HC Deb 09 December 1819 vol 41 cc879-87
Sir Francis Burdett

rose to present a petition from the electors of Westminster, against the coercive measures now under the consideration of parliament. It had been resolved on at a numerous, and he would add, an orderly and well-conducted meeting of those electors. It expressed as strongly as it did justly, the dissatisfaction which they felt at the proposal of such measures, and the hope which they entertained that time would be given to the country to declare its opinions upon measures which were allowed to be of an unconstitutional tendency by all, even by those who admitted the temporary necessity of them. No pressing necessity existed for forcing them with such haste through the House, and he therefore implored hon. gentlemen to give to the country that extension of time which the petitioners so earnestly desired. The hon. baronet then moved that the petition be brought up.

Mr. Lambton

seconded the motion, and expressed his concurrence with the wishes of the petitioners. At the same time, he took the opportunity of saying, that he had that morning received a communication from the country, containing statements in direct opposition to those made on a former evening by the noble secretary of state, and to which he wished to call that hon. member's most particular attention. It was in allusion to the noble † lord's assertion that 700 men had marched with concealed arms to a late public meeting near Newcastle, and came from the union societies of the two villages from which these men were said to have marched. It was of considerable length, but he did not think it requisite to read more of it than the first three paragraphs, which were to the following effect: "That they had read with considerable surprise, a paragraph in the letter of A. Reed, mayor, stating that 700 of them had gone to the meeting held on the 11th of October, at Newcastle, with arms concealed. They deemed it their duty to deny this statement, and to declare their willingness to deny it individually upon oath, if required. So far from having any arms concealed about them on that day, they had not even with them common walking-sticks, and therefore they had no hesitation in saying, that this statement of the mayor was an unfounded calumny." Unless, therefore, these individuals were to be supposed destitute of all moral and religious feelings, the House must credit the statement which they had made to it [Hear!]. He had also received from an individual residing at Newcastle, unequalled in talent and respectability, a communication relative to the same subject. That individual, whose name he should not mention, but which, if he did mention, would ensure general respect, said that the exaggerated account which had been given in parliament, of the state of public feeling in and about Newcastle, had appeared perfectly absurd and ridiculous to the inhabitants of those districts; and added, that the letter of the mayor of Newcastle was laughed at as a mere rhodomontade. He had also another circumstance to which he wished to call the attention of the House, and of the noble secretary. He had been informed, that so convinced were the gentry about Newcastle and Durham, of the falsehood of the libel which had been circulated against the people among whom they resided, that they had thought it right to take certain steps in order to contradict it. A meeting of the deputy-lieutenancy had in consequence been called at Gateshead, and a representation of the real state of the county had been sent by it to government. The noble lord would be able to set him right if he was misinformed on that point, and also to state, why, if such a representation had been made to government, it had not been made known to the House. He could not help observ- ing, that he considered all the alarming statements which had been propagated regarding the disaffected state of the counties of Durham and Northumberland to be totally unfounded; and the country would be enabled to decide with some degree of certainty whether they were or not, by circumstances which would be that evening disclosed in the other House. He would only state at present, that an hon. and reverend relation of his own, who was represented as having been forced to leave his country seat, and take refuge in Newcastle from the designs of a discontented population, had now returned to his sent and left Newcastle, whither he had gone in compliance with the wishes of some of his family. For his own part, he had left all that was dear to him, his wife, his children, and his property, in the midst of these men, who were accused of disloyalty and disaffection, but upon whose loyalty and attachment he rested with implicit confidence. He apprehended more danger from the measures of that House, than he did from the turbulence of those who had been made the objects of so many calumnies. When the arms and training bill came before the House, he should move that its operation should not extend to the county of Durham.

Lord Castlereagh

could assure the hon. gentleman that he had not seen any such report of deputy-lieutenancy as he had alluded to, though he would not pretend to assert, till he had inquired into the matter, that no such report had been received. As to the county of Durham, he had never said that it was in a state of open disturbance; but still there might be evil designs entertained by some individuals residing within it, against which it was the bounden duty of government to guard. The hon. gentleman maintained that there were no such designs: but his assertions on that head were no more proof of the non-existence, than that the assertions on the other side were of the existence of such projects. He (lord Castlereagh) would refer the House to what the hon. gentleman had himself allowed on a former occasion: he had said that there was a meeting of 40,000 persons at Newcastle, and that of these 40,000, 7,000 marched to it under military organization; and yet with these admissions staring him in the face, he now came forward to say, that all the danger which he apprehended was from the proceedings of the House, and to propose, as a proof that he believed his own opinions, that the county of Durham should be excepted from the operation of these acts. With such a description as the hon. gentleman had himself given of these radical meetings, could any thing be more imprudent than not to make these measures general [Hear!]?

Sir M. W. Ridley

, after speaking in terms of high praise of the present chief magistrate of Newcastle, observed, that he was the last person in the country who would be guilty of writing rhodomontade; and that the statements in his letter had no reference to the general state of the country. He implored the House, however, not to believe all the exaggerated statements of alarm which were now abroad, especially with regard to those districts with which he was connected. The letters which he had received from them stated, that though many were alarmed, the alarm was by no means so general as was supposed, and was rapidly subsiding in every quarter. He would mention one fact which would show the nature of the exaggeration which existed, and the causes from which part of that exaggeration arose. A gentleman in the country told a friend with whom he (sir M. W. Ridley) was acquainted, that he had heard the radicals firing at 2 o'clock in the morning: his friend was incredulous, told the gentleman that he was mistaken, set about finding out the cause of his mistake, and ultimately succeeded in proving to the satisfaction of the alarmed man himself, that the firing of the radicals was nothing more than the explosion of one or two retorts employed in some gas-works which were seated near his House.

Mr. G. Lamb

said, he did not rise with any view of prolonging the debate which had arisen, but merely to state that the meeting at which the petition now before the House was agreed to, was highly respectable and most orderly in its behaviour. He would not say that another meeting had drawn away from them those who wished for noise and riot; but he would say, that the meeting which had voted this petition was as respectable as any public meeting which he had ever witnessed.

Mr. Alderman Waithman

described the meeting which took place on Wednesday in Smithfield, as one of the most despicable public meetings which he had ever seen. Those who composed it were dirty boys, women, and children; and if there Wits any thing respectable about it, it was the appearance of some strangers out of mere curiosity, and of some special constables, who were wandering up and down the market to see that no breach of the peace occurred. Meetings of this nature had now had their run in London [Hear!] and no danger was in future to be apprehended from them.

The petition was, then brought up. It purported to be the petition of the electors of Westminster, assembled in pursuance of a requisition to the high-bailiff, in Covent Garden, on Wednesday the 8th of December 1819; and sat forth,

"That the petitioners view with the utmost astonishment and regret the proceedings of the House relative to the late transactions at Manchester; that the petitioners find that whatever hope may have been entertained that the House would institute some inquiry respecting those transactions has been totally disappointed, and that instead of the apparent authors of the violence committed on the 16th of August last at Manchester being at least called upon to justify their conduct, the people themselves, the sufferers by that violence, have had to endure fresh injuries, by calumny, by. misrepresentation, and by being marked out as the victims of the unheard-of and sanguinary laws now in progress through the House; that the petitioners complain that they, as well as the great body of the people, are, on the pretext of a conspiracy said, but never proved, to exist against the government, about to be deprived of many of their dearest and most acknowledged rights, which have remained untouched even in the worst of times, and which nothing but wicked ministers, resolved to destroy the whole fabric of British freedom, would dare to violate; that the petitioners regard the right of public assemblage, without any restriction as to the place or number, for the sake of a peaceable discussion of national grievances, as a right derived from the earliest practice even of their remote ancestors, a right which has in all ages formed the main basis of their popular government, a right which has always been exercised to prevent the preponderance of interests hostile to those of the people, and which cannot be infringed without destroying every vestige of popular control in the government of these realms; that the petitioners consider the limitations and conditions- under which, if the seditious meetings bill should pass the House, the people would still be al- lowed to meet, as amounting to a virtual annihilation of all the purposes of popular assemblage, the magistracy, and other official persons of this country, under whose sanction only it is proposed any large assembly shall be holden, having lately given but too good reason to make them fear that they will seldom, if ever, unite, with the people in any wholesome opposition to acts of government; that the petitioners having thus good reason to apprehend that it is the intention of his Royal Highness's ministers to deprive the people of their freedom and opportunities of speech, see also, with the utmost indignation and alarm, that another of the bills now in progress through the House has a direct tendency to deprive the people of the freedom of the press, so that they will be debarred from all the old established means by which the nation has hitherto made known their wishes and their wants to the king and the parliament; that the petitioners consider the limitations upon the press proposed to be passed into law by one of the bills now in progress through the House, as establishing in effect a previous censorship as intrusting that censorship to a magistracy, or official persons, who for the reasons before mentioned, will check all animadversion on acts of state, and as amounting in fact to a complete destruction of the liberty of political discussion by writing, there being no medium between the entire freedom and the total subjection of the press; that the petitioners consider the proposed increased severity of the libel law as contrary to all sense, justice, and humanity, and the spirit of the British constitution, more especially as recognized by the Bill of Rights; that the petitioners consider the bill now in progress through the House for the seizing of arms either by day or night in certain districts, said to be in a state of disturbance, another invasion of the rights and liberties of Englishmen, which nothing can justify, and which docs not appear to be called for by any of the evidence before the House, or by any events generally known to the nation; that the petitioners consider the bill now pending in parliament for the purpose of depriving defendants from traversing, as having the same pernicious tendency as the before mentioned bills, as being contrived to deprive the accused of one of those humane provisions which the law of England contemplated for his defence, and to render more easy and expeditious the arbitrary proceedings of the government, and as being confessedly an infringement of the ancient laws of the land; that the petitioners believe the history of the English nation can furnish no instance of a similar attempt upon the liberties of the people as that which is now attempted to be made by the said bills, and they are confident that the great majority of their fellow-subjects regard the pending measures in the same light as themselves; that the petitioners, as they view these measures with alarm, so they view with indignation the pretext under which these bills are proposed for adoption; and they believe that the alarm of actual conspiracy, and impending insurrection, which is said to prevail in certain parts of the country, has no other origin than in the designs of wicked ministers themselves, fomenting disturbances, circulating false rumours, and attempting to drive the people to acts of desperation; that the petitioners know many of the rumours respecting the pretended disaffection, and meditated insurrection of certain portions of his majesty's subjects, to be not only false, but that it is physically impossible they should be true; and that in the three northern counties of Westmoreland, Northumberland, and Durham, where 100,000 men are said to be in arms, the population returns of 1811, give only 405,648 as the total number of inhabitants in these counties, comprising men, women, and children; that the petitioners, well acquainted as they have long been with parliamentary reformers of all classes, do venture solemnly to deny the assertion, audaciously stated by the abettors of the bills now before the House, that the object of any body of individuals called reformers, is the subversion of the constitution, the plunder of property, and the destruction of social order; on the contrary, they know of no other design, either professed or intended, by any body of reformers, than that of making attempts to bring back the constitution to its genuine temperament; attempts, which a great legal authority of this country (sir William Jones) has declared, are so far from being seditious, or even derogatory from the respect due to the Crown, that they would, if successful, highly augment the splendor of it; unless it be more glorious to rule like princes of the continent over slaves, than to be the chief of a free nation; that the petitioners imagine they discover a cause for the present discontent, very different from that alleged by the proposers and abettors of the proposed bills; they find themselves and their fellow-subjects oppressed with a load of taxation rendered necessary, as they believe, only for the sake of carrying on a system of mal-administration, subversive of the rights and the happiness of the people; they find that in the short space of twenty-six years nearly 600 millions have been added to the public debt, and that the yearly taxes have been raised from about 16,000,000l. to upwards of 60,000,000l.; they find by returns presented to the House in 1818, that on the average of three years ending the 25th of March 1815, those receiving parish relief amounted to nearly a million of persons; that the money expended on the said paupers, independent of charitable donations of 238,310l., amounted to the enormous sum of 6,460,298l.; that the petitioners also see that the commerce of these realms is most ruinously depressed; that the trade of these realms is no less embarrassed, and rapidly approaching to total ruin that the agriculture of these realms has also most lamentably declined, and does no longer compensate the farmer for the use of his capital notwithstanding the wages of his labour are in great part paid by the poor rate; that the petitioners believe, that it is the general conviction of the people, that the lamentable state of trade, manufactures, commerce, and agriculture, is not attributable to any revulsion, or to a transition from war to peace, but to the vast sums levied on the people by rates and taxes, which have so enormously increased the price of commodities, as in a great measure to exclude them from all the markets in the world; that the people having now, and having for some time had, this conviction, have made various complaints in form of petition to the House, to the House of Peers, and to the King, and have sought for a remedy for their calamities by various modes proposed in their petitions; the petitioners find that the said petitions have been altogether disregarded; that the same system of mal-administration continues, and seems likely to continue; that nothing is done for the people; on the contrary, fresh burthens are imposed upon the people, for objects seeming to them unnecessary and unconstitutional; and the petitioners, taking into consideration all these circumstances, see that the people are suffering from a complication of real evils, and have to complain of just grievances, which will fully account for their present universal demand to obtain a fair chosen House of Commons, without supposing them to be traitors to the state, and to have forfeited their right to the mild and salutary system under which they were born; that the petitioners are fully persuaded, that if the bills now pending should pass into a law for any given term of years, and the present system of mal-administration should continue, further excuse will be found for prolonging the operation of these unconstitutional measures after the given term of years should have expired; that moreover the petitioners are assured, that none of the complaints of the people will or can have so direct a tendency to bring the House and the whole legislature into contempt, as the passing of these bills; and they would therefore urge, that their own regard for the character and consequence of the House, as well as for the welfare of the nation, must equally induce the House not to pass the said bills into laws."

Ordered to lie on the table, and to be printed.