POLITICAL REVIEW.

SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER.

No. XXXI.]

JULY 15, 1809.

REVIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

[Vol. V

REMARKS ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE PEOPLE IN CONSEQUENCE of RecentT INQUIRIES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

THE Supplementary Number of our Register, contains a body

of evidence which tends forcibly to demonstrate the sentiments and feelings of a considerable part of the people of Britain, respecting those important subjects which have engaged the attention of the house of Commons, during the major part of the late session. The expression of the public mind on this occasion, is the

The following counties, cities, and towns, have assembled on this

occasion.

COUNTIES.-Middlesex.-Berkshire.-Norfolk.-Hampshire.-Huntingdonshire. Hertfordshire.-Monmouthshire.-Cornwall.-Wilts.-Herefordshire.-Essex.

CITIES.-London Corporation London, Livery of Westminster. Canterbury. Rochester.* -Gloucester.*-Hereford.* †-Norwich Worcester.-Durham.*-Coventry."-Salisbury.t-Winchester.t-Bristol, Towns.-Liverpool.-Nottingham.*t-Sheffield.-Northampton.-Bedford.-Deal.-Godalming.-Calne.-Radford.t-Sandwich.-Odiham.† -Shrewsbury.-Derby.-Hythe. +-Dover. †-Lewes.-Maidstone.--Plymouth.-High-Wycombe. Southwark. Reading - Poole.-Boston.Pomfret. +-Shaftesbury. +-Highworth. +-Holbeach. †-Kingston-uponHull. Kendal. †-Stafford.-Guildford.-Southampton. +-Manchester. -Okehampton. Doncaster.-Berwick-upon-Tweed. Beverley.-St. Ives.t-Christchurch.†-Blackburne.-Warwick.-Huddersfield.

-

SCOTLAND.-Inverness County.t-Glasgow City.-Rutherglen.f-Annan.Kilmarnock.t-Berwick. †- Kirkcudbridge.-Paisley. †-Renfrew

County.+

IRELAND.-Dublin County.t-Dublin City.t-Londonderry.t-Belfast.t

WALES.-Wrexhamt-Carmarthen.

The WHIG CLUB of LONDON.

N. B. Those places marked being corporations, have voted their freedom, to which the town of Liverpool added a service of plate, value 1000

more remarkable, as ever since the formation of the first administration of the late WILLIAM PITT to the commencement of the last session of parliament, the people in general have been either alarmed or awed into silence: they have at times been deprived of some of their most valuable rights; the PRESS, that palladium of freedom has been shackled; the HABEAS CORPUS ACT, that safe-guard of personal liberty against the machinations of despotism has been suspended; and the right of public discussion abridged. The detestable PITT and GRENVILLE bills, passed during the late war, are with the framer of one of those bills happily no more. The present administration, notwithstanding their various errors, have not run the career of wickedness of their master PITT: the "reign "of terror" is not, and we trust never will be restored; and the people, aroused by the exposure of abuses the most flagrant, from the lethargy which had so long seized them, have exercised one of their most valuable constitutional rights, that of assembling together, and freely expressing their opinion on national affairs.

That the people have the RIGHT thus to assemble seems to be generally acknowledged, and indeed cannot be doubted by any one acquainted with the laws or constitution of Britain. The condition on which the people at the Revolution offered the crown to WILLIAM and MARY, and the tenure by which the house of HANOVER, originally held, and now holds the crown, is the BILL of rights, by which the right of assembling, and of petitioning the king on the subject of public grievances is solemnly recognised; and in which the people declare respecting this and other important points-"That they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular "the premises, as their undoubted rights and liberties." That attempts have been made to hinder the people from exercising this right, appears by the recent conduct of the Lord Provost of GLASGOW, the Mayor of NORTHAMPTON, and NORWICH, and the High Sheriffs of HEREFORDSHIRE and ESSEX, who refused to convene the inhabitants of these respective places. Whether their conduct proceeded from a principle of servility to others, from an innate love of tyranny, and a hatred to liberty, from weakness of head, or from any vicious quality of the heart we know not. In the latter instance there

guincas; the corporation of London a gold box, valuc 100 guineas, the corporation of Rochester, a silver cup, value 200 guineas.

The resolutions of the county of Hampshire will appear in a future list. We should be much obliged to any of our readers, who will assist us in completing our list, by furnishing us with the resolutions, &c. from any of the places marked † the major part of which we have not been able to meet with. Their communications directed to Harlow, or to our Publishers, Mr. Jones, No. 5, Newgate Street, London, will be thankfully, 'received.

appears to have been practised much meanness and shuffling to prevent a meeting of the freeholders and inhabitants. At first the ground of objection was stated by the High Sheriff (JOHN RUTHERFORTH ABDY, Esq. of Albyns, Epping,) to be the disapprobation of three or four individuals, who have taken due care to distinguish themselves as the supporters of any administration, and the peculiar defenders of that pure and immaculate statesman Lord MELVILLE; but after a little further reflection, the Sheriff stated as an objection, "the terms of the requisition :" this gentleman seems to have imagined that the general mass of the people, the" inhabitants" of a county have no right to assemble. We may, however, safely affirm, that all descriptions of persons who contribute to the support of government by the payment of taxes, without which that government could not exist, have the right to assemble, and freely to express their opinion on public affairs; and more especially when one of the objects of their meeting is to represent to their rulers, their right to be represented in the senate, and to petition that their liberties and property may be watched by guardians of their own choosing. The professed objections of the Sheriff of Essex, were however, done away by a second requisition, in which he was desired to convene a meeting of the "freeholders" for the purposes before mentioned; when this consistent gentleman recollected that before he had returned an answer to the first requisition, he had received the sentiments of a 66 very considerable number of "freeholders from every part of the county, that such meeting was "in their opinion unnecessary and inexpedient, and he therefore "thought that he was acting in conformity with the more general "sense of the county by refusing to convene the freeholders on "such an occasion." At the meeting which shortly followed, it was very justly observed by Mr. SMITH, member for Norwich, that the Sheriff by such a declaration assumed that right which alone belonged to the freeholders and inhabitants: they requested a meeting to express the opinion of the majority; the Sheriff refuses their request under the pretence that he is already acquainted with that opinion. Must it not be obvious to every man of plain sense, that if public meetings are dependent on men in official situations of weak heads, or of arbitrary principles, who may be the tools of ministers, or perhaps, the tools of their tools, and who will take upon themselves to determine for a whole county as they are directed by a few individuals, one of our most valuable rights, that of meeting to canvass public measures would soon be at an end. Ministers have in such a case only to appoint, or by their influence to procure, persons of a similar disposition with themselves, and we shall hear no more of public discussion on the subject of national abuses, or the proper means of remedying them: all popular

meetings will in a short time be deemed "

"expedient."

unnecessary, and in

When we first heard of a counter requisition being set on foot in the County of Essex, we were somewhat curious to be acquainted with the reasons of its promoters, and what could possibly bs suggested against a meeting for the consideration of those long standing abuses, and nefarious practices, which the first commoner in the land, the right hon, the Speaker of the Commons declared “would "have startled our ancestors." We were much surprised on finding that in fact no counter requisition had been fairly signed: the Sheriff indeed published a list which he termed "copies of " signatures of Freeholders who have signified their opinion, that "a county meeting is unnecessary and inexpedient ;" and this is all the information, he has thought proper to give us; but another gentleman, at the county meeting gave us a little further information on the subject. "He could prove that this "counter requisi❝tion was not fairly obtained: he could prove that one fourth, or e one half of the names affixed were not signed by the parties "themselves; he could prove that a clergyman of the church of "England had called his parishioners into the vestry after divine "service, and recommended them to sign this counter-requisition, "thus prostituting that day which is set apart for the worship of "the Almighty to secular and base purposes."*

If there be a class of persons whose peculiar duty it is to reprobate the practices which have been brought to light by certain recent inquiries, it is the clergy of the established church. These men have been forward enough to lift up their voices like a trumpet, at the command of their rulers; no men have displayed more ardour in kindling the flames of war, for the professed purpose truly, of" supporting the interests of religion and social order," against the licentious jacobins and levellers of France, and their abettors in this country! What lamentable outcries have not they at various periods set up of the church being in danger! But if the church be really in danger, it must be owing to such practices as have lately been developed. What has been the conduct of the Rev. Mr. BEAZLY, and the Rev. Dr. O'MEARA, to pass over, for the present, the conduct of their clerical brethren, the reverend traffickers in East India patronage? The former of these reverends has been detected in an attempt to procure preferment in the church by offering a bribe to the Duke of PORTLAND: the latter, to use the justly indignant language of Mr.WILBERFORCE, who on the inquiry respecting the Duke of YORK, expressed himself with a warmth

See the Speech of Mr. Burgoyne in the Report of the proceedings at the County meeting in the Essex Ünton, July 4th.

becoming a christian senator:-"The letters, the undenied, the "unblushing letters of the Duke, prove that he suffered Mrs. "Clarke to write to him on military matters, yea, and even on "church matters. Of all the facts which this heart-rending exami"nation had disclosed, that of Dr. O'MEARA's was the worst. A "prostitute turns pander for a dignified churchman, and solicits "her keeper to carry up her impudent petition to the ear of royalty, " and it is done!"* It is not to be wondered at that such horrid abuses as have been developed in church and state, have alarmed even some of those who are not wont to be alarmed on the subject of abuses in general, even the clergy, and that in some few instances (at Reading in particular) they have done honour to themselves, by promoting some of the best of the resolutions which have appeared in consequence of the late discoveries:† but the clergy of CORNWALL, a county famous for those sinks of corruption, rotten boroughs, and the clergy of Essex, a county too long distinguished for its servility to aristocratic influence, not only view all these, and numberless other abuses, with perfect complacency, but even unite in opposing the virtuous endeavours of their countrymen. in expressing their wish for a reformation. The Cornish Reverends protest" that in their opinion," a system of constitutional Reform, "has the tendency to results the most mischievious to the existing constitution, and the safety of the country;" and the Essex Reverends by their counter requisition, or by their leaving their names with the Sheriff to affix to what he may term a counter requisition, openly declare to the world, that any meeting of their countrymen for the purpose of expressing their reprobation of such abuses is" unnecessary and inexpedient." Had these clerical wiseacres gone a step further, and declared " ex animo their unfeigned "assent and consent" to the abounding corruptions in church and state, we doubt not they would have displayed much greater sincerity, than in their subscription to "all and every thing contained "in the articles and liturgy" of their own church, some of which not a thinking man amongst them believes, and which have been openly attacked by some of their own body, both from the pulpit and the press,

The freeholders and inhabitants of the county of Essex, as well as their countrymen in other places whose rights have been struck at by weak or interested municipal officers, have firmly asserted those rights, and by their perseverance in a good cause, by dint of argument alone, have driven their enemies from the field,

Speech of Mr. Wilberforce, Pol. Reg. Vol. V. p. 235. † Ibid. p. 457. * See two sermons, the one preached at a visitation in the County of Essex, and the other preached in the same county entitled―The everlasting fire of the Athanasian creed considered.