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The members of his church, to whom he was, in truth, a guide end a father-who daily witnessed the kindness, the beneficence and the tenderness of his heart-who in the purity of his doctrines and precepts, saw the purity of his own unsullied character who saw him on his death bed, with the meekness, the patience and the cheerfulness of a saint and a martyr, view the sure and rapid approaches of his own dissolution, concerned not for himself, but anxious only for the welfare of those whom he was so soon to leave, will long remember him with the most profound heartfelt grief, gratitude and veneration.

He taught us how to live-and oh! too high

The price of knowledge-taught us how to die

Death, the terrors of which he had so often dispelled from the minds of others, had no power to disturb his serene and tranquil soul. But long will his bereaved and disconsolate flock mourn the loss of him, who was the succour and support of the wretched-who, when this world could afford them nothing on which we lean, turned to him for consolation as their spiritual father.

Long will the poor mourn for one who always relieved their wants to the utmost extent of his means, and even extended his care of them beyond the bounds of his own existence. They will long weep for him who watched and wept, who prayed and felt for all.

Those helpless orphan children, to whom he was indeed, a father, and who flocked around him dying, to receive his last advice and bles sing, may well weep, for their loss is irreparable.

PICTURE OF ENGLAND.

SIR FRANCIS BURDETT'S

ADDRESS

To the Electors of Westminster.

GENTLEMEN,

In addressing so enlightened a portion of the commi nity, as the electors of the great metropolitan city of Westminste it would ill become me to adopt the hacknied style of congratulation and profession usual on occasions like the present. I cannot congra tulate the people on the opportunity afforded them for redressing their

manifold grievances, by a due exercise of their constitutional right to appoint their representatives in parliament, well knowing, and that too they know full well who cause this cheating appearance of an election to take place, that no such opportunity is, in point of fact, or is intended to be, afforded the people. You, gentlemen, are too well informed of the real condition of your country, not to regard such language as deceptious, and to treat it with merited contempt. Neither can I, with truth, profess that I shall be highly, or at all gratified, by being returned a member of an assembly where corruption is acknowledged to be as "notorious as the sun at noon day," and where "practices which would have made our forefathers startle with indignation, in utter oblivion of every former maxim and feeling of parliament," have been impudently avowed and shamelessly justified. This has brought us into a situation almost impossible, within the limits of an advertisement, to depict. Nine hundred millions of debt; inland fortresses under the name of barracks; an army of German and other foreign mercenaries, an army of spies and informers; of tax and excise agents; an inquisition of private property; a phantom for a king; a degraded aristocracy; an oppressed people; a confiding parliament; irresponsible ministers; a corrupt and intimidated press; pensioned justices; packed juries; vague and sanguinary laws, sometimes shamefully relaxed, at other times violently stretched beyond their tone; which together with a host of failures of foreign expe ditions, and the present crushing burden of taxation, are some of the bitter fruits of corruption in the house of commons; a house of commons, the members of which did, agreeably to a return laid before it in 1808, put in their own pockets, 178,9944. a year in sinecures, salaries, and pensions, besides their staff appointments, and their commissions, and besides the money received by their wives and other relations. In fact, the whole of the evil arises here. Those who vote the money are, some way or other, interested in the expenditure of it. The small number of independent men have no weight at all.

Gentlemen, it is often affirmed, that the savings in our power to be made from sinecures and pensions, would afford no relief to the people? Let us take a few out of numerous instances. The house of commons itself, in sheer places and pensions, swallows as much as would give fifty shillings a year to 71,225 families. Would this be nothing? Would it not be felt by the people? Lord Arden, brother to the late minister, with reversion to the late minister himself, receives from his sinecures, 38,5751. a year. This is the exact sum stated. But it is said, that he has besides immense sums arising from interest. Here is support all the year round, at twelve shillings a week, for more than a thousand families. The same may be said for the family of Greenville. The duke of Grafton's sinecures and pensions would maintain half as many; and in short, it is in this way the nation is impoverished and reduced to misery. The lord chief justice Ellenborough, besides his salaries, receives in sinecures, 8,9931. a year; besides having offices to sell, and participating in the emolu. ments of his own jailor. The sinecures of the chief justice would keep 300 families. Mr. Garniers, the apothecary general, has clear 12,000l. a year, according to his acknowledgment; besides the sums given to the princes, out of the droits of admiralty, the king's pri

vate property in the funds, exempted from the income tax; and Mr. Addington (the maker and the breaker of the treaty of Amiens) in 1801, misapplied upwards of 50,000l. (voted for the civil list) as a loan to the duke of York, only a small part of which has been repaid, and that without interest-What noble examples they set us of making sacrifices-and for reconciling people to their sufferings, from the weight of taxes, and the distresses of the times!

Gentlemen, there was formerly a law for putting a badge of distinction on every pauper receiving alms from his parish; but what badge of infamy do those men deserve who thus extort alms from every poor man, in every parish in England-who embezzle, in unmerited pensions, and sinecure places, and divert into private purses, the public resources of their country?

Gentlemen, our usurping oligarchy assumes a power of making our most innocent actions misdemeanors; of determining points of law without appeal; and of imprisoning our persons without trial; and breaking open our houses with a standing army; and murdering the people in the streets, by soldiers paid by the people themselves for their defence. Gentlemen, before recent experience, we should haye hardly thought that a bare vote of the lower house would have been of sufficient force, in any courts of justice, to overpower the solemn enactments of king and parliament.

Gentlemen, the judges, in the time of Charles I decided against Hampden, in the great cause of ship-money. Gentlemen, in the action brought against me by the present excellent high bailiff of Westminster, which I defended because I thought it my duty not to give up your rights, lord Ellenborough directed the jury to find a verdict for the high bailiff, reasoning in this curious manner; «The burden and the benefit ought to go together, therefore as I had the benefit, said his lordship. " by taking the seat, the election expenses ought to fall on me." As to taking the seat that was compulsory, in obedience to the king's writ, and what the benefit is of a seat in the house of commons, I am still to learn. How his lordship could make so many blunders both in law and logic, in so small a compass, it is impossible to imagine, unless his lordship spoke from experience; and that, having found a seat in the house a convenient stepping stone to the bench, he had forgotten the ancient theory in the modern practice of constitution; with the latter of which his lordship is said to be to the full as well acquainted as with the former. But, there is nothing in the conduct of judges, either ancient or modern to induce us to resign, at the shrine of their authority, all pretensions to common sense, and to the understanding of plain English. How are we the better for the noble struggles of our forefathers against arbitrary power in the king, if we endure it in much worse hands those of our fellow subjects? What signifies to us the law declaring, that no man shall be imprisoned without lawful judgment of his peers, if the jargon of "Lex et consuetudo. Parliamenti” (a scrap of latin ever introduced to cover a cheat) can render all the laws useless. How is the Block the better for being safe from the wolf, if they are devoured by the very dogs placed to defend them? What avails resisting the lion, to fall into the jaws of the jackall? to have pinioned the eagle's wing, to become the sport and prey of daws and kites? Despicable con dition cheated, sold and arbitrarily ruled by our own servants, whe

exceed Judas in treachery, and equal him in guilt! The house of commons, instituted to redress our grievances, is become the greatest of grievances, itself the ready instrument of all our oppressors; a wo edged sword to destroy, instead of a shield to protect us.

Gentlemen, the people of England are entitled, by several positive laws; as well as that which is superior to all law, reason and common sense, and common good, to annual porliaments and free eicctions. These are the vital principles of the constitution: the only means of insuring justice. peace and security, to the community at large.

Gentlemen, we once had this happiness: our laws were made by representatives of our own choosing; our money was not taken from us but by our own consent, and the laws made by common consent, were the measure of the king's rule and the subject's obedience. To use the words of our great dramatic bard,

"Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two broti ers,
See what a grace was seated on this brow!"
"A combinati. n and a form, indeed,
Where every God did seem to set his seat,
This was your constitution
Here is your constitution.”

Look now, what follows,

We may well conclude by asking, with the poet,

"What devil was't

That thus has cozen'd us at hoodman blind!"

Gentlemen, under the present system no change of ministry can be permanently useful to the country. The present are just as good as, any of their predecessors during the present reign, or as any that are likely to succeed them. The fault is not in the individuals but in the system; a system under which no nation ever did or can prosper; a system of the most infamous and complicated corruption.

To this internal situation of the country, I desire to draw the attention of my countrymen, persuaded that from hence alone proceeds all our internal sufferings and external weakness; by the removal of this system, you may have foreign conquest, if that is desirable; by the non-removal of it, even victory and conquest would serve only to enhance and confirm the national servitude, depravity and misery.This system must be put a stop to by efforts from without the doors of the house of commons, for, be assured, the gentlemen within will never reform themselves. They will no more part with the rotton horoughs than a highwayman with his pistols. The SPIRIT of HAMPTON must revive in the breasts of our country gentlemen, and the people, with united voice, must demand reform, in a language not to be misunderstood. Until some spirit shall manifest itself," I am desirous of withdrawing from acting a part in the low farce carried on in St. Stephen's; of resigning into your hands your delegated trust; of returning to that retirement I had chosen when you so unexpectedly placed me in your service; thinking, that in so degraded a state of the country, "the post of honour is a private station." the same time, gentlemen, be well assured, that nothing can efface from my recollection the deep impression of your noble and generous

At

conduct. On this point, all the world are agreed, whatever difference. of opinion may exist about the object of your choice. Gentlemen, your kind and considerate behaviour has made a burden, far too heavy for my shoulders, sit easier than I have expected. Not only have I been free from importunity, but even from the slightest request from a single individual of your numerous body.

Gentlemen, this conduct fills me with esteem and respect, and must ever bind me to the electors of Westminster by indissoluble ties of gratitude and affection. But, gentlemen, I do most earnestly wish to spare myself the mortification, and you the disappointment, of passing a painful life in undignified, because unsupported, and unavailing efforts to stem a torrent of corruption, as irresistible as infarious; of dipping buckets into empty wells, and growing old in drawing nothing up."

Gentlemen, I remain, with the most profound gratitude and devotion, your humble servant,

FRANCIS BURDETT.

SPEECH

IN THE CASE OF

CONNAGHTON v. DILLON,

DELIVERED

In the County Court-House

OF ROSCOMMON.

MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN,"

In this case I am one of the counsel for the plaintiff, who has directed me to explain to you the wrongs for which, at your hands, he solicits reparation. It appears to me a case which undoubtedly merits much consideration, as well from the novelty of its appearance amongst us, as for the circumstances by which it is attended. Nor am I

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