justly and most feelingly com- series of uninterrupted happi-, plained of your exclusion from ness and prosperity to the nation. the drawing-rooms of the late But, scarcely were the ratificaQueen; at that time there was tions exchanged when the denot a just person in the whole lusive hope became apparent. kingdom, who did not feel sor-At first it was pretended that row for your Majesty, and indig- the ruin which began to spread nation against your persecutors. itself around had been produced But, now, having seen what has merely by a sudden transition been the result; having seen from war to peace. This nohow delusive were those joys; tion, which was broached by having beheld the ruin and mise-Lord Castlereagh, was echoed ry produced by the events which and re-echoed by the tongues of were at that time the subject of the servile and the foolish from drunken exultation; where is one end of the kingdom to the the man who does not now in other. Time, which tries all bis heart congratulate your Ma- things, has, at last, set the stamp jesty upon having been excluded of folly upon this doctrine. Five from all share in that exulta- years of Peace have seen notion! Where is the man who thing but an increasing augcan view your Majesty's present mentation of the ruin; till, at situation, without feeling his last, no man is found bold heart sink within him, at the enough to say that there is a idea of your being abandoned possibility of rescuing the nato the fury of your foes; and tion from general bankruptcy, who can look at the manifold or of saving it from the horrors miseries of the nation, without exclaiming, "in the producing "of these this persecuted Queen "has never participated in the smallest degree." The peace which had been parliament that ruin had laid its effected in a manner fresh in hands on agriculture, on comyour Majesty's recollection, was merce, on manufactures, on trade held forth by those same minis- of every description, and that ters, who are now your Majesty's actual starvation was at work accusers, as fraught with a long in the destruction of thousands

of some great convulsion.

Before your Majesty's arrival more than a thousand petitions, coming from every class in the community, represented to the'

of the people of this once happy something of the many acts, community. The parliament which I shall not attempt to dehad unequivocally declared its scribe, committed against the utter incapacity to afford a 're- people, under the name of radimedy. It had declared that it cals. Your Majesty must have could do nothing in the way of seen, that they are spoken of yielding relief, and that the as worthless, base, turbulent, sufferers must be left to find a and rebellious wretches. Before remedy in their capacity for suf- I close my account of the profering. ceedings just alluded to, I shall explain to your Majesty the meaning of this word radical; for, as your Majesty will clearly.

terested in this matter as the people themselves.

For more than fifty years there has been a struggle going on on the part of the people to obtain a reform in the House of Commons. The Constitution of

This was the general state of the nation at the time of your Majesty's arrival. In this state of the nation there was quite perceive, you are as deeply inenough to make us doubt of the wisdom of the men by whom it's affairs had been conducted; and quite enough to make us rejoice in the thought, that, since your Majesty was doomed to have enemies, your enemies should be found amongst men this country is, that the power of that description. But, not of making laws shall exist in a only of the nation's sufferings of the description above given, is it necessary that your Majesty should be informed, the diminution of its liberties; the alterations that have been made in its laws, and the causes of this diminution and of these al- the election of the members of terations; these are things worthy of the attention of your Majesty, and some account of which I will endeavour to lay 'before you.

King, a House of Peers, and a House of Commons, the latter of which shall consist of persons freely chosen by the people, and in such a way too, that the Peers and the King shall not at all interfere in, or attempt to influence,

the House of Commons. But, various circumstances have given rise to such a mode of election as has, in fact, very much changed the effect of these provisions.

Your Majesty must have heard The real state of the House of

Commons I shall not attempt to unless he has some voice in the describe. But, it may be neces-choosing of the persons by whom sary to state, that a petition, the taxes are imposed.

the people of this kingdom are taxed; and, therefore, the reformers contend that every man,

laid before the House of Com- It is very notorious that all mons itself in 1793, by the present Lord Grey, and signed by the present Duke of Bedford and many others, averred that a ma- being of sane mind and mature jority of that house was return-age, and free from all legal dis ed to it by Peers, by a few other qualifications on account of inopulent men, and by the King's famy of character, should partitreasury. The petitioners ten- cipate in the choosing of those, dered proof of the facts at the whose business it is to impose bar of the house. The petition the taxes and to determine on was received. It is now amongst the mode of expending them. the records of parliament. But It is further urged by the reno proceeding ever took place formers, that no man (with the upon it; and the House of Com-above exceptions) ought to be mons has remained unreformed. excluded from this right, seeing

The members of the House of that no man is exempted from Commons are called the repre- the duty of coming forth, upon sentatives of the people. The command of the King, to serve law says that men are punished as a soldier in defence of the legally, upon the ground that country. The law compels, and they have, by their representa- justly compels, every man to tives, given their assent, to the perform this duty. The reason laws by which they are pu- of this is, that every man is benished. But, it is very clear nefitted by the safety of the that if the Peers, a few opulent country. He is benefitted by men, and the treasury, return that safety in a greater or less a majority of the members, the degree, according to the extent grounds above stated are under- of his possessions. The poor mined, and become nothing. man has a property in his laThe law says that no man shall bour; but, if it be denied to be taxed without his own con-him that his labour is property; sent; but it is impossible that if it be denied to him to give he can give his consent to a tax, his voice in the choosing of

the increase of the nation's burdens and sufferings. No tax can be laid without the assent

those who tax him; if he have become strong in proportion to nothing to do with the laws but to obey them; if this be his situation, it is very difficult to discover what he possesses, of the House of Commons, no what he has to preserve, and sum of public money can be upon what ground it is that he expended without the same conis called upon to abandon his sent. To the weight of the

home and hazard his life.

The light, which has burst forth upon so many other countries, and which has broken the bands of despotism and superstition; which has raised the humble and laid the mighty in

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taxes all men now ascribe the sufferings of the nation. And,. as the shadow follows the substance, so it follows that the House of Commons have been the cause of the natian's sufferings.

the dust this light was not. There then arises the ques- . wanted in England, where the tion, whether a House of Comtrue principles of liberty had mons, chosen by the people at been understood for so many large, would have laid taxes and ages, and where the principles produced sufferings in as great upon which the reformers have a degree. The reformers are of proceeded, are inscribed in every opinion that it would not. They page of the laws. But, while think, that a House of Commons reformations were taking place chosen by the people at large in other countries, it was not to would never have granted mo-.. be supposed that Englishmen ney to carry on a war, the result would not endeavour to recover of which was the restoration of that portion of their rights of the Bourbons, the Pope, the, which time and their own in-Inquisition, and the Jesuits, and advertence had deprived them. the bartering away of the reAccordingly, within the last fifty publics of Genoa and of Ve-. years, a continual struggle has nice. They think that a House been going on, on the part of of Commons chosen by the peothe people, in order to bring ple at large would discover no into practice the principles of reason for granting many mil the constitution and the laws. lions of English money for the These struggles have naturally support of French and other

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emigrants, during the late wars; rions other ways, would render and for still granting fifty thou my statement too tedious. Sufsand pounds a-year for that pur-fice it to say that to such a situ-' pose, while so wretched is the ation have things been brought, situation of the people at home, that all hope is abandoned of a that they are shipped off to find liquidation of the debts in which their doom as emigrants to Ca-the nation is involved; that nada or Africa. We have, may it compounding or bankruptcy is please your Majesty, lived to inevitable; and that even in see Englishmen petition to be parliament itself, it has been transported; and at the same suggested, that the owners of time to see immense sums of the land must divide their posour money granted for the sup- sessions with the creditors of port of French and other emi- the state; while it is notorious, grants; and we do most reli-and. indeed, openly acknowgiously believe that we never ledged in the Houses of Parliashould have seen these things if the people at large had had the choosing of the Members of the House of Commons.

ment, that capital is fleeing for safety from England to other countries, and while some have proposed measures of force to impede or punish the transfer. In such a state of things, it is

The reformers believe, that eighty thousand pounds a-year, to be expended in secret ser-no wonder that the people seek vices, would never have been a remedy in a reform of the granted by a reformed House of House of Commons. Duty to Commons; and they take per- their king and country, as well mission to believe also that such as love for themselves and a House of Commons would their families, urge them to never have been persuaded to seek such reform; this is what grant out of the taxes, and that they have done; and for hav too in times of the deepest ac-ing done this, great numbers, knowledged distress, a hundred under the name of Radicals, thousand pounds a-year as a have been punished with the gift to the clergy of the immensely rich Church of England.

utmost severity. Early in the year 1817, petitions signed by

a million and a half of men To enumerate the grants in were presented to the parliasinecures, pensions, and in va- ment, beseeching the Houses to