The Sun.
London, England, 1834-12-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1834.

MEETING OF THE CITIZENS OF LONDON.

the extent they might wish, still they had sufficient-power
over it to determine in whose hands the government of the
country should be placed.—( Hear, hear.) He trusted that
the people would never become supine as regarded public
affeirs, for they might be assured that they never would get
anything froin the Government until they made it uneasy.
—(Hear.) They bad beets 'asked to try the new Admi-
nistration, but the people of England, .he trusted, were too
wise to do so ; they were known to the people by their acts
—they were not new men, but had already shown what the
people had to expect from their tender mercies. It was per-
fectly obvious that the person who was nominally at the
head of the Government was not really so.—(Cheers.) The
Duke of Wellington was in reality Prime Minister—Sir
Robert Peel liras merely his deputy, and he was as well aware
of this as any person.—(Hear, hear, and a laugh.) They all
knew what the Duke of Wellington approved of as a system
of government. If they had a Government he was well
fitted to conduct, they would have a military despotism.—
(Cheers.) Sir Robert Peel stated that he was a warm
friend of religious liberty—(laughter) ; but the Dissenters
of England were not to be cajoled by his declarations. He
had opposed the partial concession of their rights by the re-
peal of the Test Acts, as long as he could ; and when he
found the majority of a boroughmongering House of Com-
mons against him, he rather sacrificed his principles than his
place, and gave way. Whenever a dissolution of Parlia-
ment occurred, he trusted that the people of England
would be found at their posts, and would take care that
their representatives not only protected their own liberties,
but the liberties of all Europe.—(Cheers.) Sir Robert
Peel stated that his object was to maintain peace ; but
would lie be friendly to the liberties of France and Spain,
or Portugal ? or would he look with satisfaction to almost
regenerated Italy, or to the struggles of Poland for inde-
pendence ?—( Hear, hear.)
Mr. DILLON proposed the second resolution. He said
there could be no doubt that the Duke of Wellington was
the dictator of the country, and that his accession to office
had been called for by the Tory party all over the Continent.
To show the feelings of the Tories, he would refer to the
proceedings at several of the public dinners, and above all
to the remark of the Duke of Buckingham, at a dinner at
Aylesbury ; when he proposed " The Duke of Wellington
and the army"—he repeated the Waterloo cry of " Up
boys, and at them."—(Cheets.) Again, Sir E. Knatchbull
said the other day at the dinner at Ashford, that
he who made the least changes in Church or State
would best consult the interests of all. Were these
reformers such as to suit the people ? He now came
to Church Reform. What, said Sir Robert Peel
upon' the subject ? " As to our Ecclesiastical Establish-
ment (says Sir Robert), I have had no recent oppor-
tunity of giving that grave consideration to a subject of
the deepest interest, which could alone justify me in making
any public declaration of opinion." What ! he, the Prime
Minister of England, take the post lately vacated by Lord
Melbourne, and yet declare, at the very moment he was
assuming that high station, that he had not had time to
bestow his most grave consideration upon the vital ques-
tion of Church Reform ?—(Cheers.) Sir Robert declared
in his address that he answered for his colleagues as well
as himself ; and what did his colleagues say ? Two years
ago, Mr. Goulburn asserted that if there were to be any
reorm in the Church Establishment of England, it should
be such a reform as should give an increase of bishoprics.—
(Hisses.) Mr. Goulburn was one of the colleagues who,
Sir Robert Peel now informed the country, entirely con-
curred with him in his sentiments.—(Cheers.) The new
Administration was said to be a reforming Administration
--(Laughter)—he (Mr. Dillon) would tell Sir Robert
Peel what it was the people wanted : they wanted good
measures, administered by honest men.—(Great cheering.)
Sir Edward Knatchbull had said that the re-establishment
of the present Administration was a dispensation of
Providence ; he (Mr. Dillon) thought it was a visita-
tion of Providence, rather.—(Cheers.) But did not the
use of such language, and upon such an occasion, amount
to taking the name of Heaven in vain ? Was it
not deplorable that the profession of such high principles,
and the use of such almost holy language, should be pro-
faned for party purposes ?—(Cheers.) He asked those
whom he had the honour to address whether they would
submit to such a degradation in their own eyes, in the
eyes of their children, in the eyes of posterity, as to re-
ceive even good institutions from men who hated good in-
stitutions ?—(Applause.) Good institutions, given from
such hands, would be polluted. But the Tories declared
that they had changed their opinions. It occurred to him
(Mr. Dillon) to ask the Tories whether they could not
have changed their opinions, as well out of office as in.
--(Cheers.) If they were sincerely the friends of reform,
why could they not, or rather why did they not, support
the Reforming Administrations of Lord Grey and Lord
Melbourne ?—(Cheers.) In the preceding observations
he (Mr. Dillon) had been shooting al high game—at
the members of his Majesty's Administration ; he was
now going to aim at humbler game, and nearer home—
a word for the Lord Mayor.—(Great cheering, in the
midst of which a voice was heard exclaiming, " tip it
into him.") There was to be a dinner at the Mansion-
house next Tuesday, at which Ministers were to appear,
and to make, he supposed, an affidavit of their political
faith before the Lord Mayor. He could but admire with
what peculiar propriety it was that the present Ministers,
who had all their lives opposed reform, should appear before
the Lord Mayor to do as he had done—to eat their words.
--(Cheers.) Touchstone the clown, in the play of As you
Like it, swears by " his honour," whereupon the Lady Ro-
salind asks him " Where learned you that oath,.fool ?" To
which Touchstone replied, " I learned it of a certain
Knight that swore by his honour that they were good pan-
cakes, and swore by his honour that mustard was nought.
Now," quoth Touchstone, " I'll stand to it, and the pan-
cakes were nought, and the mustard was good ; and yet
was not the Knight forsworn. . . . If you swear by that
that it is nought you are not forsworn ; no more was this
Knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any."—
(General cheering.) Now, he hoped that the Lord Mayor,
on Tuesday next, would ask Sir Robert Peel and Lord
Lyndhurst their opinion of the pancakes, and the Duke of
Wellington how he liked the mustard.—(A voice, " Dur-
ham mustard.") With these observations, he would con-
clude by moving this resolution :
" That in such a crisis, this meeting of the citizens of Lon-
don chiefly look for support from the representatives of the
people in the Commons House of Parliament ; and call upon,
and exhort the people of England, to rally round that House,
as their great and constitutional safeguard in any political
struggle to which the country may be exposed. That, in the
event of a dissolution of Parliament, this meeting deems it
imperative upon the citizens of London to set an example to
the nation at large, by returning representatives who, till they
see the Government placed in hands which shall afford a gua-
rantee for the reformation of abuses, and the redress of griev-
ances, shall refuse the Supplies, and, by every constitutional
means, seek the peaceable establishment of a liberal and re-
forming Administration,—representatives, who shall not only
oppose an open awl avowed return to Tory misrule, but shall
most strongly oppose the hypocritical, and therefore most dan-
gerous assumption of reform principles, by a Tory Administra-
tion. And that, for these objects, a committee be now ap-
pointed, to watch over and protect the rights and interests of
the citizens of London at the ensuing election."--(Cheers.)
Mr. WIRE rose to second the resolution. There was a
' peg zd in the history of Scotland when the people of that
country rc!niqd to elect their representatives, except upon
the condition, t:Lckt they would vote no supplies to the
Crown, until after a dis;:inct assurance bad been given by
the Government of the day, :1114t all the grievances of the
nation should be redressed. He t,t'ught that the people
of England should now revive a simit.l.7r determination
with the people of Scotland, and that their c., . and their
instruction to their representatives should be, " No
supply until our grievances are removed."—(Cheers.,l
He called upon the people to dismiss the present Adminis
tration.—(Great cheering.) It was not a vain call, for
they possessed the power, and if they spoke out as men and
Englishmen the Tory Government must soon crumble into
dust. If through their representatives in Parliament they
spoke what the moral sense and intelligence of the nation
would respond to, they would soon see Sir Robert Peel, the
hollow professor—Sir Edward Knatchbull, the supporter of
church abuses—Mr. Goulburn, the defender of all corrup-
tions, and the whole rank and file of the present Adminis-
tration, retire quickly and precipitately from office ; and,
what was more, retire for ever.—(Great cheering.)
The resolution was then agreed to.
Mr. FEARON said it was with considerable reluctance
that he rose to address the meeting at that late period of
the evening. At the passing of the Reform Bill, the
friends of liberty, by one united action, exhibited, not
merely to this country, but to the whole of civilized Eu-
rope, by their union of purpose and by their mental de-
termination, an example which in no former period of
history had ever been equalled. After the high triumph
that the nation then gained in defeating the Tory faction,
it was imagined that the ei;emies of all reform were com-
pletely crushed ; and the Reformers thought that they
could afford to divide themselves into i..lfferent parties,
each having the great end of reform in view, but differing
in some slight degree as to the means by which it shod M
be accomplished. But the recent appointment of Sir
Robert Peel and an Administration decidedly and violently
Tory, ought to convince them (the Reformers) that they
had no strength to spare—that their enemies were united,
and that a struggle (probably more severe than any in
which they had yet engaged) was upon the eve of taking
place, for the assertion of the immortal principle of the
rights of man, of the rights of society, of the rights of in-
dividual liberty of the majority of the people.—(Cheers.)
When he (Mr. Fearon) looked at the address which Sir
Robert Peel had recently published nominally to his con-
stituents, but in reality to the nation, he could not but
admire the rapidity with which the triumph of mind had
advanced within the last quarter of a century. Not many
years since, the King might have appointed a Tory Admi-
nistration, or any Administration that he pleased, and the

Last night a Meeting of tho citizens of London was held
at the London Tavern, I3ishoPsgate-street; (in consequence
of the Lord Mayor having refused to convene a meeting in
Guildhall), to deliberate on the course to be pursued by
them in the event of a general election, consequent upon
the abrupt dismissal of the late Ministry, and the appoint-
ment of a Tory Administration. The large room of the
Tavern was crowded to excess shortly after six o'clock, and
several thousand persons wore turned from the door, being
unable to obtain admission.
Mr. Alderman WOOD took the chair at seven o'clock.
He said that being called upon to preside ever so numerous
and respectable a meeting of his fellow-citizens, could not
but be extremely gratifying to so humble an individual as
himself. He regretted much that the Chief Magistrate
(hisses) of that great city had refused the citizens the use
of their own Hall—(Hear, hear, hear.) He regretted
such conduct on the part of a brother Magistrate
towards the citizens of London. He had lived for
thirty-four years in connection with the Corporation, and
was extremely sorry to see a member of the body to
which he belonged exposing it to reflections by such
treatment of his fellow-citizens—(Hear, hear, hear !)
He felt the more regret, because, when he filled the chair
he was satisfied that the citizens of London had the right
to call upon the Chief Magistrate to convene public meet-
ings of themselves—(Cheers) ; and if the greatest Tory
that ever lived had asked him, he (Alderman Wood) would
have granted him a public meeting.—(Cheers.) He was
sure that the citizens of London did not select a person as
their Chief Magistrate, merely because he was a party
man.—(Cheers.) He was chosen to do his duty as a ma-
gistrate, and to promote, as far as he could, the general
interests of his fellow-citizens ; and on this ground, when
he became Chief Magistrate he should cease to be a party
man.—(Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Alderman Wood) did not
wish to prevent any Chief Magistrate from entertaining
political opinions, but he ought not to suffer them to inter-
fere with his conduct in the chair. He knew that his
Right Honourable Friend, the present Lord Mayor, pro-
mised, previous to his election—(Cheers)--promised, to
his (Mr. Alderman Wood's) knowledge—to call public
meetings of the livery in Guildhall whenever he was called
upon to do so.—(Cheers.) He (the Lord Mayor) said that
being a Tory, he was not likely to agree in politics with
gentlemen who called public meetings, but that he would
not allow his political feelings to influence him, but would
most readily give his fellow-citizens the use of the Hall,
when called upon to do so, in which they might express
their sentiments.—(Cheers.) After this, he (Mr. Alder-
man Wood) must say that it was most extraordinary
that the application for a public meeting was rejected.—
(Laud cheers,) They bad then met, however, to consider
a more important subject ; he should therefore not dwell
longer on the unpleasant topic which he had just touched
on. Before he requested, their attention to the resolutions
which would be proposed for their adoption, and which he
had no doubt would be found to be in unison with the feel-
ings of the great majority of those present, he begged they
would listen attentively to any observations that might be
offered in opposition to them. He not only asked this as a
personal favour, but also in justice to the cause which they
had met to promote. He never recollected, during his long
connection with the city of London (a period of nearly 40
years), having been present at a more numerous or respect-
able meeting of his fellow-citizens ; and he had no doubt
that all had assembled there with the same object, namely,
the promotion of the best interests of their common coun-
try. They had to consider what was. to be done in the
present emergency. They had then a public duty to per-
form, namely, to express their sentiments, in the strongest
way, as to whether they would be governed by men who
were opposed to any improvement or reform.—(Cheers.)
This was the subject for their serious consideration. They
had been told that they should look to measures, and not
to men ; but he would ask whether it was reasonable to call
upon them to trust to men who were always opposed to re-
form, and had ever manifested hostile feelings to any at-
tempts at improvements in the institutions of the country,
—(Loud cheers.)
Mr. TRAVERS said that they had then met to determine
on the measures which should be adopted in case of a dis-
solution of Parliament at the present juncture ; and there
was also connected with the object of the meeting, the cir-
cumstances that had deprived them of the use of their hall.
This latter circumstance became of more importance at the
present moment, as it pointed out to them the treatment
they might reasonably expect from the present Administra-
tion, and that every attempt would be made to make ag-
gressions on their rights and privileges.—(Hear, hear.)
When they talked of the Lord Mayor as a private charac-
ter, they should recollect.that it was quite sufficient that he
had been convicted in public of a lie.—(Loud cheers.) In
reference to his public conduct he would merely state, that,
in his (Mr. Travers's) opinion, the Lord Mayor had covered
himself with eternal disgrace.-(Cheers.) Notwithstanding
the changes that had recentlyen place, the people had
it in their power to prevent any great evils resulting, if they
were only true to themselves—that was, if they were deter-
mined to return no persons to Parliament who were not fa-
vourable to Reform.—(Hear.) It was stated that the new
Government would be advocates of Reform to a certain ex-
tent, but they would only grant such Reform as they thought
fit and proper—that was, to the extent that suited their own
purposes, and no further.—(Hear, hear.) Did the people of
England expect Reform from the Tories ?—(No, no.) Did
they expect as much Reform from their present Government
as they had received from the Grey Ministry since the passing
of the Reform Bill, feeble as that Ministry latterly became
(Hear, hear.) Did they expect so much from them as
from the Melbourne Administration ?—(No, no.) Were
they justified in expecting reform from men who, for their
whole lives, had been inimical to every principle of reform,
and, therefore, to the utmost, however they might appear
to act for a time, would strive to prevent any reform or
improvement ?—(Cheers.) Did they believe that the
Ethiopean would change his skin, or that Sir Robert Peel
would discard the principles he had hitherto adhered to ?
Sir Robert Peel, they were told, was favourable to the
principle of reform, and was prepared to act in conformity
with the spirit of the Reform Bill ; but what was meant by
that they might learn from his address to his constituents.
" If by adopting the spirit of the Reform Bill it be meant
that we are to live in a perpetual vortex of agitation—that
public men can only support themselves in public estimation
by adopting every popular impression of the day, by pro-
mising the instant redress of any thing which any body may
call an abuse, by abandoning altogether that great aid of
Government, more powerful than either law or reason, the
respect for ancient rights, and the deference to prescriptive
authority—(Great laughter)—if this be the spirit of the Re-
form Bill, I will not undertake to adopt Oh, oh !)
Did they expect that the reform they should get from
such men would be worth having ? The truth was, that
the Court party now pretended to be in favour of re-
form, for the purpose of obtaining temporary ascendancy,
which they were in hopes of rendering permanent ; but the
people of England might. rest satisfied that they would grant
nothing that was not extorted from them. Their great
hope was in seeing the pevle disunited and torn into fac-
tions.—( Hear, hear.) He trusted, however, that the pflo
ple would in this single instance copy the example of the
Tories, and that, in case of a dissolution, they would only
send such men to Parliament as were pledged to reform.—
(Cheers.) A dissolution would very shortly take place ;
and it was the bounden duty of the people to be prepared
for it, and to guard . against the artifices of their enemies.
Much had been said of the King's prerogative, and he would
protect it to the utmost ; but they should recollect that by
the Constitution they had, complete controul over it.—
(Cheers.) The King might go to war, but it was for the
people to say whether they would furnish the resources.—
(Hear, hear.) He might dissolve the Parliament, but it
was for them to send representatives who would boldly ex-
press the feelings and wishes of the people.—(Cheers.) He
might choose his own Ministers, but it was for them to sanc-
tion the appointment. In conclusion, they should ever re-
collect that the Crown was only held by the power of the
people, and in trust for them, and only for their benefit.—
(Loud cheers.) He concluded with moving the first reso-
lution, as follows :

" 1. That, by the passing of the Reform Bill, the three es-
tates of the Realm—King, Lords, and Commons—became
each and all of them equally pledged to the reformation of
abuser, and solemnly bound to the establishment of a more pure
and enlightened system of Government. That the obstacles
thrown, by the intrigues and opposition of a Court party, in
the way of Lord Grey's Administration ; the advising of the
abrupt dismissal of Lord Melbourne's Administration, without
any apparent cause, and when no new question of sufficient
difficulty had arisen • the acceptance of the provisional govern-
ment by the Duke of Wellington, the avowed enemy of all re-
form, and the acknowledged head and representative of the
Tory faction ; and finally, the formation, by Sir Robert Peel,
of an Administration whose members, whatever now may be
his or their professions, are exclusively and violently, Tories
and Anti-Reformers ;—must, in the estimation of this meet-
ing, be regarded as affording conclusive evidence of the exist-
ence of a faction and revolutionary design, to subvert (either
by direct or indirect means) the now established laws and con-
stitution of the land,—and as being at once insulting to the
feelings, hazardous to the liberties, and injurious to the best
interests of ti.e British people."
Mr. GIBSON seconded the resolution. He said that it
must be the anxious wish of every man who was desirous
of the well-being of the country, that an end should be put
to the present Administration.—(Cheers.) For a long pe-
riod this country had been governed by two factions, who
pursued the same course while in power, and who each ap-
peared anxious to gain the good opinion of the public when
not in favour at Court ; and when a change took place it
appeared that, although men were changed, the system of
government was the same. They had seen, howP,;rer, the
advantage of other times, and lived under •::::iferent laws—
they had a House of Commons under Cie influence of pub-
lic opinion ; and although reform bad not been carried to