lieve, which apartments he has still. This is Lawyer Croker, who justified the conduct of the Duke of York; though I do not think that he went so far as blind BURTON, who, when it was alleged that Mother Clarke had taken a footman from behind her chair to give him a commission, apologised for the act by saying that, though the lad was a footman, and though he was the son of a private soldier, he was, in fact, THE NATURAL SON of a gentleman, an officer, to whom his father had been a servant. The father and mother were both alive at the time that Burton made this assertion, and Burton was a WELSH JUDGE AT THE TIME! Go thy ways, go thy ways, honourable Ilouse! Whenever thou shalt cease to exist, the world will never look upon thy like again!

of reform what does it tell us?

but it is not therefore manly and straight-
forward. For instance, on the great question
us the slightest information? Does it let us
Does it give
into the secret whether the bill to be intro-
duced by the noble Lord on Monday next is to
be the same as that offered and rejected in the
Are we to have the identical
last session ?
measure which produced so much inflamma-
tion-the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but
the bill-or are we to have a more moderate
and better regulated plan, avoiding admitted
cession?
anomalies, and granting a more limited con-
and straightforward? Again I say that I do
In this respect is the speech manly.
not blame Ministers for the general terms in
which the King's Speech is couched; but
however manly and straightforward it may be
sion. (Cheers.) The hon. Bart. echoed the
in principle, it certainly is not so in expres→
sentiment of the King's Speech, in which,
notwithstanding some ambiguity in the terms,
am most ready to agree. Would to God we
clusion of the reform question! Would to God
could hope for a speedy and satisfactory con-
we could soon allay the hideous tempest Minis-
ters have raised! (Cheers.) In what words
do they cover their romantic and Quixotic
satisfactory? I tell Ministers now, as I told
wish that the termination may be speedy and
them before, that whatever may be their speed,
satisfaction will lag far behind. (Hear, hear.)
I tell them that the measure they are about to
produce, if it in any degree resemble the bill
of last session, so far from giving satisfaction,
will only be the beginning of trouble. Minis-
ters and their immediate retainers may be

pisters and retainers; but the great body of

Lawyer Croker, seeing the word speedy in this part of the speech; seeing it coupled with the idea of settling the question of reform, and feeling, no doubt, the seat that was under him shake, seems to have taken the aların, and he says, indeed, that he is alarmed: thus inspired, he, like SWIFT's operator in the "MECHANICAL OPERATION OF THE SPIRIT," spoke, as the seat that was be-satisfied, inasmuch as it will keep them Mineath gave him utterance, and in the following pious and affecting strain:Mr. CROKER: I am so reluctant to address the House on the present occasion, that I should gladly give way to any hon. Gentleman, for none can be less entitled than I am to its attention. I rise, however, to enter my protest against some of the principles laid down, or rather, perhaps, to be inferred, from the speeches of those who have preceded me; such a course is absolutely necessary on my part, and I dare say on the part of others who now hear me. We desire to guard ourselves from the supposition, that because we do not move an amendment, we participate in the views and measures of Government. The hon. Bart. who last addressed the House told us that the Speech from the Throne was manly and straightforward, such as became the constitutional King of a free people. (Cheers.) If by the words "manly and straightforward," it be meant that any clear and distinct views of policy are promulgated, I will venture that a less manly and straightforward speech was perhaps never delivered. (Hear, hear) I am not about to blame the speech: it has a great deal of moderation, which seems very wisely and properly calculated to prevent division and debate on the first day of a session;

the State stands aloof, and of whom does it consist? First, of the large mass of reformers who, for a moment, and but for a moment, are in alliance with Ministers. Secondly, that vast proportion of the thinking community which is unwilling that such a desolating hand should sweep down and level with the ground our most ancient and sacred institutions. (Cheers.) I will not hesitate to inquire what proportion of the intelligent classes are in the second division; but they constitute a vast and overwhelming majority, and may be almost said to be a universality of the educated people of England. Neither of these two divisions can be satisfied with the bill. Has there been a single public meeting which has not coupled approbation of the measure with a much larger and wider reform to be obtained hereafter; Have we not been told in distinct words that this bill is only a stepping stone to something else? Was it not avowed at one of the most important of those assemblies-important from the numbers and weight of the individuals present-that this was not the reform required? Did they not say, "This is not the reform we want, but it is the first step to it; accept it, therefore, as the means of obtaining all the rest. If you are foolish enough to quarrel with Ministers in this early stage of the subject,

the first week in December. (Much cheering.)
They told them that before the cholera made
its appearance-before the Political Unions
had attempted organization-before Bristol
had been burnt-before the whole frame
of society was in a state, if not of disso-
lution, of precariousness it was the order of
the great Leader of the Leader of the
Cabinet that Parliament was to meet. I
really do not know whether the phrase
was not that it should meet in the first
week in December. (Much cheering.) The
pleasure I have derived from some of the
constitutional expressions in the speech, I
must say, is exceedingly diminished when we
have the substantial proof that the Ministry
is itself subservient to the identical Associations
and influence which they are so naturally
anxious, but so powerless, to put down.
(Cheers.) I hope it will not be necessary to
resort to any extraordinary measures.
I hope
that timely suggestions upon the subject were
directed to other places as well as to Birming-
ham. (Hear, hear.), and that the example
will be followed. The noble Lord (Cavendish)
has appeared to-night, I believe, for the first
time as a debater among us. I hope he will
in future have frequent opportunities of thus
illustrating the great name that he bears,
but I cannot concur with him in the com-
ment he has read on one part of the royal
speech. He tells us that the mode Ministers
intend to adopt of putting down Unions is by
the redress of grievances. If grievances exist,
let them be redressed, but first let them be
shown. Carry the law into effect, and do not
grant to force what you would resist to reason.
(Much cheering.)

you will defeat the end of ultimate and com- |
plete success. Take what you can get now, not
only without prejudice toyour future claims, but
with the great advantage of additional power to
enforce them." (Hear, hear.) This I say in
the language of those who are friendly to the
bill out of doors. The hon. Baronet asks why
no Tories went to these public meetings to ex-
hibit their hostility? Does he recollect what
occurred at Bristol? I do not accuse the peo-
ple of England of participating in the spirit
which led to the riots there; but will the hon.
Baronet tell me, when the constitution of
society in this country is in such a state, that
a judge, with all precaution, and under the
sanction of his Majesty's Government cannot
enter a large city (cheers); and when he is
censured for the obstinacy and temerity with
which he proceeded, shall we blame the Tories
for not attending meetings where they could
not have a hope of being heard? Had the
Tories shown themselves at such meetings,
would they not have been accused of volunteer-
ing inflammation on the public mind, and
would not the blame have been instantly
shifted from the shoulders of the malefactors
to those of the injured party? (Much cheering
from the opposition benches.) When he will
procure for us all we want- a clear stage and
a fair hearing-I, for one, am ready to meet
the hon. Gentleman and his friends in any of
those ordeals, and to give reasons for the faith
that is in me! (Hear, hear.) But, with one
breath, he tells us that a handful of men
were able to destroy almost the second city of
the empire, and in the next he challenges
us to attend public meetings of reformers,
and asserts, because we do not attend, that
we are ashamed of the state of public feeling
which is so much against us. The next to-
pic of this manly and straightforward speech
is the prevalence of Political Unions; and
here I am bound to admit that there are ex-
pressions, especially towards the latter end,
which have my entire and cordial approbation.
(Cheers.) I agree with Ministers that there
can be or, at least, ought to be-but one
Government in the country. There ought not"
to be one Government in Downing-street,
another in the Strand, a third at Birmingham,
a fourth at Manchester, and a fifth at Bristol.
(Hear, hear.) The painful experience of the
last few months has shown us, that such a
state of things must end in the ruin of any
country that submits to it-it must end in the
ruin of any imbecile popularity-hunting Ca-
binet. (Cheers and laughter.) Although I
entirely approve of the meeting of Parliament
on this day; although the state of the world,
and of England in particular, considering that
state positively, relatively, officially, and com-
mercially, and, above all, politically, requires
that the King should be aided by the wisdom
of the Great Council of the Nation, yet I be

lieve that we are not indebted for it to the sa-
gacity, to the firmness, or even to the terrors
of the Ministers. (Hear, hear.) No, no;
their Master told them that they must meet in

call

"In the first place," as his Majesty graciously says in the first place, let us do justice to the piety of LAWYER CROKER. When FALSTAFF became pious, DAME QUICKLY began to be alarmed. "A begin to call o' God," says she, "and then I thought it over w'un; but I told un not to call o' God; for that there was time enew for that yet.” LAWYER CROKER begins to "o' God," and most lustily too. “Would "to God we could hope for a speedy and « satisfactory conclusion of the reform question! Would to God we could soon allay the hideous tempest Mi"nisters have raised!" Stop, LAWYER CROKER. I stop you here, and would have stopped you there, if I had been present. Your piety I reverence, in your prayer I join, if a mundane sinner like me can be admitted into such pious company; but the assertion here attributed to you by the reporter is as gross a falsehood as ever came out of a pair of

66

66

lips. The tempest has not been raised by ject, dissolved the Parliament, and the Ministers, except, indeed, by their thereby made an appeal to the wishes forbearance towards their insolent oppo- of the people: that the people, by ex`nents. This is a capital point, and let ertions of public spirit such as never us see how the matter stands. We were equalled, except in France during shall, by-and-by, find PEEL'S Bill: I do the early part of the revolution, answered not know very well how to do it, but I his Majesty appeal, by sending the Mialways will, in future, couple this man's nisters (in spite of the rotten boroughs) bill with his name. I would call him a majority of a hundred and nine instead BILL PEEL, but, unfortunately for us, of a majority of one; that the country there is a William Peel; so that the use was quiet from one end of it to the other; of this appellation might create misun- that the only strife was who should be derstanding; and, in that case, I should the foremost in expressions of gratitude be doing injustice to the brother. Ito the King, and in support of the meathink I shall call him PEEL'S-BILL sure; that even the fires had been exPEEL. The length of the name will tinguished, the farmers believing that cause a little paper and ink to be reform would ease their burdens, and wasted; but it is so just and so neces- enable them to pay the wages which the sary to keep it constantly in the public labourers had demanded, and which mind; so incessantly necessary to tell they had agreed to pay; that now came this suffering and troubled nation that the REJECTION of the bill; and inthis man made his first appearance as a stantly sprang up riots and fires; instatesman by introducing a measure stantly came forth projects for refusing which has been the great cause, and is to pay taxes, and a general array of postill the great cause, of all their suffer- pular hostility against settled legal auings and all their troubles: this is so thority., Are not these facts undeniable? necessary, that we must not mind the Is there any man with brass enough to wasting of a little paper and a little ink deny the truth of them? Will not the in order to accomplish it. burning of bishops in effigy, the burning down of the bishop's palace, the burning down of Nottingham castle? will not Wellington's boarding up his windows and keeping them boarded up? will not the finger that is pointed at that, be an index also to guide us to the true cause of that "tempest" in which the state is now rocking to and fro? PEEL'sBILL PEEL most bitterly complains, that the Lords who voted against the bill, could not go in safety to their own country homes: and he, too, ascribes this to the tempest raised by Ministers. What, son of the spinning-jenny baronet! A man proposes to me that I should give another man his coat that I have taken away; I refuse; the owner

This PEEL'S-BILL PEEL made the same charge against the Ministers, and that poor feeble creature, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, uttered not a word having a tendency to rebut the charge, though that charge was of the gravest character. This poor man might, if he had had the talent and the pluck, have covered his opponents with confusion upon this great point. For, as I asked before, how stand the facts? The facts stand thus; that the monient the Reform Bill was brought in, the whole nation, the boroughmongers, pensioners, taxeaters in general, and parsons excepted, declared their unanimous wish for the passing of the bill; that the nation was equally unanimous in calling for a dis-of the coat knocks me down; and I am solution of the Parliament, in order that to lay the assault, not to my own acthe bill might be carried, seeing that count, but to the account of the man even the second reading had been car- who has suggested the propriety of my ried only by a majority of one; that the giving up the coat! Ah! says LAWYER King, in this state of things, justly, CROKER; but if the proposition had wisely, and like a man who was really never been made for your giving up the anxious to obtain a knowledge of the coat, the owner never would have sentiments of the people upon the sub-thought of knocking you down; he

bills, were all insufficient to check the tide of reform, resorted to that long and bloody war, the real object of which was

might not have known that you had the coat; and even if he had known it, he might, you having had the coat in your possession a long while, have said no-to keep down and to stifle the reformers thing about the matter, seeing that he had been quiet upon the subject for so long a time. This is your argument, Lawyer Croker; this is the argument of the whole of you: it is in the mouth of every tax-eater, from yourself down to the draggle-tailed oily-tongued wife of the lowest clerk in the lowest of the offices established to uphold this system: it is the argument of every scoundrel attorney, and of the wife of every scoundrel attorney, who has fattened by being the agent of the boroughmongers, and who sees in the Reform Bill something as hideous as the dreadful anticipation which was presented to the mind of FALSTAFF when he thought that the black fly on Bardolph's nose was a black soul beckoning him to hell! This is your argument, which is directly contradicted by the notorious facts.

in England, but which war (here, indeed, Lawyer CROKER, one may well "call o' God," and admire the way in which he inflicts justice) made the debt unbearable, and that unbearable debt is now producing reform, and urging men to call for the abolition of the tithes ! During that long and bloody war, and the suspension of all liberty of the people of England, the reformers were made to be comparatively silent; but still they were always active: the question was always kept alive; and a session of Parliament never passed without ten or more petitions for reform. The war ended at last; but the burdens did not end. Distress spread itself all over the kingdom; and though there were quack remedies enough on foot, the sensible part of the nation saw no remedy but in a reform. And from For upwards of sixty years, the the date of the peace to the year 1817, question of reform has been under dis- not a session passed without more than cussion; the American war was as- two hundred petitions for Parliamentary cribed by Major Cartwright and his col- reform. In 1817, a million and a half leagues, at the time, to the corrupt bo- of men petitioned for a Parliamentary rough system, and to the immense sums reform; they were abandoned by BURof money which, through the means of the DETT, who had been their great stimuboroughs, the boroughmongers sacked lator to petition, and the answer to their through the channels opened to them by petitions consisted of two bills, passed the war. Fifty-one years ago, or there- with speed indeed, and for both of which abouts, the Duke of Richmond actually Lawyer Croker voted, as did Peel's-Bill brought a bill into the House of Lords, Peel also; one of which bills took away to destroy the whole of the villanous the liberty of the press, and the other of system. At about the same period, the which bills empowered Castlereagh and old Lord Chatham warned the Parlia- Sidmouth to imprison any man or woment, that, if it did not reform itself man that they pleased, in any jail or within, it would be reformed from with- dungeon that they pleased, without out with a vengeance; and a little after stating to any-body what they did it for; this time, his since-political-apostate son to let such persons out when they declared, that without a Parliamentary pleased, to keep them in the jails and reform no honest man could be a Minis-the dungeons as long as they pleased; ter in England; assertion which he to refuse them, if they pleased, the use most amply verified by his afterwards of pen, ink, and paper, and also to rebeing the Minister for about fifteen or fuse them a sight of their parents, wives, sixteen years. Next came the years and children; and accordingly, the 1792, 1793, 1794, when the question of dungeons resounded with their groans. reform was agitated much more than Not liking to be so situated myself; theretofore; and when the political-preferring Long Island to a dungeon apostate Pitt, finding that gagging bills, of Sidmouth, I took myself thither, dungeon bills, power-of-imprisonment whence I reached the old fellow with my

long arm, and whence I, joining with the oaf says to be true; admitting that my brother reformers left in England, this base reporther, who I dare say exsent the honourable concern at West-ists by sponging about, and picking up minster my petitions for reform. From rewards for reporths of this kind; adthat time to the month of November in mitting even this to be true; allowing the last year, more and more numerous, the audacious lie that the press stimuextending to richer and richer classes of lated the people of Bristol to bastinado, persons; more and more loud have and even to murder, Wetherell ; admitbeen the petitions for Parliamentary ting this atrocious lie to be a truth, reform, for an abolition of the accursed what did the press do this FOR? Why, boroughs, and for greatly extending the because Wetherell had done more than suffrage, and greatly shortening the any other man to throw obloquy on the durations of Parliament. Reform Bill, and to stimulate the Lords to reject that bill. Therefore, it is still to the rejection of the bill that the tempest is to be ascribed.

८८

How, then, Lawyer CROKER, can the tempest" have been raised by these Ministers, who have been in office only thirteen months. You cannot deny that Now, then, it being undeniable that the tempest does not direct itself against both the immediate and the distant them you cannot have the impudence causes of the" tempest "are to be found to deny that the terrible affair at Bris- in the refusal and rejection of reform, tol arose immediately out of the rejec-let us come back again to the epoch at tion of the Reform Bill. Stop, now, which these Ministers came into power, Lawyer CROKER. Will you say that and let us see what was the state of the you believe that WETHERELL would country then! The fires had been blazhave been obliged to flee from the ing over the country for some time bench in disguise; that the bishop's when the Parliament met in October. palace would have been burned; that The Prime Minister took the earliest the bishops would have been burned in opportunity of proclaiming that no reeffigy; that the opposition lords would form was wanted, and that he never not have been able to go to their would consent to reform. The country country houses in safety? Will you was absolutely in a blaze of indignation. say, Lawyer CROKER, that you believe The King, who had accepted an invitathat these things would have been, if tation of the city of London to dine the Reform Bill had not been rejected? with the Lord Mayor, was compelled Tell me that, flat and plain; because, if to decline to fulfil the engagement, lest you will say that, I have done with he should thereby cause a spilling of the you. There is a reporther who, in a blood of his people. And have you publication which he puts forth, as forgotten, Lawyer CROKER, and has he has frequently put forth others, un- Peel's-Bill Peel also forgotten, that der the word "Hunt:" this base re- the Prime Minister was hooted and porther, this FOOL-LIAR, states that pelted and groaned at wherever he the violences at Bristol were occasioned went; that he could neither walk nor by the press, which the oaf-liar says, ride the streets in safety; that it was called upon the people of Bristol to impossible for him to remain in place "murder WETHERELL. But, you, any longer without the risk of producLawyer CROKER, though you rail in ing general anarchy ? You will not goodly terms against the press, are not deny, Lawyer CROKER, that this was fool enough to say this: you are not the state of the country; that "this such a beastly oaf as to put forth a lie tempest" was raging, when the Minisso impudent as this. And, now, our ters came into power, and that they speaking of the press, and bringing in stilled that tempest; and how did they what you say with regard to it: admit- still it? Why, by explicitly declaring in ting, for argument's sake, that the press their places in Parliament, that they has had a great deal to do in raising had come in upon the express condition the "tempest;" nay, admitting what that the King would allow them to pro