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"> - "> • ' "■" v-^ ,■ -'' -r^^l^ ..1&>:^ 3> \;^~yy» ::js> ' «> > ii* '■> ^^ - \ s ,^;-.i ' -^ ■-'*'^S^ ~s» J* 7,%>> ':^«>^' ^ :3:i 1"^ > ^ ") '^>5i^^ ■??»■: 3> t?i>-5> -:i> - ^■'^^>^* fs^-^ . ;s ■ "' ^3^ » >>" 1> ► ^ 2^~ > > > ^■4 r, ^ ... > > -Z]^ ^'^-*' '^ ':»•''. > iy> >^-^?'^ >> ■ ' < > J!!]^ ">jS^ .:>^ J »' . i^ '^ ) ;> I3** ■->■ ^' - -yjgiBf > J> \ :^ '--^ Sf /■■' . ^' ^ ■^'TBi^ >» » » — ^Er , . DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE, IN REPLY TO LORD ERSKINE'S "TWO DEFENCES OF THE WHIGS." BY v ^tH^j^^^'^"^ ^ HOBHOUSE, Esg. F.R.S *% < But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs, i " Rome and her Rats are at the point of battle." CoRioLANus, Act I. Scene L C/J LOl^DON: PUBLLSHED BY ROBERT STODART, 81; STRAND. 1819. •4>Vi<; o1 .5 ^V% John M'Creery, Printer, Black-Horse-Court, London. A LETTER TO LORD ERSKINE, fcc. My Lord, I AM one of the deluded multitude who have been in the habit of devoting the hours they can spare from their low pursuits to the consi- deration of public events and public men. My first interference in politics was unaspiring, though zealous. — It became the mean condition and the headstrong nature of one belonging to the lotver orders, and your Lordship will hardly object to the direction then given to my vulgar patriotism. It was on the 9th of November, 1794, that I harnessed myself to the carriage of the Honour- able Thomas Erskine, when that distinguished barrister was drawn through the streets of the B metropolis, amidst the blessings and the tears of a people whom he had saved from the gripe of oppression. Your Lordship does not praise yourself half enough for the exploits of those days.— It is but a poor description of them to say, '^ that you saved your Brother-reformers from being hanged.'* The English, then, had but one hope left. Their parliament, instead of protecting them, lent aid to the tyrants that conspired their destruction. Nothing remained but to frighten or corrupt the tribunal which held the sword over those whom their mock re- presentfitives had delivered bound hand and foot to the bloody servants of the crown. A com- plaisant jury would have completed the work of a treacherous parliament. It was not the exist- ence of Hardy which was at stake. If you had often before fought for victory in this cause, you then contended for the life of our British liber- ties. No time, no, nor your Lordship's subse- quent conduct, shall obliterate your share in the glorious struggle that gave a breathing-time to the last defenders of their country. The con- gratulations belonged to the rescued prisoner, but the praise was all your own ; — you were the saviour of the innocent, the restorer of liberty, the champion of law, of justice, and of truth. Dazzled by your eloquence — animated by your courage — sympathizing with your success — ^your fellow-countrymen sunk under their admiration. their gratitude, and their joy; and bowed dowii before the idol of their hearts. My Lord, you should have died when you descended from the triumph of that memorable day. The timely end, which is the sole pro- tection against the reverses of fortune, would have preserved you from that more lamentable change, which could have been occasioned only by yourself. Had your life closed with the pro- cession, you would have gone down to posterity pure and entire. As it is, your admirers have nothing left for it, but to separate your early career from your present state, and to look at the record of your former exploits as belonging rather to history than to you. Your Lordship has, I know, companions in this transformation. It was, doubtless, in another body that the soul of the present opposition leader incited the electors of South wark to vote, not for George Tierney, hut for Beform j and, I presume, that the author of the *^ Vindiciae Gallicae** looks upon that spirited performance much in the same way as the philosopher of old recognized the buckler, which, in his former state of existence, he had fought with at the Trojan war. But however your Lordship may cast into the shade your former conduct and principles, they are still public property; nor can the ermine of the chancellor and the peer be drawn so tightly about you, as effectually to hide the B 2 noble proportions and natural graces of the advocate. The gratitude of the people, like the vengeance of the king, knows no lapse ; and if they are not now chained to your chariot, it is merely because your Lordship seems at present somewhat inclined to twist the traces round their necks. If we complain of you, it shall be Jn such a sort as shews we do not forget what you once were : and if we point to your former character and career when you were the idol of the multitude, we shall not, assuredly, awaken any disagreeable recollections. The excesses were graceful — they became your time of life, and the portrait of them will, perhaps, as Lord Rochester says : — " Please the ghost of your departed vice." And, indeed, we have reason to complain, — Tvhy could not your Lordship lie quiet? what, in the name of your former fame ! what sent you simpling at this hour into the field of politics ? And, if you would write against your old ad- mirers, why not keep your secret? Why let it peep out like the silken-string of some new made knight, ill concealed at first, then still farther shown, and, at last, as vanity throws open button after button, displayed in full ridicule to the con- fusion of every friend, and the pity of every foe. And so your Lordship is really the author of " A short Defence of the Whigs against the Im- putations attempted to he cast upon them during the lust Election for Westminster.'' We of the rabble have not had Cobbett^s grammar amongst us long enough to be very nice about language ; but, methinks, your Lordship, in endeavouring to weaken the above imputations^ has only v^eakened your ow^n title- page: for the imputations were cast upon the Whigs : the attempt was not to cast them — the attempt was to make them stick : yoxx might as well have said, " A Defence of Lord Sefton and of Lord William Russell, against the mud at- tempted to be cast at them." I do not think your Lordship is good at a title; let us see whether or not you are more successful, at what Goldsmith calls, '' working off the body of the book/' One of my brethren has already made " A Reply to your Defence"— he has hit again — he has no doubt added to the crimes of the people, and given your Lordship a fresh proof of the existence of that " organized and persever- ing system of detractions'^ of which you so feel- ingly complain. We ar« waiting for an answer to this Reply ; you tell us, that you have " set an example of a system of defence." You hint, that you have vigorously " repelled former calumnies on the * Defence, &c. p. 24. Whigs." A fresh demand is made upon your vigour ; as you have begun, you must go on : the self-elected champion of the party must not fling away his buckler at the first blow. In the meantime, I shall take leave to remark upon such portions of your Defence as the re- plyer, being occupied upon the main argument, has left for others of the body of organized de- tractors^ and if, in the course of the discussion, your own frailties, and those of your friends, should be exposed, I beg you to recollect, that it is not I that have drawn them from their dread abode — your Lordship has been the voluntary magician who has stepped forth to scare us with the spectre of another Whig apostate. According to your Defence, Mr. Hobhouse, supported by Sir F. Burdett, has attempted to expose the Whigs *' as a corrupt and profligate factioriy^ apostates from the cause of Reform, which they had once sole mnh/ pledged themselves to support— or, " to speak plainly,^' has, so you say, endeavoured to prove " that a Whig might now he considered as a term of ridicule or reproach.^* I have looked over Mr. Hobhouse's speeches — I have looked over Sir F. Burdett's speeches, at the late Election, and 1 no where find that either of those gentlemen called the Whigs a corrupt and profligate faction. I dare say they thought so; but they appear never to have used the \sords. — "Arrogant," "overbearing" — "selfish," I " false/' « boasting/' " interested," '' tricky," " mean," « shallow," '' deceitful," " jealous," and ** impotent," were, it seems, epithets applied to your Lordship's friends more than once, and which seemed to tickle the fancies of the audi- ence — That they were, some of them, abettors of the corruptions of Parliament, was also hinted at — but I know not that in a body they were ever designated by either the candidate or Sir F. B. as a corrupt and profligate faction. Your Lordship knows the value of words, and should therefore be exact in your references — But had the words been used, the inference — the " plain inference," as you call it, is not a little over- strained. — If the Whigs were *^ corrupt and pro- fligate," the word Whig would not therefore be a term of *' ridicule." — God knows that the party have done mischief too serious to be the occasion of a jest — corruption and profligacy are no laughing matters to the people — the people do not laugh at them — but the Whigs do. But your Lordship is not the first honest man who has been afraid of being laughed at, and it should seem that self-conviction has told you that there is something ludicrous in the present position of the Whigs : as a body they are too odious to be matter of joke 3 but the siliy figure made by some individual^ of the party at the last Election may justify your apprehension. Indeed, my Lord ! you cannot imagine any thing quite so ridiculous as the daily appearance of the natural leaders y (as your Whig journal calls them) in the face of their natural followers — A downright, open, impudent, ministerial candi- date, backed by the consciousness that his double pots and pay will reward him for the terrors of the Hustings, and undauntedly struggling with the storms of unpopularity, is a spectacle not altogether unworthy the imitation of a certain class of men, and such as the gods of Downing- Street may view with rapture. — ^But had you seen, and had you heard the Whigs at Covent Garden — had you seen and heard the representatives of their noble houses — had you seen or heard the honourable proposer of the candidate, the pride of the opposition — had you seen and heard the honourable candidate himself — all of them smil- ing, and bowing, and sweating before the people — wishing to convince them that they loved them, and were beloved by them — averring that they belonged to those who had all along done them so much good, and who would do them so much good again — protesting that they desired nothing but the liberty and happiness of their friends and fellow citizens — that they did not care about themselves — but were always devoted to the people only, and to the cause of freedom and revolution. — Had you, I say, my Lord ! seen and heard all this professed courtship and affec- tion, and had witnessed how they were received — What hootings — what taunts — what laughter fol- lowed upon every profession of former faith— 9 upon every promise of future constancy — indeed you would have doubted your senses — never were benefactors, friends, lovers, reduced to so piteous a pleading of their past services and their present passion.^— When the brother of one great family stept forward to show, as we supposed, how it was expected that the admirers and tenants of his house should vote, and to tell of ancient merits, you would have been reminded of the old beau Fielding, who, when his mistress was inexorable, as a last resource, uncovered his bosom, and dis- played an ugly scar. — The people, like the lady, preposterously laughed and mocked the veteran suitor — Indeed his Lordship furnished an inimi- table addition to Swift's ^^ Mean Figures." — Had you still further heard the candidate protesting to the last, that in spite of the hootings of thou- sands, he was the only true love of all — that he vv^as opposed only b}'- a hired few, whose retreat would leave him the undisputed applauses of the rational world. — Had you heard this modest con- fession cheered by the little knot around him, and by the unboiight voices of the Prize-fighters beneath him — and at the same time half-drowned by the scornful shouts and denials of the vast multitude — had you heard this unaccountable rejection of the Whig addresses by those whom they have served and saved, and still will serve and save, your Lordship might have shuddered at such blindness and ingratitude j but you would. 10 you must have smiled at the strange equivocal appearance of the unfortunate suitors for popular favor. Moreover— had your Lordship seen your ho- nourable candidate, as I protest I saw him, bowing complacently to Mr. Hunt^ and speaking from the same board — had you seen all your honourable and right honourable friends ranging in a line and confused in a body, with Mr. Gale Jones and the above gentleman, together v/ith the band of bludgeon patriots — had you heard the mutual civilities, and readv fraternization of the concordant souls, united in their opposition to Mr. Hobhouse, and in their hatred of Sir F. Burdett — united in the hissings and revilings which were impartially bestowed by the whole body of the people upon them all — this sight might, indeed, have recalled you to the better and brighter days of your party — I do not know whether your Lordship would have laughed at this — I do not know whether you would have been pleased to see the reporter of your own forty years' friend Mr. Perry, as he was seen, prompt- ing Mr. Hunt, and regulating the movements of the ruffians hired to make a show of popularity — but I know that I felt no malicious delight in seeing the Whigs so degraded, so lost and utterly abandoned. However, your Lordship thinks, your Lord- ship feels, that Whig is become a term of ridi- 11 cule. — It is so— not, however, from any thing said by the Reformers— but from every thing said and done by the Whigs themselves. Besides— do look at the Whigs — the scorn and laughter of a House of Commons, of which the very door-keepers complain. — ^Your Lordship must not think yourself amongst your old friends and coadjutors. — Indeed, you must forgive me if I tell you, that I really thought you yourself had left the Whigs, and that I suspect you are generously appearing as the champion of those of whom you know little or nothing — I thought that the Whigs had pronounced that a weak lawyer had gone astray, and in mercy had attri- buted the wandering to his " stars.'' — 1 thought that your Lordship had repaid the joke by an equivalent, and had declared your ancient co- partners and brothers in exile from the court, just as impracticable and uncompromising, as they are pleased to charge the Reformers with being. Surely I cannot be mistaken as to the indi- vidual; and if I am not mistaken, either your Lordship, or the opposition, cannot be Whigs; or Sir F. Burdett was quite right in saying that no one knows who the Whigs are, or what their principles are. No small portion of the merit of the opposition, as stated by themselves, is their disinterestedness in making no sacrifices for the sake of court-favor. Your Lordship is not so enamoured of martyrdom. 12 Your Lordship says, that if a Whig is now to be considered a term of ridicule or reproach, we shall " cast into the shade Xhe character of the Revolution itself y Not at all — you might as well say, " if you laugh at Lord Erskine's green ribbon, you cannot have any respect for Mr. Erskine's defence of Hardy.*' Besides, your Lordship must see the extreme absurdity of supposing that a nation will allow itself not to judge of men as to their contem- porary conduct, but as the mere representatives of those who lived and acted well a century ago. Perhaps I may not be so great an admirer of the chief actors in the Revolution of 1688 as your Lordship; but, supposing me to be so, do you think that I shall join with you in gazing with delight on those, who instead of planting and reaping the laurels of patriotism for them- selves, snatch the ready made garlands which hang on the bier of the heroes of the Revolution, and attach them to their own unhonoured brows ? I tell your Lordship, that the Whigs are always dealing out names * — ^you have done so * It is an old, a favorite Whig trick — in early times the Whigs were always playing off the word Liberty. Thus Sir R. Steele endeavoured, says Swift, to impress upon his reader such weighty truths as these : — That liberty is a very good thing ; that ivithout liberty we cannot be free : that health is good, and strength is good; but liberty is better than either: that no man 13 yourself, whether Whig or not. It is impossible to collect from your Defence of the Whigs, what Whigs you mean to defend, they ought to be certainly the Whigs who were attacked — but your Defence leaves the persons uncertain. — Was the Whig to whom you alluded, one who takes an honor or refuses it ? Was he one who " rides rough shod through Carlton House,'* or one who seats himself in loyal shoe leather at the dinner table ? Was he one who flatters his Prince, or one who defames him ? — Are your Whigs the Whigs who flourished at the West- minster Election in 1819, or the Whigs who figured in the Revolution of 1688? — Were they the Whigs, who, as your Lordship tells us,* were accused by others of their own body as Repub- licanSy zvho sought to introduce anarchy by over- shadowing the sober and regulated character of our own Revolution ,• " or were they the Whigs, who, as your Lordship does in this very Pamphlet, accuse the Reformers of neither more nor less than this very crime ? — Were they Foxites, Fitz- williamites, or Tierneyites ? — Were they old or can he happy ivithout the liberty of doing whatever his own mind tells him is best : that men of quality love liberty, and common people love liberty. See " The Pubhc Spirit of the Whigs/' Surely a Newcastle orator could not have talked more pro- foundly ; it was, is, and ever will be the true language of a GENTLEMAN BORN, as poor Dick Stcclc Called hinaself ♦ Defence, &c. p. 8. 14 new Whigs ? friends of revolution, or decriers of revolution? radical Reformers — moderate Re- formers — or no Reformers ? — Friends of the people, and seceders from the parliament; or haters of the people, and flatterers of the par- liament ? All these after their kind are mentioned and praised, and it is impossible to know whom you would particularly defend, unless your Lordship is pleased with the agreeable variety, and would defend them all. — In fact it is the name Whig which you like, and which you would wish us to like; — it is the name revolution which you hold up to us, and which you could wish us always to think of as a name and nothing else; the pretext of the party for doing nothing, the plaything of the people to keep them from com- plaining that nothing is done. * It is, my Lord, notorious that the Whigs have at different times attached different ideas to this their favorite word. — They of the late Westmin- ster election made use of it as a catch-word against the Reformers. The Foxites of 1793 and 1797 associated it to their radical reform. In those days the high prerogative writers and talkers reminded the Whigs " that their famous '* Revolution was but a mere name^ and so far * " The more revglutions the better," said a great Whig ; and the girl at Bartholomew Fair, who got a penny for turn- ing round a hundred times, said the same thing no doubt. — See the Examiner, No. 39. 15 from bringing about any material change of system, was in fact nothing but the preservation and solemn recognition of the hereditary monarchy of this Realm, and of all its ancient laws and government.^'' — The author of the Pursuits of Literature, a book now almost as much forgotten and laid aside as the Whig principles of 1798, ventured from his obscurity to whisper this asser- tion into the ear of Mr. Fox. Whether or not he was altogether borne out in his statement, is a question not connected with our present dis- cussion ; but it may be of use to remind your Lordship, that we of the people do not agree with you who are descended from the Stuarts f in thinking that the particular portion of the Revolution which is most to be admired, is that in v*^hich there was no revolution. — And that if you delight to behold in that event the prudence with which old institutions were preserved, we are rather pleased with the courage with which new amendments were hazarded. — You say, " our ancestors, at that period, were well aware " of the full right of the people to have resettled f* the whole frame of their Constitution ; but ^* they were wise enough to leave every thing " untouched, which in principle and effect had ^^ not failed, and to provide only for the emer- * Preface to Dialogue iv. of Pursuits of Literature, t " My ancestors though of the Stuart family, &c." Pre- face, p.vi. 16 " gency of a vacant or forfeited throne ^ by '' adhering as closely to ancient inheritance as " the security ot the constitution would admit. " An alleged defect in this great work, so often " in the mouths of Revolutionists, [meaning us, " my Lord,] the sober-minded Whigs, [meaning ^' your Lordship and Company^] consider as " decisively characteristic of its wisdom. The '* people at large were not called upon to act " for themselves, as if the whole frame of the " ancient government had been dissolved.; but '^ writs were sent to the convention parliament " to supply the single defect which had taken " place.'' * Such are your Lordship's words, and I would beg you to remark how exceedingly well they tally with those which I have just before quoted from the poor terrified enthusiast who pelted your Lordship, in poetry and prose, with Latin, Greek, and English, for " the flimsy and puerile View of the causes and consequences of the present French war; '' and told you " not to call those slaves, and the sons of slaves, who were better men, and descended from better men, than yourself" | * Defence, &c. t The Pursuer of literature quoted Demosthenes, which came, as he thought, pat to his purpose, although he did not think Mr. BarristerErskine quite such a *[ being as Androtion" P. of L. dialogue, iv. 17 Permit me, however, since I am on this sub- ject, to express my astonishment that your Lordship should venture to give such an histo- rical picture of the Revolution, as I find in the assertion, that this Revolution was happily not effected by an indignant and enraged multitude, but " was slowly prepared by the most virtuous *' and best informed amongst the higher and '^ enlightened classes of the people, who took ** prudent and effectual steps for securing its " success without bloodshed, being confident of " the support of a vast majority of the people." Notwithstanding all this slow preparation on the part of the virtuous and well informed Whig nobility, it is pretty certain that the Revolution was finally brought about by the desertion of the army, which was not contemplated beforehand, but occurred unexpectedly ; but most of all, by the King's flight. — Even ^^Lerol Urol lilihuleroV^ had perhaps as much to do with the change, as any or all of the Whigs put together.* I am wil- ling to believe that it was some better motive than the wish to play at double or quits with king James for his 10,000/., that made the Earl of Devonshire join in the invitation to William; but whatever were the motives of the higher and enlightened classes, it is not entirely to them, that an eye-witness ascribes the completion of ♦ See Burnet's History, &c, vol. ii. p« 535. C 18 the Revolution. Bishop Burnet tells us, that even when the Prince of Orange first landed, he remain- ed eight days at Exeter, without being joined by any of the neighbouring gentry -, but that those of my own class, " THE RABBLE of the people came in to him in great numbers, ^^^ This they did, like true rabble, in the day of doubts and danger, and before the army of King James had revolted. — The same author has another record to the honor and glory of the same portion of the King's sub- jects, for he tells us, that in the greatest emer- gency of the state, when two years after the Revolution, the restoration of king James was by no means improbable, the French being masters of the sea, and England being def<&nded by only 7000 regular troops, the Jacobites were prevented from making any head, and *^ all England over were kept out of the way, afraid of being fallen upon by the RABBLE.^f Though it was harvest time, the people expressed more zeal and affection for the new governmeut, than care for their own subsistence. The Rabble had much greater share in con- firming the Revolution, such as it occurred^ than your Lordship seems to be aware ; and as to the " single defecty' to supply which, the ancestors of your Lordship, and of your Lordship's friends^ * Burnet, as above. t Burnet's History, &c. vol. iii. p. 75. 19 prepared, as you say, the Revolution. I must repeat my astonishment at such an assertion from a man^who though in his youngerdays he modestly confessed he had ?wt the talents of a Statesmariy* must still be expected to be tolerably acquainted with history. It was not the single defect of a vacant throne, that brought about the invitation of William Prince of Orange. The throne was not vacant, it was not at all intended that the throne should be declared vacant ; the only point to be considered relative to the throne, was the birth of the Prince of Wales. — I refer you to the De- claration which the Prince of Orange signed and sealed on the 10th of October, and published on his landing. — A single defect indeed ! *^ What did the declaration set forth ? all the numerous violations of the laws of England, both as to religion, civil government, and the administra- tion of justice; the invasion of the right of petitioning, and particularly the packing of Par- liaments, — these cannot be called a single defect^ nor was the change of dynasty the remedy pro- posed. " The States of the United Provinces said the truth, when they affirmed that the King was not gone to England on design to dethrone the late King."f — No 1 The Prince of Orange ♦ See P. of L. dialogue iv. and " View of the Causes and Consequences of the present French war." t King Wiliianv III. Memorial, &c. Somers*s Tracts, vol. xi. p. 107. C 21 20 might indeed look for an eventual Crown for his wife, in case king James's son was set aside, but the proper and effectual remedy which he pro- posed for redressing the growing evils, was a Parliament that would be lawfully chosen, and should sit in full freedom.* I am willing to grant to your Lordship the fact, that it did not come into action, at the Revolution, to re-model the frame and constitution of Parliament ; but I think I have said enough to show, that the multiplied defects of misgovern- ment, (not the single defect) were to be remedied by an uninfluenced parliament. Let me add, that King William, after having obtained the Crown, did make it his boast, that he had called together a free and fair Parliament, without the least interference in elections. j* — I have learnt from Lord Grey, " that one of the principles asserted at the Revolution, was, that a man ought not to be governed by laws in the framing of which he had not a voice, either in person or by his representative.":!: * The 16th, 19th, and 20th, paragraphs of the Prince of Orange's Declaration all refer to the Free Parliament, which was to remedy every thing. See the Jacobite Answer to this Declaration, published when the Prince landed. See Somers's Tracts, vol. ix. p. 286. t Seethe above cited Memorial. Somers's Tracts, vol. xi. p. 107. t Pari. Debates, 1793, May 6tb. Your Lordship gives as a reason for this non- reform at the Revolution, that *' the Crown had not then originated the system, nor acquired the means of a corrupt influence in the House of Commons."* Here I must remark, that supposing your assertion to be true, you throw all the odium of the corruption on the Whigs, who were acknow- ledgedly the masters for so large a portion of the 70 years following the Revolution; and supposing it to be true, you also prove nothing against Reform, by saying it was not resorted to at the Revolution, as you tell us that the evil which Reform is to remedy has arisen since the Revo- lution. But your Lordship goes too far in saying, that Parliamentary Reform did not come even into view at the Revolution. It would have been strange, indeed, if the great Borough- proprie- tors, concerned in the Revolution, had sacri- ficed the very means by which they hoped to hold the King in their power ; and, according- ly, we do not hear of the first, or either of the early ministries of William 111. having resorted to any measure, by which the control of the People could be increased, and organized, and secured, and the influence of the aristocracy diminished and reduced to its due bounds. Had * Defence, &c. p. 5. n the Devonshires and the Danbys done this, in- stead of heaping honours and emoluments upon their own houses, the worthy Mr. Walter Fawkes would not have been able to say, that the Revolution was a bill of fare, without a feast.* But though these great Whigs kept Parlia- mentary Reform out of view as much as they could, yet it was in view ; and your Lordship is quite wrong in saying, that the system of par- liamentary corruption was unknown at the Re- volution. It was known, and it was felt; and, as I said before, it was the PACKING of parlia- ments of which the revolutionists chiefly com- plained, and it was the convoking of a free re- presentation of the people which was the great object, I may say, the only avowed object of the friends of William, and of William himself. The Duke of Monmouth may have been sup- posed to know what would tempt the people, and he promised them the annual election of their representatives, f * Amongst other unfurnished items in this bill, was the abolition of ex-officio informations. t " Our resolution in the next place is, to maintain all the " just rights and privileges of Parliament, and to have par- " liaments annually chosen and held, and not prorogued, '' dissolved, or discontinued, within the year, before peti- " tions be first answered, and grievances redressed.*' See « State Trials,'* vol. ii. p. 1032, and note ; also Ralph's " His- tory," vol. i. p. 873, which says, " Monmouth's sudden and surprising success must be attributed to his declaration." Mr. h 23 I will confessj with your Lordship, that we do owe the complete and admirably organized corruption of the House of Commons to the Whigs who reigned for so long, in the name and on the behalf of the first sovereigns of the new dynasty, (for it is nonsense talking about the CROWN originating the system) : but there was such a thing as bribing^ and threatening, and treating voters, before the said Whigs began to shew, that, however the honour of the inven- tion might belong to others, the utility of the full application was reserved for their own happy genius. Indeed, the influencing of voters was so notorious, and had arrived at such a pitch in the reigns of the two last Stuarts, that a Jacobite writer, before quoted, speaks of a truly free parliament as a chimera ; for by money , drink, or power y elections had ever suffered an ill by ass upon them,* Hume, indeed, finds it " chiefly calculated to suit the preju- dices of the vulgar, or the most bigotted of the Whig party ;" but Mr. Fox in pointing out the faults of the Declaration, (History, p. 371), does not mention the resolution to have Annual Parliaments. I am aware that Reresby (pp. 202, 203,) interprets " chosen and held," by the word sii. • See the Reply to the Declaration of the Prince of Orange. Somers's Tracts as above. Vol. ix. p. 286, edit. Scott. " This was so true, that even Charles and James when the " Commons were risen, were driven to the garbling of Cor- " porations." — Mr. Erskine's Speech on Mr, Gre/s Motion for Parliamentary Reform, 1793. 24 Now, this recognized evil, as well as a wish prevalent amongst many politicians, to extend to the utmost the control of the people over the affairs of government, had brought a Reform of Parliament into the view of manv of those con- cerned in the Revolution : and one of the com- plaints, made at a very early period against the iirst ministers of King William, was, that they had done nothing towards securing the due influ- ence and control of the People, in the choice of their representatives. It is true, as Lord Boling- broke confesses, that ^^ the frequency ^ integrity^ and independency of Parliament, the essentials of British liberty, were almost wholly neglected at the Revolution'*^ That nobleman, indeed, looked upon this neglect in a very different light from your Lordship. — He thought it a misfortune: you notice it amongst the praises of the Revolu- tion. But the same author mentions a fact of which your Lordship is, or affects to be, wholly ignorant, namely, that, " soon after the Revolu- " tion, men of all sides, and all denominations, " (for it was not a party-measure, though it was ** endeavoured to be made such) began to per- " ceive not only that nothing effectual had been " done to hinder the undue influence of the " Crown in elections, and an over-balance of " the creatures of the court in parliament, but ^V that the means of exercising such an influence, ♦ Dissertation on Parties, Letter xi, 25 " at the will of the Crown, were unawares " and insensibly increased, and every day in- " creasing.** Lord B. adds, that the great body of the nation then discovered that bv this event, namely, the settlement of the nation at the Re- volution without the necessary provision in favour of free parliaments, the foundations were laid of establishing universal corruption.* The declaration of Rights by the convention had said, that elections of members of parliament ought to be free ; f " but that this right was not more " than claimed, that they were not effectually " asserted, and secured, at this time, gave,** says the same writer, " very great and im- " mediate dissatisfaction, and some, who were " called Whigs, in those days, distinguished " themselves by the loudness of their com- *' plaints.** X These Whigs were not, perhaps, those Stuart ancestors of your Lordship, who supported the Revolution : but they were men of some name and authority. Mr. Hampden, for instance, insisted *' that there could be no real " settlement, nay, that it was a jest to talk of settle- " ment, till the manner and time of calling par- " liaments, and their sitting when called, were " fully determined; and this, in order to prevent ♦ Dissertation on Parties, Letter xviii. t See Parliamentary Debates, A. 1688. t Letter xi. ^^6 ** the practice of keeping one and the same par- " liament long on foot, till the majority was "corrupted by offices, gifts, and pensions.*'* Mr. Johnson, chaplain to Lord Russel, asserted, that one line, settling and securing a fair and free House of Commons, would have been worth all the Bill of Rights. But, lest your Lordship should say, these were mere moderate reformers, (although, be it recollected, you have forgotten there were any reformers at all at the Revolution) let me add, that the complainants insisted, that ** the assurances given at the Revolution had led " them to think that the ANCIENT LEGAL COURSE " of ANNUALLY CHOSEN PARLIAMENTS f would ** have been immediately restored ; and the par- " ticular circumstances of King William, who " had received the crown by gift of the people, ** and who had renewed the original contract " with the people (which are precisely the cir- " cumstances of the present royal family) were " urged as particular reasons for the nation to " expect his compliance." So you see, my Lord, that Parliamentary Reform, Radical Par- liamentary Reform, a Reform, which should make the House of Commons emanate solely • See " Considerations concerning the State of the Nation," pubhshed in 1692, referred to in Letter xi. t See An Enquiry or a Discourse, published in 1693, and quoted in Letter xi. 27 from the People, and be chosen every year, was in view of the contemporaries of the Revolution, and was expected to have been obtained, owing to the ASSURANCES given by the managers of the Revolution. The patriots, or if you please, the complainants, of that day, soon found that the frequent sitting of parliament had been provided for, and that Annual Sessions had been found necessary for the sake of raising annual supplies. But the " ancient legal course of annually chosen parliaments'* was so far from being established, that on the contrary it soon was established by law, that the king might keep the same parlia- ment together for three years. I fear indeed that your Lordship's Stuart an- cestors had not only a great deal to do, but a great deal too much to do with the Revolution : and that they were partly employed in keeping out of view that which a large body of the nation had in view y that is, the solemn establishment of a representation of the people, fully, fairly, freely and frequently chosen. — It is known that the views of some of those who acted in the Revolution extended even so far as a Republic. There were at least two plans for erecting a Commonwealth openly published, whilst the settlement of the Crown was uncertain — They are reprinted, with due animadversions on their exceeding and monstrous folly, by Mr. Walter Scott, in his edition of Lord Somers*s Tracts. — 28 Burnet owns that there were some in the Con- vention who wished " to raise the power of the people on the ruin of the monarchy."* — Major Wildeman, who came over with the Prince of Orange, was an old Republican, and there were many in parliament who opposed the limitation against a Popish successor, solely with the hope of restoring the Commonwealth after the death of William. — The managers, however, chose to content themselves with declarations — those pompous trifles, which Bolingbroke decries, and which, though they satisfy your Lordship and many of your contemporaries, were, as I have before mentioned, soon exposed by the com- plainants of '^ all orders and all denominations,** immediately after the Revolution. My Lord, you are surely wrong in this point — nor must you shelter yourself behind your expression — '' A Reform in the original frame and constitution of Parliament,**! because the complainants made not use of the word Reform, perhaps, but on the contrary, desired a Restoration of what they thought this original frame and constitution. — Equally unaccountable is it, that you should ascribe this neglect in the settlement of the nation to the fact, that " the House of Commons under its ancient forms had * History, Book IV. t Defence, &c. p. 4, 29 recently obtained the full confidence of the people by the renovation of the Constitution."* Such neglect may be ascribed to any other cause — Bolingbroke presumes that the great fear being that of prerogative, prevented the consi- deration of the greater danger, namely, undue influence. But I think it would be charitable to help the Whigs to a reason, which, however, may be partly unpalatable — to wit — that the Revolution of 1688 was notoriously the work partly of the Tories, as well as of the Whigs. — It surely would have been in character, if you as a defender of the Whig faith and so forth, had adopted the division usual with your party, and if you had reluctantly owned that the glorious Revolution was not the sole work of the Whigs, and had fearlessly proclaimed that all the good of that great work must be claimed for the Whigs, whilst all the evil, all the sins of omission or commission, must of right be attributed to the Tories. — Why did not your Lordship throw all the blame on those distinguished Tories, some of whom carried highest the doctrines of Passive Obe- dience and Non*Resistance, and were engaged in it.\ * Defence, &c. p. 5. t Dissertation on Parties, Letter VII. See also further ii| Letter VIII. " There was a party that concurred in making the new " settlement ; a party that prevailed in Parliament, and was 80 The formation of the first ministry distinctly shows that the Whigs alone were not those who found favor in the eyes of King William — Lord Halifax was no Whig-— still less was Lord Not- tingham a Whig. — Indeed the King's first mi- nistry, so far from being composed of those pa- triots which your Lordsdip would make us be- lieve the framers of the Revolution settlement to have been, were much like other ministers ; and Sir Charles Sedley proclaimed that his Majesty, whatever were his private inclinations, was en- compassed and hemmed in by a company of crafty old Courtiers J^ The Whigs lost the good opinion of King William before he had been a year on the throne — " by the heat," says Burnet, " that they showed in both Houses against their ene- " by much the majority of the nation out of it. — Were the " Whigs this majority ? Was this party a Whig party ? — No " man will presume to affirm so notorious an untruth. The " Whigs were far from being this majority, and King James " must have died on the Throne, if the Tories had not con- " curred to place the Pt ince of Orange there in his stead." • Parhamentary Debates, 1689. The Tories and Whigs coalesced a short time afterwards — Swift calls it an unna- tural league, and puts these words in Italics — The Sovereign authority was parcelled out among the faction, and made the purchase of indemnity for an of ending minister. — Examiner, No. 29. What: did the GrenvilHo-Sidmouthian-Foxite Administra- tion in the case of Pitt's monument and debts ? 31 mies, and by the coldness that appeared in every thing that related to the public, as well as to the King in his own particular."* — It appeared, that before a year and a half had ex- pired, they had also completely lost the good opinion of the People: for in the new Parlia- ment that met on the 20th of March, 1690, the Tories were by far the greater part returned. — The chief cause of this disgust, was the attempt to pass the Corporation Bill, which, as Burnet owns, would have put the King and the nation in the hands of the Whigs. '\ And yet the King found a way to quiet the Whigs who were dis- contented at the Tory Parliament. — He gave places to some of the party, and dismissed some of their opponents — So that, as the same Author observes, ** Whig and Tory were now pretty equally mixed ; and both studied to court the King by making advances on the Money Bills." J Whatever principles of action were laid down by the Whigs, it is certain that their conduct was similar to that of the opposing party, and that the great master-spring of their policy was selfishness. They liked neither King William, nor cared for the people — except as appendages to their own power and dignity. It is AN 0N-. DOUBTED TRUTH, that a year or two after the * History, &c. Book V. vol. iii. p. 46. t History as above, p. 54. t History, &c. p. b^. 32 Revolution^ fevey^al leaders of that party had their pardons sent them by King James; and had entered upon measures to restore him, on account of some disob ligations they received from King fFilliam, They soon began that artifice which they continued for so many years, of playing off the exiled against the reigning Sovereign, and upon all occasions preferred their belief that the Pre^ tender was not an impostor but a real prince. — Your Lordship will recognise both these quo- tations as proceeding from a professed enemy of the new Whigs,* (for Swift thought himself an old Whig) ; but a great writer is worth listening to, when he proclaims an undoubted truth j — at any rate the contemporary people must be thought to have had better opportunities of judging the merits of the actors in the Revolu- tion than your Lordship ; and this people had completely found out the Whigs in less than ten years after the accession of King William. — The job of creating a new East India Company, and above all, *' the inclinations which those of the Whigs who were in good posts, (they are Burnet's words) had expressed for keeping up a greater landed force," and a charge of *' robbing the public of the money given for the service of the nation, both to the supporting a vast expense, * Examiner, No. 39. and No. 43. 33 arid td the raising gteat estates to themselves/** these were the immediate causes of the general disrepute of the party, whieh your Lordship seems to imagine to have been in perpetual and tranquil, and merited possession of the popul^lf love, from the Revolution to the present day. I trust I have partially succeeded in showing that there are some particulars relative to the glorious Revolution, which those who are pet- petually boasting of it are willing to keep out df sight. — I trust that your Lordship is now aware that the connecting the merits of the Revolution with the merits of the Whigs, even of that day, is to count too much upon the ignorance of the Rabble $ and that to entail those merits, such as they were, upon the Whigs of the present day, is a device too trite and stale to be employed, except to adorn a declamation and please the boys of a Fox Club. Your Lordship must be aware how easy it would be for me to prove that there has been nothing like an uninterrupted succession of opi- nions and principles inherited by the same families, or indeed descending through the same apparent party, which can give even a plausible claim to your modest Whig pretensions to ex- clusive patriotism. If the Whigs have inherited any rule of con- * History of the Reign of King William, year 1698, vol. iii. p. 289. 34 duct, some people may think they find it in this their ^arly characteristic — " Give the Whigs but ^^ power enough to insult their Sovereign, en- ^' gross his favor to themselves, and oppress and " plunder their fellow subjects; they presently " grow into good humour and good language " towards the Crown; profess they will stand " by it with their lives and fortunes : and what- " ever rudeness they may be guilty of in private^ " yet they assure the w^orld there was never so " gracious a monarch."* The " foolish," " vulgar," " cant," '' con- ceited," " fantastic," appellations of Whig and Tory began to be used about the year 1676, and were much in vogue during the latter end of King Charles the Second's reign; they were nearly dropt during the reign of James II. The real distinction expired — but the names revived at the Revolution. — Before they had been thirty years old, " they had been pressed into the ser- vice of many succession of parties," and " ap- plied to very different kinds of principles and persons." — If at first, to oppose even the King's guard was to be a Whig, it was found in King William's reign, that " to be for a Standing Army," " to raise the prerogative above law for serving a turn," and '' to exalt the King's supre- macy beyond all precedent," were also the signs • Examiner, No. 35. 3d of being a Whig.— At one time the Whigs cried tip the House of Commons as at the Convention Parliament, while they appeared to have the majority there. — At another time they cried down the House of Commons and extolled the Lords: — witness their support of the Kentish petitioners in 1701. It was very natural, then, that in Queen Anne's reign, *' the bulk of the Whigs appeared rather to be linked to a certain set of persons, than to any certain set of principles."* Now your Lordship knows, that against this set of persons, against individuals called Whigs, the great body of the nation was for more than half a century united; and that almost every act of which the people now complain, may be traced to Whig administrations.-— It is now se- venty years since Lord Bolingbroke endeavoured to expose the extreme absurdity of preserving the nominal distinction of Whig and Tory, and enforced the incontrovertible truth, that the whole nation could bedivided in factonly into two distinct sets of men, namely, the abettors of and gainers by Parliamentary corruption, and th^ opposers of and sufferers by the same corruption. f — His Lordship's individual character cannot invalidate a truth : though I know that it is a modern * Examiner, No. 43, where the words under inverted commas will be found. t See particularly the first and last Letter in his Disserta- tion on Parties. D 2 Whig trick to depreciate the sound doctrines of those who exposed the Whig Administrations of George I. and II., by saying that the motive of the complaint was a preference of the dethroned family — And what if they did prefer the Stuarts to the house of Hanover ? — -The English who changed their reigning family in 1688, did not do it as a child at play changes its toys — it ap- pears that they did not intend the change of Kings, but only looked at more substantial ad- vantages — their object was a relief from misgo- vernmentj and if the subjects of the House of Hanover felt that they wanted relief from the same evil, they were, perhaps, right in thinking that the restoration of the exiled family was the best expedient. — It would not, I think, be diffi- cult to prove, that the majority of the people of England was always against the new settlement, and the manner in which it was supported by Whig administrations, who were thus obliged to organize their corrupt House of Commons as a counterpoise to the popular will. — At all events, they were perfectly justified in doing their best to convince their fellow country- men that men calling themselves Whigs, who had nothing in their mouths but " the power and majesty of the people, the original contract^ the authority and independency of Parliament^ liberty, rmstancCy exclusion, abdication, depositioii,'*^ and * Dissertation on Parties, Letter I. 37 who attributed to themselves exclusively every patriotic virtue in contradistinction to what they called the Tory advocates of prerogative, non- resistance, and slavery, were, in effect, mere pretenders to popular virtues which they never possessed, and kept alive those distinctions for the worst purposes of delusion and self-interest. Your Lordship knows that the folly of the distinction which arrogated for a certain set of men all popular favor, whether in or out of place, and whatever was their conduct, had been so generally felt in the reign of George IL, that those who wished to be honoured as Whigs were despised and hated as courtiers, and those whom the Whigs affected to depreciate as Tories and Jacobites, were backed by the great majority of the whole country, as being the party of the country, and the true friends of the people.* If the real difference was not lost at the Revo- lution, it was abolished when Court and Country party became the usual words, and the Tories were so long obliged to talk in the Republican ♦ " As nothing can be more ridiculous than to preserve the " nominal division of Whig and Tory parties, which subsisted " before the Revolution, when the difference of principles, " that could alone make the distinction real, exists no longer; " so nothing can be more reasonable> than to admit the no- " minal division of Constifutionists and Artti-constitutionists, ''or of a Court and Country party,^ at this time, wh chap. xi. p. 127, ' 95 the disturbances at the close of the poll— and you call this securing tranquillity. It is a strange beginning, at any rate; but I can moreover appeal to your own Whigs, whether they do not feel that so far from securing tranquillity, they have sowed the seeds of a dissension between the Reformers and themselves that will never termi- nate except in the total overthrow of the party> or the total extinction of the principle of Reform. When you talk of a great point gained, let me inquire what has triumphed. Is it a prin- ciple ? Is it a party ? No one will be so bold as to say that the return of Mr. Lamb secured any principle whatever. On the contrary, the whole proceedings of his supporters were one constant shuffle from beginning to end. It was said that he came forward on the principles of Sir Samuel Romilly : what were the principles of Sir Samuel Romilly ? in what code do we find them embodied ? but it is idle to talk of that virtuous man, who can be made ridiculous only by his absurd eulogists, and whose name was made use of on this occasion merely as a signal that those who had voted for Sir Samuel Romilly, might vote for Mr. Lamb : that was the meaning of Vote for Lamb on Romilly^ s principles. It was also meant to insinuate, that as Sir Samuel Romilly had been the opposition can- didate at the last election, so Mr. Lamb was the opposition candidate at this; and that Mr. Hobhouse was inclined to support the ministers. 96 No pains were spared to inculcate this opinion, by Mr. Lamb's canvassers and committee, and, in the early part of the election, many hundred voters were positively deceived by the falsehood of this honest election manoeuvre. The '^ glorious principles of the revolution" were resorted to for the same worthy purpose, as if Mr. Hobhouse was against the revolution. With the same candour it was spread about that Mr. Lamb was the 7^eal Reformer, and that Mr. Hobhouse intended to deprive many of his constituents, should he be returned, of their suffrages. The Whigs did not blush to disperse a hand-bill to this effect ;* but they themselves did this very thing during the election, and disfran- chised many hundred electors ; and Mr. Lamb, though he had before professed himself for triennial parliaments and householder suffrage, totally dropt even his professions on a topic which as it had been taken up, was let drop for election purposes. He knew nothing about the matter; but, at the same time, had the modesty to talk of Mr. Hobhouse*s explicit declaration as being unintelligible. At the latter end of the election, no more was said or placarded about Mr. Lamb's principles on Re- form or Revolution. We came to the honour of Westminster, and Mr. Hobhouse, who was be- fore charged with a wish to curtail the suffrage, was now accused with being an advocate of * See the Speeches on the first Tuesday of the last electioi>a 97 universal suffrage. In short, it would be the height of absurdity to say that any one principle has triumphed on this occasion. Towards the latter end of the election, it was hard to discover even whether Mr. Lauib intended to sit with the opposition, as the decency of his demeanor, under popular persecution, would have suited a court candidate; and, in his address of thanks, even the poor word, liberty, hacknied as it is, and one should have thought offensive not even to Mr. Lamb's ministerial supporters, was, either by accident or design, totally omitted. The triumph was given to the " cause of independence ;'^ a word still better suited to the undefined virtues of the Whigs, and indiscriminately used by their opponents.* Still less has any single party triumphed ; for your Lordship cannot live so totally secluded from all truth as not to know that Mr. Lamb owes his majority full as much to the supporters of the court, as to the supporters of the party. As your title page calls your defence a defence of the Whigs, I presume that you would pre- tend that the honor belongs, to the Whigs, although your Lordship's late practice would make it doubtful in whose success you would sincerely rejoice ; that of the opposition or of * Thus Mr. Sumner was called the old independent member for Surrey. H m tlie minister. Both may divide the prize j for, according to the rule of Joan of Arc, he who has shared the labour should share the glory. The whole organization which procured for the jfeotally unknown naval captain 4800 voters, was set at work for Mr. Lamb. All the engines of power, great and small, from the ordnance office to the select vestries, the parish officers; all were in activity. The nomination of Mr. Lamb was hailed with delight by the Courier, and that other faithful mirror in which we see the dirty faces of our court sycophants and slanderers. It is recollected by all who attended the hustings, that the whole array of collectors, and others, who were before the agents of Captain Maxwell, appeared for the Whig Candidate. It may be recollected, that when one of the speakers said that the appearance of Mr. Lamb might bring forward a ministerial candidate, the crowd ex- claimed. He is the ministerial candidate, I may challenge your Lordship to point out a single effort or artifice, which are usually supposed characteristic of court candidates, that were not resorted to by Mr. Lamb^s friends. If the first two or three days of the election were employed in persuading those who knew nothing of the transactions of the hustings, that Mr. Lamb was against the court, the whole of the latter part of the contest, when the first mean artifice had 99 been exhausted, was devoted to collecting the whole anti-popular force, — ^some of them the willing dependants, others the reluctant victims of power and corruption. The return of Mr. Lamb is not the triumph of the Whigs, and I will venture to assert from a dissection of the poll, that had a regularly badged and liveried court candidate been started, Mr. I^mb would not have polled fifteen hundred votes. Let him try again when there is only one vacancy. That will show the Whig force in Westminster. But if Mr. Lamb's return had been the fruit of Whig influence solely, I see not how your Lordship could possibly congratulate yourself upon such an event, produced by such means. You cannot know the circumstances of the case : that you suspect them might appear from that candid admission, " If upon the late election, ** influences were exerted which the law prohibits, " I hope they will be detected and punished, and " a new election awarded ; but, beyond that, it is " useless and childish to complain." Iff — talkest thou to me of ifsy most noble Lord ? These are not the days when I would have gone to you for constitutional law j I would have willingly gone to the Erskine of 1793, when he said that the complaint was, " that the people " had no control in the choice of their represen- " tatives ^ that they were either chosen amidst H 2 100 ^^ riot and confusion, and amidst bribery and cor- " ruption in the larger districts, or by the absolute ^^ authority of a few individuals in the smaller.*' Your Lordship now seems to resolve all crime into detection, Deprendi miserum est. And now that the Westminster petition has been dropped for want of pecuniary means of carrying on an expensive suit before a corrupt tribunal, your Lordship will doubtless more than ever call aloud for the test of legal detection. — I say, however, that it is notorious to all Westminster, that influences were used ivhich the law prohibits. What was the Steward of Earl Grosvenor doing in Pimlico ? How many letters did an agent for the Duke of Devonshire write to dependants of that powerful house ? Ask an Irish Earl who might have been a peer, and therefore, perhaps was himself legally precluded from his very pro- minent exertions, in company with what noble- man's steward he canvassed ? — Why should my Lord William Russell have appeared repeatedly on the hustings together with other withered weeds, " Which had no business there/' Why, but that the Bedford tenants might know under whose flag to range themselves. Your Lordship, for ought I know, may not rank this interposition of agents of those belonging to the other branch of the legislature, under the " in- 101 fluences which the law prohibits." You may say, how do you know these stewards were agents ? I dare say that they were not ^ I dare say that they acted against their nobler masters' inclinations, and I should not wonder if they were to be turned away from their service. The Duke of Devonshire besides was abroad, and could not leave any one to interfere for him at elections; — of course not: he has not an agent in the world, and if one of his borough-holders had died, it would have been impossible to fill up the vacancy ! ! ! To all this I say, that the voters considered the applications as coming from the masters who could record and punish, and not from the mere servants who had nothing to withhold or bestow. The employment of the managers of such estates as are in the hands of peers of parliament to show which way the tenants should vote, is manifestly nothing less than an interference con- trary to the spirit of the law. But, here comes your Lordship's distinction, " It may not, in. " deed it cannot, always happen that every man " in Westminster, who pays to the public taxes, " has had leisure amidst laborious occupations, to *' consider the claims of candidates to distinction *V and preference. * Such persons may fairly " trust in the opinions, and repose in the wishes " of their benefactors, their employers, and * Defence, &c. p. J9. 10^ " their FRIENDS; and it is not corruption in en- ** lightened men, who can see clearly the interests *^ of their country, to use their influenae with pep- *' sons less qualified to investigate those sdb- " jects!" — Which, being interpreted, isasfollows; — How should a mechanic know any thing? the laws of his country give him a vote to be sure, but they intended it, like the penny to the school boy, not to be spent all in trash, not to be thrown away upon his silly inclinations; no, it is nothing but a little token or pledge to give ta a bene- factor, or an employer, or a friend, in return io^ favors received. It seems then we have been all wrong, and have misinterpreted the Bill of Rights; or, perhaps it is a misprint, like the omission of the negative in the seventh com- mandment ; and we ought to read, " Elections ** shall not be free," the poor may have a WISH for one more than another, but he should give his WISH to the rich ; " Right, cries his Lordship, for a rogue in need, " To have a taste is insolence indeed." You think of these laborious voters, as Mrs, Malaprop does of young girls, and sagely en- quire, '^ What they can have to do with pre- ference and aversion." Your Lordship has already had the serious answer* to your elec4!ion * " And this direct recommendation to the one to bqy, " and to the other to sell his vote, — this recommendation of the " influence of terr4M^-<»*this recommendation to the one to 103 morality, which has often been practised I will allow, but which it was reserved for a Whig patriot, and a Whig Lord Chancellor to preachy A blush does indeed betray itself, for you say, " but whether I am right or wrong in this^ it, " always did and always must happen in popular " elections, unlessGod shall be pleased completely ^^ to recast the nature and character of man.** How impious then were the Whig friends of the people, who assumed to themselves that which your Lordship says, belongs only to the divinity, and did pretend completely to recast the nature and character of the Englishman, by making " a vote not worth soliciting,'* At any rate as your Lordship has kindly owned that you may be wrong in defending influence, I do not see how it can be " childish** in us to complain of it ; and really the deferring the amendment to a new creation, the pious acquiescence in the pre^ sent imperfect condition of humanity, which makes your Lordship inclined rather to increase than diminish the necessary portion of moral evily may suggest to some one more ill-natured « suborn the perjurer, and to the other to commit the perjury, " comes from a person who calls himself a Parliamentary Re- ** fornfier:^^Truly, this is sound Whig reasoning. The igno* '* ranee on the one hand, and the wisdom on the other, is " assumed merely to justify the perjury : — Truly, this is sound " Whig morality. And then it is asserted, that there is no " corruption in the transaction : — Truly, this is Whig honesty." — Reph/ to Lord Erskine, pp. 27, 28. 104 than myself, that your Lordship has forgotten there is a second, as well as an early childishness. As to the inutihty of complaint, that is our concern — were it only an amusement, it should be left to us ; for we have nothing else. We are not actors in the great political drama, we are only spectators — sitting too on the last and lowest bench : but, we have paid our money, and if we do not like the performers, we may hiss- — at least they thought so in France, and that too, under the old monarchy.* But a word more on influences prohibited by law. — What does your Lordship think of public breakfasts ? Do you laugh in our faces as Mr. Lamb did, and tell us that there is much " solid satisfaction in a breakfast?" Perhaps you will say that the Treating Act does not extend to voluntary feasts given on the part of the candidate's friends^ and perhaps Mr. Harrison, of the New Hummums, poured forth his tea and wine all in gratuitous libations, and out of pure love to the Whigs.— Prove agency, you cry, or it is childish to complain — - it is nothing that the invitations to these break- fasts were given by members of Mr. Lamb's family — it is nothing that they were given by those canvassing for Mr. Lamb — it is nothing that the voters positively understood that if they * " Ce monde ci est un oeuvre comique/' &c. &c. . . . . . J. J3. Rousseau. 105 voted for Mr. Lamb they would get a breakfast, and if they did not vote, they would get none. — This is not agency — this is only presumption — it is not detection. — A committee of the House of Commons has been known to reject even an entry in an innkeeper's book, debiting these treats to the candidate himself.* I know all this very well, my Lord — and I suppose the Westminster Electors knew it well enough when they abandoned their petition with the less re- gret, because their proofs were only moral evi- dences, sufficient to convince any honest man, and might have been voted frivolous and vexa- tious by a dozen corrupt, puzzle-headed quib- blers, chosen from that very body whom the Westminster Electors have attempted to reform. The same want of parliamentary demonstration may, perhaps, affect the acts of bribery, which became at last so notorious, that no less than four or five individuals offered themselves as vo- luntary witnesses of one single specimen of this approved model of Whig persuasion. In the late enquiry into the Chester election, the payment of the money, to the voter before the face of the candidate, was not held to be sufficient proof of bribery, although the friends of the opposing candidate adyised him to desist from, polling, as his election must necessarily have been secured by that illegal transaction: * At the Shrewsbury Election. 106 so that I imagine the Electors would have had as little chance before a committee as they have had before your Lordship, whose morality, upon your own confession, is much like that of Julius Caesar, who thought " a man who had been caught in adultery not a villain, but a bungler." In addition to the immediate influence before described, which the law does not prohibit, but which every principle of honour and generosity condemns, it is known to all Westminster, that the fear of offending the united Aristocracy pre- vented many hundreds from voting for Mr. Hob- house, who, neverthelesi", could not be persuaded fa give their support to Mr. Lamb. — Add to these, the great numbers rejected by the arbi- trary decision of the High Bailiff, and the greater number of those, whom shame of declaring their poverty prevented from appearing at the Hustings, to be exposed to the taunts of the Rate Collectors and rejected by the Bailiff, and your Lordship would find Mr« Lamb in a minority much more considerable than his present majo- rity. — Enquire of those who canvassed for either party, and you will then be able to discover on which side the wishes of the very great majority of the Electors were inclined. — More than the majority of Mr. Lamb were polled from the parish of St. George ; that is to say, from that part of the town directly subject to the influence of the Aristocraey. — And it is no exaggeration 107 to affirm, that of the seven thousand unpolled Electors, four-fifths, if freely consulted, would have declared for the Reformer, in opposition to the Coalition Candidate. — Your Lordship may ask why did they not come forward; but you should be acquainted with the many disadvan- tages under which the advocates of the popular cause must necessarily exert themselves at a contested election for Westminster. — Their voters are all volunteers — they cannot be driven to the poll- — they wait for company— they wait for a fine day — they wait for the latter days of the poll, when their votes may appear to them more valuable: in the mean time, terror aad eor-^ ruption, and solicitation of every sort, are vkm^ ceasingly at work — a, great effort is easily made by the trained bands in all the parishes, and the public offices are most active on the very days that the tradesman is most occupied. — The po.. pular cause is almost sure to be in a minority in the latter days of the week, and hesitation and despair may very naturally keep back very many men most devoted to their honest principles; an4 thus produce a fatal eflfect upon the poll. In the present case, however, it is a fact which every man who canvassed for Mr. Hobhouse will support me in declaring, that the High Bailiff's decision as to the Poor's Hate, will, of itself, ^uifficiently account foor the defeat of ihd fier f0pmi&rs. 108 That decision is manifestly contrary to reason and the spirit of the Constitution, as it puts the Election in a manner, into the hands of the Rate and Tax Collectors, as it opens a door to bribery — and as it deprives a man of his franchise, in some cases, for an accident which he could not fore- see j and in other cases, for an offence (if it may be so called) against which the law has provided another remedy, namely, distraint. Supposing, then, the Whigs alone had done this deed, is it for your Lordship to trim their withered bays, because the distress and poverty of the people have afforded them a temporary triumph over the people ? — This consideration alone, independent of all the '' influences" of '^ benefactors, employers, and friends,*' which the constitutional lawyer thinks so innocent and consonant to nature : this alone might have pre- vented a politician professing popular principles from congratulating himself on the result of the Westminster Election. That it was no subject of congratulation, might have been understood by your Lordship, from the voice of the country, expressed in the independent voice of those weekly and provin- cial journals placed beyond the influence of me- tropolitan corruption. More than all, it might have been understood from the unequivocal conduct of your Lordship's Whigs, who have never once broken silence, ex- 109 cept to betray their wounded feelings, and to pronounce a sentence of proscription and banish- ment* against those whom your Defence would ♦ " State of Parties," Edinburgh Revieiv for June, 1818. One word on this extraordinary manifesto and this coldness. Can English legislators, the assumed representatives of the people, be accused of a greater crime than this Whig pleader admits his Whig clients to be guilty of ? A coldness to the popular cause ! ! ! What other cause is there in England, that a member of the legislature can honourably, can safely advo- cate ? The very slaves of the treasury-bench admit the popu- lar cause to be the pretext for all their law-making and law-^ breaking, and here comes a Whig and allows his friends to have felt an unfortunate coldness towards the people. A mis- fortune indeed, and one for which an English legislator de- serves to be hanged. But hear some more. It seems the Whigs found out, that they were not quite right in reserving all their warmth for their own interest; yet they would not commit the vulgar error of courting or deserving popularity.' By no means. The Whjg apologist tells us, that the party " cultivated more assiduously the esteem of the respectable portion of the community.'' Just for the present, we will not inquire who these august personages are, that sit apart, like Jove on his hill, and never mix in our low., common affairs, except to control them. The community, both respectable and dis- respectable, were, it seems, duly sensible of this amazing condescension. The apologist tells us, that they evinced theit tvillingness to return to their natural leaders; and he pronounces, in a style suitable to the long-suffering and loving-kindness of their unalienable lords and masters, that " there cannot be a doubt that this disposition will, as it ought, be met by correspond- ing kindness." If this tender suggestion had proceeded from the forgiving Autocrat of all the Russias, at the head of seven hundred thousand bayonets^ on the eve of quelling a Tartar insurrec- tion, the kindness would be imperial ; but for an insolent. no represent as having been driven from the field, and disabled for life.* Your Lordship would have done well to imi- tate your more prudent friends ; who thought of this " Result" as my uncle Toby did of the infant composition of Lipsius, " Wipe it up and say nothing of the matter.*' Your Lordship has told us what you think of the result of the election, I will tell you what we, that is, what the Rabble think of this nota- ble event. We do not pretend that no circum- stance since the Revolution can compare with it in importance, but we still think it of consider- able importance. We think it has decided the fate of the Whigs for ever, and that the " unfor- tunate coldness" which their manifesto owns them to have felt towards the popular cause, will be henceforward repaid by the most freezing in^ difference and contempt. We think that not even the spoilt children, nor even the lick-spit- impotent junta of little shuffling, busy, disappointed, jealous, di^ointed clubmen, without authority, without concert, with no principle which they dare to profess, with not even a name to which they can fairly pretend, — for such nonentities to issue their Ukaae, and with a Review for a Gazette, and a smaU critic for a Chancellor, to tell the whole nation of English- men that they are pardoned, is a piece of ludicrous presump- tion, quite worthy the assurance of this Solicitor against the people of England. ♦ Chronicle for March 11.—" I( is not mereh^ to tfie princi-- pies of these men they object, it 19 to the mm themsdva^" These men are Sir F. B. and Mr. H. Hi ties of the party, will now venture to assume a denomination which has for many years been rejected as absurd and inapplicable to any set of men ; and which the late contest has rendered more odious, perhaps, than any title that ever designated the supporters of an antinational cause. We feel assured, that those who really intend to benefit their country will henceforward regu- late their opposition to the ruling faction in par^ Uament, not with a reference to the approbation or the direction of a party-leader, but with the avowed purpose of doing their duty by their constituents, and satisfying the just expectations of the people. We cherish some hopes, that th« day is not far distant when those, who, by their station and previous habits, are in possession of the fairest opportunities for action, will show that, by the honest propensities of a nature truly noble, they are such men as the nation would willingly see at their head, and would hail as their natural leaders indeed. For, believe me, my Lord, you and your friends misjudge the people most egregiously. They take no plea- sure in the discovery or the exposure of your frailties : how can they be interested in the dis* appointment of their own hopes ? where can be the consolation in confessing, that they have loved, and admired, and trusted in vain ? Your reputation for sincerity mu^t^ necessarily, involve 112 their character for discernment* to own that you have been false is an avowal that they have been abused. The truth has long struggled for entrance. They are affectionate and confiding, and have willingly borne partial neglect, rather than anticipate separation by hasty complaints : it is true, that doubts have, from time to time, been raised ; but they were not the suspicions of a tyrant or of a slave: they were the jealousies of a lover. They felt that your honour was their own^ and even, when you were below the hori- zon, they were willing to mistake the twilight for the dawn; nor was the grateful error ex- torted from them, until they were left in total darkness, and, by a long and patient experi- ence, they found that you had sunk to rise no more. And here, my Lord, give me leave to expos- tulate with you on the strange objection con- tained in your Defence, to the exception made by Sir F. Burdett in favour of certain individuals of the Whig party, and confining his censure to those only whom the cap might fit. You call this "puerile"* because the character and con- sistency of the Whig Party, in parliament, were directly invaded. Now I really do not under- stand your meaning; and, indeed, you are so entirely ignorant of the events occurring on the hustings, chiefly, I presume, from trusting to ♦ Defence, p. 2L 113 the reports of your forty-years friend, that it is fitting to nnake every allowance for your miscon- ceptions. The fact stood thus. The Whigs, at Covent-garden, and in their daily complaints, attacked Sir Francis Burdett, for an unsparing censure of the whole party, with some of whom he had appeared to act cordially in parliament, and with making no exception in favour of anybody. Sir Francis, in reply, said, he did make an exception, and that he was willing to allow, that the best men in the nation were found amongst the Whigs, and that their excel- lent qualities were cramped because they be- longed to a party. So you see, my Lord, that if there is any puerility in this exception, the puerility belongs to the Whigs who called for it. Only see how hard and inevitable is the fate which you prepare for Sir F. Burdett : one of the horns of your dilemma must catch him. He gives his opinion publicly against the Whigs. The Whig defenders exclaim. What! a lumping censure, — without exception. All of us bad — not one to be saved ! By no means, answers Sir Francis ; I do make exceptions. Then comes the other Whig defender. " How puerile ! you say some are good, some are bad. You object to the party, but you make exceptions; how puerile ! ! " What would you have had Sir Francis do ? He gave his sentiments that, from past experience, no good X 114 whatever was to be expected from the Whig party : that their object did not appear a na- tional object, but a personal object : that their opposition might be, generally speaking, resolved into a struggle for place; and that he felt no more interested in the success of the Oiiis than in the defeat of the Ins, * * The definition of place-hunting, as given in the above quoted Whig manifesto, is as follows : " He only can be " charged with hunting after place, who assumes, for factious " purposes, principles that do not belong to him, or abandons " those which he had professed, when the avenues to office " are within his views." Very well ; try Mr. Fox by this rule. Mr. Fox's defenders say he was not seriously/ for Reform of Parliament, but only took up the subject for the sake of backing the people: now when he came into place with Grenville and Sidmouth, which of his old principles stuck by him at all ? Coming in under Grenville, who was pledged against Reform, he could not be for Reform ; and yet he had professed Reform. Nothing is more common than to hear of the disinterestedness and adherence to principle manifested by the Whigs, by staying out of office when they might have so often come in. How often they have sacrificed their in- terest to their principles we cannot tell, but we can tell that the only time they have been in power for fifty years, they egregiously sacrificed their principles to their interest. The two coalitions are given up by the candid, even of their own party, and now the question whether or not they would prefer being in or out of place, is pretty clearly seen by the manifesto which smooths down all possible obstacles to their ascent to power. The Whigs take credit to themselves for going out of place because they could not carry the catholic question ; but the manifesto says, " if they can carry the ^ 115 Your Lordship may think that he took a wrong view on this subject ^ but surely there is nothing puerile in this opinion : it is far from the first time that the inexpediency, the mis- chievous tendency of party has been recognized and acted upon by a British statesman. When the disaffected Whigs joined the Tories to turn out Sir Robert Walpole, Mr. Shippen, a poli- tician, whom even his opponents admired, and whose name has been coupled with honesty by a great cotemporary poet, dropped at once his " catholic question, and effect a moderate and wholesome " Reform of parliament, the country will gain so much the " more. But no such point should ever be thought of as a con- " dition, sine qua non ; retrenchment and reformation of abuses "at hofne and abroad, ought alone to be reckoned the master " principle of the parti/.'* In 1798, the Whigs swore they would never come in without Reform : they dropped Reform between 1798 and 1806. In 1807, they swore they would not come in without eman- cipating the catholics : they dropped the catholics by the year 1818, and they laid down a " master principle,^' which will suit and be submitted to by any ^et of men in the world. After this, the modest pleader, with a bonhommie which he thinks he has communicated to his readers, says, " certain it is, that a hankering after place never ivas so little the failing of an opposition as in our times" Lord Erskine goes even farther, and says, that " the only " criticism upon the conduct of the Whigs that he ever heard " in the mouth of an enlightened and dispassionate man, was " that by going out in 1807, they did not attend to their first " DUTY ; the CONSERVATION OF their power." So much for the frst dut;y of a Whig. I 2 116 attack upon the minister, that he might not pla^^ into the hands of a selfish coalition. The motion for removing Walpole from the king's councils for ever, had been warmly sup- ported by the most distinguished patriots of the day — Sandys, Pulteney, Pitt, and Lyttleton; but Mr. Shippen " declared that he looked on ^^ this motion as only a scheme for turning out ** one minister and bringing in another ; that as '^ his conduct in parliament had always been *^ regulated with a view to the good of his " country, without any regard to his private " interest, it was quite indifferent to him who ** was in and who was out; and he would give ** himself no concern in the question.** At the conclusion of these words he withdrew, and was followed by thirty-four of his friends.* It will, I confess, not be in our time that thirty-five members of parliament will pledge themselves in so decided a manner to an indifference who is in or who is out, and show, by an overt act, their impartial contempt for both sides of the House ; and yet, even one of your Lordship's friends, another Whig defender, does own that it is within the sphere of possibility that a ^^ third party'* may arise, if ever our assurance that nothing will be done by either of the present Coxe's Walpole, chap 55, p. 656, vol. 1. 117 parties should become doubly sure.* The only difference between the learned reviewer and Sir F. Burdett, is respecting the precise period of the birth of this monster, which is to spring «p when the slime of Whig and Tory shall have duly overflowed and saturated the land. The one thinks the time is not come, and that it may be deferred till the Whigs come into place , the other ** See the Edinburgh Review for June, 1818. Article, Stiate of Parties. — " Nor would there fail in these times to *' arise a third party for the interests of the people, if their " present defenders were to forget themselves when in office, *' and to league with the advocates of unconstitutional *^' measures." The pleader disposes of the people, on all occasions, in a very edifying way. They are to stick to their looms and ploughs in a prone and peaceful attitude ; or, if they look above for a moment, they must not feel any of the jealousies arising from past experience ; they must repose in faith, hope, and charity, and feel confident that something will be done when the Whigs come into power. When they do come in, then, to be sure, they ought to be closely watched ; and,,, says he, *' are pretty sure to be so;" but, not so fast, good PEOPLE, not watched by you, the watching is to come froni " those whom they have displaced.'* In other words, the party out are the fit monitors and correctors of the party in : the only earthly use of the people, is that they may have rhetorical defenders, and that whilst those who strive to keep places, employ, as their own property, the words Church and King, and government, so those who struggle to get places, may, by the courtesy of England, exclusively resort to all popular topics of declamation. 118 thinks it is. There is nothing puerile in the latter opinion, even if it be a mistaken one. Nor do I see how it is puerile to say, whether called upon or not, that the objection is to the principle of party generally from their collective conduct, and not to all the persons who compose that party. I doubt not, but that it would be very convenient for your Lordship's party to convict Sir F. Burdett of want of candour and discrimination ; but we can perfectly well under- stand him as well as you. We know very well what he means by saying that he is at all times ready to join those who appear willing to do good^ and that so far from feeling any rancorous animosity, which may prevent him from co- operating with the Whigs, he has often, indeed, much more steadily than any oiie man of their party, voted with them, and " will be happy to range himself under their banners, whenever they are inscribed with the sacred name of liberty."* The Whigs have, it is true, a very convenient method of quoting the good inclina- tions of individuals, never, perhaps, experienced by a single overt act, but which, from their general character, they may very likely possess, as a set-off against the faults of the party; but gurely we have nothing to do but with that which is and has been done; and it is very idle for some of the young men of the regiment to com- • Speech on the Hustings, March 1, 1819. 119 plain that we confound them with the actors in the coahtion of 1807. If the Whigs will talk of themselves as Whigs, will cry out " stick to the party," " look at the party," we have nothing left for it but to see what the party has done. Take one instance. The party divided very respectably near a hundred against the suspen- sion bill in 1817; and, notwithstanding the awkward embarrassment which Mr. Ponsonby confessed he felt in defending a law, which he said he regarded with a reverence amounting almost to superstition, the party did not then, as you, their defender, do now, say, that the king's ministers were on that occasion impelled to permanent abridgments of public liberty. On this account we give the Whigs the merit of this opposition, such as it was. But Mr. Ponsonby said, that he gave his cordial assent to the intro- duction of the measures recommended by the secret committee; and although he could not give his consent to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Bill, yet *^ the communication made to *^ parliament had his perfect approbation, and if " he had been in the Cabinet, he would have re- " commended a communication of the very same *^ kind."* * Parliamentary Debates, Feb. 24, 1817. — Mr. Ponsonby also said, " that he wished to go every length which duty and " propriety wo uld allow, in strengthening the hands of go- " vernment on this occasion.*' 120 Be it recollected that this communication was that of the secret committee, and that upon it were founded four measures ; the first the sedi- tious meetings' bill, for the first reading of which bill Mr. Ponsonby voted, together with all the opposition then in the house except fourteen.* All England is now completely convinced, and a respectable minority of the opposition has since voted by implication, that the communication of the secret committee was founded chiefly on the word of hired spies and informers, convicted of perjury, and every base and enormous offence. Now if the body of the Whigs under Mr. Pon- sonby opposing the suspension bill, are to be praised 3 the body of the Whigs under Mr. Pon- sonby are to be condemned for supporting that secret committee, in whose report they had as great a share as the ministers; so Lord Castle- reagh said publicly in the House of Commons : at least they are to be condemned by those whothink that report was what it was called. — A Libel on the People of England. But here would come in one of the fourteen who voted against the sedi- tious meetings' bill,f exclaiming, " you are not * Mr. Ponsonby seems to have felt some small compunc- tion on the second reading of the seditious meetings' bill. Mr. Lamb went through thick apd thin. Lord Erskine was against it. t It was against the prototype of this bill, that the Whig club made their famous declaration, and form of association. *' We whose names are hereunto subscribed, calling to mind " the virtuous and memorable exertions of our ancestors, in 121 ** fair to attack all the Whigs— you are not fair '^ to attack me, for I voted, and fourteen voted " against the bill/* It is clear that this must be very satisfactory to the consciences, as it is ho- nourable to the characters of the individuals ; but it does not save the Whigs, who must stand or fall by the leader and the body of the party. If a combination is good for any thing, it must be good vi^hen a great national principle is at stake ; if on these occasions the politicians do not hold together, it is idle to talk of party. The nation have nothing to do but to judge of the party by party acts; and to judge of individuals, by indi- vidual acts. It is indeed a very absurd expecta- tion, to suppose, that the Whigs are to have the benefit of all the good ever done by any one of their party, but are never to be blamed for any bad measure from which even one of their party was found to dissent. Nothing is more idle than to say, " But do you not think Lord Tavistock a very good man r" — Yes. " Well then he is a Whig." — Equally ridiculous is it to ask how it is *' all past ages for the public happiness and freedom of this " nation, do solemnly engage and pledge ourselves to each ** other, and to our country, to employ every legal and con- ^* stitutional effort to obtain the repeal of two statutes, the ^' one entitled, An Act for the more effeaual preventing f seditious meetings and assemWies.^* This was about 1795, and in 1817, when according to the Edinburgh manifesto the Whigs were 130 in parliament, only fourken voted against tht bill, and the leader supported it ! ! 1 that Sir Francis Burdett, who has voted so long with the Whigs, nay who has actually sat in one seat amongst them for so many years, should find fault with their proceedings. There is a wide difference between voting zvith a party^ SLndfor a party. Two men may travel the same road, but one may be on his way to build, and the other to rob a church. Sir Francis cannot help having voted with the Whigs, when they have opposed a vicious, and corrupt, and tyrannical system, but it does not at all follow that when he went into the lobby with the Noes, his wish should be to walk all the way with them through the dirt to Carlton House. The cause, however, of this complaint, is easily discerned — as the ministers have the mo- nopoly of power, their opponents think the mo- nopoly of popularity belongs of right to them- selves, and themselves only. — ^Thus can they overlook a little versatility or abandonment of principle, and even of party for the moment. A truly shabby fellow shall be pitied and protected, and the precedent be thought worth encouraging, for the sake of what the whole party may find it expedient to adopt hereafter : besides, any thing mean breaks a man's spirit and character, and qualifies him to wear with decent submission the party livery; but no such pity, no such pro- tection — no, not even toleration, for him who follows one steady rule of action, independently 1^5 ef all personal connexion : his very virtues are but robberies from those who have them of right, and who know how to wear them so sociably — his concurrence is treachery, his opposition is malice; if. he is silent, he deserts his duty — if he speaks, he spoils a project : — whether at ease or in action he is alike rebellious, and to be marked with the seal of reprobation. This is your choice : belong to a party — you shall be promoted, pushed, and caressed when living; and when you die, a statue shall reward your supple genius.— Rely on your own force, adhere to a national principle, and then prepare to be kept back, crushed, trampled upon, both by master and by slave — prepare to be reviled and insulted by those whose impotence confines them to slander and abuse : or should you meet with mercy, resign yourself to be amongst the number of wiseacres, alias purists, or of well- meaning , and not very clear-sighted persons, who labour under that unstatesman-like disease, " a tender conscience, or are tainted with the vanity of always thinking for themselves J' Such is the Whig manifesto against a tender conscience and independence — the words are from the above quoted article on the State of Parties,* which Mr. Brougham has the credit of having written, during the Westmoreland election, as Sir Richard * Edinburgh Review, June, 1818. — It is astonishing that such a man will consent to be used. — 124 Blackmore wrote his verses " to the rumbling of his chariot wheels.'* And now, my Lord, I shall take my leave, repeating the assurance with which I set out, that your Lordship never had, and never will have, such ardent admirers as those of my own class of life, who greeted your triumph on the glorious ninth of November. — To which, how- ever, I must add, that when your Lordship made yourself more than a party to, nay even a defender of, the iniquities practised at the late Westminster Election, you might expect some hollow thanks for the apparent generosity of such voluntary devotion; but you could not flatter yourself that not one of the four thousand electors of West- minster, on whose defeat you stept forward to congratulate your friends and the public, would not venture to remind your Lordship, that al- though the people may want foresight, they are not totally devoid of memory. — Nor could you forget that one of the weapons of controversy, lawful even in the hard hands of the vulgar, is the comparison of the past professions with the present doctrines of those by whom, at one time, they have been designated as a great and gene- rous nation, and at another, as " gangs of tur- bulent and almost distracted men."* You may, perhaps, in the opinion of your * Defence, &c. p. 28. 125 friends, have given some hard blows to the people — you may have driven back the assailants of the Whig post; but you have laid yourself open to attacks which your party must surely deplore ; and when your Lordship confesses that you leapt from the bed into the battle,* you might have recollected, that the Spartan, al- though victorious, was punished by his country- men for rushing naked into the field. Thus far had I written, and was about to wish you farewell ; but at this instant I receive your answer to the Replyer — and I hasten to peruse the codicil of that political testament wrhich you have lately indited as a last gift to the people of England.* Now, my Lord, you are fair game — My re- spect for your former character, and a wish to spare a crazy politician, who might have been induced by what he thought loyalty to his party, or to a party which he wished to show he was still attached to, in spite of many acts of infi. delity, prevented me from telling you the indig- * Short Defence, &c. preface. 126 nation excited amongst the people by your thus coming forward as a volunteef bravo against the Reformers of Westminster. But your Lordship has now chosen to adopt a tone such as shows you despise the usual allow- ances granted to age and former merits : you have chosen the weapons, and you must expect your antagonists to make such use of them as may be best suited to their purpose. Your Lordship declares you were '^ never more diverted in your life with any thing you ever ready'"^ than with sundry propositions of the Reply to you. — You tell us in the next page, that nothing can he more amusing'\ — in another place you are much entertained, and in other parts of your Answer you go on frisking and drivelling over every page, in order to convince the world, I presume, that although you have taken up this laughing mood late in life, you will make up for the delay by the vigorous and eager adoption of your late profession. — The gra- vity and eagerness with which you apply to your newly chosen employment, shall send you down like the Elephant on the Rope, as a worthy rival of the noble author who left his parliamentary pursuits to please the world with " Love in a hollow tree^ Never fear — if you want to be diverted, we * Answer, page 2. f Page 3. 127 wiil furnish you with the materials — ^you shall laugh ten times as much as ever 3 but do not be angry with us if some intruders should chance to be a party to the amusement: and if your Lordship shall find that you yourself have contributed to the national stock of harmless pleasure. Your Lordship is not content with the joke — with the laughable appearance presented by the Reply er — you have also thought it advisable to hint that he was not only certainly a humourist, but probably a drunkard; and this hint you convey in a vein of irony, such as may suit your infant excursions in the paths of pleasantry.* Allow me to congratulate you upon the feli- city with which you have thus '^ taken the high priori road,** and endeavoured to depreciate an anonymous letter, by declaring the correspon- dent to be drunk.— What has inspired your Lordship I will not presume to say, but after your adoption of such an extraordinary weapon of controversy, you will expect only a clear stage without any favor; and you must not be offended, if I tell you, in return for having brought forward this Helot of a Reformer, to provide mirth and instruction for the public, * " Here then. Sir, is a deliberate assertion, written, for " any thing I know to the contrary, in the early part of the " day."— See Answer, page 2. 128 that it is with a perfect stare of astonishment that we now see you attempt a merry mood for which you have hitlierto shown no sort of capacity: " And from the dregs of life think to receive, " What the first sprightly runnings could not give." It is not my purpose now to examine minutely the pretexts which you have put forth for ap- pearing in this new and amiable character — The profession of ignorance which you volunteer in the outset of your Answer, may be a protection for the argument, but not for the adversary; and if your Lordship had really no other means of information than such as were derived from the daily press during the Westminster Election, and more particularly that portion of it which you appear exclusively to have consulted — I mean the Chronicle — you were presuming a little too much on your name and station, when you volunteered your aid to the fallen forces of the Whigs. — Nothing is more distressing, than for a person thoroughly acquainted with all the de- tails of his subject, to have to contend with one who argues " ex plena ignorantia;" and all I can say to your Lordship, in reply to the greater part of your assertions, is — that they are founded on direct and absurd mis-statements, which never would have had the least influence with you, had you not been, as you confess^ *^ at a distance from London during the late *^ election for Westminster." ^ It is all in vain for any one to state those notorious iniquities which occurred on that oc- casion, if your Lordship is to come forward, and, with an air of the utmost ingenuity and naivete, is to say, " I know nothing of all " these things — Who did them? — When were *^ they done ? — mention names — I know nothing " of these matters — I dont believe any body " knows any thing of these matters." I say this is the amount of the denial v^^hich you have given to all the charges made in the Reply against the Whigs for their conduct at the late election ; and you have even gone the length of using the same argumentum ah ignorantid to prove there was no coalition between the Ministerial and Whig parties against the Re- formers ^ a fact which is notorious to every tradesman in Westminster. Your Lordship is iiot worthy a comment when you presume to throw a doubt upon a fact so clearly established, ftierely because no regular document of com- bination seems to have been drawn up between the prime minister and Mr. James Macdonald. What can be got by arguing with a man who either does not, or will not, know a fact passing tinder his nose? You refer the proof of the charged against the Whigs to the evidence to be * Answer, p. 1. K 130 brought by the petitioners against Mr. Lamb'is return. Although the petition had been dropt for want of money, three weeks before you pub- lished your answer. Bat before you come to this bold demonstration of your ignorance as to the general events of the late Westminster election, you take care to show that you are not acquainted even with the very conduct and professions of your own party on that occasion -, for you devote three or four pages to playing with that part of the Reply which says that Mr. Hobhouse^s speech, and the Report of the Committee, were the cause of the opposition to Mr. Hobhouse, and the consequent exposure of the Whigs. You put into capital letters, as an absurdity which tickled your fancy beyond all things, the assertion of the Reply, that Mr. Hobhouse's OWN SPEECH, AND THE REPORT OF THE COM- MITTEE, PREVENTED HIS WALKING OVER THE COURSE. Why, you silly man ! this assertion was made by the Whigs at the hustings, and also by the Chronicle; and if you will laugh at any body for it, you must laugh at the testy gentlemen who allowed a tavern speech, and the said Report, to put them into a passion, and to alter the line of conduct which they had resolved to pursue in Westminster. You are so ignorant that you absolutely appear not to know that the Whigs were resolved to start no body against 131 Mr. Hobhouse, and would never have done so but for the speech and the Report, which have excited your merriment. You appear not to know that the Whigs owned this themselves j nay, did more, for they made it the pretext, the excuse, for doing that which they otherwise would never, they said, have wished to do. I refer you to Mr. Lambton*s speech, and to the repeated articles in the Chronicle to this effect.* Your pleasantry on the presumed assertion of the Replyer, that Mr. Hobhouse's speech, and the Report, had " blown up at once into the air " a *^ great number of persons of rank and property, " who had contrived, for above a century, to *' impose upon the people as men of public " spirit and virtue," must be derived solely from ♦ The Chronicle for March 11, after the election was over,^ reiterates the assertion, coupling with the Report and Mr. Hobhouse's speech, the countenance which Sir F. Burdett gave to the Report. Here, however, the Chronicle, as usual, argued upon a fiction of its own. Sir F. Burdett had never read the Report, when he took the chair at the meeting ; he could not hear it, at the Crown and Anchor, for it was sot all read there; and he never once gave his opinion upon it during his speeches on that day. Nor could Mr. Hobhouse offend in this particular; he had nothing to do with the framing of the Report ; he never alluded to it in his speech at the meeting, in terms indicative of his opinion — But his offence was, calling Mr. Fox a radical Reformer, and remind- ing the people that the opposition now did not dare to devote a single toast to Parliamentary Reform. K 2 jour interpretation of the tleply, which attri- buted the contempt into which the Whigs had feillen to their conduct at the Westminster election, and which had been occasioned by what was said of them by Mr. Hobhouse, and by the Report. As to the gentlemen of ante- diluvian ages, whose public spirit and virtue of above a century you record, who are they ? I have already shown the absurdity of talking of the Whigs as a party existing in regular succes- sion, either as to principles or families, since the Revolution 5 and it is only now necessary to remark upon the recurrence to the usual Whig trick of assuming, as a notorious fact, what a little examination will show to be a ridiculous fiction. Your Lordship's memory is so short that you actually forget your own pamphlet when you ask the Replyer how he could *^ expect from " you a history of England commencing above ^' a century ago.'* This is too bad. It was your Lordship who began, in the old Whig way, to boast of the Revolution of 1688, and to say that an attack on the modern Whigs cast into the shade the character of the Revolution itself, * Now it was perfectly fair in the Replyer to observe, that if you would claim for your Whigs the merit of what the Whigs did at the Revolution^ ke might fairly subtract from the merits of the * Short Address, &c. page 2i 133 said Whigs by showing what the ancient Whigs did not do at the Revolution. Here, however^ you are more a Whig than ever, and have ac- tually done the very thing which I have charged as a common practice against your party; for you say that if the managers of the Revolution acted ill ** they only dishonoured themsehesy and ** did injustice to their country ; hut surely their ** conduct could in no manner affect the characters ^^ of men in another generation,^* This is exactly what we say; but you would make the rule apply only to the bad part of the conduct of your presumed political ancestors, and would have the benefit of all the good they were able to achieve, as your lawful inheritance. You must either make no more boast of the Revolution Whigs, or you must allow us to point out where they failed to merit the great praise you claim for them, in the first instance, and then for yourselves. On this point I have only to refer you to my former account of the true pedigree of Whig virtue. If you do not like my tree^ show where it is wrong, and do not you, a lawyer and a judge, complain of having to go back a hundred years. The Whigs, however, generally wish to make dat that there has been a regular transmission not " / u)ish, for fny own part, that Judges could have been always kept at a distance from every thing connected with the court, or with ani) council qf the king,''^ This would have been a late re^ pentance and acquiescence in the general voice of your countrymen, (including liiany of your own party) which has decided, beyond the reach of sophistry, this act to be an indelible disgrace on the memory of Mr. Fox. Mr. Perceval was backed by the whole country when he exclaim* ed, " It is impossible to say v^hat part Mr* Fo3£ ** M^ould have acted had this measure been re«* "sorted to by a ministry he opposed; but if he ** was serious in his attachment to liberty ^ of ** which, all over the world, he was an affection- ^* ate toaster, it was natural to think he would ** have opposed a thing so inconsistent with the " true principles of freedoni. 1 am S2itisfied that, ** if ministers do not naw see the impropriety of *' the measure, they soon \Vill be convinced, by */ the disapprobation of the country. I rather *^ think that tihey doUbt its propriety, but are to6 *^ obstinate to confess their effor.'^f I was iii the House of Commons myself, and can appeal to all present, whether the new tetiants of the treasury-bench did not by their blushes show a sign of grace. They were too youiig in office ♦ Answer, p. 57. t Parliamentary Debates, March 3, 1806. 142 to be hardened sinners, and the elaborate defence of " the most accomplished debater that the world ever saw" lost all impression, and was at once effaced by this simple appeal to the opi- nion of the country and to the conscience of the ministers. A more extraordinary instance even than those before quoted, has your Lordship given of your new way of arguing from persons to facts, in the excuse you make for the Whigs voting the payment of his debts to Mr. Pitt. Your reason is, first, because " it manifestly appeared at his death that he had been an incorrupt,'* though in your opinion, " a mistaken servant of the crown,** Now this merely amounts to Mr. Pitt not having made a fortune for himself; but, I say, that no man would think it worth his trouble to make a fortune, if he could be permitted to accumulate a debt of 40,000/.* Mr. Pitt had money^s worth all his life, and that he was not guilty of the sordid, troublesome folly of heaping up money itself, was no earthly reason for paying his debts. Leaving a debt of 40,000/., or 40,000/. in his coffers, was, as far as the nation was concerned, just the same thing, if the nation paid the debt, except that the former hazarded the commission • Mr. Fox said, that " to speak of Mr. Pitt as disinterested in not touching the pubhc money was an insult." — DehateSg, Feb. Sj 1806. Mr. Ponsonby said, he was astonished Mr. Pitt's debts were so little as 40,000/. ! ! 143 of an additional injustice; namely, the ruin of his creditors. As to your Lordship reducing all Mr. Pitt's faults, which you had ten thousand times all of you denounced as treason against public liberty, into his being merely a " mistaken servant of the crowuy' I say, that such candour does not deceive you, still less can you expect us to be cheated by so odious and idle a pretext for sacrificing a public principle. Your next reason is, that you would, had you opposed the motion, " been outnumbered by an immense majority in parliament ^ I believe you would; but what has this to do with the matter? If you were to have been deterred by immense majorities in parliament y you never would have opposed Mr. Pitt throughout the whole of his career. As parliaments are now constituted, there never can be enough of genuine public spirit to resist the idle clamour against severity and persecution beyond the grave; but, had the sense of the people been taken, ninety-nine- hundredths of the nation would have applauded the Foxites for not acquiescing in the payment of the debts of the minister.* A resistance which would have been equally well founded, with the opposition of Mr. Fox and Mr. Wind- ham to the erection of Mr. Pitt's monument. The fear of being unnumbered did not prevent Mr. Fox from opposing the monument; he had * Cobbett's Political Register, Feb. 1, 1806. 144 only 89 with him on that occasion: this, there- fore, was not the reason why the Whigs con- sented to pay Mr. Pitt's debts. The reason your Lordship gives is, that Mr. FoX *^ concurred zvith the adversaries of his opi-^ TtionSy though it might appear to give a colour against his own, rather than keep up, beyond the grave, political animosities and contentions, the very re^ membrance of which, in his own benevolent mind, had already been blotted out for ever"* No, my Lord, this will not do -, this was not the reason to be inferred from Mr. Fox's own words. Mr. Canning having said, " / beg genilemeii again to consider on ivhat ground they agree to the Oiotion, Those who do not vote for it, on the ground of Mr, Pitfs merits, had better oppose it openly,'* Mr. Fox answered, " He had only said, that he had distinctly stated the grounds of his own vote iii favour of it to be Mr, PzV^V MERITS. "f Your Lbrdship is determined not to recollect the his- foif-y of transactions in which you yourself were concerned. But your own additional reason for consenting to this measure, is a most extraordi- nary instance of the personal reverence I have so often alluded to : you wish it to be '' recol- lected, that Mr, Pitt was the son of the great Earl of Chatham, who had a right to expect to be still tiding in the feelings of this country :" exceedingly * Atis^ef, p. 59. t Debates, Feb. 3, 1806. 145 good ; but if a monument is to be raised to all of the descendants of that minister, as long as Lord Chatham is living in the feelings of this coun- try, where shall room be found for the cumbrous repeated tokens of such eternal gratitude. Your Lordship took care, in 1793, to remind Mr. Pitt how he differed from the great Earl of Chatham, and since, according to your own account, the debts of Mr. Pitt were paid, by the candour of Mr. Fox, and as a debt to Lord Chatham : the merits, then, of Mr. Pitt had nothing to do with the matter ; and the commander-in-chief of the Walcheren expedition will have a right to expect that his father shall be living in the feelings of this country, at his demise also, as well as at that of his younger brother. The nation did not here want any such memorial to prove, that the late Earl of Chatham was still living in the feel- ings of the country. The parliament, that set- tled 4,000/. a year upon his descendants, took care to prevent any premature oblivion upon the subject of his merits. Lord Chatham is still living in the red book. On the whole, this is an inimitable sample of Whig practice, and Whig pleading. The question is, whether a minister, whom the Whigs had for 20 years proclaimed an apostate and a traitor to the liberties of his country, should have his debts paid by the nation, as a national token of his merits? The Whig leader at the time positively L 146 says, " Yes, for his merits:' The Whig Chan- cellor, 13 years afterwards, says, *'Yes; 1st, because he fingered none of the public money, (a merit which it was an insult, according to the Whig leader, to impute to him)^ 2dly, because it would have been useless to oppose the ma- jority 5 3dly, because Mr. Fox was a man of snoh gentleness y ingenuousness y diXidi noble simplicity, that he forgave Mr. Pitt; and, 4thly, because whatever you may think and we all thought of Mr. Pitt, his father was still the great Earl of Chatham." Here we have names, and words, and virtues, arranged in close order, according to the usual Whig tactics, to keep out of view the untenable nakedness of the post which it is necessary to defend. To crown all, your Lord- ship has recourse to the reverse of the Wolf's argument : The son is but a lamb, but he had a ram for his father. In truth, my Lord, the nation have a right to demand consistency from their public men. The memory of a bad minister should be pur- sued with invectives, not suffered to sleep in oblivion 3 far less be crowned with reward. It is not just that some solitary merit should be selected as an excuse either for remuneration or for pardon. Public justice, public good, de- mand otherwise. What security can there be for the sincerity of our politicians if they are even required to show themselves actuated at different times by feelings so different on the 147 same subject, and if their opposition to a system is to appear only a dramatic part adopted in their character as opponents of the minister, and which must be dropped for the sake of de- cent condolence when he drops into the grave ? Your Lordship may call this persecution, may call this warring with the dead. It may be so : but it is, nevertheless, just, and proper, and useful. Those feelings, which in private life are in- compatible with an amiable character, are not to be checked; on the contrary, they are to be cherished when applied to the political con- duct of our contemporaries. It is the duty of every good statesman to cherish his antipathies for bad statesmen. To blot out for ever such animosities is not, as you would hint, a proof of a benevolent mind. It is a proof of a feeble mind, of a profligate mind ; it is a proof of a man either being deceived by the appearance of rectitude, or it is more likely by the wish to ob- tain a little momentary credit for a display of the milder qualities : or of his being deliberately re- solved to acquiesce in the pardon of vice rather than to establish a precedent which shall set the standard of virtue too high, and exclude all chance of indulgence for his own meditated apostacy. 1 have as great a veneration for part of Mr. Fox's character, as your Lordship has, but not for this part. 148 It is not required, that the debates in parlia- ment should '^ engender any malignant passions ^^^ which your Lordship seems to think they would, if men were obliged to adhere to their former professions; on the contrary, there is not the least necessity that a feeling on public affairs should interfere with the charities of private life; and I can easily understand, how Cromwell should be ready to fire a pistol in King Charles's face without feeling the least personal animosity against him. But the House of Commons should be a field for serious warfare, not for a sham- fight, or an Italian battle, only for unseating the combatants. Your Lordship seems delighted with every thing unsubstantial, and is pleased even with a popular clamour, provided it shall be about nothing, and have no foundation in reason, or knowledge, or consideration.* In the same way I must allow that, candour, and indulgence, and liberality, are inimitably suited to the farce which is got up and played by the rival polemics of St. Stephen's, and will be en- couraged and copied, and these opinions of mine hooted down and proscribed as long as that farce lasts. But when the curtain shall have fallen, * " Clamours of such descriptions may pass at the moment, " and, perhaps, have their uses in a free country, though set " on foot without due knowledge or consideration.^'-^iin- fwer, ^c. p» 54. 149 never again to be raised over those fooleries; then, indeed, words will have their true weight and invariable meaning, wherever spoken, and the speakers will be expected to abide by them ; then we shall hear no more of those theatrical passions which prompt our patriots to take a minister's head this day and his arm the next: the language of furious proscription, and of fulsome panegyric, will no longer be heard in an assem- bly met together not to indulge the momentary- humours of a few individuals, but to promote the permanent happiness of all. We shall have done with that sage privilege, by which the par- liamentary currency has been debased into no- thing but local tokens, mere paltry club counters, perpetually changing hands, and passed, with mock solemnity, from gambler to gambler, and back again, but which are payable no where out of the room, and not worth picking up in the street. When that day comes, we shall hear no more of the merits of a dead minister in the mouth of the man who has condemned every action of his life ; nor will men, like your Lord- ship, be called upon to defend the inconsis- tencies of an illustrious friend, and venture, when writing to a nation who have some little character for common sense, to pourtray the loathsome excrescences of habitual hypocrisy as " a beautiful feature of our public councils,'^ * ♦ Answer, &c. page 49. 150 I pass, as you pass, my Lord, quite naturally, from the pardon granted by the Whigs to a dead enemy, to the friendship which they accorded to a living opponent. The Coalition of 1806 is allowed by the apo- logist for your party, to have formed ^' a motley administration,* which afforded a lesson of errors to be in future avoided.*' But if this candid avowal had not been made, the nation had de- cided that question, and your Lordship comes too late with any discovery respecting the junc- tion of Lord Grenville with Mr. Fox — or rather of Mr. Fox consenting to take place under Lord Grenville. Your whole excuse goes, indeed, as I have before hinted, to the necessity of keeping worse men out of place. You ask,f " could they (the Whigs) themselves have formed an adminis- tration?'* I do not know — but I do know that the formation of an administration ought not to be the first grand object of the representatives of the people in parliament : and that if those men who advocate popular principles, remained firm to those principles, without any of the usual motives of party, they would form an union, which, if mere place were their object, would, sooner or later, force any king of England to adopt their counsels, without any base condi- tions or wicked alliances. I do know that the country expected of them that they should never ♦ State of Parties, Edinburgh Review for June, 1818. t Defence, page 23, 151 form part of aa administration, except for the purpose of carrying into effect the principles they had so long professed ; and I also know, that the general disappointment attending that administration attached solely to the Whigs.— No one thought worse of Lord Grenville for admitting Mr. Fox under him — no one thought worse of Lord Sidmouth for acting with Mr. Fox — and for this reason — it was clear that neither Lord Sidmouth nor Lord Grenville had made any sacrifice of principle — the administration was such as might have been expected from them. The sacrifice then was thought to be solely on the part of the Whigs — not only the people, but the Tories themselves, saw where the change had taken place; and a courtly poet, of great eminence, dropped a tear over the grave of the regenerated patriot, who had died, though he had not lived, a Briton* — in other words, who had repented of his former popular politics. As the Whigs allowed so great an infusion of Lord Sidmouth*s principles, and gave such a gua- rantee against the admission of their own, by giving Lord Ellenborough a seat in the Cabi- net -y so they offered, if possible, a more decisive surety to Lord Grenville, that he never should have reason to complain of any recurrence to their old, troublesome, opposition politics. — And ♦ " Record ibat Fox a Briton died.'* -^ Walter Scot^^ Marmion. 152 this they did betimes — for I recollect that Mr. Fox was yet on the opposition bench when he moved for ** leave to bring in a bill for removing certain doubts^* * as to the compatibility of the offices of Auditor of the Exchequer and Com- missioner of the Treasury. But the omnipo- tence of parliament itself could not have reached to the removing of doubts^ had they existed ; and the nation found itself suddenly half agreeing with Mr. George Rose, when he said, that he should have consented to the bill if it had been to remove doubts, but that no " doubt could be en- tertained on the subJect.^^-\ It was not, perhaps, so much the impropriety of the thing itself which shocked the nation, as the sign which it afforded, that the Whigs despised all public opinion, and were, for the sake of a ministerial arrangement, quite careless how soon they gave a proof of their contempt. Lord Grenville did not lose any character by the transaction — it was conformable to his whole practice and preaching; and as to the people, he had not to settle accounts with them, but with the King and parliament. But the Whigs had preached against such practices, and had ap- pealed to the people against king and parliament anytime these twenty years. The measure by * Feb. 4, 1805— Parliamentary Debates. t Debates as above. 153 which Lord Grenville was to lose nothing by consenting to the arrangement that included the Whigs, has received a condemnation without appeal — your Lordship knows well enough that it has^ and that to call the unpopularity which attached to the Whigs for that measure, a " pre- judice y^* which it is disgraceful to renew, is to force us to take your word for more than it is worth. As to the Coalition itself, you are equally bold when you say, that the Replyer ought to have shown that the Whigs " could have carried measures of their own by a sole administration, which were frustrated by the union you con- demn. "f The weight of this proof did not lie at all upon the Replyer — it was enough for him to show that from the Coalition administration had emanated certain acts, totally at variance with the formerly professed principles of the Whigs. The Replyer did not, I believe, complain of the Whigs for that reconciliation with an antago- nist, which you think so beautiful a feature of our councils, but with reconciling themselves to measures which they had for a quarter of a cen- tury condemned. You cannot deny, that if Mr. Fox did not bring Whig principles into place, it was nothing to bring Whigs into place. You cannot get over, that Mr. Fox gave his pledge to the whole nation repeatedly, that a ♦ Answer, page 54. f Ibid, page 49. 154 radical reform both in the Representation of the people in parliament^ and of the abuses that have crept into the practice of the Constitution of this country y together with a complete and fundamental change of system of administration, must take place; and that till it did, he^ for one, would take no share in any administration or he responsible in any office in his Majesty's councils,"^ Now, my Lord, I ask you publicly, did Mr. Fox, when he joined Lord Granville and Lord Sidmouth — men, whose fortunes and characters had grown solely out of and upon the very system which Mr. Fox swore he would change radically, or live out of place all his life — did he make one single stipulation, that he should be allowed to make a single change in the general system of administration ? Answer me, my Lord, or never talk again of the Whigs not having had time to develop their virtues. I ask you explicitly, did Mr. Fox in- sist upon a reform of any one of the abuses that have crept into the practice of the Constitution, as the condition of his coming into place? Was it understood amongst your party, that one word had passed on the subject previously to your acceptance of office ? Mr. Fox said in the de- bate, Jan. 4, 1798, that if he had advised Lord Moira, he should have said — ^' Take care, my ** Lord, take care, that while you are forming " the ministry, you are not doing so without * Parliamentary Debates, Jan. 4, 1798. 155 ^' solid grounds : unless you have a proper " pledge of a Reform, the good which you " intend will come to nothing." Did Mr. Fox have or ask for this proper pledge ? He said, on the same occasion, " My sincere wish was, " never to make any part of any administration, " and I NEVER WILL, unless I have a pledge for " a general reform of abuses.^' Had Mr. Fox this pledge ? As to Reform of Parliament — you tell us too clearly to be misunderstood, that it was not brought into consideration — and for what reason ? because, " there was no chance zohat- " ever that the House of Commons would have " yielded at present to any minister." Good hea- vens ! then the Whigs are worse than Pitt — be- sides, there being no chance whatever of carrying the measure, so far from preventing Mr. Grey and yourself from bringing it forward, actually stimulated you the more. You owned there was no chance, and made it an argument for agi- tating the question. Surely, your chance was increased by your becoming ministers : but I am ashamed to argue with you, when I know you are only laughing about this question, and leav- ing Reform of parliament apart : — I repeat the question, whether the Whigs made a single sti- pulation, that when they came in, they should be allowed to carry a single one of their popu- lar professions into practice — in short, whether Mr. Fox made a bargain for, or let drop a word 156 of his intended adherence to one single point of the conditions which he had sworn in the face of his countrymen should be observed ; and mark you, my Lord, not after he took office, but before he took office — he said the radical change " must take place, and until it did, he for one," &c. Am I wrong in saying, that the only question was as io persons y not io principles, and that the solicitude of your party was totally directed as to whom the King would, after your past con- duct, consent to admit to his embrace ? Am I wrong in saying, that you. Lord Erskine, felt as if dropped from the clouds, when you heard that the King had actually consented to your being his Chancellor? You tell the Replyer that he knows nothing of this matter 5 but al] the world will know enough of the matter, if you are not able to give a simple t/^^, or no, as to the real conditions of the coalition. Was there any salvo for principle or not? — The Replyer had a right to presume there was none, because, not a single step was taken towards this RADICAL change of system. If you know there was, you owe it to your party to speak out — you owe it to the people to speak out; for you cannot think we are to be contented with such mere straw- tickling as that '^ we forget, the short continu- " ance of your power;'' — we forget *' that it " was reduced to nothing by the fatal illness of " Mr. F0X3*' — we forget that *Mt could not have 157 " been fit, during that unhappy period, unless " under the most pressitig necessities, to alter what " we found established, and to have resorted to " \mmed\si.te untried substitutions, merely for the ^' support of our objections."* But Lord Grenville was not ill — he was prime minister, and if, as you pretend, all subjects of difference had ceased between you, he might have carried the measures. Respecting the pressing necessities, your Lordship must know, that the whole question always is, and has been, when these necessities are really arrived -, that the trite, but trusted fallacy of ministers, is always to say that they are not come. You must know, that for twenty years your Whigs had been exclaiming that the pressing necessi- ties zvere come ; and you know that, according to Mr. Fox's pledge, you should have come in to alter zvhat you found established, and for no- thing else. If you did not come in for this purpose, I say you were guilty of a base de- sertion of your former professions, and of your public duty 3 and if you did not come in with this understanding, that you were to effect this alter atio7i, this radical change, you are grossly insulting us, by telling us that you might have done good, but only waited for a pressing ne- cessity, and for the recovery of Mr. Fox's health. ♦ Answer, page 60. 158 Such an excuse supposes that Lord Grenville was not united in principle, and would naturally relapse into his old measures, if not controled by Mr. Fo3^. Such an excuse does away with the necessity of apologizing for any one thing you did or omitted to do ; and is, as you say, an answer (an answer ! I I) " which manifestly applies to several other charges.*'* Indeed it does— it applies to one as well as another : It applies to all — or it applies to none. You needed not to have taken the trouble to defend a single measure of the coalition. You feel this, indeed, and it appears to me, give up almost all the points attacked. For example. The settlement of foreign troops in England was " against your opinions.** But you found them introduced by your prede- cessors; " could you forbear to legalize them ?** could you forbear to increase them, or in your fine round-about phrase, *^ to apportion their *' numbers to the exigencies of our defence, at " so critical a period of the war?** — so you raised the foreigners to 16,000 troops. The Barrack system ! ! " you objected to it " when first proposed in parliament ;** but the measure was carried, and the barracks w^ere built, before you came into office. So you con- tinued, and would have continued the barracks, in the face of Mr. Fox*s general definition of his * Answer, page 60. 159 radical change, in spite of his solemn promise^ if ever he came into place " to govern the country by a system of liberty, instead of by a system of re- straint.*^^ The Income tax. ** It is true that you op- posed it even as a war tax." But you found it established, so " you continued for a season that *' unpopular tax: and being continued^ it became " necessary, either to square it with the exigen- " cies of the state, or instantly to impose other *^ taxes, which it required the utmost consider- ** ation to mature. This was our situation," say you, " and we expect credit from our charac- " ters, that we should not have continued it in " peace, or even in war, against objections so " justly raised up against it." This is so like giving up the point, that you ought to be spared. But the Whig ministers made none of these allowances at the time: they said 10 per cent, w^as the natural limit of the proportion to be taken from every individual in- come. A Whig naturally leads the people. A Whig naturally takes a tenth from every man's income ; and to oppose him either in the one or the other pretension is unnatural. You expect credit for your characters. My good Lord, this will not do : you had credit for your characters for a long, long time ; and the continuance of every obnoxious measure, which you had firmly de- * Debates, Jan. 4, 1798.— Mr. Fox's speech. 160 nounced, is a strange cause for demanding tlie confidence of the country for your future discon- tinuance of those measures. Besides, the income tax had found its natural limit, and the reason of prior establishment would become stronger every day. Yet you ask us to believe, that " you would not have continued it even in war^" but you did continue it. The conclud- ing phrases are unintelligible, ^^ against objections so justly raised against it.*' I do not make out whether or not you mean to allow, that objec- tions were justly raised against it at the time; if they were, how barefaced was it to continue the tax ; if at any other time, when would that time arrive during war ? Never, according to your own account. And yet the tax would have been dropped during war: and, for this, we are to take your word, upon the credit of Whig character ! ! ! Yes, of these gallant financiers, whose great terror was, lest the national debt should be paid with a precipitancy detrimental to our commercial interests. The Bank restriction you defend, as you de- fend the Income tax. It was done : and could not be undone. At least, not in a hurry. Al- though it was " a dangerous departure from the principles of public credits Who would think that all these measures, which were to be controled, were emanations from and a part of that very system which Mr. 161 Fox pledged himself radically to subvert ? Who would not rather believe them the laws of the Medes and Persians, or the immutable positions of the Koran, or those ancient institutions which the Iron Barons of England proclaimed they would not suffer to be changed ? If the Whigs changed nothing of the system of administration, either at the root or in the branch, but continued and encouraged the plan o^ governing by parliamentary corruption, it would be almost idle to inquire whether they seriously contemplated the least change in the system of Representation. You yourself give up the de- claration of the Friends of the People, of that very society whose petition you seconded in parliament. — You give up the uniformity of suffrage. — You give up the new division of the country. You give up the near approach to universal suffrage: to the advocatingof all which you have the candour (indeed, you could not possibly deny it) to own, you were a party ; and this you do " at the risk of your character, ** which now it seems (so you say) must attend " the smallest change of opinion."* What do you call the smallest change of opi- nion ? it is the whole change, that is all. You have given up the Radical Reform, to adopt what? A reform derived from well considered additions " of county representations, and of ♦ Answer, p. 30. 162 '' populous towns, though never before repre- " sented.** That is to say, you are for preserv- ing the rotten-borough system in undiminished lustre : for, my Lord, in spite of your indigna- tion, I say, that this would continue the infamous corruptions of rotten boroughs.* This is quite natural: we understand you, when you say, that yau are like Mr. Burke, and are attached to such divisions of our country as have been formed by habit, and call it a wise saying applicable less to France than to England, " where we have so many proud recollections of freedom,** -)[ You have a right, of course, to change your opinion in toto ; but, when you call that entire change, the smallest change; and when you defend that change by confound- ing the most disgraceful traffic that ever existed in any country, " with the proud recollections " of freedom," you must consent to be laughed at even by the Rabble. The reason given for abandoning yoar former demand for a very extended suffrage, shows a most lamentable want of information in mat- ters in which you were once a principal actor. You wnll not come so near Universd Suffrage as you did formerly, " whilst its supp arters lie " so close behind me, to batter down my propo- " sition by the larger claim of an unqualified *^ right. Those adversaries had then m) formida^^ * Answer, p. 27, f Ibicl, p. 31i 163 *^ hie force.** * Both these propositions are false facts. The advocates of Universal Suffrage, the great majority of whom, certainly in Westmin- ster, argue from utility , not right, w^ill not bat^ ter down any proposition of your's for Reform. The excuse is all an assumption, and an absurd assumption ; for, at this rate, no man should give a beggar a shilling in charity, for fear of having his purse snatched out of his hand, by a by-stander, and flung amongst the crowd. You yourself, as explained and defended by Mr. Fox, on the debate on Reform, in 1797, overthrew this puny objection. " My learned " friend," said Mr. Fox, ** declared, if it be ** true, as it is so industriously circulated, that ** such and such men (dangerous men) do exist ** in the country, then surely, in wisdom, you " ought to prevent their number increasing, by ** timely conciliation of the body of moderate " men, who desire only Reform.*' Lord Grey, in moving for Reform, in 1793, said, " He well " knew that the chief difficulty to be encoun- *^ tered would be the argument as to the danger " of the times. This, indeed, is a never-failing " argument in times of prosperity and adversity, " in times of war and of peace. He had no " doubt it would continue to be made success- " fully, till THE People resolve for them- " SELVES there shall be a proper time." * Answer, p.^1, M 2 1^4 As to the advocates for Universal Suffrage having no formidable force when you and the AVhigs were the reforming Friends of the People, 1 do not know what you call formidable; but I have Lord Grenville*s* authority for saying, that of the Reformers, the advocates of Universal Suffrage, were then *' infinitely the more numer- ous:" and yet, at that very time. Lord Holland said he should have voted for Mr. Grey's plan, which would have given about 1,500 electors to each representative, and would have entirely subverted the present Borough system — and de- clared he " wanted a system of administration founded upon Parliamentary Reform.*^ '\ You actually forget, that in your first pam* phlet, you had represented the bolder Reformers as so criminally and dangerously licentious, that they forced the government to interfere. You actually forget, that in this very answer you say, that there were tumultuous meetings, and an alarm^ ing mass of publications. You forget, that in this very Answer you confess, that very great multi- tudes were of opinion that even Universal Suffrage and Annual Parliaments were absolute rights of the * " The partisans of which said Universal Suffrage were " infinitely more numerous than those of moderate Reform." — Lord Grenville, Lords' Debates, Jan. 9,1798. Mr. Fox, in his speech on Jan. 4, 179S, owned that " Universal Suffrage was by many supposed the best Radical Reform." t See Lord Holland's speech, Jan. 9, 1798; and yet tlie Whigs now say Fox's Radical Reform was not a Parliamentari/ Reform. — Bah ! i \ — Laugh at them. m People, Now you say, they had no formidable force. But the fact is, that the danger is a mere feeble and ridiculous excuse, which you yourself laughed at foruierly ; and which is sometimes said to exist, sometimes said not to exist, just as it may suit the Whig weathercock of the day. You appear to me to have lost memory of dates as well as facts, when you say, that the tumultiious meetings, and the alarming mass of publications that led to the State Trials^ have now made the question of Reform AN ALMOST ^?2/2r(?Zj/ new one since Lord Grey delivered his opinion on Reform in 1794. What 1 has he delivered no opinion about Reform since 3 794? Why, the famous Declaration of the Friends of the People was in 1795. Mr. Grey's motion for Reform in Parliament, so often referred to, was in 1797. — Yes, that very motion, which would have remo- delled the whole state of representatiou. Mr. Fox gave his celebrated opinion about the right of resistance in 1795, and his pledge for a radical reform in 1798. Have you no books? You say that you do not hope the same success from meetings of the people to forward Reform at present, as when they were recommended by Lord Grey and Mr. Pitt — and this change of opinion you attribute to the " continued and " increasing prevalenceof impracticable theories, " and an excited spirit of irritation and discon- " tent.*' But I have before shown, that these 166 impracticable theories were allowed by your own Whigs to have been adopted by the majority of the Reformers, when the Whigs supported a very radical reform ; and your own Whigs now say that the majority of the Reformers are against Universal Suffrage.* I have before shown how, in your own former opinion, the way to allay discontents, was to forward Reform, not to drop the question altogether ; not to declare, that, on account of an inflamed and ungovernable spirit in the people, " any alteration in the forms of *^ parliament must be, ybr^Aa^^^a5 the language held by the Radical Reformers was still more explicit, and a speech from Mr. William Smith, enabled them to come to an explanation with the Whigs. Mr. Smith, with a frankness which did him honor, and which has always distin- guished his eminently useful career — told the meeting, that he could hold out little hopes to them of success; and drew his conclusion, in great part, from the failure of all the attempts * Sir Francis Burdett's Address to the Electors, May 25, 1807. See these documents in the " Exposition of the Cir- cumstances which gave rise to the Election of Sir Francis Burdett, Bart, for Westminster, in May, 1807." Published by Tipper, Leadenhall-street. t See Proceedings of the First Anniversary Meeting of the Triumph of Westminster, Published by J. Morton, Strand. 1725 made by the '^ Friends of the People." To this Mr. Waithmaii replied : — " He has told us a '' great deal about the society of the Friends of " the People — that there were very able and ho- ^' nourable men in that society, I most readily ** allow ; but I should be glad to know, whether " those times were more propitious than these in " which we now live, for agitating the question of *^ Parliamentary Reform ? And if not, I should *^ be glad also to know, where all his great and " noble friends now are, who were members of " that society ? I remember Mr. Charles Grey " and Mr. Tierney standing up champions for a " Reform in Parliament; but I have recently *^ observed allusions by the same Mr. Charles ** Grey, now Lord Grey, in which he seems to " sneer at gentlemen who take a leading part ** in the question of Reform, and in which " he alludes to the crude notions of modern " Reformers." In another part of his speech he said, after mentioning Mr, Fox's assertion, that he would not come in without a Reform in Parliament- — " I greatly lament to say, that however strongly *' I was individually attached to the members of *^ that (Whig) administration, I saw not one of *^ those great professions carried into execution ; " nor did any one man in either house stand up */ to give a pledge to carry such measures as had " been proposed before they came into adminSs-, 173 " tration, into execution." In another place, Mr. Waithman said : " Whatever may be said *^ by Lord Grey, of the House of Commons, I "am still of opinion, that there is no difference *' as to who are in or who are out under the " present system.'' The same gentleman then said, that since they had been in, the Whigs had deserted even the Whig Club. I can refer your Lordship to the proceedings of the great meeting in Palace-yard in 1810, Feb. 9. The language of Mr. Sturch on that occasion, shows the Reformers were not asleep- shows they knew the Whigs well — and speaks ia exactly the same tone as to the excellent indi- vidual character of members of the House, as you think so absurd and new in the Replyer. Mr. Sturch said — " Since the year 1780, we had " had political changes, and various ministries. " We had had Tory ministries, and we had had " Whig ministries. But had these changes pro- " duced any substantial alterations for the better? " Had there been any radical change of system ? " It was very far from his intention " to deny that there were individuals of great in- " tegrity in that House; but if they would have " an honest House, they must have free and " frequent elections.*'* This exception in favor * See an Account of these Proceedingg published and printed by M'Creery, 1810. 174 of individuals offended you in Sir Fraticis Burdett, and in the Replyer; but Mr. Sturch repeated it in the subsequent part of his speech 5 and your Lordship may see that the language of the Radi- cal Reformers has been invariably the same^ and that, even v^rhilst talking in their sleep of twelve years, they have been consistent in all that they have said. They have denounced Whigs as party men, because, when the party came in, nothing was done. They have respected Whigs as Reformers, and, in proportion as they ap- peared to stand by their original professions. Thus the Westminster Reformers openly con- demned the Outs as a body, for what they called rallying round the Constitution, against Sir Francis Burdett -, but they voted thanks to such members of parliament as had stood by their representative. After the liberation of Sir Francis Burdett, he addressed the electors at the Crown and Anchor, in a speech that so fully conveyed their senti- ments, that they ordered it to be printed and circulated.* Sir Francis, commenting on Lord Grey's speech, observed, " We are told in this *^ same speech of Lord Grey, that it is the fa- " shion of the times to vilify and defame all " public men. I should like one of these vili- *^ fied and defamed characters to come forward, * Published by Barker, Great Russell-street, Covent-gar- deo, 1810. 175 ** and point out, in what he has been calum- " niated." The same speech, circulated by the electors, begged the country to observe, that it was the Whigs who went the great lengths in defence of the privileges of parliament, and thus did the dirty work of the ministers. In those days, Mr. Wishart, Mr. Waithman, Mr. Clay- ton Jennings, and Mr. Sturch, were amongst the leading Reformers at the public meetings ; they never made any exception to these opinions, and I am the better pleased with shewing from the gentlemen whose speeches I have quoted, that the language of the Reformers, and the complaints against them, have been always the same during this imagined twelve years' trance; because, both Mr. Waithman and Mr. Sturch may now be admitted as conclusive authority, having lately become respectable in the eyes of the Chronicler.* When then you say, that the radical Reformers had ranged under the Whigs " until lately y'-\ and that this is what " rubs us," you forget, or never knew, all that happened • " The Chronicle" calls him that respectable citizen, Mr. Sturch. We, radical Reformers, will not, as Bonaparte said, wash our dirty linen in public ; so we will not regret the past, but hope for the future. Mr. Sturch's name is to be found in all radical proceedings, since 1790, up to 1818. Surely he will not impair an honest reputation by suffering himself to be "patted upon the back" by poor Perry. t Answer, p. 15. '* Aye, there's the rub," In p. 13 the word is, *♦ until very lateli/" 176 since 1807. You forget even that you had said in your " Defence^'* that the bolder Reformers would not range themselves under the Whig Friends of the People, in 1793, and so got into scrapes by their own headstrong nature, by be- ing without leaders, and by then " suspecting the Whigs.''* The radical Reformers are 7iot, I re- peat, guilty of any sudden abandonment of their officers. If there has been desertion, the de- sertion is not to be charged against the People. The Reformers in Westminster have always been awake — sometimes they have been obliged to reproach the Opposition, at others they have been able to approach nearer to certain mem- bers of that party. This they have done from no humour of the moment, nor from any wish to lead or be led ; but merely as there appeared an inclination amongst these gentlemen to become again earnest in the cause of Reform. But as to personally proscribing and vilifying, they have done no such thing. If there has been any proscribing and vihfying, it has been entirely on the side of the Whigs. For one instance which you will point out to me of the Radical Reformers calling the Whigs a faction, I will show you two of the Whigs abusing the Reformers, in good set phrases, in the true par- liamentary slang. Besides, when you talk of all these persons of rank, &c. you must mean * Defence of the Whigs, p. 10. 177 individually, not merely as included in their party. Now, let me ask, whom had the West- minster Reformers personally attacked before the last elections, (I say before the last elections, because your argument applies solely to that prior period) Lord Grey seems to be the person who has most frequently complained, so, I pre- sume, he must have been most frequently attacked. His Lordship is a very distinguished man, but mean as we are, we may say to him, as he said to Mr. Pitt — " we will never condescend to bar- " gain with him, nor endeavour to conciliate his " favor by any mode of compliment."* What has been said at any time against Lord Grey, respecting his change of opinion on Re- form, may certainly, as far as the language is concerned, be defended, by referring to himself: for I say, that he has never been called at any time by an epithet stronger or harsher than that which he applied to Mr. William Pitt in 1794 — An Apostate, We will let alone the other names, ^^ prosecutor, aye, and persecutor too.'* I am not aware that this word had been ever distinctly applied to his Lordship at the time that he was thundering against the Reformers in the Lords, in the year 1810. But I conceive, that it would not be at all difficult to show, that Lord Grey ♦ Debate, May 6, 1793, on Reform. 17B does sta?id apart from his former opinions on Reform; and may, therefore, fairly be said to have apostatized. How far he stands apart is another question. I am under gi-eat difficulty in arguing with your Lordship, for I do not know what you will admit as evidence. The Replyer quotes to you an opinion of Lord Grey*s, and you say — Oh, it is only ** a sentence picked out from some report of a speech at a tavern,''* But a report of a tavern speech is quite ground enough to make you rise up in arms against the '* disappointed'' Mr. Hobhouse. However Lord Grey did, according to your own confession, in the House of Lords, own that he would not go the lengths he formerly went for Reform, for I find you using these words — '^ I am decidedly adverse to those re» ** forms which occasion so much alarm to go- " vernment; so much so, that I should not be " disposed at this moment to advance so far in *^ any system of change, as that to which I for- ^ J^ merly set my hand. I feel exactly in that ^* respect y as I understand was expressed by a nobk ^^ friend i now absent, whose motion I seconded in ^^ the House of Commo7isJ"'\ That is to say, that neither Lord Grey nor you would advance so far for Reform as you did in 1793. But, without this admission from your * Answer, p. 20. t Debates, March 35, 1817. 179 Lordship, I can easily prove that Lord Grey's opinions on Reform have undergone a most ma- terial change. I refer, without multiplying in- dividual quotations, to all Lord Grey's speeches in 1793 and 1794, and 1797, whether his Lord- ship did not then maintain the PARAMOUNT IM- PORTANCE of Radical Reform. The recom- mendation to the people to meet in bodies, and act upon the prudence, that is, the fear of the House, is quite enough to prove that Lord Grey did then think tliat nothing was to be done without radical Reform* That his Lordship has dropped this notion of PARAMOUNT necessity, I think is tolerably clear, from his conduct and speeches in parliament. But I must quote a tavern speech, the report of whiclx was very carefully taken, and very egregiously laiKled in the Chr'onicle — I mean that spoken at Newcastle, at the Fox dinner in last January. ^^ I am attached (sai4 Lord Grey) to a Reform " conducted upon moderate principles; always " gradual, and guided by salutary precautions. " But to those other principles of Reform, as ** erroneous in theory as they are irreducible to " practice, I am a decided enemy, as I believe " them to be absurd, visionary, and senseless. " I should say, it appears to me, that there " cannot be a more false, a more mistaken, a ** more mischievous belief, than that a reform ia ** parliament, however desirable it may be, is the N 21 180 " one and only measure by which the salvation '' of the country can be effected."* The second paragraph here quoted may serve pretty well to show what Lord Grey now thinks of the paramount importance of Reform. But, perhaps, a stronger inference may be drawn from the first.— His Reform upon moderate principles, always gradual, and guided by salutary pre- cautions, cannot, by any sophistry, be the Re- form of the Friends of the People; a society with which his Lordship identified himself, not only at the time, but even so late as the year 1810. On the 13th of June, in that year he refer- red to the proceedings of that society for his past, and, indeed, his then opinion ; for, strange as it may sound. Lord Grey, even then^ even in 1810, still seemed to wish to be called a Radical Re- former. Now the Friends of the People positively dis- claimed gradual Reform in so many words — both in 1794 and 1795— They said, ^^ gradual altera- " tions or partial improvements, though just and pru- " dent in the retrenchment of expenses, and in the ** reduction of establishments, are, in their nature, ^' unequal to the removal of a rooted, inveterate abuse, */ To prune the vicious plant, is to strengthen anU * " By another association we were accused, as I am ac- " cused in the present day, of pot being a sincere friend to " Radical Reform."— Lords' Debates, June, 1810. Does not this hint both accusations to be equally unjust ? 181 " preserve it,'** Again in 1 795-'Gradual altera- ttons or progressive improvements which some meii recommend^ would all he successively absorbed^ and sink into the standing system, " Partial remedies '* serve only to soften the symptoms and to induce a " habit of acquiescence, zvhile they leave the root of ^' the evil entii^e. If an effectual reform of the ^^ House of Commons is not to be had now, let us " take care not to make it unattainable hereafter y *' by any act of agreement, or composition with the ** mischief itself, or with the interests that support « itr That these were Lord Grey's sentiments, and those of the Whig party, need not be re-asserted. Sir Philip Francis must have thought them so, when he republished these declarations in 1817.t Indeed, your Lordship not knowing that you would have to shift your ground in your Answer, does in your Defence pronounce the declaration of the Friends of the People to be above all objec- tion — ^you call it ^^ practicable*' — you say it does not pass the sober medium; and yet this is any thing hxiidi, gradual ^dovtn. But, perhaps your Lordship might like to see what Lord Grey for- merly thought about those absurd, senseless, and visionary plans, so erroneous in theory, so irre- ducible to practice. These plans are, of course. Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage. * See his pamphlet — A Flan of a Reform in the Election, ^c— Ridgway, 1817, t Defence, p. 9. 182 Lord Grey, then, in his place in the House of Commons, said, he did not approve the Duke of Richmond's plan of Reform^ though he thought IT BETTER THAN THE PRESENT SYSTEM.* " Any " plan would be better which would secure such ** people in the House, as would vote indepen- *^ dently, and uninfluenced by corruption ;— he '^ could certainly mention a plan which ap- " peared to him better," &c. I need not add, that this is as much as to say, he thought Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage, not only reducible to practice, but better than the present practice— and one, which although he could name a better plan, was one of those plans which would answer the purposes of re- presentation. What then can Lord Grey mean by saying, as he did in the §peech before quoted, — " My opinions " on Parliameiitary Reform are already well known ^ ^^ to them I still continue attache dy notwithstanding " ivhat I have said on some late occasions has been " represented as a renunciation of my former *^ opinions.''* I ask you, Lord Erskine, whether I have not already shown, beyond hope of cavil, that Lord Grey has renounced his former opinions ? When a member of the society of the Friends of the People, he was a Radical Reformer — his bill in 1797 was for a Radical Reform. Now he says, a Reformer on moderate principles. He was then * Parliamentary Debates, May 6, 1793. 183 fordoing all at once — he is now f or being a Izvai/s gradual He then talked of Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage, as better than the present system, and as admissible, though he knew a better plan. He now calls Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage absurd, senseless, vision- ary, impracticable. He then would bring the people to the doors of Parliament to intimidate the members into Reform. He now calls the notion of the para- mount, indispensable necessity of Reform, false, mistakeriy dangerous, and mischievous. This is Apostacy — this is standing apart from his former opinions, or words have no meaning. It is idle for your Lordship to say that Lord Grey vi^iil again be found supporting Reform — at the happy, harmonious period which your Lordship fixes as the sole juncture when Reform can be claimed with justice or utility.* Perhaps he may — but even if he should turn out to be for Universal Suffrage hereafter, we shall have still been quite right in what we have said of his former conduct and expressed opinions. How could Lord Grey say his opinions on Reform * *' But (be the time at hand or distant) whenever petitions " for Reform shall approach Parliament, proceeding from the " harmonious wishes of the various classes and degrees, which " can alone constitute a nation, and which above ail nations " of the earth, binds together as one soul and body the inha- " bitants of Great Britain, I will venture to pledge my cha- " racter," &c. — Answer, p. 26. 184 were well known ? If he alluded to his old opi- nions, indeed, we find them as clear as words can make them in the declarations of the Friends of the People; but all that we can collect as to his present way of thinking, distinctly shows, that he no longer retains those old opinions. I wish, my Lord ! you had not put me upon this work. Lord Grey, strange as it appears to us, after the political faux pas, the slight slips of his Lordship's life, assumes, I understand, the fierce arrogance of insulted virtue.— He is, I should think, an irritable man, and is likely to act so much from immediate impulse, that even such a trifle as this pamphlet might justify, in his mind, a fresh attack on the Re- formers. Now his Lordship is one of those few Whigs whom I would rather have for us than against US; and if some forbearance from telling the truth would make him apostatize from his present principles, I, for one, should be highly delighted to see a man of his capacity and influence re- turn to his old principles. The memory of his Lordship's once decided character, when recalled by the occasional vi- gorous efforts which he now makes in defence of public liberty, is, I must own, more agreeable to my fancy than even the present perseverance of a dull man; and this I say with the thorough conviction, that, at present, the Reformers have no enemy so fatal to them as Lord Grey. There 185 is no accounting for tastes, and this is mine. — The oddity of the selection, and more than that, the arrogance of such a creature as myself, pre- tending even to approve of a Lord, will amuse, if it does not shock you ; but we are all men, my Lord, and — if the scum should ever unfor- tunately be uppermost — who knows? perhaps it may be as well to have even my vote. I have been seduced into this digression, by looking over (I have it now before me) Lord Grey*s speech on the French war, in 1815: a very noble piece of parliamentary rhetoric, surely; and this brings me just to say, in pass- ing, that if your Whigs had been a party, and had been a party pretending to any principles of union, you would all have opposed this war; but, on the contrary, I verily believe, that it was a Whig speech that gave the minister courage to go to war. I mean Mr. Grattan's. You voted for the war. What folly then is it to talk of party ! You never combine and act altogether upon any great national question. Never upon a point decisive of some fixed prin- ciple. A powerful muster can never be made, except upon some motion warily set out with exceptions and provisions,* contrived more for ♦ In compliance with the bad men of the party. Lord Ar- chibald Hamilton, one of the best men of the party, on the debate on the Scotch Burghs, was obliged most solemnly to disavow any connexion between his petitions and Parliamen- 186 the sake of collecting votes than displaying opinions. And yet you talk of an organized opposition ; and have the assurance to say, that there is no sentiment more universal than that, '^ such an oppositiouy* even to the most justly po- pular administration y is a great security to good government.'^ I rather think, I am as good a judge of what sentiment is universal as your Lordship is; and, I say, that if such a senti- ment ever did prevail, it is now entirely exploded, except in those quarters where it will stick to the last, namely, amongst the members of this organized opposition themselves. Great security to good government I f it isapARCE; it is the main- stay of bad government. It may do very well, whilst the being amember of parliament, is as Mr. tary Reform. The whole struggle between the battahons on that debate (May 6) was to affix, and ward off, that odious and damnable suspicion. " I am against all innovation," said Lord Binning, " and this is neither more nor less than Par- liamentary Reform." (No ! no ! no ! from the opposition benches.) " I am as much against what is called Parliamen- tary Reform as any body," said Mr. Primrose, " but this is hot Reform. I am for the petitions." Mr. Wynne was against €very thing wild and visionary ; but he would vote for the committee, as it pledged him to nothing. Then came George Canning of Liwrpool ; he called this one of the " coarse," *' broad/* *' groixs" " tyrannical y^ ''insulting" "shapes" of Re- form ; and ended an " animated" speech, so The Times calls it, by comparing the said monster to a toad, and himself to an angel, arme«3 with the spear of truth. * Answer, p. 4. 187 W. Ward called it, in the warmth of admiration, "a profession,"* (pity he did not add, a lucra- tive profession) ; but in a true Commons* House, what we should have, would be, what you say would be of '^ no use to the people whatever ;** that is, " a desultory attendance of the honestest " and most enlightened men»**'f Here is a charm- ing eulogium on the present state of representa- tion, and brings me back naturally to the main question, as to the *' proscription'* an4 ^^ vilifica^ tiovH' of our apostate Reformers, by the radical Reformers. I have shewn how materially Lord Grey must have changed his opinions on the subject of Re^ form; for it is not an adequate confession to say, as his Lordship did, in 1810, that there had been " in subsequent times, some differences *' from his former professions j*' J but I do not think you can shew me any proscription or vi- lification of him by the Reformers. As we are no party, we are not answerable for individual attacks ; and in the present state of the contro- versy, I presume your Lordship would not think of making the Reformers, whose defeat you re- joice in, (that is, the Westminster Reformers,) answerable for Mr. Cobbett*s strictures on the * Speech, in 1817, on Sir Francis Burdett's motion on Reform. t Answer, p. 40. t Debates, June 10, 1810. 188 Whigs. In truth, the Whigs have lately been quoting the scripture of the '' Register," with much delight against the Westminster Reformers. Besides, Mr. Cobbett's pen has been in activity during the twelve years' trance^ so you can have alluded only to the body of men usually known by the name of the Westminster Committee. I protest then, that I am at a loss to know where to look for the " proscription and vilification" of these Whig persons of " ranki station^ and property ;^ nor do I know, with the exception of Lord Grey, to wdiom in particular you would allude. The coalition of 1806 certainly- con- vinced the people of England, that the struggles of party in parliament were struggles, not for principles, but for power ^ and that conviction v^ill be found in the proceedings of the Westmin- ster Reformers, but that is not proscribing and vilifying almost all persons of rank, station, and property; if it is proscribing and vilifying them, they should be proscribed and vilified 5 for it is a truth indelibly fixed in the public mind. — It is not at all surprising, that Lord Grey should have drawn no small share of the public odiuiA upon himself, since he took part with the Borough-mongers against the people of Eng- land, in the great question which was tried in the personof Sir Francis Burdett, in 1810. Then it was that his Lordship proclaimed, that he con- sidered the people should be suppressed in their 189 attempts' to act upon the prudence of thehouse, as readily as the unconstitutional invasions of the crown should be resisted. Then it was that the ardour of the citizen took in his eyes a de- praved direction, and was no longer to have any influence upon the deliberations of the senator.* Then it was that his Lordship chose to question the title of Sir F. Burdett to the claim of martyr- dom,-|- but he also was candid enough to confess, that the title had been allowed by the people. And if he is to be praised for confessing, that he would stand by the privileges of parliament, and what he thought his duty, at the risk of his popularity; it must at the same time not be made a matter of complaint, that he has incurred the penalty which he magnanimously professed * " And if the deliberations of parliament would be im- " peded by popular insult and commotion, why not as neces- " sary to suppress the civium ardor prava jubentium, as the " unconstitutional invasions of the crown on the freedom of " parliament." — Lord Grei/s speech, Parliamentary Debates, Lords, June 13, 1810. f " Sir F. Burdett says, that he is a martyr to the good old " cause, for which Sydney and Russell bled on the scaffold; " but Sydney and Russell did not fall martyrs to their resist- " ance to any stretch or undue exercise of the power or pri- *' vileges of parliament." — Speech, June 13, 1810. But, by his Lordship's leave, the good old cause was, and is, the cause of liberty ; and whether the tyranny emanates from a cabinet of courtiers, or an assembly of borough-mongers, resistance to it is alike meritorious, and will equally make a martyr. 190 himself to despise.* On that occasion his Lord- ship certainly pulled off the gloves, and he would have thought his universal defiance rather ridi- culous than glorious, if he had not roused a sin- gle adversary out of his v^hole world of oppo- nents. He had, indeed, a foretaste of some future antagonists from his friend Lord Stanhope, before he left the house, who at once told him what was then, and always will be, the vice of all Whig declamation, and what, I think, is the peculiar characteristic of Lord Grey's eloquence; he said, that as to the support to which Lord Grey would pledge the house for " the ancient and essential fights and privileges of parliament," this ^* he thought too indefinites his noble friend^ s definitions were not so precise as they might have been.''^ Lord Stanhope then said, that, a cer- ♦ " I cannot but feel a deep regret, if I am deprived of my " popularity, by any misunderstanding of my views and ob- " jects on the part of the people; but it excites my indigna- " tion, if I am robbed of my popularity, by the basest mis- *' representations, and the vilest delusions practised by men, 'f who, without any regard to truth, sacrifice every really vir- ** tuous and patriotic object to the shouts of popular clamdur. « To obtain such a poptilarity requires neither virtue nor ta- " lents. Indeed, men without virtue or talents are the best " fitted to acquire such a popularity. Men who, as we have " seen in the present day, ^t themselves above all the deeen- « cies of private life, and abov^ all those courtesies which "'men, who really endeavour to do their duty, concede event *• to their adversaries." — Speech of Lord Grey, as abov^, t See Debates, as above. 191 tain supporter of the privileges of parliament " had broached doctrines which, if they were *^ well founded, it would be more tolerable to live *^ in Turkey than in any country where such " doctrines were countenanced." And this is a good place for observing a small slip in your Lordship's memory, about this very speech of Lord Grey's, in 1810. Your " An- swer"* positively denies the assertions of the Replyer, that *' this speech was an uncalled- for declaration against all Reform, and all Re- formers." I happen to have the report of Lord Erskine's speech upon the proposed address of Lord Grey, on this very occasion :— *^ He agreed with the noble earl (Stanhope) in " the opinion which he had formed of the just pri- *'* vileges of either house ^ beirig commensurate to the " necessity of the case, and being founded by that *^ necessity. He was sorry y that a motion on such *' a subject should be brought fonvard in a manner " that appeared to him to be hasty y and as if made " on the spur of the occasion. He must declare, " that he did not feel any of that alarm which was ** entertained by many, of the dangerous mews of " those zvho were amongst the foremost in seeking ^'^ for Reform, He did not believe there were any " considerable body of men in this country; he ** was sure that he did not know any man who ap-^ * Answer, p. 19, 192! ^' peared to him to have any further object thaii to " obtain what to them appeared the ESSENCE and " Spirit of the Constitution. Many of these " men might he mistaken in their opinions; but " when it was recollected what an ardent spirit '"^ prevailed in the time of our forefathers, and how " much blood had then been shed in the defence of " what they conceived the liberties of the country, " men could hardly be condemned at present for " feeling a considerable degree of zeal and ardour " on such a subject.'^ So said Lord Erskine, in 1810. This is a noble and a just defence of all the radical Reformers; and it is a defence manifestly against Lord Grey, whose address you call hasty; is not that word as good as " uncalled-for V It was not an answer to Lord Liverpool, the only ministerial speaker before your Lordship, except as far as Lord Liverpool had expressed the " most entire satisfaction'*^ ^ at Lord Grey's sen- timents concerning the privileges of parliament. You sealed your opinion on this point by not dividing with Lord Grey. The Duke of Nor- folk, the Marquis of Douglass, and Lord Stan- hope, also refused to take part with the Parlia- ment against the People: they left the house with your Lordship. How then can you be astonished if the radical Reformers occasionally * Debates, 1810. June 13, as above. 193 recollect the decisive line taken against them, by Lord Grey, in the imprisonment of Sir F. Burdett ? It did not happen so long ago ; you thought it hasty at the time ; and, although you now choose to defend him for attacking ^^ all such Reformers'' as the Replyer,* yet at the time, I say, you thought there was not a single dangerous Reformer, not a single man amongst them who appeared to have any " further ob- ject" than obtaining what he thought " the essence and spirit of the constitution.** Your Lordship had forgot you differed from Lord Grey on that momentous question; but we have not forgot it: we are grateful for your defence of us then, and are glad to set it off against your attack on us now. The incon- sistency, indeed, is not a little puzzling; but I have been accustomed to it, by looking over Whig speeches, and by attempting, if possible, to collect together any knot of men, however small, acting upon any single principle however indefinite, to whom may be applied upon the slightest pretext, the modest and favourite title of the great body of the Whigs of England. In the question of Reform, it is " confusion worse confounded;" for here, in this pamphlet ♦ " He spoke only against all such Reformers as I have al- " luded to, and (if I may judge from your pamphlet) against " all such Reformers as yourself." — Answer, p. 19. O 194 of your's, I can quote excellent premises for quite contrary conclusions. In page 18 you declare, that you and Lord Grey have been disappointed, by the radical Reformers, from *' effecting the Reform retom- " mended by the Friends of the People.'' In pages 29, 30, and 31, you give us dis- tinctly to understand, that you have *' rejected, " upon maturer reflection,'' what is certainly the vi'hole of the plan of radical Reform, recom- mended by the Friends of the People. If so, the radical Reformers have not prevented you from effecting this plan. You are not for this plan yourself. In page 17 you are angry not to be thought an advocate for a general change in the Repre- sentation. In page 31 you tell us, that an addi- tion to the county representation, and to that of populous towns, is the specific Reform you vt^ould adopt. You do not seem to understand the subject; and what with attacking those with whom you used to agree, and defending those with whom you used to differ, you have so be- puzzled your argument, that you forget that you have one indispensable duty to perform, be- fore you either attack or defend others, namely, to reconcile yourself with yourself. You should not have forgotten, that the reason which you have given for the change of the question as to Reforni — that is, the proscrip- 195 (ion and vilification of the former aiispiciators of that claim, did not operate with you at all in 1810, at which period you did not see the dan- ger you now see from any Reformers ; and yet that, separation of the people and the Whigs had evidently commenced before 1810. You should have recollected, that in hinting at the patriotism of the Westminster Reformers starting up after a twelve year s^ trance^ you must doubtless mean to say, that they have not done any thing, either good or bad, since the election of 1807 — what then in their conduct can have changed your opinion since 1810? — not the elections in 1818 or 1819; because the defence which you make for the Whigs refers to their conduct before that period, for which conduct you give the excuse, that before that period they were proscribed and vilified, I have before said this could be no excuse, were it even true; but it is not true. Your Lordship's friends are apt to exclaim against the slightest remonstrance, against the plainest ex- position of a sober truth, as if it were the most injurious reviling of rancour and ingratitude. As a proof of this, I must refer you to the out- cry raised against the Report of the Westminster Committee; which, though it does not enter into your Lordship's proofs of proscription and vilifica- tion, was doubtless considered in that light by your 196 friends. Now the strongest phrases in that report are the two following, the first of which succeeds the quotation from Mr. Grey*s speech of 1794, when he denounced Mr. Pitt as an Apostate: — " Nothing can be more severe than the indigna- " tion so properly expressed by Mr. Grey against *^ those who had apostatized from the cause of " Reform : and nothing can bring public men " into contempt so completely, as such unprin- *' cipled and shameless apostacy. When, there- ^^ fore, Mr. Grey, and the whole of his party, "joined with the Grenvillites, the unrelenting " persecutors of Reform, they justly excited the " contempt of the people.** The second is : — " The feelings excited by the Electors of West- " minster mainly contributed to expose, still " further, the enormous iniquities of both the " factions.'* This is expressing, and strongly too, an opi- nion of the coalition in 1806; but it is not per- sonal proscription and vilification. I affirm, that there is much more of personal proscription and vilification to be found in what I have quoted from Lord Grey*s speech in 1810, and much stronger general language in the denun- ciations of his late Newcastle speech. However, it was quite enough to make the Whigs resolve upon running every risk of loss of character, and to prove that they were not apos- 197 tates from Reform, by opposing the Reformers in Westminster. I have only slightly quoted Mr. Lambton's speech, nor would I now refer to it, had he not many years left him to repent : but as the Whigs were audacious enough to say, that the Reformers struck the first blow at the late election, I must put down the codicil which the member for Durham added to his father-in-law's will against us.* Mr. Lambton then told us we " had been bor?ie aloft by the tide of popular commotiorH^ — ^' been lifted above the sphere to zvhich we had been con- demned by our natural insignificance, and to which we must noiv return,'*' He said, " these Radical Re- formers, these advocates of Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage, (as if the phrases were synonymous) with liberty in their mouths'' — " had contributed to the increase of slavery more" than " the united power of corruption and despotism' ' He told us we " could only rise by tumult and riot to the un- natural elevation that" we " sought." He called us " brawling, ignorant, but mischievous quacks," with whom " the true people of England held no commu- nion" He said that our " doctrines and views xoere * See the Newcastle Chronicle for Jan. 9, 1819. Mr. Lambton, by the word " demagogues" seems to have had some individuals in his eye : but he must know that, as he named nobody, the ofFence was against the whole body of Radical Reformers. 198 exposed to universal derision and abhorrence i^ and ended by " tearing away the veil which concealed the deformity of our features^ whichy^ he added, ^^ now inspire nothhig hut disgust^ Now, I dare say, that Mr. Lambton thought that we, the Radical Reformers in Westminster, would be too happy to be dismissed so quietly, and would " Seek us out dishonourable graves." But, oh ! the unquenchable insolence of " na- turally insignijicanf' souls ! we published the " RE- PORT OF THE Committee." The Whigs cried out at the Election, " why did not the Reformers make their complaint before?" We might say — " why did not Lord Grey and Mr. Lambton make their attack before ?'* The Newcastle Chronicle arrived with the excommunication of the Reformers on January 12. The Report was prepared in the course of the subsequent fortnight: but it could not be read until the last general meeting. After this, we must hear no more of the first attack coming from the Reformers on the late occasion. On the Thurs- day following Sir Samuel Romilly's death ap- peared a paragraph in the Chronicle, calling the friends of government and the Reformers in Westminster the " two extreme factions i^ and shortly before the meeting of Parliament, ap- peared a series of essays (stupid enough to be 199 sure) against the Radical Reformers. The Re- port, in point of time, was only a Reply, The Whigs think they are to hit out at us like boxers against a wall, to put themselves in wind. If we retort, they cry out, like little parlour-boarders, that they "don't make hitting in the face,'' it bloodies their clean gentlemanly cheeks and fine shirts. But, let them leave us alone, then; for I assure your Lordship, that most of us are like myself, who have no taste whatever for that kind of battle : — " Ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum.^' Your Lordship cannot expect that the same sort of decent deference and respect can be shown by the people at large towards public men, as you are accustomed to pay them. The people feel acutely every thing that affects their inte- rests; and, as all their statesmen invariably talk of those interests as the sole object in their view, they must be allowed, now and then, some ex- pressions of feeling when they think themselves neglected or betrayed — much more when they are manifestly mocked at and insulted. When their politicians make a speech against their way of thinking, they don't stand staring, as your Lordship did at Lords Grey and Grenville when they opposed the Corn Bill, " absorbed in the 200 ** contemplation of how fearfulh) and wonderfully " both in mind and body, we are made.*'* Good, my Lord, we are not quite come to that ; we have something else to do than to make moral reflections upon the composition of those who are to make laws for us — we have to think only of the composition of the laws themselves, which indeed, generally seem to be made also in fear and wonder : fear, at some imaginary evil ; and wonder, that any body should be so vile as to object to them. It would not be decorous in you to give way to your real feelings, when you have them — ^you would discompose the company and spoil the play — ^you are one of the actors. But I say again, as I said before, the sincere applause and the cordial hissing must come from where the money comes, from the vile people below. You wish to be kings of the dictionary, and to keep even the coarse language of our vernacular for your own use : for I do not find it ever so much objected to as when it comes from those from whom it ought to have been expected more than others — the people. It must be confessed, that we soar with very weak wings indeed, when we attempt to reach the Billinsgate flights of the * Answer, p. 25. Mr. Ricardo in this respect was as fear- fully and wonderfully made as these two Lords— he wrote against the. Corn Bill. 201 House of Commons' orators; and yet, our efforts are criminal — theirs are all in course. The rea- son perhaps, is, that when we complain, we mean something — when a parliamentary talker is rude, he means nothing — It is only a part of the FARCE, not worth being angry at; besides, it is much more easy to resent an insult than to redress a wrong. Whatever may be the cause, I repeat, that I could pick out from Whig attacks on the people, expressions much stronger than any to be found in popular denunciations of any party. — Even your Lordship's Answer* abounds in phrases of ♦ The diverting nature of the Reply, and the jolly habits of the Replyer, have been before noticed — next come a disgusting want of temper — an indecent contempt of fact, p. 8. Calumnies at a tavern meeting, (that is, Mr. Hobhouse's speech) — deserted zwA slandered, p. 13. Gross and ivilful misrepresentation, p. 16. Gross and ivilfid misrepresentation, p. 17. Coarse, illiberal, and unfounded, p. 19. ■ Grossest and most palpable misconstruc- tion, p. 20. Slanderously attempted, p. 27. You must have been quite conscious that you were grossly misrepresenting me — " and you must have introduced the ivord they to express that I had so written, well knowing that I had not," p. 37. " Disgusting departure from every principle of justice," p. 39. Coarse and vulgar remarks — senseless tirade, p. 40. Your pur- pose to defame, p. 41. An inflamed attach, more fit to be addressed to a mob, &c. p. 43. In p. 44, the Replyer is a defamer, a dunce, a reptile, and a mummy; and the Answerer is Mr. Pope, who preserves him, quite against rule, in the museum ofhisivit — next comes — your own dark colours — falsely representing:, p. 47 . Calumnious complaints-^you ought to be considered as a libel- P 202 scorn, contempt, and derision of your corres- pondent; such as, if used originally by me, would have subjected me to every opprobrious epithet. Your Lordship seems, in the true style, most hurt at being charged with indecorum ; but in looking over your Pamphlet, I find words, which in me would not be so very decorous. Let us, however, look at this indecorum — it is, I find, the ^^ indecorum of self-applause," which most shocks you as a charge against you. But how do you rebut this charge ? — by saying that it is notorious, you became suspected of being the author of the Defence of the Whigs, because you were not praised more than twice in that defence, and that praise was only incidentally given ! ! 1* ler, p. 51. Indecent language, p. 63. Most contemptible, p. 63, The same unjust and peevish spirit which so disgustingly distin- guishes almost every sentence you have written, p. 8. AH which weapons of oratory are brought up in the rear by an appro- priate metaphor, which serves the triple purpose of a joke, a reproof, and a defence of the Whig tax on private breweries. " But your bile, nevertheless, which, for twelve years together, " has been fermenting in your private brewery, has at last so "publicly boiled over, that under the general law you are liable " to be taxed," p. 70. Alas, poor Whiggery ! to be left to such a defender. Did I not say that Lord Grimstone had got a dangerous rival ? * " It is notorious I became suspected of being the author, *' because, amidst the necessity of stating several important 203 If I were to say, as you do of a passage in the Reply, that " I was never more diverted in my life" than when I read this — should not I be hooted down as one who liad indecently exposed the acknowledged failings of a man, arrived at that time of life when failings are apt to predo- minate over good qualities ? Would not every decent, demure Whig creature cry out — so, you attack a poor old fellow for his vanity ? — oh ! for shame ! I know very well what will be said, if any thing is said, of this letter to you. I know that the author will be set down as a man without any taste, or sense of shame — as a gross, malig- nant, ignorant, presumptuous libeller of all the venerable names that were ever " great to little meny But I shall expect some little forbearance from your Lordship, because, a great deal of what I write is copied from the pure repositories of Whig oratory; and mean though I am, I must still think myself not wholly so, since my composition has been, in a great measure, quick- ened by the breath of Whig nostrils — or, if that shall be no inducement to moderation, because I have forborn to make the most of what you say about the " indecorum of self-applause," as well " events, in which I had been personally active, I blended " myself with the opposition, without the least allusion to a^y " merit of my own," &c. &c. — Aiuwev, p. 8. ' t04 as to comment upon some twenty quibbles which I marked down on first reading your Answer. And so, my Lord, I conclude these " More Last Words" of mine, by praying, that you will leave the abuse of the Electors of Westminster to those in whose mouths it is graceful — and do, if you can, do persuade some persons of rank, station, and character, once more to " auspiciate" the cause of Reform, THE END. John M'Creery, Primer, Black-Horse-Court, London. c c CC IC CJIKC •.- ^^CT f c^ < i ■ H « .iCCcd ^KS^ *■ - ^-- '.'CC'rCl ^SM^ ^ CIT «r'C(C i-'^J^^ i^^Z- t_( ((d ■■'V' «i8C < f' ' 'C ^CSC1_ ^^ Si^^ •- <^ ',,,-, 'igr rfT' ''^' ^^S— ' '^r' CT ■ <- ^IS-I S <*1 011'; ''OZL- "y-". ' <~ C^Z ^^===- o. ■"^^' C« ^^f :c d^^j"'' •A , . c ^c ^Sfe^'^' -d^'CC Ski'4 : o- d_ C ^^5^^ c