PETITIONS AND REMONSTRANCES TO THE THRONE, 1769-70.
Petitions and remonstrances began to make ministers tremble lest
finally the sympathies of the throne might be turned into the proper
channel, and the king be led to espouse the cause of the people, who,
to do them justice, remained loyal under both the critical emergencies
described as occurring under Charles II. and George III., and which had
more than a casual resemblance.
The remonstrances of the citizens were persistently laid before the
king, although every obstacle was interposed in the way of their
presentation by petty indignities imposed upon those bold enough to
approach the presence with objects thus distasteful to the royal ideas
of sovereign right--
“Make prayers not so like petitions
As overtures and propositions.”
(_Hudibras._)
On July 5, 1769, the Livery of London presented a petition to the king;
the lord mayor, Samuel Turner, Sir Robert Ladbrooke,[56] Alderman
Beckford, and other friends of popular liberty being charged with this
statement of grievances, of which the following extracts must suffice:--
“We should be wanting in our duty to your Majesty, as well as
to ourselves and our posterity, should we forbear to represent
to the throne the desperate attempts that have been, and are
too successfully, made to destroy that constitution to the
spirit of which we owe the relation which subsists between your
Majesty and the subjects of these realms, and to subvert those
sacred laws which our ancestors have sealed with their blood.
“Your ministers, from corrupt principles and in violation of
every duty, have, by various enumerated means, invaded our
invaluable and inalienable right of trial by jury.
“They have, with impunity, issued general warrants, and
violently seized persons and private papers.
“They have rendered the laws non-effective to our security, by
invading the Habeas Corpus.
“They have caused punishments and even perpetual imprisonment
to be inflicted, without trial, conviction, or sentence.
“They have brought into disrepute the civil magistracy, by the
appointment of persons who are, in many respects, unqualified
for that important trust, and have thereby purposely furnished
a pretence for calling in the aid of the military power.
“They avow, and endeavour to establish, a maxim absolutely
inconsistent with our constitution, that ‘an occasion for
effectually employing a military force always presents itself,
when the civil power is trifled with or insulted;’ and by a
fatal and false application of this maxim, they have wantonly
and wickedly sacrificed the lives of many of your Majesty’s
innocent subjects, and have prostituted your Majesty’s sacred
name and authority, to justify, applaud, and recommend their
own illegal and bloody actions.
“They have screened more than one murderer from punishment, and
in its place have unnaturally substituted reward.
* * * * *
“And after having insulted and defeated the law on different
occasions, and by different contrivances, both at home and
abroad, they have at length completed their design, by
violently wresting from the people the _last sacred right
we had left_, the right of election, by the unprecedented
seating of a candidate notoriously set up and chosen only by
themselves. They have thereby taken from your subjects all
hopes of parliamentary redress, and have left us no resource,
under God, but in your Majesty.
“All this they have been able to effect by corruption; by
a scandalous misapplication and embezzlement of the public
treasure, and a shameful prostitution of public honours and
employments; procuring deficiencies of the civil lists to be
made good without examinations; and, instead of punishing,
conferring honours on a paymaster, the public defaulter of
unaccounted millions.
“From an unfeigned sense of the duty we owe to your Majesty,
and to our country, we have ventured thus humbly to lay before
the throne these great and important truths, which it has been
the business of your Ministers to conceal. We most earnestly
beseech your Majesty to grant us redress. It is for the purpose
of redress alone, and for such occasions as the present,
that those great and extensive powers are entrusted to the
Crown by the wisdom of that Constitution which your Majesty’s
illustrious family was chosen to defend, and which we trust in
God it will for ever continue to support.”
Of each paragraph given in the foregoing the meaning was conclusive,
the instance known to all. There is in this petition no statement
exaggerated, no sentiment overcoloured, considering that one paragraph
alone describes no less than the suicidal measures which dismembered
the empire, and cost the mother country the allegiance of “the
colonies,” _i.e._ the continent of America, in these plain words:--
“They [the Grafton administration] have established numberless
unconstitutional regulations and taxations in our colonies.
They have caused a revenue to be raised in some of them by
prerogative.”
However meritorious the cause, it was an offence to a king whose mind,
never remarkable for lucidity, was then under “the influence of the
worst of counsellors,” as stated in the first prayer of the petition.
The document--when the petitioners were, after much discouragement,
delay, and many subterfuges, and, “although no time could be fixed for
its acceptance,” permitted to approach the presence at a levee--was
at last presented; but the king made no reply, but, handing the
petition to the lord-in-waiting, turned his back on the presenters,
who represented the integrity and commercial greatness of the city of
London and were its elected guardians, and addressed Baron Dieden, the
Danish ambassador, who was standing in his vicinity, on an indifferent
topic.
After the late fulsome reception of “bogus addressers” nothing could
be more contemptible than the studied impertinence with which the
Corporation of London was treated, and the affront of leaving the civil
magistrate to
“skulk about the passages of the Court that he may have a
glimpse of His Majesty as he passes along in state, in order
to deliver into his hands a remonstrance affecting the most
essential interests of above twelve millions of people, who by
the sweat of their brow support the pomp and parade of royalty
and swell the fastidious pride and coxcombical vanity of empty
courtiers.”
It was boldly hazarded at this emergency, from the premeditated affront
to the representatives alike of the city and the people, that the
rulers, blinded to their own destruction, then concluded--
“themselves sufficiently prepared for the final extirpation of
liberty in this island, and that by deliberate insults they
were urging the people to commit some outrage, which might
give them a pretence for putting their scheme of tyranny into
immediate execution.”
If the city, by its dignified and law-abiding demeanour, disappointed
these expectations, it was argued that the Court party would not
wait for an excuse to wreak their vengeance under some thin disguise
of retributive justice, but would proceed to order out the “Scotch
Regiment, as in the affair of St. George’s Fields, without waiting for
the least appearance of necessity.”
A correspondent of the _Oxford Magazine_, writing under the signature
“Philopolis,” referring to the threatened massacres in St. George’s
Fields, and, on the grounds that the late firing did comparatively
little damage to the rioters concerned, declared:--
“I have heard it indeed alleged by courtiers in excuse, that
all the military execution of that day was solely aimed at
Mr. Wilkes, who they hoped would be despatched by some lucky
shot, as Herod expected our Saviour would be murdered among
the innocents he murdered at Bethlehem. As a proof of this
extenuation of the crime, they show flatted balls, which were
discharged by heroes planted in proper places for the purpose,
and which have left marks in the walls about the windows of
Mr. Wilkes’s apartments in the King’s Bench.” “If this has any
foundation in truth,” writes “Philopolis,” “I would advise
the city to be cautious, and never allow above a dozen of its
inhabitants to be seen together at one time, for fear the Riot
Act should arrive unexpectedly, with two or three brigades of
musqueteers, headed by a trading justice, who may think nothing
of the citizens’ lives, provided he has any hopes of murdering
Beckford and the two sheriffs through their sides.”
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
defeated almost every measure which had been attempted for the
benefit of his subjects, and had given rise to measures totally
subversive of the Liberties and Constitution of these once
flourishing and happy kingdoms.”
“It is not for any light or common grievances that we presume
thus repeatedly to interrupt your Majesty’s quiet with our
complaints. It is not the illegal oppression of an individual;
it is not the partial invasion of our property; it is not
the violation of any single law of which we complain, but it
is a violation which at one stroke deprives us of the only
constitutional security of our Fortunes, Liberties, and Lives.
“Your Majesty’s servants have attacked our Liberties in the
most vital part; they have torn away the heart-strings of the
Constitution, and have made those men our destruction, whom the
laws have appointed as the immediate guardians of our Rights
and Liberties.
“The House of Commons, by their determination at the last
election for this county, have assumed a power to overrule
at pleasure the fundamental _Right of Election_, which the
Constitution has placed in other hands, those of their
Constituents, and from whence alone their whole authority
is derived; a power by which the law of the land is at once
overturned and resolved into the will and pleasure of a
majority of one House of Parliament. And if this pretended
power is exercised to the full extent of the principles, that
House can no longer be a Representative of the people, but a
separate body, altogether independent of them, self-existing,
and self-elected.
“These proceedings have totally destroyed the confidence
of your Majesty’s subjects in one essential branch of the
legislative power, and if that branch is chosen in a manner
not agreeable to the laws and constitution of the kingdom, the
authority of Parliament itself must suffer extremely, if not
totally perish.”
The remonstrance from which the above paragraphs are extracted was,
together with a petition from the county of Kent, presented to His
Majesty at St. James’s; both being received and handed to the lord of
the bedchamber in waiting; _but no answer was returned_.
The electors of the city of Westminster also drew up a similar
“Address, Remonstrance, and Petition”--
“their former application to the throne having been
ineffectual, and new and exorbitant grievances being beyond
patient endurance. By the same secret and unhappy influence
to which all our grievances have been originally owing, the
redress of those grievances has been now prevented; and the
grievances themselves have been repeatedly confirmed; with
this additional circumstance of aggravation, that while the
invaders of our rights remain the directors of your Majesty’s
councils, the defenders of those rights have been dismissed
from your Majesty’s service--your Majesty having been advised
by your ministers to remove from his employment, for his vote
in Parliament, the highest officer of the Law (Lord Camden),
because his principles suited ill with theirs, and his pure
distribution of justice with their corrupt administration of
the House of Commons.
“We beg leave, therefore, again to represent to your Majesty
that the House of Commons have struck at the most valuable
liberties and franchises of all the electors of Great Britain;
and by assuming to themselves a right of choosing, instead
of receiving a member when chosen, and by transferring to
the representative what belonged to the constituent, they
have taken off from the dignity, and, we fear, impaired the
authority of Parliament itself.
“We presume again, therefore, humbly to implore from your
Majesty the only remedies which are in any way proportioned to
the nature of the evil; that you would be graciously pleased
to dismiss _for ever_ from your councils those ministers who
are ill-suited by their dispositions to preserve the principles
of a free, or by their capacities to direct the councils of
a great and mighty kingdom; And that by speedily dissolving
the present Parliament, your Majesty will show by your own
example, and by their dissolution, the rights of your people
are to be inviolable, and that you will never necessitate so
many injured, and, by such treatment, exasperated subjects, to
continue the care of their interests to those from whom they
must withdraw their confidence; to repose their invaluable
privileges in the hand of those who have sacrificed them; and
their trust in those who have betrayed it.
* * * * *
“We find ourselves compelled to urge, with the greatest
importunity, this our humble but earnest application, as
every day seems to produce the confirmation of some old, or
to threaten the introduction of some new injury. We have the
strongest reason to apprehend that the usurpation begun by the
House of Commons upon the right of electing, may be extended
to the right of petitioning, and that under the pretence of
restraining the abuse of this right, it is meant to bring into
disrepute, and to intimidate us from the exercise of the right
itself.”
The representatives elected by the people had done their utmost, as
respected the venal majority, to betray their trust and those who
had sent them to the Commons. Resistance was countenanced, and, by
counter-addresses to the throne, the king was prejudiced against
listening to the wishes of the people. This remonstrance elicited his
Majesty’s reply “_that he would lay it before his Parliament_;” a
curious conclusion, inasmuch as his afflicted subjects specially prayed
therein that the king would be their safeguard against the majority
in that body, who had betrayed the nation, and to the deliberation of
that corrupted assembly the complaint--which affected the duration of
the House--was to be submitted for redress! The remonstrance, which
resembled an impeachment of the administration, was, in fact, handed
to the ministers under accusation, to be by them resisted, prosecuted,
or rendered ineffective at their discretion. The indignant judgments
enunciated by “Junius” against these unprincipled politicians, foes to
the kingdom, have been abundantly confirmed by the verdict of posterity.
The reception otherwise accorded to the Westminster remonstrance was
altogether undignified. When the deputation, headed by Sir Robert
Bernard, who had been returned member for that city by the unanimous
suffrage of the constituency, arrived at the palace gate, an extra
guard of soldiers was immediately turned out, not, however, as a
compliment, for--
“although there was not the least appearance of anything
disorderly, yet the soldiers behaved in a most insolent
manner, and struck many persons with their bayonets, and that
without provocation. The Gentlemen having alighted from their
carriages, amidst the acclamations of the people, walked
through the lane of soldiers, and went upstairs to the Levee
Room door, where they were met by one of the Grooms of the
Bedchamber, who asked Sir Robert Bernard if he had anything
to present to his Majesty? To which Sir Robert replied,
‘Yes, the Address, Remonstrance, and Petition of the City
of Westminster.’ Upon which the Groom of the Bedchamber
said, ‘He would go and acquaint the Lord-in-Waiting.’ He
went immediately, but not returning soon, Sir Robert Bernard
proposed to go into the Levee Room, which he did. On opening
the door, the same Groom of the Bedchamber said he could
not find the Lord-in-Waiting; but should soon. However, the
Gentlemen went on, and after some time the Lord-in-Waiting
came to them, and said, if they had anything to deliver to
his Majesty, he would receive it in the next room, whither
they accordingly went; and after some time, his Majesty coming
into the room, Sir Robert presented the Remonstrance open. His
Majesty delivered it to the Lord-in-Waiting, who delivered it
to another, who handed it to the Groom of the Bedchamber, and
he carried it off.”
The recreant majority of the Commons, still at the bidding of degraded
ministers, continued to address the king with counter-petitions
intended to bring into disrepute the remonstrances of the people--those
very constituents who had chosen them as the defenders of their
liberties.
Finally, another effort was made by the city, and a general assembly
was held for that purpose, when the chief magistrate, the Court of
Aldermen, and Common Council resolved to renew their petition, and
further to consider the king’s “answer.”
“A motion was then made, that the thanks of this Court be given
to Lord Chatham for his late conduct in Parliament, and for
his zeal shown for the most sacred Rights of Election and of
petitioning, and for the promise of his endeavours to support
an independent and more equal representation.”
On a motion denouncing the most unbecoming treatment which the city
of London had of late experienced from his Majesty’s ministers, it
was suggested to draw up the strongest remonstrance possible on the
violated right of election. Upon which, Alderman Wilkes, remarking upon
the peculiar delicacy of his situation, said--
“that he would not mention a syllable about the person
excluded; but if the House of Commons could seat any gentlemen
among them who was not chosen by the people, the constitution
was torn up by the roots, and the people had lost their share
in the legislative power; that the disabling any person from
sitting in Parliament, who was not disqualified by law, was an
injury to every County, City, and Borough, and a dissolution of
the form of government established by law in this Kingdom.”
The recorder cavilled at certain spirited expressions in the drawing-up
of the remonstrance, particularly respecting the king’s answer, which
he declared could not be considered an act of the ministers, but must
be held to be the king’s personally. The committee was shocked at the
recorder’s bringing home to the king one of the most unconstitutional
acts of his ministry, and without one dissentient voice determined
to overrule the objection of the recorder, whereon this functionary
protested against the remonstrance in strong terms as a LIBEL.
Alderman Wilkes then rose and mentioned his unwillingness to speak
again, but he was forced to it by the recorder’s declaration that the
remonstrance was a libel; that he too claimed to know something of
the nature of a libel; that he did not speak from theory only, but
had bought much experience on that subject; that the remonstrance was
founded throughout on known and glaring facts, every word bearing the
stamp of truth; that the particular act complained of in the violated
right of election was a malicious and wilful act of the majority in the
House of Commons, for the minister had declared, that “if any person
had only four votes for Middlesex, he should be the sitting member for
the county!” The lord mayor, Beckford, confirmed Wilkes’s assertion,
concluding, “I was then present in the House of Commons.”
The remonstrance was accordingly presented; in it astonishment was
expressed at the censure lately passed by the throne upon the faithful
and afflicted citizens, laying their complaints and injuries at the
feet of their Sovereign, as the father of his people, able and willing
to redress their grievances.
The concluding paragraph was very much to the purpose, and displayed no
diminution of firmness:--
“Your Majesty cannot disapprove that we here assert the
clearest principles of the constitution against the insidious
attempts of evil counsellors to perplex, confound, and shake
them. We are determined to abide by those rights and liberties,
which our forefathers bravely vindicated, at the ever-memorable
Revolution, and which their sons will ever resolutely defend.
We therefore now renew, at the foot of the throne, our claim
to the indispensable right of the subject--a full, free, and
unmutilated Parliament, legally chosen in all its members;
a right which this House of Parliament have manifestly
violated, depriving, at their will and pleasure, the county of
Middlesex of one of its legal representatives, and arbitrarily
nominating, as a Knight of the Shire, a person not elected
by a majority of the freeholders. As the only constitutional
means of reparation now left for the injured electors of Great
Britain, we implore, with most urgent supplications, the
dissolution of the present parliament, the removal of evil
ministers, and the total extinction of that fatal influence
which has caused such national discontent.
“In the meantime, Sire, we offer our constant prayers to
Heaven, that your Majesty may reign, as Kings only can reign,
in and by the hearts of a loyal, dutiful, and free people.”
To this remonstrance the king’s answer was:--
“I should have been wanting to the public as well as to myself,
if I had not expressed my dissatisfaction at the late Address.
My sentiments on that subject continue the same; and I should
ill deserve to be considered as the father of my people, if I
could suffer myself to be prevailed upon to make such an use
of my prerogative as I cannot but think inconsistent with the
interest and dangerous to the constitution of the kingdom.”
After His Majesty had been pleased to make the foregoing answer, the
lord mayor requested leave to reply, which, being granted, Beckford
made the dignified and noble response which is a matter of history:--
(“If worth allures thee, think how Beckford shone
Who dar’d to utter Truths before the throne.”)
“Most Gracious Sovereign--Will your Majesty be pleased so
far to condescend as to permit the Mayor of your loyal City
of London to declare in your Royal presence, on behalf of
his fellow-citizens, how much the bare apprehension of your
Majesty’s displeasure would at all times affect their minds.
The declaration of that displeasure has already filled them
with inexpressible anxiety, and with the deepest affliction.
“Permit me, Sire, to assure your Majesty that your Majesty has
not in all your dominions any subjects more faithful, more
dutiful, or more affectionate to your Majesty’s person and
family, or more ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes in
the maintenance of the true honour and dignity of your Crown.
“We do, therefore, with the greatest humility and submission,
most earnestly supplicate your Majesty, that you will not
dismiss us from your presence without expressing a more
favourable opinion of your faithful citizens, and without some
comfort, without some prospect at least of redress.
“Permit me, Sire, further to observe, that whoever has already
dared, or shall hereafter endeavour by false insinuations
and suggestions, to alienate your Majesty’s affections from
your loyal subjects in general and from the city of London in
particular, and to withdraw your confidence in and regard for
your people, is an enemy to your Majesty’s person and family,
a violator of the public peace, and a betrayer of our happy
Constitution, as it was established at the glorious revolution
of 1688.”
At the conclusion of these expressions of enlightenment for the royal
mind, the lord mayor waited more than a minute for a reply of “some
more favourable opinion,” but none was given.
“On this occasion,” says the satirist, “Nero did _not_ fiddle while
Rome was burning.” The humility and serious firmness with which the
dignified Beckford--who enjoyed the friendship of the great Earl of
Chatham, and with whom he had many points in common--uttered these
words, “filled the whole Court with admiration and confusion;” for
they found very different countenances amongst the citizens than they
expected from Lord Pomfret’s description, who declared in the House of
Lords--
“that, however swaggering and impudent the behaviour of the low
citizens might be on their own dunghill, when they came into
the royal presence, their heads hung down like bulrushes, and
they blinked with their eyes like owls in the sunshine of the
sun.”
On the 19th of May, the king prorogued that parliament which, by
approving addresses from both Houses, had fortified the royal censure
returned to the popular remonstrances. “The prevalence of animosities
and of dissensions among their fellow-subjects” was specially alluded
to in his Majesty’s speech, while the conduct of both branches of his
legislature received in return such flattering encomiums as their
servile pliability had earned by despicable means:--
“The _temper_ with which you have conducted all your
proceedings has given me great satisfaction, and I promise
myself the happiest effects from the firmness, as well as the
moderation, which you have manifested in the very _critical_
circumstances which have attended your late deliberations.”
However undignified the reception accorded at the time to these
petitions addressed to the throne from its truest supporters, the
good cause eventually triumphed, in defiance of the chicanery of
counter-expressions of servility, fabricated at the instance of
those whose prospects depended on the continuance in power of false
politicians, despising alike the voice and interests of the people, and
resting their reliance on the venality of their adherents, and the base
instinct of self-aggrandisement at the expense of the state existent in
minds equally mercenary with their own.
“Eventually the citizens succeeded, in spite of the united
efforts of the Court, the Ministers, and the Parliament; and
their cause has since been solemnly and universally recognized
as that of the Constitution and of liberty. It is impossible to
appreciate too highly the national importance of the conduct
they pursued.”
It was well said by “Junius,” the integrity of whose sentiments bears
more than a casual resemblance to the utterances of that patriotic
statesman, Lord Chatham, with whose fame the authorship of Junius’s
“Letters” may one day be identified:--
“The noble spirit of the metropolis is the life-blood of
the state, collected at the heart; from that point it
circulates with health and vigour through every artery of the
Constitution.”
The great Chatham and his friend, William Beckford, stand out
conspicuous from their fellow-men in association with that corrupt
time when statescraft was for the most part a question of ability for
debasing the largest number on the easiest terms contrivable; they
lived at a time when liberty ran especial risks, and, as champions of
popular rights, proved worthy of those emergencies with which they
were confronted. In days when the chief magistrate of the city may
degenerate to a subservient courtier, the history of Beckford’s firm
attitude may be regarded as no longer the worthiest part of the civic
traditions. That his fellow-citizens appreciated his exertions is shown
by the thanks he received for his able and dignified speech to the
king; his reply was ordered to be inserted in the city records, and
afterwards, at his death, was inscribed on the monument erected in the
Guildhall to his memory.
The blow struck at a corrupt administration by the Westminster and
other remonstrances seems to have damped the ardour of the ministers;
in any case, no Court candidate was put forward for Westminster
in 1770, and consequently the election of a liberal candidate was
unopposed.
On the 30th of April, at noon, came on at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden,
the election of a representative in parliament for the City and
Liberty of Westminster, in the room of the Hon. Edwin Sandys, created
Lord Sandys. A considerable number of the electors assembled early
in the morning at the “Standard Tavern” in Leicester Fields; and
proceeded from thence with a band of music, etc., in procession
through Piccadilly to the residence of Sir Robert Bernard, in Hamilton
Street. When they came to Covent Garden, the whole square was full.
Proclamation of silence being made, Sir John Hussey Delaval, Bart.,
addressing himself to the people, said--
“he rejoiced to see such a prodigious number of the Electors
present, to support the nomination in Westminster Hall the
previous Thursday; that Sir Robert Bernard had stood forward in
support of the rights of the people in their just complaints
against the late flagrant violation of their liberties; and
concluded with observing, that they were come to confirm with
their votes this their free and glorious choice.”
Lord Viscount Mountmorres seconded the motion in a spirited speech, in
which he stated--
“the services and principles of Sir Robert Bernard; the
grievances under which the people laboured; the great violation
of their rights in the case of Middlesex; the impossibility
that any king, that any parliament, that the courts of
justice, or that all together, could annihilate the people’s
constitutional rights.”
These speeches were received with acclamation by the twenty thousand
people present, amongst whom strict good order was preserved.
The proper proclamations being made, and no other candidate appearing,
the return was signed by the gentlemen present on the hustings.
The election being entirely over, the gentlemen retired into the
vestry-room, where the indenture was signed by them, and finally
returned to the Crown Office. On the day following, Sir Robert Bernard
was introduced into the House of Commons by the Hon. Henry Grenville
and William Pulteney, and took his seat as member for Westminster. The
Westminster returns being generally looked upon with interest by other
constituencies, this election was held out as a proper example to every
city in the kingdom, and to all the counties and towns, to choose their
members with a spirit of freedom and without expense. It was resolved
by the freeholders of Westminster, in advance--
“that if this election had been contested, it would not
have cost Sir Robert Bernard a shilling, the electors being
determined to support their free choice.”
This particular return is a case in point, which goes to prove that
the authors of corruption in electioneering matters were more guilty
than those they corrupted. At the Covent Garden hustings--where, on
previous occasions, the ministers had spent enormous sums, besides
moving every power and art of intrigue to get their own nominees
returned--the entire proceedings were one long scene of bribery,
trickery, and illegality, brute-force, and disorder. On the occasion in
question, 1770, the administration seems to have been slightly cowed
by the results of their ill-advised manœuvres to impose placemen upon
the county: the recent Middlesex proceedings were still a source of
concern; the constitution had been violated--not with impunity,--and
serious effects in the way of impeachment were by no means impossible:
consequently, the people being left to the legitimate exercise of
their liberties, the election passed off in the pacific, well-ordered,
and regular manner described, freedom did not degenerate into licence,
“no one was a penny the worse,” and the representative system in its
purity of action was for once maintained in Westminster.