Star.
London, England, 1818-02-25 00:00:00

SMITH, MAYOR.
• A COMMON COUNCIL, holden in the CIIANI-
.Lx. MIR of the GUILDHALL of the CITY of LONDON,
on THURSDAY, the 19th D ty of FEittlallY, ISMS.
Ommaso—That the Petition to the Honourable House of
Commons, agreed to this day, in relation to the Suspension of
the Hobe; Corpus Act, be published in the usual Morning and
Evening Newspapers, when the same shall have been presented.
WOODTHORPE.
To the Honourable the COMMONS of the UNITED KING-
DOM of GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND, in
PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.
foe HUMBLE PETITION of the LORD MAYOR,
ALDERMEN, and COMMONS, of the CITY of
LONDON,in COMMON COUNCIL ASSEMBLED,

Saxwrru—That your Petitioners, holding in veneration the
sacred principles of Freedom upon which the British Constitu-
dm is founded, have witnessed, with the deepest concern, the
frequent and dangerous innovations which, upon unfounded
ararms and pretences, have of late years been made thereon—
more particularly by the Suspeniton of the Habeas Corpus Act,
ar.d other restrictions upon the Liberty of the Subject, during
the last Session of Parliament.
They remind your Honourable House that the Habeas Corpus
Act was passed at a period remarkable, above afl others, for
plots and alarms—that it conferred no new right, but was in-
tended as a barrier for the Liberty of the Subject, in conse-
quence of the frequent arbitrary and illegal arrests and impri-
sonments upon charges of sedition and treason by the corrupt
and tyrannical Ministers of those days.
They submit to your Honourable House, that if this great
bulwark of personal security is to be suspended whenever the
People labour under heavy grievances, and the misconduct of
Jfinisters has impelled them to lay their complaints before Par-
lletnent, or at the foot of the Throne, instead of inquiring into
and redressing them, this boasted light is become a dead letter,
its whole efficacy is lost, and it had better at once be struck out
of the Statute Book, than be suffered to remain only as a sad
sod mortifying memorial of what Englishmen formerly enjoyed.
That your Petitioners did, in the last Session of Parliament,
implore your Ildnourable Howe not to assent to any proposition
far depriving the People of tisat essential part of the Constitu-
apin—the Habeas Corpus Act—no precedent whatever existing
of such a measure having been resorted to at a period of pro-
found Peace—they deprecated the precipitancy with which
measures of such 'vital interest were hurried through Parliament
—they complained then, and they complain now, that they were
founded upon the Reports of Secret Committees, upon which
wore some of the Ministers of the Crown ; and upon ex-parte
evidence alone, selected by those Ministers, without even further
investigation, after those Reports had been contradicted in some
of their most material parts, and had been offered to be dis-
proved at the Bar of your Honour-able House.
That since the passing of the said Act, your Petitioners have
viewed with indignation and horror the vindictive cruelty with
which Ministers have exercised the powers entrusted to them—
numerous individuals have been torn from their wives and fami-
lies, dragged into distant pritons, where they have been immur-
ed, heavily ironed, for months together, and afterwards released
without being brought to trial, or even knowing the charges
against them, although repeatedly demanding to be brought
before the legal Tribunals of the Country.
Your Petitioners cannot sufficiently express their abhorrence
at the employment of infamous and abandoned wretches in the
capacity of Spies and Informers, the hired Agents of Govern-
ment, who, it appears, have been traversing the Country, and,
wherever distress and misery had engendered discontent and
irritation, these inhuman wretches have, by the basest artifices
and falsehoods, endeavoured to excite simple and deluded men
into acts of outrage and treason ; and, in the instances where
convictions have taken place, your petitioners feel convinced,
from *gat has transpired, that the unhappy and deluded indivi-
duels were the victims of these abandoned Agents.
That, notwithstanding the solemnity with which the magni-
tude and atrocity of the Treasons in Scotland were said to exist,
your Petitioners can find no record of any conviction for the
crimes alleged, although the most disgraceful tampering with
a witness appears to have taken place, in order to procure such
conviction.
That in the Metropolis, after the greatest prejudice had been
excited ,by Ministers against an individual, and after vindic-
tively persisting in putties him on his trial the third time, not
content with the previous acquittal of two successive Juries,
(during which trials attempts were made to deprive him of the
only means of defence by which he could establish his Imo-
. cone), Ministers experienced equal disgrace and discomfiture;
and your Petitioners cannot refrain front expressing to your Ho-
nourable House their conviction, that those prosecutions were
Let undertaken for the protection of Religion, but for political
objects ; and, that had the publications been in favour of Mini-
sters, or in ridicule of their opponents, they would not have
excited the attention of the Government, unless, as in other
easel, to reward the Authors.
That while these acts of severity and oppression have been
pursued with unrelenting rigour, although the sufferings of the
People have been unexampled, and the numbers of their Peti-
tions without precedent, their grievances have neither been
redressed, nor their complaints enquired into ; and your Peti-
tioners believe that the groundless alarms excited by Ministers
were solely for the purpose of stifling complaints and protecting
abuses.

Your Petitioners have looked with anxiety to the recent pro-
ceedings of your I fonourable house. The Commons House of
Parliament has been represented by the best Authorities as the
great Inquest of the Kingdom, to search into all the oppres-
si sns and injustices of the King's Ministers. It is long since
yoar Petitioners have seen this important and necessary func-
tion exercised, but they entertained the most sanguine hopes
that your Honourable House, after the unexampled difficulties
and privations the People had endured, aggravated as they have
been by the arbitrary and oppressive acts of the Ministers,
would at length have instituted the most serious and rigid en-
quiry into the multiplied oppressions and injustices of she King's
Ministers.

Your Petitioners cannot conceal from your Honourable house
that they look with no confidence to any Report that the Com-
mittees of Secrecy, now sitting, may make; the said Com-
mittees appearing to be composed, for the treater part, of
Placemen, and those very Ministers whose conduct is the sub-
j,ct of investigation. That a Committee thus formed is at va-
riance with every established principle of civil and criminal
jariaprudence, and cannot satisfy the justice and expectation of
the Country.
Your Petitioners, therefore, humbly pray your Honourable
It ;use to institute an immediate, impartial, and rigid enquiry
Mo the conduct of Ministers under the late Suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act ; and that the whole proceedings connected
therewith may be referred to such Committee as shall be corn-
pored of such Members only of your Honourable House as hold
neither Places or Pensions under the Crown : And they further
pray, that you will not render the vaunted responsibility of Mi-
nisters a mere name, by passing a Bill of Indemnity, and pre-
en:de those who have been the victims of oppression and perse-
cution from the means of appeal to the Laws of the Country.
Signed, by order of the Court,
HENRY WOODTIIORPE.

ELIGIBLE AND LUCRATIVE CONCERN.
TO BE DISPOSED OF,
in consequence a the decease of the Proprietor, .
STOCK in TRADE, GOOD-WILL, Re-
mainder of a valiiable LEASE, FIXTURES, &c. of that
old-established and well-known COACH and HAR NHS'S MA-
NU FA Cl'o Y, situate in Lichfield-street, Birmingham, carried
on by the family of the late Mr. Wltertnr, upwards of 60 years.
This Concern has been conducted under the superintendence
of the Executors, since the decease of the Proprietor, with un-
dniiiidshed success ; and they have now reduced the Stock to
such a low valuation, that any Gentleman inclined to embark in
this Manufactory, would find it an opportunity which seldom
.et curs, of employing a small capital to great advantage. The
Premises are replete with every convenience for increasing the
trade to any extent; and the Executors would treat upon the
most liberal terms, in order to ve:.nd up the accounts of the Tea-
tator. The Concern will continue until its disposal under their
management, and they inform the Public, that there is constantly
on Sale a number of New and Second-hand Carriages of every
description, at reduced prices.
AU Persons indebted to the Estate of the late Mr. F. Wheeley
-mediate" thei, and those