seasons, but upon a system of averages, which is managed so falsely and fraudulently, as to produce the most deceptive and injurious results.

vency and ruin great numbers of subjects of the food which those ingenious and enterprising manufac- foreigners offer in exchange. Third, turers, and dealers, and merchants, in making it the interest of these whose honest acquisitions had appa-nations to encourage, by all possible rently placed them beyond the reach means, the progress of native manuof embarrassment; that it is daily factures, thereby not only depriving augmenting and multiplying the Great Britain of the trade of supplydifficulties of those whom it has not ing their wants, but raising them up yet overwhelmed; that it has de- against her, into most dangerous prived of all employment many rivals, in supplying the wants of those thousands of skilful and industrious other countries, the markets of which families of the labouring classes; are equally open to all; and, Fourth, that it has degraded them into mi- in introducing the spirit and practice serable dependants on the scanty of hazardous adventure into the forpittance furnished by the poor-rates, merly steady and regular business of and by charitable relief; that it is all persons concerned in raising or continually adding to the number of selling the products of the land; thus claimants for this pittance, while it making the success of the farmer, is also forcing down into the ranks and the supply of the fruits of the of the necessitous many of the per-earth, to depend, not on the industry sons by whom the rates have been of man, nor on the bounty of the paid and the relief has been given; that while, from this cause, the legal fund for the poor has been becoming less productive, the fund created by charity is almost totally exhausted; While, however, your Petitioners and that thus there is much reason are ascribing so many evils to the to fear that the approaching winter laws against the importation of corn, will see involved in all the horrors of they cannot refrain from declaring starvation this most thickly-peopled their deliberate opinion, that another portion of your Majesty's dominions. most grievous cause of the misery Your petitioners presume to repre- under which the whole body of your sent to your Majesty, their decided Majesty's subjects is suffering, is the opinion, that the alarming distress enormous amount of taxes levied in in the manufacturing districts, can- this kingdom; an amount which, to not be effectually remedied without its present extent, your petitioners a change in those laws of this king- are strongly of opinion is unnecesdom which forbid the importation of sary for the purpose of a Governforeign corn, until corn of home ment anxious only to promote the growth shall have reached a price welfare of your Majesty's people; which it is impossible for the people for your petitioners have learned, by of this country to pay; which laws, the annual accounts issued by your therefore, amount to a positive exclu- Majesty's Ministers, that, besides sion of that corn, and which exclu- the sums applied in discharge of the sion operates to the injury of the interest on the National Debt, a remanufacturing classes, and of the venue, several times as great as the nation at large, in the four following whole revenue of England a century ways-First, in enhancing prodi- ago, is expended in the maintenance giously the prices of the prime neces- (apparently designed to be perpetual,) saries of life. Second, in shutting of an immense standing army; in the out from British markets all those support of what your Majesty's Miforeigners, of various nations, whose nisters have denominated the "Dead need of the goods which your Ma- Weight;" in the payment of largely jesty's subjects make, is surpassed disproportioned salaries to some of only by the need of your Majesty's the officers of state; in supplying

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by pensions and sinecures, the means is to be found only in the repeal (as of extravagance to great numbers of prompt and effectual as may be conindividuals and families from whom sistent with the regard which is due the public have never received any, to those interests that have arisen the smallest portion of service; and in out of the present artificial system, various other charges, for which, as and that depend upon it), of every your petitioners humbly beg leave to law which enhances the price of submit to your Majesty, the most bread, and obstructs the manufacprosperous condition that any coun- turing and commercial prosperity of try ever knew could furnish no ex- Great Britain, and also the immedicuse, and which, in this country, ate abolition of taxes to an amount after the exhaustion of a twenty- which your petitioners do not prefive years' war, appear to your hum-sume to specify, but which, that it ble petitioners, to be as unjustifiable may produce the desired results, in their principle as they are oppres-must be sufficiently great to put an sive and ruinous in their effects.

end to all national expenditure beYour petitioners most humbly state yond that which shall be suited to to your Majesty, their full convic- the altered value of money, and dition, that the enormous pressure of rectly conducive to the freedom and the Corn-Laws, and of the taxes, has greatness of the kingdom. Your been aggravated to an incalculable petitioners, therefore, most carnestly extent, by the arbitrary changes in beseech your Majesty to assemble the value of money, produced by the the Parliament forthwith, and to reoperation of the measure for causing commend the immediate adoption of a return to cash payments. Your those great measures which, and petitioners, so far from disputing the which only, can, as your petitioners wisdom or necessity of this measure, are fully convinced, prevent your have long borne in silence the injury suffering but loyal people from being of its immediate consequences, and hurried into the perils and the crimes been willing to make great sacrifices, of some awful convulsion, and which in order that a circulating medium only can restore permanent prospeof full intrinsic value might be esta-rity to all parts of your Majesty's blished throughout the kingdom. dominions. But this great measure, so necessary, so wise, and so just in itself, having been unaccompanied by any remission of taxes, or any alteration of the Corn-Laws, has had the effect of lowering (in many cases to less than one half), the prices of all descriptions of produce, and of goods, ex-itself relates to the manner of cept those which the Corn-Laws and the taxes have unnaturally kept up, and of lessening, in like proportion, the income, the profits, and the wages of every man not a landlord, nor a dependant on the taxes.

And your petitioners shall ever pray.

The first remark that suggests

calling the meeting; and, all that I shall say of it is, that we radicals ought to laugh when we see Seeing, therefore, that the mani- others thus treated by the Boroughfold and aggravated evils which your reeve and constables of Manchespetitioners have humbly set forth to your Majesty, appear to have ter. In this sort of way they have arisen from those causes to which treated the people long enough. your petitioners have referred them, These fellows are, it seems, apyour petitioners are firmly of opinion that an adequate and lasting remedy

pointed by the Lord of the manor's

steward, and selected by him. He That large room is part of the enormous fungus from which has sprung all this mass of misery; and the sooner the fungus shall be completely eradicated, the better it will be for the country.

is some attorney, I suppose; so that this Boroughreeve and these constables have a sublime origin at last! The lord of the manor has, however, a name, I suppose; and so has this steward; and, ᎥᏝ . Mr. Baxter had thought proper to give us the names, especially as he thought the rest of the information necessary for general utility, it would have been as well. Mr. Baxter appears to be a blinker at the best; and he may be assured, that he may blink long enough before he will make any impression in the quarter to which he is now addressing himself. The people in that quarter are not to be moved by blinking.

But, I object much more to the kind of meeting, than I do to the manner of calling it, or rather the attempted manner of calling it. The meeting ought to have been held in the open air, and to have been a meeting of the people of Manchester, and not of poor rate payers only. Mr. Baxter endeavours to explain why the meeting was of this exclusive character; and, like most men who have not sincerity for their guide, he makes the matter worse by his As to the parish officers, I think attempted explanation. He tells they acted properly in refusing to us, that, this exclusive mode was meddle with the matter. They not adopted from any feelings of have enough to do, God knows, if disrespect towards the people a they will but discharge their pro- large, or from any opinion that per duties. With regard to the they were incompetent to the disRoyal Exchange people they will cussion of the subject, " but". naturally refuse the use of their. . . but, what, Mr. Baxter? Why, rooms for such a purpose, until"it was thought that an address they be sweated down a little" from that portion of the inhabitlower, which will be all in good" ants which now composes this time. In short, there will be no assembly, would, in the present very great change for the better," state of things, be more likely until their "large room in the Ex- to have the desired effect”. ... change" shall be very much at .... Yes, it was thought: 1 do the service of any body that will not doubt that; but why was it condescend to make use of it. thought? This you leave unex

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give them up. This was precisely the occasion (supposing the petitioners to have been sincere)

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plained, Mr. Baxter. "It was "thought that it would disarm the "opponents of the measure, by "showing that the resolutions for a general meeting; for an "were not carried by that part of union between the rich and the "the population which is labour-poor; for a cordial junction be"ing under the want of the neces-tween the masters and the men; "saries of life." Very good rea- and Mr. Baxter and his select soning, Mr. Baxter, if this had party should have recollected that been a meeting of persons called it was not the masters, not the retogether to pass resolutions rela-spectables, not the ley-payers; tive to the raising of money to be that it was not these; and that it given to the poor; or for fixing was not men very cautious and the quantity of relief to be given decorous in their language and to the poor. But, these resolu- movements; that it was none of tions relate to the masters as well these who induced the Ministers to as to the men; relate to all ranks let the bonded corn out of bond! and degrees in the nation; and And Mr. Baxter may be well there appears to have been no assured, that, for the resolutions rational ground for the exclusion and the prayings of a body of men other than that very stupid notion, who talk against standing army, that there would have been less pensions, and sinecures, and exweight in the decision of a gene-travagance of the receivers of the ral meeting than in the decision taxes; Mr. Baxter may be very, men, while of a meeting selected as this was. well assured that such There were two ways of doing the they will be hated by the Ministers thing, and the worst was chosen. for what those Ministers will call Vain is that man who imagines their impudence, will be despised that the makers of Corn Bills, by them, when seen severed, by the fillers of seats, and the eaters their vanity, or their want of of taxes, are to be" disarmed," as judgment, from the great body of Mr. Baxter calls it by select bo- the people. dies of men. They know too well the value of the things they possess to be disposed to part with them, unless they see the whole body of the people bent upon making them accompanied with an attitude not

The people at Whitehall have nerves of a peculiar construction. They are people not to be moved by prayers, unless the prayers be

usually employed in works of sup- an effect. It would, at one and plication. Mr. Baxter seems to the same time, have given an enthink, that the absence of this at-couragement to the people of other titude would be an advantage. In great towns, and have made the the answer which he will receive Ministers pay attention to the (if he receive any at all) he will prayers of the meeting. As the get a lesson upon this subject thing is, it is in fact one of those which will be useful to him as very hole-and-corner affairs of long as he shall live. Oh, no, which Mr. Baxter is pleased to Mr. Baxter! You may under-speak in terms of contempt. In stand the spinning or weaving or the first place, a very large part of printing of cottons very well; but the people of this kingdom does you do not understand how to not know what the word ley-payers tackle the pretty gentlemen of means; and when it is explained Whitehall. A very old courtier to them that ley-payers means said to me, more than twenty poor-rate payers, they are at a years ago, "There are only two loss to discover why this capacity "ways of going to work at White- of poor-rate payer should be con"hall: you must kiss their . . . . . sidered as the sole qualification "or kick them: the former is the for attending a meeting, which was "easiest and most profitable of to eventuate in a petition, embracthe two: I have chosen that; ing topics of great general national and I would advise you to do importance, affecting every rank "the same." Mr. Baxter is not in of society, from the royal family,' a state to kiss his kiss would not down to the hedger and the ditcher. be worth having: he has kicked; Therefore, in the constitution of but, wanting somebody at his this meeting, there was, in my back, his kick will be despised. opinion, almost every thing that It ought to have been a public, can be imagined calculated to degeneral, open-air meeting. The feat the objects which it professed newspapers ought to have told us, to have in view.

that there had been at Manchester As to the matter of the petition a hundred thousand men assem-itself, there is no fault to be found, bled, making the sky echo with except with the following words; their reprobation of standing" the scanty pittance furnished by armies, pensions, sinecures, and the poor-rates." This would seem corn-laws. This would have had to say that the parish-officers and