Star.
London, England, 1819-07-16 00:00:00

SMITHFIELD MEETING.

The business of swearing in Constables fo'r the
maintenance and preservation of the public peace on
Wednesday next, goes on with great alacrity through-
mit the different City Wards ; and, certainly, not
without reason has this precaution been adopted ; for
the character of the Placards stuck up throughout
the Metropolis is not such as to quiet the apprehen-
sions of the friends of order. We lay before our
Readers the following, posted. this morning, in great
numbers, as a specimen :
" SMITHFIELD MEETING.

" The Non-Represented People of tke British Metropolis, and
all other Friends of Freedom, are invited to assemble in Smith-
field, on Wednesday, July 21st, 1219, at Twelve o'Clock, for
the purpose of discussing their Rights, and deciding upon the
best means of regaining them ; three litter, Esq. in the Chair.
Fellow Countrymen—A long career of boundless extrava-
gance in the administration of the public property, and a conti-
nued system of partial laws and exclusive privileges, framed by
men exercising an illegal and unjust authority over you, and
falsely soling themselves the Representatives of the People, have
deprived you of your birthright, and reduced this once great and
prosperous Nation to a state of poverty and wretchedness unex-
ampled either in ancient or modern times.
" While a band of corrupt and needy adventurers, many of
them notorious bankrupts in character and fortune. and mast of
them the subservient tools of adverse factions, are permitted to
usurp scats in your House of Commons, and barter away your
libertiei by wholesale, can you be said to be fret
" While deprived of your just right to elect your own agents
and servants, for the purpose of protecting your lives, liberties,
and properties, from lawless exaction and unmitigated oppres-
sion, are you not in fazt reduced to the alject condition of S.'aves?
' " Rouse then to a proper sense of your multiplied wrongs, and
come forward upon this important occasion, in union with your
suffering and enslaved fellow-countrymen throughout the King-
dom, to proclaim your Rights, and consult upon the best means
of obtaining the only effectual remedy, a complete, substantial,
and real REFORM'! Be firm and resolute in your determina-
tions, but quiet and unoffending in your conduct! For your
own sakes, refrain from unjustifiable acts of personal outrage,
and respect the rights and possessions of your equally injured
and suffering neighbours. The frimis of liberty are the friends
of Justice and of Order! As we meet to discharge an honest
and a lawful duty, we expect, nay, we have a right to demand,
the efficient protection of the Laws but if the satellites of cor-
ruption should meditate mischief, and dare to interrupt our
peaceful deliberations by the interposition of force, upon their
own heads be the guilt and the consequences ! The right If self-
defence is the fret and mast sacred lat.: of Nature, and Resin:mice to
'On ression Coneitt.'ioral Prioilege every Briton !I !

(Signed)

Titz CommtTrivt."

May we not ask of those who thus recommend to
the people whom they wish to assemble " quiet and
unffending conduct," whether the language they em-
ploy respecting his Majesty's Ministers and the Mem-
bers of Parliament, with a view to " rouse" the people
to what they call " a prore?- sense .'f their ntyltiplied
wrongs," be at all calculated to make them " refrain
from unjustifiable acts of personal outrage," and to in
duce them to respect Me riets and pessessions tfthei,.
neighbours? And may-we not also ask how they came
to anticipate the possibility of their deliberations being
interrupted, if the Meeting shall conduct itself with
propriety ? and, above all, what is to be inferred as
intended at the close of their Address, when they say
" The right V self-defence,- &c. Will they pretend
that the swearing in of Constables to preserve the
peace, threatens them with assault of any kind ? or
do they imagine that the inhabitants of this great Me-
tropolis have already forgotten the riot and blood-
shed which accompanied the last SpaHelds Meeting,
and the ruin and desolation that then threatened this
first of Commercial Cities !