Mr. Fysche Palmerpresented a petition from the inhabitants of the town of Reading. It was numerously and respectably signed, he said, and related chiefly to the affair of Manchester on the 16th of August last. In consequence of information obtained by the petitioners, of the particulars of that day's transactions, not only furnished by the newspapers, but also by several respectable men in their neighbourhood, who had subsequently visited the scene, the petitioners were led to believe that the meeting was perfectly legal and constitutional, and that the conduct of the persons assembled was exemplary for good order and propriety; that an indiscriminate at-tack was made on this legal and orderly meeting, where by not only the leaders and audience, part of the meeting, but those who had been attracted by mere curiosity, suffered extreme cruelty and out-rage. The petitioners were convinced that this attack was a violent infraction 509 of the right of meeting, to discuss and petition for redress of public grievances, which right was fully warranted, and the exercise of it protected by the constitution. The petitioners thought that those who advised the Prince Regent to thank the magistrates and yeomanry for their conduct on that occasion were guilty of great harshness and injustice, and snowed a disposition to stifle inquiry into the most calamitous events which could befal a free people.
§ Mr. Serjeant Onslowdid not rise to oppose the bringing up of the petition; but the declaration of the petitioners, that the Manchester meeting was perfectly legal and constitutional, was one which he felt it to be his duty to protest against. The pretence of exercising the right of petitioning, could not, in his opinion warrant the military parade and banners used on that occasion. He thought, indeed, that the meeting was directly illegal, seditious, and dangerous to the public peace. The demand for "annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and, vote by ballot," inscribed on one of the flags, was utterly unconstitutional. "Liberty or Death," on another of the flags, proved the intention entertained of maintaining the first-mentioned claim at the hazard of life. This was riotous and treasonable; it was nonsense to confound such proceedings with the legal right of petitioning.
§ Ordered to lie on the table, and to be printed.