even yet the aristocracy may take them by the hand, and that all this terrible turmoil may be made to end in peace. But, if they be still so blind and so obstinate as to refuse to do this, the Minister may do it at any rate; and it is his duty to do it; because the safety of the people depends upon his so doing. Let him try them however let him say, If you turn me out, you turn me out hand in hand with the people. His power would be as durable as his life or his health, if he chose it to be so, and his name would live in the grateful recollection of the children of the children who have yet to be born. No man ever stood in such an important situation as Lord Grey stands at this very moment, A week or two will probably decide whether he be to be huddled away into everlasting obscurity along with the Addingtons, the Per cevals, the Jenkinsons, and the Wellingtons, or whether he be to be reverenced in life and remembered after death as the restorer of the freedom, the happiness, and the honour of England. The nation will not sink: let him remember that. Confusion and anarchy would lacerate it; would make it tear itself about for a while; but out of that confusion it would rise, having broken all its shackles, and cast all its debts to the winds, greater, higher in spirit, more prosperous, and

support, indeed! The difficulty would be for him to find any half-dozen people, men or women, not ready to give him that support; unless it were those who live upon tithes and taxes. But, if he were to refuse to propose a reform of the parliament; or if he were to adopt that very "narrow and minute measure' which this writer hints at, he would be precisely in the situation that the Duke was in on the ninth of November; for the people are far more alive to the subject now than they were then. The augmentation of the army and the special commissions have certainly given a shake to their confidence; and they are looking forward to the 3rd of February with earnestness and anxiety perfectly indescribable. To me it is the most wonderful thing in the world, that the aristocracy, above all men living, should not see that their own security, and their only security now rests upon their taking the people by the hand. Never was there a body of persons of equal number, who had so much at stake as the nobility of this kingdom now have; nobody grudges them their titles, at least nobody but empty-skulled fools, who are not as a thimble-full of water compared with the Thames, when viewed in conjunction with the nation. No body grudges them their immense estates; nobody grudges them the respect and deference due to their rank: it is in the very nature of the people, and of powerful than ever. Here are all the all people of all countries, to pay respect elements of greatness. God has done to antiquity of family, whether accom-every-thing for us, and our forefathers panied with intrinsic merit or not; and have handed down God's gifts unimyet, while they have this natural re- paired: our own industry and energy spect, this cheerful obedience, this un- are too great to suffer us to become a grudged reverence, tendered them; while little nation; but the desirable thing is, they have here more real power and do- and the thing for which I have pleaded, mination voluntarily offered them than ever since I had the power of pleading ought to be enough to satisfy the most for any-thing, is, that the restoration haughty and overbearing of mortals, they should be accomplished in a peaceable cast all this aside as nothing worth, and manner; that we should regain all that hold, with the grasp of griin death, that our forefathers bequeathed us, and that, ill-gotten power which they cannot keep too, without the spilling of one drop of without a new code of laws, the most English blood. That this may be done, harsh and sanguinary that the world if Lord Grey will say the word, I am ever behield. In speaking as I have certain; and that he will say that word, done above of the feelings and disposi- is my most anxious wish. Before I tion of the people of England, I know shall be able to put pen to paper again, that I speak the truth: I know that the question will probably have been

more

decided; but, come what will, I shall be satisfied of having done my duty.

WM. COBBETT.

P. S. It was my intention to insert here the speech of Sir THOMAS BEEVOR's and those of the other speakers at the Norwich Meeting; but I have not room. Some of these speeches would make the ears of the boroughmongers tremble. I cannot refrain, however, from inserting that of Sir THOMAS BEEVOR.

be done, whatever my own private opinions may be upon the question of universal suffrage, I shall not quarrel with the measure, though it goes not the length I wish it to go. Good policy demands unity of sentiment, if we wish to obtain any part of what we agree as neces sary; at the same time honesty demands that we should avow our opinions, and though some men will not go the length I go, yet I can act with those whose views upon the question are to state to you my feeling on the subject, and not so extended as my own. I will endeavour I pledge myself uever to let the question rest till the whole is obtained. It is not necessary that I should enter at great length into the general question, but in stating my views, I SIR THOMAS BEEVOR then came forward, will lay before you some arguments which, to and said-lu rising to propose to you a series my mind, have appeared conclusive. First, of resolutions, I cannot help recurring to the I am an advocate for universal suffrage, with progress which Reform has made in inen's out any qualification, mental reservation, or minds within a short period. Not many years restriction whatsover. If an extension of sufago those who advocated Reform were a few frages be granted, there is no point at which despised calumniated individuals, and only 12 it can stop. The argument which applies to years has passed since the thousands who some applies with equal force to all. Some met to petition for Reform at Manchester were say, Let property be the qualification; (cries attacked by the yeomanry, cut down and of "no;") but what man is there who is postrampled upon, and for this act of tyranny and sessed of no property? Numbers of you oppression the thanks of the country were possess no property but the labour of your voted to the magistracy, upon the motion of right hands; but you may be called on to your noble fellow citizen, Lord Sidmouth. serve in the militia; your life and service (Laughter and hooting.) Now how different may be devoted to your country; on an inis the case-the schoolmaster is abroad, men vasion you may be called on to sacrifice all better know their rights, and even our wise your property, while the wealthy man can for rulers. feel that men have rights as well as a few pounds purchase a substitute. Others duties; but the present time is more peculiarly say that the qualification should be to those adapted for the discussion of the question, be- who pay direct taxation; but why should it be cause the noble Lord at the head of the Go-in favour of direct taxation? The amount of vernment, and those united with him in the the former is about one-eighth, of the latter Administration, are not only favourable to seven-eighths. Why should the one eighth Reform, but stand pledged, and indeed have be represented, and the seven eighths not? come into power, for the express purpose of Others say, Intelligence should be the quali carrying it into effect. This however is no fication. It would be a somewhat difficult reason why we should relax our efforts; let us matter to decide what amount of intelligence remember that in the present Administration should be necessary; certainly, if no more there are some of the friends of Mr. Cauning, intelligence was required to become an elector the implacable enemy of Reform. Another than is necessary to become an hereditary party who came into office about three years legislator, the suffrages would not be very ago, and gave the question the go-by on the limited. With respect to the duration of pretext that the people were indifferent to it. Parliaments, I consider it a matter of very Let it be recollected by every man that when secondary interest; it would be better that the Duke of Wellington brought in his great they should be annual, or rather sessional, measure of Emancipation, it was suffered to than triennial; it would be much more reapass, clogged with a clause by which 300,000 sonable that when the Parliament has met Irishmen were disfranchised. With respect together to transact the business of the to the present distracted state of the country, country, that they should go through that it was to have been hoped from the present business and dissolve as a matter of course, Ministry that something might have been till a similar body should be required for the done. Something has been done-an increase administration of affairs. The arguments of the army has been ordered, and special which are urged in favour of triennial parCommissioners have been sent round the liaments apply equally to parliaments of seven country to expound the law to deluded men, or of seventy times seven years. I am not at that is, to hang, transport, and imprison the all disposed on the present occasion to quibble suffering population by wholesale. It is neces- or to split upon details: I make only one sary to show Ministers that we shall not be exception in favour of the ballot. (Loud content with the shadow of Reform. It is not cheers.) Oue of the arguments used by disfranchisement but extension we waut; it is writers was that the mass of the people were an alteration of the system which will go largely supposed to use their suffrages independently: to increase the elective, franchise. If that if they cannot show any better arguments

against the adoption than this, their assertions | a right to; but that right is founded on must fall to the ground. Another objection his performing the duty of labouring to the ballot is, that it would make the people or on his being wiling to perform it. too independent-that the servant would vote against the master, and tenant against the It is of great importance that you unlandlord, and so on. This was only a proof derstand this matter clearly; and I will that independence among the body of the now endeavour to enable you to do it. people did not exist. I have now laid before you my scheme of Reform: never will I cease to advocate it till it is gained. The resolutions I have to read, though they do not inect my views exactly in words, yet they do in principle. But on the first and last points I feel it right to say they go to the full extent of my opinions both in words and principle, (Loud cheers) Sir Thomas then read the

resolutions.

TO THE

LABOURERS OF ENGLAND, ON THEIR DUTIES AND THEIR RIGHTS.

Kensington, 24th January, 1831.

DEAR FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,

There was a time when, in every country in the world, there were no laws, and no such thing as property. The people used the earth and all its produce as they pleased; that is to say, each man took whatever he wanted, if his strength or cunning would allow him to do it. No one acknowledged the superiority of any other might gave right strength and wisdom were superior to weakness and folly and there was no other superiority or inferiority acknowledged amongst men. This was called living under the law of nature. When God put it into the hearts of men to change this state of things, and to You have always been dear to me, make rules and laws for the observance of whose greatest pride it is that I was the whole, they agreed that the whole of born and bred amongst you; who has, the community or body of people in his travels about the world, never should enforce these laws, against any seen any people so industrious, so sin- one or more that broke them. The cere, so virtuous, parents so tender, chil- great law of all was this; that, in dren so affectionate, servants so wil-future, every man should keep to himlingly obedient, friends so steady and so true Your character and your conduct have always made you dear to me; no time, no distance, has weakened my regard for, or my anxiety for, your welfare; from across the seas I addressed you; through the walls of a prison you heard my voice; my heart has always been gladdened by your happiness, and saddened by your calamities; but, if you have always been dear to me, you are doubly dear to me now, when your affic-likely that men would be so villanously tions are so great and so various, and when I am cheered with the hope of seeing you once more the happy people that our grandfathers and grandmothers

were.

In this important crisis, pray hear me patiently, while I speak to you of your duties as well as of your rights: for, in demanding the latter, you ought not to forget the former; duties and rights go together; and he who refuses to perform the first, tacitly abandons his right to the last. Good food, raiment, and all the necessaries of life, the labourer has

self; should call his own; should be able to apply to his own use solely; that which he had got by his labour. For instance, John Stiles, when living under the law of nature, might take a piece of land, and cultivate it, and have a crop of wheat growing on it; but, when fit for the sickle Tom Nokes, a great deal stronger man than Stiles, might come and cut the wheat and carry it away and let Stiles have none of it. It is not

unjust as this, or that the rest of the people would be so base as to stand by and to see Stiles thus bereft of his wheat, and have nothing left to exist upon, perhaps, but a few wheel-barrows full of damned potatoes; this is not likely; but it might happen, and sometimes did happen, perhaps, and therefore all the people agreed to enter into a society, to make rules that should give Stiles an exclusive right to his crop, and that should punish such a fellow as Nokes as a robber, if he came to take the crop away.

Here, my friends, you see the origin out of the hearts of the very best and of property, which word means a most virtuous of all mankind, the agrithing which belongs to a person's cultural labourers of this land, so faself, and a thing that nobody else has voured by God Almighty, and for so any right to. But, observe, Stiles many ages the freest and happiest had no property in the crop till he country in the world! But, my friends, created it by his labour; and that, men did not enter into civil society for therefore, labour, and labour only, is the pnrpose of bringing upon themthe sole foundation of any property selves duties only: they had another whatsoever. Man's first duty, then, is object; namely, that of creating and to labour in some way or other in order enjoying rights. Just, indeed, as we to raise his means of living. If his have seen in the case of John Stiles, father, for instance, have laboured be- who had his crop of wheat taken away fore him, and has given or left him the by the stronger man Nokes, who left fruit of his labour, he has as good a him nothing but a few wheel-barrows right to that as if it were the fruit of full of accursed potatoes, and all their his own labour; a man's next duty is, natural consequences, poverty of blood, to refrain from taking by force or by leprosy, scrofula, pottle-belly, and fraud the property of another man; swelled heels! Now, whenever civil for, to protect men in the enjoyment of society produces such a state of things, their property was the great end in when a laborious man like John Stiles forming civil society. Perhaps it would is treated in the same way that Nokes not be difficult to prove, that men who treated him, that civil society has not are compelled to work for their bread, answered its purpose. Labour, as we are, provided they earn a sufficiency of have seen, was the foundation of all food and of raiment and other neces- property, and must always be the saries of life, as happy and even happier foundation of property. The labourer, than those who are not compelled to therefore, has a property in his labour; work for their bread; but at any rate, and, as St. James says in his Epistle, such is the nature of things, such is the and as Moses and Jesus Christ order of the world, that there always himself say, to rob the labourer of have been and always must be some his hire, that is to say, to take from very rich and some very poor, and great him or to withhold from him the due multitudes not rich; but in a just state reward of his labour, is the greatest of things, there never will be great crime that man can commit against multitudes steeped in poverty. The God. order of the world demands that some The rights of the labourer are, first, to shall think, while others work; that have food, raiment, fuel lodging, medisome shall make and execute the laws cal and spiritual comfort, in return for to which all are to yield obedience. his labour, and all these, too, in quantity Poverty, therefore, even in its extreme and quality sufficient for the preservastate, gives no man a right to view his tion of his life, health, and vigour. rich neighbour with an evil eye, much Next, if he be unable to work, unable less to do him mischief on account of to earn a sufficiency for his family, or his riches. If the laws be impartial in unable to obtain work so as to obtain themselves, and be executed with im- that sufficiency; in either of these cases, partiality, every man's conscience will he and his family have a right to have tell him, that it is his bounden duty to a sufficiency supplied out of the superyield them a cheerful obedience, and fluities of those to whom the law of further, to yield respect and honour to civil society has secured more than they those who are charged with the execu- want. This claim of the poor man is, tion of the laws.' as Judge Blackstone states, founded in Such are the great duties of all men the very first principle of civil society; in civil society; and God forbid that for it cannot be believed that men can these principles should ever be rooted have assented to enter civil society for

ány purpose other than that of the benefit of the whole; it cannot be believed that a million of men, for instance, entered into civil society in order that a couple of thousand should have all the meat and all the bread and all the good clothing, and that all the rest should live upon potatoes and go covered with miserable rags. No man upon earth, unless he be one who lives upon the labour of others, will pretend to believe that men entered into civil society, in order that those who did no work, that led idle lives, that created nothing, should have bread and flour and beer and clothing and all sorts of good things, a hundred times more than they wanted; while those that laboured and made all these things, were compelled to live upon a miserable watery root, or die with starvation.

Kensington, 24th January, 1831. IN No. IV. of this work, I addressed you on the subject of FLEMING'S (Willis) speech, made against me, at a dinner at Botley, where one of the keen Such are the duties and such the rights WARNERS was in the chair at one end of labouring men. Our forefathers, who of the table. They EXULTED at the well understood those duties and those circumstances that drove me from Botrights, cheerfully performed the one ley. In a few weeks afterwards we read and amply enjoyed the other. They of an attack on the homestead of Willis had an abundance of meat, of bread, (Fleming); and now, in the weekly paper and of all the fruits of the earth; they ("THE BALLOT ") of yesterday, we read were clothed throughout in good wool- the following: A most alarming fire len and linen; they had great store of" broke out last night at the seat of household goods and of every-thing to "J. Fleming, Esq. (one of the memmake life easy and pleasant; and when" bers for this county), at Stoneham old age or widowhood, or the orphan" Park, four miles from this place, state, or accident, or any circumstance" which threatened destruction to the producing indigence, befel them, the "mansion, but by the wind changpriest of the parish maintained them" ing, this disastrous fire was out of the tithes, administering to their "fined to the two wings which were wants as the law enjoined," with his " completely gutted. No lives were lost, "own hands in charity, humility, and" and the property, we believe, was in"mercy." And this, observe, was a "sured. It has been ascertained beyond RIGHT which they enjoyed, and that," doubt, that the fire originated in the too, a right as perfect as that of any apartments appropriated to the serman to his house or his land. When" vants, therefore it is not to be consiour country was bereft, by means which" dered as the work of an incendiary, I have not now the room to describe," but the pure result of accident.” of that species of protection for the What! the two wings take fire by accipoor, the poor-law was passed to supply dent at one and the same time! This the place of that protection; to paro- paragraph is, apparently, taken from chial relief, therefore, the aged, the the paper of the very villain, at Southwidow, the orphan, the infirm, amongst the labouring people, have just the same right as their forefathers had to that which was administered to them in so just and kind and Christian-like a

"

con

ampton, who published the attack on me by WILLIS and the GRASPALLS and their crew. They have, seemingly, something else to do now than to utter slan ders on me. It will be curious to hear what they will have to say, when FlemThat the ministers and the Parlia-ing gives the GRASPALLS the next guttle

manner.