:M. t f THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES #^ '-V^JLvA*^- -(a ENGLISH FOLLY! The Bill not the Bill^ nor any Thing like the Bill: BEING ^ %tiitv to t\it peoiJie, SHEWING THEM THAT THEY ARE BETRAYED BV THESE WHIG MINISTERS; WHO, Under Pretence of increasing the Power of the People^ ARE ROBBING THEM Of the Power they now possess. Conat. " Do child, go to it' grandam, child ; Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig : Tliere's a good grandam." — King John. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY G. BERGER, HOLYWELL STREET, STRAND. G. DAVIDSON, rUINTER, SERLK'S I'LACE, CARET STREET. 183L [Price Threepence, or One Guinea per Hundred.] J Hi TO THE PEOPLE. ** As to the Whigs, we plainly and in the face of the people of England deny that the country looks to them as its saviours in any great emergency. The experience of nearly fifty years has proved to the people of England the real character of this party. At once haughty and pusillanimous, rash and short sighted ; noisy Democrats when out of office, insolent Aristocrats when in; ignorant of the noble qualities of their own countrymen, and timid depreciators of their glory ; while they are ever vehement and ready to applaud the efforts and magnify the successes of foreigners. Such are the men whom we are told England is to regard with veneration and affection." — Times Newspaper. My Friends, My object, in this Letter, is to prove to you, beyond all doubt or dispute, that this Reform Bill, from which you have been taught to expect so much benefit, is, as Jar as you are concerned, 2i wicked delusion and fraud; the last of these terms is, I know, a very hard name, and yet if you will be reasonable and read what I have written, I un- dertake to convince you that it is fully called for; I undertake to convince you that this bill, so far from increasing the power of the people, robs them of the power they now possess, and that it was intro- duced with that very object and intention, after the true fashion and practice of a Whig Ministry. But, before I begin my statements, I must put you upon your guard on one point. As soon as this Letter falls into the hands of the Whig papers, they will instantly set up a cackle about it, and proclaim that its object is to defeat the bill. To defeat the bill ! Why to be sure its object is to defeat the bill ; and if the bill is, as 1 undertake to shew, a gross fraud on the people, the sooner it is defeated the better. The last Election shewed, I think, plainly enough, that you have got some power as things now stand ; if this bill is to strip you of it, why are you to be in such a breathless liurry to put your hand and seal to it ? If you say, " we know we have some power, but not all the power to which we are entitled,^' my answer is, " that is not the question.^' The real question is, will this bill give you that power ? For if it will not, as I undertake to shew, it is surely but lame council you are pur- suing, when you sacrifice the power you already possess, because you have not got all which you demand. I warn you, therefore, before hand, that the Whig papers will be merely deluding you, if they raise a cackle against me for attempting to defeat the bill, unless they prove to you, at the same time, that it is for your interest that the bill should not be defeated. My hostility to the bill is founded on express provisions and enactments which, I say, are contained in it ; if these provisions and enact- ments are not to be found in it, let the newspapers expose the falsehood of my accusations ; and then let this Letter be burnt by the hands of ihe common hangman : but if these oppressive enactments are in the bill, as I assert, 1 hope you will, like calm and rational men, weigh the consequences of suffer- ing it to pass into a law, although the papers make an attempt to divert you from such considerations, by telling you that my object is to defeat the bill. . Having given you this caution, we will now pro- ceed to business. The bill contains, as you have perhaps heard, sixty clauses ; occupying forty-seven folio pages. Some Frenchman or other, I don't at this moment remember who, has said that the use of language is to disguise our thoughts : I suspect the framers of this bill have taken a leaf out of the book of this crafty foreigner ; at any rate, I can- not discover with what object five-sixths of the clauses in this bill were introduced, unless for the purpose of burying the remainder. Five-sixths of these clauses, I repeat, would never have found their way into an honest measure of reform ; and have been introduced into this bill, for the trea- cherous and insidious purpose of drawing off your attention from the all important question, O^ whom IS THE RIGHT OF VOTING CONFERRED ? Upon the answer to that question the merits of the whole bill turn. If the franchise adopted by ministers includes a fair proportion of your own class in society, take the bill with all its other faults ; if it 6 (Joes not, rely upon it there is a snake in tlie grass, and be assured that whatever may turn up, no good is meant. Now the comjfion law right of voting in boroughs is scot and lot ; by which, at the present day, nothing more is meant than the occupation of a house of any value, for six months, and payment of poor rates up to the day of election. Considering that these Whigs have all their lives long been brawling about the rights of the people, one would have thought that this was the very thing for them. Here was a right of voting ready made to their hands, sanctioned by ancient usage, giving, never- theless, to the people, all that the people demand, viz. a franchise co-extensive with their burdens and obligations. One would have thought, I say, that this was the very thing they were in search after. Yet, so far from extending this franchise to places where it did not exist, they have destroyed it where it was already enjoyed, and have substituted for it, a right of voting, the real nature of which I will now proceed to expose ; contrasting it, as 1 go on, with the common-law right of every Englishman,' all trace of which, be it remembered, if this bill passes, will in a few years have vanished throughout the land. Let us compare then the new and the ancient franchise, First, as regards the value of the house. Secondly, as respects the payments recjuircd. Thirdly, as to the length of occupation requisite. First then — as regards the value of the house. ! By the common laiv the vaUie of the house was immaterial. By the Whig bill, it must be worth ten pounds a year, at the least. Against this material deviation from the common law qualification, Mr. Hunt divided the House, and voted alone, amid bursts of laughter, with which he was honoured by a majority of Whigs, Radicals, and Tories, jumbled together in harmonious concord*. Secondly, as respects the payments required. By the common law of England, payment of the poor-rate was required; and payment of the poor- rate alone, :;;.;< jsj By the Whig Bill, not only must the poor-rate be paid up, but assessed taxes likewise ; and in every instance where a man claims to vote because he is rented at ten pounds, he must prove that he has paid up poor-rates, assessed taxes, and land- lord's rent into the bargain ! ! ! Against this monstrous enactment there was also a division, and once more, Whigs, Radicals, and Tories huddled together, and carried the payment of landlord's rent by a majority of three hundred and fifty-three to eleven ; Mr. Hunt having, on this occasion, ten Tories to keep him in countenancef . We come lastly to the question of occupation ; and if from what I have already said, you begin to * See the debate in House of Commons, 24lh August, t See the debate of 25th August. liave a glimmering view o^ foul play ^ you will, I think, stare with open eyes ot" astonishment at the gross fraud I am now going to expose. I have already told you that, by the common law of England, six months' occupation previous to the day of election, is the only occupation requisite. Now pray attend to me while I point out to you the enormous length of occupation made necessary by a subtle artifice in this Whig bill. You have heard, no doubt, that hereafter all votes must be registered ; and you have been told, over and over again, that this is for the purpose of saving expense. Upon examining a little into the provi- sions of the bill, I soon found out that this could not be the real reason for introducing this new- fangled machinery; for so far from causing a dimi- nution of expense, it is perfectly clear that the system of registration will add greatly to the gross expense connected with elections. In the first place, the expense under the present S3'stem is confined to the period of the election, (recurring, on an average, about once in four years,) and to those elec- tions which are contested; whereas the expense of registration will be annual, and will be equally incurred whether an election ensues or not, and whether that election be or be not contested. Nor will this annual expenditure be by any means incon- siderable. It will consist in making up and cor- recting the lists; in the emj)loyment of innumerable agents by the several candidates to watch over their respective interests; and further, it will consist in the c9 payment of five guinea's a day and their expenses, to the swarms of barristers who are to have the correction of the hsts. This last expanse, by the bye, is to be defrayed out of the taxes: in phiin Enghsh, these Whig hiw-givers think it decent and just', that the working classes should contribute towards the expense of elections, although they are deemed unworthy of any other participation in them. Another source of expense arises out of this system. The existence of a list furnishing the name and residence of every elector, will give a great advan- tage to the candidate first in the field. Consequently on the slightest prospect of a vacancy, some one candidate, anxious to get the start, will commence a canvass, arid by so doing, will make it incumbent on his competitors to follow his example. Thus an early and active canvass, of all sources of expense the most prolific, seems to me the necessary conse- quence of a system of registration. Nor does all this previous expenditure supersede expense at the election. Poll-books, poll-clerks, tally-men, &c., will be needed in tenfold proportion. On the hustings, it is true, no inquiry can take place, otherwise than by *swearing the voter to his identity, qualification, and his not having voted before at that election. But as no person is to have a vote who is -j-legally incapable,^ according to the laws and usages now in force, it follows that what is now a disqualification to vote, continues a disqualification to vote, and * Clause 41. f Clause 2i. J Clause 54. B 10 though it cannot be examined into on the hustings, yet the candidate must nevertheless be there fur- nished with the evidence, in order that he may be able to know what votes to object to as they are tendered, so as to subject them to future investiga- tion before a committee on petition — where all votes so objected to, as well as the * correctness of the register itself, will still be open to investigation. So that the boasted effect of all this expensive machinery is, to transfer investigation from the hustings, to a Committee of the House of Commons, by admission the most expensive tribunal in the kingdom. This view of the case soon satisfied me that it was not to save expense that the system of registra- tion was introduced: and I accordingly, to use a vulgar proverb, began to smell a rat — and a rat sure enough I found, skulking from the light of day as artfully and craftily as ever rat was discovered. To drop metaphors, and to use plain language, I found that the object of this system of registration, was not to save expense — not to simplify matters — no such thing — I found it was a mountebank's trick to engage the eye, while the sleight of hand was performed — that it was a perfidious Whig juggle to acquire, indirectly, such a length of occupation, as they did not for a moment dare directly to propose. I will proceed to state distinctly my ground for this charge. The following are the regulations of the bill. ♦ Clause 42. 11 * On the last day of August in every year, the overseers are to make out a list of persons entitled to vote under the provisions of this bill ; and in order to get put upon it, amongst other thingsf, it is necessary that the party should have been in occu- pation of the same premises for twelve months at least. This list undergoes Jcorrection and revi- sion, and when so corrected and revised, it is entered into a book, and that book is the § register of electors to vote at any election which may take place between the first day of December following, and the first day of December in the ensuing year. The four usual periods for entering upon new premises, are, as you of course know, Michaelmas, Christmas, Ladyt day, and Midsummer. I will consider the opera- tion of this system upon the vote of a person enter- ing at each of these periods ; and then I think you will be able to apply my reasoning* to every other case. . Suppose, then, mine is a Michaelmas take — and as the day of registration for the present year is uncertain, for the sake of simplicity, let me be sup- posed to enter at Michaelmas, 1832. On the last day of August, 1833, a list will be made out; on that list my name cannot appear, because I shall have been only eleven months in occupation ; I must wait then till the list of the last day of August 1834; that is to say, I must be in occupation twenty-three months, before my name can be put * Clause 33. .f Clause 21. % Clause 37. § Clause 40. 13 on the list. After I get on the list, I must wait till the first of December, 1834, before I can by possi- bility vote ; therefore the shortest possible occupa* tion required of me before I can vote, will be twenty-six months ; and if, instead of supposing the election to happen on the earliest possible day, we take the middle of the year, as the* average period of its occurrence, six months more must be added. Thus is an occupation of THIRTY-TWO MONTHS SUBSTITUTED BY THE SYSTEM OP REGISTRATION, FOR THE SIX MONTHS NOW REQUIRED BY THE COMMON LAW OF THE LAND. This is the rat I ferreted out from his concealment. Here is something more congenial to the principles of a Whig, than a diminution of expense : this is the perfidious juggle I spoke of, by which the disfran- chisement of three-fourths of the artizans of England is affected, without one of them suspecting a word about the matter. This is the Whig sleight of hand, by which that has been accomplished, secretly, clandestinely, and surreptitiously, which, if openly proposed, would have long ago decided the fate of the bill, and of those by whom it was proposed. '■ 'We will now consider the case of a person who enters at Christmas, 1832. As before it will be * When ministers have no immediate object to serve by a dissolution, it will be found that July and September are the two months usually selected for a general election. In the case under consideration, supposing the election to take place in July> thirty-four months occupation will be required, and thirty-six months if we suppose the election in September, August, 1834, before he gets on the list, and conse- quently by just the same reasoning as I employed in the last case, the average occupation required of him before he votes, will be twenty-nine months. So the average occupation required of a person enter- ing at Lady-day will be twenty-six months; and of one who enters at Midsummer, twenty-three months. By the same reasoning it appears that no man by any possibility can vote without fifteen months occupation of the same premises, viz. twelve months previous to the last day of August, and three months previous to the first day of December following; and, then, supposing, as before, the election on an average to come on in the middle of the year, six months more must be added, making twenty-one months essential in the most favourable case. Thus, my friends, have these wily Whigs, by their system of re- gistration, substituted, for the six months' occupation required by the common law^ an occupation varying in duration from twenty-one to thirty-two months. The same reasoning is applicable, word for word, to the receipt of parish relief, which is put by the proviso at the end of the twenty-first clause on precisely the same footing as occupation. The receipt, therefore, of parish relief works a dissability, varying, from twenty-one to thirty-two months, accord- ing to the time of year the relief is received.* ♦ For example, if a man at Michaelmas, in any year, received parish relief, he will thereby be disabled from voting for thirty- two months ! ! ! 14. Now do not, I pray you, content yourselves with reading what I have witten, and talking it over with your companions ; for if you do, you will form only a very inadequate ideaof the injustice that this bill will work. In order to bring the treachery of these Whigs palpably home to your senses, put my reasoning to the test by this simple and rational experiment. In every large town in England, let some intelligent man amongst you call a meeting of his fellow artisans. For the sake of order and regularity close the doors as soon as a hundred are assembled ; then choose a chairman, and having all taken your seats, let the chairman address you as follows : — Chairman. — " Such of you as occupy houses worth ten pounds a year at the least may stand up. '* Those who, either by themselves or their family, have received parish relief within* twenty-six months must sit down again. " All who are in arrears of rates, assessed taxes, or "l-landlord's rent, may sit down likewise. *' If any one still standing has not been in occu- pation of the same premises twenty-six months he must also sit down." * Twenty-six months is something less than the mean between twenty-one and thirty-two months, which I have shewn to be the two periods between which the occupation required and the dis- ability arising from the receipt of parish rehcf will range. t I have shewn in page 4, in what cases the payment of landlord's rent is made part of the qualification. 15 This last order will, according to my calculation, finish you off; the few who were left standing when it was given, will then have to sit down, and you will find yourselves just where you were when you began, quietly seated round your chairman, without a single man left upon his legs. In scriptural lan- guage, there will not be one righteous man found to represent the hundred. At that juncture, let any man who thinks proper, rise up ; and, with his hat in his hand, give three cheers for the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill ; and if that man is not cuffed, and buffeted, and jostled, from the place where he stands to the threshold of the door, vou are not the men I take you to be ; you are not the legitimate descendants of our Saxon ancestors, who told their Norman conquerors. They would not HAVE THE Laws of England changed ; you are the spurious offspring of those Normans, and the Whig bill is good enough for you, though it consigns you to be " hewers of wood and drawers of water,^* for the remainder of your days. But then, my friends, it seems that you are to be told that it is now too late to find out these thins-s. o You are to be told, it seems, that the time to have made these discoveries was the last general elec- tion ; when the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill, was every where the test ; that, having then adopted this bill, you entered into a sort of political marriage with it, and " took it for your wedded reform, to have and to hold, from that day forward, 16 for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sick- ness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do you part.*^ So, then, this was the object of that cry got up by the Whigs, and inconsider- ately adopted by you in the heat and excitement of the election. It was for this purpose, forsooth, that you were exhorted to cry the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill, and to throw dead cats and brickbats at those who offered to expose its defects. What ! now that the blood is calm, and the reason in a state to estimate properly what we are about; now that we have read this sixty-clause bill, that before we had only heard of, and find it full of pits and trap-ftills, are we gravely to be told by the men who have decewed us, "you have made your choice, it is now too late to repent ?" What^ my friends, is a man who gets ignorantly betrothed to a harlot, bound to make her his wife when he finds she is a strumpet who walks the streets ? If any effort of political effrontery could astonish me; after what I have witnessed during the last two months, I should be astonished, I think, at hearing this cry of the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill, made an excuse by the *radical members of Parliament, for supporting all the noxious provisions it contains. But, although I am fully satisfied that there is not a man of sound intellect amongst you who considers himself morally bound to abide by this * See the Spcccli of Joseph Ihuue, August 27tli. 17 bill, because he was trapped into that cry at the last general election, yet I do suspect there are many amongst you who, from a mixed feeling of obstinacy and consistency, do not like to admit, even to yourselves, that you have been the dupes of these crafty Whigs. Considering the vast stake you have in this matter, considering that if my statements be correct, you are bartering away your own liberty, the liberty of your children, and your children's children, I do trust an unworthy feeling of this sort, even if there were cause for it, would not long stand in the way of a manly and straight- forward avowal of your altered opinions. But there is no cause for such a feeling; you are not in the dilemma to which these Whigs would reduce you. In order to give the slightest colour to the impudent pretence that you are bound by your conduct at the general election, it is, at all events, incumbent upon your enemies to shew, that this is the very bill which was made the subject of that cry. This I am about to prove to you distinctly is not the case ; which brings me to the second assertion made in my title page, The bill not the bill, nor any thing like tJw bill. The bill which was made the subject of the cry at the last general election, was, of course, that bill which had been read a second time when Parlia- ment w^s dissolved. By the act of dissolution, by the words which they put into the King's mouth, by their own solemn pledges on the hustings, ministers C 18 became morally bound to introduce that bill again without alteration in it, more particularly with- out alteration prejudicial to the rights of the people. What then, my friends, must be your Just indignation^ when I inform you that, as regards that single provision about which alone I am writ- ing — the provision regulating the right of voting — no less than Jour material alterations have been introduced, and a fifth attempted ; the operation and purport of every one of which is to deprive the people of that participation in the elective franchise which ministers stood solemnly pledged to confer. The alteration to which I have alluded as having been only attempted, was the proviso introduced for the first time ctfter the election, depriving every man of his vote whose rent was payable more fre- quently than once in every half-year. By these half score words, as ministers themselves have admitted by the confession of their *chief law officer, hundreds of thousands of intelligent artisans would have been despoiled of their promised fran- chise. This was a great Whig coup ; but, unfortu- nately, the bow was drawn rather too tight. The clubs took the matter up. The chairman of the Birmingham Union put hisro?/«/ veto on the clause; and, amid the jeers and contempt of all classes of * Sir Thomas Denman. And, yet, after Lord Grey had stooped to plead an excuse to the Birmingham Union, which his colleague disproved by his admission the same day in the House of Com- mons, the very same provision was introduced into the Scotch bill, substituting quarterly for half-yearly payments. 19 society, "The Man of his Order" disgorged his prey. We will now proceed to consider the four altera- tions which have been introduced into the single clause now under our consideration ; not forced upon ministers as their minions will endeavour to persuade you, but one and all of them, like the half-yearly proviso, emanating from, and originating with, themselves. First, then, by the bill, on which ministers went to the country, six months' occupation previous to the last day of August was the only occupation required. By the bill introduced «/(f^r the election, that six months is converted into twelve ; bv which alteration, aided by the ingenious trick of registra- tion, not only is six months additional occupation rendered necessary in every case, but in every in- stance where the tenant enters between the last day of August and the last day of February, those six additional months will be tantamount to eighteen ; inasmuch, as the party will not be able, as he would have done, to get his name put on the first list after he enters, and will, consequently, have to stand over the whole of another year. It is quite impossi- ble to say how many thousand electors will be disfranchised by this apparently slight alteration. The second alteration consists in requiring, at the poll, the existence of the same qualification which put the party upon the list of the last day of August. By the bill, on which ministers went 20 to the country, nothing further was required in order to entitle a person to vote than that his name should appear on that list. If, in the interval between the makinsr out of the list and the election (an interval which cannot be less than three months, and may be fifteen,) the party had voluntarily quitted his residence, or had been turned out by his land- lord, he, nevertheless, under the first bill retained his vote ; whereas, by the bill introduced since the election, every man who comes to the poll may be called upon to *swear that he continues in the occu- pation of the same premises which entitled him to be placed on the list. Now consider the effect of this alteration as regards the lower orders, invariably the chief object of the tender mercies of the Whigs. Of the lower class of ten pound householders, at least one-half, I should say, are liable, by the terms on which they hold, to be called upon to quit their houses on a months' notice, or some shorter period. Scarcely any are entitled to more than a quarter's notice. I have shewn already that an early canvass will be one consequence of the new system, and even under the present it is by no means unusual to commence a canvass six months previous to a general election. In what case, then, will a monthly, or even quarterly, tenant stand ? Either he must promise his vote to his landlord, and so forego his independence, or he must be prepared to ♦ See Appendix for the oath required by the first bill, and the oath required by the second. be turned out ; there being ample time for the service of a notice to quit, by which his vote will be destroyed. Thus, independent of -'the thousands who will lose their votes by quitting their houses in the ordinary course of things, between the making out of the list and the election, it appears that this deviation from the principle of the first bill, puts the poorer class of voters entirely at the mercy of their landlords. Thirdly, by the bill, on which ministers went to the country, it made no difference whether the landlord was liable for the rales or not. By the bill introduced after the election, if the landlord is by any agreement, or contrivance, liable for the rates, the tenant is not entitled to vote. By this un- ostentatious provision, introduced, no doubt, iuad- vertenfli/, a third pretty considerable subtraction from the sovereignty of the people is most imwcently effected. I now come to the fourth alteration, and I will venture to say the annals of the world cannot furnish a grosser instance of legislative fraud and cunning. In order to cajole you into giving up those rights which you had inherited from your ancestors, and which, in my judgment, it was your duty to have transmitted to your posterity, you are well aware that a clause was introduced by these crafty Whigs into their bill, reserving to those who at present enjoy it, the right of voting during their lives. 22 By this clause it was provided, that* "every person now having a right to vote by reason of owning or occupying any tenement, or by reason of inhabitancy, shall retain such right so long as he shall own or occupy the same or any other tenement in the same place, or shall inhabit the same place,'' &c. Here, then, was their franchise expressly preserved during their lives to the people of Westminster, and Pres- ton, and Stamford, and Newark, and the numberless other places where these rights exist. So stood this clause in the bill first laid on the table of the house ; so stood this clause in the amended bill, on which ministers went to the country ; ministers thereby solemnly guaranteeing this reservation of their rights to the scot and lot voters who supported them at the election. Lastly, so stood this clause in the bill which ministers introduced after the election. And yet, after all, my friends, this thrice repeated pledge, this solemn contract between the scot and lot voters and these perfidious Wkigs, has vanished from the bill, and the provision which I will shortly introduce appears in its stead. But I must first give you the history of this changeling. As the clause reserving existing rights drew near at hand, the Tempter seems to have sug- gested to the mind of one of these Whig lawgivers, a mode of extirpating scot and lot voters, potwallers, &c., so subtle and refined that no human being could be reasonably expected to detect it. What * Ckiusc 24. 23 was to be done ? The bill had been printed and committed before this happy idea presented itself — to attempt to introduce it as an amendment, would be to draw attention to the tender part. Never- theless the idea was too good to be lost; so the whole clause was re-modelled, and printed on a fly-leaf, and was huddled through a deserted House of Commons assembled on a * Saturday, on which day out of tender regard to the impatience of the people, the House had been compelled by ministers to meet. This clause then, so smuggled into the bill, and huddled through the House, runs as fol- lows — Having saved the right of freemen, it pro- ceeds : — f" Provided also that every person now having a right to vote in the election for any city or borough (except those enumerated in the said schedule, A.) in virtue of any qualification, other than those hereinbefore mentioned and reserved, shall retain such right of voting so long only as he shall cojit'uiue to he qual'ified as an elector, according to the usages and customs of such city or borough, or any law now in force, and such person shall be entitled to vote in the election for such city or borough, if duly registered according to the provi- sions hereinafter contained; but that no such person shall be so registered in the next or any succeeding year, unless such person shall, on the first day of February in the next year, and on the last day of August in each succeeding year, continue to he * August 27ih. t Clause 22. 24 qualified 2iS such elector, in such manner as would entitle him then to vote, if such days were respec- tively the days of election, and this act had not been passed," &c. So that if any thing occurs to interrupt the con- tinuity of the qualification of the voter ; if a single day intervenes in changing from one house to another; if he touches parish relief; if on the first day of February, in next year, or on the last day of August in any succeeding year, he is in arrear of rates, and consequently is not put on the list; if, in short, from whatever cause the slightest break in the qualification ensues, his franchise which he enjoyed of common right is gone for ever, in spite of the solemn engagement into which these Whigs entered, to preserve it to him during his life. On the electors of Westminster, heretofore justly proud of their franchise, the duty devolves of rescuing the scot and. lot voters of England from this ambuscade — trea- chery is cowardly in its essence ; one growl of remonstrance will suffice — the plea of inadvertence, with just as much truth as before, will serve its inventors one turn more, and yet a short respite will be allowed, before all vestige of their common law right has vanished from amongst the people of England. Such are the comments with which I have been furnished by one single provision of this insidious bill ; and now my friends, before we part, pause one moment with me and reflect on the conclusion at 25 which we have arrived. Let these men be ACTING FROM WHATSOEVER MOTIVE THEY MAY, GOOD-WILL AND FIDELITY TO YOU CAN HAVE NO SHARE THEREIN. I have shewn to you how, by every subtle device which human ingenuity could suggest and human perfidy adopt, these ministers have been attempting to withhold from the people the pledge they gave in tJie hour of their need. I have shewn to you how their boasted ten pound franchise, is clogged and encumbered with conditions and restrictions, throwing no impediment in the way of the wealthy, but grievous and cruel in the extreme, towards the industrious poor. After England has for ages been exhibiting the wise and salutary effects, of allowing to the meanest subject in the realm some share and participation in the council of the nation, it remained for these ill-omened rulers to affix the brand of 'poverty^ and shut nine-tenths of the people without the sacred pale of the coAistitution. Is it for this that three hundred thousand freemen are to be called upon to sacrifice the birthright of their children? Is it for this that the scot and lot voters are to be stripped of a right which it is not pretended that they have abused, and which has decended to them from the free days of the constitution ? Is it for this that the counties of England are to be cas- trated of their manhood, and delivered up to that same nomination which it was the professed D ^6- object of this bill to destroy? and are we, with our eyes and ears closed, to stand by the while, chaunt- ing slavish hallelujahs to blunder and imbecility at home, and degradation and dishonour abroad ? " Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: and shall not my soid he avenged on such a nation as thisf^* 1 APPENDIX. In order that the people may have the means of judging for themselves^ I have inserted at full length the clauses referred to in my Letter. The two first clauses are extracted faithfully from the bill on which ministers went to the country, that is to say, from the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill. The two last are taken from the bill now before the Lords, that is to say, from the bill which, I say, is not the bill, nor any thing like the bill. Clauses from the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill. 24, And be it enacted, That in all elections of members to serve in any future Parliament for cities and boroughs, every male person of full age, and not subject to any legal incapacity, who shall have occupied, as owner or tenant, for six calendar months next previous to the day of in the present year, or next previous to the last day of August in any succeeding year, within any such city or borough, any house assessed to the duty on inhabited houses upon a yearly value of not less than ten pounds, or any house, warehouse, or countinghouse of the clear yearly value of not less than ten pounds, or hondfide subject to a yearly rent of not less than ten pounds, or which shall have been for the same time rated to the relief of the poor upon a yearly value of not less than ten pounds, and in respect of which house. 28 warehouse, or countinghouse respectively all the rents, rates, and taxes then due shall have been paid, shall, if duly registered according to the provisions herein-after contained, have a right to vote for such city or borough ; and that no persons other than such occupiers as aforesaid shall have a right t6 vote at any such election : Provided always, that every person now having a right to vote at any election for any city or borough in virtue of any corporate right, or to take up his freedom in virtue of any cor- porate right, and every child of a freeman, such child being born previously to the passing of this Act, and every apprentice bound to any freeman previously to the passing of this Act, which child or apprentice would have been entitled to vote at such election if this Act had not been passed, shall respectively retain, acquire, and enjoy such right of voting during their respective lives, and shall be entitled to vote, if duly registered, according to the provisions herein-after contained ; but no such person shall be registered in the present or in any succeeding year unless he shall have resided for six calendar months next previous to the day of in the present year, or next previous to the last day of August in any such respective succeeding year, within seven statute miles of the place at which the election for such city or borough has been usually holden, or in the case of the places sharing in elections, and named in schedule (F.) to this Act annexed, within seven statute miles of any of the said places respectively : Provided also, that every person now having a right to vote by reason of owning or occupying any tenement, or by reason of inhabitancy, shall retain such right so long as he shall own or occupy the same, or any other tenement in the same place, or shall inhabit the same place, if by reason of such ownership, occupation, or inhabitancy he would have had a right of voting in such place by the laws or customs now in force, and such person shall be allowed to vote, if duly registered according to the provisions herein-after contained ; but no such person shall be registered unless he shall have owned, occupied, or inhabited, in such place as aforesaid, for six calendar months, to be com- puted as aforesaid. 35. And be it enacted, That in all elections whatever of members to serve in any future Parliament no inquiry shall be permitted at the time of palling, except as to whether the person 29 claimin£^ to vote be the saine whose name appears in svch reyitter, and whether such person shall have previously voted at the same election, both which inquiries the returning officer or his deputy shall, if required on behalf of any candidate, make from each voter at the time of tendering his vote, upon the oath, or, in case of a Quaker or Moravian, upon the affirmation of such voter ; and that no elector shall hereafter, at any election, be required to take any oath or affirmation in proof of his freehold, residence, age, or other his qualification or right to vote, any law or statute, local or general, to the contrary notwithstanding ; and no elector shall be excluded from voting at any such election, except by reason of his refusing to take the other oaths or make the other affirmations required by this or any other Act, and not hereby dispensed with. The same clauses from the hill not the bill, nor any thing like the bill. 21. And be it enacted, That in every election of a member or members to serve in any future Parliament for any city or borough, every male person of full age, and not subject to any legal inca- pacity, who shall have occupied within any such city or borooagh, or within any place sharing in the election for such city or borough, as owner or tenant, for twelve calendar months next previous to the first day of February, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty two, or next previous to the last day of August in any succeeding year, any house assessed to the duty on inhabited houses upon a yearly value of not less than ten pounds, or any house, warehouse, or countinghouse, being, either separately or conjointly with any land owned and occupied therewith, or occu- pied therewith under the same landlord, of the clear yearly value of not less than ten pounds, or rated to the relief of the poor upon a yearly value of not less than ten pounds, or any house, warehouse, or countinghouse, for which, whether separately or jointly with any land occupied therewith, under the same land- lord, he shall be bond fide liable to a yearly rent of not less than ten pounds, shall, if duly registered according to the provisions hereinafter contained, have a right to vote in the election of a member or members to serve in Parliament for such city or 30 borough : Provided nevertheless, that no person so occupying such premises, so assessed or rated as aforesaid, or of the yearly value or rent as aforesaid, shall by reason thereof acquire a vote in any such election, unless such person shall have paid, on or before the twentieth day of January, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, all the poor's rates and assessed taxes which shall have become payable from such person in respect of such premises previously to the eleventh day of October then next preceding, or shall have paid on or before the twentieth day of August in any succeeding year all the poor's rates and assessed taxes which shall have become payable from him in respect of such premises previously to the respective sixth day of April then next preceding, nor unless such person, where his right to vote shall depend upon his being bond fide liable to a yearly rent of not less than ten pounds as aforesaid, shall, in addition to the payment of the poor's rates and assessed taxes as aforesaid, have also paid on or before the said twentieth day of January, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, all the rent which shall have become due from such person in respect of his premises so rented previously to the twenty-ninth day of September then next preceding, or shall have paid on or befos'e the twentieth day of August in any succeeding year, all the rent which shall have become due from him in respect of such premises so rented previously to the respective twenty-fourth day of June then next preceding: Provided also, that no tenant so occupying such premises as aforesaid at a yearly rent of not less than ten pounds, shall by reason thereof acquire a vote in the election for any city or borough, if by any agreement or con- trivance, or by virtue of any Act of Parliament, or otherwise, the landlord shall be liable to the payment of the rates for the relief of the poor in respect of such premises ; but that, nevertheless, where by virtue of any Act of Parliament* the landlord shall be liable to the payment of such rates, it shall be lawful for any such tenant to claim to be rated in respect of such premises, and upon his actually paying the full amount of the rate or rates then due in respect of such premises to acquire the same right of voting as * Tlicrcfore the tenant has a rif^ht to claim to be rated onli/ in the case wlicie the lancUoid is liable by Act of Parliament. 31 if his landlord had not been so liable for such rates : Providcfl also, that the premises, in respect of the occupation of which any person shall be deemed entitled to vote in the election for any city or borough, shall he the same premises, and not different premises, respectively occupied for any portion of the said twelve months ; and that where such premises as aforesaid shall be jointly occupied by more than one person as tenant or owner, each of such joint occupiers shall be entitled to vote in respect thereof, in case the yearly value or yearly rent of such premises, or the yearly value in respect of which they shall have been assessed or rated as aforesaid, shall be of an amount which, when divided by the number of such occupiers, shall give a sura of not less than ten pounds for each and every such occupier, but not otherwise : Provided always, that no person shall, by reason of any thing herein contained, acquire a vote in the election for any city or borough who shall within twelve calendar months next previous to the first day of February, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, or next previous to the last day of August in any succeeding year, have been in the receipt of parochial relief. 41. And be it enacted. That in all elections whatever of mem- bers to serve in any future Parliament, no inquiry shall be per- mitted at the time of polling, as to the right of any person to vote, except only whether the person claiming to vote be the same whose name appears in such register as aforesaid, and whether such person's qualification for voting still continues, and whether such person shall have previously voted at the same election, all which inquiries the returning officer, or his respective deputy shall, if required on behalf of any candidate, make from each voter at the time of his tendering his vote, and not after, and shall also, if so required as aforesaid, then and there administer an oath, (or in case of a Quaker or Moravian, an affirmation,) to such voter, in the following form ; (that is to say) *' YOU A. B. do swear, [^orf being a Quaker or Moravian, do affirm,] that you are the same A. B. whose name appears on the register of voters for the county of [or, the part, riding, or division of the county of or the city or borough of as the case may be,] and that you still have the same freehold, [or, copyhold, or leasehold, or otherwise, fas the case may be, J 32 or, that you. still occupy the same house or warehouse, or otherwise, as the case may he, specifying in each case the nat^ire of the qualification, as described in the register,^ for which your name was inserted in the said register, or, in case of rights reserved by this Act, say that you still have the same qualification for which your name was inserted in the said register,] and that you have not before voted either here or elsewhere at the present election for the said county, [or, for the said part, riding, or division of the said county, or for the said city or borough, as the case may fee.] •' So help you GOD." THE END. l>ATiu8(>iV, Printer, Scrlc's) Plft«-e, Carey Street, I r»oii