The Sun.
London, England, 1831-02-02 00:00:00

COUNTY OF ROXBURGH.

On Tuesday a very numerous and respectable
meeting of freeholders and heritors of the county of
Roxburgh was held in the County Hall of Jedburgh,
to consider the propriety of petitioning Parliament
for an extension of the elective franchise in the
counties and burghs of Scotland. Sir T. M. BRIS-
BANE was called to the chair.
Sir W. SCOTT said, the Scottish Members of Par-
liament are professedly sent to a certain house to
" work and labour" for the public benefit, yet the
Scottish public have as little to do with sending
them thither, as they have with the elevation of the
Grand Seignor to the Musnud. I will not con-
sume your time, nor exhaust my own limited
powers, by en'ering into the details of our inauspi-
cious system ; it is opposed to the energetic spirit
of the times, whether I consider it in reference to
our counties or burghs—l should say, royal burghs;
the rights and privileges" of which, says the Act
of Union," shall remain entire as they now are, after
the Union, and notwithstanding thereof." Our re-
medy is, in letting in the public voice more exten-
sively into our counties and burghs. In the large
and important county of Lanark they have only
about 200 voters for the Member who is to repre•
sent all their opinions and interests in Parliament :
iu the rich and thickly-populated county of Perth,
the number amounts to little more : and the free-
holders of the whole country taken together corn-

pose but 3,500. I repeat, then, we must relax the
cord, the chain by which we are bound—we must
call in to our aid the public voice. Where is the
Scottish Member, whether for county or burgh, who
goes into Parliament with the conscious power and
dignity that accompany the free representation of a
body of free and independent electors ? The Hon.
Baronet concluded by reading the first resolution.
Mr. WILLIAM BELL rose to second the resolution.
Though we had forty-five representatives for Scat-
land, yet when we looked back, scarcely one eminent
man among them—scarcely one statesman who had
gone to Parliament through the Scottish representa-
tion—scarcely one eloquent speaker, one great
statesman, or one Cabinet Minister, had gone up as
a representative from Scotland. Of the few who
were eminent as Scottish Members, three had been
dismissed by their countrymen. The first on the
list was Mr. Joseph Hume. Then there was Sir
R. C. Ferguson, who for twenty-four years had
acted as an honest and independent representative,
and all that time fought for the rights and interests
of the people. Lastly, Mr. Robert Grant, who was
so worthy to fill a place in his Majesty's Govern-
ment. All these eminent characters had been swept
from the list of their country's representatives at
the last election—and what was the consequence?
Why, they had gone to the high places of England
—to Middlesex, to Nottingham, and to Norwich,
where they were returned by the independent suf-
frage of the people, and without the expense of a
single farthing.— (Cheers.)
Sir F. W. ELIOTT was happy to have this op-
portunity of adding his contribution to the general
expression in favour of Parliamentary Reform.
Several other gentlemen spoke in support of the
resolutions, after which, a petition was proposed,
and unanimously adopted. It prayed for such an
extension of the elective franchise as would be con-
ducive to the welfare of the country, but left the de-
tails to Government.

TV 0 OLER MEETING.
(From the Tyne Mercury.)

On Thursday the 13th inst., a public meeting
was held at Wooler, pursuant to public advertise-
ment, for the purpose of petitioning for Reform. In
anticipation of a numerous attendance, hustings had
been erected in an open part of the street, an arrange-
ment which proved to be highly necessary. On the
hustings, we observed, M. Cu!ley, Esq. of Fow-
berry, J. Grey, Esq. Milfield Hill, Messrs. Grey, of
Skremmerston, Mr. Langhorn, Mr. Johnston, so-
licitor, Messrs. Jobson, James, Boag, Vardy, Alex-
ander, Hughes, Pringle, George Howey,Bolam, &c.
Mr. CULLEY, of Coupland Castle, having been
unanimously called to the chair, he opened the busi-
ness by reading the requisition addressed to the ma-
gistrates. He said he took the chair, to preside
over his neighbours and countrymen, with alacrity
and pleasure, although he had been advised other-
wise by very good, but not very wise person., and
he was certain their conduct that day would prove
that very false opinions were entertained of their
sense and discretion. The people had a right to
meet for all legal and constitutional purposes, and he
considered such meetings were the safety-valve for
popular feeling and excitement; indeed it has been
found that wherever political unions and clubs ex-
isted amongst the people, neither burnings nor riots
had taken place—let the wiseacres look to that.—
(Cheers.)—Popular feeling cannot now be con-
trouled, if it were wished ; we now know our
strength, like the Irish. Had Catholic Emancipa-
tion been granted ten years ago, it would have been
thankfully received as a boon ; but it was extorted
by force from a reluctant Government, and that the
Irish we:l knew; they had thus learnt the power of
agitation, and they agitate whenever they wanted
to force any thing from the Government. It was
dangerous to let a spirited horse compare his strength
with his rider's—he is apt to put his rider in the
dust—but the English nation have for years showed
mere of the sullen submission of the ass than the
spirit of the horse.—(Laughter.)—They were, how-
ever, then met to strengthen, not to perplex the
honestest and ablest Ministry which ever tallied
round the honestest and most English-hearted
monarch that ever filled our throne.—(Loud
cheers.) Earl Grey had been a steady reformer,
although he did not in Mr. C.'s opinion go far
enough. Had a moderate Reform been granted
some years back, they should not have been there
that day to demand it.—( Cheers.) He deprecated
the urging of any ultra principles of Reform, and
hoped there would be a perfect unanimity in the
meeting, each laying aside his own peculiar opinions
and asking simply for Reform.—(Cheers.) He had
been a reformer all his life, through good report and
bad report, and in the reign of King Castlereagh
and his helpmate old goody Sidmouth had nearly
pail the penalty. He certainly had never expected
to see the present
_persons in power, and nuking
Reform a Cabinet measure ; we should, however,
never despair, and he should conclude in the words of
that immortal poet and lover of liberty, Lord Byron—
" For freedom's battle once begun,
" Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
" Tho' baffled oft, is ever won."—(Cheers.)
. .

Mr. GREY then addressed the meeting at consi-
derable length, in a speech of which we regret that
we are not able to give more than an imperfect out-
line. He said he had been called upon by the friends
around him, to move the first resolution that would
be proposed for their adoption, and would not apo-
logise for presenting himself thus early to the notice
of the meeting. It was enough for him to know,
that they were assembled to exercise the privileges
of Englishmen, and to perform a duty, which, as
Englishmen, they owed to themselves, to their coun-`
try, arid to posterity.—(Cheers.) He rejoiced to
see an assemblage of the inhabitants of Glendale
Ward, numerous beyond any anticipation he had
formed, of men who knew their rights, and were
sufficiently enlightened to resort to the constitu-
tional means of seeking the redress of their griev-
ances ; and he humbly thanked Heaven that they
were not placed in those districts of the land, where
ignorance and infatuation had been goaded on by
poverty and discontent, to do the work of destruc-
don, to spread scenes of misery and discontent
around them, and involve the innocent in the punish-
ment of the guilty. He then went on to draw a
forcible contrast between the beauty and wisdom of
the Constitution as established by theory, and the
abuses and corruptions that are found to exist in
practice, entering into various details in proof of
his arguments. He had before now attended
meetings for Reform, but more, he confessed, to ex-
press the wish for it, than with the hope of seeing
that hope realized; but now he sincerely believed the
time had arrived when right and justice would prevail
over corruption and oppression. We had a King
who recognised the rights of the people, and sym-
pathized in their sufferings; who had called to his
councils the most able and enlightened statesmen
that this or any other country had ever known, who
were pledged to the cause of retrenchment and Re-
form, and who, if the people would support them,
would, he was convinced, honestly redeem that
pledge. They had opposed to them those who
abetted corruption, and fattened upon the plunder of
the people, but the voice of the people had dispersed
one administration that had opposed Reform, and
the unanimous voice of the people, firmly, and re-
spectfully, and resolutely raised, would overwhelm
the minions of corruption, and obtain for themselves
the restoration of the Constitution, and the triumph
of those principles, for which the noble Premier of
the present day had so ably contended through a
life marked by a course of undeviating political rec-
titude, consistency, and honour. He then passed a
deserved eulogium upon the character and attain.
meats of Earl Grey, of whom this country especi-
ally had just cause to boast, and spoke in terms of
high commendation of Lord Althorp, whom he de-
signated as the most upright of men, and concluded
amid loud cheering, by strongly urging upon re-
formers every where to abstain from dissensions
arising from differences of opinion upon particular
views of the subject, and to unite themselves in a
strrogeol
pull,r:anuttlioan. pull altogether. He then moved
the first i
Mr. LANGHORN said, after the very eloquent and