to be guided by them, and that they were resolved to drop their views, if they should find that they did not meet with a pretty general concurrence. Such was the situation of the business at the last session. I will now inquire what has passed since. And here I shall enter, along with the noble lord*, into the protest against not being allowed to introduce the subject of the affairs of France, which I consider as intimately, essentially, and inseparably connected with the present question.

Another year has now passed in that country, disgraced with excesses and outrages so horrid, that they efface the memory of those which formerly occurred, and leave of them only the faint traces, and the image hardly visible. The conduct of the French, in all its circumstances, bore a peculiar application to this country: it presented the fruits opening, in due season, the legitimate offspring of those trees, under the specious pretext of liberty, planted against this country and its allies. The French had disclosed a system of disseminating their principles, and procuring proselytes in every part of Europe-a system which they had particularly followed up with respect to this country. Such was the case without-what was the situation, of affairs within? Societies had been formed in this country, affiliated with the jacobin clubs in France; and though they had since assumed a different shape, were then employed for the purpose of spreading jacobin principles. In this object they proceeded with a degree of boldness and confidence, proportioned to the success of the French arms. We thus beheld the scheme which we had anticipated as the result of the new constitutions in France, opening upon us. We had more immediately an opportunity of seeing what were the views of the legislators in France with respect to this country, and what their instruments in England were endeavouring to effect. For while in France they always mentioned the pretext of a parliamentary reform, as the medium by which they were to introduce their principles, their instruments here always took care to connect the system of parliamentary reform with all those delusive decLord Mornington.

trines, upon which was founded the newly-raised fabric of French freedom- Nothing less than a national convention was held out as a sufficient remedy for the abuses which prevailed in the representation, and the sole organ through which a more perfect form of government was to be obtained; namely, such a government as should acknowledge no other source of authority and no other rule of conduct, than the will of the majority. In short, French principles were inculcated as the true standard of political belief, and the example of the French government proposed as a worthy object of imitation.

I now proceed to events of a more recent date. The spirit of disaffection which had been thus raised was happy kept under, and prevented from breaking out into action by the seasonable interference of the legislature, by the vigilance and exertions of the executive power, by the loyalty, vigour, and unanimity of the people, and likewise by the interposition of Providence, in the turn lately given to affairs on the continent, and the check experienced by the French arms. The admirers and supporters of French policy in this country felt a depression of spirits from the defeat of their friends and allies, which for a time gave a fatal blow to their hopes, and compelled them to conceal their views, and to assume a veil of caution but ill suited to the ardour of their temper, and the boldness of their enterprise. But though they had thus been forced for a while to relinquish their schemes, it was not to be presumed from this that they had by any means abandoned them-No; they still indulged the same hopes, they still meditated the same plans, and only lay by to watch for an opportunity favourable to the accomplishment of their designs. For that purpose, they had looked peculiarly to the question of parliamentary reform. Previous to . the bringing forward of the present motion, a great number of petitions had been presented to the House, equally singular in their form, expression, and the manner in which they had thus been submitted to notice. They had been introduced under the auspices of the gentlemen who supported the motion. They were all of three descriptions, except that one upon which the motion

was more particularly founded, and a petition from Nottingham, conceived in exactly the same terms with one which had been received from that place in 1782. When it had first been received, it came after a long war, which had harassed and exhausted the country, and the calamities of which it stated as a proper ground for a reform of parliament: unfortunately, it still employed the same language, and gave the same description of the country, after a long and prosperous peace. All these petitions came either from England or from Scotland, or from places in England and Scotland, that seemed to have no natural. connection or likelihood of communication. Yet coming from these different places, they were all the same in substance and nearly the same in style: whatever little difference there might be in the expression, they seemed all to proceed from the same hands

ness.

Facies non omnibus una,

Nec diversa tamen : qualem decet esse sororum.

They all, it must be confessed, betrayed a strong family-likeAlmost the only difference was, that those from Scotland expressed their surprise at the immense load of debt, notwithstanding the extent of the taxes, which they stated at twenty millions-four millions above the truth. All of them were the same in prayer; they concurred in praying for the right of universal suffrage, as the basis of that reform which they desired.

With respect to these petitions, two questions arise: first, what weight they ought to have with the House, and how far they ought to be allowed to go in influencing their judgment; and secondly, whether this is a season proper for the consideration of that object which they claim, and favourable to a temperate reform? On the first point, when petitions came to the House, fabricated in appearance, similar in substance and expression, it did not require much time to determine in what point of view they were to be considered. There was every

The had certainly much more the appearance of the design of a few individuals, than of the general expression of the sentiments of the country. If it were asked, then, what weight they ought to have? the answer is easy. None. What weight ought to belong to petitions coming to this House in those circumstances, carrying every appearance of concert and system, combined in the same prayer, and expressed nearly in the same language? The fraud is too gross and palpable and it is evident from what quarter they come, and with what views they are presented. All the circumstances in France and this country point out the present as a season unfavourable to a temperate reform. The gentlemen who support the motion have been engaged in a society for the purpose, as they themselves state, of allaying the violence of those who might be misled by a blind rage of innovation, and enlightening the people with respect to the nature of their true claims. Such had been the objects which they had held out at their commencement; they had proposed to make a fair experiment, to allow the people of England a full opportunity of procuring a rational and moderate reform; and if they should find that they could not succeed, and that the people should be disinclined to any plan of reform, and not disposed to prosecute the measures which they should recommend, they were then to abandon their purpose. They had now gone on for upwards of a twelvemonth, publishing to enlighten the people, and using every means to promote their own influence, and during all that time they had not been able to make a convert of one man in England. They had been obliged at last to come forward with a petition of their own, introduced to the House on the very day that the debate was to take place. The other petitions which united in the same object of demanding parliamentary reform carried a suspicious and dangerous appearance. Ought they not then, consistently with those principles which they had avowed in the outset, to have come forward upon this occasion, to have acknowledged their mistake, and their conviction that the people of England were not desirous of a reform, to have

given up their object in which they found they could not succeed, and to have joined with us in opposing a reform which is not even desired, and which could not be granted with any propriety in the present moment, or even with the chance of advantage to those for whom it is demanded?

But how stands

But it is also

But what are the grounds upon which they now bring forward this question of reform? First, they state, that from the general burst of loyalty expressed by the nation upon the first alarm, there is no reason to fear that the people will pass beyond the bounds of discretion, and that no season can be more favourable for a temperate reform than that in which they have so strongly testified their attachment to the established order of things, and their reluctance to any change. Of this temper they recommend to us to take the advantage. the case? The fact, I grant, is indeed true. true, that societies in this country have been anxiously seeking not to obtain reform, but to find cause of dissatisfaction; not to allay the violence of innovation, but to inflame discontent. Is it then out of deference to that small party, actuated by such principles, and pursuing such a line of conduct, that we are to grant a reform; and not out of respect to the great body of the people of England, animated by a spirit of the purest loyalty, and too much attached to the blessings of the constitution and the present government to wish to hazard them by a change? What then is the question at issue? It is the same question which is now at issue with the whole of Europe, who are contending for the cause of order, of justice, of humanity, of religion, in opposition to anarchy, to injustice, to cruelty, to in Adelity. I am sensible that ninety-nine out of a hundred of the people of England are warm in those sentiments, are sensible of the security which they enjoy for these blessings from the frame of our excellent constitution; and, so far from wishing to touch it with an innovating hand, are prepared to defend it against every attack. Are we to yield then to the clamours of dissatisfaction and discontent; and are we to disregard the