The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-04-01 00:00:00

ELECTION INTELLIGENCE.

MarTING OF TO E FRF.EHOLDERS OF WEYMOUTH
*sin Mercom ns-lteGisi—A numerous and respectable
Meeting of the Frethelders and inhabitants of Weymouth
was held on 'Thursday last, at the King's Head in that
town, for the purpose of taking into consideration the state
of the representation of the borough, Mr. Robert Penny
in the chair, when the following resolutions were unani-
mously passed :
" That this Meeting feels gratified at the opportunity thus af-
forded by Mr. Fowell Button to hit constituents of publicly ea.
pressing their opinion of his Parliamentary conduct, and at the
manly and satisfactory manner In which he has met the insidious,
charttes recently fabricated and circulated in the town againt him.
• l'hat it was, at a general meeting of the Freeholders, held on
the 9th of June, 111111, at which Messrs. Ure, Wallace, Williams,
and Fowell Buxton, were present, unanimously resolved, • That
the arrangement which has taken place, by which the town will re-
turn two independent Members, appears equally honourable to all
parties ; that it is to be founded on a recognition of public princi.
pies, and must tend to promote the best interests of the inhabitants.
" That in order to give full effect to the arrangement, this Meet-
ing pledges itself to give their utmost support to Mr. lire, Mr.
Wallace, Mr. Williams, and Mr. 11.taton ; the two former on the

intere,ts of the Trustees, the two latter on the part of the Town.'
" Which resolutions were confirmed at a suasequent Meeting of
the Freeholders and Inhabitants held the sth of March, 1020, to

continue in force during the minority of Sir Frederick George
Johnstone.

•• That this Meeting, adhering to the foregoing resolutions, and
approving of the conduct of Mr. Fowell Buxton, will support him
at the next election."

Mr. F. BUXTON, previous to the resolutions being passed, ad-
dressed the Meeting at great length. The following is the sub-
stance of his speech, which was received with acelaniation. He
Raid that he had published the hand-bill which he then read, for
the purpose of giving the freeholders and inhabit ors of the town
an opportunity of making any rem-Irks which they might think
were merited by his public conduct; he stood there to answer every
question that might be put to him ; and he earnestly invited any
one who thought he had reason to complain, to state the grounds of
his complaint. After waiting for some time, and no one having
made any charge against him, Mr. Buxton proceeded thus:_" It
gives me great satisfaction to meet you here. Few mines have
been more gratifying to me than nty late visit to Weymouth, and
in that visit nothing has given me more pleasure than the large and
respectable attendance this day. I have been told that the views
and feelings of the people of Weymouth had been changed with
regard to me, and I should find that I, who so lately was received
with favour by you all, must now he prepared for decided hosti-
lity. My visit has been pleasant, because it has dissittattel these
idle but painful rumours. It has shown me that those who charged
you with such fickleness and versatility, if they bc enemies of mice,
are libellers of you.- I appeal to the gentlemen who did me the
favour to attend me in my eativa.sa. I appeal to you, who received
me at your houses, whether any thing could be more friendly or
more remote from hostility then the reception I have met with in
your presence and at your hands. Front a great majority of the
town I have received positive promises of sti;:port i and of those
with whom I was not so fortunate, many assured me that they had
not and would not pledge themselves against me till they heard the
defence I should make against the charges which would be alleged
agninet tne. Do I complain of thin ?—Far from it: I think it the
right of every Englia an closely to sift and nsrrowly to scruti-
nise the conduct of 'representatives; and if he find reason to
complain, it is his rig t r and his duty to do so. That is the trite.
rion by which I igah to be tried: if I have done wrong, reject me
without scruple; but if you think I have done right, let no private
interest induce you to desert me. Here then I stand ready to meet
all charges, and my only difficulty is, that those who were so loud
in their accusations during my absence, are themselves absent or
silent when I offer them an oppattenity of proving their charges.
As my accusers are absent, I must state for them the insinuations
which they have uttered. And first, as to the question to which I
know you justly attach so much importance—the Catholic question
—it has been said that 1 ant a friend to the Catholic refigion—that
I have invariably voted in favour of the Catholics—and by one gen-
tleman it has been said that, as bigoted an I in my attachment to
their principles, that I should be glad to see the Pope predominant
in England ;in all which there is not one word of truth. I never
have given a vote in favour of the Catholics. I should have studied
history to very little purpose—to very 'dale purpose should I have
seen the condition of the Irish population, if I did not know that a
more terrible curse could not be to this country than the predomi-
nance of Papacy. 1 am a Protestant in the fullest sense of_tist
word, and there Is no sacrifiee I would not make, rather 'than
gill a vote wbick might tend to istroduoe the temporal or spi-
• ritual authority of the Pope. But this is my difficulty ; I be-
lieve that religious prejudices will never be cured by reason. It
is the nature of man—and the more he is generous, the more it
is his nature—to resist compulsion in matters of faith. We have
been trying for centuries the experiment of force—and how has it
sucid ? Have we convened a stogie village ? Hats ra of
late made a single proselyte by all the disabilities we have im-
posed ? Is not the Irish population more Catholic than ever?
and is there not reason to believe that so it will remain till pre-
judices are removed by the removal of all penalties on the score
of religion ? Men always have clung, and always will cling, more
closely to a religion, if they suffer for doing so. I say I am a
Protestant, and I firmly believe our faith superior to that of the
Catholics ; and I am not more sure that light will disperse dark-
ness, and truth vanquish error, than I am sure that, when pre-
judice, and anger, and animosity are removed, the Protestant
faith will predominate over the Catholic ; but when I say this, let
no one super.- that I pledge myself to vote for or against the
Catholics; I will make no such pledge. I shill vote as I think
most consistent with the welfare of the Protestant religion ; hut
whether that shall be for the Catholics or against them, is a point
which I must reserve to myself. If the whole body of my consti-
tuents were to say to me, " Pledge yourself in any way on any
question, and we will support you," I would renounce my seat in-
stantly, and cheerfully, rather than subject myself to any such con-
ditions. When I first stood for this borough, said, "Free and
indepeedent in the widest sense of the terms, freedom and inde-
pendence-1 will enter Parliament, or I will never enter its walls ;"
and what I then said, I now repeat. I will not have my hands tied
or my judgment in shackles on any public question. I turn to
other parte of my conduct. lam bound to renuer you an account
of the manner in which I have exercised the privilege which you
have conferred on me ; and I say again, it' it should eprear that I
have prostituted it to purposes of private advantage, if I have re-
membered my interests and forgotten nay duties, I have no claim
upon your support. My political life has been devoted to tour
great übjects—the improvement of our Criminal Law sad our Pri-
sons, the extinction of the Slave Trade, and the mitigation and
final extinction of Slavery. As to the first—the reform of one
. .

Criminal Code—is that an unworthy object ?Isit a party object ?
I answer both questions by saying that Within the last fortnight
Mr. Peel has undertaken the same task, has used the same argu-
ments, and we have felt the greatest gratification in placing in the
hands of a gentleman so distinguished for talent and humanity
the task of reforming our Criminal Law. Next, as to the prisons.
Ten years ago they were a disgrace to this country ; the young
were mingled with the old—the suspected with the convicted--the
youthful in crime with the hoary in iniquity, and our prisons were
schools and colleges for the multiplication of criminals. They
tended only to increase the number of those who live by the plunder
of the honest. For two Sessions I devoted myself to their reform :
success crowned our efforts, and a Bill passed Parliament with
the unanimous concurrence of all parties, and with the cordial sup-
port of Government. The prisons of England have undergone a
great reformation, and our success has not ended there. Through.
out the whole Continent of Europe our system has been adopted ;
in France;inlfierrnany, in Spain, in Russia, they have altered their
prisons after the example we set them. Was this an unworthy
object ?—was it a party object? I can say I look back to my share
in that task with satistuction, and 1 chit's!: you cordially for having
placed we iu a situation where, according to my limited ability, 1
could render some service to my country. The last three years of
my political life have chiefly been devoted to the abolition of the
slave trade, and the mitigation of slavery. Is the slave t-ade an
evil?—it is the chief of evils. No imagination can conceive, and
uo tonguelean tell, the horrors of that ttade. It was stand last
year. by his Majesty's Government, that forty thousand human
beings were shipped from a single port of Africa, so inconsiderable
as not even to be mentioned upon the leap; forty thousand of
our fellow-creaturee !! ! In August lust, says Capt. Woolcombe,
of the R.N., of all the vessels I was on board of, this—" the
Diana"—was in the most deplorable condition; the stench from
the accumulation of dirt, joined to that of so many human beings
packed together in a small space, the men all ironed in pairs, was
intolerable. To add to the scene of misery, the small-pox had
broken out amongst them. Commodore !Sullen, who visited the
" Brazilian Friends," says, its filthy and horrid state beggars all
description: many females were far advanced in pregnancy, and
several had infants from four to twelve months of age : all were
crowded together in one mass of living corruption ; and yet this ves-
sel bad not her complement by nearly one hundred ! And how were
these wretched creatures collected ? I will give you one recent ex-
ample:—An African Chief had engaged to supply a French slave
trader with two hundred boys and girls; he sent out his army, sur-
rounded one of his own towns, burnt every house, murdered every
man and woman, and delivered the children to the ruffian who com-
manded the French vessel. This is but one of a thousand instances
which have recently occurred; and it you grant me the privilege of
being yourßepresentative in Parliament, that privilege shall be em-
ployed in endeavouring to exterminate that horrid and inhuman
practice of slave-trailini. Again., as to slavery—the people of
England have too long :slumbered over the miserable condition of
the negroes in the tt Indies. When three years.ago I first
broached that subject, we were told that the catclitein of the her,
slave was to he earst l by the British peasant; hut light has brncen
in; the truth has been displayed by our exertions, and within a
month I have hard hies Majesty's Attorney-General describe
slavery in the West Indies as a detestable aysteni—the Solicitor-
General as an accursed system—the Under Secretary of Stare for
the Colonies as an execrable system, and Mr. Canning as a system
full of all moral atrocities. Now I have detailed to you the great
objects in which I have embarked : if you think them worthy ob-
jects.atol such as, yo, approve in ypur Representative. I hope you
wifl confer upon me tAe office of prosecuting them in the mat Par.