The Statesman.
London, England, 1823-03-04 00:00:00

(Omitted yesterday for rant of room.)
Ma. MARSH'S PETITION.
" To the Honourable the Commons et the United King-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament as-
sembled. The humble Petition of the County of South-
ampton,
Sheweth—That the landed interest of this country is
suffering under distress highly alarming, both in degree
and in extent, is a fact which has been already recognized by
your Honourable House,- and is therefor unnecessary for
your petitioners to insist on.
" That the measures hitherto proposed or adopted by
your Honourable House for remedying the same, have been
wholly inefficient. The difficulties of landlords and tenahts
are hourly increasing, and threaten, at no distant period,.
utter ruin to both.
" That in this appalling situation it is natural that your
petitioners should direct. and they accordingly have direct-
ed their attentions and inquiries to the cause: of the (vita
which they endure, with the view that they may be per- I
mined humbly to suggest, to your Honourable BOOM IV--
medics for such of their distresses as may be deemed re-
mediable.
ISS
That your petitioners are fully persuaded that the pre-
'sent distress of the country does not arise from any single
cause, but from the combination of various influential
events.
That your petitioners will not attempt to enumerate
the whole of such influential causes or events, but will
briefly state those, which, in their humble judgment, have
had the most decided operation.
" That the violent and almost sudden fluctuation which
at times has taken place in the value of the currency of this
kingdom, insomuch. that at some periods within these five
years, the value of the currency in exchange for corn and
other necessaries of life has differed more than two parts
in three : such difference as regards the diminished value of
the currency (after making full allowanee for the increased
demands for produce during the war) being created. as
your petitioners believe, by the Bank Returns Act, in
1797. By the immense increase thence arising in the dr-
cnieton of paper, not only by the Bank of England, bot
by numerous country bankers. Hence, it followed, that
all contracts or engagements for the future payment of
money entered into during this forced and unnatural depre-
ciation of the currency, have subsequently become ruin-
ous and destructive to most of those who were unfortunate-'
ly in such contracts or engagements. If this argument be
correct, it must apply most forcibly to the enormous load
of debt with which the nation was burthened during the
same period; the interest of which We are now paying, in
a currency of much higher value tkan was that in which the
' principal was lent.
" With regard to the sudden increase in the value of the
circulating medium, your petitioners deem it may readily
be accounted for—namely, in part from the diminished de-
mand, and other minor causes, operating since the war;
but principally from a vast quantity of paper being with-
drawn from circulation, in consequence of the Legislative
prevision for resuming cash payments, commonly called
Peel's Bill. In short, the quantity of the circulating me-
dium having been very much lessened, it nec aaaaa ity, like
any other commodity, became dear, in proportion to its
scarcity.
" That your petitioners have no hesitation in asserting
that another great cause, nay. as they believe the greatest
cause of their distress is. the greatest monstrous burthen
of taxation imposed on them, arising from the Inordinate
and profligate *este of the national wealth during a pro-
tracted wer ; and a still continued lavish and wasteful, and
1 jany puts. ugpeeessary and corrupt peblie gxpeadituea
—a taxation the iwor. tosapportable to your peliiiireers
particular, inasmuch as the price of three bushels of wheat
grain will now ,barely defray the same nominal amount of
taxes. as one busLel would have mid a few years past.
" In addition to the grievances already set forth, your
petitioners feel warranted in Mating two other burtbens
which fall with peculiar weight upon the landed interest,
namely, the poor rates and tithes ;—the burthen of tithes in
particular, however sanctioned by long usage, as every
day's experience proves it to be vexatious and injurious
in priciice—the 'fertile source of haired, malice, and all
uncharitableness—where the high interests of religion and
morality demand that peace, harmony, and mutual good-
will should prevail.
" Before your petitioners proceed to utter their prayer to
your Honourable House, they presume. with all ituu.ility
and respect, to state what they conceive to be another
grievance of the most serious mngnitude—an evil, indeed,
of such vast importance as to have been, in the firm con-
viction of your petitioners, the prime source and origin of
the wrongs, oppressions, and calamities, of which, iu com-
mon with their fellow-subjects, your petitioners have to
complain;----your petitioners mean the imperfect, uncon-
stitutional, they vs ill add illegal means, by which members
are returned, or nominated, to your Honourable House.
" Your petitioners abstain from any detail of the cor-
ruptions end abuses iu the election of Members of Parli-
ament, seeing that, for many years vast, the table of your
Honourable House has been loaded with the neglected and
scorned petitions of millions of the people, upon the sdh-
ject of this crying evil—but your petitioners do most confi-
dently hope and trust, that the day will very shortly arrive,
when the eyes of your Honourable House will be opened to
the necessity of redressing the manifold and avowed viola-
tions of both the letter and spirit of our laws; and that the
Infamy and falsehood of the assertion, that such practices
are necessary to the good government of this country. shall
he made es manifest to your Honourable House, as it has
long been to the great body of the people.
" Your petitioners humbly request, that should your Ho-
noorable House condescend to take their above stated come
plaints into consideration, it may be clearly understood that
your petitioners utterly disclaim the wish or desire, to shift
say burthen from themselves, or landowners and occupiers,
in order to impose the slime on any other class of the com-
munity. Your petitioners, therefore, deprecate and pro-
test against all plans, projects, and expedients, fur a forced
and unnatural rise in the necessaries of life, whether by
Corn Bil's, renewed Bank Restriction Acts, or a large re.
issue of an unsound Paper Currency; on the contrary, your
petitioners humbly seek remedies, broad, general, national,
and constitutional.
" Your Petitioners will neither degrade themselves, nor
insult ynur Honoursble House, by advancing any facts or
propositions, in the truth and justice of which they have
not the inost conscientious belief; acting under this feeling,
and under the intimate conviction of the truth of the several
matters Already premised, your petitioners presume to state
to yonr Honourable House. that the main hope of relief
from the calamitous circumstances in which they are placed,
rests upon n very large reduction being speedily made in
taxes rind impositions of every kind and description, so as to
render the necessary and unavoidable expenses and oat-
goings of your petitioners, in some degree, commensurate
with the increased value of money, and to your petitioners
impoverished circumstances ; and your petitioners are well
aware, that this cannot be effected. but by a rigorous and de-
termined cartailraent in all and every branch of national ex-
penditure.
" Your petitioners deem it superfluous to Indicate, ha
detail, to your Honourable House, the objects to which
they would specially implore your attention; they tray,
however, be permitted to point out—ah immense standing
army in time of peace—unnero;sary or overpaid taxes—un-
everitted pensions—corrupt sinecure grants and reversions—
and lest, though not least, an enormous visit li-t.
" After this short enumeration, your petit boners do briefly,
but most earnestly and humbly, pray, that your Honourable
House will, forthwith. proceed to teko into its most serious
consideration the important subject of the national disburse-
ments, in ell its various anti mut 'plied branches and di it-
bents, with a view of reducing I
every possible way, cunsisteut will
digeity of the kingdom ; and further
investigation. your Honourable her
direct its inquiries as to the expedi'

_

assembled,
Most humbly sheweth,—That your petitioners will pot
waste the time of your II onourab:e House by an attempt to
describe the present elarming state of the agricultural com-
munity, and of all those who are immediately connected
with it; that your Honourable House must be well aware
of the sufferings which your petitioners have already en-
dured, of the greater suffe:ings that await them, of the na-
ture of that transfer of property that is now going on, and
of the causes which have produced a more extensive confis-
cation of estates, of capital, and of the wages of labour, than,
as your petitioners firmly believe, was ever produced by
any revolution in any country in the world.
"' That it is remedied only of which your petitioners will
speak to your Honourable House ; that they do this with the
greatest deference anti humility ; but that in hare jwtice to
the intelligent and public spirited county, to which they have
the honour to belong, they beg leave to remind your lion'
House, that amidst all the perils of the memorable year 1517,
this county, In the most earnest and yet most respectful man-
ner, besought your Honourable House to adopt, while yet
there was time, the means necessary to prevent the ruin of
the landlord, the clerical incumbent, and the farmer, and
the misery and otter degradation of the labourer; that, on
the 16th day of February in that year of events so little ho-
nourable to England, your Honourable House received from
this county a petition, in which we prayed for • large 're-
' duction is the standing army ; for a reform in you; Ho-
' nourable House; for an abolition of all sinecure', pensions
' and greats, not merited by well known public services ; a
' redumion of all salaries paid out of the public money ; and
' for a redaction of the interest of the publig debt, so that
njigslifsilislerbsswsettatbeelutaxest. at duet debt reigtst .be ismer-
-* ed itilreerfortion t 6 the retincad state of the wages of la-
' boor, and of the profits of tradesmen and farmers.'
" That your humble petitioners who were then regarded
as singular in their opinions and their prayers, need not tett
your Honourable House that those opinions and those pray-
ers are now echoed from one end of the kingdom to the
other; that, as to your petitioners, they have to state to
your Honourable House, that they pray for the same things
now, which they prayed for in the year 1817 ; that they wish
not to impute evil intention to your Honourable Mouse or
to any branch of his Majeey'sClovernment, but that they
cannot help observing, that, if your Honourable House had
been pleased to pay attention to their prayers of isl 7. they
are firmly convinced, that, at this time, there would have
existed none of those calamities, which now press down the
country, and which threaten, if not speedily and effectually
removed, to produce • convulsive revolution.
"That it is in the nature of every species of evil, if it
proceed unchecked, to be rendered more formidable by time,
and to require remedies,which would not have been required
at an earlier stage of its existence; that, accordingly, your
petitioners, after viewing the state to which their country
is now reduced, feel themselves impelled to pray that your
Honourable !louse will be pleased to receive favourably any
proposition that may be made to you, for the commutation
of tithes, or for the adoption of such ether measures as in
your wisdom may seem most meet and equitable for the
drawing of resources, either temporary or permanent, from
the property of the Church. and more esprcially from that
large mass of public property, called, commonly, Crown
Land..
" That your Honourable House, must be well aware of
the numerous and unparalleled acts of injustice which have
taken place in consequence of the change in the value of
the currency; of the thousands upon thousands of families
that have hereby been, tram a state of competence. and, in
many cases, from a state of affluence, reduced to a slate of
penury and want ; of the endless number of mortgagers, ren-
ters, and other persons, bound by contracts made, or by
conditions imposed, by wills, by settlements, and by other
means; your Honourcbte !louse must be well aware of
these, and of the dreadful ruin which have fsllen and is fall-
ing upon the parti.ts so hound; and, therefore, your petiti-
oners, knowing that your honourable House mutt perceive,
that this wrong and ruin are ascribable to Acts of your Ho-
nourable Houser. Smoot eardeslly implore your Honourable
Masotti cause to take plea*, an equitable adjustment,- not
only with regard to the public debt, but with regard to all
contract's between man and man, which adjustment they
deem abtolutely necessary to the defente of the country
spinet foreign foes and to the restoration of internal tran-
quillity; and your petitioners further pray, that, in order to
afford some Immediate relief to them, and especislly to the
aow su 4v ering labourers of the country, your Honourable
Hoes ill he pleased wholly to repeal, during the present
Saliba of Parliament, the taxes oa salt, malt, hops, leather,
soap, and candles."
- "

Daranvoi. Finc.—At 7 o'clock, on Sunday night, a
dreadful fire broke oat in the Louse of Mr. Hawes, cheesc-
monger end porkman, in Berwick-street, Soho. Smoke
was first observed issuing from the shop windows ; no
person being in the house, admittance was not very soon
obtained; the issuing of the smoke increased, and foaod
its way in a great body from a window which was open
in the second floor. Engines arrived upon the spot, and
a crowd bad assembled, when the window shutters and
frame of the shop fell into the midst of the people; *se-
vral persons were in consevence very much hurt. The
flames had by this time nearly destroyed the house,
three quarters of an hour haring elapsed before water
could be obtained ; the engines /hen commenced a
brisk play. Abouthalf-past eight the front wall of the
house separated lioui the middle, the lower part failing
with a tremendous crash; shortly sPernards the other
part of the wail and roof fell with the saute dreadful
•ded considerably sob-

HOUSE OF COMMONS—MONDAY.
The Sieastan took the Chair at four o'clock.
Mr. MANSFIELD presented a petitiOn from the
town of 'Leicester against the Insolvent •DelitOri: Act.—
Ordered to be laid on the table, and be printed.
Mr. CURWEN presented a petition from a parish in
Cumberland against the General Turnpike Act:
Mr. PLUNKETT presented a petition from the city
of Dublin, praying an inquiry into the local taxa-
tion of that city.
Sir GERALD NOEL presented a petition frojaisOlire
calling herself Princess uf Cumberland, coniplainkog of
severe pecuniary distress, and confinement for debt in
the King's Bench Prison; and praying, as the Lord.
Chancellor has no jurisdiction in her case, for the inter-
position of the House.—Ordered to be laid on the table.
Mr. MITCHELL presented a petition from Kingstorl--
upon-Hull, against the Insolvent Debtors' Act. • ,
Sir T. LETHBRIDGE deferred his motion, respecting
the subdivision of Counties, from Wednesday to ruddy
vest.
Mr. CURTEIS presented a petition from the pirisla
of Northam, iu Sussex, 'praying a repeal of the Vatic%
on Hops.
After a few words from Mr. Aldentian WooD, Mr.
LITTLETON, and Mr BRIT BENNET, the petition watt
laid on the table, and ordered-to be printed.
Mr. WILLOUGHBY presented a petition from New.
ark-upon-Trent, against ent Debtors' Act.
The Marriage Act Amendment Bill was read a second
time.
On the motion of the LORD ADVOCATE, t-lip
House went into a Committee on the Scotch Credites
Bill. The House resumed, and the report was ordered to
be brought pp to-morrow (tais day )
The Lumentree on Ways and Means was postponn.l to •
Wednesday next.
•
MILBANK PENITENTIARY.
Mr. GREY BENNET said, that lie would take the
liberty of putting a question to the Right lion. Secretary
(Mr. Peel.) A lew days since, owing to that Hon. lieu-
tleman's permission, he had visited- the Penitentiary at
Milbank, and found it in a state of sickness quite unusual.
An Inquest bad been held on a man named Ilorupbror
Mini, who died there; and the ./urv, though they
brought i,t a verdict of " Accidental Leath," resoived._
unanimously that some alterations in the diet St the pri-
soners should be recommended. • He was anciotis not to
be understood as conveying any thing like censure on the
managers of tile est:abashment ; he was convinced thus.
their zeal and activity deserved approbation, and if•any
mistake in the treatment of disease had taken plicei At
must not be attributed to the want of proper skill or
attention. There were at present eight oundred prison-
ers .rithin the Peniteratiary, of whom one hundred and
twenty-nine were on the sick list, lif-y-sis males. and ee-
veati-thrce females. Under the circumstances he was
anxious to learn what measure his Majesty's Government
was abort to take, and be conid nat. avoid expressing .a
hope that a Committee would he appointed to make the
necessary inquiries, oho mil ht call In the aid of medleal
gentlemen who were connected with other institutions,
and have a saisfactory inveatigation of the r ware aid
treatment of the disease. As matter of fJ: ."4. be world
brief Costner on

Dint out—au immense standing oral persons were in constti.mt.. ~. y "aut... sou. e. a... • ,
pro-wary or overpaid taxes—un- flames had by this time nearly destroyed the house, VeLti-urree females. Under the orcuosstances lie WKS
anxious to learn what measure his Maiesty's Oovernrnenc
inecure grints and reversions— three quarters of an hour having elapsed before water
n enormous civil 114. could be obtained ; the engines /hen commenced a . .
was about to take, and he conid wit avoid expressing .a
I Con, yourpetilioners do briefly. brisk play. Aboutkalf-past eight the front wall of the hope that a Committee would he appointed to make Ilse
hly, pray, that your Honourable
nut to take into Its most serious house separated loin the tuiddk, the lower part failing neces ;ivy inquiries, who niii,ht call in the aid of mcdleal
subject of the oltional disburse- with a tremendous crash; shortly af•eruards the other gentlemen wit° were connected with otbe: institutions,
nartof the wail and roof fel with the same dreadful and have a si:infactory invadgwion of the r ware ad
mul iplied branches and depart- , -s. .
ucing or abridging the same in sef he firemen succeeded in very considerably sub- treatment of the disease. AI . matter of f.g."4. he Wallid i'
cut with the honour, safety, and not
' 'deck. A detachment of the mute fur a copy of the ieroest taken before a Cosouer ou
ad further, that in pursuing such n.die flames by nine o r
Foot Ouards arrived, as also a great number of the po• the body of Humphrey Adam.
'Able Howse will he pleased to lice, to prevent any property from being stolen. Not a Mr. l'Elria t twit his v►rws were ►n eviri ember-
expediency of more effectuall single ill tick in Mr. llawes's house was saved. fence with the Hon. tit.kotan. No beneit cOarg pea-
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