Movements toward Parliamentary Reform--John Cartwright--The Father
of Parliamentary Reform--His Account of the Trials of Hardy and
Tooke--Lord Byron's Eulogium of him--His Opinions of the Slave
Trade--The First English Advocate of the Ballot--His Conviction for
Conspiracy--His Labors for Grecian and Mexican
Independence--William Cobbett--His Character, Opinions, and
Services--His Style of Writing--His Great Influence with the
Middling and Lower Orders of England--Sir Francis Burdett--His
Labors for Reform--His Recantation.
Grant to the people of England universal suffrage and equal
Parliamentary representation, and all other reforms will ultimately
follow. The present century has taught the masses and the statesmen of
that country, that, to wield influence over its Government, it is not
necessary to occupy official stations. I am about to note some
occurrences in the life of one who taught and illustrated the truth,
that power and place are not synonymous terms--one who exerted much sway
over public affairs for fifty years, one whose services were wholly of a
popular character, he never having held office. I allude to JOHN
CARTWRIGHT. His name is appropriately introduced previous to noticing
the passage of the Reform Bill, for, no man did more than he to create a
public opinion which demanded that great measure. By universal consent
he was called "THE FATHER OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM."
Mr. Cartwright was born in 1740. He entered the navy as a midshipman,
saw a great deal of hard fighting, reached the post of first lieutenant,
became distinguished for his science and skill in the service, and at
the age of thirty-four abandoned the seas, and turned his mind to
politics. In 1774, he published _Letters on American Independence_,
addressed to the House of Commons, in which he took radical ground in
favor of the rights of the Colonies. "It is a capital error," says he,
"in the reasonings of most writers on this subject, (the rights of man,)
that they consider the liberty of mankind in the same light as an estate
or chattel, and go about to prove or disapprove the right to it, by
grants, usage, or municipal statutes. It is not among moldy parchments
that we are to look for it; it is the immediate gift of God; it is not
derived from any one, but it is original in every one." Here we have the
pioneer idea of our own Declaration of Independence, uttered by an
unknown Englishman two years before that immortal paper saw the light.
In 1776, an event occurred which put Major Cartwright's principles (he
had been appointed major in the Nottinghamshire militia) to a severe
test. He was always proud of the navy, and ambitious of promotion in the
service. Lord Howe, who had witnessed his courage and skill, having
taken command of the fleet to act against the American Colonies, urged
Cartwright to take a captaincy of a line-of-battle ship. He was then
paying his addresses to a lady of high family, whose friends would
consent to her accepting his hand if he would accede to the proposal of
Lord Howe. He declined, thereby losing the favor both of Mars and Hymen.
This led to an acquaintance with the gallant Lord Effingham, an officer
of the army, who proved himself a genuine nobleman by resigning his
commission rather than act against "the rebels."
Cartwright now (1776) commenced the work to which he devoted the
remaining years of his laborious and useful life--_Parliamentary
Reform_. At the outset, he took the ground now occupied by the
Chartists. In his first two pamphlets--and they were the earliest
English productions on reform in the House of Commons--he maintained
that equal representation, universal suffrage, and annual elections,
were rights inherent in the body of the people. His system closely
resembled that engrafted upon the United States Constitution twelve
years later. This shows him a man of rare sagacity for the times, far in
advance of his cotemporaries, and not a whit behind the most radical
American patriots. The next year he presented an address to the King,
urging peace with his Colonies, and a union with them on the basis of
independent States. He organized, the same year, England's first
association for promoting Parliamentary reform, called the "Society for
Political Inquiry." Soon after, Cartwright stood twice for Parliament,
but was unsuccessful, partly on account of his radical principles, and
partly because he would not stoop to any form of bribery, not even
"treating," declaring that "he would not spend a single shilling to
influence the electors."
He continued to agitate for reform, by pamphlets, speeches, and
correspondence, till, in 1781, he organized the celebrated "Society for
Constitutional Information," which enrolled many of the first names in
the kingdom, and to which Tooke belonged when tried for treason in 1794.
Cartwright wrote the first address of the Society. It received the high
encomiums of Sir William Jones, who said it ought to be engraven upon
gold. The ship of Parliamentary Reform now glided smoothly, Cartwright
being the chief pilot, when the French revolution burst upon the world.
He hailed it as the dawn of a political millennium, and, filled with
joy, he addressed a congratulatory and advisory letter to the French
National Assembly. But, the skies of France, so bright at the rising of
the revolutionary sun, soon became darkened, and the clouds poured down
blood and fire upon the land, covering the friends of liberty in England
with sorrow and dismay. The Reign of Terror in France was followed by a
Reign of Terror in England. In the former, the victims were royalists.
In the latter, radicals. In the former, Robespierre and the guillotine
executed vengeance. In the latter, George III and the Court of King's
Bench. Large numbers erased their names from the proscribed roll of the
Society. Cartwright, Tooke, and a resolute band, resolved to stand by
their principles and pledges, and brave the royal anger, come life, come
death. The particulars of the treason trials which followed, I have
already given.
Some of Cartwright's friends besought him to stand aloof from Tooke and
his "brother traitors." He was too brave and true a man to desert his
associates in the ordeal hour. He addressed a letter to the Secretary of
State, asking permission to visit Tooke in the Tower, avowing that it
had been the greatest pleasure of his life to cooperate with him for
Parliamentary reform; and if his friend was a felon, and worthy of
death, so was he. He has left interesting memoranda of the trials at the
Old Bailey. He says, "Gibbs spoke like an angel" in Hardy's case, and
that Erskine became so exhausted, toward the close of the trial, that,
in arguing incidental points to the court, an intermediate person had to
repeat what he said to the judges. He conveyed intelligence of the
result of Hardy's case to his family in the country, in terms as terse
as Caesar's celebrated military dispatch: "_Hardy is acquitted.--J. C._"
He was a witness in Tooke's case. On the cross-examination of the
Attorney General, though cautioned by the court not to criminate
himself, he scorned all concealment, avowing that the objects of the
Constitutional Society were to obtain equal representation, universal
suffrage, and annual Parliaments, and replying to the caution of the
judges, that "he came there not to state what was prudent, but what was
true." When questioned about some expressions of his, as to "strangling
the vipers aristocracy and monarchy," he said he had no recollection of
using the terms, but, if he had, and they were applied to aristocracies
and monarchies hostile to liberty, he thought them well deserved. He
says Tooke grappled with the prosecuting counsel with the strength and
courage of a lion. When a paper was produced, and Tooke was asked to
admit his handwriting, the Chief Justice cautioned him not to do so
hastily. Turning to his Lordship, he said, "I protest, before God, that
I have never done an action, never written a sentence, in public or
private, never entertained a thought on any political subject, which,
taken fairly, with all the circumstances of time, occasion, and place, I
have the smallest hesitation to admit." How the stout-hearted integrity
of such men, in such a trying hour, puts to eternal shame the servile
tricks and fawning arts of the common scum of office-hunting
politicians.
The treason trials of 1794 being over, Cartwright resumed his work, and
for some eight years seems to have been the only active man of character
and standing in the enterprise--the others having cowered before the
persecuting spirit of the times. In 1802, a ludicrous occurrence showed
the suspicious state of the Governmental mind. The Major had a brother,
Dr. George Cartwright, who was celebrated as a mechanician, being the
inventor of the power-loom, and other valuable machines. He had taken
out patents for them--these had been extensively infringed--and he had
commenced suits against the violators. The Major was assisting him in
procuring evidence; and for that purpose he had dispatched an agent to
Yorkshire, with a letter of instructions, which had a good deal to say
about _levers_, _cranks_, _rollers_, and _screws_. The messenger was
arrested as a joint conspirator with the Major for the overthrow of his
Majesty's Government, by means of some "infernal machine"--the phrases
in the letter being interpreted to cover a dark design to "put the
screws" on the King. Ascertaining that his agent was in _limbo_,
Cartwright wrote to the Attorney General, offering to explain the
matter. The Crown officer was not to be caught so. Indict and hang the
conspirator he would, in spite of power-looms and militia majors. At
length the facts became known, and the astute Attorney was glad to back
out of the ridiculous scrape by an apologetic letter to the parties.
It would require a volume to record all that our patriot did for
Parliamentary reform from 1804, when it had a limited revival, till
1824, when he died. Though he was sixty-four years old at the
commencement of this period, and eighty-four at its close, he did more
during these twenty years to procure for Englishmen their electoral
rights, than any other ten persons in the kingdom. He published scores
of pamphlets, written in a style, bold, lucid, and going to the roots of
the controversy; convened hundreds of meetings in all parts of the
country, to which he addressed able speeches; sent thousands of
petitions to Parliament; formed numerous societies; and conducted a
never flagging correspondence with the leading friends of liberty and
reform. In 1810, he sold his farm and removed to London, that "he might
be near his work." Brave old heart of oak, of threescore years and ten!
The next year, thirty-eight persons were seized at Manchester while
attending a reform meeting, and sent fifty miles to prison, on a charge
of sedition. Cartwright went down to aid in preparing their defense and
attend the examination. Having procured their release, he took a
circuitous route home, getting up meetings and petitions on the tour. He
was arrested, taken before a magistrate, his papers and person searched,
when, finding nothing worthy of death or bonds upon him, he was
discharged. Vainly endeavoring to obtain a copy of the warrant on which
he was arrested, he subsequently presented the case by petition to the
House of Peers. Lord Byron, the poet, in supporting the petition, said
of him: "He is a man, my lords, whose long life has been spent in one
unceasing struggle for the liberty of the subject, against that undue
influence of the Crown which has increased, is increasing, and ought to
be diminished; and, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to his
political tenets, few will be found to question the integrity of his
intentions. Even now, oppressed with years, and not exempt from the
infirmities attendant on age, but unimpaired in talent, and unshaken in
spirit, _frangas_, _non flectes_, he has received many a wound in the
combat against corruption; and the new grievance, the fresh insult, of
which he now complains, may inflict another scar, but no dishonor."
In 1814, he addressed a series of letters to Clarkson on the slave
trade--he having taken an active part in the contest for its
abolition--in which he argued that it should be punished as piracy, a
doctrine which he was the first to broach. He also wrote against bribery
at elections, and in favor of voting by ballot, being the first English
advocate of that measure. A year or two after this, a mercenary widow of
one of his old Scotch correspondents wrote to him that the Government
had offered her a large sum if she would give up his letters--adding,
significantly, that the circumstances of her family were such, that she
thought she should comply with the offer. He extinguished her hopes of
extorting money from him by informing her, that "it gave him great
satisfaction to find that any of his letters were esteemed so valuable,
and begged her to make the best bargain she could of their contents." In
1816, the great number and imposing character of the demonstrations in
favor of Parliamentary reform alarmed the Government. Canning, in the
House of Commons, denounced Cartwright as "that old heart in London,
from which the veins of sedition in the country are supplied." The
kingdom was in a flame--the _habeas corpus_ act was suspended--and the
"Six Acts," aimed at the Irish Catholic associations, and the English
reform meetings, were adopted. Cobbett, the editor of the Register, fled
to America. Others left their ears on the pillory at home, or carried
them at the request of the Government to Botany Bay. Cartwright, who
never flinched from friend or foe, stood his ground, and contrived new
modes to keep up the agitation, evading the recent law against
"tumultuous petitioning," by getting up _petitions of twenties_, and in
various ways avoiding the prohibitions of the "Six Acts."
So far, he had kept out of the fangs of the law, excepting in the affair
of searching his person. But, the Attorney General had his eye upon him.
In 1819, he participated in the famous Birmingham proceedings, which
resulted in the appointment, on his suggestion, of a "Legislatorial
Attorney" for the town, who was to present a letter to the Speaker of
the Commons, as its representative. This measure of "sending a petition
in the form of a living man, instead of one on parchment," as he called
it, precipitated the long-expected crisis. He was indicted for
conspiracy and sedition, in Warwickshire. So soon as he heard of it, he
set off by post to meet the charge, traveling one hundred miles in a
single day, though then bowed down with the weight of fourscore years.
Putting in bail, he returned to London, and resumed his work. Soon
after, he presided at a reform meeting, drew up a petition, couched in
the most energetic terms, signed it, sent it to the Commons, and then
set about exposing the attempts of the Crown officers to pack the jury
which was to try him. The trial took place in August, 1820. He called no
witnesses; addressed the jury mainly in defense of his principles; was
convicted; was not called up for sentence till the next May; when the
judge, after eulogizing his general character, condemned him to pay a
fine of L100, and stand committed till it was paid. He immediately
pulled out a canvass bag, counted down the money in gold, slily
remarking to the sheriff, that they were all "_good sovereigns_."
When the heroic struggles of Greece, South America, and Mexico,
resounded through Europe, they had no more attentive listener than Major
Cartwright. Seizing his never-idle pen, he wrote "Hints to the
Greeks"--a letter to the President of the Greek Congress--and another to
the Greek Deputies. About the same time, he opened his doors to two of
the liberal leaders in the Spanish Revolution, who had sought refuge in
England. His sun was now declining. He had attended his last reform
meeting in 1823; he wrote his last political pamphlet in 1824. In July
of this year, he received a letter from Mr. Jefferson, who said, "Your
age of eighty-four and mine of eighty-one years, insure us a speedy
meeting; we may then commune at leisure on the good and evil which, in
the course of our long lives, we have both witnessed." He had taken a
deep interest in the Mexican struggles for liberty, and frequently
conferred with General Michelena, its envoy then in London, upon its
affairs. On the 21st of September, 1824, the General sent to inform him
that the scheme of Iturbide had failed, and that the liberty of Mexico
might be considered as established. Two days afterward, "the father of
Parliamentary reform" died, retaining his faculties and his fervent love
of freedom to the last. He cheerfully resigned himself into the hands of
his Maker, exclaiming, "God's will be done!"
Among the remarkable men who, like Cartwright, helped to prepare the
public mind for the Reform Bill, and like him illustrated the truth,
that power and place are not necessarily synonymous terms, is WILLIAM
COBBETT, whom the "Corn-law Rhymer" calls England's
"Mightiest peasant-born."
His name is familiar on both sides of the Atlantic, and is much mixed up
with good and evil report. He was no negation or neutral, but a man of
mark, that left his impress on the age. He was not only one of the most
voluminous, but one of the boldest and most powerful writers of the
present century. Ever in the thickest of the strife, his "peasant arm"
dealt goodly blows in the contests of the People with the Crown, during
the last thirty years of his turbulent life. Cobbett was born in 1762.
His father was a poor yeoman, who brought his son up to hard work and
Tory principles. He never went to school, but was literally self-taught,
learning even the alphabet without a teacher. He says: "I learned
grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence per day."
Having committed Lowth's Grammar to heart, he used to make it a rule to
recite it through from memory every time he stood sentry. He enlisted in
the army when he was twenty-one, and served eight years in the British
American colonies. He was discharged, returned to England, married, made
a short tour in France, whence he embarked for the United States,
arriving in New York in 1792. He was a violent Tory--joined the
anti-French party--commenced publishing--attacked with ferocity
Priestley, Franklin, Rush, Jefferson, Dallas, Monroe, Gallatin, Fox,
Sheridan, Bonaparte, Talleyrand, and a score of other great men--was
arrested, and compelled to give bail in a heavy sum for his good
behavior--was sued for a libel by Dr. Rush, who recovered five thousand
dollars damages--fled from Philadelphia to New York, where the execution
overtook him--was thrown into prison--the judgment was paid by his
admirers--he left the country, and arrived in England in 1801. While in
America, he wrote under the name of "Peter Porcupine," and on his return
to England published his writings in twelve volumes. They had a large
circulation among the Anti-Jacobins, who received him with open arms. He
had previously sent an account of his trans-Atlantic "persecutions" to
the "Loyal Society" of London, "to be used as a panacea for the
reformists, and the whole gang of liberty-men in England."
He started a paper in London in 1801, called "The Porcupine," which
supported Pitt and the Tories, and attacked Fox and the Whigs, much
after the style of his Philadelphia writings. He suspended the
publication of "The Porcupine," and commenced his celebrated "Weekly
Political Register" in 1802, which he continued till his death, a period
of thirty-three years. This journal has given him an enduring name among
the political writers of his times. For two or three years, it advocated
High Toryism. Wyndham was enamored of it, and stated in the House of
Commons, that its editor deserved a statue of gold. Wyndham promised to
introduce Cobbett to Pitt. The latter declined to see him. The editor
was deeply mortified at this rebuff of the aristocratic minister.
Immediately thereafter, and probably _therefore_, Cobbett changed his
politics, and from a high Church and King man, turned to be a radical
reformer and champion of the people. The first public demonstration of
the somerset was a violent philippic against the Irish Tory
administration. He was prosecuted for libels, both at London and Dublin,
on the Lord Lieutenant, Chancellor, Chief Justice, and Under Secretary
for Ireland, and was fined a thousand pounds. This prosecution only
stimulated his new-born zeal for liberalism. He sharpened his weapons,
and plunged them into the bowels of his old friends as vigorously as he
had before done into those of their enemies, sparing neither Church nor
State, Ministry nor King. The Register soon became the terror of
evil-doers. Its denunciations of profligate statesmen and rotten
institutions were so bold and hearty, and its columns breathed such an
air of defiant independence, that it was sought for with avidity by the
radicals of the middling and lower orders, and the income as well as the
fame of its editor became largely increased.
But Cobbett never could sail long in smooth water. Like the petrel, he
loved the storm. In 1810, he was prosecuted for a libel on the
Government, contained in an article reflecting in indignant terms on the
brutal flogging of a company of the local militia, under the
_surveillance_ of a regiment of German mercenaries. He defended himself,
was convicted, and sentenced to pay a fine of one thousand pounds, be
imprisoned two years, and give sureties for his good behavior for seven
years in five thousand pounds. He never forgot or forgave this injury.
Two other prosecutions of editors grew out of the same transaction. They
were defended by Brougham in two splendid speeches, which introduced the
rising barrister to a first place among the forensic orators of the
kingdom. The circulation of the Register had increased steadily from
year to year; and soon after this trial, Cobbett continuing to edit it
while in prison, it reached an unprecedented sale, some weeks numbering
one hundred thousand copies. Its vigorous assaults on the Government
conspired with the other reform movements of the times to cause the
repeal of the _habeas corpus_, and the passage of the infamous "six
acts," by which the ministry hoped to crush the agitators. To avoid the
blow aimed at him, Cobbett fled to America early in 1817, where he
remained nearly three years. He regularly remitted "copy" across the
Atlantic for the Register, which continued a pungent thorn in the side
of Castlereagh and his friends, though the hand which wielded it was
three thousand miles away.
Returning to England in 1820, he established a daily paper, which
failed--tried to introduce the cultivation of Indian corn into the
country, which failed--stood a candidate for Parliament for Coventry,
and failed--defended himself against two prosecutions for libel, and
failed, paying fines to the amount of nearly two thousand
pounds--plunged into the Queen Caroline controversy with his brother
liberals, and did _not_ fail--advocated Catholic emancipation, and saw
it succeed--made an attempt to enter Parliament for Preston, and was
defeated--took an active part in all the agitations for Parliamentary
reform--defended himself in a speech of six hours against a prosecution
for sedition, growing out of an article in the Register in favor of the
Reform Bill, the jury being discharged because they could not agree--and
finally was reprimanded by the Speaker, for giving three cheers in the
gallery of the Commons, when the bill passed the House. In 1832, he
reached the acme of his ambition, by being returned to the first
reformed Parliament for the borough of Oldham. But it is a rare tree
that will bear transplanting in the sere and yellow leaf of advanced
age. Cobbett was threescore years and ten when he took his seat in the
House of Commons. Though he made a few vigorous speeches, he did not
fulfill the expectations of his friends, nor exhibit the power and
originality in debate which the public anticipated from the editor of
the Political Register. He closed his stormy life in 1835.
Cobbett has been called "a bold, bad man." Bold he was; but, he was not
as bad as the times in which he lived, nor the institutions he
assailed. He was a man to be feared rather than loved--to be admired
rather than trusted. But he was a MAN, "for a' that." He never croaked
or _canted_--never whined or repined--was proud, self-willed,
self-reliant--knew his strength, and asked no favors and showed no
quarter. His idiosyncrasies, his egotism, his self-dependence, rendered
it next to impossible for anybody to work with him even to attain a
common end. He was the victim of prejudice, conceit, passion, and seemed
not to advocate a cause so much from love of it, as from hatred of its
opposite. He bent his great energies to tear down existing institutions,
whilst he lent but feeble aid in building up others in their place. He
hated all that was above him in birth and station, and his appeals
usually being to the prejudices and passions of the class from which he
sprang, he wielded a vast influence over the common people of England.
They were proud of his attainments, because they regarded him as one of
themselves, who had risen, by his own strength, to a commanding position
among the leaders of public opinion, and they witnessed with pride his
ability to grapple with and hurl to the earth, the titled champions of
the privileged orders. Thus, more than any other writer, he was, for
thirty years, looked up to as the representative, the oracle, of the
"base born" of his countrymen. It contributed not a little to his
influence with the ground tier of British society, that he was a
practical farmer, in a moderate way--the great sale of his writings
affording him the means of gratifying his cultivated tastes for
agricultural pursuits. Taking it for granted that established systems,
opinions, and institutions, were necessarily wrong, he attacked
everything that was old, and everybody that was popular. He avowed that
he attacked Dr. Rush's system of medical practice, because it originated
with a republican--he called Washington "a notorious rebel and
traitor"--nicknamed Franklin "Old Lightning-rod"--denounced Lafayette as
"a citizen-miscreant"--and abused Jefferson because he was a popular
democrat. But this was in the days of his toryism. However, when a
radical, he showered ridicule on Shakspeare, Milton, and Scott, because
all the _literati_ praised them, and eulogized O'Connell, because all
Englishmen anathematized him.
But, the objects of his assaults were not always so undeserving of it,
nor so ill assorted. He exposed the land monopoly of England, and
vindicated the rights and dignity of labor--he laid bare the rapacity of
the Established Church, and maintained the rights of Catholics and
dissenters--he denounced the game laws, the corn laws, and the penal
code--he advocated the abolition of the House of Lords, and the
bestowment of universal suffrage upon the people. It was impossible for
a man of such giant powers and rooted prejudices, who had received the
iron of persecution so often in his own person, and who was always in
the thickest of the fray, to speak calmly or with measured words.
Consequently, his writings abound in malevolent epithets, unmitigated
vituperation, and coarse ridicule of men and measures. So do they abound
in right good sense, cogent reasonings, elevated appeals to justice and
humanity, interspersed with racy humor, graphic descriptions, happy
illustrations, and lively anecdotes. The basis of his style was the old
Saxon tongue, and it was as idiomatic and lucid as that of Franklin or
Paley. He wrote on numerous subjects besides politics; and, in addition
to the eighty-eight volumes of the Register, and the twelve of his Peter
Porcupine, he put to press nearly fifty volumes. He was kind to his
family, hospitable to the poor, and had a great deal of sunshine in his
soul. He will be gratefully remembered by enfranchised Englishmen, when
milder and meaner men, who affected to look down upon him with contempt,
are forgotten, or are recollected only to be despised.
I close this notice of the great English peasant, by quoting the closing
stanza of a beautiful tribute to his memory, by Ebenezer Elliott, the
author of "Corn Law Rhymes."
"Dead Oak, thou liv'st. Thy smitten hands.
The thunder of thy brow,
Speak with strange tongues in many lands,
And tyrants hear thee now!"
Sir FRANCIS BURDETT has been mentioned as a friend of Parliamentary
Reform. Few Englishmen did more for the cause than this bold advocate of
liberal principles. Few titled Reformers have suffered more for
opinion's sake than he. It was his good or bad fortune to be frequently
caught in the net of legal prosecution. In 1809, Sir Francis then being
a member of Parliament, a Mr. John Gale Jones, whose name would never
have got beyond his shop had it not become associated with that of
Burdett, published a handbill animadverting, in terms of clumsy abuse,
upon some proceedings of the House of Commons; whereupon, that body of
honorables committed him to Newgate. Sir Francis brought forward a
motion for his liberation, based on the ground that the House had no
right to imprison him for such an offense. Being defeated, he published
an address to his constituents, in which he applied some contemptuous
epithets to this contemptible proceeding. A furious debate sprang up,
which terminated in a resolution to commit Burdett to the Tower. The
Sergeant-at-Arms went to his house with the warrant of committal, but
Sir Francis refused to accompany him to his new abode. The next day he
repeated his visit; but by this time the populace had assembled in great
numbers around the dwelling of the Baronet, and drove away the officer.
Early the following morning, he broke into his apartments, seized
Burdett, put him into a carriage, and bore him to the Tower, accompanied
by several regiments of dragoons, where he remained in close confinement
till the end of the session. The day of his release, all London was out
of doors, and he was welcomed home with shoutings, flags, and salutes of
cannon. In 1819, Sir Francis having continued to fight the good fight
during the intervening ten years, a great reform meeting was held at
Manchester, in the open air. All was orderly till a regiment of cavalry
rode in upon the multitude, and, with drawn swords, cut down men, women,
and children, leaving many dead and wounded on the field. Sir Francis
published a manly letter to the electors of Westminster, (he being the
representative of that great constituency,) commenting in eloquent terms
on this infamous transaction. He was indicted for a seditious libel; and
after contesting the prosecution, inch by inch, through all the
courts--not so much for his own sake as for that of the great cause with
which he was identified--he was fined L2,000 and imprisoned three
months. To read the case, as reported in the English law books, will
make the cheek of a republican lawyer tingle with indignation. These,
and some other like occurrences in his life, have led candid observers
to regard Sir Francis Burdett as something of a demagogue. He had a
spice of that element in his composition. He was a bold,
straight-forward man, who told plain truths in a plain way, whether
addressing letters to his constituents, or speeches to the Commons House
of Parliament. He often stood alone among his colleagues, cheered by the
conviction that, though no member voted with him, he was supported by
the voices of hundreds of thousands of the people. He was a great
reader, a sound thinker, an able debater, and always exerted a
controlling influence over the more radical portions of the House. His
frequent letters to his constituents were dignified and pungent, cost
him a good deal of persecution and money, and were worth all they cost.
In 1818, he was chosen, with his friend Romilly, to represent the
important borough of Westminster, after one of the bitterest contests
modern England has known. He retained the seat through many years. In
all the onsets upon corruption and prerogative, down to the era of the
Reform bill, he was with the head of the liberal column, and stood where
the blows fell thickest and heaviest, the idol of the people, the target
of the crown. He was a Wilkes, without so large a measure of cowardice,
meanness, turbulence, or rottenness of character and principle.
One regrets to be compelled to record of such a man, that in his old age
he grew timid and conservative. After the passage of the Reform bill, he
ceased to act with the radicals, and on the occasion of the attempt to
deprive the Irish Church of a portion of its temporalities, he went
wholly over to the Tories, since which he has sunk into comparative
obscurity. Some years ago, in reply to a speech of Lord John Russell, he
spoke of "the cant of reform!" Lord John electrified the House when he
retorted with cutting emphasis, that "there was such a thing as the
_re_-cant of reform!"