The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-06-09 00:00:00

TO MR. WILLIAM WALLACE CURRIE.

Sin,—lt has so rarely been my good fortune to find your
opinions on local or political subjects concurring with my own,
that, in justice to yourself. I cannot allow the sentiments said
to be expressed by yotr, at the meeting of, what is denomi-
nated, the Liverpool Reform Association, without coming for-
ward to congratulate you, through the medium of the press,
on finding our ideas in any way approximating each other.
I am not going to criticise in any great detail either the men
or the measures discussed at this meeting; but the old woman
of Lord-street, now grey with years, and almost with one foot
in the graire, (and who used to be your particular friend,) takes
the liberty of asserting, for the information of those who read
the antiquated columns of the Mercury, that this meeting was
"very respectably and numerously attended;" he then gives a
small bill of fare, the names of a few odd individuals, including
four from Manchester, together making a total amount of nine-

teen persons. It would be doing you a great injustice, sir, to
say you were not included among the number; fur truly, if
such men they be who are to show cause why every institution
in the country should be destroyed, were the world turned
upside down, you and your friends would all be gainers ! But
this report of the proceedings ought to state how many were
present; and if not a list of those present, surely one ought to
have been inserted of those absent. I do not think, myself,
one half of you were there, and "gentle means," as the man
said when ht belaboured his ass, "wont do." No, you must
muster better, and pay up the subscriptions, for the £3O from
Mr. James Brancker, the £lO from Mr. James Mulleneux, the
£- from Mr. William Earle, and the same sum (£-)
from yourself, will soon be expended. Mr. Jordan who, to
say the least of matters, is a curious specimen for a leading
reformer, rather lets the cat out of the bag ; he is mor •
tally afraid that the Manchester deputation, seeing fifteen
people besides themselves in the "large room at the York
Hotel," as the Mercury has_ it, should be tempted to cut and
run; fearing the effect on their minds of the desponding ap.;.
pearance of numbers, he gently comforts the deputation by
a sort of "Irish consolation," by stating that " their_Man-
chester friends were by no means to suppose that "the present
meeting, so far as numbers were concerned, was a fair sam-
ple of the spirit which actuated the reformers of Liverpool."
This was a sort of smelling bottle to prevent fainting; but. Mr.
Jordan adds, "the meeting had" only "been convened by cir-
cular; bad public. notice been given it would have been ten

times as numerous." What! out of all the reformers, but fifteen
present, after being "only" summoned by circular 1 Bad spe-
cimen this of the taste for reform; but Mr. Jordan says that
had public notice been given the meeting would have been " ten
times as numerous." lam not sura whether, in this calculation,
he means to include the four individuals composing the deputa-
tiOn; but, to be liberal, I will give him the benefit of them; then,

ten times nineteen will be equal to 190 individuals, that is, .re-
formers; huthow distressing would this reduced number be if
reformers were to be divided; like tailors, (and I have yet to
know they are better,) nine to a man ? _

Well, but Mr. Currie, though the Common Council only
consists of forty and one individuals, just look and see what the
nineteen consist of, and particularly the orators of the day.
lst,—Comes Mr. Godfrey Barnsley." Who is he ? Shall we
learn this best .in Manchester or in Liverpool ?—This I cannot

answer.
2d.—Mr. Preston—l am not prepared to say who he is.
3d.—Mr. Wm. Rathbone—Everybody who has heard the name
of General Gascoyne, formerly the high-minded and much
respected member for Liverpool, and recollects the gross in-
sult offered to the general by this individual, knows who he is:
he is without the pale altogether.
4tb.—Mr. Blackburne, ,
sth.—Mr. Shell. These are incog.
6th.—Mr. Wm. Earle—Not a radical at bottom, but more in
reality approaching to a despotic character; he never in so-
ciety associates with those he then met ; he is a churchman,
but being disappointed that his sway in the Common Council
has not proceeded without opposition, he has turned tail
against that venerable body in the ranks of whom he unwor-
thily counts one. He is therefore an enemy to every existing
institution in the country, and has openly declared himself
to be a leveller. He is spicy in the extreme, a leetie hot tem-
pered, and
_therefore sometimes says perhaps a leetle more
than be thinks. In private life I have always heard him to

be much esteemed.
7th.—Mr. F. Jordan, a reformer, and what is called in Scotland
an ill-conditioned man,—the world will always go wrong with
him—let those steer by his compass that like.
Bth —ls your honourable, high-minded, straightforward, un-
compromising self
And here it is, on one impoi'tant point, that I find myself at
home, in according with the opinion expressed at this meeting
by you. Ta judge, sir, from the terms in which you speak of
the anxiety on your part to procure a change, either in the
mode of election or in the formation of the Common Council, it
will hardly be believed that foi years these sentiments, within the
walls of that room, have never passed your lips; and yet, out of
doors, you would fain persnade.people to believe that such was
in reality your heart's desire. No, no, sir, when the veil is with-
drawn it will be seen how far practice and profession go hand
iu hand; and when you are catechised rest assured the curious
will be nigh. But, sir, to the point in which you and I agree.
You say, that for more than twenty years you had felt yourself
to be in "a false position." I am a plain man, sir, and I will
tell you plainly how far I agree with you,—you may not
have been twenty years, or quite so long a period ; but you
are right in saying " you have been in a false position." When
you failed in business, precedent, coupled with common deli-
cacy of feeling, should have decided you to resign your con-
nexion with the council, more particularly as the opinion& you
entertained were at variance with those of a majority of the
members; and whilst, too, you were striving, and since have
done, for more than twenty years, to cause, what is called by
you, a reform of the Corporation. I am not likely to come in
contact with you. lam a plain, but I hope an honest man. I
fell you that your conduct is unworthy of the respectability of the
Common Council; I tell you that you are neither deserving nor
straightforward. You are seen by my associates playing the civil
and endeavouring to insinuate yourself with those whom, at such a
meeting, asyou were present at, you would make believe were your
utter abhorrence. In fact, your whole public conduct is despised,
and I believe your 'conscience, in the back ground, assures you
that, were the election of members of the Common Council to
fall on the ten-pounders, the most eternal disgrace that could
by possibility befall them would be the selection, as one, of such
an individual as yourself.
9th,—As to Mr. Joseph Ewart, he is one ofa fallen family; and
those who bore the name were once respected by all, high
and low; his father, his brothers, and himself, until the

* This, we believe, is Godfrey Barnsley, Esq., of India-
buildings and Brougham Terrace, a learned writer on cotton
and the currency.—P. D,