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should, I dare say, contrive to make a mination, so that when one said Churley great deal cheaper than this. It is not in the city, it was quite unnecessary to many years ago since JOHN REEVES was add Pearson: about a year ago the prosecuted, by order of the House of Charley, being a Common-Councilman, Commons, for calling in question the and, of course, a colleague of the stablewisdom of the glorious Revolution of man in Fetter-lane, who, till I quitted 1688, at which the Doctor now sneers his stables, had at once the occasional with as much contempt as he sneers at care of my horse, and was my representhe sacredness of the sepulchre when the tative in the city of London House of dead bodies of the poor are in question. Commons. About a year ago, I say, The truth is, that we now never hear the famous Charley made a motion of the word "glorious" pronounced, in this little House of Commons, to before that revolution. It was I, by characterize which justly, to do full my History of the Protestant Refor-justice to it, I defy the pen and mation (which the Doctor called " pig's tongue of mortal man: in this House meat"), and which all the nations in the of Commons, the Charley (from some world have been devouring from that quite sufficient motive, I dare say), just day to this, thereby proving that men after he came from Preston, where he and women are only two-legged swine. had been participating (as Mr. Mitchell It was I who shamed the nation, who now tells us) in the pleasure of hearing fairly cudgeled it out of its stupid praises the Cock crow, and after he had been of the Whig revolution. Some months and promised the people of Bolton that ago, sitting in a room which looked out he would do them the honour to repreupon the MONUMENT, on the base of sent them in a reformed parliament; which were the infamous words accusing just after his return, the Charley made the Catholics of having set fire to the a motion in the little House of Comcity of London, and seeing a scaffolding mons in the City, of which he is a most around that base, and some stone-masons worthy meniber; he made a motion for at work with their mallets and chisels, the effacing of the aforesaid inscription I asked my friend, who was sitting at from the Monument, and the speech the window with me, what those men which he made, in introducing the mowere doing. He told me they were tion, consisted of the aforesaid paragraph chiselling off the letters charging the of the History of the Protestant ReCatholics with having fired the city. formation, garnished at head and foot My God! exclaimed I to myself, I set by an abundant supply of that species even these city creatures to work, and, of oratory for which the Charley is so in spite of nature, make them act justly! famous, and which gives such delight The History of the matter is this: In my to the butchers' boys. The orator prehistory of the PROTESTANT REFORMA- vailed, the motion was carried unaniTION (which the sour Doctor Black mously, and thus was this act of justice called PIG'S MEAT), Volume 1, para-ordered to be done! Amongst his nugraph 370, I gave the history, and merous virtues, Charley, it must be exposed the infamy, the base and cow-confessed, has his faults, amongst which ardly injustice, of this inscription. is an itching palm for other people's About a year ago, the renowned CHARLEY goods; literary goods I mean, to take PEARSON, whose surname, however, it which without the owner's leave is, in is superfluous to add; "this CHAIRMAN the language of literary courtesy, called of the Committee of Health," and correspondent of the Whig Privy-Council, having made himself so famous as to be, like sovereign princes, called solely by his first name, and that name having, from the affection which his conduct so naturally excited, been made to take the friendly and. fraternal ter

plagiarism. Only a few weeks ago, the Charley, in making a speech against Waithman, compared his sham-retirement of some years ago to the conduct of a POPE, who shammed illness and approaching death, but who, the moment he was proclaimed Pope, flung away his crutch, and became more

vigorous than ever. The Charley has a good memory, for he went some years back to take this piece of history from the Register, where, too, I had applied it to this very Waithman. There was, however, one little thing which the Charley had forgotten, namely, the name of the Pope, whom he called Gregory, when I had called him SIXTUS the Fifth. From this digression, into which I had been involuntarily led by the rare endowments and exploits of the Charley, I return to remind the reader that not, until of very late years, till since the publication of Paper against Gold, was the Whig revolution of 1688 ever spoken of but with admiration. Nobody ever speaks of it now but as of a boroughmongering trick played upon the nation, and as the radical cause of our debts and of all our sufferings. Doctor Black sneers at it, and contempt and hatred are the feelings which the mention of it always excite; and again, I say that it was I who shamed the nation into this way of thinking. We will now return to the Doctor and his commentary on the letter of Mr. Drum

those to whom the suffrage is to be given by the Reform Bill, thereby to defeat reform altogether; for he knows well that if it is with difficulty that Ministers can carry the present bill, it would be utterly impossible for them, or any other Ministry, to carry, by constitutional means, a more extensive reform. But let not Mr. Drummond and his brother AutiReformers push this Machiavelism too far. They cannot now prevent reform; but by endeavouring to inflame the animosity of the working classes, they may create a confusion which may end in results of which they do mences, that of law is at an end; and if they not dream. When the reign of violence comconsult history, they will find that property is entirely the creature of law, and that when the bonds of law are loosened, a quondam rich in the general scramble. We warn all these man has no more than what he can pick up rich men, who play the demagogue by way of finesse, that if they succeed in throwing the masses into movement, they will be the first arrest the movement when they want to do so. to repent of it. It may not be in their power to And what does he mean by a reform which should allow political power to remain to the aristocracy, and not giving it to the delegates mean that the aristocracy shall dispose of the of the middling classes? He must either property of the nation without responsibility, or he means nothing. They who control the expenditure of the nation, must either return themselves, or he returned by others. If they return themselves, they are of course responsible. If they are returned by others, they But let us see what Mr. Drummond means must be returned by a body sufficiently rich by an efficacious reform: "I wish (he says) and sufficiently numerous to be identified in "political power to remain with the aristoc- interests with the nation. They to whom "racy, because by such means alone can the the suffrage is given by the Reform Bill, "monarchy exist; if that power is to be trans- are sufficiently rich and sufficiently nume "ferred to another class, it is revolution; torous to be identified in interest with the "give that power to all classes, has justice nation. We are not of the number of those "and consistency; to give it to one only, has who think that any great danger would "neither." Here the cloven foot appears. arise from a still greater extension of the Mr. Drummond knows well enough that the suffrage, and we believe that any immediate very aristocracy under whose bauner he fights evil which might be occasioned by an inhave opposed the Reform Bill chiefly on the judicious exercise of the suffrage, would be ground of its giving the suffrage to all classes. more than compensated for by the motive They, like Mr. Drummond, would have no which it would give to the rich to instruct the objection to allow the suffrage to be possessed poor, that the suffrage might be exercised by potwalloping paupers in venal boroughs; judiciously. But we know that fears are enand they raised a cry, as he does now, against tertained on this subject, and knowing also the hardship of depriving poor people of their that under the Reform Bill the suffrage franchise; with the interested view of enlist-is communicated to a body too rich and too ing the poor people to support a system which, numerous to he bribed, and which is identified at the expense of the degradation of a part of in interest with the nation, we think the their number, enabled the aristocracy to dip question of greater extension of suffrage is not deep into the property of the whole nation, one on which reformers ought to quarrel, and thus contribute to the distress of the seeing that all which can be done by a repreworking classes in general. Mr. Henry sentation chosen under a more extended sufDrummond-Saint as he is-is, we suspect, frage, will and must be done by a represen as familiar with Machiavel as with the Evan-tation chosen under the Reform Bill. gelists. He knows very well that no Minister aristocracy is not identified with the nation, of this country can possibly carry a reform which should give a suffrage to all classes. He throws out this lure, therefore, to the working classes, in order to array them against

mond.

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either in regard to property or numbers, and the allowing uncontrolled power to remain with the aristocracy, is to allow power to remain with those who have an interest in abus

ing it, to the prejudice of the nation. But the that the suffrage, appointed by that bill, middle classes mean all who possess property, is to be less extensive than it was before; except the few who, though possessing adi

that

vidually large properties, possess but a small and if this be the case, then I say share of the property of the nation. The Mr.Drummond is right, and that I prefer middle classes, therefore, are interested in ob- things to remain just as they are, rather taining all that benefits the nation, and pre- than to see the country delivered over to venting all that injures the nation. Whatever affects them affects the working classes. They a damned aristocracy of money, which, are the great accumulators of capital; and as besides its injustice, besides the endless they are thriving or suffering, the working and remorseless oppressions that it must classes thrive or suffer. The whole, therefore, engender, must lead to open war between of what Mr. Drummond says, respecting the the rich and the working people. transference of power from the aristocracy to the delegates of the middling classes, is a poor, paltry piece of sophistry. The aristoracy will retain all the power that any man ought to have, the power of legislating, subject to a responsibility to those whose weal or woe is affected by their legislature. Rich men will in general be chosen to represent the people; but it will be rich men less able to do good, and deprived of the power to do harm. It will be the wolf without his teeth. There is no way of leaving power to the aristocracy, without responsibility to either the middling classes or to all classes, which shall not be liable to gross abuse. There is no principle better established than that, if we wish to guard against abuse-they who pay the taxes should choose those who have the disposal of

them.

The doctor is very much deceived, if he believes, that the " great accumulators of property" have interests identified with those of the working-people. The doctor has forgotten the combination-laws, which severely punished the bodies of working-men for combining,. and made it compulsory on them to impeach their comrades on oath, if called upon so to do, while those laws inflicted only a slight fine on the "accumulators," and imposed on them no oath for the accusation of one another, in case of their combining against the workmen. The interests are not suffiNow, though Mr. Drummond is ciently identified to make the master a wrong in wishing all political power to good voter for the man; and the Docremain with the aristocracy, the Doctor tor may be well assured, that, if votes is equally wrong in what he says upon were given only to the "accumulators," the subject. Mr. Drummond says, give and if such a Parliament could exist the suffrage to all or leave it where it is. for any length of time, monopoly on I should have said the same from the the one hand, and degradation and starbeginning, had I not seen in the ten-vation on the other, would become pound voters, in great towns, the means more hideous than they are now. The of putting in from fifty to a hundred working people can never have their members; by the voice of the working interests attended to; can never be people. This was not enough to con- fairly treated, till they have the choos tent me, and I always said so; but, as ing of members themselves. Enough of the rotten boroughs were all to be disfran- them, to have spoken the voice of the chised, and as the working people were whole of them, would be the case, if to have the sending of these members every man in the great towns renting a to Parliament, I was willing to take the house at the rate of ten pounds a year had bill as it stood, and to give it a fair a vote; but this is what I believe neither trial, and this I say still. The Doctor party intend they shall have; I believe says, that the greater extent of suffrage that both parties mean to support the is not worth quarrelling about. No, bill, as far as it goes to take away the provided all the rest of the bill be car- right of voting from the working peoried into full effect; but, while the ple, and to give the right of voting to Doctor is arguing with Mr. Drummond, no one working man; and I agree with upon the assumption that it is still the Mr. Drummond, that this would be takbill, and the whole bill, which is again ing away power from the aristocracy to be proposed, he gives us pretty" to give it to delegates of the middle plainly to understand, that the whole" class, and thereby really convert the bill is not again to be proposed; and "monarchy into a bad Republic," but I

"to

do not agree with him, that it would sion and sinecure and grant and deadleave the working people as they were weight list and the thundering standing before: knowing, as I do, that it would army would not have existed at this make their situation a great deal worse day; and they know too that those than it was before.

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whom Mr. Drummond justly calls deleThe Doctor does, it seems, "know gates from the middle class, would very "that fears are entertained that if the gladly suffer all the abuses to remain. suffrage were extended to the working In short, unless there be real voting by "people, they would exercise it injudi- a large portion of the working people ciously." Who is it? Who, I pray in the great towns; unless the bill proyou, Doctor, is it that entertains these vide effectually for this, the change must fears? Not the Tories; for you tell be for the worse; and the end must be us that their pretended fears are so something like. what we have seen at much of base hypocrisy; you tell us, Lyons, or a great deal worse. A majority of that they have got their hands in the the working people would have acceptpeople's purses, and that it is in vain to ed of the former bill; any bill that expect to produce any effect upon them shall give them less power than that, by reasoning. It must be the WHIGS they will reject with disdain; and they then; it must be those sincere creatures will either overpower those who are sewho have their fears, that the working | lected to be voters, and make them vote people would make an injudicious as they please; or they will burst out choice of members!! That they would, into acts of violence. for instance, be so very injudicious as not to elect Brougham's man, MACAULAY, for the town of Leeds; and that some town or other might, in the excess of their injudiciousness, happen to elect me! This would be the Devil all over; the very thought of this last in particular is enough in all conscience to fill the honest Whigs with fear. To be sure! They want to have bands of monopolizers to surround them. They know well, that, if the working people had chosen any of the members of Parliament, Sturges Bourne's bills would never have been passed; that hired overseers never would have existed; that justices of the peace never would have been authorised to transport men for poaching; that men never would have been hanged, by clear law, for hitting other men without doing them bo-neral election in England presents a spectacle dily harm. Yes, the Whigs know well that a House of Commons, in which there had been only ten men chosen by common people, never would have passed a bill authorising the sale of the dead bodies of the poor, while the pensioners, and sinecure-people, and dead- I agree with the Doctor, that what weight people, are to have their bodies Mr. Drummond says about the ministers taken proper care of. The Whigs of religion is ridiculous enough; but, I know all this; and they know too, that do not believe that the working people if there had been only two men really are now more tools in the hands of the chosen for the working people, the pen- boroughmongers than the delegates

The bitter vituperations of Lords Grey and Brougham, which pervade Mr. Drummond's Letter, reflect no honour on him. It is painful to hear a man who lays claim to a more than puritanical perfection asserting that" the Lords Grey and Brougham against the minispassions of all ranks have been excited by ters of religion and the hereditary councillors of the King who opposed them, in order that the upholders of our ancient institutions might be intimidated into becoming accessories to their new constitution." The ministers of religion! Does religion teach that the people ought to be plundered-that the souls of the poor ought to be sacrificed by their becoming vile and corrupt tools in the hands of the rich, in order that the latter may obtain the plunder of this world as an equivalent for damnation in the next? Ministers of religion supporting boroughmongering! The religion of the Devil! We have no objection to Mr. Drummond's prayers or psalms; but we cannot understand the religion which would look with complacency on the vile spectacle which a ge

which no doubt suggested to Mr. Burke the phrase "swinish multitude?" And do not these ministers of religion, as well as Mr. Drummond, know, that boroughmongering can only effect its end by the degradation of that portion of the poor necessary to the working of their detestable machiuery?

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Ministers.

would be tools in the hands of the Whigs. "nisters, while the people have been cajoled JOHN WOOD voted for the dead body Anti-Reformers would not allow Ministers any "by the phantom of reform." Why, if the bill; and a man that would do that, intermission-if they warred with Ministers to would stick at nothing. No, Doctor: the knife, as it were, from the first proposal of it was not the spectacle of bribed drunk-reform to this day, how, in God's name, could en voters at elections that suggested to they propose with advantage any-thing beneThe labourers have BURK the phrase "swinish multitude." ficial to the labourers? been materially injured by the reform agita The pensioned hack meant thereby to tion; but the criminality of the injury rests characterise the whole of the working with those who endeavour to defeat a measure people, knowing that it would please calculated to benefit the nation, and not with his base Whig patrons. It has always Ministers, is one of the causes of the distress Mr. Drummond, who accuses been a characteristic of that faction to of the labourers. Let us have an honest Parencourage those whom you call the liament, and we shall be able to deal honestly accumulators, at the expense of those with the labourers. The sooner reform is diswho do the work; and they are now posed of, the sooner may we hope to grapple to advantage with the evils afflicting the poor. at their old game arming the accumu- Mr. Drummond deems the Cora Laws one lators against the working people as a of the great causes of the distress of the la preparatory step to giving to them ex-bourers, does he suppose that the allowing clusively the right of voting. Their political power to remain with the aristocracy will tend to facilitate their repeal? When fears that you talk of, are fears for the were the middling classes found advocating the pension and sinecure lists and the like; Corn Lars? When were the middling classes their fears for Duddy Coke's lighthouse, found adverse to Poor Laws in Ireland? We their fears for the Duke of Devonshire's wish we could attribute the defects of this tithes of the twenty parishes in Ireland but we fear there is more in it than mere production solely to the bead of the writer; These make them fear that the work-mental obliquity. Out of the fulness of the ing people would make an injudicious heart the mouth speaketh; and we think the choice. Why are not such fears enter- disease lies lower than the head. tained in the United States of America? Doctor, you ask, "When were the Why are not fears entertained of the" middle classes found advocating the injudiciousness of the Irish carmen and" corn-laws?" Always, Doctor, unless other labourers, whose voice decides you exclude all the farmers and all the the elections in New York? Why because tradesmen in the country towns and in there are no pensions, sinecures, grants, the villages from the middle class. So retired allowances, unattached military that this question, or rather the asser'commanders, military academies, dead-tion that it implies, is not true, and weight revenues, of crown lands, Duchies therefore is no answer to Mr. Drumof Cornwall and of Lancaster; no ex-mond. You also ask, "When were cise-board, and no guttling corporations, "the middle class found adverse to in the United States of America. The" poor-laws in Ireland? parties strive most furiously each, to mean the middle class in Ireland, carry its man; but nobody has ever the they are decidedly adverse to such audacity to say, that the people, that law. If you mean the middle the working people, are incapable of class in England, and if you are to making a "judicious choice;" nor did judge by their conduct here, what an any one ever propose to send for a ship-uninformed or what a hardened man load of Scotch schoolmasters to "in-you must be, to say that this middle struct the poor" how to make a judi-class are friendly to poor-laws, when cious choice. In short, they know well you have seen with what eagerness they what sort of men will answer their purpose: if they be suffered to have their choice, all will be well; if they be not, let those who refuse them the right, abide by the consequences.

"Not one measure of relief to the suffering "labourers has yet been proposed by the Mi

If you

avail themselves of Sturges Bourne's bills, and with what unrelenting cruelty they have treated the poor! My opinion is, that if the Whigs were to be suffered to get together a band of the middle class to make the laws, the lot of the labourers would be a thousand times

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