taken from the plough; and the great Washington was a surveyor. One of the maxims even of our own law, abstruse as it is, declares that ignorance excuses no man. But granting that your ignorance were such as is represented, why do not these illumined minds lend you a little of their light? Ralph on Parl. Sect. v. + State Trials, x. p. 371. See Blackst, iv. 27. Why do not the country gentlemen now come forward, and place themselves at your head, rather than, like the old French noblese, either sit inactive, or assist in supporting acknowledged corruption? So far from thus doing, even the civilities of private life, are made to bend to political differences. The free Britons in Cornwall, who appear to me almost a constellation of patriots, complain of want of co-operation. What must they think of their fellow-labourer, in almost the largest county in England, standing unaided and alone? But perhaps they think us violent: let them define the word, and we will answer them; if it be violent to liberate the king from the shackles of the borough-mongers; if it be violence to keep steadily and firmly within the pale of the constitution, as described by Coke and Fortescue, by Tyrrell, Somers, Petyt, and St. Amand, by all our best writers, and our best charters; let us not shrink from the accusation, but rather let us say with the patriot Cartwright, no man would think ill of a woman for being violently chaste, nor of a man for being violently honest." As a last resource, the corrupt insist upon it, that no ministry can go on without influencing a majority of the House of Commons. Let their influence be that of virtue and honesty, and we will agree with them. Against any other influence, let us tell them, that, by our laws and constitution, parliaments were intended for the redress of grievances, and easing the op pressions of the people:" and that, "the greatest danger is "from the infamous practice of bribery and corruption; that "all undue influences are illegal, and strongly prohibited:" and that the Honorable House itself resolved, 5 Dec. 1774, and in May, 1775, " that if it shall appear that any person hath "procured himself to be elected, or returned a member of this "House, or endeavoured so to be, by bribery, or any other corrupt practices, this House will proceed with the utmost "severity against such person." Even Pitt declared, An. Dom. 1782,"that, without a parliamentary reform, the people "cannot be safe against bad ministers, nor could even good "ministers be of use to them." And well did Lord Erskine say, "that all the other advantages of our constitution are lost "to us, until this salutary object is attained." In fact, if any 66 Compare upon these subjects, Petyt. Pref. 40. Prynne, Power etc. p. 26. II Jnst. 408. IV Just. 11. See also 3 Ed. I. Declar. of K. Will. Blackst. i. 179, Oldfield, V. 135. State Tr. xxi. 909. constitutional principle is more clear than another, it is, to use the words of Lord Chatham," that there should be a perma "nent relation between the constituent and representative "body; that the parliament should speak the language of the "people."* To my brother freemen resident in London, I owe every feeling of gratitude and admiration. To have received an offer of their support in one united body, is an honor which I never could have expected, still less deserved: but it is a part of the present artful and corrupt system to throw every obstacle in the way of the elective franchise. The greater the number of outvoters, and the greater number of miles which they have to travel, under a system which makes it compulsory for them to be personally present, the greater of course is the expence, and there are but few purses which can, or ought to incur such expence, but those which are supplied from the taxes. This system tends rapidly to reduce those places which have any portion of freedom left, to the state of mere rotten boroughs, purchasable only by the rich. But I trust there is still spirit enough in this ancient city to prevent such a degraded state of humiliation. I trust that the spirit which pervades its patriots will animate the timid, and silence the corrupt. But if confidence should be disappointed, and your efforts unavailing; if the great capital of the West of England is destined to become the prey of Whig adventurers, or Tory parasites; if her streets are again to be disgraced by scenes of drunkenness and riot, of excesses which debase reason, and reduce man to the brute, be assured, that such degradation will be neither unnoticed, nor unstigmatized. No! the eyes of all England are upon her, and her infamy will be the theme of popular indignation from the promontory of Caithness to the Lizard point. Even Cornwall, with all her boroughs, will feel ashamed of her contiguity; and my worthy colleagues in the cause of reform will blush for the humiliated state of the seat of their Metropolitan. Patriots! I now take my leave of you. Many of these observations have been extorted from me by the attack of our enemies. They have fired the first shot; it was indeed from a See Debrett, v. 154-5, 162, &c. and Timberland, vii, 479. |