The Statesman.
London, England, 1823-01-04 00:00:00

It

COUNTY MEETING.

.~

Ite we have all along anticipated, this meeting proved
to be one of the most important, if not the most import-
ant that has yet been held in this country at any period
of its history.
It will be best to speak in the first person here. Since
my arrival in London (Saturday, ten o'clock) I have
seen so article is the Old Times newspaper, containing,
as usual,/ string of iniseboods, misrepresentations, and
calumnies, front willab it seems this vile paper cannot
abstain, even whets it is giving an account of the most
molests and Important matters, which concern, and must
concern, every class of its readers, because they concern
closely every description of persons in England.—l must
confine myself to oarrorive ; for to give speeches
here is wholly out of the question. Of speeches,
'worthy of the name, either in length or matter,
there were none. It was well known in the
county, that it was my intention to be present at the
meeting. It was naturally supposed that I should do
something upon such an occasion. Therefore, some-
parties, whom I do not choose to name at present, and
who, I trust, will become heartily ashamed of their
conduct, had actually hired loose young fellows and
boy% to place themselves in different parts of the im-
mense Hall where the Meeting was held, with instruc-
tions to prevent me from being heard. They bad so
much pay in hand ; and each was to have an additional
sous if thetsneceeded in the enterprise. Of these facts
I was,prni emir assured, before I left Norwich. However,
as the reader will have the satisfaction to see, though the
project of silencing succeeded to a great extent,
that success did not in the smallest degree prevent my
ultimate intention ; and, indeed, the reader will find,
that the triumph of truth and justice was rendered more
conspicuous, more marked, and the promulgation of
them of greater importance to the county y by these
unmanly and, I must say, base attempts.—.Tbe Meeting
was held in St. Andrew's Hall, and, by those accustom-
ed to estimate numbers in that spacious place, there
were supposed to be seven thousand persons present ;
being, I believe, by far the most numerous county-meet-
ing ever witnessed in the country. The main body
consisted of land-owners and land-occupiers. There
might be a fifth part, possibly, citizens of Norwich •
and then there might be in the %bole, from a hundred
to a hundred and fifty of the hired men and boys
before-mentioned—l, who bad a good opportunity
of Irking of the situation in life of the persons at
the meeting, should think that three-fourths of the per-
sons who came tinder my eye, were farmers and farmers
sons. At the upper end of the Hall, a pretty spacious
hustings was erected, where were the High Sheriff, his
Under Sheriff, Mr. Coke, Mr. %Vodehouse, Sir Thomas
!terror, and other principal gentlemen of the county.
Upon this hustings I went and took my station ; and
before I proceed further, it is necessary to inform the
reader, how I came to do this, instead of being amongst
the crowd below, as was my intention, and, above all
commutesthings, my wish. There was a commutes appointed
from amongst the signers of the requisition, to draw trit
resolutions and a petition for the occasion.
copy !of these resolutions bad, through the mass
of a friend, reached me before 1 left London. These
resolutions appeared to me to be quite inadequate
to the exigency of the case. 1, therefore, drew up a
petition (the reader will see it below) each as I thought
ought to emanate from this great county. The moment
ril
arved at Norwich, I sent fora gentlemen beloriginx to
the Committee. put the petition into his band, said 10
JAM, "take this, propose it to the Committee to adopt
it; say not irks is the author ill its sad I pledge yes
air word. dual/obey metre it. it• sour shall be made
known by me that I am the author of it ; bet. tell tliq
Committee at the same time that the penes whebss
pat this into your bands is resolved to move It him.
self if they do not; and, that they may be prepared
with arguments for setting it aside if they can; they
may keep the petition in their possession until to.
morrow, an hour before the meeting".—Soon after
this, I learnt that there was very little probability of the
committee's adopting the petition; indeed, it was de-
cided that they would not. I then gave another copy of
She petition to another gentleman, that he might show
it to any friends that he chose. Daring the evening
(Thursday) there were probably fifty amongst the
principal yeoman of the county that did me the favor to
call upon me. To some of these I read the petition ; to
others I stated the contents; so that. before the Meeting
took place, a pretty perfect knowledge of the contents of
;he petition existed amongst the great body of
the farmers.. To only one single person did I
make any request of any sort respecting the pe-
tition ; and that was to Mr. theme tans, a
gentleman of great respectability, and, as it happens,
a tenant of Mr. Coke ; but a gentleman of talent, too;
and to him I made the proposition, not to second the
petition ; but, to second it if he should prefer it when be
came to the meeting, to the propositions which the other
gentlemen had prepared and intended to bring forward.
So scrupulous was I with regard to this, that I only
requested Mr. (Abbe to be near me; and to second me,
if, upon hearing both, be should prefer my proposition.
Equally scrupulous on his part, he declined seeing the
petition erbearing it read, until be came into the Hall.
—We are grew proceeding to the scene of action. Not
far from the entrance of the Hall, I was met by Sir
Tommie Bzzvoa and a very worthy gentleman of
Lynn, whose name is ATM The Committee bad
agreed upon five Resolutions to be moved. The
• four first not to include Reform of Parliament,
These were to be moved by Mr. Alderman Tavares &
and to be seconded by Mr. 0. WATSON. The resolutimi
. relating to Reform, was to be moved by Sir. T. Smolt
and seconded by Mr. AYRI. These gentlemen, jaht
before I entered the Hall, wished to mow in what
manner I ineaotro proceed; ot, rather, at what stage of
busieiss rmeant to introduce my cooties. They
loomed to think that it would be best for me to stop till
all the resolutions bad been moved and carried seriatim.
To this I objected ; not on my own account, bat because
it would be making the meeting, if they adopted my pro.
position,undo all that they had been doing,and,of course,
would expose them to a charge of inconsistency; and that
I was resolved to lose my motion altogether, rather than
do any thing that could by possibility throw a slur on
the character of such a meeting. I therefore told
theM that the coarse that I should pursue would be to
read my Petition as soon as theilret resolution had been
moved and seconded : and that when I had read it, I
should move to leave out all the words of the first reso-
lution, except the word resolved, and to put in their
stead, "that the Petition now read be the Petition of
this Meeting."—Thus, at every stage of the business,
my conduct was fair, open. and abundantly explicit.
—I remembered the charge of taking the Meeting
by surprise in Kent ; and 1 was resolved to
have to appeal to all these witnesses to prove, that, If
any petition should be carried, no man should say that
it was carried by surprise. The meeting was opened is
the usual way ; the four first Resolutions were read
through ; then the first was moved by Mr. Alums!
Timid!, seconded by Mr. Watson, and supported is a
brief but very neat speech by Mr. Cons, who, at the be-
ginning of his speech, took occasion to observe that he
never had attended any meeting with so much ;ileum
.kis his life. Then came Mr. WODCHOVIII, who dissented '
from-the whole of the Resolutions. The reader who
takes time to consider the noise necessarily made by the
movement of shoes and by the pressings backward- and
fortvard, and the little murmurings of complaint by
seven thousand persons assembled under one roof, all
desirous of being nearest to the speakers; any person