PETITIONS RELATIVE TO THE QUEEN. (Hansard, 1 February 1821)

§ Sir G. Robinson
, before he presented a petition from Northampton, thought it requisite to make a few observations upon the manner in which it had been got up. The parties sent a requisition to the mayor, desiring him to call a public meeting of its inhabitants, to take into consideration the late proceedings against her majesty. The mayor refused to do so. The requisitionists in consequence issued a hand-bill calling such a meeting, and at that meeting the petition which he had to present, and which was signed by 1,600 persons, was adopted. He had presented to his majesty, at the levee, an address to a simi- 281 lar effect; and he wished to give publicity to that fact, as the address was not likely to see the light among those of lord Sidmouth's selection. The petitioners expressed their fears, that further persecutions were in store for her majesty, but, prayed the House to exert its influence to put a stop to them. They likewise prayed for an examination into the conduct of the Milan commission, and for the restoration of her majesty's name to the Liturgy.

§ Mr. Lambton
presented a petition to the same effect from the town of Yarm. The gentleman who had put the petition into his hands had informed him, that with the exception of the postmaster and one or two individuals who lived upon the taxes, all the inhabitants of the town had concurred in the object of the petition; and he was informed, that if time had been allowed, every inhabitant of the town would have signed it, with the exceptions which he had before made.

§ Mr. Beaumont
, in presenting a similar petition from the county of Northumberland, trusted, that he might be allowed to say a few words regarding it, in consequence of the peculiar circumstances under which the meeting at which it was adopted had been convened. A requisition had been presented to the High Sheriff, signed by gentlemen of very large landed property in the county, desiring him to call a public meeting. To that requisition he had given a positive refusal, without assigning any reason for so doing. The requisitionists, in consequence, called a meeting on their own authority—and at that meeting agreed to this petition. The petitioners regarded the appointment of the Milan commission, and all the proceedings adopted under it, as deeply affecting the character of the British government; and with this opinion he entirely concurred. They likewise prayed, that a suitable provision should be made for her majesty, and that her name should be reinserted in the Liturgy, conceiving her entitled to all the dignities belonging to one filling her exalted station, and not convicted of any offence by which she had forfeited them.

§ Sir M. W. Ridley
assured the House of the respectability of the individuals by whom this petition was subscribed. Many of them were persons of the greatest weight both from property and character. With regard to their prayer, its object had his hearty approbation. It was, indeed, 282 but a claim of common justice, to demand for a person acquitted, the full benefit of an acquittal; for no resolution of the House had ever been more completely fulfilled by the event, than that by which it was declared, that the late inquiry must be derogatory from the honour of the Crown, and injurious to the best interests of the empire.

Mr. Bennet
was desirous of offering a few remarks on the petition now before the House, chiefly in relation to the conduct of the high sheriff of Northumberland in refusing to call a county meeting. He was astonished, that any person filling such an office should have ventured upon a weak or frivolous or no pretext at all, to decline assembling the county, after a requisition so signed. The property of the requisitionists, did not amount to less than 200,000l. per annum. It was therefore too much, that an obscure person, whose name and person were as little known as any individual residing in the lanes or alleys of London, should presume to set his opinion against the wishes of such requisionists. He new not whether the sheriff acted entirely from his own will, but there was some reason to suspect, that he had received a hint elsewhere; for a hole-and-corner address was then in a course of preparation. Although signed by many respectable persons, he could not behold with sentiments of respect the originators of these sham-loyal productions, working like moles, concealed in darkness, and only marked by the quantity of dirt which they threw up around their holes and corners. The mock-loyal address in question was brought forward under the auspices of the lord lieutenant, a copy of whose letter, sent through the county, he held in his hand. He should advert, however, to one point only which it contained, and which seemed meant as an apology for not daring to show their faces at a public meeting, and for the want of that spirit and gallantry which had been displayed by one or two individuals, who manfully avowed their dissent from the resolutions of other assemblies. The noble duke had stated in this letter, that his reason for not proposing a requisition calling for a county meeting was, his persuasion, that the sheriff would, from his impartiality, refuse to comply with it. Now, there certainly was no need of a county meeting for the purpose contemplated; but, when the noble duke went on to say, that there were no 283 other means of convening the county, he must deny the assertion. The noble duke (of Northumberland) could hardly have read the act, to the passing of which he had, by his unfounded statements, largely contributed, or he must have known, that he, as lord-lieutenant, might have himself called the county together; and that it might also have been assembled under the authority of a certain number of magistrates. It was not probable, that he would have experienced any difficulty in finding pliant magistrates or obsequious clergymen to assist in carrying his wishes into effect. The truth was, that the mock loyalists dared not to come openly forward, from their consciousness, that if they did, they would be beaten out of the field. He held a copy of their address in his hand, and had never met with a grosser libel, or a string of more foul aspersions on respectable individuals.

§ Mr. Robert Price
presented a similar petition from the borough of Leominster, in the county of Hereford. The sentiments expressed in the petition were, he believed, generally entertained in the county which he had the honour to represent. The late vote of the House, the most extraordinary to which he could have imagined it possible for a House of Commons to come, was, he believed, in direct opposition to the sentiments of nine-tenths of the whole community.