Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

should be twenty-one inches long and appearance, and for my keeping the seventeen inches wide! peace and being of good behaviour in After a hearty laugh from my hearers the meanwhile; but if he do not choose at the commendations which I here to bring me to trial, or if I be tried and bestowed on this surprising minuteness acquitted; though it be thus proved and care of our fine "representations," that he has held me to bail wrongfully, and of the proof that this afforded of if I before the day of trial commit any their anxious and sincere desire that the breach of the peace, or do any thing people should become instructed, I re- which he can make appear to be misturned to the bonds in which they hold behaviour, I and my bail have to forme and penalties which they have con- feit the recognizances which had been stantly hanging over my head. I told wrongfully taken! "Oh much injured them that, in the first place, I must have" Charles and Polignac! Englishmen, a license before I can have a press or "do not your cheeks burn when you types; that, having a mind to publish "reflect on the praises that you have a newspaper, daily or weekly, I must bestowed on those who drove one first go before the Government com- "out of the country, and put the other in missioners with my intended printer and" prison, merely because they attempted publisher, and to them we must swear "to destroy the liberty of the press"! that the paper is to be called by such a I then explained to them how much name, that we are the proprietor, printer, better it was for a country to have no and publisher, that the paper is to be press at ail than a press like ours, which published at such a place, and that we is a monopoly, leagued against truth. I ourselves live at such and such houses; showed them that it was this base press that after this I must take two bondsmen that had prolonged the sufferings of the to the same commissioners, to swear people; and that of all the curses that that they are worth such and such sums, ever inflicted a nation, the greatest was and to be security for my paying the a mercenary and corrupt and monopotaxes that these commissaries may de-lised press, free in name, and in reality mand of me for advertisements; that the villanous slave of power and inbefore I can print, I must next go before fluence, hostile to the interest of the one of the judges, take more bondsmen people. I illustrated this by several with me, and when each of them has cases of individual newspaper villains, sworn that he is worth four hundred whom I will, in a short time, string up pounds, over and above all debts and by name for the amusement of the demands, we all three enter into bonds people of Paris. to forfeit and pay to the King four hun- Having finished the press, I came to dred pounds towards paying any fine the other charge against Charles and that any judge may sentence me to pay his bloody ministers; namely, the atfor any thing that my paper may ever tempt to take from the French people contain! That, thus tightly bound up, the right of choosing their representaI may, when I have paid in advance for tives in the parliament! "Oh! the vilstamping the paper I have to print on, lains," said I, "Oh, the hellish tyrants! send forth my paper; that the Attorney- "Want to prevent the people of France General has the absolute power of ac- "from freely, and by ballot, choosing cusing me of libel by what he calls an "those who lay the taxes upon them! information; that as soon as he has" Not, indeed, to let them have no pardone this, he can send me to jail, there" liament; they meaned to let them to await my trial; and that, if he "have a very nice parliament; meaned choose, he may, when the day for trial" to let them have representatives of the comes, not have me tried; and then I "people still; but they themselves am let out of jail without any law to “meaned to choose them! What horgive me compensation. I may keep "rible tyrants! what barefaced ...... myself out of jail until the day for trial" ....... Here I was interrupted by finding two men to be bail for my by such a laughing, such a cheering,

tributed, and so on; after this I asked them, whether they believed that these things would be, if the people chose freely those who laid on the taxes and expended the money!

such a clapping of hands, and such peals of execrations against boroughmongers, that I found it would be waste of time to speak of LORD GREY'S 154 and Mr. MADDOX's couple, and went, at once, into the subject of PARLIAMEN- Having received the negative in a TARY REFORM, observing, that it was general shout, I congratulated my hear not a theory, not a mere name, not a ers on the rumour, that, after all the whim, but a great and important reality, abuse heaped upon reformers, the for which we were contending. After minister is going to propose a reform stating to them, that Sir JAMES GRA- himself; actually going to follow my HAM had shown that 113 of the aris- advice! I then told them, that the tocracy belonging to the privy council, corrupt press of London (to which releaving out the Bishops and members of form is death) is now telling us, that the Royal family, received public money Mr. BROUGHAM is to bring forward the to the amount of 650,000l. a-year, being plan, and that the Duke is not to oppose more than 207. a year for every working it. I then described the bawling Scotch man's family in the county of Sussex; Lawyer and dirty-skinned Baines, who being, at that rate (and that is more had put him in for Yorkshire. I gave than they get on an average) enough to a history of Brougham's rotten-borough maintain 162,000 people, a number ex- life, and told them of his rotten-borough ceeding that of the whole of the popula- brother. I described the sweet scheme tion of Bedfordshire or Buckingham- for humbugging the people with, seats shire: after stating to them, that BURKE'S for swell-headed fellows for Birmingpension had been paid out of our labour ham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. for now thirty years since his death; I explained to them why it was that the that we had already paid 95,000l. on big boroughmongers had suffered this account of it, and that we were paying it fellow to rave and brag at such a rate; still after stating to them, that, in 1808, and when I spoke of their creeping for Mrs. HERRIES and her four daughters shelter under the Scotchman's KELT, were on the pension list (and might be which I minutely described (pinching there still), while a poor old man at my nose with my thumb and fingers at TICEHURST, in this county, who kept the same time), the booth shook with himself out of the poor-house by the our laughter. Silence being restored I rent of two small cottages, was ordered proceeded somewhat thus: "What by the magistrates to sell the cottages" trick will be attempted I know not. to get means of keeping from the "The Duke is a man of plain sense, parish his orphan grand-children, and " and may, perhaps, do right at once, while the law justly compels the son to" that is to say, yield to universal sufmaintain his father and mother, if they" frage and voting by ballot; but that become chargeable to a parish, and if " rapacious and perfidious faction, the he be able to relieve them: after stat- "WHIGS, will hang on to the profitable ing to them, that, for forty-two years corruptions to the last moment; and, past, the two families of Grenville and beaten from one hold to another, will, Dundas had received more of public as a last hope, cling to householder money than the cost, during the same suffrage, that is, to exclude all men time, of supporting the whole of the civil" from voting, who are not householdgovernment of the United States of "ers, and, by refusing the ballot, make America after stating to them the" them vote in obedience to their landnumber of our Generals and Admirals, "lords and their customers; and thus, showing who and what they were," in fact, give us no reform at all." I showing who the military academy then explained to them, not only the people were, what were the motives of injustice, but the insolence, of refusing this establishment, who appointed the votes to the young men, who are to fight bishops, how the livings were dis- the battles of the country; the insolence,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

66

but a base boroughmonger, could possibly oppose the ballot, that being the only effectual means of securing freedom at elections.

I then came to the matter about which

the atrocious and unbearable insolence, to the people, every one seemed heartily of telling a man, on the day of election, to assent to the proposition, that nothing that he has no right to vote, because, as but a downright political rogue, none the brazen vagabonds call it, "he has no stake in the country ;" and, the next day, to have the devil-like brass to comand him to come forth to shed his blood in defence of that country! "He is old enough," said I, "to fight, wise I was most anxious, as it was of vast "and experienced enough to shed his importance in itself, and immediately "blood in defence of the laws; but pressing; the burnings in the county of "not wise enough to have a vote in the Kent, to some of which I had been very choosing of those who are to make near as I had come along, and which it "those laws! And will the young men would be folly to suppose will, unless a "of England submit to this! Will remedy be applied, either cease, or be they creep under the kelt of this confined to that country. I began by "bawling Scotch Lawyer!" "No, no, observing, that, for many years past, I no, no!" told me that the bawler would had taken every opportunity, whether become (as I have always said he by print or by speech, to warn the would) the scorn of the nation; not the middle class, and particularly the farmhatred, but the scorn. "But," said I, ers, against the arrival of the time when "let us see how such a scheme would the millions would take vengeance on "work. Our Government, having Tal- the thousands, and to call on the latter "leyrand in its bosom, and, for many to make, while there was yet time, reasons, loving the Citizen King, are common cause with the former; advice not, at present, in danger from the which I should now take the liberty to "French. But, if any thing were to urge on, or, at least, to suggest to, such turn up to place a hundred steam- farmers as then did me the honour to be "boats at Boulogne, each with a thou-present. "How many hundreds of "sand armed soldiers on board (there times," said I, "I have warned my "are boats in America carrying 2,000)," readers, my hearers, the public and "and each with two or three pieces of "the Government of this danger! How "cannon, and with a board on the mast many times have I told them, that to "of each, with the words, BOUND TO "this dreadful state things would come "PEVENSEY LEVEL, upon it. What a "at last, unless measures were adopted "galloping about here, for instance," to prevent it! No such measures "to call people out to defend the coast! "have been adopted, and this state of "The old men would be of no use; 66 the things is come. To expect it to be "farmers must take care of their houses" confined, in the end, to the county of "and corn and cattle, the shop-keepers" Kent, is nonsense. As winter ap

66

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"of their shops and goods. The Lord "proaches it will spread, and violence "Lieutenant and his Deputies must" and terror will prevail throughout the "then call out the young men, 'Come, greater part of England. The rule of 66 6 come, my brave fellows, drive back" this Government, and of all persons in "these Frenchmen !' For what?" authority, for many years, appears to "You say that we have no stake in the "have been, that force and punishment "country; why, therefore, should we was the only remedy for every thing "risk our lives? The French will not "that was wrong. The people are "eat us; and they can take from us no " suffering from hunger, and are disconrights; for we have none.'" "tented; oh! an addition to the seThat was enough! That settled the "verity of the law. The people, pressed point in the minds of all my hearers." by hunger kill the game more than they The unjust and stupid Scotch scheme of "did: oh! empower the Squires to householder suffrage was hooted off in" transport them for seven years, instead derision; and the ballot being explained" of putting them in prison for three

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

"months. The people are become so even instituted an inquiry into the poor and wretched at their homes," causes of this disgraceful change in "that they prefer a prison to these" the state of the people? Never; and "homes: oh! do they? make a tread-" never will, until it be chosen by the "mill to torment them there. The " people at large. Is there a common "people come to demand, in virtue of" left for the labourer's cow or pig or "the law, parish relief, and the over- goose? Is there a stick of wood or a seer, sometimes not much better off" bit of heath or turf left to warm his "than themselves, gives them too much" wife and her miserable baby? And "relief: oh! does he? bring up Sturges 66 yet men affect to wonder what in all (old Parson Sturges's son and a mem- "the world can ail the people! What "ber for Christchurch); bring up this" can make them so discontented and “' amiable friend' of Canning; bring "so vindictive!"

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

[ocr errors]

64

[ocr errors]

"him up from Hampshire, with a I concluded with the bill for authocouple of Acts, ready prepared by the rising the hired overseer, or any keeper "Parsons, the first, to give many votes of the poor or of poor-sick, or poor"to one rich rate-payer, and to leave debtors, to dispose of their dead bodies, "the poorish rate-payer with a single and, of course, to sell them for dissec"vote; and the second, to enable this tion, unless some one came and gave "new sort of vestry to make a Se- security that he would pay for their in"lect Vestry, with power to overrule terment in the usual way! Thus "the overseer, to take from him the putting the poorest of the poor, the power of giving relief, to make him a most unfortunate of the unfortunate, mere collector of the rates, to employ upon a level with the murderer! a stranger, if they choose, an Irish- This horrible bill, I told my hearers, man, a Scotchman, a Dutchman, or brought in by one WARBURTON and "even a Swiss, to be the dispenser of defended by the BLOODY OLD TIMES, "relief to the poor; to pay this fellow a by HовHOUSE, the son of the commissalary out of the money raised to feed sary of the Nabob of Arcot's debts, and "the poor with, and, as is actually the who (where is the wonder!) has since "case in many parishes, to make his been pelted from the hustings of Co"salary large in proportion as he makes vent-garden with cabbages and turnips: "the relief small! And, after all this, this bill, I told them, this cruel bill, "they expect the people to be contented was passed almost unanimously by those "and good-humoured! It has been who are called the representatives of the proved by evidence given before com- people; that the Ministers in both Houses "mittees of the House of Commons, supported it; and that I verily believed "that the honest and industrious la- it would have become a law, if I had "bourer is fed and clothed worse than not petitioned against it. I then gave "the felons in the hulks; that hundreds them the history of that petition, and "and thousands of honest and good concluded with a description of the in"labourers have been compelled to draw evitable effects of that ferocious bill. I wagons and carts like beasts of bur- depicted a husband with his pretty, in"den; that it is the practice to put the nocent, and recently blooming Sussex "labourers up to auction and sell them wife, brought by accumulated calami"for different terms, as the negroes are ties to the verge of death under the "sold in the West Indies; that it is claws of one of Sturges Bourne's kind "the practice to keep poor men apart overseers; I supposed the poor husband "from their wives to prevent them from seeing that beautiful body, the object having children; all these and many almost of his adoration, handed over to more such things have been proved ruffians to be carried away from his "before committees of the House of sight, to be stretched out naked upon a "Commons, and the labourers have board, there to be pulled and stretched "been taxed to pay for printing this and poked and hacked to pieces like evidence; but, has that House ever the carcass of a rotten sheep! "What

66

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"must be his feelings," said I," and "what, if he had strength remaining, "would be the act of that husband! If "the lightning's blast were refused to "his prayer, would not Nature, in its "last dictates, guide his hand to a dagger, a knife, or a something!"

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

them that the farmers are fellow-sufferers with them; to show them that all the new and severe laws, all that enrages them, have been caused by acts of the Parliament; that these have been passed because the people do not choose the members; that the remedy for this is, Boroughmongers, have you ever seen for the people to demand, in the legal the famous picture representing the and peaceable way of petition, a restordeath of the hypocrite ANANIAS! Look ation of their right to choose the memat it you will see the upper part of bers; and that here is a petition ready; the bodies of the spectators drawn back," let us all sign it; and then we shall their chins sinking towards their breasts," soon be restored to the happy state in their mouths open,' eyes fixed on the "which our forefathers lived." I then Apostle, horror at the blasphemous told them, that if pride, or any other crime, and awe at the dreadful judg-motive, induced the farmers to refuse ment expressed in every countenance. to resort to this easy remedy, induced Such precisely was the effect on my them still to refuse to make common audience at Battle, and especially on the cause with the labourers, it was they pretty innocent women, who were sit- who would be the sufferers in the end; ting immediately before me, while the or, rather, that they would be the first execrations of the young men were mut-sufferers, and that the end would be tered throughout the assembly.

Here, then, as I told them, are the true causes of the fires in Kent. 1 then pointed out the remedy, and the ONLY REMEDY, menaces and force and punishment being now wholly unavailing; and when the Parliament has evidence before it, proving that men commit crimes in order to get into the hulks to BETTER THEIR LOT, of what avail can menaces be? What dread can such men have of the jail or the bullet? I told the Duke of Wellington, the moment he was in office, "The time is at "hand when it will become a choice "with the labourers, certain death from "starvation, or the chance of death "from rope or gun; and be assured, "my Lord Duke, that Englishmen will "prefer the latter. Think, then, be"times of the consequences of parish "after parish combined till there be half "a county in commotion"!

The remedy, I told them, was this: for the farmers of every parish to call all the people together; to read to them our London petition (of which I had given a copy to every hearer); to explain to them, as Mr. BoYCE, of Waldershare, in Kent, did to the Committee of the House of Commons, that it was the taxes that disabled the farmers to give the labourers sufficient wages; to show

general commotion, and a changing of hands of all property.

And now, boroughmongers, let me turn again to you for a moment. Read, read, boroughmongers, and you will find that this country, this formerly happy England, is now much about in the state that France was just before the revolution of 1789; that it was not Voltaire or Diderot or any other philosopher, but the rapacious and insolent noblesse and the grinding tax-gatherers and the hellish Jews and loan-jobbers who produced that revolution; that it began not amongst the "rabble” (as the bloody old Times calls the working people) of Paris, but amongst the quiet and dispersed labourers in the fields and vineyards; and, boroughmongers, hear it and reflect in time, their motto or signal was, “Guerre aux chateaux, paix aux chaumières"; " War to the houses of the rich, peace to the cottage." Think of this, look at Kent, see winter coming. Do, however, just what you please; say or swear what you like; creep under Brougham's kelt (foh!) if you choose; but you will not have to say, that you have not been duly warned by

Ум. СОВВЕТТ.

N. B. Will no one give us a picture, representing a parcel of boroughmongers poking their heads up under Brougham's

« ZurückWeiter »