The Sun.
London, England, 1818-03-12 00:00:00

Society,' but he .cdnld not see tylict ParliaMent
to do with it, 13 it the Gentlemen opposite hat
'thoughtit necessary to bolster up .Ward's cast: with
this gratuitous case of !forgery, and then 1111.6 wing
in a 'cart-load of otherPetit ions, asserted toilt
House bad not.exaMitied enough. Why, it tv,,,
only becanSe, they,'
Were convinced of the gross
fraud and delusion had been attempted to be
practised on theth, and if they had turned room,
to the examination, they would have lived to re-
pent the day; and would no: only .have lia,r rite
consolation of being pitied', but he aggravation
being laughed at for fools !-':-.(Laughter.)—There
was another case, which was intended to connect
Government with the spies. A man natural
Dewhurst was seen in a gig of Sir J. l)vng.
He would admit that the assertion was reiract.e.d
afterwards; hilt 00 matter. Only give the Gen-
tlemen Opposite sufficient time,
,and they would
retract all the rest that they had Made.—(Loud
laughter.)—Half of those they had already made
had gone off by their own confessions, and it
did seem a little whimsical that `Goveroment
was to take the other half for granted. 'But then
came the two convincing refutations from 'Sir J.
Byng. There was no such man as Dewhiirs•,
and he (Sir J. Byng) had no gig.—(Laughter.)---
And yet from these two non-entities Was made
out a proof of a connection between Government
and the Spies. He believed it was in the time of
Mr. Fox, when Geography was not so well under-
stood by foreigners as it was at present, that one
of them believed there Was a roundabout way of
getting to England from the Continent by land ;
and another has asked whether be could not go
from Sicily to England in the same manner ?
Being answered in the negative, be expressed his
surptise, as Sicily was an island as well as Bog-
land. So if there had been Dewhurst with-
out the gig, or the gig without Dewhurst,
they could not have been brought together;
but there being no gig and no Dewhurst,
placed the accusers of Government in a still greater
dilemma to prove the connexion. The Right
Hon. Gentleman. !hen adverted to the attempts
that had been made to show that Oliver had been
sent from London as a delegate, and repeated that
it was Mitchell who was the London delegate, and
who bad taken Oliver with him. But Oliver, being
once introduced as a delegate, was obliged to pass
as one, for it would have cost him his life to dis-
avow it. Again, the speech ascribed to Oliver by
Mitchell was true as it related to Mitchell, but
false as to Oliver. The Right Hon. Gentleman
then went over the grounds respecting the 70,000
men, and contended that all that had been said
on this subject came from Mitchell, and not from
Oliver. Then there was a story of a Gentle-
man to whom Oliver gave information of a
plan to overturn Government by physical force.—
But what must he thought of the man who .had
never uttered a word of this conspiracy till he
loomd that the conspirators had turned informers
He believed that this most respectable Gentleman
wished to see the Government overturned by force,
and was deterred from interfering to effect it only
by cowardice. Thus were witnesses brought for-
ward, blasted in character and in name. Another
Hon. Gentleman had said, that he also knew a re-
spectable Gentleman, who, if called to the bar,
would say, that;Oliver was riding in the Park, and
that he told him it was exceedingly Wrong. And it
also appeared that this " respectable Gentleman"
hail communicated his respectable story to a " re-
spectable Paper." But how happened it that this
very respectable Gentleman, whose loyalty was
bursting in his bosom, and whose name had been for-
gotten, remained so long in the back ground ? Why,
because the whole story was false, and that
man must he a dolt and au ideot who would be-
lieve one word of it.—(Loud cries of hear, hear,
trout every part.)—Why did he not accuse Oliver
now he knew he was an informer I Why, be-
cause he knew himself to be a traitor, and he
would willingly destroy Oliver if he could. He
(Mr. C.) wished it not to be understood that he
had applied the epithet of dolt and ideot to an
Honourable Gentleman who had mentioned this
subject the other night ; that was not what he
meant. He should rather have said that he should
believe himself to he an ideot, if he could place
the least reliance on such a story. The House
were told they could have opportunities of hear-
ing the stories of these anonpni; but how could
they forward the ends of justice by going into
these inquiries ? it was because the House knew
that time whole of these statements were delusive
that they had abstained from going into them.—
But the Hon. anti Learned Gentleman seemed
prepared to go at any length into the charges
against Oliver; he would examine him for the
course of ten years of his life, investigate even
his taylor's bills, and have a chip and shaving .
Committee of that House to inquire into his ho-
nesty when he was a journeyman carpenter—(loud
laughter) ; and no doubt they would then set
aside the award of the arbitration, and revenge
the decision of the Court of King's Belie'', both
of which were decided in Oliver's favour.—(No,
no, from some Mentbers).-There was no mail, he
was convinced, except the Member for Bramber
and the Honourable Gentleman, who would main-
tain the proposition, that Government could go
on without such sources. Would they wish them
to wait till treason had become triumphant, and
they were informed of it by men with terror in
their looks

.. E'en such a man,
.6 So pale,. so spiritless, so wet-begone,
" Drew Priam's cnr:ain in the dead of night,
" And would liar told him. half his 'Croy was burnt,
" But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue."
So we were to receive such information after the
conflagration, and were to detain our informers to
make inquiries into their character. But if Priam
had detained the man, when the flames had reach-
ed his palace-windows, to inquire into the parti-
culars of his birth, parentage, and education, he
should have pitied the old man, though it would
have been mach more than he deserved. If
the House could be persuaded to vote that the
councils of disaffection should be concealed
and disregarded, who could not foresee that
the very foundations of religion and virtue
would be the prey ? Government was accused of a
total insensibility to the miseries of the people.—
What had been the conduct which provoked this
accusation ? What would be thought of the con-
duct of Government when contrasted with those
who bad availed themselves of those miseries for

the most detestable political purposes ? It had
heel) said of Bteaaaparte that he tiao lied toe
urojsle of France hut as the raw materiel for
conquest , but what would be said ot those
salsa availed taemselves of the distresses of
the people to serve sonic favourite scheme,
ve;:o, without the excuse of being dazzled
with t:le and glories of war, approach-
ed a starving poputation not to relieve but to
gauge their niiserike: ant calculate upon the
strength of their deSaair. Wh:zt Govertoneut had
done with the atithoity of Parliament tvas to
save a distressed people from sach persons—what
those persons had doer was to inflator the people
against the Government. Bat the sense fq the
nation—i he sentimeats of the people, were arra
pealed to as being contrary to the sense of the
House. Aod how Was this supported ? By the
petitions *sewed to the House—the thousands
of petitions composed and collected by the in-
dustry of the Hon. Baronet and his friends—the
twenty petitions with one thousand subscribars,
and the hundred eetit ion 3 with t Weutystibscribers—
the Petitions collected by all the artifices of mid-
tiplyieg the subscribers, by dividing the Petitions,
and again multiplying time Petitions, by dividing
the subscribers. Was it from these that the
sense of the majority of the people was to be
judged hear l)—He rejected the test.—
But these Petitions were from the Reformers.—
'(Here the Right Hon. Gentleman went on for
some 'Minutes in a strain of exquisite wit and
irony, Which we Coble' in vain attempt to follow,
ridiculing the -radical Reformers, who petitioned
for universal -Suffrage, excepting only women and
lunatics.)He Pitied the exclusion of the female
sex, and thought it likely that in fairness the Hon.
Baronet would soon present a Petition front the
Mad-house at Kensington, respectably and nume-
rously signed, anti couched in language perfectly
respectful, claiming noirtersal seffrage without
exclusion.—(The House resounded with laughter
and cheering.)—The Hon. awl Leartied Gentle.
man (Mr. Brougham), who disdained,as much as
himself the folly of these Petitioners, who thought
of them with prolami] scorn, who knew that the
Petitioners were only the deluders and the deluded
—even the Hon. and Learned' Gentleman could
not help tailing in with the sentiments of the Re-
formers in -a qualified way, and expressing his
opinion that some moderate reform was needed to
invigorate the Constitution.. That Hou. and
Learned Gentleman needed not have m ide any
apology for the panegyric which he had pro-
nounced upon the Constitution. The question
between them was which had done most good to
the people, those who preached to the people their
rights, or they who taught the people that they had
duties as well as rights. Let the people be in-
structed and educated, but let them not be taught
that their rulers are their enemies, and that le-
velling is right; let them be taught the truth,
that to level is not to equalize, but to de-
stroy. Hatred of the Government was the great
principle which theenemies of the people seemed to
wish to inculcate. They reviled that which they
wished to destroy, but they gave Ito picture of what
they intended tosetep in its room.—( Hear, hear!)
The lower orders had indeed suffered the most
dreadful privations; but what sort of man could
be who would say that these privations were
occasioned by a defective state of the representa-
tion ? This was the delusion impressed upon the
minds of the unhappy Petitioners. The argotneot
used to them Was like this :—that the war was
the cause of all the distress ;----the war was occa-
sioned by a corrupt Government ;—that corrupt
Government was supported by a corrupt Hone of
Commons ; and that House of Consmons.laid oft
the taxes which occasioned all the misery. This
was the sort of argument which all the Petitions
contained, and in all of them the same question
Was begged—namely, that if the Reform which
they wished for was made, war would be less fre-
quent. Against this he would appeal to all his-
tory, ancient and modern—to that of Greece or
Rome—and be would ask whether it could be said
that wars had not become more prevalent—the
lust of conquest more excessive, in the most po-
pular Governments ? Such, however, were the
delusions practised upon the distressed people of
England, by those who could persuade them that •
they ought to he dead to the glories of Warelloo,
but feelingly alive to the defects in the represen-
tation of Old Sarum.—(Hear, hear, hear !)—The
crime charged against the Government by the op- •
posers of this 8.11 wei, that they had delivered the
people from such deluders, and had preserved the
Constitution nom. their attacks. (The Right
lion. Gentleman concluded amidsti the loudest
cheers from all sides of the House.)
Mr. LANIBTON rose to say, that as the state.
meta Which lie had made relative to Oliver had
beets so frequently and so unfairly alluded to by
the Right Hon. Gentleman who had just sat
down, he now pledged his character, as a man of
honour, to bring forward the person to whom he
had alluded to the bar of the House, and he
would rove the fact. That person was a man
of mercantile respectability, unconnected with any
of the transactions or debates on this subject. He
had not concealed that which be knew of the
conduct of Oliver, but had repeatedly mentioned
it to persons of hi 3 aCTlAilltance. It Was true
that he did not mention it to Lord Sithnouth, be-
cause he knew. that Oliver was employed by him.
Notwithstanding all that had been said upon the
subject to•night, he remained peafecrly convinced
of the truth of all that he had first stated on the
subject. All that he wanted was to have an op.
port unity of proving
Mr. Ceottee said, that in order in any degree
to justify the silence of the anonymous individual,
it was necessary to believe that he knew Oliver to
be in the employment of Lord Siditionth at the
time when the transaction alleged is said to have
taken place—a fact which it was maeifest was
intpos,ible. If this anonymous person was a man •
of respectability, how was it to he accounted for
that be hall not communicated his information at
a time when the House was engaged in en in•
quiry opan 'the .subject—when addresees were
presented on the subject.? It was said lie was der
terred by fear of the Suspension Act. Now he
begged it to be observed, that the outrage on the
Prince Regent was perpetrated on the 28th of Ja-
nnary--ethe Sitspension Act passed on the 4th of
March—during that interval proclatnat on were
issued, offering rewards to any person who could