Corn Bill to more than double its intrinsic price, compared with the price of surrounding nations, and this to relieve a mercenary, avaricious, and unfeeling landed Aristocracy, which impoverishes the tradespeople,' and famishes the labourer, without enriching or benefitting the farmer, equally borne down by excessive taxation, and exorbitant rentals ;---the enormous Interest of Debt, which an immense majority of the People had neither voice nor share in contracting;---the scandalous grants to Sinecurists, Placemen, and Pensioners;---the vast expenses of a Standing Army, of Excise and Custom-house Officers, and the prodigal Expenditure of the public treasure in all parts of the Government, deprive the industrious People of two-thirds of the fruits of their toil, and have at last reduced this once-flourishing Country to a condition of distress unexampled in the pages of its history;---a fictitious Paper Currency, which your Ministers would now, if they dare, gladly annihilate, has enabled knaves, monopólizers, forestallers, and regraters, to enrich themselves out of the wages of the labour of the more honest and toiling poor; and a wicked and unprincipled Ministry to pursue a mad career of profligacy, and to carry on a war of unexampled duration against the liberties of mankind in all parts of the globe--a system of exclusive privilege, partial legislation, partial laws, and partial representation, has occasioned the oppression and calamities of the People, and renders this once enviable Country intolerable to its Irhabitants, is driving the population, the property, the industry, the manufactories, and the commerce to other climes, and leaving the remaining People to bewail their hard fate, in being the victims of remorseless factions, profiting by the spoils they extort, and the woe they create; who, than to forego their system of Borough-proprietorship and oppressive influence, than to grant to the People their just and moderate claims of just and free representation would, it has been made evident, rather draw the swords from the scabbards, ensheathe them in the bodies of defenceless men, women, and children, and immolate to despotism a population they cannot enslave.

Startle not, Sir, at this unvarnished statement of evils which millions of People can aver to be true; but if you can have been kept ignorant of their sufferings, from the misrepresentations of your Ministers, who have so much reason to fear your displeasure, and to dread the vengeance of a much-injured People, for their arbitrary and cruel treatment of them, and the deceptious delusions they must have practised upon you. Attentive listen to this honest Appeal made by men who can have no interest to deceive, none to mislead your judgment. Think, Sir, that "YOU HOLD THE CROWN IN TRUST ONLY FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE;" and know, that that People will generously free you from the snares and intolerance of the Borough factions whenever you are willing to seek their protection, and fly to the standard of Justice and Liberty. Think, Sir, that a "New Era" has arisen, in which men, freed from the prejudices and follies of former ages, have learned to judge for themselves, to know their rights, and are determined to preserve them at the hazard of their lives.

Remember the rights guaranteed to them by the great Charters of the Land, and by the Act of Settlement, and the Coronation Oath. Consider that the People are become jealous of their liberties, and indignant at those who infringe them, and will ever demand an adherence to the very letter, to the compacts which your family have made with them. They have placed you at the head, of their affairs, as Chief Magistrate and Conservator of their liberties and happiness;-they have awarded to you a most boun

teous Civil List out of the fruits of their industry and toil;-they expect in return, now they are overwhehned in misery, that you at least will attend their call, and answer this Appeal without evasion or reservation. We have been told by your Ministers that the House of Brunswick, have determined to return no answer to Petitions to the prayers of the People, but from the Throne, and from thence only to certain Corporate Bodies, we would fain hope they have misrepresented and libelled the faith of your Family. If not, think you, Sir, that the executive Members of your House, entrusted with Regal Authority, never have duties to perform but when seated upon the Throne given to them by the People. If so, it is time to explain and to amend the compacts between you and them ;—and time to tell you in the language of respect and sincerity, that your Father, whose functions you perform, made Oath to maintain the Charters and Laws of the land, by which he is bound to receive the Petitions of the People, and unless the People are trifled with by quirk and subtlety, equally bound to answer them ;-time to tell you that the Right of Petition so guaranteed, the People cousider is evaded and rendered null and void by such a determination; but the People even know not whether any of their Petitions to you ever reach your hands, as they have learnt that it is a practice of your Servant, the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, to exercise his own discretion and judgment whether he presents to you their Petitions, Appeals, or Remonstrances, or not;-they have to trust in this respect to the bare word of a Secretary of State, whose misconduct might be a theme of complaint, therefore interested not to give to you an instrument which might call forth your displeasure.

But, Sir, in the dreadful condition to which he People are now driven (waving for the present all considerations of right or wrong upon the subject) whatever may have been the previous determinations of your family, the importance of public affairs, and the rights the People now claim, to appease their irritated feelings for sufferings long endured, imperatively call upon you to suspend the resolutions in that respect made by your family, and to return an answer to this Appeal, most important both on account of the number of persons who have determined to make it, and the interests it involves. And we owe it as a duty to you, our country, and ourselves, to declare, that considering the unsatisfactory answer you were advised to return to the Citizens of London, when they addressed you upon the cruel enormities committed upon the unoffending defenceless People of Manchester, by a ferocious Yeomanry, ignorant of, and disregarding the rights of Englishmen; that the People assembled to determine upon this Appeal, expect your Ministers will advise a more explicit and a more favorable answer,

We should deem ourselves wanting in that honesty towards you which become men possessing a high sense of their liberties, to conceal from you that another such auswer may endanger the stability of that Throne on which your ancestors were seated by our ancestors, and the Crown which you hold in sufferance (so long as you conform to justice,) by the will of a great People.

Nevertheless that People are yet disposed to hope your Royal Highness, nioved both by a wise policy, and in strict justice to the urgency of their affairs, will explicitly give them to understand your willingness to comply with the claims they now make, to concur with the principles they express, and with the mode they suggest to relieve their distresses-by an impartial, free, and just system of representation, and in the mode hereafter detailed in electing persons to represent them in the Commons House of Parliament, as this woey consider, lead to the peaceable attainment of their

rights and liberties; and would eventually restore to them prosperity and happiness.

Permit us to advise you to consider well that the Reople have hitherto only sought to reform a partial and corrupt system of representation. They ask only for a Reform; but by a pertinacious adherence to their enemies and the measures they pursue, do not you, Sir, be advised to identify yourself with those measures which may drive the People to Revolution. Remem ber, they had a glorious one a little more than a Century ago, which relieved their fathers for a season from the evil Counsellors by whose despotic career and folly, and his own obstinacy, their Master was compelled to leave the Crown and Kingdom.. The People are now grown more wise: and if again driven by the obduracy and oppression of wicked Counsellors, into another Revolution, be assured they would render it more glorious, more permanent, and more secure than the one of 1688. In the confusion which might precede its final completion,---in the summary and strict justice which might then prevail, the most elevated personages if then found opposed to the welfare, the liberties, and happiness of the People might be involved in their high displeasure and condemnation. They have for forty years patiently waited for a Reform of Parliament, and of Abuses, which have drained them of their wealth, and driven them into despair and misery. They have asked for the bread of freedom, and their oppressors have given them the stone of despotism. They have legally met to consult upon their rights and grievances,---and their tyrants have in cold blood sabred and massacred defenceles men, women, and children. Your Coun sellors mistaking the love of peace cherished by industrious men for cowardice, have, in their nonstous folly, advised you to thank the ferocious perpetrators of these enormities. Can you suppose that the descendants of the Britons who arnted at Runnymede, compelled a tyrant King to obey the voice of reason and justice,---who brought another to public execution, and compelled a third to descend from the throne he unworthily occupied. Can you suppose that that People, from whom were taken in later days the brave men who have filled the world with astonishment at the valour of their deeds. Can you, Sir, be so deluded by the misrepresentations and intolerance, buffoonery and hypocrisy of the men who surround you, as to imagine it possible for such a People for a longer season to bear with insult, plunder, and murder?

Tear from before you the veil which has so long hid from you the crimes of the Borough factions. No longer indulge in the lethe of a fallacious security, which these men would persuade that you derive from the array of military men. Recollect that those who now wear arms are united Britons and Irishmen, who in their late heroic deeds supposed they were exposing themselves in defence and glory of their Country, against a man who attempted to subjugate all Europe to the despotism of his own dynasty. Reflect, Sir, seriously, that these same Britons and Irishmen so numerously arrayed, would, in all probability, be equally determined and brave in. opposing the landing of Troops belonging to the Sovereigns composing the Holy Alliance, and in defence of liberty at home, against the designs of the factions, proceeding from Borough proprietorship.

And we beseech you, Sir, to judge upon the sign of the times, when men are ridding themselves of the prejudices of the darker ages, and returning to the practice of the unerring principles of Truth and Justice, both in their moral and political conduct. Can you not see written in legible characters in these times, UNIVER SAL CIVIL. and RELIGIOUS LIBERTY; and that these sentiments are stimüə Jating Britons to destroy for ever the relics of superstition and feudal tyranny; and though the factions of the country who so pertinaciously cling to these relics, may imagine that the spirit of the People is suppressed, believe you, Sir, it is only

Nov. 8, 1819.

137 like the volcanic lava, struggling in the agitated bowels of the earth, to burst forth with the most tremendous destruction, to sweep down all opposing matter.

Meditate, we beseech you, upon this Appeal, and ere necessity, proceeding from conflicting causes, seals the fate of the sordid and remorseless despots of the country, come you, Sir, to the People, and prefer to be at the head of freemen, than the splendid convenient tool of designing and cruel oppressors, who use your name to abuse and tyrannize Leave, Sir, the trammels of the Borough proprietors; rely upon the generous People; they will make you the Splendid Prince over a nation of freemen. And, to the end that you may not misunderstand your Appellants, we lay before you the purport of a few of the Resolutions they have decided upon, and which they are most desirous may reach your hands and meet with your deliberate and unprejudiced attention. They have resolved that it is an inherent principle of Justice, that all power belongs to the people; and that any man or body of men, assuming or exercising an exclusive government or controul over a People, are guilty of an arbitrary infraction of Social Order, of Public Good, and the Rights of Mau, and ought by all possible means to be compelled instantly to relinquish the power they arrogantly retain.

That various persons, being proprietors of boroughs, have assumed an undue and mischievous influence, and an unjust power and controul over the affairs of the People of these Countries, destructive of their Interests, and subversive of their Liberties and happiness. That the claims of the People to the enjoyment of a full, free, and impartial Elective Franchise, of Annual Parliaments, and Vote by Ballot, are wise, just, and necessary, to prevent tyranny and oppression, and to restore prosperity and happiness in the country. That all who oppose these claims ought to be considered enemies and traitors to the Commonwealth. That in consequence of the murder of unarmed men, women, and children, by the ferocious Yeomanry at Manchester, and in accordance with the "Bill of Rights," which guarantees the right of the People to have arms in their possession, it is their bounden duty instantly to supply themselves with such weapons, they deem best adapted to secure their lives, their property, and liberties; and that you may the better understand the facility by which the People may be enfranchised, and each adult male bé admitted to vote for a Representative to the Commons House of Parliament, without causing that anarchy dreaded by some well-meaning men, but opposed by illdesigning ones, we lay before you the 25th Resolution of your Appellants, and ardently hope that it will receive your cordial approbation, and induce you to adopt it as the most ready mode to prevent confusion and anarchy, and to restora harmony and good-will through the land.

They Resolved-That, as all hopes are at an end that the Members of Parliament returned to the Commons House of Parliament under the present system of borongh proprietorship and corrupt influence, will ever Reform the present extremely partial representation of the People-and as that for time immemorial the King has occasionally exercised a privilege of enfranchising the People of local districts, towns, and villages that for the advantage of the People, and as a peaceable and legitimate mode of complying with their desire and right to share by their Representatives in the Government they by industry uphold, and to secure their liberties-that you be admonished to listen to the voice of the suffering People, forthwith to issue your writs to the Sheriffs of counties, and to all Chief Constables, Headboroughs, and Constables, or other proper Officers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to call upon the People to assemble and to elect, out of every 7,000. adult male persons, one adult male person of fair and reputable character, to represent them in the Commons House of Parliament. That every male adult of sound mind, not incapacitated by crime, be eligible to be elected (save those persons hereafter excepted); and that peace and order may be preserved, and bribery and Corrupt influence may be avoided, that the People be directed to elect the said Representative by Ballot. And that all cause of offence, envy, jealousy, and malice may cease-That vo religious opinions or possession or non-possession of property, be a disqualification to any person being elected; but that nevertheless all persons, directly or indirectly employed under Government, or enjoying place, pay, or pen sion from Government, be ineligible to be returned to represent the People in the Commons House of Parliament.

Comply, Sir, with these solemn claims, made by a much-injured but generous People, and all would soon be well, discontent would subside, mutual good-will would prevail, and your Father's Throne be established in peace. We humbly wait, Sir, your answer, and are, in behalf of many thousands of our Fellow Countrymen, Your Royal Highness's

Most humble Servants,

TWENTY NON-REPRESENTED PERSONS,

RESOLVED,

RESOLUTIONS.

1. THAT it is an inherent principle of justice that power belongs to the People, 2. That any man, or body of men, assuming or exercising an exclusive govern, ment or controul over the People, are guilty of an arbitrary infraction of Social Order of Public Good and the Rights of Man; and ought by all possible and legitimate means to be compelled instantly to relinquish the power they arrogantly retain.

3. That every man has a right to resist by every possible and legitimate means, all Laws which injure and oppress him, and which militate against his happiness as an individual, when he is excluded from a share in making those laws either in his own person or by his deputy.

4. That various persons being Proprietors of Boroughs, have assumed an undue and mischievous influence and an unjust power and controul over the affairs of the People of these Countries, destructive to their interest, and subversive of their liberties and happiness, and by a complicated system and long career of misrule, extravagance, and extortion, have destroyed the prosperity of the Nation, plunged it into a state of deep distress, and broke up the sources of industry and wealth.

5. Therefore that it is the bounden duty of all industrious Men, especially Mechanics, Artizans, and Labourers, who by an oppressive system are brought to the verge of famine, (amidst plenty and profusion) to exert themselves by all possible means to elect persons more inclined to preserve their liberties and happiness. 6. That the claims of the People to the enjoyment of a full, free, and impartial Elective Franchise, of Annual Parliaments, and Vote by Ballot, are wise, just, and necessary, to prevent tyranny and oppression, and to restore prosperity and happiness in the Country, and that all who oppose these claims ought to be considered enemies, and traitors to the Commonwealth.

7. That we hold sacred the manly principles and wisdom of our Forefathers, in foreseeing" that as offences needs must come," and that as tyrants were likely to arise, nobly secured by the Bill of Rights, the right of the People to have arms in their possession.

8. That an armed People, who have courage to use their arms, cannot be a nation of slaves. That the first attempt of any man, or any body of men, to disarm a People, is a violation of the Laws of Nature-of the Social Compact-and of Justice; and ought to be a signal to the People instantly to rise, to put down the abettors of measures so contrary to the liberties of mankind.

9. That the possession of arms by the People would tend to the preservation of public peace, as kuown from the experience of former times, when all Englishmen were armed, and when the People respected order and the property of their neighbours, as inviolable as at this day, when they have shamefully and criminally neglected to avail themselves of this right, secured to them by one of the Great Charters of the Land.

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10. That since the barbarous massacre of defenceless and peaceable men, omen, and children, at Manchester, by a cruel and ferocious body of Yeomanry Cavalry, it has become the imperative duty of the British People, (in accordance with the Bill of Rights, securing the right to have arms) not to lose an hour in providing themselves with weapons of defence, as an indubitable evidence has been given of the intention of a wicked faction to reduce the People to slavery, by the force of

arms.

11. That we venerate and are determined with our lives to act upon the principle laid down by Judge Blackstone, wherein he declares "That resistance to oppression is a Constitutional right, which the People are called upon to exercise, whenever they are driven to extremity, and their liberties and happiness are impudently and indecently invaded."

12. That the People are the most proper judges when their rights are invaded— when they are driven to extremity-and when they ought to resist tyrannical oppression

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13. That it is cowardly in a People to suffer tyrants to oppress but that it would be extreme folly in a comparative few to resist their armed forces, until a large multitude of People were willing to submit to subordination, and to supply themselves with the ineans to defend themselves and the nation' from tyrannica Jesigns.