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not if he had not brought in his bills. what I shall presently have to record of Therefore, they cannot be angry with a tithe-battle in Ireland, what can they him for the past; they can harbour no demand more in the way of " vigour ?" revenge against him; and, if he will DISCIPLE. But you forget; you wholly now endeavour to carry on the reform overlook the House of Commons, all this affair with the suffrage taken from the while! 10. renters, he will be the best friend that they ever had.

COBBETT. Gads so! I beg their honours' pardon, with all my soul

DISCIPLE. What! Lord GREY the and... friend of the boroughmongers!

COBBETT. Yes; and their best friend, if he remain in office with this part of the bill stripped of its power.

DISCIPLE. Yet I cannot help thinking that they would turn him out, because men are always so fond of power.

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DISCIPLE. Yes; you forget that, if Lord 'GREY were to break all his pledges, if he were to wish to keep his place though the bill were in fact destroyed, and if the Lords were to permit him to do this, the Commons would not,

and could not.

COBBETT. Why could they not? I do not say that they could; but pray tell me why they could not.

DISCIPLE. Why, they are, a vast majority of them pledged to the bill, to the whole bill; and can they ever give their assent to the bill, when the main part of it is rubbed out? And if they do not give their assent to the alterations, the Lords must give way, or the bill cannot pass; so that, in either case, Lord GREY cannot keep his place, and endeavour to carry on the affair with a mutilated bill.

COBBETT. Aye; but it is trouble and danger here, and not power. Besides, who is to be Minister in his place? Strathfieldsay's Duke? He does not seem to be overloaded with anything but our money; but he has not so little sense as to take the post of Prime Minister again. Who is to take it, then? and that, too, upon the express ground that Strathfieldsay was driven from it? Why, nobody. And is it not evident, that the very thing for the Tories to pray for is, that the bill may be made inefficient, and that GREY COBBETT. Now, in the first place, I should remain in power, with his thun- do not say that the bill will pass at all; dering standing army, his sword-bearing but I say that GREY will vigorously stick. police, and all his "vigour?" Power to his place, and all his set along with is not now what power was. There are him, let happen what may. Next I do no millions now to fling about: the say, that if the House of Commons reTHING is now got into shoal-water, ject the alterations made by the Lords, with here and there a breaker at her and if the bill be rejected, the faithful service. The boroughmongers now Commons will, as they did last time, begin to see that it is well if they can vote some resolution, address, or some retain all but the boroughs. They are thing expressive of unabated confidence afraid of the 10. clause, lest it should in the Ministers, or, in other words, bemake matters worse. They would now seeching them, little Hobhouse and all, be happy to escape, leaving only the to remain in their places and to SAVE boroughs behind them. And GREY the country! tells them that he will heep the peace, whatever may become of the bill! What do they, or can they, want more? COBBETT. Badly or goodly, human Why, only for the " vigorous" fellow nature or inhuman nature, this is what to pay the DEBT too, in full tale and in 1 think, that, in this case, they will do gold of full weight and fineness; only But my opinion is, that the bill, with this more, and to cause the tithes to be the ten-pound clause destroyed in effect, yielded. That's all. And where are will be agreed to by the Commons; and they to find a more vigorous" pro- that tector? where a Minister more ready to "vindicate the law?" When they see

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DISCIPLE. Oh God! I cannot think so badly of human nature.

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DISCIPLE. Oh, no! What pledged as they are! Elected as they were for the

express purpose of carrying" the whole I now think that he has never been sin bill!"

cere from the first, I think, and, indeed, COBBETT. I do not care for that. That the nation knows, that he held his power. is my opinion; and further I will bet and, indeed, got it, on the ground of his you what you like that BURDETT is proposing a reform of the Parliament: amongst the foremost in applauding and this was at once the title and the tenure supporting this mode of proceeding; of his power. I believe, however, that he and that his dirty scouts "out of doors "wished for a reform; but his declaramove, in some way or other, an address tions of a very recent date proved that of thanks to the Ministers, expressing he had "corrected the opinions of his unbounded confidence in them! These youth" upon the subject. I believe, are my opinions; and of all the men in therefore, that when he brought in his the kingdom, I shall be the most glad first bill, he really wished to carry it; if it should appear that I am wrong in but I believe also, that he is now afraid. entertaining these opinions. But look-of his own bill; that he thinks it will ing at all the facts; taking a cool lead to changes that he never contemsurvey of all I behold, I come to the plated; and that he would now be ex-, above conclusions; and it is my duty to ceedingly glad to see the people quiet explicitly state them to my readers. while he kept his place, though the bill Neither of the two factions want to see should be, in fact, rendered wholly ina reform of the Parliament; they both efficient for good to the people. But know that both would lose by it; place as to my consistency in this respect, may and rower are not now worth their quar- not, when he brought in his first bill, relling for; they never were so nearly have believed him to be sincere; and réconciled as they are now; mutual may I not, now, believe him to have danger makes them forget, or at least been insincere then? May I not do this care little about, matters of rivalship; without being chargeable with inconthe desirable thing to both is, a ministry sistency? At one time eleven of the that can keep the people quiet without apostles believed JUDAS ISCARIOT to be giving them any real reform; this is sincere; they, at a later period, all bewhat is wanted by both, and both think lieved him to have been a traitor in his that GREY and his crew are well calcu- heart at that very time. But was there lated for this purpose. And I am quite any inconsistency in their conduct? At serious when I say that I expect to see the time when Burdett was everlastingly GREY a great favourite with the bitterest bawling in our ears, that the "Great of the TORIES. If such should be the "families were the curse of the country; upshot, to what amusing and instructive that the leaves ought to be torn out of reflections the forbearance of GREY to THE ACCURSED RED-BOOK; and that no wards the TORIES will give rise ! We" good could come to the country withshall then see that there was sense in" out a radical reform of the Parlia keeping and appointing Tory Lords" ment; when he was bawling these Lieutenants! DOCTOR BLACK will then things in our ears, I thought him sinsee explained all that has appeared so mysterious to him, and we shall all cease to wonder at the great and constant complaisance of GREY towards STRATH

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cere; but when, some years afterwards, I saw him stick his knees in Canning's back, while this fellow was declaring that he would oppose Parliamentary reform to the last hour of his life, in whatever shape or degree it might appear; when I saw Burdett do this, then I believed that he had always been a hypocrite: and this was not being inconsistent, but the contrary. So with regard to GREY. I wish with all my heart that I may now be in error. I wish that he may make the peers (ún

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less he can carry the bill without it); | THING finds that it is likely to have that he may quit his post, and tell us political influence, though in the most plainly that the King refuses his assent to indirect and distant manner, it at once the making of peers. I wish this most resolves either to crush it, or have it as anxiously; but I can express nothing a tool. If the former, it goes to work more than a wish. I have no confidence; with those means which are too well I have no hope, because hope must known to need a particular description : have belief to rest upon; and I have no if the latter, the THING first gets at belief, not the smallest, that GREY will some of the leading members of the asdo either of the two things which I have sociation; and, though mere vulgar just mentioned; and, if he do neither of bribery would not, in most cases, sucthem; if he continue in his place with a ceed, the bribe of flattery, of familiar rejected or a mutilated bill; or, if he intercourse, of the surname, of the corsneak from his place without plainly dial shake by the hand, of the " my telling the nation that he had not the dear sir," of the dinner; this bribe is power to make the peers; if he do either but too often successful; and indeed it of these, it will be consistency in me to is, nine times out of ten, the bane, the declare him to have been a hypocrite ruin, the total perversion of all such asfrom the beginning, and that he has, in sociations, which, when once the THING fact, never wished the bill to pass; but gets them into its clutches, are the most has been amusing the people with these efficient of its tools, and work more zeabills, while, like a true WHIG, he was lously than anybody else against popupreparing to keep the peace of the lar rights and public good; they becountry! That is to say, to prevent come, in fact, so many branches of the the people from obtaining a reform by tree of corruption; and, as is the manforce. ner of branches, they soon become more vigorous than the old ones, and are recommended by their freshness.

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DISCIPLE. Well; but what will the people say, and what will they do? Will the POLITICAL UNIONS be silent? Will they after all, ?

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DISCIPLE. What, then! do you think that the political union of Birmingham, for instance, will be silent now?

COBBETT. Why, as to POLITICAL UNIONS, they may lead the people, but COBBETT. I do not think so; but, they themselves may be led by others; after beholding the unaccountable apathy and those others may be amongst the of these unions, while they see the most efficient tools of the boroughmon- TITHE-COERCION BILL for Ireland passgers, having reform everlastingly on ing, you will allow me to have my fears. their lips. I have observed, that when If they can hold their tongues, while a societies, of whatever sort, consisting of bill is passing to tax us, in order to pay the middle or the working classes, are the amount of tithes due to Irish parformed, and become numerous and are sons, I do not know any thing that wilk likely to have political weight, the move their tongues. For my own part, THING'S people instantly join them, my belief, as to what is intended, is just and soon become the leaders of them. as I have stated it to you. What the Thus it has been with the " Literary people will do, I know not; but I know Fund," with the "Printers' Pension well what they ought to do, and what Society," with all the "benefit clubs," I advise them to do; and that is this, to "Bible Societies," "School Societies," meet either immediately, or the moment with the "Mechanics' Institutes," in they see any attempt made in the comLondon; and, indeed, with all such af-mittee to mutilate the bill; and to pefairs. The THING, when first one of tition against such mutilation, distinctly these associations appears, looks hard at it, surveys it all round about, takes the dimensions of it, considers well all the consequences of it, possible and probable a as well as certain. When the

declaring their own intentions, in case of such mutilation. To raise the qualification of voters would be to destroy that efficiency of the bill which the Minister stands pledged to preserve. Even accord

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ing to the provisions of the bill, the main to ask for anything more, and to oppose body of the industrious classes is shut out, every demand for anything more. And and unjustly shut out, from all share in thus I most distinctly declared in all my the representation; the bill, as it now lectures in the north, and without calling stands, greatly diminishes the number of forth, in any one instance, an expression freemen and other working men en- of disapprobation. But, alter the bill in titled to vote; and if the qualification, this vital respect; raise the suffrage; narrowed as it has been in the bill, be shut the working people quite out; and raised, the working classes will be shut I not only withdraw my assent; out altogether; they will be placed at everything that I can possibly do the mercy of an upstart aristocracy of against this act of injustice shall be money, and will in fact be slaves as done. complete as the blacks in the colonies, DISCIPLE. I hope that, at any rate, who are represented by their masters, we shall see no such thing attempted who have a direct interest in the passing nor yielded to by Lord GREY, and that of laws to keep them in slavery. The you will have to confess your error. reformers who know well that every COBBETT. I wish I may; but I cannot man who is of sane mind and unstain-go beyond a wish. What do I hear? ed by indelible crime, has a right to I hear MELBOURNE, STANLEY, MACAUvote, did, for the sake of peace, and in LAY, all forward to notify to us that the the hope that the ten-pound suffrage reform will not bring us any relief; I would bring the voting within the in-see a resolution in GREY to uphold the fluence of the working people, give their tithe-system; I see him augmenting the assent to this bill; but, if the suffrage standing army, and hear HовHOUSE tell be raised, this, the real efficiency of the HUME that he is prepared for " fierce bill, will be destroyed; and the work-contests" with him on the subject of ing people will be not only as com- military expenditure; I see a plan for pletely excluded as before, but, while an armed police all over England, like they will have no power themselves, that of Ireland! and I know that it is they will behold the power in the hands impossible that these men should not of that class who will constantly have an interest in oppressing them; and, in the bill thus altered, the reformers will see no hope of any cause of redress of their manifold grievances; but will consider it as a fraudulent scheme for perpetuating the existence of those grievances, and as a breach of pledges repeatedly given them. This is a fair statement of the case. For my own part, if the bill be altered at all in the way of raising the suffrage, or with regard to the metropolitan members, I am just as much its enemy as I have been its friend. I have always cared much less about the lopping off of rotten boroughs than about the popular suffrage. I know well that ten-pound suffrage is far short of the people's due; but, for the sake of peace, for the sake of harmony, for the sake of preventing a violent convulsion, I gave my assent to the bill, and with a resolution to give it a fair trial; and, if it were found efficient in the producing of cheap government, not

see that the present Reform Bill, if put into force, would blow all their schemes into air; and while I know this, I hear GREY say that the popular suffrage makes no part of the principle of the bill, that the qualification may be raised without any abandonment of that principle, and that it is for the Lords to do with that suffrage what they please!

DISCIPLE. Yes; but he does not say that he will agree to what they may do in this way; and

COBBETT. NO, No, No! He does not say this; but neither does he say that he will make the peers if this be attempted, or that he will quit his place, and tell the country that the King will not let him make the peers; and therefore, my belief is, that if the people do not remonstrate, and that vigorously too, and if they do not show that they are prepared for a legal assertion of their rights, he will keep his place with a mutilated bill, and that he will be supported by the House of Commons. I

matter.

have viewed the subject in every way | Bill. This silence has proceeded from that I can view it; I have turned it the notion, that, by their taking part in about on every side; I have earnestly defence of the Irish, the Reform Bill sought after grounds for a different would be endangered. Never was there opinion; but, at every trial, reason, plain a falser notion; never was injustice common sense, has brought me back yet softened by forbearance. The to this conclusion; and it is, therefore, | Minister capable of proposing that bill, useless to say anything more about the is quite capable of assenting to a mutilation of his own Reform Bill; and the House of Commons, capable of passing the Irish Tithe Bill, is quite capable LONDON POLITICAL UNION. of supporting that Minister, if he keep SINCE the above was written, the his place with his mutilated bill, and Morning Chronicle has brought me the thereby break all his solemn pledges. following report of the proceedings of In short, it is the unaccountable silence this body on the 18th instant. The of the Political Unions on this subject reader will not have got half way of Irish tithes, that has, I verily believe, through this report, before he will see emboldened GREY to throw off all remore than sufficient cause for admiring serve, and to make the declaration, which that sagacity, that fineness of nose, that has, at last, roused the people. made the Duke of STRATHFIELDSAY and the BOTLEY PARSON join hand-in-hand in a petition against POLITICAL UNIONS! Here the reader will see that I am not singular in my opinion about GREY'S intentions. Here are some of the best informed men; here are some of the soundest heads, not only in London, but in the whole kingdom; and not one man of them who can possibly gain by confusion, but must lose by it; and these men all agree with me in opinion as to the intentions of the Ministers; and not one man of them have I had any communication with on the subject. But, indeed, having the facts before them, how can men of common sense and of sincerity differ upon the subject?

My readers who recollect how much I was censured, in October last, for opposing, at the meeting of the county of Surrey, an expression of confidence in the Ministers, and for doing the same elsewhere, will be pleased with the frankness and manliness of Mr. CHURCHILL, in confessing that he " too readily" agreed to such a petition! He will be pleased also with the declaration of Mr. SAVAGE, that he now finds that he was then deceived in Lord GREY. This was an assemblage of sincere and sensible men; and I record with pride this account of their proceedings. I have greatly disapproved of the silence of the Political Unions as to the Irish Tithe

NATIONAL POLITICAL UNION.
The weekly meeting of the council of this
union was held last night, CARTWRIGHT THO-
MAS. Esq. in the chair.

The minutes of the former meeting were, as usual, read and ratified.

The Secretary gave notice to members to renew their tickets.

REFORM.

Mr. GEORGE ROGERS felt proud that the bill had advanced in its progress so far as the second reading, but thought its enactment occupy in the committee, and the considernot therefore secured. The position it will ation there to be given to it, will be not less interesting to the country, particularly after the admission attributed in the papers to Lord Grey, as having been said by him in the late

discussion in the House of Lords, that the bill in committee would be in their Lordships" power and at their disposal. This concession furnished a subject of interesting apprehension stands so decidedly pledged that he would not to the friends of reform, to whom Lord Grey consent to introduce, nor countenance, any measure less efficient, less democratic in its object, or extensive in its results, than that which had been previously rejected unceremouiously by the Lords. Yet, though he had thus pledged himself to a definite disfranchisement, and extension of the number and qualification of electors, he can very coolly say in his place in the House, that though minution of the bill, their Lordships may act he will not consent to any mutilation or diwith it as they think proper. Where is, then, the stability of his word, the integrity of his promise, or the proof of that faith reposed in him? Shall he staud quietly by while any encroachment is made in any part-the number of boroughs in any schedule less

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