The National Register.
London, England, 1812-05-03 00:00:00

CITY ADDRESS.

Tuesday, the. Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen,
Sheinri, and Common Council of the City of London, waited upon his
Royal Highness the Prince Regent, at Carlton House, with the follow-
ing Address and Pet din', which was read by John Sylvester, Esq. the
R ecoeder

TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES, RE.
•GEN r OF Tim UNI FED KINGDOM oe GREAT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND,
THE HUMBLE AND DUTIFUL ADDRESS AND PETITION
OF THE LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, AND COMMONS
OF THE CITY OF LONDON, IN COMMON COUNCIL
ASSEMBLED,

MAY IT PLEASE. VOIJR ROYAL HIGHNESS,
We, the Lord Nl.iyor, Aldermen, and Ceinnions of the City of Lor-
d n, in Common Council asseuibled, humbly approach your Royal
Highness, dutifully to represent our deep sense of the ditlicuities and
dangers impending over the country, and anxiously to invite y >ur tn.
ne-fic. ut attention to the complaints and grievances of your afflicted,
but faithful subjects.
Font teen mouths have elapsed since your Roy.) Highness acceded to
the Regency of these kingdoms, at which time we felt it our duty to
submit to you a 'statement of abuses which hild taken root in the
various department.; of he Government, the speedy correction and
removal of which we deemed essential to the prosperity and safety ef
the Empire; and we now again present qurselves before your Royal
Highness to express our unfeigned sorrow, that during this interval no
efficient measures have been adopted by your Ministers calculated to
satisfy the wishes and wants of your people, le .t that on the contrary,
the same malpractices and 'the same false principles of Goveintnett
have been tenaciously pursued and enforced, thereby adding con-
tumely to injury, and extinguishing the spring of Public energy in
a free nation. We have continued to witness the same system of prof-
. igacy in the expenditure of the Public money, the same system of
g,....terang -by undue influence and corruption; the rsine system of
•.clie:iOn in regard to tiie circulating metlium and fiances of the coin-
, try ; the t.atne p,-strut of arbitrary and grievous assessment and coffee-
bun of the taxes, by which industry is thwarted and liberty violated;
the same sy.stem of introducing into the country foreign stops; the
amt system of persecuting the press, by which the value of free ills-
cession on national topics is lost to Prince or people ; and finally the
tame system of coercive restrictions on the freedom of commerce, by
which many of our merchants and manufacturers have been involved
in ruin, and flourishing districts reduced to beggary.
A$ faithful and loyal subjects, and as the Representatives of the first
City in your Empire, we feel the deepest affliction in being thus com-
pelled to reiterate this enumerati of the malpractices and mistaken
principles of your Mioisters; we should, however, compromise that
sense of public duty, and that character of frankness which appertain
to us as Freemen Ati Britons, were we to disguise the truth, and for-
bear to express our c.tiviction, that your confidential adviters Lave
plunged this great and once flourishing Empire into an abyss from
which we can be rescued only by radical reform, and a total change in
our domestic government and foreign policy.
In a crisis, therefore, which involves the destiny of the greatest Em-
pire of these or past times—of an Empire which is blessed by Pro-
vidence with unequalled' natural advantages, and which possesses a
people that in all ages have bravely secured their prosperity on the
solid•basis of public liberty, we feel that we should justly merit the
reproaches.ot our country and posterity, if, at such a crisis, we were
to refrain from laying before your Royal Highness a faithful repre-
sentation of the public-grievances, and expressing our
henitions fur the_ welfare and the very existence of the Nation; We,
therefore, pray,.
That your Royal Highness will be graciously pleased t painful kooe-
o dismiss from
your Councils those Ministers who have proved themselves so ua-
. deserving of the canfidenoe of your People, and call to the administra-
tion of the Government men of public character and patriotic prink