and refresh their "attachment to and who really are, amongst the

Monarchy." If this were really true, what a thoughtless, what a silly and fondling, what a drivelling and ideotic race the people of this kingdom must be; and how well must they merit the scorn and contempt of the rest of the world!

most zealous and most active in upholding the present system, are amongst the foremost in resolution and preparation to flee from its inevitable consequences. They are like the man, who had been building a wall, and who set his workmen to hold it up, while he went to receive and get off with the money.

Do you think, that men, whose all is at stake, who have families to provide for, and who see their means diminishing every day, are to be won to their total ruin by high-flying eulogiums such as this of yours? Do you think that you can enchant them, as the snake does the silly hedge-sparrow? Do you think, that you can make them in love with poverty? Do you think that, by threatening them with loss of morals and religion, you can frighten them out of their “last shilling ?" If you do, you are very much de. ceived.

But, really, you could not hazard such a shocking insult and 'mockery, if you yourself were not blind to what is passing in the world. You could not, even to such men as were dining you at Liverpool, have talked in this strain, if you had had much more knowledge of what is passing from month to month in England, than of what is passing in the moon. While you are flourishing away in this style, and looking upon the "people of property' as a set of fond, believing, gulls, ready to lay even their bodies down to be trampled under foot out of pure devotion to the tem you eulogize, those same people of property are busily engaged in contriving the means of escap-tricks, prepared your audience ing from the consequences of the for what was to follow, you prowreck that they see approaching!ceed to a defence of the Six Acts, It is very curious, but, not more curious than true, and not more true in fact, than natural in mo

sys

tive, that many and wany thousands of those, who appear to be,

Having, by these preliminary

as you pretend; but, you content yourself with what you deem a defence of one out of the six; namely, the act to put an end to public meetings. And, how do

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you defend this act? Why, by denying, that such Meetings as those held last summer and autumn were legal! If they were not legal, why pass a law to prevent them in future? You had another object here; and that

was to give your aid to what might be done, or attempted, with regard to those who had taken a leading part at those meetings; and, give me leave to say, that the motive was any thing but fair and manly.

But, on what ground was the meeting, at Manchester, for instance, unlawful? Every thing is lawful, which the law does not forbid. And, what law forbade that meeting, or any meeting resembling it? The law is a restraint upon man, and prevents him from doing certain things. It consists of a set of restraints, not of permissions. No law positively, that a man shall have

the

illegality of their conduct was a thing to be ascertained; but, if purpose was not unlawful, and if no unlawful act was done after the people were assembled, what was to make the meeting unlaw. ful?

Custom, in numerous cases is, and must be law. The terms are, whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary." And, what can be more wise and just than this? The thing having been so, and been so without interruption, for so long a time, it is to be pre. sumed, that it is right, and the maxim further supposes, to be sure, that if not right, men ought to have been informed of it before, and not have been suffered to proceed in an error, that might be injurious to them. Suppose I build a house upon a spot, which I can conveniently go from to a town by a foot-path across my neighbour's park, and which footpath saves me some miles in going to the town. I shall receive great damage by the shutting me out of this foot-path; and, therefore, if I prove the custom, my neighbour cannot shut me out, nor is it right that he should; for, I have built square at

says

liberty to plough his own field; but, he has a right to do it, and the law will protect him in doing it, because there is no law to forbid him from ploughing his field. All the people, assembled on the 16th of August, had a right to be on the roads and in the Manchester, because there was no law to forbid their being there. When assembled the legality, or

upon

house my the knowledge of the long cus tom, and I have, of course, presumed that the custom gave me a right of passing.

Now, as to public meetings, or | far from it, that, in 1817, when assemblies of the people, they so keen upon the scent of sedi

tion, the parliament passed an act to give a check to public meetiugs. No meeting was to be held, unless after notice given by sezen But, not a word was said about numbers, or about the place of residence of the persons attending the meetings. The fair presumption to be drawn from this act alone is enough to

have always been customary, in all ages of the country. Not only has no law ever forbidden them, but, by fair inference, the law has allowed them, not in | house-holders. positive terms, for that was not necessary,but by forbidding unlawful assemblies, or riots, for the dispersion of which the law has provided. By this very provision the law really allows of assem-authorize the opinion, that the blies that are not unlawful; and, Manchester Meeting was, in itself, to constitute an unlawful assembly, a legal meeting; for this act had before the Six Acts were passed, expired, and the people were at there must have been some un- liberty to do whatever they might lawful act committed after the lawfully do before this act was passed.

assembly took place.

You say, have never been declared unlawful before; because no such assemblies ever before took place. What, do you mean, that assemblies so numerous never before took place? This would be worth nothing, if true; but, many and many assemblies equally numerous have taken place at various periods; and especially during the reigns of Charles the Second and of Queen Anne. Nay, down to August last, no man in England appears to have dreamed, that any assembly, however numerous, could be called unlawful, unless it committed some unlawful act. So

that such assemblies

To pretend, therefore, that the new act, which confines meetings to parishes, excludes out-livers, puts them under the absolute controul of persons appointed by the Crown, or its Ministers, and deals fine, imprisonment, and death so largely about in all directions; to pretend, that this is no alteration in the laws of the land, and that Englishmen are as free as they were before the new act was passed, is what could have been done by no man, not wholly regardless of the opinions of the good and discerning part of the nation.

In order to shew, that these

large meetings must be intended | cere, we have full proof in another for mischief, you endeavour to part of the same Bill, to which show, that they could not be in-part you did not think proper tended for good. And, why, be- éven to allude. The Bill allows cause being so large, scarcely a of Meetings, however large, in hundredth part of the persons a house. But, under what reassembled could hear; and, of strictions. No money is to be course, discussion and delibera- paid by those who go to the Meettion were wholly out of the ques-ing for the use of the house, or tion. As a question of expediency or of policy you may be right here; but, if inexpedient and impolitic, it does not follow, that mischief must be the motive of the meeting. Thousands, however, may put their trust in a few, and may, by their hands held up, give their assent very properly and reasonably to what they do not distinctly understand. We have often seen addresses, approving, not of what the Mi-ration were desired by you and

nisters had done, but of what they might do! And, it is very well known, that the far greater part of those, who presented such loyal addresses against the works of PAINE, had never read those works. So that, the assembly being too large for the main part of the persons actually to hear what is proposed for their adoption is neither so foolish, nor so unprecedented as you wish to make it appear to be.

room! Or, if there be, then the keeper of the house must have a licence, granted by a Justice, and this may be taken away at the pleasure of the Justice! So that it is clear, that there can be no meeting even in a house, unless the parties are on the side of the Government; for, in any other case, no license will, of course, be granted.

Now, if discussion and delibe

But, that this objection to you say, they might have hap large Meetings was not very sin-pened. The thing was possible;

and, as there could be no delibe- | templating your great talents, one is astonished at your want of shame in seeming to delight in the success of means so unfair and so truly cowardly. Of the things, which indieate baseness of heart, none is so odious as the employment of tyranny; and of all the kinds of tyranny none is so odious, so truly detestable, as that which compels an opponent

ration, there could be no good. But, in a room, Sir? In a room, there could not possibly arise any pulling down of houses or burning of towns; and there naturally would have been deliberation. And yet you will not let us hire rooms to meet in ; or, in other words, you will not let us meet even in the rooms!

ing, and especially when he keeps up a pretended discussion of the point in dispute. If those, who have the power in their hands, say to their opponents, "hold your tongue: you shall

Away, then, with all your hy-in dispute to hold his tongue, pocritical, your scandalous pre-while the tyrant keeps on speaktexts about the danger of large public meetings and their inutility for want of a capacity to deliberate. The part of the Bill that I have now referred to, and to which you did not choose to allude, clearly shows, that the blow" was stricken at all assemblages of the people not under the absolute controul of some one appointed by the Ministers; and it is clear, that your own particular enmity is directed against all free discussion, all free deliberation, all free communication of thought, all free intercourse of mind between man and man; and that, for your part, if you have not

openly urged the necessity of adopting a Ce.isor. hip, it is only because you think hame end can be effected by other means.

In looking at your origin, rise, progress, and especially in con

say no more on pain of banish"ment." There, at any rate, they ought to stop. They themselves ought also to be silent. The world ought to be left to judge from what has already But been said on both sides. you, seeing us reduced to silence by the arm of power, go on with the dispute, and argue as if all was left open to free discussion as before.

However, the world is not to be deceived in this way, and the world is in no humour to be deceived. A war, which has reduced this country to ruin, has not done any thing towards finalM

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