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ported to have spoken in the following" not satisfy the people of Ireland. terms :-"To whom had the task of " When he said this, he was told that bringing forward the Irish Reform" he was no reformer, and that he "Bill been entrusted? The English "wished to impede the progress of the Re"Reform Bill had been brought in by "form Bill." Now, as to this "Hunt," "an Englishman-the Scotch Reform I know nothing, nor do I care anything; "Bill had been brought in by a Scotch- but I well remember what this base man-but the Irish Reform Bill had reporther did in those days, when peo"not been brought in by an Irishman. ple called him the" LIAR''par excellence. It had been entrusted to the charge of I well remember that. I very well rea person in whom no party in the member all his lies about "re-actions,” empire had confidence-to the right and about the people's" coolness” in the "honourable Gentleman opposite had cause of reform; and I well remember, "been fitly entrusted a measure which that most people believed that he had 66 was calculated to destroy the inde- sold himself to the Tories; and, for "pendence of Ireland. Wise and politi- my own part, I had not the smallest "cal statesmen were the present mem-doubt, that all his new suits of clothes "bers of his Majesty's Government! were bought by the Tories; and that They wished to tranquillize Ireland; he was kept by them as much as my "and how do they attempt to achieve horse is kept by me; and that WE"that object? By committing towards THERELL and PEEL looked upon him as "that country an act of the grossest an animal that it was necessary to "injustice. That act he would strenu- feed and to groom, in order that he "ously oppose; and although the right might be able to do their work in this "honourable Gentleman might defeat paragraph-grinding way, just as they "him in that House, the people of Ire- would have fed and have groomed a ❝land would defeat that right honour-stupid old rip that goes in a bark-mill. "able Gentleman elsewhere. They This reporther tells the Irish members, "would commit no violence-they that they ought to have supported him, "would not infringe any law--they "would take up no arms-they would engage in no processions; but if the "whole constitution were not previously "destroyed-if one rag of the constitu"tion were left, on that they would "stand, and defeat the attempt to en"slave them."

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when he was asking for England what they are now asking for Ireland. Stupid wretch, they are not asking for what you, in your filthy paragraphs, used to be asking. You used to be asking for universal suffrage, because you knew that was the way to get nothing; and they seeing that you were a tool of the Tories, despised your lying and base publications. They, like men of sense and virtue, were for getting something.

Upon this occasion the base and treacherous reporther has had recourse to his old trick; namely, of publishing monstrous fool-lies under the name of "Hunt." he now tells us, that this You, stupid and lying reportker, pre"Hunt'' uttered upon this occasion the tend, that there is inconsistency in them, following words: "he recalled to the in not being satisfied with the Irish "remembrance of the Irish members, Bill, though they were satisfied with the "the conduct they had pursued towards English bill! Why, you worse than a "him when he was supporting princi-"new-negro," they expressly say, that 66 ples the same as those which they they are not satisfied with the Irish now supported. When he had asked bill, because it is not like the English for an extension of suffrage, not one bill. There is one favour that I have to of them had stood by him, though he ask of Dr. Black; and that is, that he "had said then that the Ministerial would let me see you with my own measure of reform would not satisfy eyes. I am sure your colour corres"the people of England, as they now ponds with the Doctor's name. "said that the Irish Reform Bill would sure that you are a black; and not a

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very shining one either; but one of the insolent STANLEY. The words ought those dingy devils whose skin in point to be in the mouth of every Englishof colour resembles a soldier's shoe that man: "I will not receive with any exhas been blacked by contract. It is not pression of joy that right which is fair for the Doctor to keep you out withheld from the people of Ireland!”· of sight, and to suffer you to annoy us It is a curious thing, and eminently in this way. You say, that, when you entitled to our attention, because it is were brawling about universal suffrage an indication of what is to take place and re-actions, you were told, that you for the future: it is a curious thing, to wished" to impede the progress of the see the Tories cordially joining the Reform Bill!" The devil you were! Whigs in this case; to see CROKER So, these dunderheaded Irish members and STANLEY chuckling together, like a thought that the Tories being told, that German frow and her paramour grinthe people of England were indifferent ning through a horse-collar! It must be to the Reform Bill; that the Reform an excellent Reform Bill, that CROKER Bill would not satisfy the people of so cordially approves of; and Stanley England; that there was a great re-ac-must be a fine minister for Ireland to be tion relative to the Reform Bill; that honoured with CROKER's praises of his the bill might be rejected without pro- conduct. Here, as clear as day-light, ducing any discontent amongst the peo- we have a view of the intended game ple; the dunderheaded Irish members for the future, which, in two words, is thought your everlastingly repeating this: the Whigs are to support and these lies, was a sign that you "wished to carry on the present system of taxes, impede the progress of the Reform Bill!" tithes, standing-army, Bourbon-police, Oh! what simpletons they must have and all the rest of it; and, in all this been! Stupid beast: dost thou not see, they are to be supported by the Tories, that every one must perceive, that if the together with all the POLITICAL UNIONS, Irish members had sold themselves to the leaders of which they can get into the Tories, as you manifestly did yourself, their pay! This is manifestly the and "stood by you," as you call it, there scheme; and it is for those in whom would have been NO REFORM-BILL the right of voting will be, to defeat AT ALL; that the fifty-six rotten this at once stupid and tyrannical boroughs would still have been in ex- scheme. The factions have, indeed, a istence; that Blackburn and Bolton committee sitting, with matches some, and Manchester and Oldham and Ash- and others, with fire brands, in their ton and Stockport and Rochdale, and all hands! There is the magazine! There the working millions of Yorkshire, and it is, of immense magnitude, and of the Midland, would still have been consisting of combustibles of prodiwithout the possibility of a chance of hav-gious force. There it is! One touch ing any more than so many flies, an in- from a match, or a brand, blows fluence in the choosing of members of into the air all the schemes of Whigs Parliament? The Irish members did and Tories; sends the LIAR to be not sell themselves to the Tories: we the BEAR in the Zodiac, makes a have to thank several of them, and par- GEMINI of STANLEY and CROKER, conticularly Mr. O'CONNELL and Mr. verts little HоBHOUSE into the CRAB, and SHEIL and Mr. GRATTAN, for the part sends some one of the GERMAN FROW, in that they acted with regard to the Eng- the character of VIRGO, to cry "Py-alish bill; and the corporation of Lon-proom" in the celestial regions. In plain don, instead of at this time being en- English, there is the Debt; with that gaged in preparing benches and tables Debt something must be done; do what for the guzzling and the gormandizing, they will with it, unless they adopt my ought to be engaged in rousing the propositions, they blow the thing into whole of this metropolis and its vicinity the air. If they do nothing, the nato send up petitions and remonstrances tion will go on sinking lower and against this unjust and insolent bill of lower in misery; discontent will

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daily increase; the people will de- wait for our " CHARLEY" and Augusmand a further reform; they now know TUS FIGGINS the printers'-tinker, and the means which they have to employ the projector for slaughtering cattle by in order to obtain it: if they be driven steam, and the, "Church-and-King" to employ those means, the thing ex- reforming Lord Mayor; I shall not plodes in that way. So that the GE wait for these to tell me when or how MINI, the Siamese youths, CROKER and to express my satisfaction. I shall STANLEY, by remaining stuck together, choose my own time, my own place, will only secure an identity in political and my own manner; and these will be destruction. I cannot dismiss this part as follows: of my subject without expressing my I have always been of opinion that pleasure at observing, that both the we owe the Reform Bill more to the NATIONAL Political Unions in London COUNTRY LABOURERS than to all have presented petitions to the House of the rest of the nation put together; Commons in support of the efforts which because if they had remained quiet unMr. O'Connell is making in behalf of der their sufferings; if they had not rehis country. The same will, I hope, be solved not to be reduced to potatoes, and done at BIRMINGHAM: I am sure it will if they had not acted as they did, in orat MANCHESTER; and I think this duty der to preserve themselves from this will be neglected in no town in Eng-state of horrible degradation, WELLING land, excepting this city, where we TON would not have been turned out, have, hitherto, at any rate, suffered our- GREY would not have come in, the selves to be led by the odious op- Parliament would have acted upon WELpressors of the people of PORTSOKEN LINGTON's insolent declaration, and we WARD. should have had no Reform Bill at all; I shall, by-and-by, have to speak of though, in time, we must have had a the precautions which electors ought to terrible and violent revolution. Every take at the forthcoming elections, in man, therefore, who really wishes for order to secure proper persons to repre- the settlement of our difficulties to tersent them in Parliament, that we may minate in peace, must feel gratitude tonot be cheated out of the fruit of our exer- wards these country labourers. I feel tions, as the brave people of France have this gratitude in a peculiar degree; be. been cheated out of theirs. But, before cause, taking England throughout, I I come to this matter, I must speak of know more of their toils, their sufferings, the manner in which I myself propose to and their virtues, than any other man. keep the reform-festival. This is a I therefore shall spend my day of triumph matter of no slight importance, if duly amongst them; and for the reasons considered. As a pretext for spending that I am about to give, I shall do it in the people's money on guttling and Hampshire, and in a hamlet called Surguzzling, it is despicable, It is un- TON SCOTNEY, which is in the parish of worthy of any reformers, except those WONSTON, and which is situate at about who have made such a glorious reforma-seven miles from WINCHESTER, seven tion in PORTSOKEN WARD, and the only miles from STOCKBRIDGE, seven miles appropriate judgment upon them for from ANDOVER, seven miles from which would be, that they should go WHITCHURCH, twelve miles from Baforth, from their gormandizing and SINGSTOKE, fourteen miles from ODIguzzling kennel, lepers white as snow," which, by none of us that know them, would be mistaken for a mark of their purity; for we, all of us well knowing that they are taking the money from our pockets, and employing it for the purpose of inflicting ruin on one of the ablest and most public-spirited of all our fellow-citizens. No: I shall not

HAM, twelve miles from ALTON, and seven miles from ARLESFORD. And which little hamlet is on the road from London to Salisbury, going through Basingstoke and Stockbridge. At SurTON SCOTNEY the labourers of ten parishes met, when they sallied forth in November 1830, to remonstrate with the farmers, the parsons, and the land

owners, with regard to the wages that stood the nature of their wrongs, and the causes of their misery; and that the day would come, when they would endure that misery no longer. Now, then, for the circumstances connected with this petition, which I have spoken of above.

had reduced them to a state of halfstarvation. But this spot is more dear to me, and it ought to be dear to every Englishman, for a reason other than this. It was at this spot that was signed, that petition for parliamentary reform, which the labourer, JOSEPH MASON, carried to the King, at Brighton, in the month of October 1830, the interesting circumstances relating to which, are as follows.

In the month of September, or early in October, 1830, when scarcely a petition had recently been sent up for parliamentary reform, the labourers of the parishes of WONSTON, BULLINGTON, and BARTON STACEY (the whole three containing a population less than one thousand five hundred souls) met at the hamlet of SUTTON SCOTNEY, where they agreed to a petition to the King, and

to pay the expenses of a man to carry it and present it to the King at BRIGHTON, where the King then was. The man chosen to go on foot this distance of sixty miles, was JOSEPH MASON, of BULLINGTON, of whom I shall have to say a good deal by-and-by. The following, word for word and letter for letter, is a copy of this memorable petition, with a copy of the names of all those who signed it.

TO THE

The general notion in London has been, that the country labourers are ignorant creatures; that they have no sentiment at all relative to political rights and liberties; that, like cattle, subscribed two or three pence a piece, they know when they are hungry, and that their risings and committing acts of violence, resemble, in point of motive, the feelings which animate cows, or oxen, when they break out of a barren field to get into a rich pasture. Such, too, are the opinions which our Ministers and members of Parliament have entertained towards these producers of the food and the wool and the wood of the country. Proceeding upon these opinions, they have adopted schools without number, and the distribution of millions of pamphlets, the main object of all which has been, to persuade. the labourers, that God never intended. anything but potatoes for them to eat, and, that it is grievously sinful in them not to be content with such diet, though they see the fields and the meadows covered with corn and with cattle, created by their own labour. It has also been fashionable, amongst even the working classes, to look upon the country labourers, particularly those here in the South, as being totally ignorant with regard to public matters, and as being utterly unable to be made to understand anything about the political causes of their misery; and of course not knowing the least in the world about Parliamentary Reform.

Such opinions were never entertained by me for any one moment of my life. I, from my childhood, have known the country labourers well; and, in conversation as well as in writing, I have always maintained, that they well under

KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY,, The humble petition of the undersigned persons, belonging to the working and labouring classes of the parishes of Wonston, Barton Stacey, and Bullington, near Winchester, together assembled within their respective parishes,

Showeth,

That, ready and proud to acknowledge your Majesty our lawful Sovereign, we are willing to pay every respect and submission so far as reason and justice dictate, flattering ourselves that this is all your Majesty expects or demands.

That, Kings and Government were instituted for the happiness, welfare, and for the better regulating civil society; to protect the weak against the strong, the rich against the poor, the poor against the unjust encroachments of the rich, in short, to watch over and protect the welfare and happiness of the peeple, and this we doubt not will be your Majesty's endeavour, so long as your Majesty sway the royal sceptre.

That, relying on this, and availing ourselves of the liberty the laws of our country afford

representatives." Such is the language of the supreme law of the land, and is as binding upon every branch of the Government, as the common law is on the subject: and though now we are at the distance of sixteen years

us, namely, that of "petitioning the King," | pockets of the people in the shape of taxes we humbly implore your Majesty to cast an without their consent, or the consent of their eye of pity to the misery and wretchedness that at this moment pervade every part of this country, and of which your Majesty's petitioners have their full share. That many of us have not food sufficient to satisfy our hunger; our drink is chiefly the crystal ele-from war, the taxes continue but little ment; we have not clothes to hide the naked-abated. ness of ourselves, our wives, and our children, nor fuel wherewith to warm us; while at the same time our barns are filled with corn, our garners with wool, our pastures abound with cattle, and our land yields us an abundance of wood and coal; all of which display the wisdom, the kindness, and mercy of a great Creator on the one hand, and the cruelty, the injustice, and the depravity of his creatures on the other. Nearly to this state of misery have your Majesty's humble petitioners long lived, anxiously looking forward for better days; but to our great sorrow and disappointment, we find oppression daily press heavier and heavier on our shoulders, till at length we are driven to the brink of despair. This misery and wretchedness does not proceed from any fault on the part of your Majesty's petitioners, as we use every exertion in our power to subdue those bitter evils; but experience tells us that ❝all is vain." Some of your Majesty's wealthy subjects impute this prevailing depression to over-population," which we positively deny, seeing there is an abundance for the lowest of your Majesty's subjects, if possessed of the ability to purchase. But your Majesty's petitioners more reasonably and justly impute it to a misapplication of the produce of talent and industry; and this proceeds from a misrepresentation in the Commons House of

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That, in consequence of this misrepresentation in the Commons or People's House of Parliament, we have to complain that upwards of 50,000,000%. annually are extorted from that part of Great Britain called England, and of which sum the middle and la bouring classes pay the greatest part; whilst the Government of the United States of America cost the 12,000,000 of people they govern not so many thousands, in consequence of which the people so governed, live in the greatest state of ease and happiness. We complain that this tax lie most heavy on those articles which are the necessaries of the poor man's life; such as malt, hops, tea, sugar, tobacco, soap, candles, &c. &c.: which cause the price of those articles to be twice their real value; that our wages at this time are not more than nine shilling a-week, (at Barton Stacey but eight shillings) out of which we have to pay, one shilling for the rent of our house, and one for fuel, leaving but seven shillings per week, or one shilling per day for the support of a man, his wife, and three children. That at this time the tax on a bushel of malt, or a pound of tea, amount to as much as the labouring man's wages do in two days and a half. We complain that part of the money extorted from us go to pay the interest of a debt, part of which was contracted by the unnecessary wars, and a part by our fathers' That not one of your Majesty's petitioners fathers' great grandfathers. We complain have ever been allowed to exercise his right of that another part of the fruit of our labours go voting at an election; that right, by the pre- to pay grants, pensions, sinecures, &c. &c., sent system, being confined to the rich; in wantonly heaped on the heads of the aristoconsequence of which, men have been re- cracy and their reiations, whose names are turned to serve in Parliament in whom the known only by the vast sums they receive, people have no confidence; who consult not and who has never rendered rhe country any the people's welfare and happiness, but have service whatever. We complain that (accordentered into unnecessary and unjust wars, to ing to the statement of Sir James Graham), defray the expenses of such wars, and 113 of his late Majesty's Privy Councillors reother useless purposes, have laid and are ceive amongst them 650,000l. per annum, still laying on us, without our consent, an some of whom are members of the Commons immense weight of taxes, directly contrary House of Parliament, this being contrary to to the law of the land, which says, "that Magna Charta, which says, "That no person money shall not be taken out of the who has an office, or place of profit under the

Parliament.

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