The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-12 00:00:00

Frightened tiy h. set icf bull dogs with Tom Wood
4t their head.—(Cheers and laughter.) The example of
a few men here, who make a noise and disturb the proceedings,
is exactly what we had a very good sample of in the first re-
formed Parliament.—( Chee.is and laughter.) We had a fac-
tion there of about 150 Tories, who did everything In their
power to prevent improvements. . T)teee teaS, ei. single
question or motion to glte,hey right, or to curb abuses,
Which the Tory faction did not oppose to their utmost.—
( Cheers and continued clamour from Mr. Wood's supporters.)
I appear hear to avow myself one of those who opposed the
Tories—l come among you as one who has fulfilled
his promises made at the lest nein,. and dries of
" You have.") I
wont into Parliament deier,mined to root
out all the abuses that destroy the co4tree4egheeiS. 3 1< am
proud to rity I opposed the fakiiin Plant tho. TnrtifiB,---4Tie-
mendotis cheering and uproar.) I supported every measure
of improvement and placed civil and religious liberty in
the best situation we could.---( Cheers.) What is the
cause of our being here today ? This is the last
struggle of thaw who are azieioUS iti maintain the unholy
power they formerly. had:3-.llond Cheers: ) Who think
that by bribery find ba 4 M
bald tae et infamous means to ob-
tain a niqdfity in the next Parliament, and thus resume the
r tea place the county again in that state of degradation
irom which it has just recovered.—( Great cheering.) I trust
no such thing will take place. I have a perfect confidence
that those 2,208 electors, who at the last election placed me
at the 11;:m8 of the poll, will again return me triumphantly.—
( Loud cheering and uproar.) I voted for the Reform Bill—
took it as it was, and since then I voted for improving h.—
( Cheere, ) I tieteil for extending the suffrage, and I would
WA allow any borough with less than 200 electors to semi a re-
presentative to Parliament. I voted for shortening Parlia-
men4.-s.—( Cheers.) We have now annual Parliaments i we
have had no less then feet. hi the hist fotir years;
this will Glight the Radical Reformers to the heart.---( Cheers
and laughter.) But we have had these elections not With a
view of bettering our condition.--( Cheers and uproar. A
voice, " it is Wood's friends.") Friend or foe, they are
disturbing the rnee!ing.. Away with them (renewed uproar).
Let the Men remain. [A man with a placard on his hat.]
Ike has something on his head I wantto notice —( Cheers. ) I
have only to regret that I have fulfilled all the assurances I
have given—I have made the Bill as perfect as I possibly
cetildi If We have not sutteeded it has been owing to the
opposition the Tories gave us—( Cheers)—not in the HouSe
of Coremons—there they were the fraction of a faction—( Tre-
mendous cheering)—but in the Meuse of Peers and be-
hind the Throne—( Tremendous groaning.) There it was
that impediments were thrown in our way, and Lord Grey
was unable to carry into effect those reforms which he deemed
necessary—(cheers)—end which, gentldenen, you and I will
yet insist on hatliig.—( Tremendous cheering.) I come be-
We you as one who, in the situation of your representative,
have done my duty, aye, fairly, faithfully, and perseveringly
done my duty.--( Great cheering.) If you have changed, I
have not changed.—(" No, no.") I went from you a Re-
former of Church and State—determined to reduce pensions,
sinecures, and all the other means by which the Tory Aris-
tocracy have fattened for ages upon the people.—( Cheers. )
I have done my beet—l have attempted and have succeeded
in reducing the house-tax and other taxes to the amount of
three millions and a-half. I will just make a remark upon
what fell from the seconder of Mr. Wood. He said, " Did
not the Tories do as much ?" But just before they went out of
office they said economy and retrenchment had -been paired
down till the institutions of the State could scarcel) be car-
ried on, and yet since that declaration five and a half millions
have been taken off.—( Tremendous cheering.) So much for
Tory statements.--( Cheers.) I declare I would as soon
believe Sir R. Peel or the Duke of Wellington as I would
the Lord Mayor of London, and him I would not believe one
word.---( Cheers.) There was an example of Tory honour—
the Lord Mayor promised faithfully and honestly, if they would
duly elect him, quietly and without dissension, they should
have all their common halls, &c. But what dickhe do? The
moment be got into the saddle, he forgot every promise and
pledge. I don't know whether to call this conduct honour-
able or dishonourable.—( Cheers.) I therefore ask you to
look at Sir Robert Peel. As for Wellington, he has not yet
spoken—we have only the deputy of Velllington ; it is Wel-
lington who rules, and what arc Tory promises and Tory
systems good for? Only to lull the country. But, thank God,
we are not to be lulled. The lion is up. We will tear in pieces the
whole Tory faction, and send it in shreds through the air.
Gentlemen, I come before you to ask for your suffrages—the
first act, please God I am returned to Parliament, of mine,
will be to vote for ousting the Tories. Why do 1 say so, viz.
because I have.no confidence in men who, for twenty-five years,
have been steeped in the miseries that have oppressed my country
and placed it in that state of degradation from which the last
four years have been recovering it. lam pointed at, Gentle-
men, as a Scotchman, and a word for that. One of Tom Wood's
bull-dogs says he does not like Joseph Hume. He says the
reason why he does not like Joseph Hume, is because
he is a Scotchman—( Laughter.) Why, if there is anything
more than another, it is that I belong to the United King-
dom, whether it be Scotland, Ireland, or England.—(Loud
applause.) lam not one to raise my voice for the old family,
and to talk of the old established stock, but I can assure you
that Tom Wood is of the old Tory breed. I have nothing to
disguise, and I come forward to call things by their proper
names. I have friends among the Tories, and friends among
the Whigs, and occasionally I don't agree with either of them;
but I have raised my voice alike against oppression, whether
it affected England, Ireland, Scotland, or the olonies.—
( Loud and continued cheering.) We are surrounded by the
most shallow pretenders. The Tory press is unable to find
any objection to me, except, as Tom Wood says, lam a
Scotchman. I tell Tom I pride myself on being a Scotch-
man. I tell him I pride myself on coming here to have held
the high and distinguished honour of being the member for
this metropolitan county--( Cheers)—and for owing that, not
to my connections—thank God—not to any Tory clique, but
to those men who have had the power of judging of me, and
who have said if you will take the position we will place you in
we will ask no pledge of you but your past conduct, and cheer-
fully take you for our future Representative—(Cheers)—and
if lam the only Scotchman who has been returned for
the metropolis, I challenge the whole Tory clique to say they
have done more than me.—( Applause.) I hear a gentleman
say behind me, " Canada," and allude to some letter. Now I
have a word to say on that, and this is an episode which 1 trust
you will listen to. lam challenged to it, and I am ready to
meet any challenge offered by any gentleman. Gentlemen,
the Upper Canadas in the year 1793 obtained a charter—an
Act of Parliament passed, granting them a House of Corn-
DIMS, a Senate., and a Governor to rule over them, to be ap-
pointed by the King. That act gave them the power to
assess taxes, to distribute and arrange the expenses,
and to carry on the business of the country, civil
and religious ; and what will you think of what I have now
to tell you—that under that Tory rule those men have been
slaves ever since. They are in the situation exactly in which
you were before the passing of the Reform Bill.—( Hear,
hear. )—They are in a most corrupt state. Those who are
appointed are Excise officers, and others of that description,
I believe, to the extent of nine-tenths in Lower Canada, and
twenty-five out of thirty in Upper Canada. What was the
consequence? Why, they sent home petitions. I received
their petitions, and I applied to the Colonial Minister to grant
them justice. I have therefore been assailed in the House of
Commons as the common receptacle of complaints ; but,
thank God, if it be a complaint, whether from the East or the
West, no man who has ever been oppressed, has ever been
driven from my door, I can safely state.—( Cheers.) And is
it nothing that the uncle of the late Lord Castlereagh of Six-
Acts' notoriety should admit in the House of Commons that I
was the most useful man who had ever been in the House of
Commons—the man who kept him and others at their duty so
rigidly, that they dared not do anything improper without the
dread of being called to account.—( Great applause)—Lord
Goderich attended to the petition of 38,000 men, to his cre-
dit be it said, which I placed in his hands from Upper Canada,
and so convinced was he of the propriety of it that he recalledlhe
Attorney-General and others home to shew that at least justice
should be done to the oppressed.--(Loud cheers.) When he
retired, and Stanley succeeded, one of his first acts was to
send back one of the delinquents, and actually to promote
one of the others to the Chief Justiceship of Nova Scotia.—
( Groans.) I did my duty in the House of Commons with
respect to those two steps, and I said, If Stanley is to re-
sume the old oppressive system—if he is to deny you the
rights of your fellow-men—as oppression drove our brethren
of the western world, when they rejected this Government
—if you will not take a lesson from them—if you will not
give them. the benefits which they are entitled to—if you
keep them down by faction of Tory :oppression, the time
will come when they will take the same step which America
did. Well, then, the correspondence has been published, and
my letter the Tory press gave, except the last paragraph. I
have refused to answer th attacks made by the Tory press—if
I had yielded to that, I might have had nothing else to do;
but in the House of Commons I have defended myself. I ex-
plained to Mr. Spring Rice, and that was the paragraph in
my letter to which I allude. I hope they will take that as
a lesson, but, at the same time, let every community, every
country send their 'petitions home. I cannot doubt but
that a Reformed Parliament will see justice done to them.—
( Hear, hear.) Now, this is the charge of Upper Canada,
and these are the means which they take of attacking me—
calling me Scotchman, and so on.—( Laughter.) Why, they
are too paltry to take notice of; and I only take notice of them
because I have been appealed to. Now I come to the point.
If there is any act, and I have beard only one mentioned—a
gentleman at a public meeting said I was only exerting myself
to get into office. Now, if ever O, man took the wrong way to
get into office, God knows I have taken that road.—( Cheers
and Hear, hear.) Since I entered public life, with a
fortune competent to my wants, I have ever disclaimed hold-
ing office. I have thought I could be more useful to my
country sitting in the House of Commons as a common Mem-
ber, than in joining- with such rotten materials as they have in
office. If the time should come when honest men will act in
_

office, then there might be a power with which I could act;
but with an influence behind the Throne, which has ruined
Lord Melbourne—l won't say with what honour—let my
honour be not united—an influence which has acted in the re-

fusal of those acts to which the Throne was pledged. As to
the disappointment of the people at large, let no man believe
that Lord Grey was taken into office by choice.—(llear. )
He was sent by the people. Therefore don't let yourselves be
mistaken. lam content to go on less rapidly than I might
'wish but let us go ou prosperously ; and forget not that men
were in office who were doing justice, and that during the last
six months, ever since June, a secret plot existed, and I would
ask you, if whilst men are doing all they can, an under current
comes, and the moment there appears a little re-action they
are to be swept away, what security are the public to have—
( Hear, hear.) What was the re-action ? Why it was only a
little discontent on the part of myself and others. We
claimed the rights which the Reform Bill gave the people, and
when we were complaining that we had not got them, they