A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 46

A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 46

The petition presented by the lord mayor with such difficulty, and

after many insolent subterfuges and repulses, failed to bring the king

to a reasonable sense of his situation or of the dangers to which the

throne was exposed by the reckless and unconstitutional conduct of the

administration. Subsequently, on the presentation of a “remonstrance,”

the king returned a written reply to the original petition, visiting

with severe censure the persevering claim of invaded birthrights, urged

by “the afflicted citizens,” and treating their just grievances with

reprimand instead of redress; the pleas set forth in the petitions

being considered by His Majesty “as disrespectful to himself, injurious

to his parliament, and irreconcileable to the principles of the

constitution”--a piece of bold duplicity more worthy of the Stuart

dynasty.

 

The vexed question of Middlesex election, the imprisonment of Wilkes,

the unconstitutional admission of Luttrell into the House, and

particularly the supineness of the King to the petitions and just

remonstrances of his people, are embodied in a metrical form, as--

 

 

“A NEW SONG; BEING A POETICAL PETITION TO THE KING.

 

“Good Sir, I crave pity, bad is my condition:

You’ve sworn to relieve me, as I understand;

To tell you the whole, pray read this Petition;

My name you know is Old England:

Tho’ you’ve receiv’d many, and not answer’d any,

I hope Old England’s will not be forgot,

For if you deny me, the land will despise ye--

’Twas King Charles the First by the axe went to pot.

My right arm is wounded, and Middlesex county

I always esteem’d the bloom of my plumb.

And murd’rers have got a pardon and bounty,

From this precious arm they have torn a thumb;

For Wilkes is took from me, such wrongs have they done me,

They’ve alter’d records unto their disgrace;

’Tis thus that they’ve done, and a bastard son,

While my darling’s in prison, now sits in his place.

My head is wounded, if such a thing can be,

My troubles are such that I can take no rest;

Two sons are ta’en from me, Great Camden and Granby,

And to the world they have left me distrest:

For Granby’s a soldier, none better or bolder,

And Camden’s a lawyer in justice well known,

In law had such power, took Wilkes from the Tower,

These, these are the children I ne’er will disown.

So read my Petition, good Sir; ’tis not tattle,

But matter of consequence, you’ll understand;

And answer me not, Sir, about horned cattle,

Pray what’s a few beasts, to the peace of the land?

The land has been injur’d, our rights they’ve infringed,

And loud for redress it behoves us to call,

For should we let trespass, like an indolent ass,

With Middlesex then all our rights they must fall.

Our land it is ruled by rogues, roughs, and bullies,

In the nation’s confusion they go hand in hand,

Sharps, gamblers, profuse and extravagant cullies,

A very odd set for to govern the land:

Here’s Bute, we hear, dying, his mistress for him crying,

Her son he has learnt the same fiddle to play;

For he touches the string, in disgrace to the king,

But his mother has taught him--why what?--shall we say?”

 

In the March of the year following, after awaiting a response for

nearly twelve months, the Livery of the city resolved to draw up a

further and more stringent remonstrance; and a meeting was held under

the Right Hon. William Beckford, elected lord mayor for the second

time, in the interval. In his address “to the Supreme Court of the

whole City,” the real dangers which menaced the State were by Beckford

traced to their true source, “the comprehensive violation of the _right

of election_”--

 

“to preserve which right, the Crown had been justly taken from

James the Second, and been placed by the people of England on

the head of William the Third, and conferred on His Majesty’s

family. That the corruption of the people’s representatives was

the cause and foundation of all our grievances. That we have

now only the name of a parliament, without the substance.”

 

He observed how improper it was for _placemen_ and _pensioners_ to sit

in the House of Commons; “for if a man was not fit to be a Juryman,

or a Judge in a cause where he was interested, how much less to be a

Senator and justify his peculation.” “_He complained of the unequal

and inadequate representation of the people, by means of the little,

rotten, paltry boroughs._” In the remonstrance drawn up on this

occasion, the wrongs of the people were again eloquently urged, and

it was especially pointed out that the House of Commons, by the venal

majority--

 

“had deprived the people of their dearest rights. They have

done a deed more ruinous in its consequence than the levying

of ship-money by Charles the First, or the dispensing power

assumed by James the Second. A deed which must vitiate all the

future proceedings of this parliament; for the acts of the

legislature itself can no more be valid without a legal House

of Commons than without a legal prince upon the throne.

 

“Representatives of the people are essential to the making of

laws, and there is a time when it is morally demonstrable that

men cease to be representatives. That time is now arrived. The

present House of Commons do not represent the people. We owe to

your Majesty an obedience under the restriction of the laws,

for the calling and duration of Parliaments; and your Majesty

owes to us, that our representation, free from the force of

arms or corruption, should be preserved to us in them.

 

* * * * *

 

“The forms of the Constitution, like those of Religion, were

not established for form’s sake, but for the substance. And

we call God and man to witness that we do not owe our Liberty

to those nice and subtle distinctions, which _places_, and

_pensions_, and _lucrative employments_ have invented; so

neither will we be cheated of it by them, but as it was gained

by the stern virtue of our ancestors, by the virtue of their

descendants it shall be preserved.

 

“Since, therefore, the misdeeds of your Majesty’s ministers

in violating the freedom of Election, and depraving the

noble constitution of Parliaments are notorious, as well as

subversive of the fundamental Laws and Liberties of this

Realm; and since your Majesty, both in honour and justice,

is obliged inviolably to preserve them according to the Oath

made to God and your subjects at your Coronation; we, your

remonstrants, assure ourselves that your Majesty will restore

the constitutional Government and quiet of your people, by

DISSOLVING this Parliament, and removing those evil

ministers FOR EVER from your councils.”

 

This manly and righteous remonstrance was presented after many

pettifogging slights and indignities, vexations, and subterfuges on

the part of the Court and Crown; and there were made various attempts

to bring into discredit the authenticity of this document as the

__EXPRESSION__ of the Court of Aldermen. The Corporation of the city, in

sixty carriages, proceeded with the various officers to the palace

of St. James’s, and were received by the king on his throne. The

remonstrance was read; and, in reply, His Majesty read an answer, drawn

up in advance, condemning both the former petition and the present

remonstrance in unmistakable terms, and ending with an assurance

that “he had ever made the law of the land the rule of his conduct,

esteeming it his chief glory to rule over a free people;” and then,

descending into more palpable falsehoods, asserting, in the face of

facts, with a power of dissimulation worthy of Charles II:--

 

“with this view I have always been careful, as well to

execute faithfully the trust reposed in me, as to avoid even

the appearance of invading any of those powers which the

Constitution has placed in other hands.”

 

The king was evidently the puppet of more vicious minds, being blessed

with but a feeble reasoning faculty of his own. After reading his

equivocative answer, and as the lord mayor and the city representatives

were withdrawing, the vacuity of his intellect made itself

manifest--for it is asserted in contemporaneous accounts, “His Majesty

instantly turned round to his courtiers, and _burst out laughing_.

NERO FIDDLED WHILE ROME WAS BURNING.”

 

The reception accorded to these petitions being far from such as their

gravity demanded, fresh agitations commenced in the metropolis and in

the provinces, and, on March 30th, Horne Tooke delivered a remarkable

address to the freeholders of the county of Middlesex, in which he

graphically described both the murders he had seen committed and

the conduct of the justices of the peace, who said the ministerial

instructions were for the soldiers to fire, and referred to the

partiality shown on the trials and the defences made at the expense

of Government when it was endeavoured to bring the guilty to justice.

At this meeting, “An Address, Remonstrance, and Petition of the

Freeholders of Middlesex” was drawn up for presentation, in which it

was urged on the king--

 

“that a secret and malignant influence had thwarted and