The Statesman.
London, England, 1812-04-18 00:00:00

111. E STATESMAN.

be found amongst the Engli.h, where were Ministers
to he found I Such being the circumstances under
which the nation now appkered, it became highly
proper to prepare and present an Address, 'display-
ing the public mind, in a moderate and determined ,
sone, to his Royal Hightsets the Prince Regent.—
) n that Petition, of which he now held a copy in
Isis hand, would be shown, that no measures of It
popular stature had bean adopted by the Admini-
stration to ameliorate the situation Of the people,
that they continued to witness the same profoseness
of the lic money—the same system of corrup-
tion fling, and flourishing, manufacturing du-
• dured to povertyr—that they were of opinion
all,theae were attributable to the measures of Ali.
uist,ere, and nothing' ss:titak radii* reform cpuld
acchisplishthe salve' lof the count*. Therefore
they loyally prayed, t t 1ttr.11,0141 ifightreif would
la
be graciously pleased o•tik‘ tnTss‘sitlii pease Miuis-
ter s, and call in such persons to Abe Admittistration,
as would lend their honest abilitiei to aecompliih a
thorough Parliamentary Reform, so that prosperitt
night re-appear on our tahnwted
_shores, and the
glory of our nation be ago
the outline of the Addresamtalklt • kliceßared 1
hejeptgot,
And he would therefore rove.tw We —
" Tlist an humble and loyal Address i -..•• „.
to Me listyel Highness the Regent, pray' • ,
dress of Carievouces." . .2.;
• M r..llll.oNea I. t: seconded tbrstiotioist 'The questbse
now was, whether the Comma" tCounell it the City.
of Loudon should come forward . iiiit,h a flattering
Aided's, bowing and scrapiug like 4eip wke wisfied
to glikaCourt fasour • or should go up with a-MOH
lion, in stick theyleclated their re ipbtituentii, in
a manly; bat at the tame tint., avodefataitetto.
Itilr.llss,asa thought the great *Nest of the
wisato turn out the present Ministers ; but be
would ho bald to say, that the Prince, by retaining,
his Ministers, had acted with the greatest magnani.
enity ; and he (Mr. H.) .lid not know where they
were to get better. Tiiey had successfully kept Bo-
raparte at bay ; they had kept that great devil from
over-running IN [laugh] ; ittid the country was in
that happy state inwhich we saw it. [Orksof &at:,
hear!) True, the calamities of war were felt, .buts
cooed all the teleuts of the country united prevent'
the pressure of war? The enemy would be best
resisted by union and harmony among ourselves;
and hkdid not think the proposed Address had that
tendensf.
Mr. JACKS did not deny that the country was in e.
state of embarrassment, arisiug from the check which
bad been given to its commerce, and the defici-
ency of last harvest ; but the question was, whether
it was wise to inflame the minds of the' people at
the present moment, by agitating such matters as
those contained in the present Address ?—The Wor.
thy iilover began with several remarks, which were
truly delightful to his mind, on the naval power and
military renown which the nation had acquired ; and
be concluded with recommending Reform, the usual
panacea for all the evils which we suffered. On the
subject of ,Reform, there were hardly two men who
entertained ideas its common ; and as to corruption,
he was stead, that as it ever bad existed it would still
continue tg exist. He did not belies. that our manu-
factures were so much on the decline as had been re-
presented. He knew that in the West of England the
clothing trade was in full employment ; a great deal
of busineakeras also done at Birmingham, and the
poor-ratet there were now 165., while, some years
ago tberhad been las. in the pound. lie was in.
formed, that signatures for petitions representing dis.
tresses, bad been obtained in various partsof the
ceeqtry at the rate of ss. per hundred. [Laugh.]—
A great deal had been said of the gross embezzlement,
of the public money of late years : no doubt, it was
bad enough ; but from Sir J. Newport's motion, the
other night, in the House of Commons,
,it appeared
that the whole amount of the loss sustained by the
country kr this way did not amount to more than
275,0001. during the last twelve years. He would•
ask any merchant . extensively engaged in business,
whether he might net sustain considerable losses from
his servants, notwithstanding all the attention he'
might pay to his private affairs? The same observa.j
tion applied in its utmost force to the revenue
and expenditure of the nation. The ' charge of
corruption was not more applicable at the pre-
sent than it other periods of our history. The
Duke' of. Marlborough was convicted of having
taken twoand a-half per cent. on the clothing and
supplies of his whole army. Soon after the Revolu-
tion, the Duke of Leeds and several other Counsel-
lors were found to have taken bribes. If Gentlemen
looked at the parliamentary transactions about the
Orphans' Bill and the South-Sea Scheme, they would
see scenes of peculation more disgraceful thaw an
modern times. The lord .Chnncellor -Mace!
in 17t6.; was convicted of having leinlettled the
estates of •mitten, and fined 30,0001. Mr. Jacks
then went on to declare, that it was a matter of in-
difference to him who were Ministers. Ile had oever
asked a favour, of any of them. All he wanted was
wen who would maintain the interests of the coun-
try ; and as-to the present Ministers, he heartily ap.
proved of the great points of their foreign policy.—
Ile liked also many of the Statesmen who belonged 1
to the Opposition, particularly those of them who I
were not Frenchified, but retained the• old Whig 1
principles which were acted on at the Revolution.—
When in power, however, they formed only- a sort
of hodge-podge Administration, and were chief-
ly remarkable for having doubled the Income Tax.
But of what use were strong resolutions on political
topics, to the starving, manufacturers of Manchester ?
They would only tendto blame and to irritate. The,
enemy also laid hold of them, and converted them to
his own objects ; for he had learned since he came into
Court, that the Lord Mayor had a French newspaper
in his pocket which contained all the'violent reside/4
tions adopted the other day by the Common HaR.
Mr. Jacks again adverted to-the gloomy predictions/I
which were made on the subject of corruption.
Mr. Pulteney, about 80 years age, declared, that
bribery and corruption had then reached such a
height, that they must infallibly' destroy the Consti-
tution. Still, however, the-people enjoyed their
liberties; and at no time wits the Constitotion more
purely administered than now. The tendency to
corruption, he feared, was rabid: in human its-
t n re, and the panacea of reform would net root *est:
Why, then, distract the people by holding out the pre
spect of hypothetical advantages which weld •0-

.~ ~~

be realised f As to the distresses among the manufac-
turers, he believed the cause to be this :—This coun-
try, _till very lately, had manufactured for almost
The whole' f tie Continent. For some years our
manufacteres were carded to a most mamma ex-
tent, and when a sudden revulsiott took place, the
workmen became peculiarity ildifllTo. But he be-
lined that manufactures were eves now carried on
to as great an extent u they were fire or six years
ago. No man in this country would advocate despot-
ism, but democracy was also to be deprecated. It
was democracy, and the factions it produced, which,
more than the arms of the Romans, produced the
ruin of Carthage. It was the excess .of liberty at
the begitming of the French Revolution which pro-
duced all the convulsions of the Continent. The,
French Cotivention was a full, fair, and free repre-
sentation of the people; and yet they had paved the
way for the despotism of Bonaparte, as the extremes
to which the Long Parliament went, produced the
'despotisai to Cromwell. As a specimen of Crom-
won clove-fitment, he here read an order issued',
rfiotn W itehall, by which every person was prohi.,
bited from publishing public news, oc . political dia.-
ICtission, without the permission of the Protector and
'his Council. Ile cancluded with recommending har-
(4l and-union : 14 A house divided against itself
"amid not stand." •
Alderman C. Sinn conceived that the Gentlemen
rwho had supported the motion had viewed only the
' dark side of the qaestioo. If any of his bearers
would take the globe and Joys
.tt round [a laugh],
they would not find upon it if spot,avhere there was
lit4e nuiVihr yetiitting ait if this country. If they
•tonsirkitq4histirjr, el the country, they
nuhtiet ii, Which EOglavrd was so
completely-Wasters of thetas as it is now, or iu which
.it possessed so slay colonies. lie hoped that all the
friends of aide otid of the ConstitittiOn would stay in
the Court until the -division, that it might fairly be
seen on which side the majority of the Common
Council wits.

Mr. WeerlIMAN said, that he was very glad that
he had gitien way to the worthy Alderman who had
just favgured them wittrso luminous a speech. When
he had at first heard the' exhortations to avoid per-
sonality from the Honourable Mover, he had Mt
that personalities ought as much as possible to he
avoided ; and he regretted much that he sometimes
had been drawn into observations which might ap-
pear personal. He had often found, however, that
it was impossible entirely to avoid personalities, is,
asmuch as it was absolutely necessary to discuss the
political conduct, in order to find out the principles,
of those who spoke ou the other side. The worthy
Alderman, however, appeared to be determined that ;
the business of this day should not pass over without
a something of thit sort.' it appeared to him that
the worst sort of personality was imputing gene.-
rally bad motives to all whO differed from the opi-
aion of the person who addressed them. Nothing
could be a greater personal reflection, than for any
man to say, " I am a. friend of order and of the
Constitution, and let every other person who is so
stay and vote with me." When the worthy Alder-
man took this tone, he thought that it was perfectly
fair for him so far to discuss his political conduct, as
to say, that from his first coming forward into public
life, up to the time of the Petition on the Watch.-
ren Expedition, that worthy Alderman had always
gone as far as any other man in any motion for the
reform of abuses and corruption, and against every
,improper expenditure of the public money. Indeed,
'le appeared among the most forward—he outstripped
almost every ether man—
Mr. Elmo* spoke to order, on the ground of this
being a personal attack.
Mr. WAITIINIAN resumed. He must absolute!,
shut his mouth for ever, if it would never be allowed
to him to canvass the political conduct of those who
opposed him. He could not avoid expressing his
surprise, that a worthy Alderman, who never, until
, the Walcheren Expedition, abstained from repro-
bating abuses and corruption, should, from any cir-
cumstances attending that Expedition, be persuaded
to go over into an opinion quite contrary to what he
had formerly maintained. His worthy friend (Mr.
(lain) had taken a very fair and manly view of the
situation of this country, both internally and ester-
nally. Ile was very happy to coincide with him in
the resources which this country possessed for sup-
porting its honour and its glory abroad, and, sorry
to be obliged to coincide with him also in the view
which he had taken of our internal situation, lie
had heard a very long argument from a worthy Gen-
tleman (Mr. Jacks) with respect to the corruptions
which prevailed in former periods of our history.—
' There was nothing new in this argument., as he
had given it—with all the quotations which he
had cited---upon a former• occasion. lie uudr
stood that this epeeeb, with its Imitaties
also been published by him. But what s.
whole argument tend tot Was it that book.,
t there had 'en great corruption In former tiates,that
ttherefore i;nglishmen of the present day were not to
,be alarmed at any corruption that might now take
• place. His argument was, that corruption had al-
ways existed, and yet, notwithstanding the predie-
tiees of the opposers of sack a system, the Consti-
tution still remained. lie aunt remark, that until
the last four or five years, that worthy Gentleman
also went wafer:Cy with those who opposed corrup-
tion and abuses. lie must then ask, by what per-
version of intellect was it, that he had now become
the advocate of corruption and abases I As to re-
form, the lion. Gent. went apes the old common-
place observation, that it was necessary first to pro-
duce a plan of reform upon which every one was
agreed. This was not, however, thepracticeof
nisters on other things of greet moment. If they wished
to legislate away the independence of a whole country,
or to raise the income tax, they never thought it neces-
sary to wait' until all the inhabitants of the island
were agreed with them in opinion. The argument of
that Gentlemen would go to this, that our Consti.
tution'exists only in name, and is nothing its sub-
stance. If, heweeer, he chose to put the tinestion,
why; amidst the ruin of so many nations, this epee-
- had -The

tLe

- s. .

that if we had survived thageneral ruin-of States, it
-was merely on account of the superiority of the Bri-
tisk Constitution.—(Hear, hear !]—The superiority
of .onr Constitution consisted • in tide, that we had
'a Representation of the People, which other ea.
lions had not ; and if our Representatives would
but discharge their duty honettly and faithfully, they
would form as efficient a check upon the Crown as
the People could desire. This was what he con-
ceived to be the real excellency of the British
Constitution ; and our superiority over other nations
principally depended upee what was left of this Con-
stitution. The Worthy Gent. (Mr. Jacks) had then
asked, if our
!object "was to change the Ministers,
who could we get to supply their places, or how was
the public business to go on? He seemed to have no
idea of any possible change of Ministers, but a trans-
; fer of• power from five or six families whey now hare
it, to five or six other families who have not. If
I that was really a true statement of the case, and that
we had no other alternative but between a Perceval
. and'a Castlereagh on the one side, or a Grey and a
! Grenville upon the other, th.lp such a stale of things
I. would be the very best argument which could be ad-
. duced in favour eta reform. If there were a reformed
Parliament, then, for his part, -he should not feel
afraid of either a Perceval or a Grenville. Any im-
proper measures of. the Executive would, in either'
' case, be control ed and checked by a reformed
Parliament, really representing the people of this
country. Ile had once, as a test of his political
feeling, put this question to the worthy Gentle-
man (we believe Mr. Jacks was alluded to),
whet' he was eery anxious to introduce into the
I City of London an Institution for the promotion
-ot /earning: he had 'esked' him why he was so
anxious on this subject? 'Was not there as much
1
! learning in the City of London now as. there
I was an hundred years ago ? The reason that
•he asked the cpiestion was, that if-no Man would be
satisfied now, that the state of information and learn-
t ing should remain at the point it was an hundred
years ago, bethought it would be very hard for them
to assign a reason why our Constitution should re-
;
• ceive no improvement, andwhy every corruption and
S abuse Which existedan hundred years ago should now
1* continued. [hear, hear!] He did not wish to
make any question about the quantity of abuse and
1 corruption which might have existed an hundred
; years ago, but he thought it the duty of English.
j men, now and at all times, to struggle against ex-
I isting abuses and corruptions, and endeavour to pre-
serve their Constitution in its utmost purity. The
worthy Gentleman had told them that Walpole,
and many others, had formerly been expelled the
House, and Pietished for corruption. Why that was
the very thing he wanted now. [hear, hear!] He
wished to see the avowed trafficker in seats in Parlia-
ment, the author of the Waicheren Expedition (Lord
C.) also expelled the House, and punished for his •
misdeeds. He wished to see great defaulters sent to the
Tower, and punished for their crimes, in the sense
manner as the worthy Gentleman had told them was
formerly done on such occasions.--[Loud cries of
hear, hear !]—Those times, however, appeared to
have now gone by. At present, there appeared to he
in the minds of the leaders in Parliament Something
like a sympathy in favour of public defaulters. If
one of them (alluding to Mr. Chinnery) contrived to
make his escape, they immediately conceived it ne-
cessary to` give his son a place in the Treasury.—
[Hear, hear!]--He firmly believed that this country
was not trusting to the talents which might happen to
reside in half a dozen families for its government.—
He believed that there was sufficient talents and
energy in the country, and even among men of the
first rank and families in it, to carry on the admini-
stration of it without the system of corruption. If
there was to be a change of Government to-morrow,
and the new Ministers were equally the friends of
corruption and abuses as the present Ministry, he
would be very ready to join the next day in an ad-
dress praying for their removal. With respect to
, thoie men now in office, his opinion had been sanc-
tioned by the resolutions of that Court, and by nu-
merous petitions from all parts of the country. The
worthy Gentleman (Mr. Jacks) had contrasted the
state of this country with France, and had expressed
e great fear that we might suffer by an excess of
liberty. His opinion respecting the troubles and
calamitous events in' France always was, that they
-were owing to the resistance made by those
interested in abuses, to proper and salutary reforms,
and to their unnecessarily and imprudently flying,
from their country for the ptirpose of stirring up
other nations and governments to war with France.
When the troubles of Spain were alluded to, he
should ask, whether any man believed, that if the
people of that country had had the opportunity and
the privilege of goinrup to the throne,. and address-
tllo6o1-•4011/1 tit Put lielti, .bins oil Counsellors (the.
privilege which he now proposed to exercise), would
' those troubles and those calamities have ever taken
place? [Loud cries of Hear, hear!] This right
was thelast sitty, and the best privilege ,which re-
mained to. Englishmen. The Gentleman hail all
pealed to the Members of that Court, iu their indi-
vidnal.capacity, whether they were not all of them
plundered by their servants? In answer to this ap.
peal, he would say, that if they were plundered, they
would conceive it a kind and friendly ollice in any
man that would come forward and show them where
Ithey 'were plundered. This had happened not long'
. ago to be his own case. He had been robbed to a
considerable amount, and. upon a friend discovering.
it, to him, he instituted such an enquiry, that the
I person who plundered him confessed to having rob-
; bed him to the amount of 3.501. He should there-.
I fore auswer the personal appeal, by asking them indi,
'virtually, would they not feel themselves obliged to the
mats who should point out to them where they werei
robbed ? He was ready, then., to extend thisprivate co n-
sideratiOn to a puhjic one, and say, whether the Prince
i Rzgetttor the SOsereigu shonld not feel it ratherau obli..
. gation than au insult, to paint out where his servants
;•abused his contideece, and were wallowing in wealth
I on the money wrung from the distresses of his subjects.
To pilot out to the Sovereign how his servants were
wasting
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try had alone Surelved-?—The answer which he i Westing the national substance was the kindest and Throtur, who waslatety executea ,_.
would give to such a question wets that it was be- I meet friendly act that the dorporetion eoqid -do. the murder .of Carter and his daughter in 1791,
th'_
cause we alone, of all other nations, hid • lost 144 1 TheY'had hew told that the Constitution had stilt a. nied his guilt, or even any knowledge of the Partin
of the pthriples of freedom. ilbesurMeet-of that i VAS
_' ded'of vigour, It WlLl*Jkange sort of vigour to the last moment. - • ...1.. •••• '
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