ONE:[See larger version]This royal denunciation of the Repeal movement greatly exasperated O'Connell. He had recently submitted a plan to the Repeal Association, recommended by a committee of which he was chairman, for the restoration of the Irish Parliament. In the document containing this plan it was declared that the people of Ireland finally insisted upon the restoration of the Irish House of Commons, consisting of 300 representatives, and claimed, in "the presence of the Creator," the right of the Irish people to such restoration, stating that they submitted to the union as being binding in law, but solemnly denied that it was founded on right, or on constitutional principle, or that it was obligatory on conscience. The franchise was to be household suffrage, and the voting by ballot. It was also provided that the monarch or regent de jure in England should be the monarch or regent de facto in Ireland. This revolutionary scheme was to be carried into effect, "according to recognised law and strict constitutional principle." The arbitration courts which O'Connell had threatened to set up, in consequence of the superseding of magistrates connected with the Repeal Association, had actually been established; and the Roman Catholic peasantry, forsaking the regular tribunals, had recourse to them for the settlement of their disputes.
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ONE:In May the gingham-weavers of Carlisle and that neighbourhood held a similar gathering, and in June meetings were held on Hunslet Common, near Leeds, at Glasgow, Ashton-under-Lyne, and other places. The meeting at Glasgow, on the 16th of June, was held on the Green, and amounted to thirty or forty thousand people. They complained of the low wages for cotton-weaving, and proposed a petition to the Prince Regent, praying that he would enable them to get over to Canada, promising that all such as received that favour should repay the outlay by yearly instalments. But the bulk of the assembly protested against emigration, asserting that the remedy for their distresses lay in annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and the consequent reduction of taxation; and they proposed that they should march up to London in a body, and present their petition to the Prince Regent in person. At Ashton the chair was taken by the Rev. Joseph Harrison, and the strange creature called Dr. Healey, of whom Bamford gives an extraordinary account in his "Life of a Radical," made a most wild and seditious harangue. At a great meeting at Stockport, on the 28th of the same month, a very different personage presided. This was Sir Charles Wolseley, of Wolseley Park, in Staffordshire. Sir Charles said that he had been engaged in the outbreak of the French Revolution, and had assisted in the taking of the Bastille, and that he would spend his last drop of blood, if it were necessary, in destroying the Bastilles of his own country. The acquisition of such an advocate of Reform was not likely to be received with apathy. Sir Charles was invited to preside at a similar meeting at New Hall, near Birmingham, on the 12th of July. At this meeting he was elected "legislatorial attorney and representative" for that town. This was a circumstance that excited the alarm of Government. They immediately issued warrants for the apprehension both of Sir Charles and of Dr. Harrison for seditious expressions used at the Stockport meeting. Sir Charles was arrested at his own house, at Wolseley Park; and Harrison was taken on the platform of a public meeting, at Smithfield, in London, on the 21st of July, at which Hunt was presiding. On conveying Harrison to Stockport, the constable who arrested him was attacked by the mob, and a pistol was fired at him, the ball of which lodged in his body.
FORE:
FORE:On this basis Mr. Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 9th of June, produced his Budget. Including the interest on the Debt, the whole annual expenditure amounted to seventy-six million, seventy-four thousand poundsan ominous peace expenditure. Instead, therefore, of the supplies, aided by the draft from the Sinking Fund, leaving a surplus of two million pounds, a fresh loan of twelve million poundsbesides the three million pounds of new taxes on malt, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, tea, British spirits, pepper, and foreign wool was needed. By the hocus-pocus of Exchequer accounts this was made to look like a reduction of the Debt instead of an increase of it; but the country saw with dismay that three years after the peace the incubus of past war was still[145] adding to its burden. Mr. Tierney, on the 18th, moved for a committee to inquire into the state of the nation, but this was negatived by three hundred and fifty-seven votes against one hundred and seventy-eight; and a motion of Sir Henry Parnell on the 1st of July for extensive retrenchments was got rid of in the same manner.
FORE:This noble independence was in bright contrast to that of Scottish juries. In this very autumn, fresh trials of accused seditionists had taken place at Edinburgh, in which the conduct of Government and the servility of the Scottish juries were equally reprehensible. One Robert Watt, a ruined tradesman of that city, was put upon his trial, on the 14th of August, charged with eighteen overt acts of high treasonin exciting many individuals to arm themselves, and to meet in convention to concoct plans for the overthrow of the Government. But it appeared on the trial that Watt had long been a Government spy, employed to instigate people to these courses, by direct orders from Mr. Secretary Dundas and the Lord Advocate of Scotland. Letters from these gentlemen containing these orders, and proofs of Watt being in the pay of Government for these purposes, were produced by Mr. Henry Erskine, the prisoner's counsel. It was shown unanswerably that he had been encouraged to have arms made and distributed, and to tempt soldiers in Edinburgh. He had been thus employed to mislead and ensnare unsuspecting persons from August, 1792, to October, 1793more than twelve months; and it was shown that after this the Government had abandoned him, and that he had then joined the Reformers in earnest. Notwithstanding this display of the infamous conduct of the Government, Watt was condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
FORE:Mr. Manners Sutton was again chosen Speaker of the House of Commons, having already presided over four successive Parliaments, occupying a period of fourteen years, during which he performed the onerous duties of his high position to the satisfaction of all parties. A week was occupied in the swearing-in of members. All the preliminary formalities having been gone through, the Parliament was opened by the king in person on the 2nd of November. The Royal Speech, which was of unusual length, excited the deepest interest, and was listened to with breathless attention and intense anxiety. The concluding paragraph of the Speech, while expressing the strongest confidence in the loyalty of the people, intimated the determination of the Government to resist Parliamentary Reform. This attitude was regarded as a defiance to the Opposition; and it roused into excitement the spirit of hostility, which might have been disarmed by a tone of conciliation, and by a disposition to make moderate concessions. Nothing, therefore, could have been more favourable to the aims of the Whig leaders than the course taken by the Administration; and if they wanted an excuse for breaking forth into open war, it was supplied by the imprudent speech of the Duke of Wellington. The Royal Speech, indeed, suggested revolutionary topics to the Reformers, by its allusion to Continental politics. The king observed that the elder branch of the House of Bourbon no longer reigned in France, and that the Duke of Orleans had been called to the throne. The state of affairs in the Low Countriesnamely, the separation of Belgium from Hollandwas viewed with deep regret; and "his Majesty lamented that the enlightened administration of the King of the Netherlands" should not have preserved his dominions from revolt; stating that he was endeavouring, in concert with his allies, to devise such means of restoring tranquillity as might be compatible with the welfare and good government of the Netherlands, and with the future security of other States.THE CHARGE OF THE CAVALRY AT MEEANEE. (See p. 592.)
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